I am almost done with the planning stages of my up and coming mod (soon to be started due to finance issues). These are the sketchups of the planned custom HDD water blocks and cages (both assembled and deassembled). let me know what you think. Deassembled (bottom view) Deassembled (top front) Deassembled (top back) Aseembled (right) Assembled (left)
You may need to come up with something to keep that copper baseplate from popping loose under pressure. Thin sheets have a bad habbit of bowing between screw points. This is why sheet metal engine parts like valve covers and oil pans have a 'lip' bent around the seal area. -Otherwise the design is killer! You already know I like squiggly water channels! The rounded edges are nice too.
wow a word of advice from the inspirer himself thanx cheapskate the designs are very rough...all the finer details of course will come out (like the lip and fasteners and such) when i do the actuall product itself. tho cud u please explain the popping copper plate a bit further...just to clarify im thinking of what u are...
I would round the squiggles and lathe them as grooves in a solid aluminium block. Forget about the copper plate --that just complicates matters and offers no advantage. Make sure the grooves are 12mm wide and 12mm deep if you want to keep flow resistance to a minimum (assuming you are using 12mm a.k.a. 1/2" ID tubing).
ahhh thats sum useful info...thanx nexxo lathe? as in carve them? why squiggles? whats the difference?
Yup, lathe is just a fancy professional term for carve, really. Squiggles was just our professional term for the water channels. Another thing you could do is split the channels into two or three parallel tracks so that the walls separating them are thinner; this exposes more of the surface area of the block to the water. What I threw up was just a very rough design. I think you are right to round off the corners of the block. You also need to consider how to most elegantly clamp the block to the drive. I would integrate it with the vibration-dampening drive side-mounts. I'll get to SketchUp again tomorrow and throw something together.
wow nexxo thanx wenn i asked why squiggles i meant to ask why shud i round the channels off insted of the quare ones i have now? whats the difference? does it just improve the flow? i love the idea of splitting the tracks...that i never thought of...nice idea ye thats the only thing i was havin trouble with is the clamping of the block...like my design shows that when assembled, the drive "cage" or casing becomes the clamp as itll all be tightened with bolts and nuts and such so i thought that if i can get my dimensions right then i wud be able to sandwhich them all in without ever having to actually attach the block itself to the drive but rather sandwhich the drive inbetween the block which acts as a sort of lid, to the cage itself... as shown here... Deassembled (top back) Assembled (left)[/QUOTE]
Would you be able to put the holes for the hoses on the end rather than the top? It would make hose routing much easier, in my opinion.
Very true. I think that watercooling a HDD is a bit pointless anyway, but if you do it, you have to consider how much space it will take up in the drive bays.
I would suggest putting the squiggles length-wise. I think that you get less water restriction with longer tubes and less bends. In addition you could place both the inlet and outlet on the back of the drive.
The part of a HDD that you should be cooling is the sides, because that's where most of the heat is sunk to from the drive. That's why you see the blocks being mounted on the sides in most commercial HDD water coolers. It would also mean you could easily make it for multiple drives. I'd also make it as unrestrictive as possible, just a small few rows would be more than enough and make the bends gentle and rounded. Hard disks barely need any cooling anyway unless you've got 15k SCSI drives or something.
If he's copying my design, he's going for looks before decent flow. If the copper plate was bent to wrap around the HD, you could use it as a mounting bracket and pull heat from the sides. It would also help strengthen the thin sheet and keep it from bowing and losing a seal. The only example I can come up with to explain the bowing is my lawnmower engine pump/reservoir. The plexi faceplate has a metal ring covering the edges and clamping it down. If I bolted down the plastic without it, the seal would leak at the midpoint between 2 of the bolts. The edge would look kinda' like -----___(bolt)___-----___(bolt)___---- Nexxo's design looks awesome, but you need a CNC mill to get those gentle curves. If you run the squiggles lengthwise, you can route the barbs out the back of the drive.
useless is right. Google relased some data a few months ago where they kept track of the failure rates of thousands of hard drives over several years. They kept track of temperature and various other details. What they discovered was that there was no correlation between high temps and failure rate. So I have 3 hdd's zip tied to the top of my case (out of sight) since I ran out of room for more drives in the normal racks. They're so hot up there that I can't hold my fingers on them for more than a few seconds. Still working fine after several months.
Here's my take on a (pointless ) water cooled drive rack... The blocks are a bit complex for my taste, but it solves a bunch of problems like mounting and being able to use the same block for left and right side. The covers are plexi in this model, but could be aluminium and incorporate mounts to fasten the whole thing to the case. The blocks: Blocks plus HDD mounts and braces: How it fits: The assembled array:
But wouldn't the ide cable need a 180 degree turn between the two hard disks in your sketch-up (one is upside down )? If somebody would create that work of art, a twist in the cable would be a shame. But is cooling your Hard disk really necessary? One of my hard drive is crammed between my floppy and cd-rom drive and it doesn't too hot to touch. Or is just one of those because we can projects. I don't mean it negative I'm just interested,
Really starting to get into it since the last year. I'm designing my next case which I aim to be commercially reproducible. Also it is a nice way of virtually creating all those mods I don't have the time or money to actually build. I was thinking of SATA drives, I must admit. In any case, this is really just a 'feasibility study' to help DSquareD think out his project. I would not seriously consider building it as I do not think HDDs actually need water cooling. EDIT: here's the whole waterblock assembly with modified cover plates which allow for case mounting.
wow alot has happened in this thread since i last checked as i havnt been home this entire weekend (what with watching my boys bring home the rugby world cup and all)... k well i have so many responses...where do i begin? @all who believe watercooling the HDDs is pointless...i agree. 100%. i think it just is a great porject to do and i am intending on making an entire, cool-everything-you-own loop so i need to cool the HDDs too @the idea of lengthwise waterducts...i really do think that makes more sense and i will be changing my design to have lengthwise ducts rather than width... @the idea of routing the barbs out of the back of the drive...i mite not be making use of a HDD cage, but rather 2 seperate housings (hence my design) for 2 seperate HDDs. @the idea of placing the blocks on the sides of the HDDs...well i will actually consider. i like the input. i think i mite make the copper or alu plating that i originally intended on using extend and bend over the sides of the drive so the it makes a "U" shape and covers the whole drive (bottom wont be covered tho). @nexxo. i love ur sketchup ideas! brilliant!!! i think that i will definately be considering using your idea (and design if thats alright ) for a watercooling drive rack rather than a housing for each drive...tho i will have to see how it incorporates into my mods theme and design. you all forget one thing, that not everything has to have a point...modding has no real point other than the love of hardware and enjoying doing it and to show off sum skillz...ur system will run just as well without modding it (no im not talking about overclocking) and also in terms of the actual drive coolers themselves its not a question of plausability or what makes most sense...every design i do is intended specifically for my mod...not for common use among other mods...
"Necessary? Necessary? Is it necessary for me to drink my own urine? No, but I do it anyway coz it's sterile and I like the taste"
