water cooling [I'll make it fit] Copper pipe water cooling in Node 202 (also, my first build)

[SonoDanshi]

Is that for a single picture or all pictures in a single post? The easiest way is to just resize the pictures on your side. If you use windows there is an add-on from MS that allows you to resize pictures with a right-click context menu. Just search for something like "Windows Power Tools Image Resizer"

[Smollie1]

Last night was kind of a nightmare. mobo came without a backplate for the EK block so I bought one. That didn't work and required pressing super hard to get the sprung screws threaded. Almost certainly damaged the CPU in the process, but that's why it was only $30. Ended up scrounging the nuts from the new backplate and some washers from something else and putting electrical tape over that to prevent shorts.

 

 

[Smollie1]

This morning I finished 'cutting' the space for the pump to go. I bought a nice file that worked really well and cleaned it all up with electrical tape. Came out pretty good for the 3 incorrect tools I was using.

 

 

 

[Smollie1]

In general this morning went much much better than the last couple of nights. Finally had enough parts / tools to make progress. It's going to be super tight in there but I think it'll be fine.

[Smollie1]

 

 

 

[Smollie1]

On the picture resizing, I think what I'll do is write a long build log with everything in it. That way it's more concise / condensed.

[Smollie1]

Copper tubing acquired. Checked the fittings in person. 1/2" outer diameter, 3/8ths" inner diameter.

 

I'm not sure about what direction I should be setting this loop up in, or whether that matters at all (as long as the reservoir is before the pump).

 

I guess I'll follow this, going clockwise: 

 

[SonoDanshi]

Interesting concept for the pump. If you are going to follow that loop order then you'll probably want to rotate your pump so the outlet is facing towards the CPU socket rather than the radiator.

 

As for my little project, I've got rid of maybe 2/3 of the air now. It's just a slow process waiting for the water to settle again and the bubbles to pop before cycling the pump again.

[Smollie1]

Yeah, I was just drawing it out and I should turn the pump around. Whatever happens I have the stuff to make the bends and enough copper to totally screw it up and also experiment with different layouts. Can't wait to fill the loop and get things working.

 

Even if I crushed the life out of my CPU, it should be pretty awesome. If that's the only big mistake I make in this build, I'm OK with that.

 

 

[Smollie1]

I cannot recommend hand bending copper pipe with a bending spring. It's a pain in the ass, although totally do-able.

 

First run is done, three more to go.

 

I'm seriously considering cutting a hole in the case for the reservoir to stick out of.

@SonoDanshi Where did you get that rubber gasket stuff that you used on the edges of the case where you cut the big hole?

 

I'm definitely going to investigate doing all this stuff with standard plumbing parts next time, I think I can do all this for a fraction of the price.

 

 

[Smollie1]

I also did some sleeving with techflex that I had on hand. Did the HD audio cable and the stupidly long internal power cable. The power cable is kind of thick, but I don't think it's going to cause a problem. Loads of room. Glad I'm not doing a GPU loop also at this point.

 

 

[SonoDanshi]

19 minutes ago, Smollie1 said:

@SonoDanshi Where did you get that rubber gasket stuff that you used on the edges of the case where you cut the big hole?

 

I got this stuff from Amazon. But for the most part, any rubber edging strips will do.

 

Do you have enough clearance to get a fitting and pipe to the inlet of the pump?

 

 

[Smollie1]

Cool, I'll probably pick some of that up. I expect to be chopping a lot of cases.

 

What do you mean 'clearance'? I can get the lid on with a fitting in the pump, but that doesn't really mean anything. Right now I'm just trying to get the loop running, after that I'll worry about the fact that there is a hug reservoir sticking out the top.

 

I think there are two solutions:

1. Cut a big hole and have the top of the reservoir sticking out the case but the tubes in / out would be inside the case
2. Cut two small holes for the in / out and have the whole reservoir out the top. In this config I could also have the res sideways which would make it a little easier to eventually do the quick release stuff.

So many things.

[Smollie1]

OK, I'm pretty much done. 3 of 4 bends done, waiting on fittings that arrived but have been misplaced by the building I'm staying in (and will resurface tomorrow). I could also sleeve the SP120 and pump cables with techflex but I'll see how I feel.

 

The first bend was way harder than the second one even though it was longer and had more actual 'bends' in it. I started with a much larger piece (which ended up too short, so I started again), which made it easier to get leverage and make the major bends and more importantly,  minor adjustments.

 

Getting the power supply back in with the 24 pin connector was the toughest part. I could adjust the bend to the radiator to relieve some pressure on the 24 pin connector which is a little squashed (or at least the heatshrink is). I should be able to test run the loop tomorrow probably after I read about how to do that.

 

 

I'll take a bunch more better pictures in the daylight tomorrow once the final run is put in with the fittings.

 

 

I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out although the cables are kinda covering more than I'd like of the copper tubing.

[SonoDanshi]

I'm still impressed that for your first ever pc build you've decided to do something that - as far as I've been able to find - only 2 or 3 other people have attempted (with varying degrees of success). Very ambitious!

[Smollie1]

Thanks, that's a nice thing to say. I'm already having ideas about the next build, which will be better.

 

The last bend has turned out to be very tricky. In the configuration in the last pictures it requires two very sharp turns in a small area which I really can't achieve with a bending spring. I think even with a proper bending tool it would be hard. Maybe with some kind of jig, but I'm not going to do that. Instead I flipped the rad output 180 and also turned the reservoir around and am using a different outlet. I couldn't quite get it done this morning but I'm close. Looks, interesting...

 

This is the part where I realize I didn't take a picture and now I'm at work. Will send later.

 

Do you have any advice for test the loop? What's the least amount of components that are necessary for this? Just the 24 pin connector and unplug / remove everything else?

[Smollie1]

1/2 inch (OD) copper is kind of a pain in the ass to work with and isn't allowing me to do everything I'd like. Next time I'll probably use 1/4 inch (used for refrigerators) and use something like these compressed air splitters to produce kind of a wave of pipe (like with sleeved / combed cables) that splits out around the case. Seems like a good way to save space without actually diminished the flow rate. In fact, I could probably get more liquid in a loop using this method. More space efficient fittings would help.

 

I've been watching 'American Chopper' which I used to watch as a kid, which has been great for inspiration. I've watched most of the easy to find high quality PC modding videos on Youtube, so I needed more material.

[SonoDanshi]

3 hours ago, Smollie1 said:

Thanks, that's a nice thing to say. I'm already having ideas about the next build, which will be better.

 

Do you have any advice for test the loop? What's the least amount of components that are necessary for this? Just the 24 pin connector and unplug / remove everything else?

I'm lucky because I have a small 1U 250W psu from an old 4 bay NAS box which has it's own power switch as well as molex and fan connectors, so I don't have to power up my system at all to run the pump.

 

What a lot of people will do is completely unplug everything in the system and then "jump" the power supply by shorting a ground and the green wire.... which on your build is now sleeved either black or copper! 

 

If you have a spare PSU you could also hook the pump up to that and jump it.

[Smollie1]

The pump I have is only PWM so I just had to cross my fingers. No leaks so far (except a stop on the res that was totally unscrewed). Everything seems to be working fine. I've tipped it back and forth and got almost all the air out of the loop.

 

I won't know until tomorrow night whether the CPU is squashed and / or what the temperatures are. The only monitor I have is at the office but I'm bringing it back tomorrow.

 

I had some ideas for the case lid. There is no way to get a reservoir in there with the lid on so I'm going to cut it in half and then remove the area above the radiator. Then I'll slide the two halves on separately. I'll make something for the area above the radiator out of some mesh filters or something, not sure on that part yet. I'll probably also cut the grill out of the area above the CPU and put a piece of tempered glass in. If you look on the underside of that where the fan filter is, it's totally made for sticking a piece of glass there, has a lip to cover tape / glue and everything.

 

Oh, and the big run into the reservoir is totally kinked. I'll do it again.

 

I'm also pretty sure my fan is upside down, it's currently blowing into the case rather than out. Will turn over.

 

 

 

[SonoDanshi]

Congrats on completing the loop - I hope the CPU still works.

 

Would things not be slightly "cleaner" if you switch the input/output ports on the radiator as it would mean shorter runs and less pipe bending? I keep looking at all of this and thinking that there must be a way to run the loop so that a res mounted horizontally on the outside of the case would work, so no need to chop holes in the top of the case just to fit the res and piping.

 

My loop is almost air free now (still looking at maybe 2 days to bleed it though) so I want to thank you for the idea of plugging in a temporary res - it really has worked well and will be very useful in the future when I drain/refill the loop. I keep looking at the 1080 Ti thinking I want to put one of those in the case. The FE versions don't have DVI so only a single slot solution with a waterblock means it will fit - although it may choke the 2nd fan's airflow instead of just the one right now. Would make for a mean PC I could keep under my racing sim seat though rather than running cables to my main desktop rig now.

[Smollie1]

Oh man, you're are totally right about switching the input and output. I'll do that instead of fixing the big output bend. That way I think I can get all the tubing inside the case and do as you say with the horizontal res on the top of the case. That means making only two 1/2 inch holes in the top and allows for the space to use QD fittings as well as expand to a larger reservoir if I wanted without changing much.

 

Doing the QD fittings will allow for me to take the lid off without having to bleed the system which would suck.

 

Glad the temporary res thing worked out. If the TDP of the system isn't high enough, you could put in some QD fittings out the side of the case somewhere and have an external rad / fan. Could be made to look not-terrible with some thought. Otherwise, there is only so much radiator you can fit in this case. What about a 60mm radiator like this one?

[SonoDanshi]

Yeah, there's a 75W TDP difference between the R9 Nano and the 1080 Ti so I'm sure the radiator would struggle - although the temps are pretty decent right now (and should get better once fully bled). I'll consider it and see how I feel down the line a bit.

[Smollie1]

Looks like I didn't crush the CPU and didn't screw up any of the wiring. Amazing.

 

Installed Ubuntu but it's not fun. Installing Windows 10 today.

 

[Smollie1]

Man, software problems suck so much harder than hardware problems.

• Tried to install displaylink drivers for Ubuntu: FAIL
• Tried to install usb wifi dongle for Ubuntu: FAIL
• Tried to make USB bootable Windows 10 USB drive using my Macbook: SUCCESS
• Tried to install Windows 10 from USB drive: FAIL

If I don't have the USB drive plugged in, I go to the UEFI. If the USB drive is plugged in, I get the black screen with flashing cursor. I think the problem is that I have no wired keyboard to no way to get into the BIOS. I think if I had a wired keyboard (can probably get one tomorrow) this actually wouldn't be a problem.

 

Not sure, what do you think?

 

So ideally, tomorrow I:

1. Get keyboard
2. Install windows
3. Install usb wifi drivers
4. Install displaylink drivers

[Smollie1]

Against all the odds, the plan stated above actually worked. After some initial hiccups with the format of the drive (remedied through command line during install) and a bunch of restarting, the build is running Windows 10.

 

Getting it to run JUST the USB 3.0 display was kind of a pain because if the system doesn't power down properly it doesn't work on startup. So I just have to be careful of that. Otherwise, I'm pretty happy I've got Windows running. I have to fly back to the UK in a couple days so I'll empty the loop and take the res etc. down. I have some time off work next week so I'm going to change the runs to / from the reservoir. I can also plan out cutting the holes in the top for the horizontal res. I really want to be able to get the lid back on this thing.

 

I'll probably think of a bunch of other stuff I want to do.