Black copper NCase M1

[BaK]

Heh thx!

I mostly chose Tygon Norprene tubing for its plasticizer free property, but as I didn't clean the loop yet after one year of usage, I can not tell how it is inside.
Will let you know once I have to tear apart the loop for maintenance, but for now I don't see any reason to do it. Water is still clear (distilled water + Innovatek Protect) and has the same level as when I filled the loop up.

Specs are right, this tubing is very flexible but tends to kink on short radius. And what I noticed is when a kink appears once, it sort of leave a mark/shape on the tubing which then kinks more easily at this location.
That's why I have added and anti-kink spiral around the tubing on top, as I've made it kink several times before when taking the rad out of the case.

Other small minus with Norprene is that dust sort of get stucked to it.
Oh and I had to add extra tape on each tube ending as I felt my fittings were not holding the tubing tight enough. That could be me though being too worried on my first watercooling build, or the Boom compression fittings being too loose.

 

[aquelito]

Thanks for the great feedback

You've got the choice between three wall thicknesses for each Norprene diameter. Going up would help with the kinking.

Anyway, I was going to purchase some 6.4/9.6 A-60-G tubing but for financial reasons I'll stick to what I've left from B-44-3 and see how it goes from there.

 

[DotSausage]

I've made some custom pieces for the M1, a new front bracket for a power switch without other ports, another for a reset switch at the back and a little L piece to help supporting the weight of the rad-push/pull unit

Painted, vandal switch with added resistance installed

New 12mm power switch + white power LED On the M1

Reset switch + HDD LED on the back

Do you think I could buy one of these custom front panel things from you? This is exactly what I've been looking to do on my M1 but I'm not in a position right now with the tools that I'd need to make one. Thanks! Also, did your M1 come with those rubber pieces to cover up the holes in the back that the water cooling hoses might go through?

 

[BaK]

Do you think I could buy one of these custom front panel things from you? This is exactly what I've been looking to do on my M1 but I'm not in a position right now with the tools that I'd need to make one. Thanks! Also, did your M1 come with those rubber pieces to cover up the holes in the back that the water cooling hoses might go through?

Let me check what I have around, I might still have some of these pieces left from my first trials that could still be used. Will get back to you next week.

The grommets at the back come from here, size is 25mm:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/6mm-9mm-...ts-/221289101517?ssPageName=ADME:L:OC:US:3160

 

[DotSausage]

Let me check what I have around, I might still have some of these pieces left from my first trials that could still be used. Will get back to you next week.

The grommets at the back come from here, size is 25mm:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/6mm-9mm-...ts-/221289101517?ssPageName=ADME:L:OC:US:3160

Awesome, thanks so much for the link and looking into it! I'll PM you if that's possible on this forum.

 

[confusis]

PMs are possible - just click the box with the downwards arrow on the top right of your page

 

[BaK]

Just a quick follow up, after four years of light use I thought it was time to check if everything was fine with the loop!
It was actually a good idea as the reservoir was half empty!
Evaporation must have occurred through the Norprene tubings!

So I had to choose between a full water flush or just a top off. I took the former because of the long time using the same fluid, but could have avoided the hassle of a full filling up as the drained water was still very clean.
No pic but the water was just barely tinted in blue, I hardly noticed it.

It was easy thanks to the fill and drain ports. Just had to open them, and all the liquid went out, around half a liter of water and Innovative protect Pro.

Then the filling was another story.
First I had to remember the specific way to do it, which meant having the case at a tilted position because of the fill port being on the side of the reservoir:

I then had to shake and tilt the case in other orientations, which wasn't easy with the rad hanging on its side. I managed to keep the rad in place with the help of some supports and foams.

Playing with the pump speed, knocking on the rad, and more shaking and tilting finally let me fill the loop up completely!

NCase still rocking and should be good for the next 4 years, unless an hardware change happens earlier!

 

[Valantar]

Can't believe I've never seen this build before. Great work, some really tight runs in there, and I really like that foam bottom layer. I'm kind of surprised you had any permeation at all with that neoprene tubing, though I guess some will always happen, and four years is quite a long time. Also, clean-looking fluid after four years of use is really not bad at all.

 

[BaK]

Can't believe I've never seen this build before. Great work, some really tight runs in there, and I really like that foam bottom layer. I'm kind of surprised you had any permeation at all with that neoprene tubing, though I guess some will always happen, and four years is quite a long time. Also, clean-looking fluid after four years of use is really not bad at all.

Thanks!
For the permeation I don't have any experience with other kinds of tubings, but I was also a bit surprised to see the res level lower. Even if that actually doesn't stand for a lot of liquid, the res being so tiny.

 

[Valantar]

Thanks!
For the permeation I don't have any experience with other kinds of tubings, but I was also a bit surprised to see the res level lower. Even if that actually doesn't stand for a lot of liquid, the res being so tiny.

Yeah, I saw some liquid loss with my EK ZMT tubing as well, but then I discovered a while back that my GPU block had a bunch of loose screws and there were clear signs of evaporation around some of those screw holes, so ... yeah I got lucky that nothing leaked, I guess! Didn't run it long enough after fixing that to see if the liquid loss was gone, but previous to that I saw something like 1-1.5cm liquid loss in my EK tube reservoir over ~2 years. In my current setup, which has only been running for a few months, there's a tad more air in my bubble catcher/micro res now than when I set it up, but I think that's just down to air in the system slowly gathering there. Neoprene is supposed to be zero permeation, but who knows what 'zero' means in this context, at which temperatures, etc.