Water Cooling with SLA Resin Parts

Rotorhead85 · May 17

I just saw Linus' 3D print video and thought I would share my experience. I printed the reservoir and the blades for the interior rotor on a Form2 SLA printer. I used clear resin and painted the outside black. This way I could fit LED strings inside to light up the rotor. It was fun to make and it looks great. But... it was not without some trial and error. The reservoir is two identical printed pieces rotated 180° that sandwich a piece of 4" acrylic tube with acrylic discs as end caps. There are rubber O-rings between each part and it is all clamped together like a pressure vessel with 8 M3 threaded rods around the perimeter. Two of the rods run through another part which is secured to a 360x120 rad on the side. This is the original 011 dynamic case with the side intake upfront. I like the no fan look more than LED fans. The inlet and outlet to the radiator are just friction fit double O-rings for the 16mm hard line. There are also some vent ports to bleed the air out.

Where things went wrong... I used a glass filled resin for the reservoir support part and the blades of the water rotor. I did that because I did not have white dye available to me at the time and the glass fill parts were white which reflected the LED color well. That proved to be a poor choice because it ended up shortening the lifespan of my pump. Particulates over time destroyed the ceramic bearing in the water pump. After 3 years I had to replace it. I game on this and use it every day as a media PC as well and leave it running without sleep all the time, so all things considered not terrible for constant use. I figure I ran the pump for ~15k hours which is less than a third the predicted lifespan. If i have to replace again I may have to find a different pump manufacturer after seeing Steve's EK video.

The resin has held up well. Anyone who wants to attempt something similar, I have this advice. I would recommend making the part thicker than you think you need to. Resin will creep over time. Especially if it has to hold a load and even if it is under its own weight, if the part is thin it can warp and sag. I wonder how those tubes they posted today will hold up. I would use 16mm fittings and print small ID to make sure they will last. I went with traditional hardline bending, which was a pain for sure haha. Especially the parallel connections to the CPU from the GPU. I worry about dyes, but not as much as glass resin. Just stay away from that if you want the pump to last.

My system has been running for more than 4 years and I have never had a leak. There is some slow evaporation though. A few mL a month would be my guess. The more resin in the system the worse it will be. Resin absorbs water and a sort of transpiration occurs so expect to top off the loop every now and then. I attached a quick video I took of my build. Enjoy!