what about something like this, wonder if i can even cast that :shrug:

that would be cool, the only problem I see with it is that the hosebarbs will be about hitting the card along with the hoses.

Jon

seems like you could put the mounting holes on top if you wanted to.
you may need to use 90 deg barbs though as not not take up too many pci slots or make tube routing a pain.

Yea just what I mean, a classic design adapted to casting. What about running a couple inches of hard copper pipe out of the block? You could even sweat some 90s on there to make it over the card, the copper 90s have a pretty nice curve to them.

thats exactly what i was planning anyway, just to solder or braze in some tubing with a little bend in each of them to bring the tubing up above the card and a little angle on them so theyre not too close to the part of the card the tubing will pass over, i did that with my last block though the card it was meant for was smaller than my current one (just a 9600 pro)

i started making the pattern today, but i stopped because i realised making the outside part with wood is going to be too hard unless i glue heaps of bits togeather (cant be bothered with that) so i think i might make one out of foam with my hot wire foam cutter then cast that in aluminium (at the same time i can melt heaps of scrap and make ingots so i have clean metal for anything important) then clean it up, glue it to the wooden half of the pattern then cast it in copper

ill probly have to buy some copper to make it, ill just get some from the scrap metal yard since im gonna just go there and see if they have some small bits of copper or brass sheet (3mm+) for the tops of these blocks and ive also got to get some aluminium tubing for something else so ill see if they have anything, if not i might just buy some copper ingots

Looks good, I am working on getting my block printed in a prototype machine :D

ive heard of prototype machines before but how do they work ? is it just like a mill or something ?

edit- oh yeah and are you going to cast it in Al or Cu

As far as I know, those prototyping machines, work the other way around... Instead of starting from a massive block and grinding away pieces (like a CNC machine), they build the part from scratch, adding pieces of material.
I'm not sure which materials are possible, but I thought it were plastics mostly.

(plz do correct me if i'm wrong)

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.p...hlight=printer

UV cured resin apparently.

Still planning on the initial casts in Al, Then I will try silver :D I also want to try some aluminium bronze. I may end up trying copper as well but its the last on my list...

well i havent really done anything, im hoping i can cast it on monday (next day off work)

gotta finish the pattern still though

anyway im bored and i got my new camera so heres some pics of the unfinished pattern

Very nice, let us know how it goes during ramming the mold and casting.

yeap, i think pulling this out of the sand might be a little hard but if i cant do it normally what ill do is add a little molassis to the sand (its mostly used for bonding cores) then put plenty of parting powder on the pattern and that should hold the sand together better if the wet sand dosnt work alone.

got my cpu block machined today and all ive got to do now is drill out the holes for mounting and for screwing on the top, tap 4 of the holes (probly an M6 thread and is 4 enough ? theres room for more..) and i started lapping it but havnt finished yet, its looking alot better :D

There are some that works with wax, they are also called 3D-printer.

actually they work with resin, powder etc among other things

Theres 3 major types of rapid prototyping - stereo lithography, selective laser sintering and 3d printing - then of course CNC moulds cast into urethane pieces, and the like.

Stereo lith is done in a liquid bed, which 'falls' as each layer is completed by a laser (solidifying the photoreactive polymer) and eventually 'falls' into a finished part, which are then either shipped as out of the machine or finished to smoothness at the buyers wish.

SLS works with a powder bed, and a laser again - SLS has the benefit of creating parts that are more durable and do not require support for overhangs etc. SLS is newer than SLA.

3D printing is useful for even buying up and having yourself, however its still prohibitively expensive, and you are limited by material choice until recently. I believe theres ABS printers etc now.

I've been thinking about steam casting copper waterblocks. Molten copper would be forced into a hot mold by the steam at maybe 50-100 PSI. This should help prevent surface cracking and voids, but I'm not sure how much hydrogen and oxygen the copper would pick up. In the usual method, not only does the steam come into direct contact with the metal, the metal is heated in the upper part of the porous mold in a sort of crucible with many small holes in the bottom. (Surface tension keeps the metal in place until the steam forces it down into the mold.) This works great for casting jewelry from silver, but I think casting copper waterblocks might be a bit more difficult.

Any thoughts?

Pure copper casting under pressure in a metallic mold is really a pain and you won't find any people to do that IMO. We casted some WB using wax molds under partial vacuum because 2 foundries refused to use pure copper in their injection machine with our metallic mold to avoid their "destruction". Pure copper is too viscous and you need to heat more than its fusion temperature at 1083°C to help liquefaction (or put some metallic powders to help it but alloys are bad in thermal conductivity), machines are too much limited... If you ask a founder what is the worst metal to work with, you can be sure than pure copper will be one of them. So we used traditionnal method by hands but results were too much disparate, control is too much limited over the ~40 WB made in a single shot, expected quality wasn't there. Silver is easier to use than copper.
SLS and stereolitho help to make beautiful 3D metallic shapes but porosity could be too high for some applications.

Any update?