Cooling Economy Waterblock Fabrication mini Project log - started march 26th

So where do I start?

My 2nd mini log here, and definetly an interesting project so far. My goal was to make a set of water cooling blocks for about $20. This one will probably be placed on one of my socket A's, not sure which one yet.

Anyways, the only actual piece I bought for this was the bar, I think it might be brass, I'm not sure how this would affect the thermal effectiveness of the block.... I guess I should probably look into that, also now that I think of it, it might rust too.... anyone know about this?

Either way, The first thing I did was cut a piece of the brass bar off. Its a bit thin for a waterblock, but hey, for $5 its not that bad... I could make blocks for everything in my system from this.



Continuing on, I would use some cell cast acrylic I got from my school for eh... free . moving on, I sized the block up on the acrylic sheet with masking tape and a pen, then cut it out with my jig saw.

I then used a classic hole saw to cut 2 holes in the acrylic.



This would be the middle layer in the block. Kinda looks like the master card logo. Heres how it looked....



I decided that there needed to be some sort of expanded contact in the center, because this was such a simple block. It needed to be non restrictive because the pump I got has a very high flow rate with one gallon being pumped every 7 seconds (526 gph).

so I decided to use the heads from some screws... cutting the heads off would be the hard part.



hey, don't blame me! my camera has a terrible focus

anyways, I learned the hard way, I began by holding the screw with plyers and rubbing it back and forth across a hacksaw blade. This would only lead to the hacksaw cutting into nearly a quarter of my pinky when one of the screw heads got cut off. It made a deep line and cut part of my fingernail off. It was pretty gnarly.

Getting back to the story, I found it would be a lot easier if I just put the screw in the drill press....



I sanded the bar down to get some better thermal contact, and lined up the screw heads.



and here it is with the first piece of plexi glass placed on



I then cut another piece of the acrylic for the top piece of the block. I was a little bit off with the jig saw and had to sand it down. I then used another type of hole saw (pic of this hole saw a little lower) to cut 2 holes for my barbs in the acrylic. The barbs are for 1/2 ID tubing.



here it is with both barbs in



these are all the pieces in the block design



I then tested it with clamps... the block worked, but there was one crazy leak coming out of the side of the block...



I found out that there was a big fat crack caused by the tourquing of the acrylic when I screwed the barbs in. Notice the extra layer of acrylic.



Since I needed to make another top block since that one was cracked I decided I needed to get another saw since I was tired of cutting a non straight line with the jigsaw. I got a plastics cutting wheel for my circular saw... this thing workes wonders, if you notice on the previous pic, I was so accurate that I burned in ink from a ball point pen line I made to cut the new piece.



I had the new top piece, and used the hole saw... I'm not sure exactly what this ones called, and used it to make new holes for the barbs. This type of saw works flawlessly on acrylic



I tested the block again with clamps, and it worked pretty good. The plastic outlet barb on the pump got stuck in the tubing, and I couldn't pull it out with my hands, so I made yet another stupid decision.....

yeah I tried to pull the barb out with my teeth, and it gave me a nasty cut to the roof of my mouth.... thats not the worst part, I ate cereal for breakfast the next morning.

well, thats the first part of this log... I was about to glue these together, but my silicon adhesive dried out and was hard as a rock, so I need to get a new one. I'm going to try to find some of that weld-on stuff to bond the 2 pieces of acrylic.

any comments, suggestions, rants?

 

Ewwwwww look at all that blood

Interesting design.... How do you plan on mounting this?

 

there are 4 holes around the processor in my motherboard, I made the block big enough to be bolted on.

 

whit that drill you can make a very nice Wblock, some "#rotor", just chek the procooling.com forums for #rotor

 

brass isnt the best thermal conductor. Look it up on google, copper is the better choice.

You'll want more surface area than you're providing there, the #rotor style block is a good place to start for sure.

 

You start in the Extreme Cooling thread. Hang on while we move you...

 

This is such clean work, it looks so like the silver cascade block coolmiester got his hands on Remember to drill in some 5mm holes for some LED's. Keep it up

 

Brass doesn't rust, instead it oxides if I recall correctly. But that is just a layer you can sandpaper down. But hey, it takes like 100 years or so before it turns green (looks like alge), so don't worry

By the way, it looks good the price considered.

 

looks nice man! as some 1 mentioned, putting some holes in there for LEDs would be sick looking... one question on the design..i am a noobie to this, but wouldnt it be better to use something on the existing pice of metal to make turbulance, as the screw heads wont conduct the heat thru them at all..so they willl just move the water some...maybe thats the only point of them, but it makes sense to use something that could conduct the heat thru them too..just my little thing...oh yea, how're you going to attach the screw heads on??? looks spiffy man..

 

its going to have horrible temperatures :| simply because the screws you attached to the base wont get much therm's because of how they are attached. Plus think about if one comes off :O there goes your pump.

 

some good thinking there, think he right.

ewwwwww froffy blood

 

Same thing. And it can turn green in days, under the right (wrong) conditions.

As for the screw heads: deadly-app is right. The screws are pointless. You are better off drilling some pits in a thick base of brass to create the necessary turbulence. Works for Swiftech.

 

Nice block.

Er dont pull the barb out with your teeth you nub


- S

 

Machine and Etacovda: I don't have enough money to order some thick copper bar, and I don't know where I can get some locally. I was thinking about melting some pre 1982 pennies (95% copper, 5% zinc) in my schools ceramics kiln. I have like $14 worth of pennies anyways.

About the leds: there already are holes, I forgot to tell you guys about them.... it was gonna be a surprise!



and the leds:



theres around 150 of each color.

boardsportsrule, deadly-app, Nexxo: the screw heads were going to be soldered on to the block. is it still not worth it?

 

soldered, maybe...but still... depending on the temp, i doubt it is going to cool near air temps...

 

Ick, what are those LED's rated at for MCD's? 50? Get some 5000's or higher.

 

they might be a little dim. I have a lot more rated about 3000 or so, I'll see what it looks like. I changed around the block quite a bit because of my bad solder. I'll write it up right now.

 

just looking threw my led box, It seems like I've used up all my brighter leds....

anyways, I needed some blue ones anyways, so thats what I'll do.

After trying multiple times at using this flux core solder I got from radioshack it didn't seem to be doing its job, so I decided just to go the route of creating turbulance in the block. I drilled a bunch of grooves.



Next I caulked the bottom of the block to the metal. The caulk I used is really strong, and holds up fine with about 30psi air pressure, which is in another project I did.



yeah its ugly, but I've seen uglier.

I'm not sure how it will bond to the metal, however. Not pictured, I epoxied the 2 pieces of acrylic together. We'll see if they hold together tomorrow.

 

may i suggest reading this thread before takeing more pics it might help them look sharper, and a bit easyer on teh eyes , maybe clear epoxy might look and work better? i dont know for sure tho

and why did you use brass and not copper, ? they are both pretty easy to work with, and the price is about the same, and copper has about twice the thermal conductivity, the brass will work ok, (if it is brass) but dont expect any awsome temps (again if it is brass) if its copper well then your in luck i like the design of it and keep up the good work

good luck!

 

You didn't read the thread did you? He couldn't afford thick copper bars, and doesn't know where to find them locally. It's supposed to be a low-cost project