Cracked Poly Top on Cascade: What Now? Repair and Keep? Another block? Air?

To my horror, my year-old LR Cascade has developed one large crack and two small cracks along the inlet holes on the poly top. I bought it second hand almost a year ago and it came with a brand new poly top from Cathar because the same damn thing happened to the previous owner. I don't know if I can trust it again. So what now? Should I stick with the Cascade and get it repaired or should I look for a different block with a copper top? I'm also thinking about selling everything and trying out a Thermalright XP-120, though this is not an attractive option considering the time and effort I've put in over the last year or so customizing my setup.

If you actually have a cascade... the last thing i would do is give up on it or settle for soemthign many rungs down in the world of cooling: an xp120. Contact cathar, he has reserve tops, get one, and when you replace it and begin enjoying anew the fruits of a cathar block, make sure your tubing around the block isnt restrictive or pulling in any way as to put stress on the poly.

It just bothers me that the same thing happened to the last owner. I can see now why poly tops have been ditched on Storm.

I bought a block with a cracked top. The previous owner had had two tops crack on him and gave it up. I got a deal
I sent cathar an email and got a axp and a64 tops. To my horror the axp top immedietly developed a crack around the outlet (same as the previous cracked top.) I dismantled it and emailed cathar with what happened.
He told me there was one batch of tops that were flawed, and that I was just extremely unlucky to get the same batch twice. He immedietly sent me a new one free of charge and it's worked flawlessly ever since.

Stick with the cascade, send cathar an email

Actually what's happened is that the poly tops are all potentially prone to cracking. There was one batch of polycarb where the problem first surfaced, but since that time other tops have cracked.

The issue is thermally related, and not strength related. When I tested the polycarb out to assess it for suitability I tried a lot of various strength based tests which it all passed fine.

What happens is that over time is that the water in people's loops heats up and cools down with variations in ambient temperature, as well as with turning the computer on and off. If there are any minute stress fractures within the polycarb as a result of the machining process, this thermal cycling can cause them to propogate and eventually appear as cracks. This is why I moved away from using clear plastics as all machined clear plastics are prone to this. The only way to avoid it with clear plastics is to injection mold the plastic, but even then, the glue that gets used to hold the barbs in needs to be just right otherwise it can weaken the plastic and cause fractures as well.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, send me an email and I'll see what I can do to help you out. I have some of the black delrin tops, like you see on the storm blocks, here that I had made up for the Cascade blocks. The block doesn't look the prettiest after you install the black top, but at least it solves the issue.

YGPM and YGM Cathar just to be safe The Delrin top sounds very appealing.

just a thought and I'm sure you've already done some backround on this Cathar but my uncle is a machinist and he said he uses a chemical that vaporizes his lexan pieces and he says it will never crack after. He says it's a real expensive process but the poly is never susceptable to cracking after. Have you tried this for the tops?

what does YGPM and YGM mean?

You've Got a Private Message and You've Got Mail

sunrunner20 said:

what does YGPM and YGM mean?

Click to expand...

YGPM(You've got a private message)

Ok, thanks.

Cathar, if you see this could you please E-mail me or PM me back about the Delrin top? My system is literally out of commission until I get this resolved. I've removed the IHS from my Clawhammer so the stock cooler will not fit.

Yes, a Delrin top would be nice in my case too. My cascade top is starting to crack. But i thing Cathar is having a lot of work with the Storm, so maybe we could have a faster solution.