Heater core corrosion & dual 120mm in Dragon Case

D

DieLate

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 10, 2003
Messages
236
I'm seriously considering water cooling, but there's something I don't know the answer to. I was going to go with a heater core (either single 120mm fan or dual, whichever I can fit in my case), but I don't know if any of them are copper or not.

The Black Ice radiators are listed as having a copper core, but DangerDen for one doesn't say what the heater cores are made out of. I don't want different types of metals in the loop as to avoid excessive corrosion.

Anyone know if DangerDen's heatercores are coppere, or if anyone sells copper heater cores? I just want a cheaper radiator, and the heater cores are 1/2 to 1/3 the price of the Black Ice Xtreme or similar. :(


Also, ideas on how to fit a dual 120mm radiator into a Chieftec/Chenming/Etc Dragon case are welcome. AFAIK, it would have to go in the top. But due to PSU placement, it would have to be partially on top of the optical drives, and as I can figure would only leave about 1" of clearence once the fans are attached. Is this enough? My other option here would be to mount it primarily on top of the case with a shoud enclosing the fan & radiator and going all the way down to the top of the case (which would end up looking sorta like an EXOS type system).

For the front, I've already moved my HD mounting enclosure up to the floppy drive bay, but there's only 8 inches of clearance below it. Most duals seem to be 10-11" tall. I suppose I could relocate my HDs to another part of the case, maybe a custom mount above the optical drives.

In the rear it's totally impossible to fit 2 120mm fans.

TIA
 
As far as I know, the Danger Den and all the other heater cores that are sold by the different water cooling sites are all copper. If you were to get one from a auto parts store, there are 2 different types, all copper and copper/brass mix. You'll have to look at them to be sure of the metal type. As for mounting, you're going to have to be creative as they take up a lot of room. Some people mount them in front, others on top and others in the top over their optical drives. You'll just have to see what works out best for you.
 
One of the guys here has his heatercore mounted in an external housing sitting on top of his case. Just an idea. It was tastefully done and looked pretty good.
 
Heatercore from DD is Copper or Brass, which are not going to corrode.


Mounting? Break out the holesaw and the dremel. Cases were made to be cut.
 
Cool, thanks for the input.

I've come down to either relocating my HDs to another location and placing the heatercore up front, or going with a double single 120mm heatercore setup. I don't know if anyone has tried this, but if I were to fit 1 up front below my HDs, and then one on top just forward of the PSU, I would have good airflow to both. However, what I don't know is how much more stress this will cause the pump. I was going to go with a 3 block setup (CPU/VPU/Chipset), and preferably the DD/Swiftech/etc 12v pump. It should be okay to do run two heatercores, I would think.

However, to reduce tubing, I would have one heatercore after the other, so the flow would be like:

Reservoir > Pump > CPU > VPU > Front heatercore > Chipset > Upper heatercore > Reservoir

(The chipset is on the way back up to the 2nd heatercore). I'm sure it would be better to have one of the heatercores between the CPU and VPU, but that would result in a lot of extra tubing.

The reason I'm somewhat reluctant to do it in the front still, is that it would protrude about 1-1.5" above the intake in front. My case has a door that would need to be cut as well if I were going to have an intake opening tall enough for every millimeter of the radiator. And cutting that door is going to basically destroy the entire front of the case. I might as well just take off the front plastic face instead. And if I do that, then I've got one ugly case.

I wish I had considered upgrading to watercooling when I bought this case. :(
 
I just realized I could have a heatercore between the VPU and CPU....

So:
Reservoir > Pump > VPU > Front heatercore > CPU > Chipset > Upper heatercore > Reservoir

That might work out okay.

Or do you guys think I should just scrap the extra 1.5" of intake opening and put the double heatercore up front? I really don't want to remove the entire front.
 
you could do it like mine and mount it on the top?

new.JPG


just a suggestion...

i think its made of copper and another mix (most of them) maybe aluminum or brass...i think its aluminum....

but yeah, u should be okay, but good luck!
 
I had one of those cases recently with a dual 120mm heatercore from a chevy caprice. I have seen them most commonly placed in the front of the case while relocating the HDDs. I however placed mine in the top of the case.

I made a cutout so the tanks on the ends of the heatercore would sit flush on top of the case and the fins would protrude inside the case. I then custom made a shroud of plexi 3/4" deep and mounted the fans to it. This also required trimming of tops of the 5 1/4" bays as the heatercore was slightly wider. It took away the use of the top two bays only, one exactly for the shroud/fans and one for airflow. If you measure properly you will not have any issues with your powersupply.

Also if you have all copper blocks you won't have a problem with the copper/brass heatercores. Some foreign cars used aluminum heatercores but I haven't seen any of them used in watercooling.
 
DieLate said:
I just realized I could have a heatercore between the VPU and CPU....

So:
Reservoir > Pump > VPU > Front heatercore > CPU > Chipset > Upper heatercore > Reservoir

That might work out okay.

Or do you guys think I should just scrap the extra 1.5" of intake opening and put the double heatercore up front? I really don't want to remove the entire front.
Click to expand...

unless your pump has a hella high head rating (hella high head...triple [H] pumpage :D ), any plans to use twin dual 120 sized heatercores should be built around a single pass heatercore like a 2-342.

aluminum heatercores -- most cores that are pre-88 or so will be brass/copper. that is a not a law but a general rule of thumb. There are also several post-'88 that are brass/copper but you run into a lot more aluminum models after '88. If you are in doubt, make them pop open the box before you buy it - brass and copper cores are easy to spot - they look like brass and copper:
twins%20but%20not%20identical.jpg
 
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