Little Heavy.

they are "filled" with a partial vacuum, some wicking material and liquid. people have trid making them but you can not solder the end, i think in the factory the machine which crimps the end shut is also inside the partial vacuum.
 
not so much the partial vacuum, but is that they have the wicking material around the outside. They are, usually, filled with ammonia and the phase change temperature of ammonia is low enough that it can be used as a coolant in heat pipes. Heats up ammonia turns into at the hot spot and is replaced as cooled liquid traveling thru the wicking material.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Heat_Pipe_Mechanism.png
 
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More stuff done today!

Drilling the PCB.
I stick them to a block of wood with double sided outdoor carpet tape.

carpettape.jpg


then drill. with taig minilathe,

taig.jpg


because it is very precise and i dont break as many of these tiny carbide drills. as i do with the drill press!

carbide.jpg


Then some of the components are soldered in the board, (still waiting for the LEDS, stupid holidays!)
The next part was drilling and milling the front panel It was done on the bigger lathe, which I have made a milling attachment for.

lathemaster.jpg

lathemaster3.jpg


(no photos again while concentrating, sorry :)

The board is in place. it is bolted right on the panel with no standoffs. because there are milled holes behind it where the components are. i just drilled holes and used self tapping screws because i did not want to risk a tiny tap breaking of in the panel.

there is still no power button it will be turned from plexiglass and brass.

boardfront.jpg


Later while trying to figure out a "heat pipe squasher" I accidentally made a CPU block :)
I will put a copper base on it from one of the old heatsinks. and make or adapt a plate or something to hold it down to the motherboard mounting holes.
It turns out that straightening the zalman pipes is fine even if they end up a bit distorted, where the bend was. That part will be inside the blocks anyways.

cpublock1.jpg


The picture is of the motherboard to scale to use as a template for the placement of the screw holes and the heatpipe blocks. etc and make sure nothing will interfere with RAM etc.
 
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i was gonna say, it looks like it might be a bit tight with the ram...

it looks like if you where to reverse the order you have them in now and spin them 90+° you could have them vertical on the exterior heatsink and it looks like you wont run into any clearance issues nearest i can tell by eyeballing it. other wise i would rebend them and get them as close as i could to the top most pipe.
 
Only 3 heatpipes? I would have thought at least 4 for a passive box like this.
 
well they managed to suck the heat from a 1500w heatgun in to water ok, if it is not enough the block can be remade for 4 or 5 pipes. sa

this thing http://www.atechfabrication.com/products/mini_client_2500.htm only uses 2 and it doesnt even have proper heatsinks, just sandwiched aluminum plates

(well you shoulnt expect too much its only $719 fot a similar spec-case only)

and they have test results with E8400 (im using a lower powered cpu than that)

http://www.atechfabrication.com/information/DG45FC_Blu-ray_player.htm#Testing
 
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fantastic build. I can't wait to see it when it's finished.
 
@Thor
I put the block on the real motherboard on top of the CPU protector thing, and put in a spacer the same thickness as the copper plate would be. ther is just enough room to click open the ram clip thingys without it hitting anyhting

but i think it would look better if they were closer to the top one with the same spacing as the block anyways. then that bit of heatpipe wont be sticking out on the other side of the CPU block either. lucky copper is one of the most malleable metals and you can bend and rebend as much as you like :)

the side attachment is not a sandwich it is one piece of 1/4 inch aluminum with u shaped slots milled in it (need to wait for special mill bit :/ ) . it will press part of the heatpipe flat against the heatsink and the rest will be conducting through that block. also the bottom edge will be milled at an angle for more clearance. It is actual better contact than the CPU block itself, because a flat surface is pressed down rather than (who knows what gos on inside a round hole the same nominal size as the heatpipe, probably not great contact area)

but even without heatsink compound the heatpipes really take away a lot of heat from the block. if i heat it up with the heatgun and the ends are in water, i can turn the heatgun off, and touch the aluminum right away without it feeling hot. on the same block by itself i cant touch it its too hot (water spits off it)
 
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I still think this is one of the more awesome projects of the past few years :)

Great job :D
 
Subscribed. Awesome project! I want to see the final build and see how the CPU goes along with a passively cooled case!
 
another little update. I have not had a lot of time to work on this because of some other projects.

Today i put on the feet.

feets.jpg


After carefully reading the ATX spec i drilled and tapped the holes for the standoffs.
(those other holes are not mistakes, those are where the feet bolt on)

standoffs.jpg


And the board fit perfectly.

mounted.jpg


I am still not looking forward to doing the cutout for the atx sheild plate. but it is next on the list.
 
*watches on* :D

Can't wait to see the performance numbers :)
 
In order to once more avoid working on the back panel, today i did the heatpipe to heatsink block.

I busted my only drill. that is the size i need for these heatpipes :( fortunately that was after i had bored most of the holes and the last one is just a bit less deep, that heatpipe is shorter there anyways.

the holes were bored with another piece to the side with 1/8th of a diameter outside the block.
that is so the heatpipes will squish against the heatsink, but still have room inside the hole to deform.

the plate holding it down against the CPU was a backplate from some heatsink or waterblock. in my PC bits and pieces drawer.

heatpipe.jpg


shimano SPD cleat countersink bolts. now the flat plate can sit right on top of the block.

cpudone3.jpg


cpudone1.jpg


cpudone2.jpg



now does anyone know how to remove this kind of heatsink clip? they have just used a double circuitboard header with a u shaped wire instead of 2 pins. then the spring clip hooks under it.

how.jpg


very simple and cheap to make but not so easy for the DIYer!
 
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With the heatpipes, did you jsut slap the alu plates over or did you use some TIM as well? also when bolting onto the side of the case i assume you used some TIM there too?
 
oh, just did it, easy as pie :) thanks. im glad it was not some "special tool" kind of deal
 
Rossi~ said:
With the heatpipes, did you jsut slap the alu plates over or did you use some TIM as well? also when bolting onto the side of the case i assume you used some TIM there too?
Click to expand...

The ones on the sides have some but the main block does not yeat, untill the time comes when i am finished disassembling and reassembling to work on other parts.

there will be TIM between the pipes and the blocks, the blocks 2 halves and the block/CPU

and the aluminum plates are bored out to a very close fit as well, they had to be really clamped down tight with the bolts and deformed against the heatsink.
 
custom wire made from one of these and some of these

Just pry up a little plastic tab to release the 6 way end from the wires and replace them with singles.

ill probably feed it through a bit of something to make it look better.

wire1.jpg

wire2.jpg


I did that and put in the wireless card to figure out the routing for the graphics chip heatpipes, but i realised
I just need to scrounge up a power supply and i can do some tests of the CPU cooling (finished, will use a Pico power supply, but my other htpc is using it at the moment.)
 
I see you have a printed copy of the ATX specification ready :)
 
Elledan said:
I see you have a printed copy of the ATX specification ready :)
Click to expand...

yeah it is not pretty the way things are supposed to line up :) and no measurement from here to there, you have to add and subtract and dont make any mistakes or nothing fits!
 
DeFex said:
yeah it is not pretty the way things are supposed to line up :) and no measurement from here to there, you have to add and subtract and dont make any mistakes or nothing fits!
Click to expand...

I'm just grateful they started adding the metric measurements in later versions :D
 
I have been running some test with the CPU cooler.
i ran 10 intel burn test in a row and the CPU could not go over 70c

however the RAM got quite hot, it is some OCZ gold i scrounged out of another computer.
is there cool running DDR2? it does not have to be particularly fast. 1066 would be fine.

Also i havent finished the heatpipe cooler for the ICH/MCH and they get very hot as well with the default intel heatsink. (over 100c!) i had to blow a little fan on them or the burn test would crash the machine (carefully not pointed near the cpu cooler so it would not affect the test)

anyways the CPU cooler is good, i definately can not get away without the ICH/MCH cooler. and i need cooler running RAM.
 
Cut a few vent slots in the back and sides and throw in a very low speed fan. Any air flow will help a ton. I would guess your case HS is way way too thick to be able to transfer the heat from the chips. There is no transfer to the outside air. The HS gets hot around the chip, but its not wicking to the outside, its basically heat insulating the contact point of the heat pipe or chip.

Just an uneducated guess.
 
Neutrondefex.............
I didn't have room in my 4U's for RAM coolers so I thought higher latency RAM like CL7 on DDR2,etc.
Turns out that the SPD is what causes the heat.
Hynix chips with Copper sleeves are the coolest RAM I found.
Get GSkill or Patriot and go for DDR3 w/ CL9 1066 if any exists, or CL9 1333.
They do not use SPD on slow " silver brands ". ( titanium being the best, then platinum, gold, etc. ).
 
I had to put it aside for a while while I do some other work. its not abandoned though.
 
What is this "life" thing you speak of? Do you mean to say there is something other then computer modding in the world?

DeFex, dont leave it to long.
 
A life is for people who have nothing better to do ;)
 
DeFex said:
I am still not looking forward to doing the cutout for the atx sheild plate. but it is next on the list.
Click to expand...

NO KIDDING! that has got to be the most unnerving part of any custom case.... i hate it!
 
DeFex - Still there? :confused:
I was looking for another build and going page by page, when I ran across Little Heavy.
I forgot about this build, but I hope it's not abandoned.
Has six months been long enough to complete your other work?
 
LOL there is always other work when you are building a modular synthesizer from scratch :)

As for that machine It is running, but needs a few finishing touches. after this batch of modules i am working on now is done, I will look after it.
 
got a guy looking to do a completely enclosed case with no fans or holes so i searched for your thread. its been another 6 months snice the last post on here, any chance this will get finished?
 
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