Make your own VPU/GPU/NB water block.

Here is an article i have been meaning to make for a while,
and now have gotten around to finally doing it.

I make a lot of my own watercooling, primarily cos its much
more fun, and cheaper, and you know what you make, and
you know how its gonna work. However, in making your
own equipment, you do need a measure of skill with your
hands, and a few tools, and a place to work, cos it isnt the
kind of thing you just do on the kitchen sink.

Anyways, enough blabbing, time for the pictures!!!
My plan here is to show step by step the making of a
40mm by 40mm by 10mm copper waterblock that could
be used for a video card gpu/vpu, or a north bridge.
You could probably use it on a CPU, but not anything like
modern CPU's which put out way to much heat.

You could use it to cool an older chip, sub-gig. An old
pentium III or amd.

Right. Time for the pics.

Starting... i got a sheet of copper from a hobby supplies.
its 1.5 mm thick pure copper sheet. Not too cheap, but its ok.
I picked up some scrap 7mm OD copper tubing from a
refridgeration store. Thus, i have my plain stock.

So, taking my stock, i measured up some 40mm by 40mm squares
of copper, and using the thickness of 1.5mm x 2 being the ends,
some copper strips to make the sides 7mm wide. I used a guillotine
for this job, because tinsnips bend the crap out of the plates. The
thicker the copper the less this problem becomes, but above a
certain size copper, its impossible to cut with tinsnips anyways.
So go visit your local metal working shop and cut your copper
nice and straight.

Im going to solder this thing together, so to make it much
easier to solder copper, cos it instantly develops a slight corrosion
on the surface, i used a metal polish to clean the corrosion off
and maintain a nice clean surface.

Autosol. Great stuff.

Ok im using a soldering iron running at 400 degrees here, so you
cant do this stuff on a bench, cos it would leech the heat away, and
it would probably burn the bench. So im using an old heatsink
from a pentium II 266 as a support so i can solder this thing
together without losing heat and burning anything.

Ok step one. Time to make a side.
I touched some solder on the corner of a end and a corner of the
bottom plate.

Then, using tweezers, i held the edge upright and soldered it
to the shape i wanted.

Then, letting the heat drop a little in the whole assembly, I soldered
the other end.

I then did that to the other end of the plate.

Then continuied on with each side. I had to use a file to trim the
edges so they fitted together as close as possible.

All four sides done. You have to be careful with soldering copper,
plainly because it IS copper, it conducts heat very well, and if you heat
it up to much, its liable to make every solder joint liquid, and the whole
thing will fall apart on you, and it makes a serious mess. Especially
if it all sticks together.

Now time to make some pipes. This is a VPU/GPU cooler, so it doesnt
have to remove THAT much heat. Its more temperature control. So im
going to use that thing copper pipe shown above. Im going to put
the pipes into the plate vertically, so it wont disturb any components
around the chip being cooled.
So the first step is to make the pipes. I cut 2 lengths of copper from my
scrap copper tubing, and filed them down to smooth. I then polished them.
I used my cordless drill to do the filing and polishing, its a great tool, so
if you ever get some extra cash, invest in a cordless drill. Its GREAT.

Two polished tubes.

Time to drill the holes in the plate.

Soldering the pipes in is NOT an easy job. I made it using a vice, I
held the tube in the vice at the height i wanted and just sat the plate
on the vice jaws. I then held the soldering iron against the corner until
the assembly was hot enough to run some solder around the joint.
You have to be careful with this, because if you apply to much heat
the edges fall off. Even in this case, the solder liquified about half
way along each edge.

Both tubes done. Between each step give it some serious time to
cool down, otherwise it will get so hot that it will fall apart. You have
to judge for yourself, just get it hot enough to do the joint
properly, and then let it sit. DONT MOVE IT while the solder is
liquid, cos it makes the solder joint really weak and maybe even
porous.

Tubes soldered in. Looks pretty sweet huh :D

The next step is internal baffling. This is entirely up to you. You
dont have to use any baffling at all, or as i have done here, put
a few in to route the water around a path to increase surface area.

One done...

And two.

The soldering reduces the copper available to be wetted by the water
but it doesnt matter, cos this is on the TOP plate of the block. The bottom
of the plate will only have a small amount of solder on it. That comes next.

Time for the last step. This is the hardest step, cos it doesnt take much
for the whole thing to come tumbling down. This is the
Bottom plate. All polished and flat.

To ease the soldering of the bottom plate onto the rest of the block,
i ran a bead of solder around the edges of the plate. Dont let the
solder run too far into the plate, cos it reduces the thermal
conductivity of the copper.

And in the same vein, i ran a bead of solder around the edge of the
block edges to match the bead on the bottom plate.

The next step is the hardest. I did it using a blow torch, you could
possible do this with a normal soldering iron, but a torch is the best
tool for the job. What you have to do is sit the bottom plate on
top of the assembled block. You then heat the bottom plate up with
the torch, and it slowly drops down and melts all the solder around
the bead. Because solder is cohesive, it tends to absorb itself into the
gaps and joins like glue. It uses capillary action.
DONT GET IT TOO HOT. Otherwise the whole thing will fall over flat.

Once the plate has dropped onto the cap, and its sitting flat, let it cool
down, any more heat added to it will likely destroy it. Let it cool down
slowly, and then its time to run over any gaps with the soldering iron.
Dont use the torch for this, cos it just makes to much heat. The
soldering iron is good for localised soldering, and even though it may
take some time to heat up a joint, its better then overheating it and
having it die on you.

Here, im sitting the block into the heatsink, and running over the edges
to fix the gaps and smooth over the edges.

After thats done, ITS FINISHED!!!!
This is what it looks like with the soldering finished and pressure testing
it with water to check for leaks.

All done!!!!

To attatch that block to the device requiring cooling you can use a
multitude of solutions, I use a beam of aluminium with 2 holes in each
end, and using long bolts and nuts, clamp the block to the chip. I use
plastic washers behind the nuts to insulate them.

Hope to have helped, if you have any questions, email me.