Started bending and pressing inserts. Here you can see that the cutout for the rear IO has a large tab added into the opening. This is so that I can make the bend. I need at least 16 mm of material each side on a long bend like this or it will crack during bending. I will have to machine this tab off after. Pressed in the PEM inserts. Some are the concealed type so that they are hidden on the outside of the enclosure. Finally started to put parts together to check fit. It is slimmer than my previous build and feels quite a bit smaller in person despite the additional length.
Started to make the front distribution plate today out of 10 mm cast acrylic on my router. Used three cutters. 6 mm, 2 mm and 3 mm. I really need an ONSRUD PCD Polishing Tool Router Bit so I cant get polished finish but I cant afford one yet. I'll see if the parts look OK when filled with coolant. If not may try to flame polish them. I decided to add two holes to the plate to allow for single or dual GPU's. I can just block the one that I don't need with a standard G1/4 Cap.
$1000 router bit... Nah, dude. Any vibration in your machine will cancel it out anyway. Stick to a super-fine finishing pass with a decent bit. Chip clearing is really important too. Great stuff, by the way.
I was wondering if vibration might effect the performance of a PCD tool since I use a router that is not as stiff as a CNC milling machine. I'll just work on improving what I can get from my existing cutters. I finished the distributor cover and started tapping holes. The G1/4 is nice to use! Need to get some socket head M4 screws.
Lots to report from today. I started to fit check the distributor plate to the radiators and pump and not surprisingly found three problems which mean the G1/4 holes don't align. Two are easy to fix. The third may be more difficult. 1) The mounting of the pump is higher than I had in CAD. The rubber vibration isolation standoffs are 12.3 mm tall whereas I had them modelled at 7 mm from a GrabCAD file. So the hole was 5.3 mm too low. Easy fix just move it up and remake the distributor plate. 2) The EK Vardar fans are thicker by 1 mm than I had modelled this causes an offset to the radiators so that they do not align with the G1/4 holes in the distributor plate. All the websites that I have seen them listed have the dimensions at 25 mm thick. Even EK's . However there is a drawing that I missed on the EK website showing they are 26 mm. https://www.ekwb.com/shop/ek-vardar-evo-120er-black Once again I will move the holes in CAD and remake the distributor. 3) The last problem is bad positioning and tilted angle of the G1/4 fittings in one of the Alphacool radiators causes an offset in the connector pipes of about 2 mm at the distributor plate. The other radiator is better quality as the height is difference between the fittings is only 0.36 mm. I can think of several solutions to this. i) Contact Alphacool and see if they can replace my radiator with one that has straight fittings. ii) Try to bend the fittings in the radiator to align better. Since they are brass this may be possible. It may crack it though! iii) Use soft line connection. I don't think I have space for this but I will give it a go since I have the necessary parts. iv) Try to mark the hole position after fitting in the assembly to take account of the offset. This may not work if the angle is so far out that he treads can't engage. Also the angle may cause the O ring to break the seal. Any thoughts appreciated? In this pic you can see the 2 mm gap at the near fitting with the height gauge set to the height of the far fitting. Not at all straight I did remake the distributor plate at the end of today so will see if I can fit that with the pump and one radiator tomorrow.
I tend to go with Hardware Labs radiators, two reasons - Build quality and secondly, of all the rads I've ever owned they require less flushing before use (Alphacool are notorious for having a ton of gunk pre-installed so to speak). Edit - They also use M4 threads as opposed to M3 or 6-32's (which are a mare to source in the UK). Epic work by the way
Thanks 23RO_UK Hardware Labs were actually my first choice after reading the reviews on thermalbench.com Black Ice SR2 360 MP (Multi Port) but I could not find stock. I really wanted a radiator with the connection in the end to go straight into the distributor plate and the Alphacool was available.
Never trust someone else's cad/measurements. I made that mistake before too. I ended up with a half-finished case with really wrong PSU mounts. Tolerances on radiators have always been terrible. I will agree Hardware Labs radiators were the easiest to install.
Had a good day in the workshop and solved yesterday's problems connecting to the distributor plate. I had remade the plate yesterday after moving the holes per CAD changes so first task was to tap them. I made myself a small fixture to make sure the tapping was streight this time. It worked really well. I left the protective film on for now then assembled back onto the enclosure. First I tested the pump and it lined up perfectly. Next I tested the better of the two Alphacool radiators in the bottom location and was able to connect it easily. Finally I tested the bad radiator in the top location. As expected it did not fit first time with one of the holes misaligned by 2 mm. So I had a go at bending fitting in the radiator. It was actually very easy. I used a spare fixed Bitspower fitting installed without an O-ring into the hole. Then used my press to apply some force by pushing the fitting up against the hard stop and pushing down gently on the end of the radiator. It bent very easily and there was no creaking or cracking sound. Brass is pretty soft and ductile. No Paint damage either. I tweaked it a few times. Pushed one up a bit and the other down a fraction till they aligned to about 0.4 mm. I then re-installed the top radiator and it fit to the distributor plate. Problem Solved !!! I now have to finish tapping a bunch of holes do some more fit checks and get on to testing a filled loop.
FYI: You can re-tap a crooked port. You apply pressure on the tapping on the 'high' side. The threads are big enough to allow a little re-cutting like that. -But yeah, a guide is good too.
Remade the rear PCI bracket and pump bracket today. Then made some O-Rings for the distribution plate and did some leak testing. 2 mm O-Ring Gasket. I thought it was going to be difficult to get it to stay in the recess but it was really quit easy. It did not pop out much just stayed where I placed it. I did find that if tighten the screws too much it causes newton rings to appear between the plates. Does not look good so I had to loosen them slightly. Used my new filling funnel. Had a very small leak . You can see the wetting between the acrylic plates at bottom. Should be fixed when I get some silicone grease. Fill and drain port locations. Also the motherboard IO fence installed nicely. More fit checking including the motherboard. http://www.pcdesignfoundry.com
Decided to tear down the distributor and sand off the glue residue on the O-Rings to improve the wetting. It is now really hard to find the joint ! Also applied some Silicone Grease. Now the seal on the distributor plate looks really good. Installing one half of the extension fitting onto the distributor plate outside of the enclosure was a much easier way to assemble it. Here is an an example of newton rings when the two acrylic parts are close together and one is not quite flat due to the screws and gaskets. Backing off the screws resolves it. Next I had to break out the to fix an interference with the front panel board connectors. After that I was able to install the front panel board. Back together with the radiators and pump securely connected to the distributor plate. I will cover the backs of the fans and screws with a carbon fibre part later. I was going to put in a soft line to close the loop and do a leak test with the pump running but one of my Bitspower valves broke when I tried to close it for the first time. I even followed the instructions and soaked it first for a few hours and the force I used was very low. Seems like this has happened to others before on the Amazon Reviews. I can even see knit lines creating a weak point on my second valve in the same location. It was a total disappointment though as it means I can't easily fill and do a leak test until I can figure out if I can return it. If not I will have to use it with an adjustable wrench for now until I can make a new handle for it. http://www.pcdesignfoundry.com
Sheet metal parts back form powder coating. Nice light blue. Tried to do brushed aluminium on the corner extrusions but the machining marks from CNC are too deep to get out using my detail sander and by hand. I'll get a small belt sander tomorrow.
I was hoping for some updates, I follow your build from the start, it's another level really, astounding skills and absolute precision, the case is just splendid
Thanks for the encouragement! I tried the belt sander on a test piece and the results were really bad. There was lots of chattering from vibration and gouging of the surface even though I was using the same 120 grit. It also rounded off all the corners and edges which I do not want. I decided I would just have to hand sand out the CNC marks to get a nice brushed Aluminium look. It took several hours and I had to use an old fixture I had lying around to hold the extrusions in place as I could not clamp them down. I used IPA and Scotch Brite type scrubber to clean them after. Lost a little bit of sharpness at the very ends. Time to do some assembly. Installed the Distribution Plate. I will start installing components tomorrow but I am now at the point where I need to order a new GPU and a water block. Any thoughts on what should go in? http://www.pcdesignfoundry.com/CustomPC/
