Water Cooled Tech Station

[Jack Rabbit]

One idea for building shrouds is sheet styrene. Styrene is the plastic models are made out of. In 4x8 bulk sheets it is cheap. It is really easy to work with as you can just score the surface and snap it. Micro-weld or other quality styrene solvents will make bonds that will not break. I have made all kinds of complex shaped out of the stuff. With a light sanding it also takes paint really well.

Your bench is really great! Are you starting a business for validated OC CPUs?

[chibi_man]

I wish...
I do the occasional job for people who are unsure... Most of them just want me to set there machine to the highest stable OC or build them a hefty system. Other then that know one wants anything else.

As for your shroud idea... I had that in mind before. however It does not seem to be that necessary since theres no actually case to lessen the air flow.

[Babrbarossa]

Holy crap! that's incredible- what alot of work.

Is it just for aesthetics that you used copper instead of just running tubing?

[chibi_man]

A bunch of reasons actually... other then aesthetics. It's easies to get a hold of copper tubing, copper tubing also helps dissipate the heat, and it helps with keeping this neat and tidy.

[chibi_man]

Well I have done a 48Hr leak test with full success with one exception.

My reservoir needed remodeling. Theres a whole lot of difficulty with getting things primed with the way it was. You can see below what I used for my test...
I first ran the system with the return to another bucket so I can clean the system of containments. Last thing I need is copper filings or dust getting into my pump.

after that I just made a bucket me reservoir.
later on today I will show my new reservoir mod and run another 24Hr or 48Hr test.

enjoy.

[chibi_man]

GOOD NEWS, THE BUILD IS STILL ALIVE!!!

A whole month and then some has passed since my last post. So I just wanted to reassure my fans of my project that I very much plan on completing this one.

Yesterday was my birthday, so I was blessed with a spanking new Corsair TX750W PSU. I'll take pictures of it and show it mounted sometime later.
I've done some minor changes to the setup. slight addition to my reservoir to solve an air bubble problem and I've counter bored most of the screw holes.

I'll post pics ASAP.

[magictorch]

You should have been in the A-team.

Nice setup!!-glad to see that board inching closer to being fired up.

[sswilson]

Looking forward to seeing this move towards the completed project!!!

Just went through the original pics, and I have to say that what caught my eye was the great job you did on the "card holder". Do you have something for getting those nice clean round bends, or is that just by eye?

[Eldonko]

Copper tubing even, sweet! Nice workshop, wish I had proper woodworking tools, you can do anything.

[chibi_man]

A-Team eh...

I'll get at some pics ASAP. I'm in the process of fitting a pneumatic four way splitter into and adapter from my one of me rads to the reservoir. After that I will post new pics.

Those bends were done completely by eye and hand. I had considered making a full fixture for it but while handling that aluminum is just said "TO HELL WITH IT" and bent it by hand. turned out a lot better then I had expected.

I'm hoping the copper tubing will help with flow and temperature control. Other then that it looks KILLER.

If you got any hardware suggestions I could sure use some. I'm in a extreme debate about graphics and ram. The processor is going to be the 5000+ Black edition, I'm way to disappointed with the phenom right now to even think in that direction.

What I want to do with the RAM is use the OCZ Titanium Alpha VX2 memory. at $90 for 2gbs of PC2-8000 and very strong ram, I think i'll grab to sets of them. I honestly believe that would be a wise choice for this build.

Graphics is driving me nuts since I have no idea where things are going to end up in the next month. So far I just want to get two or three HD 3870's. Considering Four of them on that board may not be possible due to the lack of space, I am not sure about it yet. The 3870 X2 is just way to far out of my price range and I wish more of them would be GDDR4, but since there not I'm not as interested in them.