My WC system

[Graystar]

It's not quite finished yet but here's most of it.



My board is a Tyan Tiger MPX dual processor with two AMD 2200+ processors. The cool thing about this setup is that I didn't have to give up any expansion. I can use all my PCI slots (two of the lower slots are filled but you can't see them) and I still have all my drive bays.

The pump is a PondMaster 250 (also known as a Danner, Supreme Mag-Drive, Model 2) it has a head of 7' and moves about 250 GPH at 1' of head. I didn't measure the flow. However, I did measure the flow of a different pump that ran at a little over 60 GPH and judging from the flow I can see that the rate is lower. I'd guess about 40 GPH. The pump was 36 bucks from PetSmart.

The heater core is from a Pinto. I got it new from eBay for 15 bucks.

The waterblocks are my own design.



The heater core is cooled by a 120mm fan attached to the side panel. I'll finish mounting that tomorrow and get a pic up.

[Graystar]

Another pic.

[Graystar]

Got my March pump running! This is a March 893-04 pump. It's tiny!. It's a 12V pump with a head of 10.5' and 167 gph at 1'.

This pump move lots more water than my PondMaster 250 at half the watts! However, it was way too loud. Now I have it running at 7 volts. At this voltage it's moving a little less water than the PondMaster but it's only consuming less than a third of the watts. It's also about as quiet as the Pondmaster, now that it's at 7 volts.

[Mark Larson]

Very nice, but looks a trifle crowded. Is that 1/2" ID tubing going to the blocks?

No clamps?

Good job

[Graystar]

Originally posted by Mark Larson
Very nice, but looks a trifle crowded. Is that 1/2" ID tubing going to the blocks?

No clamps?

Good job

Thanks!

Yeah, it's tight in there but I didn't want to do things like rip out drive housing and such. I'm willing to cut holes in my side panel but that's about it. It's 3/8" tubing in the system. I was barely able to route the 3/8" tubing, having the rad so close to the blocks (and dual processor to boot) I don't think 1/2" would have made it. The pump's inlet and outlets are 3/8" so it works out.

The "Y"s didn't really need clamps. Some of the other connections did.

[pHaestus]

Interesting spot to put heatercore. A couple of comments:

The combination of those little blocks with socket clips to mount them and hose torquing the blocks in different directions gives me the fear. Be careful with that.

I would personally have run the blocks in series to try and clean up the hose and to get higher flow rates through them. If you are set on the Ys tho, at least try and find/make a y for the pump inlet that is 3/4" x2 1/2" and then use a little run of 3/4" hose to the pump. The bend plus the Y + 1/2" hose all at the intake is a hydraulic disaster. It looks like you are using a bleed tube to fill up top. You might be able to kill 2 birds with one stone by making a pump-res for the inlet that has 2 barbs for return from your split loop. That will fill a LOT easier too.

[Graystar]

Originally posted by pHaestus
Interesting spot to put heatercore. A couple of comments:

The combination of those little blocks with socket clips to mount them and hose torquing the blocks in different directions gives me the fear. Be careful with that.

I would personally have run the blocks in series to try and clean up the hose and to get higher flow rates through them. If you are set on the Ys tho, at least try and find/make a y for the pump inlet that is 3/4" x2 1/2" and then use a little run of 3/4" hose to the pump. The bend plus the Y + 1/2" hose all at the intake is a hydraulic disaster. It looks like you are using a bleed tube to fill up top. You might be able to kill 2 birds with one stone by making a pump-res for the inlet that has 2 barbs for return from your split loop. That will fill a LOT easier too.

Yeah, I like where I put the heatercore. I didn't want to rip apart my case so I thought it would work okay there. Time will tell. Here's a pic of the panel:



Actually, if you were to unclip the waterblocks they would stay exactly where they are. No small task, lemme tell ya. But I definitely was concerned about torque and made sure there wouldn't be any.

When I run the blocks in series the flow rate drops to a trickle. Everytime I've tried it the temperatures have gone up.

The pump has 3/8 " barbed output. After adding reducers, the 3/4" runs would be so small I don't think the benefit would be worth the extra effort. But it's something to consider if I ever switch to a pump with 3/4" fittings. Flow would certainly increase.

There's no bleed tube, just poor picture taking. I *would* like a res, I think they just make things easier. I'll have to try to make one.