You know, I've thought about leaks and what not, and NEVER had one up until about 2 months ago and I've been water cooling for years! I turned my machine on and left, then came back hours later and noticed I was getting some loss of video signal... I didn't even assume it was a leak, but damn well when I opened up my rig, THERE IT WAS! A few drops on my vid card! I took a blow-drier to the cards, just in case, let set for a few hours, readded some marine grease + tightened the hose clamp around my CPU-block, and haven't had any problems since.

Misc leaks: When I first built the system, I took some CLEAR lacquer and coated EVERY card and mobo surface that could be exposed... That way, I could have some protection, while not immediately setting off "VOID WARRANTY" alarms, IF a disaster should occur ;)
-- If you are really paranoid about leaks, you could always get some GOOP and seal around all of your connections (especially the WB). It's MUCH, MUCH stronger than Silicone, flexible and removable -- if necessary. Since I'm always checking and taking apart my system I haven't adopted this idea yet...
-- One other note, when clamping connections etc, I'm VERY liberal with using marine grease, hell I've even smeared it on some nearby surfaces, just in case. It's not like some simple alcohol and papertowel won't wipe it up.
--As soon as I figure out what mixture of solvents will dilute silicone RTV, I plan on trying that out as a clear coating solution, anyone know? I know that Xylene/Toluene should work, but the fumes are HELLA toxic to the brain! :eek:

Thanks for all your helpful advice BR, it is much appreciated. I just started cutting up my copper today to start on the waterblocks, and ran into a bit of a problem with it, my 3/4" thick, 58mm wide copper bar is NOT FLAT, but has a definite bow to it! I'm probably going to start a thread on dealing with this over in the WB design and construction area.

Thanks for telling me of your experience, glad it didn't turn into anything to expensive.
Several people have suggested some sort of clear coating on the cards, and I think it's a good idea. What I'm thinking in terms of though is using a clear 'conformal coating' as made by the electronics industry for just that purpose. I used some on a job a few years back where we were making IR thermometers for fire departments. Now you know anything a fireman is carrying will probably get drenched, so waterproofing is a big concern. The stuff we used was a clear spray bomb that just covered the board but was pretty much invisible. (we had to mark the sprayed boards so we could tell them apart) It could be scraped off if soldering was needed, and since it was made for electronics, you knew it didn't have anything damaging in it.
I know and love Goop, it is good stuff and I use it often for all sorts of things, including waterproofing some of my bike electronics. Marine grease I am less fond of. I use it around our swimming pool, and it is effective, but I consider it one of the more obnoxious things I deal with. However I might consider using it.

Thanks for the suggestions,

Gooserider

My acme paranoia kit.

http://www.wizarddesigns.co.uk/images/protect.jpg

Primary - Thermal switch. Attached to CPU block via clamp or thermal adhesive
Secondary - Flow sensor switch. Mounted inline on the pump inlet.
Tertiary - Dialectric coating. "Splash it all over" a la Henry Cooper.

:)

I don't actually use any of them yet but I would with a chiller setup or similar.

Makes sense...
 

Your kit makes sense Pug. I'm planning to use all of those things in some form. They won't be quite the same as the ones you show, but are functionally equivalent.

I found a flowmeter switch at Electronics Goldmine, I hope to be able to mod it so that I can get some sort of flow rate data in addition to it's on / off flow detection.

I'm going to be using a DigiDoc, and will use a couple probes on the blocks, and use the fan switch outputs to toggle a 'kill relay'.

I will probably put Goop on all the hose connections, and spray conformal coating on the pc boards.

Sounds like I have it covered...

Gooserider