Great work!!! I just love the attitude of: "Don't know if I can do it! Don't know if it will work, but what the heck, I'll just try it anyway". And then it turnes out that great looking! Keep up the good work.
Thanks for the encouragment Alvin. I wasn't orginially going to attempt to water cool the PSU, but after looking at your project log, I may go for it. Cheers.
hi fyes, id LOVE to start machining, but i cant source any copper atm dammit! really need to find some, as i REALLY want to make some blocks (for cpu, gpu and even NB)
Alibre is "Relatively inexpensive"? Alibre is "Relatively inexpensive"? What did you mean by that? Is the demo good enough? Am I not looking at the right thing ? What's going on with your HDD cooler? How did you attach the hose fittings to your chipset and cpu coolers, did you tap those as well? Lot's of questions but this cool (pun intended) set is awesome!
Compared to SolidWorks or SolidEdge, which will run you several thousand dollars for the basic setup, Alibre is a good deal at $995. The demo is fine but it only lasts for 30 days. Well, that's been moved to the bottom of the list, but I have some really cool things coming down the pipeline with that. Stay tuned. Actually, I cheated. Those fittings on the cpu and chipset are BSP threads, which I purchased before realizing that there were so many different standards to thread sizes. So, instead of buying a BSP tap here in the USA, which I'd probably never use again, I plugged those fitting into the tight holes with some nice epoxy putty. Just trying to keep things ghetto, you know. Thanks dude.
What?! Surely there's a metal store somewhere around your area. Aren't there some UK suppliers listed in the Modding forum?
unfortuneatly online isnt an option, i need to see the materials, tehre is a local supplier but i cant find them now, i need to talk to my dad as he knows where they are. the last resort is to order fromt he place i ordered the alu for my HTPC case, but if i do order from them i will place a BIG order for copper, so i dont run out soon!
In line with Phuzz's thought, I'm thinking of adding a pressure gauge to the radiator. As the pressure isn't going to be very much, I'm looking for a gauge that displays pressure in terms of inches of water, like this one: This one isn't bad, and there is a model that ranges from 0 to 60 inches of water, which would be a good range for my 2.5 feet pipes. However, I'm still looking, so if any modders out there have suggestions of where I can find a neat water head gauge, especially an antique one, I'd love to hear from you. Cheers.
I was thinking more in terms of this sort of thing, but I'm quite willing to take the credit In fact, having a working preasure gauge is a great idea, maybe you could find a matching temperature gauge as well?
Update July 12 OK, it's a rinky-dink update today. I've started construction on the radiator. Instead of soldering the pipe bits together, I decided to braze them. Sure, it uses up more MAPP gas, but I think the end result will look a little better. So, first up we have a vertical pipe connected to a 90 degree elbow: Then the base section, which is just 3 T's put together: Obviously, I haven't got around to the cleanup stage yet. However, I have done a bit more drilling and tapping: Yes, if you look closely, there is a thread there. But wait! There's more! Mr. UPS was kind enough to deliver me another package today. OOOhhhh very exciting: What could be in it? How about: A nice 14 pound (6.53 kg) slab of copper measuring 0.75x4x12 inches. Frodo eat your heart out. "But what on earth are you going to do with it?" I hear you asking. Well, remember that super-ghetto HDD cooler I had almost complete in one of my first posts? Well, that got scrapped and the copper recycled. So the HDD cooler will now become a thing of beauty. As we all know, copying is the sincerest form of flattery, so I think I'm going to really flatter Håkan Johansson as I copy his Discflow 3: You've probably seen this before in Razor_Cut's project log (http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=83321) Anyway, here are the pretty pictures my modelling software put out for me: And a section view for those who can't visualize such things: Cheers
"frodo eat your heart out" **slaps with a fish** lol looks good! cant wait to see what you make out of it and how well it will look thats a nice simple design, drill 3 holes for the water flow simple as! and mill a few holes for the screw holes! damn, thats gonna look good
Update July 14 Still waiting on the arrival of the 1/8-inch end mill, so not much progress has been made on the GPU waterblock. However, I did drill some guide holes to get the channels started: Other small things: the manifold I bought has some nice bland plastic on it: So I've prepared it for some changes: This might be the only bit of bling on the whole mod: The elbow fittings I purcahsed for the GPU block also are resplendant in their plasticness: What do you think? Chrome these puppies too, or leave them black? Finally, I'm getting good at brazing. Pipes three and four have much cleaner joins than pipes one and two: And I put a thread into the base so I can add the pressure gauge easily later on. Cheers.
It would look odd with a mixture of different fittings imho, on the other hand I'm not sure how the chrome is going to fit in with everything else, there seems to be a lot of nice shiney copper going on tho
Yeah, I was thinking of that too. However, the fittings for the CPU and chipset blocks are both chrome-ish, so I don't think the chrome spray-paint will look too out of place. In any case, it looks $1x10^6 better. Cheers.
Would you mind telling me exactly how do you braze the copper? I was looking around and dont exactly know how to. What steps do you take? What materials and tools do you use? Hopefully you can help me.
