Part II: Long Live the New Res!
This is pretty ordinary actually, it's the bone-standard
Danger Den Round Reservoir. I couldn't see spending the money on an aquatube if no one was ever going to see it. I didn't want a 5.25" bay res because I've heard they're a pain to bleed, and my homemade round res served me very very well. I ditched the homebrew res because it was taking up too much room in the case and I never completely trusted it, as it was held together with GOOP and nylon screws. It was also the first thing I made for goliath, so it was sort of a sad moment.
I made the decision to mount it in the 'useless' top 3 5.25" bays. I call them useless because they're too shallow (blocked by radiator/fan/shroud) for any drives. I intend to use the rest of this area for the custom front panel electronics (VFD/touch bus/indicators), so I wanted a 'clear solution'. Enter scrap Plexiglas from work. we make all sorts of crap out of acrylic for displaying books, in addition to other stuff, so we have plenty of scrap. I cut this piece to sit on top of the ears for the drive rails, and used a 2" diameter hole saw to drill a hole for the filler cap to fit through. I also drilled holes for the mounting bolts. In this configuration, the top of reservoir cap is just shy of hitting the sheet metal of the top of the case (when its on). This makes filling the loop super easy! I just take the top off, unscrew the cap, put my funnel in and pour away! No mess at all.
From the top. you can just barely make out the line of the edge of the plexi (which I still need to polish up at some point) at the left.
Shot from the front. The rat’s nest in the rear is my VFD/rad lighting that hasn't been connected to anything yet, and is just floating free. the observant among you notice an evil thing in water cooling: a 90* elbow
(on the left side of the picture). I had to use it to get the tubing to route properly
. There's also a 90* on the inlet of the pump
to make things work properly. If I ever kill my eheim 1250, I’ll get a hydor L30 II, which is half the size but has more head and the same flow as the 1250. I should be able to use it w\o having to use the 90s. 90s on the inlet side of a 1250 are bad, as most
procooling testers have observed.
And one more modification to the res, the installation of a thermal probe (which is just a TO-92 packaged 2N3904 w\ the base connected to the collector) for measuring water temp w\ my
MAX1668 Thermal Sensor Board. I may still make another mod for UV lighting if I ever find blue glow dye that doesn't come out of solution and cover my tubes in white crap
Part III.a: Installation of the MAX1668 Thermal Sensor Board on ATi Radeon 9800 Pro
Since I'm (trying) to overclock the SNOT out of my sapphire OEM ati Radeon 9800 pro 128 meg (uber rare black PCB edition), I wanted to keep track of how hot the little sucker was getting during gaming. Extended runs of far cry put the GPU at 40*C, and idle in windows puts it at 33*C, all w\ 26*C to 27*C coolant (~72*F environment) How do I know those temperatures??? Lets see:
A bit of Plumbers GOOP on the backside of the GPU. The GOOP is non conductive. My meter registered infinite resistance even at the highest resistance range (20 Mega Ohms) The goop will hold the sensor in place.
The exposed leads, solder joints, and exposed copper wire on the probe were also coated in plumbers goop previously, so nothing will short out. I used my 17 ring/box wrench to hold the probe down while the goop set up (gave it about 45 minutes while I went and watched Law & Order)
And bam, she's installed. Me forget to sleeve something? Oh hell no! (except maybe for the reservoir
) I've got to cut its probe length down a bit and sleeve it yet.
Part III.b: Installation of the MAX1668 Thermal Sensor Board in the case.
I had previously meant to use double sided tape, but I opted for a less permanent solution and used Velcro. The hook side is stuck to the case, and the loop side is stuck to the board. Whatever isn't covered by Velcro on the bottom of the PCB is covered in electrical tape. Also, the powder coat is non-conductive, so there's not much to worry about (keep a keen eye out for an easter egg** in these last few pics.
A view from the top down. I forget why I had the reservoir uncapped.
And a view from the front.
Part IV: EZ-Drain
I had long since been looking for an easy way to drain the system that didn't involve pulling barbs off or pulling plugs, but couldn't ever think of a valve small enough to do so. One day I was outside in the smoker's shack at work, and this rusty old valve was sitting on the table. it reminded me of the tap that you use to install an ice maker on a refrigerator. My friend Ryan and I had just done this a few months ago for my girlfriend, and I remembered that it had a valve: the EZ-Drain was born!
It's a simple little doohickey, one 1/2"ID mending barb from Lowes (be sure to get the kind with a bit of smooth surface in the middle, I think its part A-38something). One icemaker needle valve, also from lowes, a few feet of 1/4" OD (yes, OD) tubing, and the associated compression fittings for the valve. I drilled a hole in the hose mender for the valve, and tapped the hole, as the valve had 1/4" NPT threads on it, and I found the appropriate tap by eye. What I did discover later was that I tapped for the wrong end of the valve! My buddy Ryan had an adapter to make it the right size (that's the bit closest to the mender), so I attached that after adding Teflon tape, and all was well. I threaded the adapter & valve in, and sealed the whole thing up with goop. it passed the pressure test (one thumb over the end, valve closed, blow like hell in the other end).
Part V: Let the JPEGs do the talking
A few new overall shots.
Damn dents.
Cheers/Regards until next time!