And here are the pics of the flow meter installed in my (by now) antique case that originally came with a 1st-generation Koolance system.
(Many will say that there is absolutely no point in updating a 5-year old machine that is still running on nforce2 motherboard. Well, I am doing all of this, just as I do anything else to my computer, out of sheer enthusiasm and modding spirit, this is practically the only opportunity for me to use my tools and come up with solutions to arising problems.)
OK, here we go. Out with the old. Notice the nice green build-up on 7/16" ID Masterkleer tubing after a year or two of use. That residue could be partially removed by lab-grade acetone.
I needed to create a bit more space in the center of the case, so I designed a new mounting bracket for the pump and moved it closer to the 2nd radiator.
The Proteus flow meter that I'm using has 7/16"-18 SAE threads, which are mainly used on hydraulic equipment. The fittings that you can see in my initial testing are actually DangerDen's Hi-Flo fittings that, by pure chance, had the thread that I needed. Unfortunately, due to the extremely cramped conditions inside the case (as you will see), I needed angled barbs. After doing a lot of searching and not finding what I needed, I decided to make my own. I mated a 3/4" barb elbow (Loew's home improvement) to the stainless steel hydraulic fitting that came with the meter (basically forcefully threaded the stainless steel fitting into the brass elbow). Since the hydraulic fittings had a pretty narrow ID size, I first drilled them out (on the top, you can see before and after drilling out, and on the bottom the assembled elbow).
Since the entire flow meter is made from stainless steel and is quite heavy, I designed a simple bracket that bolts to the rail of the case and supports the weight of the flow meter.
Everything connected. There were no leaks during the testing, and you have no idea how happy I was, as disassembling this jumble of parts and tubing would be a nightmare.
...and done!
Due to extemely short lengths of tubing used in my loop (reservoir => D4 pump => 2x120 BlackIce radiator => Maze4 CPU waterblock => Proteus flow meter, cramped into a cubic foot of space), I am able to get close to 2 GPM flow, which is more than enough to cool the XP 2500+ mobile @ 2.5GHz/1.8 Vcore.
Well, this is how the computer sits right now. I am thinking of installing the second flow meter into the GPU/Northblock loop, since my flow monitoring system can read from two flow meters.
Thanks for your time! Hope you enjoyed the ride. Would really love some feedback/comments/suggestions!