Thunderwalruses are GO!

After 3 days of leak hunting I finally fixed them all yesterday. The 3 first ones were easy to find and fix but he last one was a sneaky bastard. That one was in the CPU block intake. Took one day to trace it and another to wait and see if I got it fixed. I didn't. Turns out that the tube incoming from the pump was twisted while I connected it to the pump (CPU block was already connected) and it made the inlet barb turn loose. Not much but enough to leak 5cl/8hours. I twisted the tube so that it will tighthen the barb and found all leaks sealed this morning.

So I did a bit of cable management and built the bottom of the case.


Here's the air intake filter. Made of pantyhose.


Today I hooked all the power up and cut the back panel so that I can fit the monitor cable and mouse + keyboard in.


El Jefe is ALIVE!!!


..and has some nice temperatures too. CPU & VGA are ambient temperature, the HDD is water temperature in the tank and CASE is the exhaust air temperature.


Temp sensor in watertank. There was a handy hole in the cap I believe just for this.

Still leaking

After having the pump running all night I found a leak. It was in the CPU block entry. I tightened the clamp and also screwed the barb a bit more. Now I'm leaving it to run for another night. Let's hope that got fixed now.

In addition to that I cut the dampers for the DVD drive. The foam from the PSU packaging was easy to cut and does the job perfectly. I'm going to fasten it with zip ties.


I also tested the fans. The 3 main fans in the radiator and the pump make almost no sound. The 2 small fans at the end of the tubes make more noise but I hope with the front plate installed it will dampen the sound. Anyways the machine sounds more like breeze in the trees than F-22 with afterburner like it used to sound.

I'm not dead and the project is progressing

For the last few weeks I've finally been able to work on El Jefe again. I've cut the holes for windows in the back and side panel. Haven't installed the actual window plates yet, because I need to be able to reach the innards until I'm sure the computer runs as it should.


I also built these ducts to suck hot air from the mosfets.


Last week I got the ducts and fans installed. Trying out the tank and pump position.


Then I put the CPU water block on. I had to use smaller diameter tube to connect the "Fusion Block" but I don't think it matters because everything else is tubed with the larger tubing.


I tried the PSU and motherboard on. At that time I found out the PSU mount was too close to the MoBo mount. So I had to drill new holes for the MoBo mount and modify it a bit on the left side too to fit the cover bolt tips too.


All the tubes connected. Next thing was to add water and hope for the best.


I set some toilet paper in the joints to see if anything leaks and protect the boards. There was 3 leaks. One in the rad exit, one in the tank input, and one in the GFX block exit. I managed to fix all of them and started removing the air from the system.



Having most of the air removed I hooked the PSU up and set the pump running to get rid of the last bubbles. I just connected the leftmost black and green wire together in the clip side.


I leave the pump running for the night and hope there won't be any more sneaky leaks.