Benji's D5 Thumbscrew Mod

[Benji_w]

Preface

So it's been about 3 years that I've been watercooling now and something that has bothered me to no end is the D5's speed knob. I decided a D5 would be my pump of choice after using a PWM controlled EK DCP 2.2. I love them so much I have 3 of them in separate rigs. 
I had my first one in an XSPC dual bay reservoir so there was no issue for changing the speed, but I new have an EK tube res and a Primochill CTR II res that are mounted upright. Obviously this means the speed knob is underneath and for months now I've been using a flat head screwdriver bit to change my speed. Now if you're reading this then you obviously know the struggle of doing such a blind job of speed changing.

Move on to me thinking up of an easier way to do it, I googled but couldn't find anyone else who has done the mod before which perplexed me somewhat. A simple case thumbscrew is the difference between struggling with a screwdriver bit for about 1 minute compared the the second of turning the thumbscrew.

YOU DO THIS MOD AT YOUR OWN RISK, I DO NOT ACCEPT ANY RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY DAMAGE WHAT SO EVER. THIS MOD REQUIRES THE USE OF A DRILL AND THREADING A THUMBSCREW INTO THE SPEED KNOB. YOU CAN BUY REPLACEMENT SPEED KNOBS FROM PERFORMANCE-PCS.

Tools Required

• A power drill
• A Thumbscrew with 6-32 thread
• Drill bits : 1x 1mm, 1x 1.5mm, 1x 2mm, 1x 2.5mm, 1x 3mm
• Flathead screwdriver
• Your D5 speed control knob

Optional Tools

• A pair of pliers
• Superglue

Method

So to Keep this nice and clear I'll be doing the mod again and taking pictures to add to the thread but at the time of writing this I'll just explain how I did it in numbered steps.

1. If possible drain your loop and remove your pump from the housing you chose when building your system's loop (pump top, tube reservoir, bay reservoir, etc), however if you do not wish to drain your system then skip to step 2.
2. Using the flat head screwdriver, turn the speed all the way up to speed 5.
3. Using the Screwdriver again, put it into the groove between the pump body and cap, gently turn a few degrees to lift the bottom cap up, rotate the pump and lift it gradually, this will stop the cap or pump body from being damaged.
4. Now that you have access to the speed control knob it will either come off with the bottom or you need to gently remove it from it's seat, if it doesn't come free then it might have been glued and you will need to use force to remover it. DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!
5. Now that you have the speed control knob find the centre of the knob and mark it if you'd like in the groove where you would normally place your flathead screwdriver.
6. The size of the thread pitch of a 6-32 thumbscrew is just over 3mm wide, ideally you want to drill a pilot hole with a smaller sized bit rather than just going whole hog and whacking the 3mm drill bit into your drill and making a botched hole. So hold the control knob in a pair of pliers and go with a 1mm drill bit and drill a pilot hole down into the centre of the knob 4-5mm down, enough to accept the length of the screw's thread. You want to do this as level as possible so the drill bit stays central to the knob and doesn't stray off course out the side of the speed control knob.
7. Now I did this 0.5mm at a time so I could correct and errors while drilling the pilot hole bigger and bigger once I hit 3mm I made it a little wider to accept the thumbscrew. DO NOT USE A 3.5mm DRILL BIT THE WHOLE WILL BE TOO WIDE.
8. Now that the hard part is over, take your thumbscrew and hold the speed control knob firmly and screw in the thumbscrew as level as you can. I used a pair of pliers to hold the speed control knob and once the thumb screw was 1 and a half turns in, used a screwdriver to form the rest of the thread.
9. Now unscrew it from the speed control knob and put it to one side.
10. Put your speed control knob back into the D5 pump body and it's seat, remember that you had the speed set to 5 prior to removal.
11. Now replace the cap and then screw your thumbscrew back into the speed control knob. The D5 speed control knob has a post that sticks out from the side and stops due to another bit that sticks out on the bottom cap, this stops you from damaging the knob or seat for the control. Gently screw the thumb screw in, the speed control knob needs very VERY little force to turn so it doesn't need a lot of force.
12. Put your pump back into your housing and enjoy your now very easy life when changing speeds on your pump. 

 

Troubleshooting

Q: Benji, I messed up my pilot hole and now it's too large what should I do?
A: Okay so there are two things you can do here, you could use glue or possibly something else like blue-tac to hold the screw in place, the issue with using glue however, you will really struggle to remove the thumbscrew from your speed control knob in the future. If you're in the USA however a new knob from PPCs costs like $1.50 at the time of writing this so you could just accept that it went wrong as part of the risk of modding and replace it.

Q: Benji, for some reason my speed doesn't match the position it's in?
A: You might not have noticed that the knob changed position when putting the cap back in place and it is now 180 degrees out of sync, remove the Cap and put it back into the correct position. You don't need to remove the pump and bleed your system to do this.

Q: The cap won't go back in to the body?
A: The cap will only go back in one position due to the speed control knob. Rotate it a little so it will fit in place again.

Final Words

Please share images of your mod in the replies and if you have anything to add, please post and I'll change the instructions to which ever is the easiest method or even add multiple ones. I hope you all found the instructions to be clear and accurate, if for whatever reason they're not or you have issues, please please PLEASE post and I can add the information to the post.

Thanks for reading! 

 

 

 

[Enderman]

you really need to fix the formatting for dark theme

 

your copy paste job is horrendous...

[PokeCatz]

11 minutes ago, Enderman said:

you really need to fix the formatting for dark theme

 

your copy paste job is horrendous...

ikr...dark theme users be like ... boi.

[Benji_w]

36 minutes ago, Enderman said:

you really need to fix the formatting for dark theme

 

your copy paste job is horrendous...

 

24 minutes ago, PokeCatz said:

ikr...dark theme users be like ... boi.

Tried to remove formatting but it fucked it all up and I honestly can't be bothered removing it all because you guys need a dark theme. Take it up with the forum devs to fix the issue.

[Enderman]

3 minutes ago, Benji_w said:

 

Tried to remove formatting but it fucked it all up and I honestly can't be bothered removing it all because you guys need a dark theme. Take it up with the forum devs to fix the issue.

its not an issue

when you post something, there is a button at the bottom that says "remove formatting" and that removes the formatting

 

user error =/= forum issue

[Benji_w]

13 minutes ago, Enderman said:

its not an issue

when you post something, there is a button at the bottom that says "remove formatting" and that removes the formatting

 

user error =/= forum issue

When I did that it still didn't remove the issue of the dark background that you're complaining about, so it is a forum issue, unlike the personal issue you have with me. Not sure how else to tell you Endy, but that function failed and I had to use a program to strip it. I would edit the HTML that is being copied but they removed the HTML view? If not could you tell me where it is because I can't see it...

 

Manually edited with Word and repasted.

 

Have a good day.

[NoobCase]

Oh I'm so much doing this mod the next time i have to take the loop apart...  I also need to use a flat head screw bit in blind with barely any room for my hand / fingers....  It's extremely annoying.  Thanks Benji! 

[Benji_w]

Not sure why some replies have been deleted when they where non hostile when I last read them, anyway Could this get a sticky because it seems to be very popular when it's brought up as a mod.

[thekeemo]

37 minutes ago, Benji_w said:

Not sure why some replies have been deleted when they where non hostile when I last read them, anyway Could this get a sticky because it seems to be very popular when it's brought up as a mod.

It will probably be linked to in the mod database.

[Benji_w]

Oh fair enough I guess.