Home made watercooling

[GigaHz]

Hi ,

I am planning on building my own water cooling kit , I was just interested to know about what material to use .

I was thinking , would a kit put together from copper pipes instead of plastic tubing, wouldnt that be better to dissipate heat more efficiently for the water going through the system ?

Saying that , it wouldnt look as good as a nice clear thick tubing with colored water , but this is for a 24/7 system that dosent need to look that good , as its a secondary system .

If it was my main system i would proberly factor looks into my design.

Can anyone offer and tips of experiance on home build water cooling ?

[KryoNexus]

the big problem with doing all copper consists of two things:

1) interfacing the copper pipes to the components. synthetic (tygon, silicon, etc) is great for this since it will just slide on snug over barbs.

2) upgradability. simply put, bending copper tubing to move parts around or upgrade isn't really advisable. the more times you bend metal, the weaker it gets. in other words, need to remove the motherboard for something? start by draining the watercooling kit and get ready to redo the kit entirely once you're finished.

as far as better performance? to be honest, your performance will probably be less. sure the water will dissipate heat on the way back to the radiator. the heat goes into the air inside the case. then as the water travels back to the cooling blocks, it picks up heat from the case air, thus giving you warmer water hitting the components that you wish to cool.

all in all, go with something like Tygon tubing. make sure the OD is at least 1/2" and plan your runs before you start cutting. you want to make the runs as short as possible to maximize flow.

when it comes to choosing components, it gets a bit tougher.

for the waterblocks....CPU, GPU, etc: you want a block that keeps the water inside the block for as long as possible and creates a lot of turbulence in the water. however, you don't want water pressure to build up excessively here either. this means a good balance between flow rates and passes/turbulence.

for the radiator: quite simply, in general, larger is better. heater cores are a favorite, but not required.

the pump: don't skimp on the pump, but make sure it suits your needs too. you don't need a pump that will drive a million gallons per hour. that will create excessive pressure in the loop, which in turn raises your chances for leaks. you do however want the pump to have a large "max head" on it so that it can handle all the backpressure from the system.

hope some of that helps out. more to your original question....no copper tubing is out of the question, unless you don't plan on ever messing around with the components inside again.

[GigaHz]

Thanks for the info , that helped a lot , i wanted to know 1 more thing before i get started it was regarding the pump.

I seen a waterpump on ebay , i used to have one in the garden [ it was near enough silent dont know about this one ]

It has an max output of 1000/LtrPerHour and has its own power connection, also very quiet.

Here it is http://i18.ebayimg.com/02/i/02/24/8a/33_2.JPG

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=57230&item=4341398681

Dont worry about the long black thing sticking out of it :) it's removable

Would this be too much for a watercooler or is there any other reason why i couldnt use it ? i dont really see these types of pumps being used , its mainly fishtank style pumps .

I was looking at the most expensive pump on this UK watercooling website and its max output was 1200/LtrPerHour but it cost nearly £50 .
http://www.watercoolingshop.com/catalog/images/tech_pumpe_1250.gif


This ebay pump is only half that and i am on a tight budget because i want this water block

D-Tek Custom Little River White Water AMD - Alu Top - 1/2" Barbs

http://www.coolercases.co.uk/images/d-tek/dt_al_details.jpg

Theres no way i would make my own waterblock , i wouldnt trust it to be watertight id be always checking it .

[Bio-Hazard]

The main thing with water cooling is to balance your system. Make sure all your parts are designed to work together, IE: Low flow, small diameter tubes and pump size. You don't want to put a low flow pump on a system that requires high water flow.
You can get just as good temps out of a small tube system as you can a big bulky 1/2 tube system if done right. I'm testing a small tube system right now (8mm) that getting just as good of temps as my high flow 1/2 inch system with alot less noise (pump and fans).
In short, read alot of reviews and ask alot of product questions on everything you plan on using and read and re-read all the products specs. Somethings just don't work well with others.

[KryoNexus]

the pump you are looking at on Ebay has nice flow rates, but it only has a 56" head. in other words, you'll never even come close to the flow rates that they specify. i'd be surprised if you see a quarter of the rates flow rates. look for something with a ten foot head on it.

Bio, yes a low flow system CAN perform equally with a high flow system, but it is heavily dependent on the components used, in particular the cooling blocks. a high flow will always outperform an equal low flow system assuming that it can remain in the radiator long enough to be cooled down.

[Bio-Hazard]

I've reviewed 2 German low flow systems here lately and this last one is just a kickin system, using low speed fans (1600 RPM, 55 CFM) and a small pump (230 GPH, 2 meter head), it matches the performance of my custom system I built using all the big name high flow parts. I've even tried 3 different water blocks to beat the German system, but the largest differance I can get is 1c. My custom system is using a dual heater core, 2 88.5 CFM fans, a D4 (old 370GPM) pump ans everything is 1/2 inch ID. So what I'm saying plan your system correctly and you can get away with low flow small tube and alot less noise and lets not forget a super easy system to setup and run tubing. From now on out, I'm sticking with low flow systems, bigger isn't always better. There is the new kid on the block in way of pumps that kicks some serious butt in the way of low flow max head (15ft), the DDC from Laing:
http://www.lainginc.com/DDC_Series.htm This is going to be my next pump matched to a Alphacool NexXxoS XP CPU block.
http://www.alphacool.de/perl/shop.pl?s=6977d3b87aad88fae671&l=2&rm=get_art&menu_id=2&prod_id=120&art_kz=129&art_id=12910
It's the top rated block over in Europe.

[GigaHz]

Hey this is just a stupid idea off the top , See if you had like a Set up off copper piping and bent it back and forth like the way it is inside a radiator.

So you have a a good length going up and down for about 10/15 runs each run about 1 foot , I have a small fridge like one of those little box fridges that you can buy to put beer in .

If i ran the pipe through that so that the whole inside of the fridge compartment was taken up with my radiator style bent pipes and i could connect it to my system , not with copper pipe but tygon tube so its flexible , do you think that would cool the water going through the pipes enough to cool a PC ?


Basically like a radiator without the fans , Fans are replaced with refrigeration for an Ultra Quiet PC .

This is mostly for a modding project and quiet PC , not for performance , has anyone done that , and do you have any idea if it would work ?

The fridge has really good cooling it is close to a freezer on full power .

[undergroundtech]

You would prolly need to get a sheet of pressed aluminum and cut out your owne cooling fins and solder them on to your tubing if you really want to make it fanless (Think... lots of surface area).
You could prolly make it work, just take lots pics and post em as you go.

[GigaHz]

http://www.pimpedoutcases.net/gallery/data/506/550CAMMER-med.jpg

Somebody just emailed me this pic , damn thats hardcore , must have took a long time . :) very nice

Proberly an old pic , but ive never seen it before .

[G2]

damn that sweet, it are 2 cases mounted on that middle piece thing??

[GigaHz]

Ohh man , you would NOT belive the luck i had today . [smilie=5bouncy.gif]

I was walking down the street and what did i see , An old industrial fridge .

It had this little rectangle radiator with copper pipes going through the fins just the exact same as a normal watercooling radiator, only it was about mabye half/double the size of the average watercooling rad. :P

Also this crazy crazy big fan like an air plane prop to cool it , it wasent attatched to the rad just bolted on ,in front of it .

I didnt have time to take it home as it was Christmas Eve and i was on my way out to a party [ My hands were like a coal miners by the time i had snappen it off the back of the fridge unit ].

Im telling you this ilooks perfect for water cooling , near enough exact same as the ones you buy only a little bigger and a lot more chunkier.

I had to put it and the fan in a black bag , then hide them in some bushes , for now i hope there still there when i go back .

hah , im such a bin raker ive been doing that all my life ; if i see something i think could be useful i just pick it up ad start walking . :oops:


I'll post a few pics of them when i retrieve them tomorrow [ If there still there , Should be bin men dont work through Christmas , and i doubt theres someone like me around ]

[KryoNexus]

on a side note, before you get too far into this project...

if you pump water onto the CPU that is colder than ambient temperature, you are going to have to deal with condensation. it really shouldn't be that bad to do, in fact just putting some insulation around the tubing and cpu/cpu socket, but it will require some effort and testing to make sure you have it right.

this is of course if you are still leaning to cooling the radiator with a fridge.