makin' it look good
 

Hi,
I’m new here.
I have used various manufacturers water blocks for the past several years, both aluminum and copper varieties. Based on my observations, I believe that the better designed copper units all have a tremendous amount of heat handling capacity. I don’t think there is going to be a ‘clear’ winner (ie lower temps) in this arena. I have seen larger temp swings based on the amount of hs material I applied.
So, based on that assumption I decided that looks are where it’s at.
I present to you my home-made, drill till you die, copper-brass water block.
this is what I started with


http://westech.home.mindspring.com/c...hereibegan.jpg

then after a lot of work it looked like this

http://westech.home.mindspring.com/c...ofillagain.jpg


then finally it turned out like this

http://westech.home.mindspring.com/c.../enduphere.jpg

I’ll be plumbing it into the system next week and let you know how it performs. (compared to the current Gemini Spiral)
wj

Jesus Christ Bananas. That is one shweet looking block for a home-made drill press job. You gotta tell us how it works out for you.

I agree - very nice looking waterblock!!

If you haven't done so, I'd shoot a layer of clear coat on it (minus area that sits on CPU) to protect that SHINE!

I second the clear coat. Very clean job.

Ah! A fellow Texan!

Nice mirror job, how'd you do it?

What baseplate thickness did you leave?

Hi,
Thanks, I think it looks good too.

this is what the inside looks like
http://westech.home.mindspring.com/chiller/channel.jpg

the copper is .75" and the channel is .625"+/- so the base is around 1/8

I'm going to put together a nb cooler this WE then repolish everything and spray it with a clear coat.
wj

<applause> That is one nice looking block. How did you get that shine? Let us all know it does. BTW welcome to procooling.

My guess is a buffing compound for soft metals, like jewelers rouge, and a steady hand with the buffing wheel.

High marks on your project wymjym. Very nice.

ahhhhh.... someone else that likes their blocks nice & shiny :p I like the contrast between the brass and copper, very nice :)

Not to take anything away from your efforts at all, but it is actually quite an easy process to get copper mirror like, I just use various grades of silicon carbide paper, (wet & Dry), and finish with T-Cut & polish, finally lacquering to prevent tarnishing. It just takes time and dedication really.

http://www.zerofanzone.co.uk/picture...ishedsmall.jpg http://www.zerofanzone.co.uk/pictures/jpg/hdd3small.jpg

You are correct...getting it shiny and smooth was much less effort than drilling, blending and cooking the thing. I'm doing the nb cooler this week and will see how it looks. Thinking an MSI mobo would make a nice color contrast.
thoughts?????

not much to look at but you'all might take a peak at my chiller

wj

http://home.attbi.com/~scompracer/li...idually_sm.jpg

The red boards are nice.

about your chiller idea...unfortunately I think it wont work as well and you might think.

I remember reading a couple of threads/stories a while back about "block-sandwich" chillers and even with realy powerful pelts, the temps were not worth the effort or the electricity.

My personal take is to use the same box but create a water tank chiller. As in your water loop is dumped into the tank and then pelts are chilling some sort of heatsink that is inside the tank. That way the water has a much longer contact time with the chilled surface and thus will get much better temps.

I thought about building one of those "tanks" a while back but figured that it was too much for me.

Of course, there are a lot of people in this forum that have very good chillers so you may want to talk to them before commiting to a specific chiller design.

Otherwise, Great work!!

Hi,
I have been using this chiller for several months. I don't want the hassle of condensation. In its present set up I maintain the water temp at 8~10 degrees below ambient air. My planned 'improvements' are only meant to lessen the 3 degree swing and to make it look better.

So, for all doubters out there...this concept does work within certain parameters. If I was going to try for temps that would see condensation then that might be another story. By bringing the temps down to less than ambient (by 10 degrees) I have 100% stability in OC'd situations.
wj

Kevin tried it, but I think he forgot to clamp the thing (only used 2 nylon bolts)... then OnDa posted an article on the same day, about the importance of clamping (kinda ironic).

Nice work on the chiller wymjym. Got temps?

BladeRunner: what is "T-Cut"? Welcome back!

Hi,
I have the sandwich pulled together with steel screws and junction blocks, so there is quite a bit of pressure.

on a typical day,
ambient air is 30.5(c)
water res temp is 21.9~22.4 (understand that I can adjust it colder but I found that if I set it to operate at just 1 degree cooler I start to see some condensation on humid days....so I set the controller to keep the cooled water this much cooler than ambient air...if the air temp drops then the controller drops the water temp by the same amount...always at a temp just above the point of condensation)
cpu temp (mobo thermistor) is idle 31.6
under working load temp is 33~35
under full blown everything 35~36 @ 24 water temp

Bladerunner...........I realized that YOU are my hero. Several months ago I saw a pix or two of your work and just filed it to the back of my mind. So...you inspired me to make it shiny, thanks.
wj

I believe T-cut is a rubbing compound for automotive paint. It's used as a final polish after a paint job or to remove swirl marks and also oxidation. I use a similar one made by 3m that works pretty good. It brought back my old tarnished Maze2.

Wymjym:

Ah I misunderstood what you were trying to accomplish with that pelt setup. I was under the impression that you were trying to "super" cool your liquid.

In your present situation with trying to stay away from condensation then yes, that would work out well. Did you build the adjustment system that you are using to control the pelt? If no there were did you get it?

Thanks

BTW how much more of an OC do you get with the pelt system vs. just straight watercooling?

Yep, T~Cut is a paint colour restorer, it basicly polishes away the top surface/oxidation of the 'Whatever' to reveal the good finish underneath. it can be spray~painted over without any special preparation as well. Dont you have it in the US?...

Hi,
Yeh the non-condensation thing is what I want and I'm very happy with it.
The adjustment thingy is called a VPC-Controller, check them out here .
I'm embarrassed to say that I'm memory limited right now (1 gig of cheapo 2100) and my limits are based on it rather than overall speed. Will be upgrading the mem in a month or so and then we'll see. I can say that since setting up the chiller I have NO, ZERO, NADA...problems no hiccups or wierd errors...it really did make my life (computer life that is) more fun.
wj

an update for everyone...
I installed my homemade block (replaced a gemini hi volume unit)....everything exactly the same except for the block and I was rewarded with a reduction in temps.
My system uses a mild chiller, I also use vcool for halt states. my idle temps dropped from 29 @ 21.2 (water temp) to 27 @ 21.4(water temp) and!!!! 26 @ 21.2 (I guess 21.2~21.4 is the threshold where the temps drop)
under load (full blown everything for hours on end)I dropped from 45 @ 27.5 (water temp) to 43 @ 27.7 (water temp)
I will be replacing one of my 80 watt pelts with a 156 watter today and hope to keep my water temp lower under load.
To say I'm thrilled with cooler performance is an understatement!!!
What luck....for everyone pondering why the improvement.....the block is 3/4 thick, so the channels have a great cross section and the block can handle a greater heat load due to its size.
wj

Nice work man! :cool: I love the look of a finely polished block far more than an acrilic topped block, blame that one on Mr. Bladerunner. I am glad to see it is a good performer, and it is neat seeing a chiller unit that seems to perform "up to snuff" you don't see much of that outside of phase change rigs. Keep up the good work.

and now for another update:
I replaced one of the 80 watt pelts with a 156 watt unit. It is controlled with the vpc unit while the other 80 watter runs full bore while the system is up. The chilled water never rises more than 2 degrees above the set point (at the moment 10 lower than ambient) and the recovery time is less than 2 minutes (back to the idle-water-temp). ((it used to rise up 20 degrees from set point...which was about 10 higher than ambient))
So it looks like my block + chiller with 236watts of pelt power (80 + 156) is all I need for cool performance with my rig.

I will be pulling all of the stuff out later on today as I'm replacing the mobo (shuttle AK31) with a new MSI KT3 ultra 2 and yanking the ddr2100 to be replaced with some corsair 3200.
Should keep me happy for a few weeks or so.....:-)
wj

very nice....

I'm with mister Diesel there... copper is far too beautiful, to get hidden behind a piece of glass... :)

http://3rotor.dns2go.com/images/Chip...k/DCP04687.JPG

well, I guess I have a plastic covered, brass topped, copper block...whew!!!!


http://westech.home.mindspring.com/chiller/overall.jpg

I installed it in my new KT3ultra 2 mob along with some XMS 3200c2.....plans are in the works for a copper/brass:
nb cooler, mosfet cooler. These upcoming two won't have the lexan hold down plate.
btw...really pretty copper there
wj

wymjym

Mosfets on my board get quite warm also, was thinking of making a block for them....retention being the only minor snag as I wont use glue.

decodeddiesel & Rotor

There's something about shiny metal, especially copper :p

Do you lacquer your blocks to prevent tarnishing rotor?

Anyway I just couldn't resist playing with my new toy, even though it's not set-up yet, (just sitting on the garage floor atm).

http://www.zerofanzone.co.uk/pictures/jpg/sip1.jpg

I must say I wish I'd bought a proper mill ages ago, it just makes the job so much easier, knocked up this today :) .

http://www.zerofanzone.co.uk/picture...sv8460urb1.jpg
http://www.zerofanzone.co.uk/picture...sv8460urb4.jpg
http://www.zerofanzone.co.uk/picture...460ufsram1.jpg