Building a Wall-Mount Metal Frame for Desktop Watercooling Components

[Windows7ge]

8 minutes ago, IkeaGnome said:

You mentioned having a 3d printer. If that's a normal file it'll have the rounded edge that might mess with you. Would it be possible to print something out that complements that angle, attach the file to something that's 90 degrees and use that to file? 

I'm thinking if I clamp the part off the edge of the table and use some reference surface be it 3D printed or other I should be able to file the metal down to the same plane.

 

This file I'm working with has a square edge.

 

I could also score the metal with a line and file it down to the line. That could work.

[Windows7ge]

I have another great (potentially great) idea. I could possibly create a guide for the hacksaw blade.

 

If I clamp the metal in the miter box with two scrap pieces of wood the divide of which is the cutting line then I could give the blade some direction during each stroke and could possibly end up with a straighter cut.

 

I don't expect perfection but right now I'm looking at a almost 2mm discrepancy which is too much. When I go to do the brazing I can use some 90° blocks and metal clamps to hold it at a perfect angle. The braze will fill whatever gap is left.

 

I will test this idea tomorrow night after work.

[dual290x]

If we were closer in distance, I would have told you to buy some steel, let you borrow some of my tools and bring my welder over (or I load it in my truck) and weld that up in a jiffy.

[Windows7ge]

1 hour ago, dual290x said:

If we were closer in distance, I would have told you to buy some steel and bring it over (or I load my welder) and welded that up in a jiffy.

Part of the issue with that idea is I'm trying to minimise weight. I'm also looking to avoid rust. If I didn't care about either I'd just weld it up but for the sake of weight and corrosion resistance I'm opting for this more difficult material.

[dual290x]

1 minute ago, Windows7ge said:

Part of the issue with that idea is I'm trying to minimise weight. I'm also looking to avoid rust. If I didn't care about either I'd just weld it up but for the sake of weight and corrosion resistance I'm opting for this more difficult material.

Weight can be minimized and still keep the strength needed, and rust is easily avoided with paint.

[Windows7ge]

3 minutes ago, dual290x said:

Weight can be minimized and still keep the strength needed, and rust is easily avoided with paint.

Too late. We're doing it this way, but hey if it's a massive failure we'll give steel and welding a shot.

[Windows7ge]

In prelude to when we reach the point of running electrical does anybody know what heatshrink size fits fan cables? IIRC the wire is 22AWG. I was thinking 1/16th but I don't want to buy it if I'm wrong.

[dual290x]

3 hours ago, Windows7ge said:

In prelude to when we reach the point of running electrical does anybody know what heatshrink size fits fan cables? IIRC the wire is 22AWG. I was thinking 1/16th but I don't want to buy it if I'm wrong.

My 3 wire 26awg fan wiring is 1/8th of an inch wide with them side-by-side. 1/8 ÷ 3 = 1/24 in fraction form. 1/8 ÷ 3 = 0.0417 in decimal form. (thanks google for the quick math)

 

I don't know what you bought, but I figured you could watch this if you are having any second thoughts about your rods: 

 

[Windows7ge]

17 minutes ago, dual290x said:

My 3 wire 26awg fan wiring is 1/8th of an inch wide with them side-by-side. 1/8 ÷ 3 = 1/24 in fraction form. 1/8 ÷ 3 = 0.0417 in decimal form. (thanks good for the quick math)

 

I don't know what you bought, but I figured you could watch this if you are having any second thoughts about your rods: 

 

Are they 26AWG? Huh. I need heatshrink for the individual wires. I can't just shrink them all together. Gotta do a lot of splicing and soldering.

 

I'll watch the video later tonight. I plan to do a test braze and actually try to break it as a strength test.

[dual290x]

1 minute ago, Windows7ge said:

Are they 26AWG? Huh. I need heatshrink for the individual wires. I can't just shrink them all together. Gotta do a lot of splicing and soldering.

 

I'll watch the video later tonight. I plan to do a test braze and actually try to break it as a strength test.

Each wire is labeled as such. It is a coolermaster 200mm fan. Oh fun stuff.

Cool beans, bud.

[Windows7ge]

4 minutes ago, dual290x said:

Each wire is labeled as such. It is a coolermaster 200mm fan. Oh fun stuff.

That doesn't tell me what size heatshrink to use though.

[dual290x]

9 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

That doesn't tell me what size heatshrink to use though.

I figured that would give you something to work with at least. Two sources state 22AWG wiring is 0.6426 mm, so do with that info as you will.

[Windows7ge]

I think this is where we're going to leave it for tonight.

 

 

Here I have the four main mounts each with a factory flat edge so they should all mount flat with little issue.

 

I've made one of the four 45° supports but it came out incredibly crooked. I may or may not toss it and make another but I expect all of the cuts to be similar to this. With the help of some flat surfaces the brazing rod is going to be filling a lot of gaps.

 

My thought process is I may heat the parts on something like the flat tile shown above. That or a flat metal plate. This would keep everything square no matter how crooked my cuts are. In theory after the part is tacked together I can just flip it over to braze the side that gets missed.

 

Everything is a possibility at this point in time. Tomorrow we'll cut more of the 45°'s

[Windows7ge]

2 hours ago, dual290x said:

I don't know what you bought, but I figured you could watch this if you are having any second thoughts about your rods: 

I'm glad to know my Alumiweld purchase from HF was a good investment. I was originally going to go with the Burnsomatic brand but the cost for 2 rods didn't make sense when I could get more for less from Alumiweld.

[Jtalk4456]

On 4/18/2021 at 1:18 PM, Windows7ge said:

 

Big problem here... That appears to be dunkin donuts instead of the glorious Krispy Kreme!

[Windows7ge]

1 hour ago, Jtalk4456 said:

Big problem here... That appears to be dunkin donuts instead of the glorious Krispy Kreme!

...I don't even know where one of those are around here. Meanwhile DD is just up the road.

 

If it makes you feel any better I only paid for the coffee the donut holes were free (to me).

[Jtalk4456]

20 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

...I don't even know where one of those are around here. Meanwhile DD is just up the road.

If it makes you feel any better I only paid for the coffee the donut holes were free (to me).

It does not make me feel better, only Krispy Kreme will do that, bad donut holes cannot fill my heart XD

[Windows7ge]

Alright, tonight we're starting off with a couple of brand new hack saw blades.

 

When it takes you over 20min to cut a 3/4th" (19.05mm) hollow tube of aluminum. It's time for a new blade.

[Windows7ge]

Things went exponentially smoother with a fresh blade. Now we have all the materials cut for our radiator supports.

 

 

Given everything is being cut by hand here nothing is perfectly square but IMO some level of imperfection shows that human touch. That it wasn't put together by a robot, and that's an aesthetic that I kind of like.

 

Not to mention when we lay down some braze a lot of the crooked stuff is going to be covered up anyways.

 

Next up is cutting the two supports for the pump. These are a couple simple short pieces.

[Windows7ge]

This was all the time I had for tonight. I cut the two short pieces that the pump will mount on and I finished the 3D design of this:

 

 

This simple tool will give me the hole layout to create the slots the radiator can be adjusted on. These 1.9mm holes will give me a guide for larger drill bits. Then with the assistance of a few metal files I'll contour the enlarged holes together into a slot.

 

A router or dremel would be great for expediting this but I own neither.

 

I plan to try to get this going on the 3D printer tonight so I can start drilling holes and filing tomorrow night.

[Windows7ge]

Time is limited tonight but I'd like to test the viability of creating a slot using files and maybe WD-40.

 

With the guide printed hopefully you can start to see the direction I'm trying to go.

 

 

That's the guide sitting under the 120mm fan. You can see the 6 holes. These holes are 105mm apart (left to right) and this lines up with the mount holes of a 120mm fan. With a couple different sized drill bits we will test tonight if this can create a half decent looking slot on some left over aluminum before we go wasting the good stuff.

[Windows7ge]

This marks the end for tonight. What we have here is a slot.

 

 

The slot on the opposite side is about half the diameter of the slot on this side (closer to the camera) the idea being the screw (sitting on top) head can pass through the bottom but not the top so when it screws into what we will be attaching (a radiator) the radiator will be affixed to our shelf/rack.

 

For reasons unknown as you might be able to tell through my cameras terrible ability to focus the slot on the other side ever slightly skews to the right. No idea why it did that. I have to assume my hole guide moved while drilling. The closer holes though came out quite strait.

 

Filing the aluminum down with my generic file kit works quite well. It does take some elbow grease but the aluminum is soft enough to where it's only about 5min of moderate hand-filing to get the general slot formed an contoured down to something that looks good.

 

I won't be getting much done tomorrow due to my work schedule. If I somehow find the time anyways I'll post an update with whatever I got done.

[Windows7ge]

This is as far as I'm going to get this week-end unfortunately. I would have liked to have gotten more done but there were some complications at work that blew half of the time I had planned to work on this.

 

Drilled all the pre-tapping holes in our supports:

 

 

Drilled all the small holes for the screw head to catch on:

 

 

Drilled (the best I could) all the holes for the screw heads to pass-through:

 

 

I started profiling the holes together into slots with the files I bought but we're out of time for tonight. Got half of them done though:

 

 

We will see about finishing off the other two tomorrow night after work. All considering I'm fairly satsfied with how they're turning out so far given I'm doing them by hand. They're fairly concentric with strait sides and the holes on the other side line up fairly well. This should work exactly how I intend for the finished product to function.

 

That's all for tonight.

[Windows7ge]

Alright, tonight we will be finishing out these two radiator supports and with luck if enough time is left over tonight we will play with some  

 

If we do do any brazing tonight it'll be using sacrificial test pieces. I'm not going to go for gold and try brazing the finished parts without a little practice.

[Windows7ge]

Alright. It turns out finalizing these supports took longer than expected but now that they're done tomorrow we can play with .

 

 

I'm satisfied with how they turned out given the done by hand nature of their construction.