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thewhiteguy
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- Jun 17, 2002
- Messages
- 4,551
If you're on 56k I don't care, get with the 21st century already.
Intro
A few weeks ago I set out to buy a new case because the one I was running was simply too crowded for my relatively huge water cooling loop. I looked at quite a few cases and I didn't see any full tower cases that would really be ideal, so I ended up spending 3X as much as I wanted to (
) on a CM Stacker. For those of you who have been wondering about this case, it's awesome in pretty much every way (and extremely heavy).
Based on my experience with my previous setup I had a few goals for the new design:
- I did not want to make any modifications to the case (especially with how much the Stacker costs)
- I wanted to be able to remove the whole loop in one piece, no tubing disconnects required
- I wanted the pump, reservoir, heatercore and tubing to be as out of the way as possible
- Of course the flow rate still had to be massive, lest the AquaComputer people mock me
Construction of the pump/reservoir
Because the Stacker is completely 5.25" drive bays down the front, I wanted to find a way to squeeze everything into a package that I could install like I would a optical drive. The first problem with this is that I could not get a pump and reservoir close enough together so they would fit left-to-right in the bays. Turning them to be parallel with the motherboard would considerably increase the depth of the assembly, and I wanted to keep things as much in the bays as possible.
So the solution was to move to a small reservoir made from 1.25" PVC and to directly couple the pump to the reservoir. As far as I've seen, I'm the first person to do a direct pump-to-reservoir setup with this model pump (years ago there were reservoirs designed to hook right onto the aquarium pumps that were popular then). I didn't want to make any mods to the pump and I wanted the pump and reservoir to be separable, so I cut the barb off a brass fitting and increased the ID so the pump's inlet barely fit. I polished the fitting so o-rings (I think I ended up with 10) on the pump would seal well. It takes a little twisting, oil, and pressure, but I'm really happy with the way this came out and it hasn't leaked.
Next I used the pump's original bracket turned backwards with a piece of 2" PVC (the OD of 1.25" fittings fit nicely into the ID of 2" PVC) epoxied onto it to hold the pump and reservoir together, just to make sure that coupling didn't separate and really make a mess.
Here's the complete pump/reservoir assembly with the base painted and all fittings installed
Construction of the frame to hold everything
I needed some sort of frame to hold the heatercore, fans, and the pump/reservoir. Because I wanted this all to fit in a 5.25" drive bay the natural thing to start with was some CD-ROM drive shells. I used one on the top and bottom, drilling holes in their ends where the bolts which hold everything together will go. Since I was in the mood to use PC parts I went ahead and cut up a case side-panel to make the sides of the frame, which will make the frame double as a shroud for the fans. I cut the top and bottom down in length because their full length wasn't necessary, and boxed in the ends with lots of hammer banging and filing.
Oh and by the way this tool right here is awesome for cutting up side-panels
Putting the frame, heatercore and pump/reservoir together
I soldered brass barbs onto a Boneville core, pressure tested it, then came back and laid down some epoxy to make absolutely sure they wouldn't leak (I like overbuilding things).
The following picture sequence is pretty self-explainatory
Here's the frame, heatercore and fans all put together
And here's how the pump and reservoir will sit in the frame
Final assembly
With foam used to complete the shroud (yeah it's ghetto I know) and pump in place with vibration-absorbing foam, here's what it looks like before I installed it.
And here's what the system looks like with everything finished (and quite a bit of air still in the lines)
The power LED on these cases is like a laser
Feel free to ask any questions you might have, or comment on ghettoness you see (there's plenty of it).
Intro
A few weeks ago I set out to buy a new case because the one I was running was simply too crowded for my relatively huge water cooling loop. I looked at quite a few cases and I didn't see any full tower cases that would really be ideal, so I ended up spending 3X as much as I wanted to (
) on a CM Stacker. For those of you who have been wondering about this case, it's awesome in pretty much every way (and extremely heavy).Based on my experience with my previous setup I had a few goals for the new design:
- I did not want to make any modifications to the case (especially with how much the Stacker costs)
- I wanted to be able to remove the whole loop in one piece, no tubing disconnects required
- I wanted the pump, reservoir, heatercore and tubing to be as out of the way as possible
- Of course the flow rate still had to be massive, lest the AquaComputer people mock me
Construction of the pump/reservoir
Because the Stacker is completely 5.25" drive bays down the front, I wanted to find a way to squeeze everything into a package that I could install like I would a optical drive. The first problem with this is that I could not get a pump and reservoir close enough together so they would fit left-to-right in the bays. Turning them to be parallel with the motherboard would considerably increase the depth of the assembly, and I wanted to keep things as much in the bays as possible.
So the solution was to move to a small reservoir made from 1.25" PVC and to directly couple the pump to the reservoir. As far as I've seen, I'm the first person to do a direct pump-to-reservoir setup with this model pump (years ago there were reservoirs designed to hook right onto the aquarium pumps that were popular then). I didn't want to make any mods to the pump and I wanted the pump and reservoir to be separable, so I cut the barb off a brass fitting and increased the ID so the pump's inlet barely fit. I polished the fitting so o-rings (I think I ended up with 10) on the pump would seal well. It takes a little twisting, oil, and pressure, but I'm really happy with the way this came out and it hasn't leaked.
Next I used the pump's original bracket turned backwards with a piece of 2" PVC (the OD of 1.25" fittings fit nicely into the ID of 2" PVC) epoxied onto it to hold the pump and reservoir together, just to make sure that coupling didn't separate and really make a mess.
Here's the complete pump/reservoir assembly with the base painted and all fittings installed
Construction of the frame to hold everything
I needed some sort of frame to hold the heatercore, fans, and the pump/reservoir. Because I wanted this all to fit in a 5.25" drive bay the natural thing to start with was some CD-ROM drive shells. I used one on the top and bottom, drilling holes in their ends where the bolts which hold everything together will go. Since I was in the mood to use PC parts I went ahead and cut up a case side-panel to make the sides of the frame, which will make the frame double as a shroud for the fans. I cut the top and bottom down in length because their full length wasn't necessary, and boxed in the ends with lots of hammer banging and filing.
Oh and by the way this tool right here is awesome for cutting up side-panels
Putting the frame, heatercore and pump/reservoir together
I soldered brass barbs onto a Boneville core, pressure tested it, then came back and laid down some epoxy to make absolutely sure they wouldn't leak (I like overbuilding things).
The following picture sequence is pretty self-explainatory
Here's the frame, heatercore and fans all put together
And here's how the pump and reservoir will sit in the frame
Final assembly
With foam used to complete the shroud (yeah it's ghetto I know) and pump in place with vibration-absorbing foam, here's what it looks like before I installed it.
And here's what the system looks like with everything finished (and quite a bit of air still in the lines)
The power LED on these cases is like a laser
Feel free to ask any questions you might have, or comment on ghettoness you see (there's plenty of it).