100% DIY water cooling setup

[BillthePlayerPawn]

I've been pondering water cooling for a while now, I've decided that it'll be my high school senior project.

I got my pump a few years ago at a yard sale for 10 bucks, it's not bad, pumps about 2 and a half gallons a minute. so that's taken care of, and I can probably get appropriate fittings and plugs at a hardware store.

my plan is to adapt a heater core and make water blocks from chunks of copper bar, I need about a foot of it, 2"x1/2" and I haven't been able to find suitable c11000 or c10100 copper anywhere in my area, or any place online to sell it to me.

any suggestions?

 

[Chilly]

http://dangerden.com they sell pure copper blocks, regardless I would recommend getting a real water pump, as it will provide more head pressure, more flow, generally better all around (the D5 or 655 same pump different names, is the pump I would recommend in this project) everything else thou should be good

 

[BillParrish]

mcmaster.com for the raw copper. Look under

Raw Materials and Springs then metals


overclockers.com has some old articles on making your own water blocks out of raw copper.

 

[Petra]

You could also check OnLineMetals (they sell C110 in full bars and in custom cut lengths).

They also have Delrin (expensive there, though), aluminum, brass, and more...

 

[BillthePlayerPawn]

I got a 1'x2x1/2", c110 bar. from onlinemetals.com for 55 dollars, which is by no means a ripoff, but copper is getting expensive. aluminum seems like nothing by comparison.

but I'm happy since that's enough to make blocks for the cpu, northbridge and and two gpus with room to screw up a couple of times and try out a few designs.

the question now is whether to come up with some cross drill designs or do something more like the dangerden maze which would be a little more difficult requiring more pieces, since I don't have the tools to make it in one chunk.

 

[Sniper X]

A Cross drill design would be best because it is the least complicated and because the finished product is one solid piece. Dont forget about the mounting systems either. Ive built waterblocks before and if you dont take into consideration how you will mount the waterblock scurely before you build it your gonna end up having a halfed ass mounting system. Also barbs can be replaced by short lengths of copper pipes.