Home-made Liquid Cooling

Thanks I really appreciate it!

I've had to table the project for a week, too busy. I should get some time tomorrow though to work on this. The coolant is on order, and I am searching for a radiator

Back in the day when water cooling was considered Extreme we used to modify radiators used in a car heating system...check your local wrecker..you will need to modify the in/outlets maybe but whatever and you will meed to modify it to take cooling fans..

just a thought :)

That's a good idea. I might be able to find a good oil cooler

You should have grabbed a stock amd cooler since they are easy to get free or cheap and they have a very solid copper bottom on them.

I would not have chosen aluminum for something like this it just doesn't conduct heat as well as copper would. You want to move heat from the processor into the liquid as fast as possible because it is not the fluid that cools but the fact that it is dragging the heat away so the faster you can get he to the fluid the better off you are.

Just a more efficient solution for this. The aluminum may actually do a decent job but I am sure copper would be even better.

Another good idea once this actually starts coming together would be to get yourself a cheap 10 dollar copper cooler for a graphics card. You can gut some solid copper basic coolers that are a circular copper block with a fan in the center and fins around the edges. I think that would make a great base for a graphics cooler if you wanted to make one of those for this project and it is really cheap to add.

Indeed. I got the pump today, and am waiting on the coolant. The pump moves 10L per minute, and is silent! 1/2 inch tubing I picked up at home depot, polyvinyl. If the aluminum doesn't work well, I'll pick up a copper heatsink, and am definitely going to do my graphics card, as it's the hot spot in my system, hanging out at 37-39 degrees C. The sealing is done on the heatsink, and I am going to pick up the couplers today to figure out piping.

LiquidSnak said:

Indeed. I got the pump today, and am waiting on the coolant. The pump moves 10L per minute, and is silent! 1/2 inch tubing I picked up at home depot, polyvinyl. If the aluminum doesn't work well, I'll pick up a copper heatsink, and am definitely going to do my graphics card, as it's the hot spot in my system, hanging out at 37-39 degrees C. The sealing is done on the heatsink, and I am going to pick up the couplers today to figure out piping.

You are definitely going to want to go copper.
If you figure out a good way to make a GPU waterblock, please document it well so I can make one too!

~Lordbob

The answer seems to lie in epoxy resin, and 220 grit sandpaper. As long as you get it covered in epoxy, which I just dipped then sanded the excess, it seems to be leak proof.


Update time ^_^ I finally got some more time to work on the project, and made it to home depot for the essentials. Here is the work so far, and the final cost of materials was a whopping *drumroll* $74.86, the pricey bits being the 10 liters per minute pump, at 21.38, the heatsink at 11.99, and the two foot section of three inch diameter ABS pipe for the reservoir at 7.24.

The reservoir, nine inches tall, three inches wide ID, holding 35.79 fluid ounces by my calculation. The supply line is installed, with a T coupler so that it can be used to drive two heatsinks in the future. The return line will be more complicated, but installed soon. The electrical line is sealed with rubber that has been melted into the gaps.

Inside the reservoir is the pump:

Home depot supplied the couplings at full price. (hehe)

Drilled and tapped, then the couplings installed on the replacement plate, which is sealed to the heatsink with 100% silicone