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review, please use the pulldown below to browse sections or simply hit "Next"
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The Components
Selecting the major components was much easier than first thought. A number
of review sites on the web gave lots of comprehensive information about liquid
cooling and even offered good data on individual components. It was from this
information that the Innovatek line for the CPU and GPU cooling blocks was selected.
Besides performing extremely well in tests, they are beautifully made and the
CPU blocks in particular have extremely well designed mounting brackets.
I confess that it was the hold down and tightening bracket on the CPU blocks
that really caught my fancy. They don't require through bolts at the motherboard,
using all of the lugs for mounting instead. They proved to work extremely well
and were very easy to install properly. They came with highly polished copper
cores protected with plastic removable covers. The attention to detail on these
blocks is fantastic.
The Innovatek block used for the Northbridge is similar, but is mounted through
the motherboard with nylon screws and nuts. Because of the concern for radically
bending tubing in the system, the fittings were replaced with swiveling elbows,
also from Innovatek.
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Innovatek Block
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Innovatek GPU Block
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Innovatek Elbow Fitting
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The air trap (sometimes called the reservoir) is also from Innovatek.
It was chosen for its superb finish and quality, the ability to
take two Innovatek inlet fittings and because its body is a heavy
wall acrylic tube that can easily be machined to take the ½"
outflow fitting.
The pump is an Eheim 1048 continuous duty centrifugal pump that puts
out 158 gallons per hour and is designed for ½" tubing.
The pump and all of the Innovatek parts came from HighSpeed PC. |
Eheim Pump |
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For cooling, the radiator is a Chrome Xtreme from Danger Den, selected
for its performance, comfortable size and high quality construction.
It is already set up for ½" tubing.
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Xtreme Chrome
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Innovatek Water Tank
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It
would be nice if all we had to do was hook-up the off the shelf components,
but that would be too easy. A few special things had to made, and that's
when things began to get fun.
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the back panel is hinged at the bottom. This "back door" will
be loaded with equipment so it was made from 3/16" machined and anodized
aluminum. This may sound rather fancy, but it was in fact made by cutting
a top plate leftover from the original machining of BaDass'. It was cut
with a Makita chop saw fitted with a carbide tipped blade and cleaned
up with a file and power sander. It uses an aircraft piano hinge on the
bottom and only caused one little problem. We had to keep the 80mm exhaust
fan in its original location.
To make sure the intake air is properly directed to the radiator, we'll
be using a plastic shroud formed from 1/8" thick raspberry acrylic.
It will contain the air from two of the front intake fans through to the
squareng of the radiator. Just in case we find out the air flow
is sub-standard, it was made large enough on the intake end to accommodate
a pair of 92mm fans. It can also hold a single 120mm fan nearer to the
radiator...better safe than sorry. After making a simple mock-up out of
cardboard, a local plastic company made the acrylic duct for about twenty
bucks.
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Another fun little item was added to go along with the red air shroud and other
red stuff in the case. By putting a relay switch into a modified pencil sharpener,
we ended up with what is now nicknamed the "Hermit Crab". It mounts
to the inside of the back door with sticky backed Velcro.
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Air Shroud
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Tubing
Here's where things got a little tricky. When the 8mm Innovatek parts came
in, it was evident the tubing was going to create some serious problems. The
wall thickness was so thin that even a slight bend would kink the tubing. The
Innovatek "fix" for this was to put coil springs over the tubing at
critical places. That just seemed like poor engineering and an accident waiting
to happen. After some close measuring it looked like thicker walled Tygon tubing
could be used, if the captive nuts that lock down the tubing were modified.
When the new Tygon tubing came in, it fit perfectly over the single rib barb
of the fittings, but the captive nuts were indeed too small to fit over the
tubing. Each captive nut was very carefully reamed out to fit the larger tubing
with a Dremel tool. It worked, but was very difficult to ream each nut out identically.
A couple of them were a little sloppy, which would prove to cause a nerve-racking
problem later.
Note: I refer to this Tygon tubing as
3/8", which is a nominal size. The actual I.D. is 5/16"; the O.D.
is 7/16".
Some Special Touches
One of my favorite things to do was at the top of the back door. For starters
we needed an outflow pipe from the air trap to the pump. A large brass washer
was formed to the shape of the tube by beating it over a two inch round steel
bar. A flat surface was filed off the face of the washer to seat the pipefittings.
After assembling the proper ¼" NPT brass fittings, they were polished
and then epoxied to the tube. Here it is next to the "Hermit Crab"
relay switch and the power plug.
The Test Rig
To fully test all of these components before installing them, a test rig was
built out of ½" plywood and birch 1x2s. It matches the dimensions
of the case closely so the locations of all the critical items could be proved
out and helped determine the lengths and locations of tubing. A quick trip to
the ASUS website garnered an image of the motherboard. Printing it out full
size and fixing it to the test rig allowed all of the cooling blocks to be mounted
in their actual locations with zip ties.
It was while setting up the test rig that mounting the radiator proved to be
a fussy problem. That's when the idea of a separate "floor" for the
cooling side began to sound interesting. Back in the scrap pile was the original
mock-up of BaDass' top cover, originally machined from ¼" aluminum,
but in pretty rough shape. It was cut to fit in the bottom of the cooling side.
After fabricating a slick little aluminum angle to hold down the back of the
radiator and a clamp for the front, it worked just fine. The trouble was it
had scratches everywhere and well, it was ugly.
I gave it a good sanding until the scratches were gone, then polished it, along
with the angle hold-down and clamp. Voila! Just as quickly, they were looking
pretty and were just as shiny as the radiator. If you've polished metal parts
with a real nice polisher, you know how fun it can be. Before long, all the
brass pipefittings and hardware were polished too.
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