base shape choices
 

hello,

ive been scouring these forums in preparation for making my own block (thanks for all of teh great info everyone!) and noticed a common thread.

all of the baseplate designs that i have seen have been milled into bar stock, and end up with a square or rectangular shape. any reason why?

it seems that bar stock is regularily more expensive than round stock (as compared on ebay), and that round would be a much cheaper way of getting some raw materials, and a slightly unique base shape as well.

jeff

Theres not relly any reason why we use square stock other than its easyer to work with. The are quite a few blocks (both commercial and homebuilt) than use a circular design. Most of the time they are machined on a lathe.

But yeh no reason why you cant make a circular block

The main reason i dont like circular is you need a very big bit of bar to incorperate the mounting holes into the block itself so you have to make holddowns which i dont perticualy like.

Round stock may be cheaper, but you waste less with bar stock. With round stock, when you cut it you effectively lose around 2mm of material. With some modern waterblocks using bases as thin as 3mm, you're basically throwing away as much again as is used to make the block. Not to mention that cutting the ends off some bar stock to size is significantly easier and faster than sawing through a 2" copper round.

All up, bar stock is typically just a lot easier to work with and comes very conveniently sized.

Round copper stock sure is expencive, its about double I think if I remember right when I was checking prices(double for how much you would use)

The main reason people use rectangle and squair is that its easier to work with, and with the rectangular you can incorporate the hold downs and all that without any problem.


Jon

I would also add that it's easier to keep the overall block to a reasonable size while still hitting the 4 rubber 'bumper blocks' on an AMD chip when using bar stock. Get a round bar big enough to go over the bumpers, and I suspect you'd be overhanging the socket quite abit in the center of the sides. I don't know if that would cause problems with the "keep out" areas, but why waste the copper?

Gooserider