Chieftec big tower wc'ing in progress

[Puzzdre]

I recently bought a Chieftec big tower case, so it's funtime ahead. Originally I planned to complete it and then post the pics, but decided to post 'on the fly', dunno if I'll have enuff time to complete it so soon. Here come the first pics... :D

[Puzzdre]

Got the drive cage out, cut and riveted back, just enough space to have two hdd's and a hcore underneath. But, as always, somethin must go wrong and I ruined my only hcore while drilling the holes for barbs. Went to scrap yard, got two more hcores, same car, same model, but...this one is about 1" bigger (not that I'm complaining, more cooling surface). That bigger hcore indicated that I need to make another shroud to fit on it...
Here goes a nice way to attach the shroud on a hcore without goin' through the mesh: used two pci slot case covers, bent them, drilled and tapped for M4 bolt, some rubber and voila...holds the shroud nice and tight. :)

[Delirious]

Looks good so far. there is definetly plenty of room in that case :) And those pci slot cover shroud hold downs are very inventive.

Have u decided what you are goin to use for blocks yet?

[Puzzdre]

More fun to come: placed the whole hc/shroud/fan combo into the case, down front. The bad thing about the new hcore was, the drive cage had to go, there wasn't enough space for both. Also, with no drive cage, there was enough room for the pump. Lately, I'm thinking about placing two of them up there, to double the pressure, and to get rid of that 90 deg elbow on one pump outlet (it will be pump - cpu block water direction, so with one pump feeding another, I'll just get the straight tubing line from second pump to block inlet). The pump(s) are suspended on the chasis with three bolts and lot's of rubber to help reduce the vibration transfer...

[Puzzdre]

Thx Delirious,

I'm goin to make another set of #Rotor's blocks soon, for cpu, nb, and hopefully for R9800, two sets, for me and my bro :)

We are both running #Rotor style blocks for more than a year now, and I'm very very satisfied with the performance, and ofcourse, the fun of making 'em was enormous.

I'll keep on posting :)

[Puzzdre]

OT/

She decided that we need to do this, so, man gotta do what man gotta do ;)

You cannot just say no to a woman that will tolerate all the 'needful things' around the kitchen and living room...and a drill press and copper stock on the balcony... :D

So, it was done, now I can continue with the fun part :cool:

[Puzzdre]

Went to the hardware store and bumped on those wall pipe holders, just what I needed to have, perfect for my application. Now the whole hc/sh/fan combo is in place, holds pretty strong, but I'm still thinking of having one more bolt vertically from the pump to the hc to push it down in place.
Also, got the crippled drive cage installed on the back of the case, still having the room for a fan to cool the hdd's with some fresh air. Got two seagate 120 gig barracudas in sata raid, more than enough for my needs... :p

[Puzzdre]

Some time ago, somebody on this great forum told me to get a nice fine toothed carbide circular saw and to turn it backwards if I want to cut the plexy or lexan and still have a nice, clean cut. Well, THANK YOU, yes, this works so good that I couldn't believe. Here are pieces cut for a 'soon to be a flow indicator' and two 'soon to be R9800 block tops'.

For NB and CPU blocks, I'm goin to cut that beautiful 1/2" thick lexan, but I just wanted to try the saw on cheap and available plexy before I even think about cutting the lexan. Well, soon :D .

That's it for now, will post the progress as it goes.

Thx for all the previous help guys, you helped me more than any book or google I can think of :)

Cheers! ;)

[Delirious]

Yah that saw trick definetly looks like it worked good, alot better than my jigsaw cuts.

[Puzzdre]

Yup :cool: , my ability to cut somethin straight and perpendicular using a jig saw has it's limit in thickness of the material...about 3 mm thick is the max :shrug: ...

Update: bro and I did some drilling this afternoon... As you can see, the drill is a cheapo but serves me really well for quite a while now, the crown saw did relatively nice job in the 1" thick plastic. The result is a chasis for a two flow indicators, and two happy faces ;)

[Puzzdre]

We managed to drill the top for one R9800 block, first time making the sandwich top. The drill press being not so great in precision, it's a good idea to go with several drill bit thickness to achieve the better result. Drilling the hole for a barb is the worst thing with this drill press, the drill bit is 14.5 mm and breaks the plexy very easily.

[Puzzdre]

More pics, drilling the channel to get L profile (weeelll, almost L :D ), and drilling the mounting holes in the top. The base will be 40 x 40 x 5 mm copper, #Rotor style, held to the top by 4 allen bolts, sealed with transparent sylicone...That's the plan :cool: , we'll see if that will correspond to the final block appearance :D

[Puzzdre]

Back at home, with a warm cup of coffee :p , the workpieces look promising, all this went easier than I expected, need to buy some more good drill bits and bolts, need to sunk the bolt heads into the top, and cut the copper base to dimension.

I attached the .cdr file, feel free to use/change it for your own needs.

To be continued, soon I hope :drool:

Cheers!

[Puzzdre]

Trying to upload .cdr in .zip, processing endless loop, pls wait :rolleyes:

/edit: MIRROR the drawing before use, or you'll end up with mounting holes in wrong position, or worse, inlet/outlet holes on the wrong half of the block top.

I just did. Hehehehe, stupid, didn't pay attention to it, so MIRROR is the word if you wanna drill all the holes one the printed sticker side. :rolleyes: ...back to the circular saw for new pair of top halves :D

Cheers!

[Puzzdre]

One flow indicator is finished, one to go. Didn't seal it yet, but satisfied with the result. The plexy edges are flame polished and are (almost) completely clear :drool:

[Puzzdre]

Another small update, made two radeon block tops, sanded 'em to 400 grit, must go to hardware store to get 600 or better 800 grit sanding paper, sand and flame polish them. Completed one flow indicator, didn't have time to finish the second.
Here are some piccies :)

[bigben2k]

Very cool...

r u gonna add some blue LEDs, for the "bling bling"? ;)

[Puzzdre]

LOL Ben :p , think it's blingbling enough...maybe just a few...or better, a smoke machine and laser grid :drool: ;)

[Puzzdre]

I know this isn't the best way to cut a chunk of copper at all, but just didn't have the power of will to cut it with jigsaw...Man this takes time, copper is really bitch to cut, and I didn't want to burn the tool so only one base was cut. At least, the cut is nice, straight and perpendicular, AND gonna be easy to sand and polish :D :D :D

[Puzzdre]

Nulla dies sine linea :D

Radeon and NB block base are cut, the cutting disc wore out so I need a new one to finish the base and cut the CPU block base. This was my first time working with lexan, and I'm gonna just say this: that stuff is GREAT. Cuts are nice and clean, and the material gives a 'promising' feeling when in hand :p . Here are the pics of freshly cut base(s), lexan tops and a few of that cheap table circular saw that works just great for me. Note that the saw is mounted backwards.

[bigben2k]

To all: note the use of a guard, on the midar saw: the guide really needs to be in place, to make sure that the piece doesn't go flying off when/if it binds on the cutter wheel. (I'm sure it was in place when cutting, right ;) )

[2Busy]

Would like more detail on your flow indicators. Are those fan blades in there? Are they for visual only?

[Puzzdre]

The guard was there while cutting, you gotta respect everything that goes over 10k rpm :) ...To be honest, I was a little bit scared with this crummy assembly, so while cutting, weeeel, I was standing *a little bit aside*, didn't want to be in the line of trajectory of possible projectiles :D

2Busy, for the moment, it's visual control only, and yes, there's a impeller of an old orb fan inside, I left the magnet inside this time, want to try to play with hall sensors just to get the tacho signal to the mobo. Dunno much about the hall sensors, but I'll experiment :D . Only drawback will be if the hall sensor must be installed really close to the magnet, otherwise, if I can drill the backplate and insert the hall sensor in the hole without haveing to drill through and seal the hole, it will be great. If I succeed to get the tacho signal, MBM could read it and warn/shut down the rig in case of no flow. After that, it could even be calibrated to read the lpm/gpm, not to the lab grade ofcourse, but as an additional info, better than 'bucket and stopwatch' method :p

But first, must make all the components, and move the rig from the old crowded case to this big tower with lot's of space inside :cool:

Off to cut those bases to size, will post the result ;)

Cheers

[Cranky]

Looks great dude, nice work.. ;)

[Puzzdre]

Thx Cranky :)

Small update, cutted the bases to size, but didn't have time to drill and taper them all, two radeon bases and one chipset base are ready for drilling and dremelling, hope will do it tomorrow. Things are starting to get the shape of waterblocks :cool: , still must cut two more cpu bases and fit the tops on them.
One more thing, if you can, don't use plexy, rather work with lexan, it's a great deal easier to work with, drilling it was piece of cake, no gripping on the drill bit, even with that monstruous 14.5 mm bit, clean cut, tapping was easier etc etc...just great :drool:

[Puzzdre]

Bro was with me this afternoon and helped me alot, we managed to drill all 4 bases, taper the mounting holes and cut some more plastic for res/airtrap/fill point :cool:
I'm pretty satisfied with that small circular saw, it cuts 1" plastic like butter, nice and clean :)

#Rotor, thx again for this simple and beautiful design :dome:

[2Busy]

2Busy, for the moment, it's visual control only, and yes, there's a impeller of an old orb fan inside, I left the magnet inside this time, want to try to play with hall sensors just to get the tacho signal to the mobo. Dunno much about the hall sensors, but I'll experiment :D . Only drawback will be if the hall sensor must be installed really close to the magnet, otherwise, if I can drill the backplate and insert the hall sensor in the hole without haveing to drill through and seal the hole, it will be great. If I succeed to get the tacho signal, MBM could read it and warn/shut down the rig in case of no flow. After that, it could even be calibrated to read the lpm/gpm, not to the lab grade ofcourse, but as an additional info, better than 'bucket and stopwatch' method :p

Cheers

Got any pics as to how you mounted the fan assembly inside the block? Would love to see some detail on this. Please keep us posted on your progress. I am very interested in a basic means to monitor flow, not really worried about rate as much as flow - no flow. As you say, monitor with MBM and let it do the work at the absence of any flow.

[Sc0rian]

thats amzing mate. amazing block real clean work. good job...

[Puzzdre]

Thx a lot guys :cool:

I'll take some more pics of flowind tomorrow in the daytime, the flash would ruin the pics :) . The thing is pretty simple, dissassemble the fan and remove the impeller. Now on the body of the fan remove coil assembly and the pcb to get only bearing and holder, clean the bearing good, clean the impeller shaft and reassemble. I used bostik two component glue to glue it on the backplate, will take some pics and post ;) . Still didn't do anything about mounting the hall sensor, too busy with the blocks, but it'll be on my workbench soon.

Cheers, and thx again! :)

[Puzzdre]

Here are some more pics of fan assembly in flow indicator, and some closeups of the blocks bases...

[Puzzdre]

I had to assemble the tops and bases to see how it's gonna look like when finished, and...more than happy, even the edges of the tops are not polished and bases are just sanded to 400 grit, still lot's of sanding to do. The small imperfections in the drilled channels are caused by vertical drill spindle play of circa 1 mm and the drill bit tend to bite into the plexy and make those pits.

Anyway, I'm more than :p ;)

[Sc0rian]

looks cool good job

[Puzzdre]

Thx ;)

Here are polished edges of the tops, lexan tends to 'wrinkle' on the edges when flame polished, you gotta do this very carefully. Also, one thing I really hate doing while making the block is sanding, so I figured a quick and dirty way to do it, probably sacrificing flatness of the base, but not that much. I used this little sanding device to vibrate the base on the sanding paper placed on thick plexy for flat surface. It worked great, sanded to 1500 grit (400, 800. 1000. 1500) :p

[Puzzdre]

Mess on the balcony and dremelled and little bit more hand sanded bases :D
I ordered some more barbs in local machine shop (you cannot buy them pre made here :shrug: ) and some other bits and pieces, will be gettin em tomorrow, then it's time to seal those blocks and test. :)

[Sc0rian]

wow, thats pretty shiny. More barbs in the local shop??? Damn I wish you could do that here, have to order online here, go on holiday come back, and they have only just arrived;).

Hope the blocks don't leaking on testing. Have fun testing it.

[Puzzdre]

I was lucky to find a local machine shop willing to make those, now they know me cos I'm 'that one that makes funny stuff with 'puters' :rolleyes: and no problem with orders. Although, my new barbs are not finished, so I worked a bit with those old ones. Here's the result, and a 'device' that helped me a lot, one ordinary 10 mm bolt to fit inside the barb, piece of rubber to keep the barb in place and not spinning, and a plastic cup to press the barb. Put it together and put it in drill press, little water and sanding paper and voila....shiny and smooth :D
They were a little bit too long, so I took a hacksaw while the barb is in the drill press and 'lathed' it to desired length :p . Pretty easy and no hassle.

[Sc0rian]

damn, nice shop. Most shops around here wouldnt touch it, nor know how to do it.

[Puzzdre]

Small update, sealed the radeon blocks with silicone and barbs with semi-permanent Loctite. Tomorrow is leak test :cool: :cool: :drool:

[Cranky]

Small update, sealed the radeon blocks with silicone and barbs with semi-permanent Loctite. Tomorrow is leak test :cool: :cool: :drool:


hope all goes well....

[Sc0rian]

hope the leak test goes well hope it dont leak.

Those blocks look cool, like to know the temps

[Puzzdre]

Thx guys for the shared hopes :)

After 12 hrs of drying, the silicone settled and now leak testing is in progress...No leaks for about hour and a half :D (in my experience of making the blocks, they leaked only cos of my impatience to wait for silicone to dry) :p

Gonna leave them running for a few hours more just to be sure :cool:


happyhappyhappy :D

/edit: got myself a new chuck, the old one started to pi$$ me off, guess inside it the threads are damaged, sometimes it just won't open or close the jaws...that's settled now :)

[Puzzdre]

It's.....a res :p . Still waiting for the barbs to be made, in the mean time one res is finished and second is in the process. Along with new barbs, a double side threaded fill point will be made, hence three holes in the res (fill, in and out) :)
Also a few flame polishing pics, and the diff of 400 grit sanded edge and flame polished edge :drool:

[Delirious]

Thats a cool looking res, and the flame polishing looks good.

[#Rotor]

You are Most welcome and .... Awesome job!!! :D

[Puzzdre]

Thx again to all :)

and #Rotor, many greetings from this copycat :D

[g.l.amour]

awesome work there bud. don't see to many ppl around that do it from the ground up like you. that flowmeter is a nice piece of creative modding. i still remember that rather crappy looking flowmeter in your first case. you've come a loooooong way dude.

cheers from g.l.

[Puzzdre]

:) :) BAAAART :) :) :) !!!

WOW m8, you just made my evening a great deal happier, it's always sooo nice to hear from the old bud :p

I'm so glad you're still around, and to be honest, somehow waiting to see if you gonna show up here ;)

If the way ever lead you here, make sure to contact me, no matter the time :)

And now, dig out that drill press and join the megafun :)

Thx for the kind words, and drop more often ;)

C'ya!

[Puzzdre]

Got the barbs and double threaded fittings for fill points, piled everything on the desk :D . It's time to seal some more things, and start on those cpu blocks!

[g.l.amour]

insane work...wonder how you'll cram it all into the case, knowing you you'll want alot of rad surface. i'm ready to be surprised!

[Sc0rian]

looking great dude, any updates??

You are getting there- looks real good.

[Puzzdre]

LOL, g.l., remember that I'm making two sets, only one set into my case so there's enuff space :)

Been playing with hall sensor but without much luck, I can make this dissassembled fan to read a rpm from another fan, holding the hall close to the magnet of that spinning fan, but seems to me that hardware on the mobo that count signals from it cannot read small rpm, so think I'll have to find another way to do it, still searching :p

I also had to remove the drive cage and move it further to one side of the case to make place for res. The res will be (hopefully) mounted on the hinges to swing ******ds the case for the ease of (re)filling.

That's about all for now, got second res almost ready, must seal the first one :D

Cheers!

[Sc0rian]

looking sweet man, you got an update?

[Puzzdre]

Yup :D

Didn't do much over the weekend, but this afternoon was productive, none the less. Both res, flow indicators, NB and CPU blocks needs sealing between the layers, all the barbs are sealed in their places. One res is mounted on the hinges, and after sealing will be mounted into the place, gotta drill one more hole for securing bolt that will not let the res swing on the hinges. The initial idea (that kickass magnet from broken hdd) didn't work, I had to come up with somethin else. Cpu bases need lapping and thats (almost) it :p

I'll post more piccies of the two sets when I finish them all :cool:

Soon I hope ;)

Cheers!

[Puzzdre]

Finally managed to seal and test 'em all, everything is fine, no leaks. Here are the pics, hope I'll manage to install one set this week :)

[Sc0rian]

jeez, thats sweet man, amazing work nice one!!

[Etacovda]

Styling it! beautiful work

Do the flow sensors work ok?

[superart]

Yup :D

Didn't do much over the weekend, but this afternoon was productive, none the less. Both res, flow indicators, NB and CPU blocks needs sealing between the layers, all the barbs are sealed in their places. One res is mounted on the hinges, and after sealing will be mounted into the place, gotta drill one more hole for securing bolt that will not let the res swing on the hinges. The initial idea (that kickass magnet from broken hdd) didn't work, I had to come up with somethin else. Cpu bases need lapping and thats (almost) it :p

I'll post more piccies of the two sets when I finish them all :cool:

Soon I hope ;)

Cheers!

Does your wife know your using that table for your projects? :eek:

I still remember my mom after my dad droped a bolt onto the dining room table while trying to hang a light fixture over it. :mad: :mad:


Awesome project, btw. Love the flow indicator.

How tall is that case?

[Puzzdre]

Thx a lot guys :)

Flow indicators for now will only be visual, no wires yet, I got another one made to experiment with hall or reed, hope I'll finally get the readable signal to the mobo.

LOL superart, yes, she actually sneaked on me with a digicam and took a pic while I was working there, the thing is that I vacuum clean everything after working in appartment, and never leave mess on that table (not that I wouldn't rather have a garage and leave all the tools where I can instantly find it, not needing a wrench fairy help me every time ;) ). And ofcourse, the table is not an expensive one, so the deal was that I can work on it as long as I don't leave the mess. Fine by me :D

The case specs are in the pic attached, I actually wanted a big server case with more room inside, but couldn't find one (affordable, used...) so I went with this one.

Now I'm thinkin of better pump... :p

Thx again guys,

Cheers!

[Puzzdre]

Despite the flu, still enjoyed the afternoon, making slow progress :p . The res and the securing bolt, it'll have to do until I figure somethin better to keep it from swinging... Took out the clearflex 60 tubing that I got more than half a year ago from frends in USA, it's pretty amazing what a simple online game (AA) can do... Redhead and Redseal decided to actually come here on vacation after they met us online, and we had a hell of a good time together. They also sent me this tubing, so THK U very very much both of you! :)

Back on track, took out R9800, removed the shim and tried the block. Purrfect :cool: . Dunno if the ramsinks will do any good, but I already had them, cut, sand and glue. Now I have to find some good springs to finally mount the block. Hope tomorrow I'll have some time to dismantle my current rig and put it in new case :cool:

Till then, Cheers! ;)

[superart]

If you want something bigger, yo could try looking into those double wide server cases that are 16" across, instead of 8".

[Puzzdre]

:D :D :D

Finally installed :p ! Temps and quietness are great (for me), only thing I don't like is the flow and the mess the wires brought but luckily, that can be sorted out, wires will be routed and I'm thinkin of that little grundfos pump.
Also, the fan 'controller' (12V/7V/5V) will be made and installed as soon as I find some more time.

Haaaaaappppyyyyyyyy :p

[Puzzdre]

Here's the zipped .cdr of all three blocks, have lots of fun! :cool:

[Hallis]

Man that is a whole lot of work that went into that system. Hell when you've got all that room why not? :) Wonderful stuff. Be sure to post up some pics of everything when you get the wires and everything squared away.

Shane

[Puzzdre]

Wow, this stuff is OLD :p

Thx for the kind words, :cool: , the rig still looks the same on the outside, inside is A64 3200, DFI lanparty NF4 ultra D and R850XT, and only radeon is watercooled for now. Gotta find some time to make new blocks for CPU and chipset. But have a baby coming very soon:D so I don't believe I'll have a free time in next few months...

And the pump became a bit noisy, so I'll have to look for a new one (obtainable here).

Still lurkin' but don't have much to say :hammer: , so glad that the site is still among the best :cool:

Cheers

D

[govner]

awesome job.

[ben333]

holy old thread batman! (again) hehe... This was a nice one :p

[Puzzdre]

:) Thx LOLLLL

Still lurking, now aircooled, and water only in my reef tank LOLL

Just re-read the thread, man that was FUN :p :p

[ben333]

DO IT AGAIN :p Please

[UnaClocker]

Still lurking, now aircooled, and water only in my reef tank LOLL

Ahh what a shame. I bet it'd be rockin on a modern Intel setup. And some video of the flow indicators in action would be rockin.. :)

[RM5D]

What is the thichness of the copper?



I would like more details on the waterblocks but can't download your files ,help please.So far you have done an amazing job with the tools that you have - GREAT STUFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



Why don't you use a single piece/layer of perspex,lexan ?

[Puzzdre]

:p Ben, Una - thk u for tryin to get me into that again, but ... gotta 2 yr old son that loves to spend my free time, and vice versa :p , the copper and the tools will wait a bit more :hammer:

And, whats the point of makeing a WB for socket 939 :hammer: :hammer: LOL

RM5D - thx :)

The copper is 5 mm thick, and 4 yrs ago I simply couldnt find lexan here at all, a member of this forum sent me a nice piece of 1/2" by mail (big thx again BlackEagle :cool: ), thats the reason why I did the sandwich top for Radeon :cool:

Ill try to dig out the .cdr files of the blocks, gotta be somewhere on backup CDs, but cannot promise you how soon LOLL, gotta find those CDs first :hammer: ;)

[RM5D]

Thanx for coming back,not to worry about the files after spending a few hours on this forum reading your and other members posts, I am alot more enlightend.I can sypathaze with because in this country it is not always easy to find things either and if you do they cost a fortune.

Thanx again.

[ben333]

Una has two little ones and is starting a project :) I remember seeing your old rig a while ago... http://forums.procooling.com/vbb/showthread.php?t=4104 That was friggin awesome :D