Case planning

It's been a while since I updated the project log, but I've been so busy with my holiday starting and all that.

Now I've had a little bit time to lay out the component palcement within the case and scavenging the materials. I hope I can start welding the case frame together tomorrow.

My friend working in another machine shop promised to finish the water reservoir for me. It should be ready for testing by the end of this week. I really hope it's ready before friday.

I went shopping for the nipples and tubes and all that. You can't imagine how hard it is to find a nipple with 1/4" thread. I wish I had not made the threads yet so I could make the 3/8" threads instead. Now I have to use fitting parts until I get to drill and make the bigger threads for my tank later on.

I also recovered another radiator element from a scrap metal yard today. I'm trying to use them both if they work ok and I get the airflow right.

Here's my initial plan for the component layout.
Blue = pump
Red = PSU
White = DVD-ROMs
Purple = HDDs
Green = MoBo
Light blue with circle = LCD display
Light gray = radiator
Gray = water tank


The stuff I'm going to use to cover the case turned out to be neoprene or something like that instead of rubber. It's going to work out ok if I can't get the rubber I was planning to use but I'm going to go through my dad's stashes to see if he actually has those rubber mats I remember he had.

A closeup of the covering material.


Here are a few shots of the component layout for my measurements. The case frame seems to turn out as 500x800x250 mms.


Then I found some industrial grade fans working at 230V. I have to test them out if they're silent enough.


After throwing the parts around I came out with this solution and I think it's going to be the one I'm sticking with.

The longer radiator is going to be parallel with the smaller rad. The swiftech box represents the LCD display and the box left of the PSU is the DVD-ROMs. I need to think about the airflow for the radiators and how I'm going to control it. Maybe a piece of sheet metal to have the air go where I want it to go does the trick. I have to test it when I get the frame together.

News from the GFX front

Just read this article from tomshardware.com. It says that ATI HD4870 and HD 4850 provides the best "bang for buck" and can beat the GF X260. Maybe I need to rethink my system.... That ofcourse means thinking of new kickass mobo. Let's see what I can amuse you with later on.

New parts arrived

Yesterday I got the package containing the pump, temp sensors and the flow meter. Pretty fast delivery with the weekend in between and all. Luckily I got the tracking code from the net so I could claim the pack right away when it arrived and didn't have to wait for today for the claim ticket.

Now I can test at least the radiator efficiency and if I can get the grooves done for the tank, also the usefulness of having a custom tank like that. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Here's the stuff:
Aerocool Gatewatch 2, Thermaltake Flow TX plus and Swiftech MCP655


Looks good. Can't wait to get to test them. That'll be maybe next week or so, because now I need to design the case before I go to my parents' again to build it.

Making the tank

Yesterday I was able to almost finish the tank. I got everything else except the grooves done. Thinking about how long it took to make 30 of those 40mm grooves took about 2 hours I'd been over at the shop for all the weekend milling 30 of 200mm grooves. So I decided to make or have them made later on another machine. Seems like my work buddy is also too busy to help me with them next week. I'll try to figure something out so I can go on testing how efficient the tank actually is.

I started by making the bottom, so I'd have more solid place to grip it for the second phase. Here's the piece before anything has been done.


And some tool setup. I had to change them manually, because there was not enough room for all the tools at once in the revolver.


Outer finish being done.


Drilling the holes for the M6 threads. In the next stage I also drilled the holes for the 1/4" threads where the tubing is to be attached.


When finished I saw that the piece was not perfect cylinder and I had to remove that raw surface you're seeing. So had to make 0.5mm cone this end. I could not make it smaller all the way because the cap would then seem a little bigger. Not much but enough to annoy me.


I tapped the holes by hand because of the extra coding and tool setup it would've needed I had them done before I'd even finished taking out the tools.


The second phase ready to go.


Outer finish and the cap attachment holes ready. I tapped these holes by hand too after doing a few millimeters start with the machine so I'd get them straight.


Drilling the initial hole for the tank interior. After measuring the inside, I ran into a problem. I didn't have tools long and thin enough to make the interior like I've drawn so there's a little compromise in the bottom. It should work anyway since it's only liquid that's going around in there.


Machining the inside produced a lot more chips than I thought, so after every round I had to blow the hole clean. The interior was finished after this. I did not polish the interior so there's a little more surface to absorb the heat but I don't know how the bubbles will stick onto it. That remains to be seen.


Here you can see the holes in the bottom. They came out pretty well. The intakes are on the outer diameter elevated a bit and the outlet is in the center so the possible bubbles won't get sucked into the system again. The cone for the cap is still to be done.


Cone done. I had to prove the fit a few times before it was good.


And here's the almost finished product. Still needs the grooves, but I think it's gonna look awesome.



The tank needed about 10 hours of working time (coding included) so far.

Finished the cap.

The second phase of the cap was way faster and easier to do. No drilling, no milling just remove the stuff and finish. I did measure the length of the piece a bit wrong so I had to run the program again after moving the zero-point about a millimeter. See the difference.



Then just remove the excess and voilá.



Have you ever seen prettier thing than that? Ooooh, it's shiny!!

New parts and some other progress

I got first phase of the tank cap done yesterday. All in all it took way longer than I expected. I made the NC program ready before so I could go ahead for program testing and setup straight away. I started setting up the lathe at 1400 and the first phase was finished at 1730. Milling the grooves took most of he time and based on that experience I'm going to find another way to make the grooves for the tank itself.

Here are some pics of the working process. Too bad that the initial setup pics were destoyed, thanks to the old Mavica and the disks the company has for these purposes and of course I forgot to take my own camera with me. How nice that no one uses diskettes anymore...



Milling the grooves. Almost 2 hours of that already done in this pic.

I managed to break a few of those cutters because of too high feed values and too deep cut. I changed the 5mm cutter to 6mm and took only 2.5mm deep cuts at time also reduced the feed rate alittle bit. Problem solved.

If you take a really close look, you might see my boo-boo there.





Finished first phase. Now to remove the excess material and we're ready for the second phase I hope I can do today.

Here's the stuff I needed to get rid of and the first phase ready





Then I ordered some new parts. Here's the list.
Thermaltake Flow TX+ 25.00 eur
Swiftech MCP655 89.00 eur
Arctic Silver Arctic Alumina 5.00 eur
Aerocool GateWatch 2 Black 44.40 eur
Adding the S&H the total is 171.10e

Lets see how fast they are.

Two words

Two words pretty high on my vanity hate list are "My Blog". I just can't stand people being so important about "their blogs" and thinking they are special because they have a blog to spread out their pathetic lives, meaningless opinions and stupid pictures. Come on! Everyone can make a blog and unfortunately they do so.

This will also be the only post of me writing about my pathetic life, opinions, feelings or whatever. I like to keep some things to myself and share them to the people I want, not just every "Joe Surfer".

Now I've jumped on the bandwagon, but rest assured, this is the last and only time you'll see me saying "My Blog". It's just a diary of the computer project, nothing more, nothing less. Doesn't make me better person or the champion of the Internet.

If you enjoy reading it or it helps you in any way, all the better because that's the reason I've started My Blog.

Enough for the off topic. The rest will be strictly project related.

New parts list and blueprints

Just got mail from Jimm's PC store them telling that GF8800GTS is obsolete and it's not possible for them to get the BFG's watercooled model. Moreover I could not find even ASUS 8800GTS on their webshop. So I decided to put together a new list of parts.

Striker II Extreme, S775 NF790I SLI, DDR3, SATA2 2*GBLAN					353.00€	353.00€
SpinPoint 3.5" 750GB SATAII 32MB 7200rpm					85.40€	170.80€
CORE 2 DUO E8400 3.0GHZ 1333MHz 6M S775					159.00€	159.00€
Swiftech MCP655 waterpump					89.00€	89.00€
1000W, Dark Power Pro, ATX 2.2					259.00€	259.00€
HyperX 2GB 1800MHz DDR3 Non-ECC CL8 kitx2 (2x1024mb)					257.00€	257.00€
GeForce 9800GX2 1024MB (PCI-E/DDR3/HDMI/2xDVI)					449.00€	449.00€
DVD+-RW Dual Layer, SH-S203N/BEBN, Light Scribe					27.00€	27.00€
Total: 1763.80€

That's the most expensive I would ever go and gives a good outline for future refinements of the list.


I managed to put together the blueprints for the water reservoir.

I decided to gut the vectra case and only use the mobo fastening area and PSU's backplate from the case. All that plastic and thin sheet metal make a lot of resonation even with just the HDDs and DVD drive.

I visited my parents at the countryside so I had the possibility to plasma cut the case into convenient pieces. Then grinded them to remove the sharp edges.

Also decided the idea of the new case. L-profile steel frame and rubber plates as cover. I'll see what Else I can find from my dad's stashes next time I go and visit him.

Starting point.


Cutting. That's my dad holding the guide.


What's left from the case. I'm not sure if I use the PSU plate, but it's good to have just in case.


A closeup of the cut. See how little heat there was. Even that plastic bracket I forgot to remove didn't take that more damage.


Thanks to my little brother for taking the pics.

Scavenger hunt

Decided for the water cooling system to be made from aluminium. Aquired a nice piece of surplus alu from work. Did the preliminary sketch of water reservoir.

Thanks to the surfing in the Net and some comments of experience I've decided to change the config a little bit. The CPU is going to be E8400. It has the same characteristics and overclocks pretty well. It's also cheaper. Also changed the WD Caviar to Samsung Spinpoint F1.

Then, the horror of horrors, I found out that the Striker II Extreme is compatible ONLY with DDR3. That's going to have significant impact on my budget.

I also took picture of my work area. Here's the machine I'm going to use for the parts manufacturing. Normally it's used to make parts for HewSaw sawmills, but now it's time to make proper use of it :)



Yeah, it's a bit dark, but I forgot to change the settings on my camera...

I also managed to get a radiator from the local scrap yard. Now my computer has something mor spanish than just the name.

Preliminary research

At this point I just look for the parts for the computer. The goal is to have a decent gaming rig with possibility to upgrade later on. I'm not looking for 100 FPS in crysis, but I wish to be able to play FH2 with constant framerate over 40 ;)

Some places with helpful people I've found:
Tehomylly
Overclockers
OCforums

And of course my friends over at the Forgotten Honor community and Rattus Norvegicus.


New rig specs:
DVD: DVD+-RW Dual Layer,Light Scribe, SATA
HDDs: 2X WD Caviar SE, SATAII/300, 750GB
GFX: ASUS GeForce 8800GTS PCIE 512MB or BFG GeForce 8800 GTS OC2 WC 512MB PCIe (liquid cooled )
MEM: HyperX 800MHz DDR2 SLI-R DIMM 4-4-4-12 (4x1024MB)
CPU: CORE 2 DUO E8500 3.16GHZ 1333MHz
MoBo: ASUS Striker II Extreme
PSU: Zalman 750W, Heatpipe cooled ATX-PSU
Cooling: RESERATOR1+ liquid cooling set

Watercooling system specs:
- loop: reservoir - pump - CPU - chipset - GFX - reservoir (maybe adding some memory cooling later if needed and maybe another loop for that)
- 3.5 bar, 1200 l/h
- 12mm fittings
- reservoir size approx. 480cc
I think I'm going for Swiftech MCP655 or something similar. That pump fits the specs of flow and pressure just perfect.

I have not set budget yet, but after looking for the prices of the parts the cost seems to come around 1500-1600e. I hope I can cut the costs down, but I'd rather not change the parts too much. The good thing is that the actual payday is months away and the prices are bound to drop a little.

Because this is my first water cooled system, I thought it would be wise to build a test rig first to see how things are done before meddling with the expensive new parts and possibly destroying them.

Parts list for the water cooling test rig (+ = have it, - = need to get it):
+ case, mobo & PSU (HP vectra salvaged from work)
+ monitor, keyboard and mouse
+ some quite old HDs
+ GFX card, also old
- radiator
- memory chip(s)
- CPU cooling block
- pump
- reservoir
- tubing and nipples
- temperature meters

Starting the El Jefe Project

Here's the palce you can follow my quest for the new computer of mine. The project should be ready before christmas.

Why so early start, you might ask? Because I'm going to build a water cooling system into it and I'm trying to make the whole machine as silent as possible. Preferrably totally fanless system, but I doubt if that's possible. Still trying to do that and if it runs too hot, adding a couple of big fans. On top of that, I try to make everything I can by myself and only buy parts if I cannot manufacture them.

I'm not saying that I'm an expert in building computers or working metal so we will see what happens. There will be some unexpected twists and turns and most probably some very stupid mistakes.

I still hope that something useful comes out of this. We'll see....

To do list:
- get radiator
- get memory
- get pump
- make the tank
- sketch CPU block
- make CPU block
- sketch the parts assembly for the case
- get temp meters
- get tubing
- get materials for case
- assemble and test the test system
- make the case
- fit the parts in the case
- get the new parts
- assemble and test the new system