Scratch Build – In Progress The Mineral Oil PC - 3/24/2011 - More leaks :(

Damn im in the edge of my seat waiting for this to get filled! send out a prayer to the mod gods for no leaks

 

I think i'll sacrifice a small goat to the mod gods.

I know! It should be completed this weekend.

It's an Eheim 1250.

 

Better make it a hefty goat.


I'm diggin' the toilet drain handle.

 

It isn't a toilet drain handle! Lol, it's just a ball valve.

Should probably just sacrifice a whole herd of goats to be safe.

Update incoming in 15 minutes.....

 

15 mins are passed! we are waiting!

 

Ack! I had more pictures than I thought. I just finished uploading them. If you really want, you can look at them here: http://s28.photobucket.com/albums/c241/legoman666/mineral pc log/ Otherwise, wait another 15 minutes I've been up all night working on it and am running low on coffee.

 

lol we'll wait

one thing i didnt get: hot oil is gonna stay on the higher part of the case, while the pump is drawing oil to cool it from the middle part, right? shouldnt you make the pump draw oil from the upper part, where oil is hotter? (i'm sure you already thought of it, so there must be something i didnt fully understand in the design: i cant wait to see it all assembled and working, so that things are a bit clearer)

 

Putting it all together

So close to completion... I just want to pour the oil in the tank and let it rip, but good things come to those who wait.


I cut out a hole in the back of the top compartment for all of the cables and such to go through. I made sure it was nice and smooth so I don't chop any of my wires in half. Would probably be a bad thing....


I had to scrounge around the house for 2 of these flat wall plugs. The regular kind won't fit. I cut the end off of the pump cord and attached one (which is in the bottom of the pic). The other is for the PSU. Both go to the internal electrical sockets.


I used a piece of leftover neoprene sound insulation on the bottom of the pump for vibration dampening.


Then I attached the pump to the outlet of the radiators. I had to use a few zip ties to prevent the tubing from kinking.


The sharp bend also has the unwanted consequence of causing one end of the pump to rise up in the air instead of sitting flat on the tank floor. I put a weight on it to help it bend. I'm hoping that over time, the bend will become permanent even without the weight.


I ripped my old machine to shreds. Taking the case apart made me remember one of my reasons for wanting to build a new case; it's damn near impossible to do any work on the case without removing a million screws. The simple task of swapping a hard drive would require removing the left side panel (~44 screws), the front panel (~20 screws) and removing the mounting brackets (10 more screws). Who designed the stupid thing anyway.... [shifty]

My new case doesn't really get any new components. Theoretically, no harm should come to any of the bits when they're submersed in oil.... but better be on the safe side. I'll use my old stuff in the oil for a few months and then upgrade if all is well.


I learned this from another modder here. Mineral oil breaks down and dissolves thermal interface material. The trick to get around this is to use mineral oil itself as the TIM.


I removed all of the heatsinks from the motherboard and gave the chips and heatsink surfaces a good cleaning before reattaching them all with mineral oil in place of the original TIM.


Checking the fit with the HSF on; barely fits. Another mm or two on the right side and I would've had to make some changes!


The video cards get a treatment similar to that of the motherboards heatsinks; the only difference here is that the ram sinks are superglued on. I left the thermal tape in place, but put a dab of glue on each corner on every RAM chip. Thermal tape is dodgy even at the best of times and I don't want ramsinks falling to the bottom of my tank.




And here they are in place. Looking good!


A couple of the these pics were randomly taken during the process of bringing it all together. I put the hard drives in and made sure the tray could still go up and down.


See what I mean about the pump being pushed up by the tubing? I fixed this later by attaching a bolt to the mounting hole on the fan above it and dropping it down to the pump. This accomplishes two things, 1) it takes some of the weight of the HSF off the mobo, and 2) pushes the pump down. Win win.

Edit:

Here's a closeup of my fix.


Why do I do these things to myself? The distance between the PSU and the ATX power header on the motherboard is really short, so I don't need a long cable. Snip!


God, I wish soldering all of those wires only took as long as it took you to scroll from the image above to down here. Sigh




More stuff in place. Most of the power connections are run and zip tied at this point.


Firing it up! It only lasted a few minutes before over heating. As the temperature increased and thusly decreased the viscosity of the oil, the mineral oil I applied to the CPU as a TIM all probably seeped out of the small gap since the motherboard is vertical. No worries, it'll have no where to go once the tank is filled.


I carried the beast up to my room. Oh my god, is that sucker heavy. I estimate it weighs at least 80lbs empty. I was panting after carrying it up one flight of stairs. I had to rest in the kitchen before taking it the rest of the way up to my room.

And that's where it stands now. There are a few more things I have to do before filling it, but nothing major. The next update will either be my triumphant return or me crying in a puddle of mineral oil all over my bedroom floor (brand new hardwood flooring no less).

 

I wish to see you here like a winner!

 

Get it filled then Really want it to work well for ya as its giving me ideas lol

 

*fingers crossed for a successful fill*

 

What a cliff-hanger!

Great work.

 

@%#&^^%#

A leak! I was up to 4.5 gallons and I started to see oil seeping from the bottom of the case. I drained the tank as fast as I could. Upon inspection, none of my fittings leaked; they are all dry. The bottom of the case is a puddle of oil though. I went through ~15 washrags preventing the oil from getting to the floor.

If it isn't the fittings, the only other thing down there is the radiators. I guess I'll have to check those. ****.

 

Today since the last update.


I got everything nice and tidy in preparation for filling the tank.


The first of the oil spreading across the bottom of the tank. It sent a shiver down my spine to see a liquid spattered all over my PC but still function.


A little higher....






The light hitting the oil was pretty neat.


This is either 2 or 3 gallons in the tank.


**** **** ****! A leak! I drained it as fast as I could. It didn't start leaking until there was enough oil to start filling the tubing and radiators.




Speaking of draining, the drain itself is a piece of crap, it leaks like crazy when you open the valve. Oil was not only going through the tubing, but it was all over the tubing as well. I had to hold the tubing off the corner of the desk so the oil followed the tube into the 5 gallon can.


There's a big puddle of oil in the bottom of the case. It must be quite a leak....


I assumed that one of my temperature sensor elbows was the problem, turns out I was wrong, all of the fittings in the lower compartment are dry. That only leaves the radiators.


The only way oil could have gotten here is if this radiator itself had been leaking. Crap.


So my next task is to remove this radiator and look for the leak. I got my plugs ready!

If the radiator is in fact the cause of the leak, I'll obviously be needing a new one. I'm not sure if I should buy another XSPC360 or go with a a different brand.... An exact replacement would fit perfectly though.... hm. I'll probably just get a direct replacement and leak test it this time before trying to fill it with oil.

 

Truly a thing of beauty and superior engineering, and a real shame that it leaked. You deserved a trouble free install, after all the work you've done.

 

I agree with Longwing.

Kind of like watching your son ride his bike for the first time, falling and breaking his arm!

 

Truer words...


Once you get the rad issue fixed, weigh that full. Bets on how much more it'll weigh than legoman himself?

Also, did you fill it while running the pump? More directly, was the oil in the radiators under pressure?

 

Ahaha, I estimated the empty case at about 85-90lbs. 7 gallons of oil is 55-60lbs. So yea, that's definitely more than me. My estimate on the empty case might be low too, that thing is monstrous.

Thank you! Apparently I didn't sacrifice enough goats.

 

Taking that off was a pain in the butt.


When I sat this down in the container with all of my oil sodden rags, oil mysterously poured from a place that oil should not be pouring, Hm.....


I believe this is the cause of all of my problems. It looks like it might even be my fault from when I was drilling the stock holes on the radiator bigger.

Oh well, easy enough to replace. I'm just glad I don't have to take the computer out of the case.

 

good to know its not much of a problem.. I have to ask, the last picture in post 348, is that a head humper (head crab from HL2) on the smaller monitor?

btw how much does this sucker weigh now?