Started working on the blocks now, so far its been done with a battery powered drill. Its not perfect, but its what I get for not waiting to use the drill press. Here is the bottom, some of the 1/8" holes are a little off, but it really shouldnt make a difference. I ended up doing 4 less holes then I marked, when I started drilling, it just didn't seem like I should have those 4. The top, one of the 1/4" holes is off, after that I used a clamp and started drilling pilot holes. Ignore the spot in the middle, I was just testing the drill in a spot that wont be seen, maybe I will cut up some solder and place it there so It joins in the middle too. This is how they will sit together, again, an off hole, I might just drill through the other side and seal off those two holes. [/list] And a size comparison to help show how big/small it is. Due to the fact that I forgot that I cant just drill a 3/8" hole and throw the barbs in, I am putting off the gpu block for now.
Little update Here are some shots with everything in place, I still have room inside, for what I don't know. The shuttle is full, but I think it is ok considering its watercooled, with an internal 120mm rad, with 2 120mm fans inside, and I have a 500w psu inside what was a small case to start with. Side shot, notice I still haven't shortened the psu cables. It looks worse then it really is, aside from the tubing, the space between the rad fan and psu is mostly free, im debating sticking a 70mm fan in there aiming down to help cool the motherboard. And from the top, I removed the fillport and hard drive for this picture. You can see the pump mount, hopefully it is enough to shield the pump, or psu from the other. Id like to mention that nothing is really hooked up right now, I keep taking it apart and re-assembling it. I haven't threaded the cpu and gpu blocks yet, but I do have tubing placed where it would go for testing reasons. Here is annother shot, nothing new. I am not sure if I will keep the front fan or not. Here is a new faceplate idea. Its a spinoff of the old one, but holds the button at an angle so I can stick a fan infront of the radiator.
Very nice, however as I said in the past, you definetaly want to tidy up the cabling, and remove any unnecessary ones. What are you going to do for your next mod, squeze a 4 drive raid array in there. It is quite simply amazing how much you got in there.
I don't know about 4 hard drives, but I can change things arround a little and fit annother hard drive (maybe, depending on if tubing cooperates) At first I looked at it and knew I could get it all to fit, then I got everything and started to wonder if it would really fit or not, now with everything in there, I think to myself "Why hasn't anyone done this before?" Hey, does anyone here know a way to get some free waterblocks? My blocks aren't working out so well as the drill press I ended up using made me screw up. (old drill press, kind of wobbly, broke bits inside the blocks)
Unless you get sponsored you wont be geting free waterblocks. But you could try making the blocks with copper caps and some flat coper sheet and solder barbs to it. you could put a wound up coper wire inside for turbulance. overclockers had a article about that years ago. check em out.
Yeah, I know I still have options for my blocks, they are still workable, they just arent nearly as nice as I wanted them to be at the start. Hah, nobody will sponsor this mod, I will probably just have to buy blocks and modify them to work in my case. I didnt really want to do that, but if I cant get my current blocks to work, I will have to just search ebay or something.
what's wrong with commercial blocks? There are a lot of exissting low-profile ones out there, like the ones from Koolance, (CPU-300-V10) or this one from innovatek. but if price is the issue, I can't help.
Well, for starters, I am using 3/8" and those blocks aren't 3/8" blocks, aside from that, I don't like those blocks. I have my eyes on a DD tdx and that zalman gpu block, what do you think the odds are that I can get both for ~50usd?
Odds are pretty good. But only if you do some hard forum searching. Jump around some forums and u never know what you can find.
I went along and tried to work with the gpu block, the cpu block is far from fixable, but the gpu block had a shot. With the help of an auto mechanic, I finished my gpu block, and it works great. Here are some pics of the block. Thats the top of the block, soldering on the top was a pain, it either driped solder from the other side, or slid out of place while the solder was melted. Its all good now, we tested and it is leak proof at 180psi. Here is the gpu block, forced onto my gpu. I couldnt do it without shuttle and the fancy ICE clip they use, mounting just doesnt get easier. Thats the surface as of now, its very rough, but its working great. Right now my room is ~70F, and my processor is idling @19ish. I know thats below ambient, but thats just the temperature probe being a little off (as they all are) When the core goes back to 1.6v, the temperature goes to 30C, and when under load for several minutes, I haven't seen it go above 34C Overall I would say I am pretty happy with my new block, the temperature results should translate well when I move it over to my 6800gt. With results like that, should I still buy a waterblock, or should I just try to repeate what I did with my gpu block?
dude, theres so much inside that shuttle i cant really tell what im looking at. nice job though, it must be hard getting stuff inthere and working on a case that crammed. there must be no airflow though.
Oh, I have airflow, I have plenty of airflow. the 6 or 7cm between the rad+fan to the psu is completely open, aside from the tube that will come from the cpu waterblock, then I have a few cm between the psu and hard drive (part of that will be blocked by a pump) I'd say between one or two 120mm fans on the front, and one on the back, I am OK. The only actual problem I will have is a deadspot above where the mosfets and whatnot sit on the motherboard, but I already have plans on sticking a 60mm fan in there to cover that.
--UPDATE-- I can't believe I didnt think of this before, but while thinking about a way to resolve my cpu block problem, I saw the swiftech block I bought from mikehotel. Luckily, mikehotel skipped out on the mounting bracket, so I was forced to use the ICE bracket or make my own. Fortunately, it wouldnt work normally but if I let it sit a little off center it was perfect, and even better, thats how the ICE clip wanted to hold it. I needed to add a penny so it had enough tention, and carve out some of the metal on the clip, but in the end I couldnt be happier. And here is my GPU block, on the gpu, compete with a ram heatspreader (remind me to buy screws). Its a close shot, but its a single slot block, so the case fits. The only way I could do that was if I recessed the mounting thing that holds the block, but it works. I got the radiator to stay where I wanted it to stay. The best part is that it sits high enough for my stock amd heatsink fan to sit underneath to cool the motherboard and chipset. I couldn't be happier with how this turned out, the fan just sits there because it is a perfect fit, of course I will make something that holds the fan. This is it in place, its a bit tricky to fit in, but once I slide the rad in, it all falls into place. I have the psu outside of the psu case because it is a pain to deal with that mess, and it makes a cleaner picture without it. This was the last shot at making sure it all fit properly, and to check to see if the tubing was the proper length. It was all good, so I clamped the tubing down with copper wire and filled it up. It has been leak testing for a little over 24 hours, and all is good aside from a leak caused because a barb on the radiator was tightened too much. And here it is with the case on. I am not done with the facplate, but you get the idea. When I get home later today, I will fire it up and see what kind of temps I get, with 2 120mm fans on a 120mm x 38mm rad, I better see lower temps then I got on air.
prety radical shuttle mod you have there, I particulay like the idea of having a wind tunnel effect. You should tidy the front up and add mesh.
Yeah, when I had a 120mm fan on the front and back for air cooling, it helped temps a ton. I have barely worked on the front, just enough to have something for now. I was thinking about using that speaker mesh but I don't know.
Well good news, both the watercooling loop and psu fit in just fine, and I couldn't be happier. Right now I have it all together with the case and stock faceplate on, and even with the air restrictions caused by the faceplate, aiflow is still good enough to keep this all nice and cool. The psu, pump, and hard drives are all fine working that close to eachother, even after I got rid of the alu shielding on the pump. I am debating if I should just keep it as is, or go along and do a fancy faceplate and work on some case mods.
Making some progress... I have been working on the faceplate, I liked the curve idea, but dont really have a way to attach it anymore, so I decided to mod the stock faceplate to meet my requirements. Took apart the faceplate, fairly easy process. Here is how I am attaching the alu to the faceplate, I cut notches on the alu, and made matching slots on the side of the faceplate. Right now I just slid the alu in, eventually I will make it permenant. And here it is from the front. I am not done with it, I need to figure out exactly how I want it cut, cut it and finish it off with whatever minor details need taken care of. And behind all of that is my fan+rad that are mounted directly to the front of the shuttle. This part is also unfinished, I just winged it in an hour so I could take my shuttle off to play some bf2 somewhere else. I had cut out almost the entire front of the shuttle, so I needed to do some patchwork. The piece I used to fill the bulk of the front was cut up some too, so I needed to put some mesh in there to help hold the bondo. Thats it for now, I will work on this some this weekend, maybe finish the faceplate, maybe not.
