homemade water cooling for everyone ;) - january, 2006.

sorry i thought you posted

well we will see what happens when its all installed

 

You might like to do a little reading on pump operating curves:

<em>so it will only go 0.0714m if you have all 7 blocks connected, however one of the pipes is bigger, so that will probably reduce it further</em>

Actually, a lower head results in a higher flow, often the curve is a reciprocal curve, so halving the head doubles the flow. To increase cooling you have to optimise the flow rate and the temperature differential. To increase flow rate you can increase the pump power for a sublinear improvement in flow rate (doubling the pump power will give less than double the flow rate) or increase the pipe diameter (doubling the pipe diameter will give you 8 times the flow rate for a given pressure differential.

A bigger pump means more heat to get rid of (if you have a 100W pump that means you're adding 100W of heat to the water). Soldering the fins onto the heatsink would probably improve the performance even more cheaply.

I wonder if NASA builds their shuttles by building stuff and just hoping it will work

 

have you thought of using kerosene or petrol as the refrigerant?

i know you have built the system to utmost accuracy and leakproofness.
but there is always the "if" factor in these constructions

Ark!

 

Kero and petrol have lower specific heats than water, but are more volatile, so that would be more suited to a phase change design, perhaps a heat pipe (which is what I'm building) or compression cycle (refrigerator style). My heat pipe design uses LPG, which is a bit harder to handle (need plumbing rated to 3MPa), but gives excellent performance and removes the need for pumps and fans.

I wouldn't recommend either kero or petrol in a single phase design like turpija's because they are harder to handle (compatibility with plastics, e.g.), more expensive, and carry less heat than water.

What advantages do you see for these liquids, Arkantos?

 

Got some color mixed by local color shop, I tried to get something like bronze but as gray as bronze, actually something closer to copper or brass ... so this is the color ...



Something like dark gold ...



But bad thing is that I took just one spray bottle, which is offcourse not enough And I have to wait until monday to get another one ...

But after I came up with idea how to make nice rubber spacers for screws for reservoir to avoid paint scratching. I took a piece of tube ...



Put it on screwdriver, and into drill press
then carefully pressing with scalpel at small distance ...



I am quite pleased with results ...



As I've run out of paint for case, I've decide to try some like-chrome spray, and I painted it onto case foot. Not quite like chrome (more like shiny silver) but it should look ok ...



Hopefully soon case will be painted and final testing and assembly will be done

 

For few days here was raining so i just couldn't get the final - clear coat painted. And finally today was nice and sunny.
Parts drying ...



closeup of painted part, looks funky ...



Today while buying pop rivets, I saw this handles. It looks cool so I though why not mount it on case, afterall it's gonna be pretty heavy. And with pair of those taking case to lan parties and showing it off will be much easier



After clear coat has dried i assembled dvd rom. On pictures it looks bad, but it's pretty shiny.





And this is handles mounted, looking good so far ...



Starting with case assembly ..



Almost done ...



Done for now.



Further assembly will be done when i get pump and test it for leaks ...
so seeya then

 

wow, that looks very impressive, the polished waterblocks all seem to be so damn sexy!

shame about the leaking though

the gold colour really does look good! and will go great with all the shiny copper that will be in ya' case!

 

DUDE!
I love homemade wc blocks. But an all homemade wc setup? hardcore!
very nice work. The case is shaping up nicely too. can't wait to see it complete.
I'm planning some homemade wc for my mod too with a few new twists. Thanks for sharing as Ive got a few ideas from your log
wc'd psu sounds great but i may be too chicken

 

thx!

still waiting to get pump, I'll try eheim 1048 to see if it's powerfull enough to circulate water through all of the blocks. I want to make sure there is no leaks so until i get the pump, everything is on hold.

 

Finally update !

... i get the pump ! ... and here it is, in all it's glory



it's pretty big, little bigger than i expected but i hope it won't be a problem to fit it inside case ... and yes it's eheim 1048 ... pretty ordinary choice for most setups, snd it could be strong enough for this one too

Connected all components to check it for leaks ...
All blocks are ok, but reservoir has one little leak ... had to fix that



Here you can see how powerfull this pump is, water is pretty evenly divided through all of blocks and still making pretty decent flow at exit ...

 

Just seen this is very homemade but thats why it rocks!

Just great handmade parts keep it up!

 

man thats sweet

This is looking sweet, the home made rad is so shiny ! even if it costs more than pre fab stuff, to say " I built that " is worth every penny !
I'll be following this one...

 

You do fantastic work, really. This takes it all back to the basics and does it well. After reading this, you have to say; "I want to try that."

 

its taken me all day to read ur thread... been very busy at work.. have to say that is pretty impressive!!
Ill be watching this.. hope it turns out well!!!

 

I once thought of doing that to a REALLY old computer that couldn't run XP, so if I fried enything it wouldn't matter. Never got arround to it.
but that is X-T-R-E-M-E!
I really like the blocky look it has - almost 'industrial' looking. A VERY nice piece of work. now all you need is to make your own pump. somehow.

As for other coolants - I don't really think you need anything else, and stuff like petrol - I don't really know, but if left for long enough wouldn't it start to eat away at the plastic (depending on what type it is)

 

thx all

still have some issues with some scanner light electronics and how to make it work ...
but anyway when is all done, i'll take some pictures with better camera so you'll see it in all it's glory

and george, for making pump, it actually isn't that impossible to make one, it's quite simple machine, but at this point i don't have time (and patience) to do it, cause i have some other ideas and projects in plan (no it's not another pc mod).

seeya soon

 

After some time running the pump it's pretty quiet, actually you can't here it unles you put your ear on it But it slightly vibrate, not much but it still is.
And best way to minimize that is to make some sort of shock absorbers, rubber or spring, and in not having anything useful, I decide to make my own ... afterall thats what this project is all about

First make some 10m holes in 4mm plexi ...



Lay it on flat surface (another piece of plexi) on aluminum foil and put some silicone in ... hopefully this aluminum foil won't stick to silicone too much ...



... cover it with another one and press it, so it's flat ...
You might notice small holes punctured on foil ... that's for help silicone harden ...



While waiting for silicone I cut a hole for connector for pump power (completly forgot i will need it, and it looks OK atferall). Here is two switches, one for fans Hi/Low, and another for lighting in case ...



Fan grills are glued on sides, and side with reservoir is putted on to check cleareance for pump, and make holes for actually mount it inside. This is how it should look ...



Enough space for everything, and mainboard with all connectors should fit ...



And with radiator in place there is just enough space ...



I actually had to cut a small hole on radiator for audio and USB connectors on front panel, cause cables were too short and couldn't reach mainboard ...



View from other side ....



And with just radiator in case it weight like ordinary case with all components inside

After whole night drying, silicone stands are done. Still some exces silicone is left but it wouldn't be a problem to remove, and to my great surprise this could actually works great, cause silicone is very elastic ...



All for now folks

 

i seriously love that resovoir, soo cool

lookin very good so far dude

 

Short update ...

Done a volt mod, actually my friend Vlado aka Franky did it, and he did almost impossible - solder a resistor on super tiny connector on volt controler ... as we didn't have proper 25k Ohm variable resistor required for mod, he took 22k and one normal 3k Ohm ... this is when I start to doubt the survival of motherboard
Anyway here's pictures of it done ...





Still I might add some isolation to prevent unwanted contacts ...

... after connecting just necessary hardware started to play with voltages in bios ... and everything seemed to work ok, so I've moved to windows ...
CPU settings are set to defaults where cpu voltage is 1.65V, here you can see it's already higher ... 1.71V ...



... and after changing the resistance (lowering it) I manage to get 2.06V !!! ... even 2.08V showed and then computer shuted down ... everything is still working but it seems it's pretty much the top.



And will it be able to get to 2.25V (as told in guide) I'll test later when watercooling is assembled ... it would be a shame to fry poor barton

 

Sorry if I missed it:
You want to get the CPU to >=2.25 volt to overclock the crap out of it, right?
So what's your goal? Any ideas where the end might be?