Project: Hush! - A scratch-built passive radiator/case

Hello all. I've been a long-term occasional lurker here, but never got round to posting. Could mods please leave this in the water-cooling section as it's more a home-built passive radiator than a case project, and input and suggestions from the watercooling section would be useful. :)

Okay, so for a bit over a year I've been working on building a scratch-built radiator/case for passive-cooling. The idea is for a low-noise solution to running an overclocked machine, and so it's been optimised for passive cooling - the radiator has 2.5 fins per inch and runs fanless. It has a total cooling surface area of just under 43,000cm^2 of copper. For reference, a TRUE has 7,500cm^2.

The radiator is currently plumbed up and running my i750 at 4.2GHz (1.43vcore) and 4850 GPU with a Heatkiller 3.0 block and an MCW-60, with an 18w DDC pump with XSPC top and 1 metre of ½” tubing. Temps are pretty good – runs around 30C idle on the CPU and gets to around low 50’s C gaming. Not sure of ambient temps; standard indoors of around low 20’s celcius I expect – need to get some temperature probes and do some proper testing.


The posts below are adapted from progress updates along the way over the past year from several other forums, so they may contain info and plans that’s amended along the way. They should be reasonably clear, but as I’ve just pasted the updates and not replies explaining bits about it some bits may be unclear. If that’s the case please ask and I’ll explain.


Here's some teaser pics:


Taster pics:
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...7072010366.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/DSCF3322.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/DSCF3196.jpg


Hope you enjoy the read. Input and suggestions welcome. 
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Hello all. I've started making a large passive radiator/case. I've been working on it for a while, but since the design is quite complicated I thought I'd wait until it got to a recognisable, likely to work(!) stage before starting the build log.

I have had an innovatek Konvekt-o-matik before , but you really need a shedload of them to handle high heatloads. Plus, they're expensive (~£80/6tubes), bulky and the design is flawed in my opinion - aluminium, made for 8mm ID tubing, and by their design the more of them you add the larger the pressure loss - 8mm inlet splits to 8mm tubes running in parallel.

So I figured I'd make my own; :)

copper,
designed for 7/16" or 1/2" tubing,
minimise pressure loss by matching resistance of the tubes to 1/2" tubing,
massive amount of surface area (since it's the equivalent of an Aga it needs to have headway for extra heatload),
wide fin spacing and compact enough to be self-contained within a case.

The case is going to be approximately 45cm wide x 40cm deep x 46cm tall + height of castors. So it's slightly smaller than a mountain mods UFO (45x45x45)

The top, far side of the case (the non-window side panel on a normal case) and the bottom will be made up of a large finned copper radiator, hopefully with enough surface area and passive airflow to run completely passive, with air rising up through the case. :) I wish I was competent enough with google sketchup to draw a detailed plan, but it just seems a nightmare because of the design, so I'm afraid I've largely stuck to hand-drawn sketches. Here's a very rough idea of what the passive radiator element of the case will look like.

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/d5c1101c.jpg

The design has changed since this initial drawing - instead of all the pipes connecting into a pipe at the end, it uses a manifold similar to standard off-the-shelf radiators.



Initially I was going to use 30 metres of standard 15mm outer diameter half-hard pipe used in home plumbing and flatten it as in normal watercooling radiators, but after buying a small sample (a gentle elbow bend) and trying to flatten it I realised it's very tricky to get an even inner channel, and it would take forever to flatten 30m of the half-hard stuff...

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/7f68d996.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/87d66dc2.jpg

So, time for plan B. I managed to find a site selling 10m x 6mm outer diameter, 4.8mm inner diameter soft microbore copper tubing, so I picked up 6 rolls for ~£42 inc p&p

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/538124f2.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/cd85c9a3.jpg

I then unrolled them, measured and cut into 48 lengths - 16 x 120cm, 16 x 125cm and 16 x 130cm - the difference is because the 48 tubes will be arranged as so, so the outer tubes need to be a bit longer:
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/1255a9c7.png

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/a330a423.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/3333fbf0.jpg

The microbore copper is so soft it's very easy to bend and straighten, though it's tricky to get 130cm lengths completely straight. It work-hardens and quickly becomes difficult to bend, though it can be annealed again by sticking it over a gas hob.

I managed to source some cheap copper sheet for around a quarter of the going rate from shopping around:cool:, and for a small extra charge the seller was even willing to cut it with a metal shear into lots of 395mm x 50mm strips for the heatfins.


Here's a picture of the copper. It had been left lying around in a scrapyard for God knows how many years, and was a bit scratched here and there, but should clean up nicely enough.

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/1f7f673e.jpg

In the pic are a 39.5cm x 45.5 cm x0.9mm copper sheet for the side wall the tubes go through, 63 of 39.5cm x 5cm x 0.9mm copper strips to be used as heatfins, and 16 of 7.5cm x 39.5cm strips (additional 39.5cm x 5cm heatfins have since been cut from them). There's also some copper bosses (solid cylinders) that I nmay put to good use. :)


After cleaning

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/5d966567.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/95b44e13.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/abe41b14.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/d2500e81.jpg[/QUOTE]

]http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/4499e942.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/8f9bffc2.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/828fb384.jpg

After inserting all the tubes I could then start putting the heatfins on.

I ran into a bit of a problem when putting the fins on - they're a tight fit and the smallest angle off horizontal, or pipe angle off vertical means they can be tricky to get on. It's a bit of a trade-off between tight fitting fins with minimal gaps (less solder and better heat transfer) and ease of putting the thing toether. The fins are pretty tight, and in gently hammering them ona few of the tubes were pushed too far down, which you can se in the pic. Luckily, using the pipe cutter without the cutting blade inserted it's possible to grip the tube and push it back through the heatfins.

PIC OF PIPE CUTTER MINUS BLADE

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/0557e7b8.jpg

There's only 11 heatfins on in various temporary positions (finished article will have 74 fins);

PICS WITH HEATFINS

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/cd3ccdd7.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/df9136d3.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/221445b7.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/3e565fa8.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/d682cf2a.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/2262c527.jpg

I've just got the solder and flux and need to make a watertight box tonight to deoxidise the copper in a vinegar bath before, and after soldering them with a propane/butane blowtorch, since it'll oxidise all the surrounding copper. Anyone know of a place I can get lots of cheap, relatively strong acid? Not sure where to get it and any regulations - was told by a car bits shop that they can't sell battery acid (~35% sulphuric acid) these days. I could probably make do with distilled vinegar but it'll be expensive for the amount I need and take a long time as it's weak.

I then needed to drill 48 x 6mm holes in each of the 74 copper fins and the copper wall.:eek: This took a while.

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/92230e3f.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/960b007b.jpg

I initially tried using G-clamps and my bench drill and ran into several problems. As the holes were drilled, they pushed a cusp through, deforming the clamped stack. Whilst the cusp/sleeve from drilling is actually useful for soldering and heat transfer, it introduces inaccuracy in the drilling. So I made a jig for putting the copper strips in for drilling.

JIG FOR DRILLING

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/89d67a90.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/a5016651.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/494a3a03.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/0df01084.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/6f625e99.jpg

Sadly the bench drill I have is only 180W, and so lacks the torque to drill large metal holes, so I switched to using an 810W hand drill in a heavy duty drill stand, which allows accurate vertical drilling.

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/18e13694.jpg


http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/7b66552f.jpg
PICS OF DRILLING

After doing some reading up on natural convection and passive heatsink design, I came across a problem sheet set for engineering students on how to optimise the fin spacing for a passive radiator, from a book by a couple of heat transfer professors, and even better, the software it ran on was freely available on the web.:cool: So, using the software, I adjusted the parameters to model my heatsink as best I could.

Passive heatsinks rely on natural convection, and this requires the free movement of air over the fins. The fins are much more effective spaced much further apart than in air-cooled heatsinks (~2mm for a Thermalright Ultra Extreme) or even the most sparsely-finned watercooling radiators (~1fin/3.125mm or 8fpi for an RX XSPC radiator).

The simulator models a given width, height and depth of passive heatsink at a given input heatload, and plots the heat transfer of a given fin, and the total heat transfer of all fins combined, at varying fins spacings.

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/4e0121b4.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/91975eb1.jpg

So, whilst the heat transfer for a single fin increases up to a certain point, increased fin spacing means fewer heatfins overall. There's a balance between the two, giving an optimal spacing for a given heatload:

From the simulator there's also another interesting trend - as the input heatload decreases, the optimal fin spacing (fin-pitch) increases, which means I need to optimise the heatfin spacing for the air-water delta T I want to aim for...

The simulator mathematically models a heatsink made from two copper plates held at a set temperature with heatfins that run perpendicular between them, so it's not exactly what my heatsink design is, and in adapting it to model my design I'm not entirely sure how to adapt mine to it, since my design has 48 6mm outer diameter, 4.8mm inner diameter tubes running through the heatfins. I'm unsure as to whether I should adapt it so I equalise the inner heatpipe surface area (4.8mm)to the end-heatplate- to-heatfin surface area in the model, or the outer heatpipe (6mm) surface area... Hope that makes sense!

I altered the parameters to assume just two end heatplates as in the original design, to give a conservative estimate of the performance, and the heatfin spacing (1 heatfin per 10mm, so about 9.1mm between each heatfin). This gave around a 300w heat transfer for a delta of 10C between the air (20C) and the heatpipe/water temperature (30C). But as I say, this is hopefully the worst-case scenario (though the model uses copper-copper joins rather than soldered joints...). A point to note is that the model only calculates the heat transfer from the heatfins - it excludes the heat transfer from the copper tube surface area (~11,000cm^2) and the copper wall (~3,600cm^2).

PIC WORSTCASE SCENARIO (spacing of 10mm on the x-axis)

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/bac48c73.jpg

Adjusting the model to equalise the end plate-to-heatfin surface area in the model with the tube-to-heatfin surcace area gives silly numbers (~560W heat transfer at a 0.5C Delta T, 400W for a 0.4C Delta T).

The real performance will probably lie somewhere inbetween - whilst the best case scenario is probably largely correct in terms of more accurate surface area for the water to transfer heat to the pipes and fins, the model assumes continuous copper joints, and inaccuracies in hole size and loss from soldered joints (~96% tin/ 3.5%Silver/0.5% copper solder) will no doubt lower performance.

Anyhow, enough hypotheticals, here are some pics of where the project is up to at the moment.

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/7a932254.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/89f44b6a.jpg




After drilling the heatfins I found the holes were marginally too small, using a digital Vernier, in th order of a few hundredths of a mm.

PIC OF DIGITAL VERNIER

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/498880be.jpg

So I decided to erode them down slightly by putting them in a drainpipe full of vinegar and harpic toilet cleaner (since it's hydrochloric acid based). I must say, looking through household detergent ingredients for the strongest acid in the supermarket made me feel like a terrorist!

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/fdec29fd.jpg

PIC OF TUBES IN DRAINPIPE
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/4ce245d0.jpg

PIC OF TUBES OUT OF DRAINPIPE
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/7be5c461.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/5ac89b19.jpg

I then used a microbore pipe bender to make the bends in the pipe. It's a handy little tool, but unfortunately they put far too much paint on it, meaning the measuring bits and the 6mm tube channel was too small, meaning the tube wouldn't get equal pressure around it when bending and would deform too much for my liking. After a quick bit of paintstripping with Nitromors I bent the tubes for insertion into the copper wall. This was a bit fiddly; in order for the bends to line up exactly with the drilled holes I needed to know amount of length the bend took. After a few annoying mishaps, annealing and restraightening I got the tubes bent accurately.

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/fb86dc27.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/4499e942.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/cf05e0c1.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/ef055ab2.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/4499e942.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/8f9bffc2.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/828fb384.jpg

After inserting all the tubes I could then start putting the heatfins on.

I ran into a bit of a problem when putting the fins on - they're a tight fit and the smallest angle off horizontal, or pipe angle off vertical means they can be tricky to get on. It's a bit of a trade-off between tight fitting fins with minimal gaps (less solder and better heat transfer) and ease of putting the thing toether. The fins are pretty tight, and in gently hammering them ona few of the tubes were pushed too far down, which you can se in the pic. Luckily, using the pipe cutter without the cutting blade inserted it's possible to grip the tube and push it back through the heatfins.

PIC OF PIPE CUTTER MINUS BLADE

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/0557e7b8.jpg

There's only 11 heatfins on in various temporary positions (finished article will have 74 fins);

PICS WITH HEATFINS

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/cd3ccdd7.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/df9136d3.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/221445b7.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/3e565fa8.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/d682cf2a.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/2262c527.jpg

I've just got the solder and flux and need to make a watertight box tonight to deoxidise the copper in a vinegar bath before, and after soldering them with a propane/butane blowtorch, since it'll oxidise all the surrounding copper. Anyone know of a place I can get lots of cheap, relatively strong acid? Not sure where to get it and any regulations - was told by a car bits shop that they can't sell battery acid (~35% sulphuric acid) these days. I could probably make do with distilled vinegar but it'll be expensive for the amount I need and take a long time as it's weak.

Roughly how the removable motherboard tray will sit (looks a little tighter height-wise than it will be due to the top pipes being a little bent down atm). The PSU will sit behind at the bottom, fan facing down.

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/8a792cca.jpg

A sheet of 2mm styrene that was lying around:

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/8c2e3d0e.jpg

Heatgun:
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/b6189ab2.jpg
Bending:
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/141a5ed7.jpg

A quick and dirty tray to bath it in. So quick and dirty that it leaked:o, so it has an outer box lined with plastic sheet a mattress came in - now it's in the styrene tray to avoid cutting up the plastic lining:
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/080f2373.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/f31b5fe4.jpg

Deoxidising:

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/44ec65d5.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/0615d680.jpg

Shiny:
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/e4fc0489.jpg

Making solder slinkies. :)

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/73b0ca4c.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/5bb5aef2.jpg

After cutting to solder rings - not sure how many are in the bag, probably a thousand or so.

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/1cea4595.jpg

Blowtorch - gets up to temperature okay. :)
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/4029aae3.jpg

Various bits for putting fins on and soldering:
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/6837a2ea.jpg

Fin in place with 9mm thick wooden spacers for straightening the fins (they need to be hammered gently into place and deform a little in the process)
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/5472ce88.jpg

Solder rings put around the pipes - it's quicker to put them on like this, with a fin above, near the pipe ends, as it made putting the fins on a lot quicker.
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/3207ea32.jpg

Solder rings after tightening with needl-nosed pliers (surprisingly quick and easy).
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/144a8ad2.jpg

A freshly soldered fin on top: The fins are a bit rainbow coloured from scale slowly being removed by the weak acid bath - hopefully it'll all go - the bottom fins are quite pink. It was pretty disconcerting to see the shiny copper scale up and get covered with burnt flux, as it didn't seem to get removed at first. I'm a bit concerned about the acid possibly attacking the solder joints - I may switch to cleaning it only at the end when all in place and using a fine wire brush to clean the pipe before soldering.

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/581adbc3.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/94ab65cd.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/38a3419f.jpg

Unfortunately I couldn't correct the bend that got pushed too far through (3rd from the left at the bottom). :( A few of the first fins are a little bent as well, though they'll be mostly out of sight behind the motherboard tray.

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/18eca4f5.jpg

I changed the method by which I put the fins on;- before I had deooxidised the copper pipe prior to putting new fins on, now I instead changed to using strips of 120 grit wet'n'dry with sellotape on the back to strengthen, which I used to sand about 4cm of the pipes, flux and slide fins on (I had already filed the holes of):

PIC OF SANDED PIPES

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...ictures983.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...ictures967.jpg

All the heatfins are now on, and the pipes have been trimmed down.

PICS OF MONSTROSITY

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...ctures1015.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...ctures1042.jpg
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...ctures1047.jpg

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http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...ctures1015.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...ctures1030.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...ctures1036.jpg



I've decided to make the manifold/plenum from copper - it'll have an inner box made from thin copper (0.152mm thick) joined to the end fin by solder paste, and strengthened with some of the thicker 0.9mm thick copper made from 4 leftover copper strips I had.

My friend Robin has some nice tools and machines, so I asked him to maked the inlet, outlet, fillpoint and drain port for the radiator from the 25mm diameter copper bosses I had.

PIC OF LATHE

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...ctures1058.jpg

After making 11.8mm holes with the lathe the copper bosses were tapped on the lathe with a BSP 1/4 tap, cut with a circular saw mill bit and then fly-cut on the mill to give a beautiful smooth shiny surface, which doesn't really come across in the photos:

MACHINING

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...ctures1060.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...ctures1065.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...ctures1071.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...ctures1056.jpg

PORTS DONE -

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...ctures1086.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...ctures1093.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...ctures1095.jpg

I'd bought a roll of thin copper when I started the project:

PIC OF COPPER ROLL

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...01/pics038.jpg

PIC OF ROUGHLY HOW THE BOX WILL GO TOGETHER
The sides look angled and messed up at the moment, since only some of the flaps of copper have been soldered together. I need to be able to open the box at this stage in order to press it against the end-heatfins to make good contact when being soldered to the side of the box with the slits (the pipe ends will protrude through these slits). The rest of the thin-walled box will then be closed up and soldered into place, and reinforcing 0.9mm copper strips soldered to the outside of the box and the inlet, outlet, fillport and drain port soldered on.


http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...ctures1096.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...ctures1097.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...ctures1111.jpg
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...ctures1114.jpg

Time for a proper picture update - now has end-boxes and leak-tested.

Taken to be bead-blasted yesterday - not perfect, and not shiny due to being blasted with tiny beads, but instead now a matt pink. Still, gives itmore surface area I guess. Still needs some tidying up.

The aluminium plates have been cut and the ends of the copper fins slotted into place. They'll be glued into place with araldite 2011 epoxy. The plates will have steps cut to sit flush with the upright aluminium angle.

Here's lots of pics - they're a bit muddled up atm, soi'll probably clean up this post a bit later....


http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd96/tcg001/241.jpg
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd96/tcg001/238.jpg
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http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd96/tcg001/263.jpg
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http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd96/tcg001/300.jpg
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd96/tcg001/291.jpg
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd96/tcg001/290.jpg
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd96/tcg001/272.jpg
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http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd96/tcg001/281.jpg
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd96/tcg001/275.jpg

before bead-blasting; leak-and flow-testing:
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...-Copy-Copy.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd96/tcg001/219.jpg
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd96/tcg001/214.jpg
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd96/tcg001/193.jpg

Pic showing aluminium plate with slots cut and copper heatfins sat in slots:

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd96/tcg001/273.jpg

Update time!

Lots of countersinking and tapping.

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/DSCF3239.jpg

The motherboard tray will sit further back towards the back wall, but the countersunk screws poking through from the back aluminium frame just happen to be the right distance apart to go through the motherboard tray holes....
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/DSCF3237.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/DSCF3233.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/DSCF3238.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/DSCF3240.jpg

one of the 19mm anti-vandal switches (photographed badly!). It's anodised-black aluminium with white light. I'm still undecided as to whether to anodise all the aluminium black or have it mirror-polished aluminium..

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/DSCF3218.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/DSCF3207.jpg Needs a bit of filing down to tidy up but getting there. :)

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/DSCF3209.jpg

Not fully screwed together and epoxied into place yet so sitting on a box atm. The aluminium frame sits very snugly in the slits for the copper fins.

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/DSCF3205.jpg

The copper back wall got warped from bead-blasting. Should bolt to the aluminium easily enough though.

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/DSCF3203.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/DSCF3196.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/DSCF3197.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/DSCF3199.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/DSCF3185.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/DSCF3202.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/DSCF3188.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/DSCF3186.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/DSCF3212.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/DSCF3239.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/DSCF3190.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/DSCF3191.jpg

Sadly my friend cut one of the logos the wrong way up.
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/DSCF3194.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/DSCF3330.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/DSCF3328.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/DSCF3326.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...DSCF3318-1.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/DSCF3313.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...DSCF3307-1.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/DSCF3304.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/DSCF3302.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...DSCF3305-1.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/DSCF3310.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...DSCF3311-1.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...DSCF3316-1.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/DSCF3324.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...DSCF3320-1.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/DSCF3321.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...DSCF3328-1.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/DSCF3322.jpg

Time for an update!


(Photos taken on my n97 so not the best quality I'm afraid.)

First, I decided to attach the GPU block to the GPU. I bled the loop to take the tubes offf the block, and decided to open the CPU block whilst I was at it...

And this is what I found - lots of resin gunk must have come off when I degunked the top fill-port thread (more of that in a minute) and so the previous temperature testing was done with water only flowing into about 1.5 of the 13 impingement slits, cooling only two narrow strips about 5mm wide.

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...3072010333.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...3072010338.jpg

I then added the graphics RAM heatsinks. I was going to cannibalise the single-slot stock cooler on my 4850 as it has nice big sections of widely spaced tall copper pins to cool the VRMs. Except after dremeling about a mm into the stock cooler I realised the stock cooler was just aluminium anodised with copper-coloured dye. Damned charlatans!

So instead I opted to cannibalise an old VRM heatsink from my old x1900xt (the pinky-crimson coloured bits) as they're widely spaced fins an nice and tall, combined with an aluminium heatsink that's supposed to go onto 8800gtx VRMs I think.

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...3072010330.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...3072010324.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...3072010326.jpg

I then replumbed the loop, started the machine up and did some more temperature testing....

With a degunked HK3.0 waterblock and with the 4850 GPU also in the loop, with the core i750 at 4.2Ghz using 1.43volts vcore it was maxing out at about 55C running intel burn test with the maximum stress I could (about 3.5GB of RAM). :) During gaming (Arma II) it maxed out at around 50C.

Previously, with just the CPU in the loop it had been reaching 72 in intel burn test in my toasty room.

It idles slightly higher now after degunking but with the GPU in the loop, at around 30-32C compared to 26c before.



Sadly, a minor disaster struck. When I cast the thick polyester resin over the top and bottom manifolds/plenums, some resin had managed to find its way under the mold top glued to the top fill-port, and a little bit into the screw thread for the fill cap. I'd tried to dissolve it out using acetone on cotton buds, but with no joy. I stupidly decided to try scraping it out, and in doing so the thread got a bit worn and slightly mangled. Then when I tried to screw in the top fill-port plug it was really tricky to get it to seal, and I needed to screw it in really tight. Then I screwed it in too tight, heard creaking, and the copper fill-port (the 1" diameter x ~5mm cooper ring with the thread inside) sheared at the soldered joint attaching it to the 1mm thick copper wall of the plenum, like so:

PIC SHEARED FILLPORT

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...7072010359.jpg

It will be fixable, and I'll recast resin into the bits where shards have come off...

So then I did a horrible thing to a very pretty waterblock. As I didn't have access to a lathe or a 11mm odd drill bit, I decided to cannibalise an EK x1900xt fullcover copper waterblock to make a replacement fillport...

pic cannibalised waterblock

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...7072010382.jpg

After a bit of filing and sanding I was left with this; a shiny new fillport.

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...7072010342.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...7072010354.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...7072010360.jpg

However, there's now resin covering the plenum, so it can't be soldered on. I didn't want to risk it coming off again so I bought a 2mm countersunk drill bit and some m2 countersunk screws, and set at it with my weedy bench drill.

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...7072010348.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...7072010353.jpg

Here's a comparison of the thread on the old and new fill-port:

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...7072010361.jpg

With 6 screws attaching the fillport to the 1mm thick copper wall it should be able to resist being screwed in. :)

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...7072010378.jpg


http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...7072010367.jpg


http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...7072010369.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...7072010366.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...7072010373.jpg

So that's roughly where it's up to at the moment. I’m currently in the process of filing and sanding down the aluminium frame to a mirror-finish; I’ll post an update with pics soon.

Any questions welcome. :)

wow that work is awsome! keep up the good work!

:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

There are no words to describe how awesome your word have been. I'm afraid even Xtremesystems is not extreme enough for what you did.

Kudos, muy friend, because what you did was insane :up::up::up::up::up:

Nice work:up: Very Inspirational

Totally friggin awesome.

bravo! :clap:

Great project

How about cooling performance compare to normal WC Rads?

Now thats cool!

Very interesting concept. Can't imagine how much it will weigh completely filled. If you wanted, you could add a large fan on top to circulate more air around the entire case, but based on the temps you have shown I am not sure if it would be necessary or beneficial. Nice work and keep the updates coming.

erm . Now that's a MONSTA rad pmsl.

Indeed.. That is awesome :D:D:D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by PatRaceTin

Great project

How about cooling performance compare to normal WC Rads?

---

Thanks for the nice comments guys!

It idles at around 30C-ish with an i750 at 4.2-4.3 using 1.43vcore and with the overclocked 4850 GPU in the loop. Don't have a thermometer unfortunately so don't know what the ambient is. At load in Intel Burn Test it stabilises at low 60's celcius IIRC. Gaming gets to low 50s max, Orthos low to mid 50s. Need to get some temp probes and do some proper testing really as the extent of performance testing so far is pretty much leaving IBT running hundreds of loops, come back in an hour or two, have a look at temps. Play games for a few hours or so, look at temp readout occasionally. The trouble is, the HK3.0 keeps getting gunked up with rubbish. Should stay clear now hopefully.

In terms of flow and pressure loss, with an XSPC edge, 2m of 1/2" tubing and using a 10w DDC with alphacool top with the outlet going into a 5 gallon container, it gave a flowrate of 1.87gpm. Martins flow estimator gives a figure of around 2.1gpm for an xspc edge, 2m of tubing, 10w DDC with top and a pa120.3, for comparison. Think it works out as restrictive as about 3 120.3-type radiators. Running an 18w DDC doesn't seem to make much difference. I'll do some proper testing when I have a controller for the pump.:)

As it's fanless it relies much more on radiative cooling to get rid of heat than normal pc water cooling radiators. When doing stability-testing runs or gaming I can't really feel any air rising through it, just a warm glow. Might just be that the air's coming off a large surface so very slow airspeed, but sitting it on its side (so the fins are horizontal) only has a small effect of CPU temps as far as I can tell - I'd guess a few degrees.


The copper is still reasonably unoxidised, and still has burnt tacky flux from rosin-core solder used to solder the fins on where the bead-blastier didn't get to every nook and cranny between the fins and pipes. The emissivity of it (how good it is at radiating heat) is probably still pretty low. A perfect radiator has an emissivity of 1 (termed a black-body radiator). Polished copper has an emissivity in the region of about 0.05. Fully oxidised copper about 0.6 iirc.


So the heat transfer can be improved by coating the fins with a thin, high-emissivity coating. Paint (of all colours) is great for this (emissivity 0.92-0.95), but also tends to be quite thick so acts as a thermal blanket and lessens heat transfer by conduction to the air. I'm trying to find a finish that'll be a great thermal radiator and also very thin. So it's probably going to get electroplated at some stage when I work out what would be best to electroplate it with. The difference should be pretty big - If the fins in my project were mirror-polished Copper they would radiate very little - 600W less heat compared to if they were painted, at 40C for the fin temperature and an ambient of 20 C(assuming the heat transfers okay to the air and doesn't simply continue to pass through and get absorbed by the fins next to them).

If anyone has any ideas for electroplating copper heatsinks I'm all ears! :D

Now THAT is a water cooled case. mad props to you.

Thats pretty dam impressive there! I'm now tempted to make something the same!

dude you must have put alot of man hours into that thing :rofl: why not just get some mora 2 or 3 pros for a passive system :shrug: nice fabrication work nonetheless :up:

Hats off to you. Great stuff.

my scrolling finger hurts, for a good reason.
excellent work, you should put a temp probe on some copper to see their temps, relative to your cpu/gpu temp

A lot of problems in this build :eek:

Hi,

Lotta work;)

Gives me get the urge to go out and buy stock in Copper companies;)

Later:D

awesome work!!!

but IMHO 2 car radiators (for engines) with rare fins will cost MUCH less money, time and efforts. and in Your case "warm" air from bottom section goes up, pick some heat from MB/video/ram, and than "cool" upper section?
any tests with separated airflow for sections (cardboard etc.) possible?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Vetalar

awesome work!!!

but IMHO 2 car radiators (for engines) with rare fins will cost MUCH less money, time and efforts.

---

This is XtremeSystems mate :up::up::up:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Vinas

A lot of problems in this build :eek:

---

Are you saying you see something everyone else missed or commenting on what the OP has already stated?

Looks totally cool !!!!

Very impressive!

Holy smokes that thing is a beauty :)

Wow :shocked::shocked::shocked::shocked::shocked:

really great job, congrats to you mate.

Install an inline filter that uses stainless steel mesh before the loop That will catch and gunk floating around before it gets to your waterblocks. Then you can clean that every now and then if/when you need to.

Gotta love EES, someones a mech eng. Loving the build, also learning EES in one of my classes right now haha.

Very nice build...

Wow, that's amazing.
If this doesn't end up as mod of the month on some website.... man.. i don't know what will.

I can't even imagine what something like this would cost if it was sold....

The words 'EPIC BUILD' does not even come close to describing this insane build :yepp: :clap: :shocked: :up:

LEGEND in the making :yepp:

Monkey - Congrats, one of the very few projects here at XS, that was actually designed from a true heat transfer point of view. For a week or so, I was doing a worklog of my most recent build when a poster asked me about passive heat flow and radiance. I didnt want to besiege him with math, so I had intended to answer that is a column standard radiator form (what you have), you need something like 28,400 grams of thin copper to conduct a roughly 500 watt radiance and stay at 50 deg C. (of course, as you read from the heat transfer text, 3D configuration is utmost in passive radiance)

Now I wish I would have had your pictures to show instead , LOL. Much simpler.

sweet lookin rad/case... will be looking forward to seeing this one finish up... great idea

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Vinas

A lot of problems in this build :eek:

---

Like? :shrug:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Utnorris

Very interesting concept. Can't imagine how much it will weigh completely filled. If you wanted, you could add a large fan on top to circulate more air around the entire case, but based on the temps you have shown I am not sure if it would be necessary or beneficial. Nice work and keep the updates coming.

---

I think I worked out it weighs around 34-35kg (5st) fully filled with hardware and water (it holds about 1.7 litres of water btw). Weighs about 25kg unfilled. Very heavy but not unmanageable.

I have dabbled with the idea of running some fans. Would probably go for 9 x 120mm fans on an automated fan controller though as there are much higher quality fans available in that size. I bought a sanyo denki 9S1212L401 1500rpm fan and a 1450rpm Scythe gentle typhoon, and whilst they're both superb fans (if somewhat pricy), they're unnecessary as temps are fine atm. Who knows, might go for that if I start runing multi-GFX cards down the line and temps get out of control. Would be nice to have fans that stay off until temps get dangerously high.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Vetalar

awesome work!!!

but IMHO 2 car radiators (for engines) with rare fins will cost MUCH less money, time and efforts. and in Your case "warm" air from bottom section goes up, pick some heat from MB/video/ram, and than "cool" upper section?
any tests with separated airflow for sections (cardboard etc.) possible?

---

Thanks Vetalar!
Two car radiators would suck for passive airflow though.:confused: Why would someone design and build their own case from scratch in order to save time and money?:confused: besides which, watercooling has come on a bit since car radiators...

I don't think the heat from the motherboard makes a massive difference tbh. I mean, Mobo cooling blocks are really for aesthetics rather than anything else... I could stick some cardboard around the motherboard, but as the system is designed to run fanless it seems a little pointless as I'm not going to add a fan to cool it! Plus the motherboard etc adds its heat to the water when it is warmest, when it has just entered the radiator..

The case is actually designed to make act as a counter-current exchanger with warm water from the loop entering at the top, getting cooled by air that has already warmed slightly and risen through the case, going down the pipes against the flow of rising air, and then going throught the finned pipes at the bottom and being cooled with the coolest air. Of course, more heat would be transferred to the air if no fins were cooled by any slightly warmed air and only received fresh cool air, but that's not possible in this situation due to space limitations. It's a good solution for transferring heat, chemicals etc used widely in biological and industrial processes and systems. Having said that, as nice an idea as it is, I recently plumbed the loop up with the water going first into the bottom and I'm not sure how much difference it actually made to the temps.:p:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jtdigital

dude you must have put alot of man hours into that thing :rofl: why not just get some mora 2 or 3 pros for a passive system :shrug: nice fabrication work nonetheless :up:

---

Yep, a lot of hours. But even though tedious in parts (ahem, soldering 4000 joints:rofl:), I enjoyed making it.:shrug: Sort of like people who wax their car. Not much fun, and time-consuming, and that dust and grime isn't actually doing much so what's the point?...

It's not about costing money really. I naively mentioned when I started this project that current passive-cooling tubes like Innovatek Konvekt-o-matik or Cape Cora tubes cost a lot. The reality is that scratch built cases cost a lot in time and materials. Even with getting copper at much less than what the metal is worth as scrap (I paid about £100 for over 25kg of it already cut to strips for me) the project has still cost over £300 I think for raw materials. But people don't make cases to save money over a case off the shelf. They do it because it's a hobby, just as making your own furniture is an expensive hobby compared to buying a set of chairs from a Swedish furniture warehouse.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Manicdan

my scrolling finger hurts, for a good reason.
excellent work, you should put a temp probe on some copper to see their temps, relative to your cpu/gpu temp

---

Yeah, I'm planning to get an aquaero and have temp probes in the water (before and after rad maybe), simple flat probe for ambient and one stuck for heatfin temp to get an idea of water to heatfin delta and see how much heat is likely being dissipated by radiating and how much by conducting.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Vinas

A lot of problems in this build :eek:

---

Yeah, the main problems were from sealing the ends. It's big enough that making molds for sealing the plenums (in polyester resin) and before that keeping bits clamped together for sealing with solder and epoxy is a :banana::banana::banana::banana::banana:. Plus I was a litle impatient at times - only recently got it with me and so before that work was restricted to weekends etc. so work did tend to get a bit rushed when I knew I could only get a day or two's work done.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by EnJoY

Install an inline filter that uses stainless steel mesh before the loop That will catch and gunk floating around before it gets to your waterblocks. Then you can clean that every now and then if/when you need to.

---

Hmm, never liked the idea of filters. There shouldn't be bits of crap in your loop anyway, so a steel sieve causing massive restriction and getting clogged up seems pointless. Even if there is rubbish in the loop, a microfin block will get clogged up and collect it for removal anyhow.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rukks

Gotta love EES, someones a mech eng. Loving the build, also learning EES in one of my classes right now haha.

---

I'm not an engineer, though I did some basic haemodynamics (basic fluid mechanics) covering Poiseuille's law, laminar and turbulent flow etc. at university a few years back. I just stumbled across EES when looking for freely available modelling software. It's a nice little program, though the numbers are out for my set-up and it doesn't explicitly state how it's modelling and what assumptions it's making, which makes interpreting what it says difficult. That's probably my fault though. :D:ROTF: I just downloaded the free version; I didn't have any classes or the accompanying textbook to explain it.:(

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ryan92084

Now THAT is a water cooled case. mad props to you.

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tetrafluorometh

Thats pretty dam impressive there! I'm now tempted to make something the same!

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by affiliate13

Hats off to you. Great stuff.

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SuperPhrank

Very impressive!

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by vhaarr

Holy smokes that thing is a beauty :)

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Huww

Wow :shocked::shocked::shocked::shocked::shocked:

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by leo_bsb

really great job, congrats to you mate.

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by meanmoe

Very nice build...

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by alpha0ne

The words 'EPIC BUILD' does not even come close to describing this insane build :yepp: :clap: :shocked: :up:

LEGEND in the making :yepp:

---

Thanks all! :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by avddreamr

Wow, that's amazing.
If this doesn't end up as mod of the month on some website.... man.. i don't know what will.

I can't even imagine what something like this would cost if it was sold....

---

Sadly not - was entered for Bit-tech's MOTM competition back in January at the stage where it was just burnt-flux-covered heatfins soldered to tubes. :(

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jayhall0315

Monkey - Congrats, one of the very few projects here at XS, that was actually designed from a true heat transfer point of view. For a week or so, I was doing a worklog of my most recent build when a poster asked me about passive heat flow and radiance. I didnt want to besiege him with math, so I had intended to answer that is a column standard radiator form (what you have), you need something like 28,400 grams of thin copper to conduct a roughly 500 watt radiance and stay at 50 deg C. (of course, as you read from the heat transfer text, 3D configuration is utmost in passive radiance)

Now I wish I would have had your pictures to show instead , LOL. Much simpler.

---

Cheers Jay. I don't think the mass of copper's important other than allowing heat to flow throughout it - I'm using 0.9mm thick copper and I'm sure that's massive overkill for ensuring heat is spread easily and evenly throughout the heatfin surface, akin to cabling up an LED with pylon cable.. Commercial watercooling radiators use incredibly thin fins... As it happens those figures happen to be pretty similar to what I calculated though - I have 4.3m^2 of radiative surface area which gives a figure of 630W of purely radiative cooling (for a black painted surface; emissivity 0.95 and with a surface temp of 40C and an ambient of 20C IIRC)... Wish I could find the online heat radiation calculator I was using..

Update time!

Not a massive update, but took quite a bit of time. I've been tidying up the aluminium frame. It had been covered in polyester resin, which was a nightmare to get rid of. I've sanded the frame down , though it still needs more work and there are still some small blemishes and scratches that I need to get rid of. I'm not 100% how necessary a mirror-shine is, since I plan on anodising the frame either gun-metal/carbon grey or black.

Anyhow, here's some pictures. Enjoy!

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/P1000954.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/P1000957.jpg

And here's the back of it. The slits are for the 37 copper heatfins to sit in. They'll later be set into these groves, probably using polyester resin.

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/P1000965.jpg

Here's the right-sided upright aluminium angle leg. The row of 9 holes is to attach to the copper wall of the radiator. The 3 finger cuts set into the top and bottom are to accommodate the copper pipes of the radiator.

The slit is for a slimline slot-loading DVD drive to sit behind. Still planning on a no-5.25" design for the front.

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/P1000968.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/P1000971.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/P1000972.jpg

Here it is with the counter-sunk screws in. The one on the bottom left is stuck in place - think I must have forgotten to tap all the way through and it's got caught in the aluminium. :( I'll have to drill it out on the bench press next time I go visit my folks. Until then I can't sand around it or disassemle those two pieces. I still need to adjust the countersunk holes slightly to get the screws exactly flush, but most of them are level with the surface.

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/P1000976.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/P1000977.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/P1000978.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/P1000980.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/P1000981.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/P1000983.jpg

And here it is assembled:

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/P1000987.jpg

Might take some better photos later on.

sick :up: bravo mate

Time for an update. :)

I decided to replace the backpanel I'd used from another case that has the fan hole. It's a bit dusty.

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...P1010029-1.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...P1010030-1.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...P1010034-1.jpg

I wanted to have a simple aluminium back panel.

To have it sit flush with the aluminium frame a 10mm x 1.5mm step was milled from the inside side of the aluminium top and bottom frame and a 1.5mm sheet of aluminium cut and filed to leave the 1.5mm back panel sitting flush with the frame on the inside:

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...P1010015-1.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...P1010017-1.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...P1010025-1.jpg


Next thing will be to cut out the hole for the I/O and PCI bracket to sit it in. This is going to be inserted from the back so you can't see the folded aluminium of the motherboard tray where it attaches to give a cleaner look when viewing from the inside of the case.

I used a stepped drill to make the 2 19mm holes for the antivandal switches; one for power, and one will be wired up to replace for the button of the slot-loading slimline dvd drive.

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...P1010012-2.jpg

There had previously been holes in the 1/4 aluminium frame that were made from machining bits breaking when milling the slots the copper fins sit in as so:

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/P1000985.jpg

To hide these I had a 1.5mm deep stepped section cut out for an aluminium cover plate to sit in. This will have front panel ports; USB (USB 3 if I can find some), audio, eSATA and firewire ports, and will allow me to make a new cover panel for different ports etc in future after the 1/4" thick aluminium bit of the frame is permanently secured to the copper radiator.

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...P1010010-2.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...P1010048-1.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...P1010050-1.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...P1010044-1.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...P1010043-1.jpg

I also did a little more countersinking to make the screwheads sit nice and flush.

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...P1010037-1.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...P1010042-1.jpg

Still a bit more to do on some of them though.

Everytime you do an update I feel the need to look over every single photo from the previous posts. Which is fine, but I cant help but spend an hour or two because it puts me into some sort of geek trance, lol.

^_^

Still amazed by this build :clap:

I haven't looked back but it would be cool if the every component was watercooled (you may have it that way)

EES is a semi-good program, useful for fluids and thermodynamics. I'll definitely be using it on my next builds. Check out the built in functions if you haven't already, they will give you some useful feedback.

Yep ... its really some geek :banana::banana::banana::banana: here !

BRAVO !

All I can say after reading and looking thru this is:
God Bless your pointy little head!
You my friend have moved the hobby a step forward..or 10..:rofl:

:clap:WOW!!:clap::clap::worship:

Bit of an update: upgraded my graphics card to a GTX 480 with full cover block. I was a little concerned it might screw up my temps but only seems to have bumped up idle temps 4 or 5C to 32-33C with the GTX480 set to 900MHz core and 2200 for memory at max volts (1.138Vcore). The i5 750 processor is at 4.2Ghz, 1.42Vcore. With Intel Burn Test and Furmark running together I'm getting temps of 49-50C on the GPU and max of 63C on the CPU. :)

The eagle-eyed may spot the severe kink in the primochill 1/2" ID, 3/4"OD tubing between the GPU block and the pump. Think I may need to go for some 45 degree rotary fittings to solve that.

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/P1010095.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/P1010080.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/P1010071.jpg

Here's the 1.5mm thick aluminium backplate. I've cut a hole for the pci/io bracket and an extra 1mm width to allow for the motherboard tray. There's also a hole for the PSU to vent through, though I still need to cut slightly into one of the supporting legs for the PSU kettle plug to go through

The PCI&IO backplate is attached from the back - it's not attached by screws yet - it'll have some countersunk screws hidden behind the pci bracket thumbscrews.

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/P1010092.jpg

I don't have a metal break, so I clamped aluminium angle with G clamps and bent the flap of the backplate above the PCI bracket to a right angle with a hammer against the clamped alminium angle. Unfortunately I missed a few times, and theres two small dents. :( I'll try getting rid of them with by clamping the backplate between two flat plates, but if that doesn't work I might need to use filler and spraypaint the backplate...

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/P1010096.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/P1010112.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/P1010086.jpg


http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...P1010111-1.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...P1010110-1.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/P1010090.jpg

Here's a poor photo of the back of the case:

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/P1010089.jpg

Not that easy to see, but I've filled in the irregular creases in the polyester coat on the ends. Still needs filling with polyester resin on the top and bottom of the bottom plenum, and then I can sand it down. I'll probably end up spraying the plenums black.

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/P1010103.jpg

I added a ball valve for draining the loop, attached to a bitspower rotary adapter. I had tried a less compact rotary fitting but it leaked. :/

Hidden away...

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/P1010093.jpg

Swiveled round for draining. A 90 degree turn of the black tap and the system drains. :)

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/P1010094.jpg

Wow, now that's massive!!!

This is one of the coolest worklogs I've seen in a while. Mad props.

You should resubmit it to Bit-Tech, this is would win easily. Congrats on such a great job! You have some mad skills and the patience and fortitude to go with it. Awesome job!! One thing that would be utterly over the top would be to polish all the copper to a mirror finish. That would be just friggin awesome.

+1 for polishing the copper. Though unless you want to make re-cleaing it every month a chore you'll need to lacquer it after it's shiny!

That's awesome!

Get your friend to cut you another logo the right way up! You'll want this perfect when it's all done :) If you do stick with polished aluminium, then totally see if it is possible to nickel plate the copper, would look absolutely amazing.

Great work!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Utnorris

You should resubmit it to Bit-Tech, this is would win easily. Congrats on such a great job! You have some mad skills and the patience and fortitude to go with it. Awesome job!! One thing that would be utterly over the top would be to polish all the copper to a mirror finish. That would be just friggin awesome.

---

Cheers buddy - though I don't think I can resubmit it.

The copper would be a nightmare to try and polish - it's been sandblasted for one thing, and it's too fiddly to get between the fins and pipes.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by asura

+1 for polishing the copper. Though unless you want to make re-cleaing it every month a chore you'll need to lacquer it after it's shiny!

---

I'm thinking of using liver of sulphur to blacken the copper - creates a black reasonably durable finish. The thing is that shiny copper radiates very little heat, whereas a black thin coating will still allow convective/conductive cooling with the air and radiate hundreds of watts more energy (for a water temp of around 35C and air 20C) compared to a shiny surface.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by dreamaxx

That's awesome!

Get your friend to cut you another logo the right way up! You'll want this perfect when it's all done :) If you do stick with polished aluminium, then totally see if it is possible to nickel plate the copper, would look absolutely amazing.

Great work!

---

Cheers, but I don't think I'll bother remaking the plate- it's a lot of work; milling 37 slits for the fins, milling an 1/8" deep x 2" step at each end, milling a 1.5mm x 10mm strip on the inside edge for the backplate to sit flush with, countersinking 12 m4 holes and then drilling more holes inside to attach the backplate. That's quite a bit of work to correct something that's not normally seen anyhow. Besides which, he's sold his CNC!

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/079f9d98.jpg

Here's a PSU bracket I've made. Not secured in to the rest of the case yet.
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/dd263820.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/bb785b1b.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/e9b71e5b.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/c7f2e5b9.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/130ab48a.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/9b425941.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/bb785b1b.jpg



It's a little ugly with the screw-heads, but they'll sit hidden under 1cm thick neoprene cushioning. Still undecided on whether to remake the PSU bracket from thick aluminium plate (~1cm thick), and simply cut out the fan hole.

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/c7f2e5b9.jpg

Here's the back of the case from the back

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/ddda97c3.jpg

Here's the back of the case - Using countersunk screws inside means I need to have nuts on this side. The I/O bracket is inserted from the back to unclutter the look inside. However, the 1mm aluminium IO&PCI bracket has flaps to attach to the case. One of these extends down at the bottom where the nut is at the bottom of this pic. To get everything sitting flush a 1mm step was cut into the inside of the thick aluminium frame with a dremel milling bit.

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/6e2f0025.jpg



http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/971c7ca2.jpg

I decided to use more countersunk screws for a nice clean finish inside. :)

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/b3fb2b8d.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/ef6b8902.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/89a4e40e.jpg

IC cooling are kind enough to send out free samples of their Thermal interface material if you agree to test it against your previous paste and send them the results.

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/507fb7ba.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/b63a6ede.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/b98c572a.jpg

So after sorting out the kink in the watercooling loop and testing my previous paste, MX-3, using Intel Burn Test, and using InterBurnTest and MSI Kombustor/Furmark simultaneously (to produce as much heat as possible - around 550W!) I swapped out the TIM and remounted the blocks.

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/2374f134.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/a0b37003.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/f64f31a1.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...1/2c1a9897.jpg

I've made a replaceable front plate for usb, eSATA, audio etc. Still need to get my hands on some USB 3 ports though, so leaving it as just a flat plate for the moment without holes for the ports for now. Anyhow, the plate is removable so I can attach the aluminium plates (the bits with HUSH milled in) to the 37 copper fins with resin (in the 37 slots in the back) once they're ready and anodised, and take out the plate to adapt to attach new ports (or replace) in future if needed. Only a small piece, but filing it to just the right size and the tabs to the right depth by hand took a while!

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...521_092952.jpg

I did have a small tab of aluminium cut almost to size, but it's a different grade of aluminium and I expect it wouldn't anodise to be an indistinguishable colour, so instead I cut and filed a section from the piece of aluminium angle in the picture.

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...521_093737.jpg

The finished piece with some of the tools used to make it... missing the big file...

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...521_094207.jpg

The finished plate (upside down).

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...521_093348.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...521_093053.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...521_093024.jpg

In place, viewed from the back:- I'll need to cut into some of the fins for the USB/eSATA/headphone ports to attach the the little inset plate....

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...521_092306.jpg

In place and screwed down:

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...521_092105.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...521_091955.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...521_091845.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...521_092147.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...521_092242.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...521_092224.jpg

Thanks for reading.

I've been in love with this case when it was an unpolished turd. this this is beaaaaaautiful!

no more teasers? :)

I shudder to think of the cost of all that copper!

Amazing work!

-PB

I don't know if somebody said it defore, and I don't know if you're on this project yet, but the DDC pump works better with high restriction loops. It would be nice to test your little MONSTER with a couple of D5s...