Radical CPU waterblock [Update] - Hey guys, I'm back! Window Fixed! 6/22/05

looking good man!

just to share with you; im currently building my major project (group project mind) for my 1st year mechanical engineering degree (not that the 1st year counts towards the degree anway..but its fun!) and it involves lots of lathe, milling (bridgeport), welding, bending etc etc....now the workshops we are given are nearly old skool lol...all manual stuff (not allowed to use the CNC stuff..but can use digital readouts if the machines are new enough to have them)

and all i can say is, i can appreciate the amount of work you puttin into this. its taken us ages to get not very far, being repeatedly accurate with those things is a hard task, involves lots of micrometer and vernier scale usage!

we're on a bit of a steep learning curve, (made a few mistakes already...) but its damn good fun

still dont have a clue what speeds i need the lathe on for certain sizes/materials/type of work being done!

anyway keep up the hard work man....ive never sweated so much ever! and the most intricate thing we've made so far is a few sets of Aluminium legs (faced, drilled 20mm both ends and tapped for M6) thats it! (oh and used the auto feeder thingy to get a nice "brushed" finish on the outside of the legs")

 

I used to once think that unless it was perfect, it was unacceptable. Now enter into the real world, and I find that +/- 0.0005" is pretty damn good. Last time I checked, the lathe was square to within +/- 0.0005" over a foot diameter, and the centering job was done real well (i.e. no nub left in the center of a faced off surface), so no, I don't think lapping is necessary, unless it's for aesthetics. If I wanted it truly flat, I'd probably use a lapping machine or a glass cutter on the mill rather than lapping it by hand (they're called glass cutters because they leave a glass like surface, rather than them being used for cutting glass). But alas, even those won't give you a perfectly flat surface. Lapping using sand paper actually leaves a very uneven surface, but then again, the surface of processors with heatspeaders won't be half as flat as the surface of the waterblock after machining. So IMHO, lapping is a big waste of time (besides, that's what thermal paste is for).

You lucky dog you, I couldn't even go near any manual machining tools until 3rd year of my mechanical engineering program (bizarre thing is they did let us use this mini-cnc machine during the second year, but then never again after that). Yes those digital readouts (LVDTs) make manual machining a breeze, wish I had one instead of using a venier scale all the time, and you don't have to ever worry about gear slack. For speeds I sort of take a glance at what the machinists handbook says, use that as a rough guesstimate, and then change the speeds according to the finish I get and how much material I'm removing per pass (how much material I usually experiment on as well, depending on heat, finish, and what kinds of sounds are being made), it's funny how much better of a finish you can get just by knocking the speed up or down just a slight bit.

Yes, manual machining takes a long time compared to CNC, but if you've ever seen a good machinists machine, the speed at which things are done can make your jaw drop. I feel like a total traitor sometimes, I'm an engineer, yet I can hang with a bunch of machinists and not get shooed away like most engineers do. But then I have to keep reminding the machinists about why certain things work some ways, or showing them how to design mechanisms. It's one of those things where one person knows but can't do too well, and another person does well but doesn't understand how it works.

I guess I'm caught in the middle of the crossfire because I'm both, and it makes machinists angry at me when they find out I'm an engineer (they think engineers are too dainty to be machining and belong in front of a computer with a business suit on), and engineers are always jealous of me because I'm always machining, and can machine faster and get better machining results than they can get. Half the time, it's because I'll go out on a limb to experiment cutting speeds, rather than saying "the book said that's what it is, so that's what it is". Ah well... nuff ranting from me, I won't go into how programmers think I have no business programming...

-Lemur 6

 

that's great man...i understand what you mean

i should decide which university i want to go next years and i think engineering but i can't decide which path follow...i like them all (mechanical, informations, material, "house engineering" (don't know english name ) ecc...) i like a lot of subjects and will be very ugly to pick up one only...

 

yeah we've been told to not stick to what the books say, use as a guide by all means, but to be fair if your just gonna read out the book....do you need to be at uni? suppose theyre trying to get use to think on our feet on the fly at the building site where the books arent always handy.

made a collar for something on our "contraption" today...its taken us 3 hours and its still not finished had a good time doin it though, and my friend did a stellar job milling out a slot in a solid aluminium bar on a manual bridgeport machine. (no digi read outs) quite a critical piece too...it has to be just the right volume to hold 20g of granulated sugar. but we tested it and it does..so were all buying him a drink later lol!

 

I think what you're referring to is either Architecture or Civil engineering.

All this talk about machining things in college is really getting me down. I got a HUGE packet of junk from MIT today that informed me that I can't do anything fun for some time. It'll be at least a year before I even get to see a machine tool as part of one of my classes. Maybe I'll be able to get on one of the competition teams and spend some time in the shop that way.

I love how this waterblock is coming out so far! If it works well I might just have to borrow your design.

 

that's it thanks

 

Base fabrication take two! 5/20/05

Hey guys, sorry for being so quiet lately. Was sick for a week with pneumonia and was a little busy at work installing a rabbit line (you know those vacuum tube mail delievery thingies? Well this one was for radioactives).

Anyway, real short update today. So I've decided to use alu instead of copper since the copper piece I had just wasn't big enough and to make a holding device for it was going to be a pain. So...


A freshly turned down piece of alu.


Which fits the jacket so perfectly it looks like one solid chunk of alu when put together.


and then I went a drilled some holes.

That's it for now, need some sanity sleep (you know, the kind that keeps you from running around and killing things). Okies, more alu chips next week.

-Lemur 6

 

hi ive just got in to computers at the age of 24 but ive been machineing since i was 13 with my dad at work so ive decided 22 try my hand at making my own watercooling system for a fraction of the price of buying one the time would probably cost more but who cares we all need a hobby im gonna build my own case aswell so ill keep posting my progress thanks for the ideas

 

obviously you have a great deal of skill and experience in the work shop! 11years is nothing to sniff at lol ill look forward to your project too! so get on with it already

im hoping that next year i can modify my old case. we are allowed to go down to the big boys workshop anytime if we need things doing, and the guys there will help. (if its personal stuff though they will give priority to the people who are using it for projects)

the workshop in the wolfson building (big boys workshop) is just awesome. massive CNC machines, every type of welding, brandspanking new bridgeports and manual lathes with all sorts of digital trickery on them. im gonna learn how to use the CNC software over the summer

 

I'm just wondering, is it hard to work a CNC router? Do you need lots of experience, or can anyone do it with a bit of guiding?

 

Nice one!

I wish I could do that

I hope your desingning/making a pc from scratch to go with it *hint*

 

Looks awesome! =D

 

Wow, i would like to see the performance of your waterblock

 

More base work - 5/23/05

Hey guys, update time!

I'm working so furiously in the little slivers of time I have between things to do at work that I'm forgetting to take pics

But, here's a few:


Milled the sides flat, and added a WHOOOOLE lot of pilot holes. I know, looks a little rough around the edges in that pic, but...


Drill the pilot holes out, and then... well... supposed to have a pic here, but didn't take it, just took a file to the edges basically. Oh and that deburring tool I liked so much for the holes. But anyway you get the idea, so here's the end result:


Nasty burrs are gone, holes are nice and deburred with a slight countersink, and best of all:


Things fit just perfectly...

Now I gotta go spend some money ... Need to order that slitting saw. But while that comes in, I'm going to turn my sights toward the nozzle array, and maybe turning down all that extra fat on my block (still worried about that window chipping and going to hell though... we'll see what happens).

K, till next time...

-Lemur 6

 

omg just beautiful...

you should go to www.procooling.com and post this log on their forums. They'll give you lots of helpful hints too.

 

Nice

 

wish i had your tools man! this is just to nice!
love your work so far
keep it up!

 

Nozzle array fabrication - 5/24/05

OMG it's another update!

Just slammed out the nozzle jet array today, so here we go...


The Blank...


just checking to see if it fits ...


The Flat...


The Holes... (that icky looking stuff is just some oil to prevent the acrylic from melting)


The Finished Product...


The Result... Just tight enough to hold slightly, not difficult at all to just slide it in like this...


and thats what it looks like installed.

Till next time...

-Lemur 6

 

VERY NICE WORK!!!!

 

for a second there I was thinking why's he made the nozzle jet array pointing towards the flat middle bit ;P then looked back at your designs to realise you are going to make the slits to the middle part lol,
looking VERY nice though, sort of item you'd expect to see in a shop