Greetings Mates, Friends, Chums, and lurkers, Having done a few minor mods, such as painting my case in a hammered metal green finish: I decided to get rid of all the noise and go for the gusto with some watercooling. When I started down this road, I had the only tool I thought I needed (hah!), a Dremel. So, fast forward a few months, and now I have a cheap drill press, some titanium drill bits, and a couple of cobalt end mills. Anyway, I figured I could do any easy sprial waterblock for the cpu, so I whipped up my design: Here's a transparent look that shows the water channel: So anyway, that's the intent. Now after hours, hours I tell you!, and more than one broken drill bit (hey, this is my first time with these things), here's what I've got: As you can see, the drill slipped once or twice, and it's definetely not CNC beautiful. Not bad for doing it all by hand, I think, though. Not even a compound table on the drill press. I console myself by remembering that the rough spots will add to the turbulance of the waterflow and aid in heat exchange. I'll use some quick connect fittings and an industry standard hold down: I'm also half-way through construction of a waterblock for the hard drives. Instead of going the carve-a-channel-through-solid-copper route, I thought I might construct this baby from sheets of copper, brazing them together. Here's some early photos of the first two sheets brazed: As you can see below, I've begun to file down the extraneous brazing material. I already know this puppy is not airtight, so I plan to seal up the holes with some soldering: The water system will be completely passive. I'm going to create some radiators, similar to the Resorator, which will be separate, and outside of the case. I put together a ghetto bulkhead for the tubing: Yes, that's plumber's epoxy. Here it is installed, but not doing much at the moment: So that's it for now. Nothing earth shattering I know, but everything is new for me, so I thought I'd share my progress with you guys. Cheers
Wow, very very very DIY!, this is garage fabrication at its best! I thought I was a shade tree machinist! Great work man! Keep it up! Silence is the way to go these days, seems to be a trend.
Thanks for the encouragement. Today I made a simple design for the chipset waterblock: The small, but high-speed fan that comes standard with my Asus A8N mobo is actually one of the louder componenets.
make me one of those chipset blocks please the damn fan of the a8n sli deluxe drives me crazy all the day running at 9800rpm is just annoying. i take it off and put some machine lubricant and for one week was nearly silent but again is loud
Update April 19 Printed out a quick guide for punching some holes: And the copper bar with the punches: Copper bar is 2 x 0.5 inches, purchased at one foot long. I figured I could make the CPU, chipset, and VGA blocks from this one bar. And here's my high-tech MDC (manual dexterity control) milling/drillin machine: And after a bit of drilling, yuck: The holes came out nicely: And I'm getting better at using the end mill too. This time around, as apposed to the CPU block, I set up some guides on the drill press, turning it into a 1 axis milling machine. The milling is still not great, but better than on the CPU.: Now I need to mill the 45-degree channel to connect the two existing channels. I think I'm going to need to throw in the towel and purchase a basic compound (X/Y) table, something along the lines of this: http://www.littlemachineshop.com/products/product_view.php?ProductID=2008 Any suggestions? Cheers.
Very nice, keep on the modding One thing though.. are you sure you will be able to connect those two things with each other.. cause the gap is really small.. Keep on modding dude
Pitbull and Aon, thanks for the kind words. I believe so. If you look at the CAD drawing above, you'll see there's plenty of clearance, as long as I don't let the end mill wander as I drill the channel. However, I did have the same concern as you, which is why I think I'm going to need that X/Y table -- my hands can't keep it precise on the drill press .
This could easily develop a rather interesting DIY style and look; that would be totally unique for a case mod, and something that I think would be cool
Update June 6 Finally decided to go ahead and make the center channel on the chipset waterblock without purchasing an X/Y table. So here it is: And a second view: Those of you with a keen eye may notice that the center channel is actually curved. That'll give you some hint as to how I did it on the drill press. Anyway, since I was on a roll, I also milled out the little side tabs that I will later drill and thread to screw onto the motherboard. Ciao for now.
looking good if you're having troubles getting the holes to drill in a straight line try centre punching along the line of drilling so the drill bit has something to follow as it digs into the copper
nice work, are u watercooling everything? VGA, PSU, HDD(s). good work, ur 2nd block looks alot cleaner, have u concidered redoing ur CPU block, mabye one with more intense looking channels, ur spiral was good but what about smaller channels and more spiraly? The more time the water spends in contact with the waterblock the better. good luck. subscribed :d
I'd like to watercool everything, though I'm a bit nervous about messing with the PSU. Definitely the CPU, VGA, chipset, and hard drive are getting the treatment. I have thought about redoing the CPU block considering how ugly it is, but I think that also gives it a bit a charm -- at least that's what I tell myself to feel good. Anyway, all that ugliness will go away once I put the top cover on it, file and sand the outside, and give it a nice polish.
That second block looks a hundred dollars better. Nice job, This is making me want to go out and buy a drill press and bits and make my own waterblocks.
Nah, it wasnt just for the looks i was talking about, i meant for the performance, you could get alot better performace from the block if you took the time to make the channels smaller and more of them. When you think about it, it doesnt matter how good your pump and radiator is, if you have an average block, the heat wont get transfered from the cpu to be disipated by the radiator. Just a suggestion. good work neway, btw, whered u get ur copper from, im thinking about doing my own blocks now, it looks like fun .
I love the chipset block, its really tidy, especially since you did it manually good work so far, hope too see more Retro
yeah, thats looking great! im jealous of your milling skillz, i cant even drill straight holes with a drill press, but you make whole waterblocks with them! sweet...
