Newish article.. last year. A plan that still hasnt come to fruition yet.. working on it.

NEW WATERCOOLING COMPONENTS

After a delay of several months, where I moved, and did a variety of other time wasting things, I have gotten together my new watercooling components.

The most important thing, and the device that took me the longest to make is my new waterblock. Made out of pure copper, and attached to the CPU and socket with a 3 prong clip, that WONT come loose, this new waterblock will blow everything I have ever made away. Its made out of the discarded base of a Dragon Orb 3 Heatsink Fan.

I attacked it with a metal lathe and made a solid and decent looking Heatsink.

What does it look like... This!

Ok, it doesn't look THAT good..... but I assure it it performs VERY well. Its made out of two halves of copper. What I did was cut the old copper base in half, with the square pins intact. I then used the other half and machined a cavity on the inside, I then soldered this to the base with conventional solder. I then mounted it back onto its classic aluminum support bracket. Its similar to my first design, of a central single inlet and multiple smaller outlets. This follows my philosophy of the coolest water on the hottest spot, and then getting the now warm water out of the block as soon as possible.

In this way this is the basic design.. This is a rough diagram of my first block based on a INTEL platform, but gives you a rough idea.

Point A is the coldest water straight from the radiator, and point B is the CPU core, the hottest part. My design ensures the coldest water goes to the hottest part, and gives me the lowest temperatures. Here are some more shots of the waterblock. The clip mechanism is just a generic 3 clip design, that sits on the aluminum plate around the copper block, and holds it into the CPU. The 3 clip design means that it uses all the tabs on the SOCKET A to hold the block down. This increases the stability of the block and reduces the chances of the block falling of the CPU.

Here you see a bottom view of the block. I have fine grade sandpaper to flatten it, and then used a polishing compound to get it mirror finish. I will then be using Arctic Silver 3 as the thermal compound.

Here is a side shot, showing the aluminum base plate and the copper block. The smaller copper pipes are lead soldered into the copper, so it WONT leak.

And here is a top view. Its a rather large solid lump of colour, the 3 prong clip is going to be needed to hold this thing onto the CPU.

Now the next thing I had to take care of was the fact that I had 4 outlets to concentrate back into 1 pipe that will lead it back to the pump, to be pumped back through the radiator. This concentrator, or manifold will have to return the 4 smaller pipes back into the same size pipe as the inlet.

So I got out my copper pipe samples and made this... a 4 into 1 manifold.

Just using 1/2 inch copper tubing, and 4 smaller pieces of pipe the same size as the ones in the waterblock I soldered together this dodgy bit of kit. The waterblock is a final version before production, but this thing still needs more work. Oh and to connect this to the waterblock, I am using 4 short bits of super flexible rubber pipe, so that this manifold can be mounted solidly, without putting undue stress on the waterblock mounting, which could possible lead to the block not sitting on the CPU squarely enough. The next design I intend for this will possibly be a cube of brass, with holes drilled in it to accept the copper pipes, and designed to provide a constant slight backpressure against the waterblock. This back pressure is required to force an even flow through all 4 pipes, and to reduce the chances of an airlock forming inside the block.

So that is the waterblock and its associated hardware. The next few bits of kit I have made are for the other parts of my computer.

In my quest for speed, I have decided to watercool the core of the Geforce 3 ti500 GPU. That will soon be a gf4 ti4600, but for now the gf3 will do. To further facilitate longer life and cooler operation of the components inside my computer, I have also decided to watercool various other bits. I have chosen to watercool my northbridge, and my ICS clock gen which on my motherboard (SL-75DRV2) runs pretty warm, especially when overclocking.

So I need 3 waterblocks, 2 bigger ones for the GPU and Northbridge, and 1 smaller one for the clock gen. So I need a 3 blocks, and a 3 into 1 and 1 into 3 manifolds.

These are my creations. Click the picture to enlarge it...

Ok what we have here are Ex motherboard and video card coolers, encased in plastic and epoxy enclosures that force water through them, in fact creating little water cooling blocks

Like this.....

A good ol northbridge Heatsink....
Add plastic strips...

And a channel inside...

and you get this...

Paint it black and lap its bottom face and you have a miniblock. Those pictures aren't of this revision, they are from my earlier attempts at video card cooling, but the same design applies.

The smallest block is actually part of a larger Heatsink that I have cut down. The northbridge cooler will attach straight onto the northbridge by the pins that you see. The GPU cooler will be attached with my normal method of 2 thing bolts with plastic washers through the video card. The clock gen waterblock will be attached with arctic silver thermal adhesive. So they are my smaller blocks. The works of art are THESE things.

The 3into1-1into3 manifolds.

Made of brass and nickel coated brass hose connectors, machined on a metal lathe and soldered together, these things convert my normal 3/8 (internal diameter of my piping. 1/2 inch external) to the 3 smaller connections.

Since the heat production capability of the devices I am cooling is much less then a CPU they don't need that much cooling water. My CPU will be producing more then 100 watts of heat, the gf3 GPU will probably produce 15 watts or less, and the other devices MUCH less.

Here is another shot of a single manifold

See the 3 holes in the bottom? they go though to the 3 pipe connections on the other end.

Here is another shot...

Very decent looking I may say so myself.

Here is what the whole setup looks like...

When I install it into the computer, I will probably change the length of the pipes, this will have to be done so I don't have excess piping sitting around inside the computer.

Ok after all this comes the important things.. What is going to power these blocks? and what is going to cool the water?

Well I have answered both of those questions in previous articles, but here is a recap.

My new pump, with the in and out plenums installed....

Another view, the inlet side....

And another....

The information of where I got this pump from are in this article...

And of course, the radiator, mentioned in previous articles, and still sitting in the cupboard wanting a REAL use for.. I.E. cooling an ATHLON XP!!!!...

Ok the question you are asking, is how is all this coming together?

It will be similar to the Icebox project, (which by the way never actually had ice in it)

Here is that article....which was er version 9 or something.

The watercooling with these components will be version 12 now... I intend to build this version to last me at least 12 months, through at least 2 more computer upgrades.

When this finally gets built, I will write the article up and you will see how it all goes together.

For now, this is called Project X4. 4 waterblocks, and X for I don't know when the hell I am going to get the time to build this, because its going to take at least a good part of a weekend to put it all together, and test it.

So for now.. ciao!!!

9 June 2002