Cooling Home-Made Custom Watercooling Kit!!

Right, I was originally askin in this post about the EXOS Cooling system, butttt I've been thinking...

Given the cost of such kits, I can probably build my own watercooling kit for much less, as I've already got something which can be used as a radiator!

As you may or may not of seen in another thread (look in motoring section) I've stripped out my old car to sort it out as a track-toy, and even though I've chucked most the interior, I decided to keep hold of the heater matrix.

The capacity of it is around 0.75 litres, but I'm unsure on how many tubes are in it, from a quick look about 20 tubes & plenty of fins! Plus its about 15cm x 15cm!!! (I'll measure it tomorrow!)

Reckon this would do as a radiator for a watercooling kit? I know it used to be used as a heater for the car, so question is will it do the reverse with a powerfull enough fan-or-two bolted on to it? It's made of copper too btw!

I'll get some pics up tomorrow afternoon when I get back from work & fully dismantle the old blower/heater unit from the car!

What ya reckon, give it a try??

Watercooling is completely new to me, so I wouldn't have a clue!

 

I know this is a picture of a car, but its a stop-gap till I get some pics of my own



This is a corsa same as mine, but stripped (quite messily). The heater matrix is still in the car (is in the middle of the picture, the square block) so you can get a rough idea as to how big this thing is!

I've got 2 120mm case fans from an old HP Server aswell, unsure as to how much air they shift, but its quite a bit!



But keeping to the theme I'm after of all nice lights n such, the fans will be a bit dull compared to the rest, so I was thinking of putting a 120mm LED Fan on the matrix or something? but unsure if this would be too small for the matrix! But would this shift enough air through it to give any benefits??

I will get better pics of the matrix tomorrow I promise!

 

Ok took these this morning before I went work, the size of the unit suprised me a bit, was deeper than I thought it would be!





Reckon it should do the trick, will need to mod the pipes to fit tubes to them, but shouldn't bee too hard!

If anyone has any pointers, feel free to say!

 

That looks absolutely fine. You will only really be able to tell when you get the system set up how much airflow you will need but if you create a good shroud then one of those 120mm fans at 7v should provide plenty airflow. Its just a case of experimenting.

Are you planning on buying the waterblock(s) or building your own. This is something i'm researching as paying ~£120 for 3 small blocks of copper does not really float my boat.

But many people use heater cores like yours with great results. i'm planning on using something similar myself.

 

Well I'm going to be taking the core to my work tomorrow & seeing if it can be bathed in some diluted acid to clean the copper as much as possible, hopefully help it dissipate even more heat so cooling the system more efficiently, but I have to be careful I don't eat away at too much of the copper!

Making my own waterblock(s).... Thats a toughy, to be honest as this is my first attempt in liquid cooling, I think I might just get some ready-made blocks (like the look of the Perspex-topped D-TEK LRWW Block), I'd be too paranoid on making my own blocks incase the blow up or leak or dont cool the CPU at all! As for the GPU & Chipset coolers, will have to have a look try find some! Mind, it is something to look into! We've got quite a bit of stock at work, so can probably make something up!

Would say take a trip to a scrappy & get a core like mine out of a car, from what I've been reading about other types of cores you can buy, the ones from car's are a heck of alot larger than the ones in shops, but then again ones from car's will be a complete arse to fit!

Will be about 2-3 weeks till I get my case (hopefully), and more than likely another month or 2 before I have the complete system built, so is going to take some time!

 

Oh dear!

I think I will need 8 x 80mm fans to pull this one off!!! Just measured up a 120mm fan against it (including a shroud), and its, well, a bit small compared to the core



So looks like I'll have to make a custom shroud to take 4 x 80mm fans so it will be a sealed unit once done, and as I'm after a pull-push setup with the air, its gona be a bit mad!!!

Woooooooooo

 

Woah

You're not going for a quiet setup then.

 

alternatively, go back to the breakers and get the radiator fan and run it at a lower rpm (probably all you can manage anyway on a psu) --> low noise...

 

hehe the breakers is myself, as the rad is from my car!

I could run the 8 fans @ 7v, or have some sort of system that depending on the temperature of the water determines the amount of fans which are running (at either 7v or 12v), but this will take alot of work (mainly due to finding what water temps are more efficient & what is safe enough for the no. of fans running) So I think running them all @ 7v should keep noise down, yet still give a nice draft!

Just got the rad bathing in a tub of bench nitric acid (diluted though), so its slowly coming up clean! Think I may need to leave it in overnight, as the acid was diluted a tad too much (wooops!!)

Would get a pic of the bath its in, but its where I work & camera's ain't really allowed (it's a school)

 

You dont need to cover the whole face of the of the rad in fans and i think you are overestimating the the airflow needed.

Push-Pull offers only a slight performance increase of just a pull setup so might not be necessary. If it were me i'd just use a single 120mm fan with a shroud that used the whole face of the rad.

 

Making a circuit to switch the number of fans depending on the temps would be quite complex. Far easier would be to have all the fans running all the time, with a temp controlled pulse width modulator circuit or something like that to vary the speed with temp.

 

Looks good, that rad would be ok with a 120mm fan so theres no need for noisey 80mms

What make/model is your car?

 

the car's a vauxhall corsa, but its slightly 'stripped' of interior & engine now!!!

http://www.corsasport.co.uk/board/garage.php?action=usergarage&owner=paulw&carid=319&page=all

Will have to see what fans to put on, still need to get the case to start building it all in, so as soon as that arrives, I'll begin!!!

 

this is only if you are looking for extremly quiet and dont mind dropping some money:
get 8 panaflow L1A's. ($7.50 each with molex tail, $6 w/o @ frozencpu)
only 21 decibles @ 24 CFM
If you want to get more expensive and better CFM at 21db then get ventec stealths. same db, but 27 CFM ($10.50 ea. @ frozencpu)
Plus, if you look i bet you can find better prices, if you are in the US that is.

OR If you are crazy, hows 260CFM sound?
150mm fan. *BUT* 55db is huge.
http://www.frozencpu.com/cgi-bin/frozencpu/fan-88.html

 

Unfortunately I'm in the UK, but will have a look round see if I can find them fans!! They should work out around £12-£15 over here!!

Just been checking on the 2 fanse I've got (ones above), and there only 2.73CFM, which for the size I think is pretty poor!!

http://www.alancomputech.com/wfb1212me.html

Will try find some of those better fans though, they should certainly help chill this right down!!

Noise isn't so much an issue, I want to get this as cold as possible without resorting to refrigeration things like the VapoChill & stuff, so its just a rad, pump & fans!

 

Ok just been having a look around, and came across this fan

Akasa AK-174CC-4RAB 12 cm Crystal Rainbow Fan


120mm, 0.16A, 35.12 CFM, 25.24 dB(A)

Costs £10.90 (around $15), and seems quite a good fan for the price! Can get it in Blue, Green or Red aswell as the Rainbow effect!

 

not the most attractive solution but have you thought of a plastic food container? Ikea do 5 that stack inside each other and the 2nd biggest sounds exactly the right size (cost about £2 for the set iirc).

see this ocforums thread to see what i mean

38mm deep fans are best as they give more pressure than 25mm ones (and also tend to be quieter for a given airflow...)

 

Quite some good information in there thanks! (adds to bookmarks)

The one on the 3rd page also caught my eye... Pair of womens tights, some plexi, and some resin... I could have a go at making a shroud out of fibreglass also, but I think the tupperware one is in the lead atm (if I can find a good sized one where I live!)

We have Aldi, Tesco, Sainsbury's, Morrisons, B&Q... Should be something in one of those!!

Thanks again

 

...then again I could just raid the kitchen & see what my mum's got in the way of 'Shrouds'

 

What about Wilkinsons or Wilko as they always have stuff like that dead cheap