homemade water cooling for everyone ;) - january, 2006.

CCFL = Cold Cathod Floresent Light aka neon.
I was just wondering.

 

i was just wondering... isnt oxidization IN the blocks bad it looks like the inside of the block turned into the "oxidized copper color" lol. I may just be noobing out but i swear i read it somewhere


(omg my title 69 dude is gone!!! noooooooooooooo)

 

Looks sweet, good work. I love the radiator However, you should have used thinner tubing in it, but no matter (if and when i do mine, ill be using 4mm ID copper tubing, used in phasechange applications/fridges).

/subscribes to thread

 

Well, original idea is to use 10mm OD pipes, but I've couldn't find elbow connectors for that "small" pipes, and i've tried to bend pipes but i couldn't it get quite narrow (small diameter). It was bigger diameter of bend than this 15mm OD commercial elbows, so I've changed design and use bigger pipes. Maybe some day if i found smaller diameter elbows i'll make a new rad, but slightly bigger

btw that 4mm ID tubing seems like very very tiny Do you have any drawings or ideas how (big) you gonna build it. One of most importang thing why i've decided to build my own is because all commercially available rads are if not oversized, are weird dimensions so just couldn't fill available space efficiently enough.

 

www.bwdesign.orcon.net.nz/copperrad.jpg

Something along those lines, with a manifold at each end and some turbulators in the middle (ala drill holes). I havent done ANY of the maths yet, but i have a few people who can help me in that area when i get to it - i'll have to optimize the radiator flowrate + fin area to suit, im going for low noise more than anything.

The 4mm tubes will be press fitted into the manifolds and either soldered, or using a product called 'just for copper' - http://www.justforcopper.com/

Id like to use just for copper for most of the radiator, including the fin areas - but im not sure on how well it will actually transfer the heat, i guess ill have to find out

 

Interesting design but can't see the reason why do it that way, altho can't see why not

soldering copper is totally easy with little practice and super strong so i would recommend you, but don't know how that " justforcopper " thing works, anyway, i'm glad to see another one custom rad

 

Yep, ive soldered copper before - just thinking it'll get mighty interesting with the fins in there, and all the connections - its going to be fun, thats for sure!

Designed like it is to closely match how standard heatercores/radiators etc work, smaller tubes means more water hits the copper, and by matching the tubing size, number and length i can optimize my flowrates and turbulence.

 

After some time figuring out how to attach a cpu water block to the motherboard (soltek 75frnl2-rl doesn't have four holes around socket ) nothing enough simple to build and at same time efficient was coming to my mind. So going to local pub turns out to be very productive Here is what we come up with ... thx to mikac and robi ...



... don't worry if you can't understand it, It's hard for me to understand it but that didn't stop me from making it

For start i'll need a 2mm steel bar, and after some lookin' around i've found this ...



... perfect! It's an electrode for welding. Just need to remove this covering "dirt"

And this is two screws which will be used as bending points ...



And few minutes after heating it with blue flame and bending it around, this is what come out.



Little bit cleaning and soldering few nuts onto it ... voila!
I've forgot to take few pictures of that proces, but here is the finished product ...





After drilling some holes in plexiglass, and test fitting it ... wow it actually works

 

Good job on the rad and cpu block so far! The construction of each certainly shows how it should be done (and er.. how not to do it! ).

 

Pretty sweet, although i trust swiftech and BIX and innovatek to make my stuff

 

thx, rad still have to be cleaned, so hopefully it would look much nicer
other block should be pretty simple and straight-forward, but you never know, so stay tuned

It's not about trust, it's just not fun to buy finished products, there is no sadisfaction about that. But hey, that's just me

 

Yeah youre right, thats why i build my comps, but water+ comp= i DO NOT trust myself

 

I agree with your point. Looks like some pretty good work thus far. Hopefully you don't come across anymore little mistakes like when drilling out the copper plates for the radiator. Copper is kind of expensive for that stuf

 

ah, its the only way to be, man. If you're careful and do your homework, homemade gear is often MORE reliable than store-bought stuff.

 

yeah, but no time to do my homework, so swiftech, innovatek and BIX i like, if i didnt live in the US ac would be on that list for all their volt reg coolers and mosfet coolers, but yeah

 

Today is pressure testing day

Finally i've fit rad with connectors for tubes, so now I can test it to see if it's watertight or not. I've connect it to house water supply (don't know how much pressure is it) and almost instantly water started to leak ... well, it would be too easy if it didn't.
And after few tries of fixing it, I've give it up, and remove it totally ...
I've first cut it so it's easy to remove it ... because I can't heat two places at same time ...





After replacing it with new elbows, it was time to test it again. But this time we have some serious pressurizer



and it would be useless without propper gauge



After some pressure applied this is what happens ... bubbles, and alot of it



And once again, back to the table for some resoldering the joints and hopefully it will be ok.
On my great surprise it was airtight, no leaking whatsoever. As it's visible from picture there is no bubbles even on 2 bar pressure (that's little less than 30 PSI). And what surprise me the most is those homemade connectors with tubes just pressed on, no glues or anything necessary to hold it in place.



After alot of troubles with radiator, it's finally watertight and ready for some cleaning and time to move along with other water blocks.

 

I like the radiator. what are the dimention of it? From what it looks like it may be large enough to be used as a passive radiator. Also how much does that weight?

 

That custom radiator is SICK! I'm telling you this thing is crazy. Love it. Keep it up

 

Looking very interesting. I'll be stayin' tuned.
Would be nice to see some temps using this thing.
Oh, and btw you should use clamps... even you might not need them, I'd use them just for safety.

 

thx guys

radiator is 12x14x24 cm just right to mount two 120x120mm fans on, and it fits perfectly into my case. dry weight is little under 3 kg.

after few tests it is possible to hold air pressure of 3 bar without danger of tubes will disconnect from rad, so i won't use any of clamps
and btw i haven't seen any clamps that look nice so i'm pretty happy that it can work without

And temps will be measured when all thing is done, but i'm assured with that much area and even more water in reservoir this will have some serious thermal capacity.