Sneil SLI-CF Cascade (56k)

[Sneil]

Wow thanks everyone for the amazing compliments, glad you all like it. There will for sure be plenty of benchmarks to come although im currently out of a rig atm and wont be purchasing a new one until the Nv9800s come out in feb or whenever(hopefully sooner). I may just get a couple gt's to tie me over til then but we'll see, i might just end up waiting the few months though.

I've never thought that handmade MDF case can look such beautiful .

Very clean work .

That valve near henry is blow-off ?

Thanks piotres, recognize the hold down plates? not entirely sure what your seeing, it's the brass threaded valve sticking out horizontally left open at one end.

I also built a cascade case out of MDF. Be sure that you A) perfectly insulate everything which could cause condesation und B) if you use rolls/wheels, do not use only four - use at least 6, because otherwise the base plate will bend and bend until it cracks or touches the floor. (thats from my experience )

edit: looks really nice!

thanks for the advice, although i for this unit im going without wheels altogether, but definatly see your point, this weighs a ton alright.

you should edit matsua for matsu$hita

cascade is great looking
but I am not sure about compatiility with ATI cards
evaps has flat base so you must a take off ihs from card

Done Not sure what you mean about ATI cards? Are the ihs's not flat?

More or less which is the cost of this proyect?

a LOT lol that's all im gonna say, she's expensive

PS: how much does that thing weigh? the case can't have helped I would imagine :P

just went and put her on the scale, 110.5 pounds bare cascade. The case i'd imagine weighs another 15lbs or so. I'll get a final measurement in the end for curiosity's sake.

MDF.... I only have one worry on that one :P Looks real sharp and all.
BTW, is the mounting bracket actually touching Evap? How do you insulate THAT? Curious...

electical will be all be concealed properly, everything important will be in the junction box and there will be ZERO bare wires and will be well insulated.
As for the bracket, if you look carefully its almost already covered by the head insulation and pretty much the entire card and pcie slot will be insulated anyway, don't worry about the bracket, it'll be buried in there.

[Duniek]

Done Not sure what you mean about ATI cards? Are the ihs's not flat?

IHS is little higher than core surface area

[jinu117]

Yikes... didn't know that about ATI card... that can be painful...

[gosmeyer]

Hell of a sweet outfit. Very nice, and I hope the results are as well

[FireLight]

very nice look we waithing to see some action.

[EXPANDER]

very nice

[Sneil]

Thanks guys

In the process of leak testing atm. After 2 days i lost just under 10lbs from 335 to 325lbs on the evap heads. How serious is this leak, or is any leak a serious leak. I wont be seeing pressures like these on the evaps, but is it still worth it to fix it?

Also changed the oil in the 1st stage to POE after modding the compressor, and then brazed it in and am now in the process of pressure testing first stage as well. I think i may have a small leak but pressures may just be stabilizing. If i do my guess is in one of may flared joints. We'll see!

[rockdude14]

wow that all looks amazing

that is really beautiful

[Sneil]

Thanks man

[tim-]

what about temperatures?

10lbs on those pressures over 48H is a small pressuredrop.

how long time did you wait until you registrated pressure? open accessvalve on both high and lowside when charging with nitrogen? did you have any refrigerant in the system when pressuretested?

i assume you didn't have the manifold connected during the pressuretest. if you did, there is proberbly your answer, those refrigerant hoses "swell" during high pressures as long as you don't use those stainless thats available.

regards
Tim

[Sneil]

Your right i did use the manifold. Good to know then, hopefully that's all it was! No, no refrigerant has entered the system as of yet, just nitrogen. Charged only to high side so i waited a good hour for system to stabilize due to txv and compressor restriction. I was using the high side hose to pressure test the evaps while the low side to test first stage so only had the one available. Was reading pressures off the high side gauge that's attached to system, not low side gauge off manifold.

how long time did you wait until you registrated pressure?

Not sure what you mean? So i'll assume then the evap is alrigh, i am slowly dropping in pressure off 1st stage now, but I have the manifold attached. I'll take it off and see what happens. Thanks for the response!

Oh yea and no temps as of yet, just making sure there are no leaks first. I just charged her up to 300psi now on the first stage, no manifold hoses attached, just gotta wait and see what happens... My low side gauge only goes to 150psi, hopefully im not wrecking it!llol if so they're only $20 and ill get 2 that go 30hg to 300psi which i should have done to begin with.

[tim-]

i ment when you charged it with nitrogen til you registrated pressure first time, to have something to compare with after your 48H.

since you get gauges on unit, you don't need any manifold connected to measure pressure. i would recommend you discounnect your manifold and let the unit say during christmas to make sure.

those manifolds/hoses has causing me to much trouble during pressuretesting, both swelling hoses, but also one leaking manifold (supercheap, ordered by mistake ~40usd manifold). it's just too many non known factors involved to be sure what the issue is.

since you get gauges on the unit as already mentioned, use them to measure pressure.

[jinu117]

Extended leak testing for cascade = less thing to worry about later

[Sneil]

You got that right, I'll make sure this is 100% leak free before any refrigerant enters. Don't want to shoot myself in the foot for getting too eager to see some temps.

-tim, thanks man will do. great advice. I'll record the room temp when i mark the pressure for the next test.


So it's already dropped 10lbs since my last post which is after about 2hrs. I've got a suspicious feeling it's the flare joints on the txv. They were good flares and they're darned tight but i got a feeling that might be it. I'd just like to braze in the txv but i'd end up ruining the orifice. I spose I could just braze the one joint to eliminate the potential leak in it and leave the one with the orifice as a flare.

[tim-]

those flare joints is pure pain to deal with if unit is leaking but you can't find it. do you use something like locktite or leaklock in the flare joints? i know it shouldn't be necessary but I would highly recommend that since it really helps.

i would also recommend you to braze the outlet of tvx, especially since it's a big chance/risk you run the unit in vacuum periodically, especially during startup/idle.


regards
Tim

[jinu117]

locktite only on thread and oil on flare. Flaring perfectly (rimming) is one thing lot of people skip on which causes headache though. Loctite is there only for Protection against loosening. Oh... flare copper gasket helps tons too. Only way I do flares when I must (and in cascade, it often becomes requirement...)

[tim-]

jinu:
you are wrong:
loctite is a brand. they have sealant for such as well as refco, they call it leaklock. those products is very common on commersial units, guess why? to prevent eventually leaks in the flare joints..

[Sneil]

well I brazed the one outlet of the txv. I had it tightly wrapped with a sopping wet cloth but the entire thing still got very hot to the touch by the time i was finished. Is that ok? The acetylene torch (no O2)wasn't quite hot enough so it took a while to heat up for the solder to flow, are there any rubber gaskets or heat sensitive parts inside these things that i may have damaged?

ill get a copper gasket for the non-brazed flare and look into the loctite, sounds like just what i need.

[tim-]

well, the txv goes pretty hot sometimes during brazing, as long as you keep your wet shirt on the valve it's probably okay, I've never run into any problems with that.

i would check the loctite, i've been using the loctite 567
http://www.akd-tools.gr/xmsAssets/Fi...octite_567.PDF

i also found this, never used it but it should work:
[ulr]http://tds.loctite.com/tds5/docs/HVACBPJC-EN.pdf[/url]

otherwise you got refos leaklock, absolutly the cheapest but I've heard both happy and unsatisfy customers about that. I got a bottle on the way to find out what I think about it. I've heard it harden during time and cracks, i don't know if i buy that since it's a sealant that shouldn't harden at all.

regards
Tim

[jinu117]

well, the txv goes pretty hot sometimes during brazing, as long as you keep your wet shirt on the valve it's probably okay, I've never run into any problems with that.

i would check the loctite, i've been using the loctite 567
http://www.akd-tools.gr/xmsAssets/Fi...octite_567.PDF

i also found this, never used it but it should work:
[ulr]http://tds.loctite.com/tds5/docs/HVACBPJC-EN.pdf[/url]

otherwise you got refos leaklock, absolutly the cheapest but I've heard both happy and unsatisfy customers about that. I got a bottle on the way to find out what I think about it. I've heard it harden during time and cracks, i don't know if i buy that since it's a sealant that shouldn't harden at all.

regards
Tim

Hmmm interesting. the msds shows that it weakens as it ages with Trichloroethane... (CFC basically). The #1 reason flare joint leaks is due to this... thermal cycle vibration or movement, or worse yet, condensate freezing and thawing (ice's volume gets larger ... at different temps), which makes the joint loose over time... (add that to vibration). Sealants are primarily used in flare for making sure that the nut doesn't get loose IMHO. But of course, people might do it differently out there And quite frankly after reading MSDS... I can't imagine this practice you are talking about is long time proven practice Is there a manual where they specify apply it at the mating surface? I've yet to seen one like that myself while have seen too many that mentions refrigeration oil on mating surface
Of course, I could be wrong but just doesn't feel..... RIGHT... :P

Back to main topic:
Over heating TXV can cause it to malfunction but it won't leak out of there most likely :P orificie would be prime suspect of getting damaged, etc (potentially bulb but I would think such is too extreme). If you were able to touch it after brazing though... I wouldn't think it was too hot. (is it removable orifice one? than you should have brazed it with orificie removed to begin with if possible)
The way to braze it should be flame going away from orifice in order to reduce any extra heat it could have been subjected to in angle. I love Danfoss TUA, TUAE series for this reason. Very easy to braze and I know it will work well

[Sneil]

I was able to remove the orifice so that wasn't in while brazing. I took these pics of the one 1/4" flare that's at the orifice. You mentioned rimming which i don't think I've done. At work ive noticed some of the flares they use have the copper folded over producing a sort of rim and a 2 layer flare if you catch what im saying. Is this what you mean by rimming?

[pepinorang]

So clean ! Piping work is great, case too, I have a similar project so I'm looking forward for some performances tests... Keep working

Bye
p€p|n0r@ng

[jinu117]

That flare will not hold. Cut it again and rim (deburr) using rimmer. Be careful not to get copper pieces in there... not sure how I would go about on already brazed line pointing up like that... What you are thinking about probably is double flare... Flare should look perfectly cylindrical with smooth surface, etc. Even nut might not be able to hold one you made there... Also, it looks like you flared too far out which might work against thread. Moderation moderation

[BiFfMaN]

i agree with Jinu there...redo that flare. What Flare tool are you using? Looks like it caused some stress on the tube under that flare also.

But what i was thinking of doing...was use conical seals and a collar...for a more permanent seal. Yes will ramp up costs also. But its what i been using on aircraft for years. The seals are also copper so they should conform ok.

[BiFfMaN]

But beautiful work so far....