[Scratch Build] It's finally done! Custom case, custom watercooling, custom cables, custom everythin
- Thread starter Simwalh
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I don't have room for a reservoir, so the pump will be fed by the radiator instead. In the build, the rad will be a bit higher so priming should be easier. what i might end up being able to do is just fill the whole loop slowly without needing to run the pump, because i'll fill it at the highest point in the loop (radiator top port)
Um, I'm no expert with pumps, but is the one in the model upside down? Probably not, because it wasn't mentioned yet, but all the builds I see have the built-in reservoir on top, on the bottom. Or is that a different kind of pump?
Anyway, great to see some virtual progress on this, how's manufacturing coming along?
Anyway, great to see some virtual progress on this, how's manufacturing coming along?
It isn't upside down, but it is in an unconventional location.
In general you place the pump in the bottom because the pumps used in PC watercooling aren't self-priming, they can't suck air to get the water to them. It is also common to have a reservoir at least above the pump so that water naturally floods the pump.
It is possible to have the pump in the top, but you will have a more difficult time filling the loop and bleeding all the air out of it. You also run the risk over time as water evaporates and air replaces it that because the pump is in the top a pocket of air can cause the pump to stop pumping efficient, air inside the pump that doesn't exit can cause it to spin without actually moving water.
It has risks, but it can be done. I just requires so patience and planning.
I will be using a radiator with 5 (or 7) ports. like this one. To fill the loop, i will use one of the top ports. For draining i can just take off the bottom panel (leaving everything else in place, yay modular case), put the whole system over a bucket and unscrew the bottom fitting. You could say the radiator endtank acts as a reservior. A very small one though.
As @QinX wrote, it is oriented like a pump would normally be oriented. But instead of a reservoir it has only a pump top on it. Also, the new D5 pump in there is much bigger than the DDC i had in there previously, but hopefully a lot more quiet, too.
For manufacturing, it's coming along, but very slowly. I contacted nearly 30 companies, but only a few have responded, with only two of them having made an offer. But i have a company that could make the Aluminium panels and powdercoat them, and @QinX can do the acrylic ones for me. But I'll keep waiting and calling one company after the other until i have gotten a sense of how much this should cost and choose then.
The main problem here is that i can't put it anywhere else
I moved the radiator up slightly, and have done away with 90deg fittings on the pump, so priming and keeping it primed should be a lot easier like this:
The tube from the rad to the pump is now horizontal, and goes down a bit at the pump. Bleeding will still not be easy, an I'll probably have to shut everything down to add water a couple of times, but you gotta do what you gotta do. Can't put it elsewhere and i don't want to flip it...
I'd recommend you check out this radiator review. You may want to consider the HardwareLabs SR-2 multi-port radiator. It is a bit slimmer than the UT60, allowing for you to either make you entire system smaller or run it with push/pull fans (you can then run the fans at a lower speed at a comparable air flow rate).
Thank you both for the detailed answers! I didn't know the D5 pump was that huge, so I mistook the round thing at the bottom for a reservoir.
ohh i see. well, right now the space for the radiator is 148x336, and it is limited like that because of the cubes. I'd have to make the case wider to fit the sr2, and it seems to be impossible to get here anyways. and making the case as small as possible isn't really the top priority for me, only to make it not much larger than needed and relativeley compact. so i'll leave the few mm breathing room i have in there.
What's the rationale behind all the bends at the top of the radiator? Wouldn't it work better (and be a lot easier to make the hardline runs) if you had the pump being fed from the radiator port closest to the front of the case and the return feeding into the back?
actually, not much rationale has gone into this at all
i changed the inlet and outlet of the radiator around, thanks for your input!
Well, hello there again. A small Update for you, not much has been happening the last few days as i was busy, but here you go.
I changed a few things about the model:
Changed the 35mm Lian Li case feet for 45mm ones, because i recieved them a few days ago and was surprised how small they look. i also went for a different manufacturer this time, because the lianli ones are basically plastic with a thin piece of aluminium. i went for full aluminium cnc milled this time.
changed the tubing around, because i realized that the gpu block also has a jet plate in it and thus an inlet and an outlet, which were tubed up wrong.
I played with an actual sfx power supply instead of the sfx-l model i had in there. i hope the new corsair 600w one will be quiet, as the silverstone ones seem to be too loud. i also added some cables in the last render, but cables in sketchup are hard to do.
some renders: (the last ones, promise)
Sfx-l vs Sfx: Even without the cables you can't see a whole lot with the sfx-l psu
some ssd shots this time, you can also see the additional cutouts i made.
planned cable routing. ignore the cables going thriugh each other, i couldn't bother to actually bend the cables around each other because even this was a lot of work
bonus shot: the water block i actually want to use. i had trouble finding a model online, so i made it myself from a fury x waterblock and a titan z pcb.
What's left to do now is getting the case manufactured, which will cost around 370€ until it's fully assembled, and get all the watercooling gear and then actually build this thing! i calculated the cost for all the parts neccessary (and i really shouldn't have done that...). this will cost about 1200€, more than i paid for all the hardware of my current pc. and that just to watercool it in a custom case. i'll try and shave some cost off of the watercooling components, but there is not much i can do if i want it to look like this.
I changed a few things about the model:
Changed the 35mm Lian Li case feet for 45mm ones, because i recieved them a few days ago and was surprised how small they look. i also went for a different manufacturer this time, because the lianli ones are basically plastic with a thin piece of aluminium. i went for full aluminium cnc milled this time.
changed the tubing around, because i realized that the gpu block also has a jet plate in it and thus an inlet and an outlet, which were tubed up wrong.
I played with an actual sfx power supply instead of the sfx-l model i had in there. i hope the new corsair 600w one will be quiet, as the silverstone ones seem to be too loud. i also added some cables in the last render, but cables in sketchup are hard to do.
some renders: (the last ones, promise)
Sfx-l vs Sfx: Even without the cables you can't see a whole lot with the sfx-l psu
some ssd shots this time, you can also see the additional cutouts i made.
planned cable routing. ignore the cables going thriugh each other, i couldn't bother to actually bend the cables around each other because even this was a lot of work
bonus shot: the water block i actually want to use. i had trouble finding a model online, so i made it myself from a fury x waterblock and a titan z pcb.
What's left to do now is getting the case manufactured, which will cost around 370€ until it's fully assembled, and get all the watercooling gear and then actually build this thing! i calculated the cost for all the parts neccessary (and i really shouldn't have done that...). this will cost about 1200€, more than i paid for all the hardware of my current pc. and that just to watercool it in a custom case. i'll try and shave some cost off of the watercooling components, but there is not much i can do if i want it to look like this.
Wow those cables are pretty nice for a SketchUp model. That must've taken an awful amount of time.
I do agree that the SFX-L PSU hides a bit too much of the interior, regular SFX looks quite a bit nicer.
I do agree that the SFX-L PSU hides a bit too much of the interior, regular SFX looks quite a bit nicer.
Hey there, it's me again. It's been a while since the last update, so let's get right into it!
Remember when I said there would be no more renders? I lied. I lied to all of you. I made some changes to the layout in the past month, and basically had to redo half the case. See for yourself:
no more psu blocking the view! i basically switched the positions of the psu and the motherboard, so i could see the motherboard better. The gpu had to be moved a little bit to the front for that, meaning the case now has to be ~20mm longer, but it was well worth it in my opinion. The total volume increased to 19,97 liters.
The overall design hasn't changed. But i did manage to flip the fans around so now they are shown as intakes, just like they will be in the final thing.
From below you can see the changed layout a bit better. I also made cutouts for the wifi antennas this time, as those fit in last time out of pure luck.
some shots without hardware so you can see the case itself better.
Here you can really see the changed layout. As i said, the psu and Motherboard switched places, and the gpu, wich is now connected via an extension cable, came forward a little bit.
Challenges I had while converting to this layout were getting the motherboard tray where i wanted it without the need for many additional parts and holding the gpu in place.
For the gpu issue i settled on using a LianLi riser cable, as you can screw those to the case with simple standoffs just like a motherboard.
The motherboard tray was a bit trickier. It now screws into the bottom panel and actually passes through a slot in the io/psu plate, wich holds it upright. i really don't know how tolerances and the powdercoating will play with this solution, but i only hope for the best.
Remember when I said there would be no more renders? I lied. I lied to all of you. I made some changes to the layout in the past month, and basically had to redo half the case. See for yourself:
no more psu blocking the view! i basically switched the positions of the psu and the motherboard, so i could see the motherboard better. The gpu had to be moved a little bit to the front for that, meaning the case now has to be ~20mm longer, but it was well worth it in my opinion. The total volume increased to 19,97 liters.
The overall design hasn't changed. But i did manage to flip the fans around so now they are shown as intakes, just like they will be in the final thing.
From below you can see the changed layout a bit better. I also made cutouts for the wifi antennas this time, as those fit in last time out of pure luck.
some shots without hardware so you can see the case itself better.
Here you can really see the changed layout. As i said, the psu and Motherboard switched places, and the gpu, wich is now connected via an extension cable, came forward a little bit.
Challenges I had while converting to this layout were getting the motherboard tray where i wanted it without the need for many additional parts and holding the gpu in place.
For the gpu issue i settled on using a LianLi riser cable, as you can screw those to the case with simple standoffs just like a motherboard.
The motherboard tray was a bit trickier. It now screws into the bottom panel and actually passes through a slot in the io/psu plate, wich holds it upright. i really don't know how tolerances and the powdercoating will play with this solution, but i only hope for the best.
i only need one of the gpu outputs, doesn't really matter if one or two get blocked.
awesome, thanks!
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