Water Cooled Hercules 8500
 

Hi, I'm in the process of making water cooling for my Hercules 8500. It will be all in on solution one block covering gpu and ddr on one side on the other block ddr on the other side. Blocks will be connected between them, so I will only have one inlet and outlet for complete cooling. That was the result of brainstorming with my friend Boris yesterday, and 3h of acad drawing and modifying details today.
Here's preview of things to come.
http://www2.arnes.si/~mlivak/Herc8500/herc8500.JPG

i like how the hercules logo is in there :)

Wow...

One question. Are the GPU and RAM at the same height ?
If not, how are you going to make the bottom of the block ? CNC ?

Gpu is 1.05mm higher than ddr, and this is going to be made on non cnc mill, or rather desktop lathe with drill press :D

Looks very nice! YOu going to include a pelt in there? :)

No, for now just wc, with pot. voltmod to the max stable.

I like it. One block design. Very cool.:cool:

looks great, what are you doing about all the capacitators between the ram chips?

If you don't mind will you send me your .dwg or CAD equivalent of that file? my emailis vageta@charter.net

Nice design. I like the enginuity for the sandwich stye continuous loop. Will the total of eleven 90 degree turns and one sweeping ell from entry to exit slow flow insignificant enough to not effect the system negatively?
Long winded question but I'd like your thoughts on this:)

It actualy six 90° (with four of them being very round) turns and three 180° turns, and the chanells are ~15mm wide, so I think that this block will be as restrictant as average cpu waterblock,still a lot,lot less than separate blocks on gpu and ddr, also lot less tubing in my solution. But I'm still going to add another pump in series to existant one, to improve my flow.

VegetaSS4, I will mill the bottom of the Cu base for evading all capacitators, as for sending you cad drawing, I can send you drawing of Hercules 8500 card where you can get positions of gpu, ddr, capacitators ... but for block, for now I rather not.

Progress report, I just finished milling and cutting bottom block (the bigger one) , that means the hard part for first block is over.
http://www2.arnes.si/~mlivak/Herc8500/block1.jpg
http://www2.arnes.si/~mlivak/Herc8500/block2.jpg

It's lookin great:)
It looks like you milled all of the long straight edges. A lot of time could be saved by drilling the corner radius's and making the long straight cuts on a bandsaw, if you have access to one.

He, he, yes I did drill holes in the corners, but I used hand saw, to cut copper. Then I just finished with milling to the line I marked :)

Todays work :
http://www2.arnes.si/~mlivak/Herc8500/block3.jpg
http://www2.arnes.si/~mlivak/Herc8500/block4.jpg
I finished the most boring part of the job, and that's taping all the M3 holes, 21 total of them. And if you think that, with hand tap, you have to do each hole three times, that's a lot of taping. Tomorrow I'll do little grinding to mate both blocks perfect, then it's just joy of working with plexy .

Here's today work:
Both block are now grinded to be aligned
http://www2.arnes.si/~mlivak/Herc8500/block5.jpg
Here's the top and bottom block from the other side
http://www2.arnes.si/~mlivak/Herc8500/block6.jpg
http://www2.arnes.si/~mlivak/Herc8500/block7.jpg
And here's both block on the card, everything was Ok all resistors and capacitators were cleared and the blocks are sitting on gpu and ddr, and the card is now running like that in my computer.
http://www2.arnes.si/~mlivak/Herc8500/Hercules1.jpg
http://www2.arnes.si/~mlivak/Herc8500/Hercules2.jpg
Next for me is to solder connection block to lower block and then milled it to the exact height if the gap between the block, and also solder caps for those two capacitors in one block, then just plexy top with chanells and o-ring grove and I'm done :D

Ok how much for one?

:D I haven't even finished yet. But this one is priceless (oh well... :) )
Because I'm definetly not going through that again, just to much work. I must talk to some other guy with cnc, for how much he can machine everything If I suply all the drawings. But note that this block is for Radeon 8500 reference design card only.
I may come with some GF4 or any other card solution, now that I know how to do it , but I have to have that kind of card on my desk to take it's measures.

Thats fine a basicly only use radeons anyway. I've got an radeon 128meg retail card right now and will most likely have an r300 card when they come out.

If you mass produce the block, I think I would like to buy one, Adam

Good new, I think that all ati 8500 based cards and after looking at the pics of r300 and rv250 is pretty much the same, so the block with minor corrections could be used for all those cards.
But I think that cnc version would be AL. and then anodized. AL would be in this case (gpu and ddr) almost as good as copper cos' the surfaces are much larger then let say amd cpu's where is the need to quickly remove the heat from cpu is vital, plus with AL. there wouldn't be any problem with weight.

Alu is fine with me were do I sign up?

No need to sign up, I must first check how much will cnc machining cost me and how many order do I need to be in the clear.

I've been watching your blocks for a while. They are nice to bad its more difficult ot get them over here. Just let me know when you find out. I should also have my domain set up shortly and will be selling water cooling kits and whatnot. If it performs well I may be interested in a few.

morphling! I'm glad to see that I'm not the only slovene that's into water cooling! Too bad I live in the states :(

Where in SLO do you live?

--Matt

You're slovene, cool. I live in a beatiful peacefull little town named Komenda, known after Maltesian chivalry, church and horse racing, the town is beneath Kamnik alps from the northeast, the capitol of Ljubljana is 20km to the south and national airport is 15km to the north, so everything is 15min of car drive away :)