I designed a waterblock

Go on to page 2 to see the redesign, the one that is hopefully feasible!

Am I worth my own thread?
I've been working on this for a while (~3days, many hours though). Learning experience, fun, and I might actually get to make it someday.
It's Fuzionlike because the Fuzion is good and because I own it.

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/7103/37016076ix2.jpg

http://img111.imageshack.us/img111/4571/46358460bg2.jpg
Need to add threading and get exact sizes for fittings.

http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/5950/95124985cu6.jpg
Notice the different sized return holes in the midplate, to account for the distance to outlet. Fancy directional fillets.

http://img167.imageshack.us/img167/3018/83748658mf7.jpg
Is this impossible to CNC? Everything is 1mm+. All cuts are either horizontal or circular. Need to align the circular pattern to vertical.

http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/3489/84537591do9.jpg
Nozzling

http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/6523/59688684iv0.jpg
Exploded. O-Rings are rectangular to show that they will be compressed to the rectangular channels once assembled.

http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/1867/33338885nv4.jpg
To show detail of top plate. Observe generous rounding and opposite return hole diverge...

http://img167.imageshack.us/img167/602/11542413si7.jpg
Cross-section of midplate, to show reverse-funneling effect of the under-loft. Water velocity is highest at the lower edge/circle, and it is forced down and outward.

http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/8513/10991228ni5.jpg
Need to make a more universal plate. This is S775. I'll probably make the plate thicker and fuller to avoid it bending (like I did to mine).

http://img518.imageshack.us/img518/4834/10vw7.jpg
Plate fits over/around block detail and screws. It's free-moving. Need to add tolerances to the whole thing (the crosshatch looking stuff is basically where two surfaces meet, that plate won't fit on there with things EXACT).

http://img518.imageshack.us/img518/4546/100au7.jpg
PERFECT LAPPING ZOMG Can't figure out if I should conceal the screws. I want to, and I can...

Is this good? Is it worthy? Will it be possible to make?

While I worked really hard to balance the flow with COSMOSFloXpress, it crashes when I have the base's pins/detail turned on. Not sure if it's machine stability yet, but the base is symmetric, so it shouldn't change from a flat inner base.
EDIT ok so it keeps crashing now. I wanted to get a picture, because it looked really cool. Basically I made it account for the fact that different corners of the block have a higher travel distance to the outlet. The outlet also has a 'suction' effect on it, or a lower pressure than the inlet. Doing this, I balanced the holes so that the liquid's travel was evenly spaced and the speed vectors were approximately equal (even cooling). It was awesome! I don't know what I changed in the design that crashes SW when starting CFX, it used to run fine.

MS Paint scales/compresses horribly. SolidWorks render's dont look very good, I need a better program.

Need more pins for more heat transfer methinks, but neato project you have been making.

I was going to make it more intricate, but I'm really worried of working really hard to hear "yeah, so nothing but supernice corporation equipment can cut that tight".

(definitely interested in more pins though if that's the consensus)

Looks good, give it to one of our CNC guys like iandh to evaluate if it's constructable. I think anything is doable, but I think generally if it requires the really small endmills that are under a couple of millimeters in diameter, they break really often and that's why we typically see slotting saw type designs when you want something really micro.

Solid works looks cool...looks like a really fun tool!

SW is really awesome. I had a 'class' on it in college (I put 'class' in 'these' because it consisted of doing the built-in tutorials... no instruction) and just really like it. It's satisfying when you finally get to extrude a sketch!

I have so many questions...

Can't figure out how to thread/the thread dimensions...
General make-sense dimensions:
- I made the block 50mm x 50mm. Fuzion is 55x55 but that's because the screws are out to the side.
- 1mm thick base. Can I go lower? All the pins/walls collide with the midplate's loft so that should provide lots of support.
- Should I step the base?
- 1mm thick pins/walls. Can I go lower?
- M2 screws to hold it together should be OK right? I want to stick to METRIC/ANSI ONLY (to ENSURE availability) and because my block is all within a square, I need 'thinner' ones.
- Are overall dimensions normalish?

Because I practiced AWESOME engineering procedures, it's actually really easy to change any of this. I don't have everything 100% linked up... for instance, I can't just change one screwhole size and EVERYTHING changes or adjust the inlet size and the nozzle fixes accordingly... the software is still kind of cryptic sometimes, and it goes NUTS if you are referencing too much stuff and/or overdefining. However I did use mirroring and referencing whenever possible, so I'm not afraid of criticism that would make me change things. The only thing I'm pretty dead-set on is the flow-equalizing design of the midplate, which I'm waiting for someone to tell me about its wrongness. I think it's a really good idea and spent about half the entire time on the midplate and flow testing.

EDIT and SolidWorks just crashes now trying to do CFX. It's not system stability. I don't know whether to be glad or not. It worked earlier today!

that base almost looks fusion and enzoish.

Do you use any simulation on the waterflow? Will Cosmos simulate that?

Just thinking, your pins dont look quite efficient.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bluphysted

Do you use any simulation on the waterflow? Will Cosmos simulate that?

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That's what it does, that's what I meant...

Quote:

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Just thinking, your pins dont look quite efficient.

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Again, should I make them smaller and more dense? I have to keep manufacturability in mind.

How much will it cost ? :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Martinm210

Looks good, give it to one of our CNC guys like iandh to evaluate if it's constructable. I think anything is doable, but I think generally if it requires the really small endmills that are under a couple of millimeters in diameter, they break really often and that's why we typically see slotting saw type designs when you want something really micro.

Solid works looks cool...looks like a really fun tool!

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This pretty much sums it up.


This is possible but very irritating and slow. Lots of tooling cost. :(

Which is the difficult part?
The pins are hopefully easy enough, as I'm about to start reducing them in size/distance apart...
The 'walls', with the exception of the outermost few, are simply circles with some sections cut out.

I'll fix it if I can figure out what to fix.

I tried to be very conservative... everything in the base is 1mm or greater (the gaps and the solid) and I'm hearing that they aren't small/dense enough. Is a cross-cut diamond design pretty much the best thing to do when trying to make something on a non-business scale like this?

My goal was to make it easier than this (didn't I?):

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...FuZionbase.jpg

EDIT I have 7 center pins in diameter, the Fuzion has 11. So it's easier than the Fuzion. This says two things: that I can improve the efficiency, but I'm nearing the manufacturing process of a Fuzion. Is that bad?

very nice men........I liked...

The Fuzion is drop-forged, if I'm not mistaken, which basically works around a lot of machining limitations.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MpG

The Fuzion is drop-forged, if I'm not mistaken, which basically works around a lot of machining limitations.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by freecableguy, but on another forum

Worth noting is the method in which the base plate has been made. Rather than the traditionally more expensive CNC-machining used in most designs, D-TEK has chosen to create their base plate with the help of a copper cast mold. Undoubtedly this allows D-TEK to offer this waterblock at a much more competitive price point than would be possible with the machining that would be otherwise required.

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Well, that sucks. Wish I could have imagined that as being a possibility...

I guess I'll start the base over. It didn't take near as long as the other stuff, like the midplate and top, that are the prouder points of my design anyway.

EDIT

Quote:

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Originally Posted by freecableguy again

and the injection-molded, 2-part shell is extremely durable.

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Wow. Great. So I've basically designed something all-around that requires astronomical amounts of money to make?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MpG

The Fuzion is drop-forged, if I'm not mistaken, which basically works around a lot of machining limitations.

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Actually, it's a blend of casting and forging. A few of us got into a pretty serious "debate" a while ago about that very thing as I asserted my belief that it was forged as well and "others" stated that it was cast. I can't seem to fined the post ATM and I need to leave for work shortly. If no one finds it by time I get back, I'll start looking for it again.

Yeah, I believe the fuzion and MC-TDX amongst others is a special casting process. You can make that fairly complex yet constructable for reasonable costs at high volumes.

I think pretty much all of the machined bases in commercial blocks these days use jewlers slotting saws to make either micro channels or variations of square or diamond shaped pins.

iandh is the only one here with cnc experience in the forums. You could always bring some pictures to your local machine shop and ask them though to give you a quote.

Someone did that with a different design a while back on OCnet, and they gave hime a $1000 quote so I know it's very expensive.

All I know is I've made nearly $1/hr on the half a dozen job I manually milled and simply refuse to do much more except for the occasional friend project. It's incredibly time consuming on a manual machine and just not worth the time it takes.

But one offs are alot of fun especially if you have some means like a friend with the machinery to tinker yourself...:D

I'm not sure I understand. If someone has a CNC mill, what's the worry about how long it might take, or how irritating it might be? As iandh said, the tooling cost + time, right?

I gave up trying to use the hole wizard, ignoring threading, etc... I'm making my own! And wow, it's hard... I looked up the BSP standards, made a profile sketch of one thread, and accurately extruded along a helical path to make my own threading! It's a little difficult to find out what most manufacturers use for fitting dimensions. Here's what I've got as a "safely-long" fitting:

http://img354.imageshack.us/img354/3681/fitting2qb2.jpg

Here's my main sketch of my fitting. It's a little long, but again, I want to make sure almost any fitting will go all the way in without tapping my inlet/outlet an absurd amount. Here is Swiftech's fitting, which is the 'deepest' I could find. The threading I've matched, all that's important is that theirs is ~6.85mm from the bottom to the underside of the hula-hoop part where the o-ring resides... ~6.85mm deep. All the other ones, based on the thread count, don't seem near that.

To anyone curious, here are the websites I found that gave me enough information to construct the barb and holes:
http://www.btr.nl/pages/gb/produkte/...aee4625b175f59 - Inner/outer diameter of threading
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_228 - Pitch and threadform

The problem that you run into here is that to do these bases even semi-cost effectively you need a small, very high speed, high precision machine. With a cutter at .040", you have to be running screaming fast spindle speeds (10k rpm +) to be able to get any machining done without breaking a cutter every three seconds.

Most shops have heavy machines with 4k or 6k spindles, and they really hum once they get spinning at full speed, on all but the highest end machines. You can't have that when working on this small of a scale.

Any shops that did have a suitable machine for production use would probably have it assigned to a certain part type, so it would be tough finding time on one, or finding one at a privately owned shop that works for the pubilc.



That's the main reason slots are used on non cast blocks. Blocks like the supreme and GTZ push the edge of profitability and manufacturability for that matter, at least using conventional machining methods.

Would a slot-cut base as detailed as one of those (that has no outer walls like mine, so you could cut straight across) cost a lot to have machined?
EDIT the EK Supreme has walls, was it still slot-cut?

Guess I'm not doing pins/radial like I expected...

Are the midplate and top doable? Does the fact that they are acetal/delrin make it 'easier' to cut them, and thus be able to have the level of detail in those models?

Yeah, I would go forth and have fun in the software, just be aware of the fabrication limitations if your intent is to really make some of these. Most folks on these forums that have an inkling for block design sooner or later end up making one of their own. It's alot of fun and a great learning experience. Unfortunately along with that fun comes the reality that profit margins on commercial blocks is pretty small and only pencils out in high volumes.

I did it more for the personal satisfaction that I could, here was my block:
http://www.overclock.net/gallery/dat...rPinsDone1.jpg

http://www.overclock.net/gallery/dat...LineBlock5.jpg

It now sit quietly in my junk drawer, but it was still alot of fun..:D

The inlet and outlet appear to be so close compression fittings will not work. I would take this into consideration!

Does anyone use compression fittings?
Surely not many blocks allow for them then, because it's in the traditional diagonal design. I know mine are very close together (Fuzion).
I'm working on that spacing anyway...

I'm not trying to make money off it, I just think it'd be neat to do and have. If the top/midplate are machineable, that is... that's really what I'm proud of, how I've equalized the flow without adding two outlet ports.

Only if he cares about compression fittings. From the barb he created, it appears that he wants to go with regular fittings.

I think you should work on the spacing of the inlet outlet as well. It's my one gripe about the FuZion: it's almost impossible to use 1/2ID-3/4OD tube and get clamps on. BTW Bitspower is reviving interest in compression fittings. I never liked them until I saw the Bitspower set ups in the Water Cooled Case Gallery here. Take a look at the recent builds: lots of compression fittings being used now.

Here's my threading. It is exactly G 1/4" spec and is deep enough for even the deepest of fittings. After the threading, the plastic returns to the inner diameter of the threads, not of the fitting: this means that even the thinnest-walled fitting will not be restricted by the inlet/outlet.

http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/8826/threadnm1.jpg

I shortened up the whole thing a bit after reducing the height of the fitting housing and deciding that 4mm is probably excessively thick for the top. Now the screws are too long: the block is 18mm high and M2 only comes in 16mm or 20mm.

The distance between the centers of the fittings is 19.53. So that means the radius of an individual compression fitting would need to be ~9.75mm or less to fit. I don't think it will work. It really seems like you'd need something as wide as a Supreme to do it. Why are compression fittings getting popular?

BUT NOW I'm getting a bit discouraged. I didn't plan on getting this made when I started, but somehow the fact that it's going to be impossible isn't good. If the base can't be made I can't imagine the middle or top can't be (or can they be?). If the base is all I have to change, that'd be fine I guess.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AndrewZorn

Here's my threading. It is exactly G 1/4" spec and is deep enough for even the deepest of fittings. After the threading, the plastic returns to the inner diameter of the threads, not of the fitting: this means that even the thinnest-walled fitting will not be restricted by the inlet/outlet.

http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/8826/threadnm1.jpg

I shortened up the whole thing a bit after reducing the height of the fitting housing and deciding that 4mm is probably excessively thick for the top. Now the screws are too long: the block is 18mm high and M2 only comes in 16mm or 20mm.

The distance between the centers of the fittings is 19.53. So that means the radius of an individual compression fitting would need to be ~9.75mm or less to fit. I don't think it will work. It really seems like you'd need something as wide as a Supreme to do it. Why are compression fittings getting popular?

BUT NOW I'm getting a bit discouraged. I didn't plan on getting this made when I started, but somehow the fact that it's going to be impossible isn't good. If the base can't be made I can't imagine the middle or top can't be (or can they be?). If the base is all I have to change, that'd be fine I guess.

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Don't get discouraged, it's really cool how you've taken and shared what solid works can do. Unfortunately I'm no longer a student, so the thought of a $7K piece of software is enough to put it out of my reach. I use microstation as my day to day CAD program and used AutoCAD for many years in a previous position, so I think I could have alot of fun with it, but cost is prohibitive.

I like your concept of varied midplate orifice openings to balance flow. I suspect D-Tek avoided that idea for both simplicity and the real possibility of putting the block back together wrong after dissassebly, but it's a cool idea.

I'd suggest taking a few of your ideas down to some local machine shops and just get a flavor for rates. Preferrably you can find some buddy connections or university types that may have a CNC available for educational uses.

My block didn't perform better than the top dog commercial blocks, but it did better than I expected and quite the accomplishment I'm still proud of and happy about.

I chose the manual route though. For about $500 you can buy a minimill, and maybe 3-400 later you'll have enough tooling to tinker with. Then it's just a matter of your own personal time, if it's fun...then who cares how long it takes..:up:

Someday I might try to build my own mini CNC, it would be alot of fun and quite the challege getting it all to work, but imagine the possibilities..:D

I appreciate it [again] Martin. I probably will keep on with at least just playing around in SW. I'm going to redo a base that has cross-cut pins. I can still do the loft-cut base by milling that out before doing the cross-cuts. I just need to find out if a CNC will cut Delrin like the midplate.

A CNC in the garage would be amazing. I'd make stupid stuff ALL THE TIME, like absurd cupholders and 3D art.

For anyone interested, I found the post stating how the Fuzion's are made.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...4&postcount=33

I can't believe I've been checking the forums this much to see if they're back up...

I'm just about done with the redesign. I think I like it more than the original, despite it being a compromise. I have a couple more questions:

- What is the hexagonal wrench size on a standard G1/4" fitting? What is considered to be a 'wide' fitting when concerning the size of the 'base' (I have to find a minimum about how far to keep these from the edges of the inlet/outlet housing, and I don't want to increase the size of the block itself, but might have to!). As in, I have the thread sizes and all, but the outermost circular part of the fitting that you wrench down on is starting to worry me, like you might have to take the fittings out to remove the hold-down plate.
- What is reasonable as far as cross-cuts through the baseplate? As in, what's the smallest cut that can be done reasonably, and what is the smallest distance between these cuts that can be accomplished? By taking in both of these, I can find out just how small I can make my cross-cut 'pins'.
- Base thickness... the Fuzion V1 is ~1.5mm thick, and the V2 is even thinner. I thought 1.5mm should be possible. Can I accomplish this?
- With a thin base like that, is it reasonable to thread the BASE and have the bolts go top-down like I do, or will the bolts not have enough 'teeth' and thickness to be able to hold the whole thing together well? I don't know how there are chipset and full-coverage blocks that are Xmm thick and have bolts that are threaded into the base to hold it all together.

Revised base, realistic construction (I hope) and everything meticulously threaded:

http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/748/main1aq8.jpg
http://img83.imageshack.us/img83/3591/main2ok8.jpg
http://img363.imageshack.us/img363/1039/baseru5.jpg
http://img83.imageshack.us/img83/3096/cutaway1ug0.jpg
http://img83.imageshack.us/img83/5496/cutaway2ky5.jpg
http://img363.imageshack.us/img363/5661/cutaway3gf1.jpg

I can reduce the cut widths if possible. These are .5mm cuts .5mm from each other. Is this too fine?
Still having trouble with this stuff:

Quote:

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- What is the hexagonal wrench size on a standard G1/4" fitting? What is considered to be a 'wide' fitting when concerning the size of the 'base' (I have to find a minimum about how far to keep these from the edges of the inlet/outlet housing, and I don't want to increase the size of the block itself, but might have to!). As in, I have the thread sizes and all, but the outermost circular part of the fitting that you wrench down on is starting to worry me, like you might have to take the fittings out to remove the hold-down plate.
- What is reasonable as far as cross-cuts through the baseplate? As in, what's the smallest cut that can be done reasonably, and what is the smallest distance between these cuts that can be accomplished? By taking in both of these, I can find out just how small I can make my cross-cut 'pins'.
- Base thickness... the Fuzion V1 is ~1.5mm thick, and the V2 is even thinner. I thought 1.5mm should be possible. Can I accomplish this?
- With a thin base like that, is it reasonable to thread the BASE and have the bolts go top-down like I do, or will the bolts not have enough 'teeth' and thickness to be able to hold the whole thing together well? I don't know how there are chipset and full-coverage blocks that are Xmm thick and have bolts that are threaded into the base to hold it all together.

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I also still REALLY want to get rendered/realistic images to work how I want them to. This is the best I can show off right now!

Those are not some fake threads either... I actually sketched one thread 'tooth' to spec and revolved it around a helix which is also to spec. It's the real thing!
EDIT except that right now those are 17mm screws. I'm trying to find a medium between real screws and overall heights of the block. Sure I can always use spacers or cut down real screws or simply do it different, but since I'm not totally sure that this is final, I won't do that yet.

This is a much more realistic design. The only changes that I would make (probably tiny improvement) would be to shorten the pins some more in a concave pattern right at the inlet.

.5mm pins x .5mm spacing is not particularly hard to do. Now we are talking mainly machine time.

If I had to hazard a guess I would say somewhere around 2-3hrs to cut the pins for a prototype unit, and several more hours for the rest of the block. You would be looking at somewhere around a day of machining time for a prototype unit; normal shop rates are $65-85 an hour depending on machine type.

This could be whittled down in mass production, although it still would be quite a challenge even if sent overseas.




The CPU block market is kind of an "all-or-nothing" type thing as far as profitability goes nowadays. It isn't like the old days when what a clever person could do in a small shop was good enough to profit.

I wasn't trying to make money off of it, I just thought it'd be neat to have something I made.

I was thinking about shortening the pins after looking at that cutaway view.

Is a 1.5mm base thin? Can I go a little less? Do you think that there will be enough 'thread' to catch an M2 bolt on that to hold the thing together (it's the only part that's threaded)?

$65/HOUR? It sounds reasonable, but when you say hourS... I didn't want to shell out more than $100. I know that's not realistic now!

The fun part was designing it, and maybe I can make some neat chipset block or something that someone else will want to use/make... because the fancy designs are cool and all until I hear the rest of the stuff will be "several more hours"!

I have to think all this over.

EDIT and of course, iandh, the concavity would be cut out of the copper FIRST by cnc and THEN cut the rows with some sort of micro-saw... right?

I made a block for my old PIII, if I had to tally up the cost of it.... GAH! I'd probably faint. Sadly I didn't even own a digicam then so no pics, but it did work well.

I've seen pins as small as .3mm square x 2mm in hieght cut with .4mm saws, but I that's getting pretty small. Although I don't thin pins outside of the critical 24mm square area do very much, I think it all depends on base thickness.

Looking good!!

stepped or bowed base?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Martinm210

I've seen pins as small as .3mm square x 2mm in hieght cut with .4mm saws, but I that's getting pretty small. Although I don't thin pins outside of the critical 24mm square area do very much, I think it all depends on base thickness.

Looking good!!

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That's why outside of the 'hot area' (which I made a liiiitle larger for upcoming CPUs) I undensened the pins. There's also the concave factor to it: the taller pins allow more flow anyway the further out it gets.

Quote:

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stepped or bowed base?

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I don't know if I'll do either. Bowing is irreversible and I don't know how reliably one can just guess at throwing in O-rings (though my design is capable of this). I might step it. Isn't stepping it just putting a small square on the bottom, diagonally cut outwards from the CPU? I don't really see the point...

EDIT: to shorten the pins, should I simply drop the whole base height and keep everything else the same, or increase the concavity of the array? Or both?

EDIT I'll probably see if it's viable to drop it low enough to use standard M2x16 screws, if not, then I'll increase the ceiling to use x20s.

And any opinions on nozzling? It's at 6mm right now if I'm not mistaken. I know the largest Fuzion nozzle is what, 4.5mm? It's a flow vs temps thing, I know, but trying to find a flow-favored balance.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AndrewZorn

I wasn't trying to make money off of it, I just thought it'd be neat to have something I made.

I was thinking about shortening the pins after looking at that cutaway view.

Is a 1.5mm base thin? Can I go a little less? Do you think that there will be enough 'thread' to catch an M2 bolt on that to hold the thing together (it's the only part that's threaded)?

$65/HOUR? It sounds reasonable, but when you say hourS... I didn't want to shell out more than $100. I know that's not realistic now!

The fun part was designing it, and maybe I can make some neat chipset block or something that someone else will want to use/make... because the fancy designs are cool and all until I hear the rest of the stuff will be "several more hours"!

I have to think all this over.

EDIT and of course, iandh, the concavity would be cut out of the copper FIRST by cnc and THEN cut the rows with some sort of micro-saw... right?

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I was just quoting you an average rate... there is a chance that you could get a shop to try it as a "for fun" thing for a few hundred dollars, but I wouldn't expect it in a hurry.

Some shops charge a setup fee for each part as well, so if they were really doing it "by the books" having one made would cost $500-1000.


I've done stuff cheaper in the past just to help folks out. The last block I tried to make for someone I ended up losing the entire amount they paid me in broken tools (tricky machining) and ended up having to pay them that back when I couldn't produce the block, with nothing to show but wasted time and money out of my pocket. I'm not upset about it or anything but that is just how unprofitable this is when not in quantity.

Even if I did manage to get it made, I still would have been working literally for free. Since that I have vowed not to take on any block projects ever again, other than for personal use.

I suggest reading up on stepped bases (pefect step would be 23mm x 23mm)... stepped bases outperform bowed bases

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...1&postcount=26

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=161963

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=160566

Okay, I put this together really fast:

http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/3606/stepef7.jpg

It's 23x23mm, .3mm deep, and cut into the base. It is chamfered to a 45* angle all the way down, so technically the contact area is a little under 23x23mm. I was wondering if this would be a good idea, just in case the next and next series of CPUs are not exactly the same size. I left the outer edges uncut-into because I'm still worried about sufficient threading, and .3mm is almost one thread tooth for an M2 bolt. The base is now 1.2mm thick outside the step, but I think this will be okay because that's the thickness of the new Fuzion. One could THEN say that since the step-area is a CUT, I could start with something thinner, like 1mm, and cut the edges down to a technical .7mm or so... how thin is too thin?