New TJ07 cooling project...could use your help/ideas

[masaville]

Height 133 mm, laying on it's side, would have to fit underneath that power supply
Lenght 517 mm
Thickness 54 mm + 25mm for the fans - so each is 79mm wide, plus you need room for the barbs using 90 elbow fittings, an extra 70 or so, more is better

Total width would have to be about 228.

According to Lian-li the case measurements are 210x617x625 mm. It's tight. Not sure if it the rad on it's side would fit underneath the base of the power supply mounted on the top.

[Pete]

Well with my PSU tray out, front 120mm thing out and the IO ports my case is 558mm long inside!

155mm base to psu

200mm wide!

Might have to mod the rads, block the ends, drill and tap at ether end making it crossflow stlye!

[masaville]

I got some more parts in yesterday and and in the process of installing them and could use more feedback. I've got two MCP655 pumps and and two EK 220mm reservoirs than I want to install. After spending a bit of time last night trying to figure out how to install them I've come up with these two scenarios. I want to to avoid having the reservoirs hanging over top of the vid cards or other components (unnecessary risk).

Option #1 - internally mounted reservoirs in the drive bay area

-top pump

-bottom pump

Option #2 - rear mounted reservoirs

-pumps not easily visible through the window with a rear mount


I'm looking for a solution that's easy to fill and maintain. I personally prefer the back mount. It looks clean and uncluttered and the reservoirs are small enough that they aren't tacky. Although this does increase tube length by having to route tubes out the back and then back through to the pumps, it will end up being much easier to manage. Tubes also won't be visible out the back as I can run them through a mesh grill at where the bottom 80mm fan was and use the other 80mm fan to cool the tubes at the same time. If I go internal those pumps will be a bit of an eyesore and I can't fit the reservoirs anywhere except in the drive bays.

What do you guys think? See any other possibilities?

[masaville]

Also, what do you think about two colors of fluid for the loops. Say, one green and one blue? Or totally lame? lol

[Istasi]

I think the back-mounted res's looks way easier to manage, and doesn't ruin the look of the case, so I'd go for it.

[Sideroxylon]

I think the back-mounted res's looks way easier to manage, and doesn't ruin the look of the case, so I'd go for it.

Agreed.

[pss75]

Nice setup, coming along nicely. i was looking to get hold of one of those BIX 480's, where did u get yours? I can't see them even on alphacools german site??
Cheers

[masaville]

Nice setup, coming along nicely. i was looking to get hold of one of those BIX 480's, where did u get yours? I can't see them even on alphacools german site??
Cheers

Bought mine locally (North America), but you can pick one up at frozencpu.com. Petrastechshop doesn't seem to have them from the looks of it.

[masaville]

I was racking my brains trying to think of a way to mount those two MCP655s and EK 220mm reservoirs inside. I considered a rear mount, a mount with one inside and one at the back, and several other scenarios. The results for the most part would have been the same. A tubing nightmare and an extra 4 ft of tubing just for a back mount.....bleh!!! So I was trying to think outside the box yesterday (no pun intended) to see what I could come up with.

Well, it's not called modding for nothing now is it??? So I whipped out my Dremel and went to town. Ya baby.....what can't you do with 35000 RPM of raw Dremel power!! (and a pair of safety glasses heh)

So here's what could have been....something like this with tubing everywhere.



And here's what I came up with...

My personal hack of a blueprint schematic....(what can I say, it was done in all of 15 secs)



Twin turbo MCP655s 4tw.....booyah baby!!!!



Note the precision cutting.....haha.....I only lost 2 or 3 fingers in the process, but those babies fit nice and snug now. I never use those bottom bays anway, but I didn't cut out the screw holes just in case.



Listen closely...........you can almost hear the engines revving.



Time to mount the fuel tanks. Nothing a couple of L brackets can't handle. Houston....we have liftoff!!!!



Room with a view....well sorta. Forgot to take the velcro off the last hack mount heh.



And finally, the tubing. I'll probably remove that 90 degree fitting as I only used it as it's 5/8" OD tubing. Two very tight loops.....more on the tubing coming up.



So at the end of the day I ended up with minimal use of tubing and some very short loops going from the rads to the reservoirs to the pumps. These EK reservoirs are very flexible and give you lots of options. Rather than dismounting the reservoirs to fill I'll simply run two fillports down from the top using about 6" of tubing for each. Don't have the fillports yet so that will have to wait a week or so.

Then I got to filling....going with the dual colors. Halfway through filling the second reservoir I noticed leaks and when I carefully examined them I saw how cheap and flimsy this 5/8" OD Tygon crap is. My 3/4" OD tubing never leaked, even after putting it together and taking it apart 10 times. You can't use the standard 1/2" clamps on 1/2" / 5/8" OD tubing with 1/2" barbs either...lame. I'll be pulling this junk off tonight and putting on some proper 3/4" OD Clearflex.

Check it out....my PC just became a public restroom facility. Bah. Hey dude!!! You forgot to flush!



Notice in the background the half filled res with green fluid. That will be sic when it's flowing through under some UV lighting.

So left on the to do list is....
1.retubing the entire rig
2.installing the lighting, fans, and panels
3.adding the fillports.

More pics coming this weekend!!! Hope you enjoyed.

[Sideroxylon]

Nice solution for the res's and pumps. I really like the pump solution. That turned out sweet.

Good job bud!! Keep it up!!

[MikeMK]

Really great job there masaville, loving the way you got the pumps and res's mounted in the front like that. Cant wait to see it all finished

[masaville]

Thanks guys! Your feedback is appreciated.

Few more pics....got the loops filled. Tomorrow the wiring, fans and lighting.








Question - go with the green/blue or all blue?

Any suggestions on lighting? Green, blue, UV cold cathode (it's UV fluid), or ?

[eXceeded]

Wow that is awesome, I might have to steal your design

[RockfordFosgate]

Twin turbo MCP655s 4tw

[MikeMK]

Wow, that really is coming together nicely. BTW, the whole Green/Blue thing looks great as it is imo.

[Hard H20]

Green/Blue looks excellent. Coming along nicely!

[masaville]

Few more pics. Still not finished. Some fans to mount and wiring cleanup. Basically, the wires you see now are all that will show. Everything for the most part is hidden away.






I'll post some quality shots when I'm done.

[Sideroxylon]

Great job bud. That turned out really nice. You should be very happy with that.

[Ten]

Keep the pics cooming looks realy nice.

[masaville]

what is truly amazing about this project is it totally pwns your original design, and that is quite rare to beat a lofty idea blueprint

and to think you got that to all fit in one case and look so good, that makes it even more awesome

lol...my original build looked nasty when I look back on it and compare the two.

[Mankz_91]

very nice build you have there.

Im guessing the GTX480 is doing the GPU's?

or not?

[masaville]

very nice build you have there.

Im guessing the GTX480 is doing the GPU's?

or not?

Yup.

In case anyone is wondering, push vs. pull config on internal radiators with not much room in the case.

Push config is significantly more effective. A whopping 10c increase on GPUs and 5-7c on CPUs using a pull config with two internal rads. Fans running at 1400rpm, probably around 60-70cfm.

Pull is basically useless, you might as well go back to air cooling. If you only have the one rad it might be okay. If you're using an external rad mount it's probably fine to use either.

[ramenchef]

Bah, the pictures died before I could see them.

[Omastar]

Alternatively, you can pick up the phone and call Mountain Mods. I own a TJ-07 myself, but its sitting in my garage and gathering dust. There just ain't no way you are going to squeeze in those high end water cooling ideas into a case that was distinctly not designed with water cooling in mind.

Don't you think mounting a PA120.3 above the case and a reservoir off the back of the case is gross and unsightly ?

Well, as you said, to each his own in terms of what's pleasing to them, aesthetically. External rads, personally, don't bother me in the least. External res, however, does seem kind of pointless to mount externally. Unless you're really strapped for case space (whereupon you'd just buy a case for suited for watercooling), you should always be able to find room for the res inside.

I do like MM's work, though. I may have to call them for my next case.

Edit: Masaville, I can't see any of the pics, either. Bandwidth exceeded.

[Sideroxylon]

Yup.

In case anyone is wondering, push vs. pull config on internal radiators with not much room in the case.

Push config is significantly more effective. A whopping 10c increase on GPUs and 5-7c on CPUs using a pull config with two internal rads. Fans running at 1400rpm, probably around 60-70cfm.

Pull is basically useless, you might as well go back to air cooling. If you only have the one rad it might be okay. If you're using an external rad mount it's probably fine to use either.

Those temp differences are confusing me a bit. When I put mine together, and tested push vs pull, I got only like 1c difference. With pull having a slightly lower temp. Both setups were getting fresh air. One of the biggest factors on how I set mine up was noise. The push config was quite a bit louder than the pull.

I wonder if it has something to do with they way your rads are so close?