Home-made water cooling system

[NotMyBest2Day]

I used to have a thread for this, but I guess somebody cleaned this section out..

Anyways, I had an idea of making my own water blocks and such at my dad's work, and I finally got around to doing prototype1. It can be a lot better than it is, but I don't think it's too bad for two hours' worth of work.

Socket A waterblock (http://www.lifelessempathy.net/waterblockpics.php)

In the works is also a chipset block, and I have to redesign the block I had for my fx5200. I guess I can test on that one, but I ultimately want to make one for my 6600gt.

[yahooadam]

nice idea

looks quite good

u got a cap and readings off that thing yet ? ;)

[NotMyBest2Day]

Well I'm hoping to get some better up-close detail pics of it soon, but the channels that I milled out need to be centred a little better, so that there's room on the four corners to drill a hole and tap it, then get a small piece of plexi-glass and cut it to size, then put a bead of silicon around the outer edge and attach the glass to the block. Of course putting the pipe fittings on there before sealing it down to the block. Then all that's left is leak testing for a few days.

I still have to come up with some kind of bracket to put on the back-side of the board to attach the block and all, but that's later after I make prototype2, and get a pump, resivoir, and radiator. I'd love it if I had access to a decent CNC mill, 'cause I could make perfect ones in about 20 minutes (and in mass quantities as a side-business :D).

It's all a process though, and like any process, it takes time, a couple of failures, and many modifications.

[chris000001]

how are you milling these parts... do you have a small mill at your house or at your school?

[NotMyBest2Day]

It's at my dad's work. I play around there afterhours all the time. Jet - Vertical Mill - 690089 (http://www.wmhtoolgroup.com/index.cfm?area=shop&action=detail&iid=139695). That thing is a monster. It doesn't look like it in the picture, but it is huge. Weight: 2200lbs, and we got the powerfeed boxes for the x and y axes (plural for axis). We've also got a nice lathe, a decent bandsaw, tubing benders and such. I think it's more fun to go there than Disneyland is. :D

[chris000001]

Disney is over rated...i like universal better anyways. its gonna be so sweet living only 20 minutes from disney/universal in the fall!!!

well anyways back on topic... that mill looks pretty sweet... at the high school i went too they had a pretty sweet CNC mill in the tech class, i played around with it a few times, i only made a pair of dice out of aluminum.

[NotMyBest2Day]

I've got a couple of sets of steel dice done on a mill similar to that Jet one, but it was also in high school shop class. That mill was probably about 40 years old, too.

I've gotten to play with a CNC mill before. It was a little desktop one that was controlled through DOS. We had a little 386DX hooked up to it to design everything, and it was all keyboard-input. No mouse support. We probably could have done metal on it, but it was primarily for acrilic (plexi-glass). We got 4'x8'x1/2" sheets of it for about $500/sheet and used the tablesaw to cut them into smaller pieces (about the size of a dollar bill).

That was fun though. I'd love to get a few CNC machines for home. They don't have to be industrial strength though. Aluminum and copper are about the hardest materials I'd use in it.

[Avid6eek]

The waterblock you made looks awsome. My g/f's dad manages a machine shop but they are operational 24/7 so there is never any downtime for me to mess around with the equipment. Keep us updated on your projects! :)

[yahooadam]

The waterblock you made looks awsome. My g/f's dad manages a machine shop but they are operational 24/7 so there is never any downtime for me to mess around with the equipment. Keep us updated on your projects! :)
coughtypicalcough :p

anyway, is that a CAM machine, or do u have to do it by hand

my old secondary school had a CAM machine, but that was for arcylic/plexi too

u designed the pattern in 2d design or somthing
then u basically printed to the cad machine

[NotMyBest2Day]

The two desktop CNCs had a primitive CAD program for them to generate the plot list. We had a third CNC machine called the BAM-100. It did engraving, and the CAD part of it was Windows-based, and you had to generate the plot list, save it on a floppy, then do the 'restart in ms-dos mode' (Windows 95), and the software that controlled the machine was DOS-based.

The one I did the block with was all manual labor. There's a couple of screwups on it, but the nice part is the drive motors for the axes, which of course are also manual-control.