Beehive Waterblock With Pictures

[joesgarage11]

Here's my homemade beehive waterblock. The base is 3/16" thick copper cut to 2" x 2". It's got 36 pins of #10 copper wire press fit into drilled holes in the base. The 1-1/2" pipe cap and hose barbs come from Home Depot. I should be giving it the first test next week.

Before assembly.

After soldering it together.

[redleader]

Looks pretty good, but I'd think it wouldn't run much water directly over the core and a lot over the tips of the pins. Be sure to post how it works. I've always wondered by waterblocks used mazes instead of fins and pins.

[LiquidCool]

Actually from what I have tested (NOT much but a bit) Pin fin blocks dont perform all that much better. The thing is that with long pins like in the one he made. The heat will make it MAYBE 1/4" up the pin.

Also it's a bitch to machine And drilling and press fitting is to time consuming for the .2C difference

[joesgarage11]

Originally posted by redleader:
Looks pretty good, but I'd think it wouldn't run much water directly over the core and a lot over the tips of the pins.

You can't see in the picture, but the inlet hose barbs extends to within 3/8" of the base. I figure that will force water right to the base of the pins. The other hose barb is flush with the inside of the pipe cap. I'm hoping this arrangement bathes the length of all the pins with water.

The Volcano II HSF keeps the CPU at 52 degrees C during normal use and up to 59 degrees C at it's hottest. I'd be happy with 10 degrees cooler.

[joesgarage11]

Originally posted by Michael Huck:
Actually from what I have tested (NOT much but a bit) Pin fin blocks dont perform all that much better.

When I first started gathering parts for my watercooler, I wanted to make a maze waterblock, but the beehive seemed to be better considering my skills, tools, and access to materials. The design came from Curly Joe at: http://www.overclockers.com/articles165/

After I looked at his article today, I noticed that I may have placed the inlet in the wrong place. He has his in the center of the pin array, but mine is off to one side. Hmmm, center seems like a good idea. I've got one more piece of copper base, so it looks like a trip to Home Depot for the parts to make another one. Version 2.0! $5.00 should buy two hose barbs, a pipe cap, and some copper wire.

The thing is that with long pins like in the one he made. The heat will make it MAYBE 1/4" up the pin.

Would short pins be better? Is the extra length over 1/4" hurting performance?

Also it's a bitch to machine And drilling and press fitting is to time consuming for the .2C difference

It wasn't too hard to make. A #41 drill in a drill press to bore the holes. They ended up .002" less than the diameter of the #10 copper wire pins. Hand drill to make the holes in the pipe cap. The pins were a pain to cut with a dremel tool. I went through six of the little cutoff wheels and that copper gets hot! I hammered the pins in with a plastic-faced hammer. It's all held together with lead-free solder.
It did take a day to make, but it was a day well spent with power tools.

[BladeRunner]

You may find the general discussion in this topic interesting if you missed it. I didn't actually find it until later but part of my cooling project is quoted on the forth page

H2O directly on core

These were my findings:-

My personal opinion is you want the water or coolant touching the core for best cooling, this is not really a viable option, so the next best thing, (other than silver), is the thinnest possible copper separating the water form the core.

I have an OverClockers Hideout copper water block . This is a very well Cnc’d solid copper block with a copper lid that is attached with screws and sealed with some hard black “stuff”.



After taking it apart, (something I can never resist), I found in measuring with digital callipers the base part was 4.6mm thick. Not happy with this much copper separating the CPU core from the coolant I had the base machined down carefully so it was just under 1mm thin. It then required some minor lapping due to it denting in the middle a bit during the machining. This fairly simple mod has given around 5° to 6°C lower max CPU temp over all.

I have an old CPU here, (gig T-Bird), and I'll be trying out running the water actually on the core soon to see if it helps or makes a deference, just for madness sake

[LiquidCool]

No, I doubt the pins being that length hurt anything at all. What I meant by the making of it was that in a production environment it's not that cost effective to make one.

I've been looking at doing a hybrid of one of my blocks with a pin type block. I would use some threaded rod though. This is just a long (3 foot) rod that has threads cut on the outside of it. I'd use that instead of the wire. The other good thing is you could maybe tap the bottom plate and screw the rods in with some artic silver epoxy on the threads. This would actually give more surface area contact from the bottom plate to the pins although the arctic silver barrier would probrably negate that. Also because of the threading on the pins you would get about twice the surface area.