Is it difficult to solder Copper?

[redleader]

I've done lots of copper pipes for my flamethrower and they held up to pressure just fine. I used a propane torch and regular pipe solder/flux from a hardware store.

Now I want to make a HD block from Cu like Blade did. Can I just stick the top and bottom together, flux it then use plumbing solder?

As WRT Copper stock, its fairly expensive from online metals and I don't know of a local place. My plan was to get a bar of 4inch by 3/8 inch Cu, cut most of the center of one piece out, then solder the other two pieces together as the top and bottom. Will I be able to put 1/2inch barbs on it? They'd need to cross the solder lines. Is that OK?

[Brad]

the only problem I've had is that the copper conducts heat very well, you need a very high powered soldering iron to solder to copper because the heat seems to just disappear

[redleader]

Like I mentioned I have a propane torch. Would that be enough? I don't mind waiting a little while for it to heat up.

Also about the barbs, can I just drill the hole and JB weld the barbs on?

[Brad]

yeah I saw you saying that, basically I can't see you having too much of a problem.

for the barbs, I'd use normal plugs with teflon tape, then use jb weld

[jaydee]

I would consider making the top removable. That is an expensive peice of work just to get clogged up down the road. Still fail to understand why hard drives need water cooling.

[redleader]

I plan to wrap the whole thing in insulation. Right now the HD is the loudest thing in my case, and I really hate the high pitched whine it makes.

As for removeable top, I don't see any need. The inside will be entirely open, so its going to be tough to clog a chamber 3+inches wide.

As for the barbs, threading the copper is not out of the question, but I'd have to borrow the tools to do it. Would drilling the holes and using a lot of epoxy or JBWeld be a bad idea?

[jaydee]

Sounds like you need a new hard drive!!! All mine are silent.

Tapping holes is not to hard. Just need a tap and a tap wrentch.

Just use silicone to seal the barbs.

I used metal epoxy to put the barbs on my heater core because it could not be threaded and so far it works great. Probably stay there forever.

Why not use a aluminum plate and mill it into a large heat sink. Water cooling is way extream, especially cooling just one side. Might make the the plates screw up if the top is cooler than the bottom?

[Fixittt]

hey, what if we ran water inside the hard drive? LOL
(dodging flames) it was a joke!.......but could it work LOL I never give up!

[DigitalChaos]

Originally posted by jaydee116

Why not use a aluminum plate and mill it into a large heat sink. Water cooling is way extream, especially cooling just one side. Might make the the plates screw up if the top is cooler than the bottom?

its not like you are radiating the block with coldness, you are just absorbing the heath through the casing... so you should keep the drive in a fairly uniform temp (internally)

[redleader]

The drive caseing is already Al; in effect its one giant heatspreader. So theres no need to cool the whole thing, heck even a square inch or two would probably be enough.

I donno now. I may just call this off for now until I get some spare time.

[jaydee]

Originally posted by DigitalChaos

its not like you are radiating the block with coldness, you are just absorbing the heath through the casing... so you should keep the drive in a fairly uniform temp (internally)

Yep makes since. Still see no real reason to spend that kind of money on it though. I have had mine running 24/7 for a year now and have no problems with heat or noise. Maybe it is just because it is in a very good case though. SX830. Hell I would rather dump $75 for the SX830 because it has a fan holder IN the hard drive rack!!! Put a silent 20-25CFM 80mm in there and you are good to go. Built in hard drive cooler!!

But don't stop on my account, ideas are good!!!

[mkosem]

I used MAP to put new fittings on my WB

--MAtt

[Bollocks]

why not just use a length of hose and some 90 degree bends and make a pattern with hosing on the top of the drive......the contact between the hose and the drive would be more than enuf to remove most of the heat, and you wouldnt need huge flow rates to get rid of hard drive heat, not to mention the fact that its being wrapped in insulation so noone could see the ghetto hosing

[gmat]

The intent behind HD watercooling is to remove fans, and any noise from the system.
I have quite noisy HDs, and if i'm to change it will be 15000rpm ultra-320. These drive *require* cooling even under normal conditions. And guess what they're far from silent.
Now sealing them with foam to prevent noise would just be asking for problems. Hence some kind of cold device designed to take the heat away from the surface of the heat spreader of the HD. And why not a WB ??
Now this WB hasn't to be as wide as the HD itself. Someone tried with a standard CPU block and it was allright. The main problem is mounting. With a HD-shaped block you can use other HDD screws or standard case screw holes.
A HDD has an operating temperature range, and usually it's better for its mechanics to stay cold - unless you've got some kind of gas powered HDD
NOT freezing cold, just room temp.

[iceheart]

uhhhmmm, flame thrower?

[BladeRunner]

Liquid Cooling the Seagate Barracuda ATA IV

That article expalins fully how I made and soldered mine with basic equipment. It also expalins why they needed a water-block.

It may not be the best way or the only way, but it worked for me

[[dannzig]]

i thought the same thing.... FLAMETHROWER ?!?!
have you got blueprints for the one you made ?
ME WANT ONE! GIMME GIMME GIMME !!!

fire is about the funniest thing next to my daughter and computers

[jaydee]

Originally posted by gmat
The intent behind HD watercooling is to remove fans, and any noise from the system.
I have quite noisy HDs, and if i'm to change it will be 15000rpm ultra-320. These drive *require* cooling even under normal conditions. And guess what they're far from silent.
Now sealing them with foam to prevent noise would just be asking for problems. Hence some kind of cold device designed to take the heat away from the surface of the heat spreader of the HD. And why not a WB ??
Now this WB hasn't to be as wide as the HD itself. Someone tried with a standard CPU block and it was allright. The main problem is mounting. With a HD-shaped block you can use other HDD screws or standard case screw holes.
A HDD has an operating temperature range, and usually it's better for its mechanics to stay cold - unless you've got some kind of gas powered HDD
NOT freezing cold, just room temp.

Why NOT use fans??? You still should have air flow through the case. Use a couple SILENT slow 20-25CFM 80's and you cannot hear them period. How quite do you really need it? A fridge makes more noise than most computers I have? hardly a problem and they are all in my sleeping room. You really need air flow on a lot of newer mobo's, my 8K7A's has 4 little heatsinks right below the CPU that MUST have some airflow or the comp locks up when overclocking, the DDR need some flow as well. Use slow speed fans and you will get enough flow and you cannot hear it. If you are running stock then you don't even need water cooling at all for a silent effect. I am not sure why people complain about hard drive noise as it pretty quite and hardly noticable. Typing on the keyboard makes more noise than both of my OC'd air cooled comp's and my water cooled one combined. Of course I am a construction worker and noise is a part of life.

Very cool work on the block though!!! I like it, I really like that you got more practical use of it with 2 drives!!! That makes it almost usefull. Nice setup non the less, and creative work with the tools. You could do some cool stuff if you had a Mill.

[BladeRunner]

"Why NOT use fans???" "Of course I am a construction worker and noise is a part of life"

Think you answered your own question.

I depends what you want, and how quiet the enviroment you are in. I got down to jsut 1 80mm in the PSU at 5v and that was annoying to me. It's not just about db rating its the type on noise and fans to me sound horrible because they are messing with sound transfer medium.

If they don't bother you great, but try to understnd why some don't want any. I have none and it's the way it will stay, If other parts of the sytems requre extra cooling because of it I'll get around it without resorting to fans.

The only "silent" fan I've come across myself is the one that is disconnected.

[futRtrubL]

Cooling the hdds can increase system performance. As drives get hotter the platters expand and the hdd circuitry has to compensate and fix the errors, this causes a reduction in throughput. Getting it too cold will shrink the platters and do the same thing, even colder and moving parts might stick.

Edward

[Mr. Thompson]

Pic tutorial on how to do stove top soldering.

[jaydee]

In the USA there is no such thing as a quite enviroment. I grew up in the mountains of Washington State where there was zero humans around for a couple miles in any direction and the wild life noise was far more that what my computers are. I now live in the city and the surrounding enviroment is louder than my computers are. Unless you live in sound proof room then.....

AND 20-25CFM fans are NOISELESS to the human ear. I put them on a DBA meter. Their frequency is below human hearing levels. So don't give me the only silent fan is a disconnected one. You jsut need quality ball bearing ones.

But non the less this little quests are what bring out great ideas, concepts, and creativity which is all good.

What I need to figure out is how to water cool those little voltage regulators that the 4 heat sinks are attached to on my 8K7A's. Those are very very HOT to the touch. You will burn your finger hot. I placed a fan over it and it becomes more stable when over clocking, but if I could water cool those suckers I could get much higher, stable OC's.

[BladeRunner]

Well we are never going to agree, maybe you have damaged your hearing being in the construction business , but I CAN hear the fan's I have and they are not crap ones either. My room is silent, I can bearly hear my monitors cathode ray tube buzzing if I turn my head sideways and really strain. The only item that makes a "noise" in the PC is the HDD which is rated at 2.0 bels (accordibg to the manufacture). This I don't notice unless I get near to the PC, but the fans I do. As said it's the type of noise not just it's db rating.

Have you ever had a TV that has a whistiling component? that probably wouldn't register on a DB meter but can be very obvious and annoying.

I live in the contry in the UK and wild life, traffic noise etc is not a issue, I do have a silent eviroment 90% of the time except for the PC which is why I wanted to remove the fan noise.

Your heat problem must be the particular motherboard design, because both Abit KT7a & MSI K7N 420 have been run fanless for a few months each without issue, not that I'm volt modding mine.

[jaydee]

Originally posted by BladeRunner
Well we are never going to agree, maybe you have damaged your hearing being in the construction business , but I CAN hear the fan's I have and they are not crap ones either. My room is silent, I can bearly hear my monitors cathode ray tube buzzing if I turn my head sideways and really strain. The only item that makes a "noise" in the PC is the HDD which is rated at 2.0 bels (accordibg to the manufacture). This I don't notice unless I get near to the PC, but the fans I do. As said it's the type of noise not just it's db rating.

Have you ever had a TV that has a whistiling component? that probably wouldn't register on a DB meter but can be very obvious and annoying.

I live in the contry in the UK and wild life, traffic noise etc is not a issue, I do have a silent eviroment 90% of the time except for the PC which is why I wanted to remove the fan noise.

Your heat problem must be the particular motherboard design, because both Abit KT7a & MSI K7N 420 have been run fanless for a few months each without issue, not that I'm volt modding mine.

Actually we are required to get a hearing test every year for work and my hearing is almost perfect still. i am only 25!!!. I guess I just don't care about the noise as it dosn't bother me enough to spend all that time and energy to make all three comps silent as they are not that loud in the first place.

As for the Abit KT7A I have one running 24/7 crunchin SETI as it is one of my 3 comps and it dosn't really need it being the voltage dosn't go over 1.85. The 8K7A's stock voltage can be adjusted to 2.25 without mod. I always run mine at 2.05 and it heats those heat sinks up, as that is why they are there in the first place because of the extra voltage the board is capable of. The 8K7A board also smokes my KT7A in performance so I really don't care much about modding the KT7A as it is a waste of time to mod a slower board to still not get the performance of the stock 8K7A. If I ran the 8K7A stock at 1.65-1.85 then it isn't a problem, but it is just not right to do that. The XP1600+ wants that extra voltage and speed.

[BladeRunner]

Yeah it comes down to what's important to each of us personally, I'm not really bothered about getting the very last MHZ out of everything, and absolute silence isn't a must have for you. Each to their own and, viv la difference

These sinks look crammed in but probably could be mounted to spreader plates, then all mounted to one block above them. Probably require unsoldering them from the mobo to get at the screws, so I'd mount them to a custom block and lengthen the pins like my PSU. Doesn't look simple whatever, and could involve motherboard death trying it.