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

[SonoDanshi]

14 hours ago, Smollie1 said:

@SonoDanshi Do you have any experience with 40mm / 60mm fans? I was thinking of putting a couple in the case in pull but I'm worried they'll be loud and whiny. If I ran them slow I'm not sure they'd be of much use for the effort / cost.

I've used a few in the past with other HTPCs I've had and been frustrated by them all. Some are definitely better than others, but at least up until a couple of years ago, they are either screaming loud or they whine in the center of your brain. Maybe something better has come along since, but I'm not aware of it.

 

After cutting away 90% of the case, how's the structural integrity of the whole thing?

 

 

EDIT: Maybe look at Noctua as they sell 60 and 40mm fans models. http://noctua.at/en/products/fan

[Smollie1]

That's a bummer on the small fans. I'll hold off on those until I see the temps. I could always use a laptop-like approach with the fan deep inside the system surrounded by some kind of shroud that channels the air in. Like this...

 

I wonder if I could actually pick these up and wire them in easily?


The structural integrity is terrible (as you might expect). A ton of flex. The custom base will help a lot with that and I'm going to tackle that before connecting anything up because it will put stress on all the connections and components every time I pick the thing up. Once the lid is on without screwing it, all the flex is gone. That's not all that helpful as I'm moving it around with the lid off most of the time.

[Smollie1]

Getting this done was a nightmare. Laser was rastering the lip super slow. Finally got it done and 4mm had appeared on each side. Had to Dremel and file the lid slightly bigger which took a lot of trial and error. Next time I'll CNC the hole in the case and the window so it fits perfectly first time.

 

 

There is still a bunch of heavy fabrication stuff to do:

1. Laser the centre channels
2. Tap the holes
3. Drill the centre channel inlet
4. Cut a side vent on the GPU side
5. Laser the side vents
6. Laser the custom base

[Smollie1]

PETG and a couple 90 fittings for the CPU to centre channel runs. Now I'm playing with the big boys.

 

[Smollie1]

G 1/4" tap acquired. This thing is great, super satisfying to use.

 

 

[Smollie1]

[Smollie1]

I've graduated from using Onshape to using Fusion 360 which is substantially better. I spent a bunch of time staring at the EK GPU inlet / Outlet trying to figure out a way to do the thing I want to do in the minimal space I have to do it in. I think I've figure out a way. It's hard to explain so I'll just wait until I've done it.

After laser cutting some more centre channel pieces, I realized that 4x 6mm pieces was going to be too wide so I'm going to do 3 instead. I'm also going to do a couple more PETG tube runs than I originally planned just because I'm a little time constrained I'm trying to reduce the workload.

[Smollie1]

I also picked up this monitor for $50. It's 17.3" and 1080p IPS. You can see this Youtube video here where a guy shows you how to make a monitor out of one. Will end up being <$100 and thin / light enough to travel with.

 

[Smollie1]

I/O shield test on scrap piece of acrylic. A bunch of minor tweaks needed but mostly it was fine. I'm going to frost the acrylic before I cut it so that the LED strip that's going to shine directly downwards illuminates only the holes for the I/O.

 

[Smollie1]

All center channel pieces cut and tapped. I thought I couldn't get away with 4x 6mm pieces but I figure out where it clashes so it should be fine. I have taken the reservoir out of the centre channel so I'll need to design something else and put it somewhere. Really it needs to be before the pump. The other possibility is doing a custom T junction and running the system with the reservoir I have attached for a couple days until it's all bled and then removing it.

 

[Smollie1]

This centre channel outlet might be a problem. Going to have to bend the PETG to jog it out of the way of the radiator. I think it'll be fine although I've never bent PETG before, luckily I have a lot more than I need.

[Smollie1]

I'm going to pick up the die I need to thread the outside of the PETG tomorrow, as well as some acrylic cement. That will mean I don't need to have those fittings on the CPU side of the centre channel. This will save a bunch of space. My fitting-less design hasn't been tested, but I'm pretty sure it will work.

[Smollie1]

Picked up the die I needed and it mostly does what I need. Threading the PETG is hard work and the thread isn't that deep. I used teflon tape wrapped around 3 times and it held much better. I think it's going to work but this is where the leaks will be if there are any.

 

 

Without tape, if I pulled hard this would slip out.

 

 

With tape, this was much stronger. It will be hidden when I do it properly.

 

 

[Smollie1]

I also picked up a length of o-ring cord while I wait for the 27' I ordered to arrive. Fits perfectly which is a relief. 2mm cord in a channel that's 2mm wide and ~1mm deep (depth was determined by laser power / speed which I eyeballed).

 

 

[Smollie1]

I also picked up the screws for the backplate. I've half mounted it right now. I need to drill some extra holes for it to line up totally flush. It won't really be doing any heat dissipation but it's nice to have it sit flat and offer some rigidity.

Tomorrow's tasks will be threading the PETG lengths for the pump > centre channel > CPU in > CPU out. These are all straight lengths so nothing too tricky. This should give me a better feel for how much space I'm going to have in around the mobo.

I think I'm now done with the 'investigation' part of this build. As in, I'm pretty sure everything I want to do is possible and I have the parts so I'm just executing. It's nice to see my slow daily grinding paying off. This build is going to be insane when it's done.

[Smollie1]

There was some height discrepancy between the CPU blocks and the connecting runs. I tried heating and bending but the runs are too short to get a good result. Luckily I have access to a belt sander so I angled either end of the short run to make up for the height.

 

[Smollie1]

Tomorrow I need to figure out how I'm going to do the centre channel to GPU run (which will also have a drain port). I might design and laser a G 1/4" junction that's just 6mm pieces contact cemented together and frosted with wet and dry 800. I have a 7/16" drill bit so I can make my own holes as the laser can't help with that (easily anyway).

 

That still leaves the problem with the GPU inlet / outlet. I lasered my first (or second) design for that a few days ago and it was obvious that it would be a pain and I could do better. Need to spend some time in Fusion 360 to get the design down. I might laser that tomorrow night before I go out of town until Tuesday.

[Smollie1]

Cut the new holes in the backplate so it fits over the screws for the water block. Had to file some screw heads and shorten some screws to get this all fine. Turned out OK though. I'll touch up the holes with some black paint later.

 

[Smollie1]

I got the 2mm rubber cord. Had trouble sandwiching the acrylic without small gaps because I threaded all the piece instead of just the 'bottom' piece. To get around this I had to clamp the set and then screw in the hex screws. Took ages to do about 6. I tested it and it leaked, but to be fair that's about 1/4 of the screws. I'll put in the rest of the screws tomorrow and leak test again.

 

[Smollie1]

I definitely went over the top with the amount of rubber cord I bought. No idea what I was thinking.

 

[Smollie1]

I'm really running out of time to get this done. I've got until Tuesday and then I have to get on a plane. I also have a bunch of stuff on with my real job so this'll be tight.

Really looking forward to firing this up and playing some GTA V and Doom.

[SonoDanshi]

Man that res / pass-through block is looking lovely. 

[Smollie1]

Yeah, came out nice. Only problem being that there was a fatal flaw in the design. The 'bottom' piece of acrylic doesn't have the necessary O-rings. No idea what I was thinking. Anyway, I got all the hex bolts in and learned my lesson. Will need to design and cut that last piece again which isn't actually that much work. Unfortunately, the laser is out of commission for the weekend so I'll need to make other progress.

 

The more I get into this project the more props I give to @p0Pe

[p0Pe]

Looks good man! ballsy to make the o-ring channels with the laser. You have to make sure they are baby smooth, so you do not have leaks.

 

I just started a new log here which you might be interested in, as it also features a little distro plate  

 

[Smollie1]

So I ran out of time and couldn't get the everything finished by the time I had to get on a plane. I probably needed another week with access to a laser cutter and I would have been fine. Decided to just frankenstein the thing together to at least get it running and check everything was working OK.

 

I only had the tiny wifi dongle to rely on for downloading games so I went with Crysis 1 because it's only 8GB. Still took several hours. Router was in the apt. below so no chance of hard wire.

 

Anyway, everything ran great. It was plugged into a 720p old TV so I didn't get a chance to fully appreciate things but it all played fine. I swapped out the AMD A4 6300 that was in there for a X4 860k that was $50. That's the most powerful processor for the FM2+ socket (well, the 880k is but I'll just OC, ASrock board has OC presets).

It runs real quiet except for the PSU which is kind of annoying. In general I'm glad that it works and can run but bummed out I had to frankenstein the whole thing. I don't have a laser cutter right now so I'm going to do some work that doesn't require tools. I re-sleeved a bunch of the orange sleeving to black with the heat-shrink-less method and that worked great. Finally nailed how to do it.

When I get this done and running with the lid on, it's going to be glorious. I also picked up a 2TB firecuda drive for game storage etc. No idea where that's going to fit.