Anyone ever made a waterblock?

Basically Im looking at making a CPU waterblock and wondered if anyone has any advice. I dont have access to any fancy machinery, but I do have the help of my dad who is a retired thermal analyst (a chemist who analyses thermal properties of stuff). We were thinking something very basic, like a sort of copper box, with fins going from base to lid inside, placed in rows slightly offset so the water is forced to flow around all of them. Seeing as I lack experience, and Id rather not have to build a few of these before I get it right, so if anyone can help me with little pointers they would be much appreciated.
2 obvious things I would like to know are what thickness copper is best for the base, and also how large the area of the base needs to be. It will be getting used on an opteron 170 with the IHS removed for a while, then in a few months most likely onto a Core 2 duo.

Thanks in advance for any replies, George.

look at the articles on www.overclockers.com under water cooling there are 3 or 4 homemade ones listed

JFettig has experience building waterblocks. I think there's a bit more than 3 or 4 DIY blocks on the main page. It used to be the only way to get things water cooled.

If you have a very tight budget, and don't need phenomenal performance, i bet you could take a large fanless northbridge sink and stick in a acrylic enclosure with barbs on the top.

Ghetto, but it would be epic if it worked

Back in the day, homemade waterblocks were all that existed. Some were really good, the ones I tried to make were just really scary. I never actually used any of the blocks I built for fear of destroying my computer.

Yes, and mine stank . I have a few fun designs that should work a lot better. but I haven't had the time to make them and I lack a drill press or drill press adapter for my drill.

Google Searching for home made water block on the forums and google will turn up a lot of good results.

Also check out this thread. Thats a pretty good design.

There's a pretty nice block over at XS that I've been watching. http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=162372

As for what you can make yourself, that all depends on what tools you have. There was someone here that made a pretty decent performing block with just a drill-press and a dremel. Drilled a grid of holes, then connected them with valleys cut with the dremel.

i would buy a arctic cooler freezer 7 pro (once you change to intel) as its cheap then cut just under the where the fins start and braze on a header and there ya go a slightly homemade heatsink. i wonder how well that would work.

Bigdogbmx said:

Basically Im looking at making a CPU waterblock

Click to expand...

Here's some ideas......
http://forums.procooling.com/vbb/showthread.php?t=9263

billb said:

Here's some ideas......
http://forums.procooling.com/vbb/showthread.php?t=9263

Click to expand...

Great read, thanks!

The topic title made me smile...
There were times when we had no commercial watercooling solutions, it was all DIY. I think I still have the scetches for the pelt-block I designed a back in 1998; it was a simple block of copper with a trail of holes drilled in it.

Bigdogbmx said:

2 obvious things I would like to know are what thickness copper is best for the base, and also how large the area of the base needs to be. It will be getting used on an opteron 170 with the IHS removed for a while, then in a few months most likely onto a Core 2 duo.

Thanks in advance for any replies, George.

Click to expand...

I've never made a water block but the best blocks have a thin base (as thin as possible and still maintain structural integrity) and are just big enough to cover the IHS. The newer blocks are also built to bow slightly in the center, presumably for better contact where the chip is hottest.

If you'll be switching to an IHS CPU later you should design your block for that. A well designed block for a lidless Opty will be much different than a block designed to cool an IHS. Currently the best design for lidless CPUs is the Storm, the best for an IHS is an Apogee GTX (with the proper O-ring for bowing) or D-tek Fuzion (which is bowed from the factory). The Storm is a very different design than the other two though all blocks seem to get some advantage using jet impingement - a fast flow hitting the base is a definite advantage.

I even saw this to some extent when changing tubing from 3/8" to 1/2" on an older Apogee. The 3/8" barb provided a faster flow into the Apogee (and slightly better cooling) than the 1/2" barb did. Of course the 3/8" barb was more restrictive, too, so be conscious of the Specs of the pump you use for testing ...

When was the last you saw direct die cooling blocks?

Those always fascinated me!

There are some pics in the link that billb posted

The goggle search sitecforums.com 'homemade waterblock '. Returned 957 hits.



First hit was a TEC and a homemade WB. From back in Febuary. In between the ' ' I guess any search term would work. Then you don't get the darn have to wait xx seconds thing. Hmm, I wonder if searching google image would look for just the pics on this site?

lol had to disable smilies to get it to display right. The part made a smiley.

Enablingwolf said:

The goggle search sitecforums.com 'homemade waterblock '. Returned 957 hits.

I wonder if searching google image would look for just the pics on this site?

Click to expand...

I do it search term site:site name
"homemade waterblock" site:Ocforums.com gets 89 hits
homemade waterblock site:Ocforums.com <sans quotes> gets 980 hits

And, yes, image searching works, but pulls up everything, i. e. sigs, profile pics, included from a post...kinda useless as any post with the search term in it hits any and all pics in the post......

.... smilies on!, but :O (caps)

The google operator is strange. You need to use (inurl is another) or site:site/domain (afterwards..) with one space, use the search terms in single ' ' No www or http is in it. just site:domain.com 'search term' or inurl: 'search term'

You could google 'google advaced operators" and get the low down how to do slick searches.

[SIZE=-1]Results 1 - 10 of about 957 from ocforums.com for 'homemade waterblock'. (0.07 seconds)

You have to be very crafty to use the advanced operators and advanced features of google. Toss in some advanced boolean, and you got gold.
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There used to be quite a bit of DIY block making on this forum in the past. The block in my avatar might give you some ideas. Was only made with brass fittings, brass sheet, and copper pipe caps for the thermally important areas.

I made one of the copper cap designs from the front page. used it for a long time on my skt a setup. Worked great. The key is leak testing.

Wow, I left the thread for a couple of days and theres tons of replies now OCforums to the rescue once again. I thought I should explain what kind of thing Im looking at doing so you can pick holes in it if needs be. Basically what we are looking at is a box made with copper plate sides, with more plates going from base to lid horizontally (against the flow of the water). Heres a basic diagram (Dont laugh at my paint skills please)
Obviously thats not final at all, its just the basic idea of what we're trying.
Looking at what others have tried on the procooling forum is interesting, although I think they have had access to more equipment than we will have. Ours will be all soldered together. My Dad reckons 1mm copper plate will be thick enough for the base, Im not so sure myself, but that said he knows more than I do. All I have to go on is what Ive seen of other peoples designs and the ones you can buy. Anyway I think we will go ahead with this design and see what it does, hopefully it wont be so bad my new dual core opty will burn out That said its not exactly cutting edge CPU tech here so I wont have spent too much if it does.

A couple of other things I wanted to ask as a WC noob, whats the best size tubing to use, and what kind of power will I need from the pump? we have an old one that manages about 8 feet of head, is that enough?

Thanks again for all the replies, George.

PS the title was maybe misleading, I know people have made them before, I just meant I could do with the input of someone who had personally had a go.

Bigdogbmx said:

My Dad reckons 1mm copper plate will be thick enough for the base,

..whats the best size tubing to use,

..what kind of power will I need from the pump? we have an old one that manages about 8 feet of head, is that enough?

Click to expand...

I'd suggest 2-3mm base plate thickness. What others have found is that you have to balance the mass of the copper vs the surface area (heat transfer surface area, that is) of the copper. More mass pulls out the heat faster. (CPUs change temps very fast, much faster than you would expect.) And more surface ares transfers the heat to the water faster. It's a balance.

Soldering the internal "fins"...be sure and use silver solder, it will transfer heat throgh the solder joint much better than lead/antimony solder.

You may want to look at having the inlet pointing down, instead of comming from the side. Heat transfer at the copper/water interface only occurs in a very thin layer of water right at the surface of the copper. Making the water flow as fast as possible in this "boundry layer" will improve heat transfer greatly.

1/2" tubing will work best, though 7/16 and even 3/8 have their advantages, mostly in ease of installation. Smaller tubing will make sharper bends without kinking.

To know how a pump will perform you need to know three things:
Pump head, pump prssure (Head and pressure are related. See the attached pump curves of pressures vs flow rates.), and the restriction the pump will see. With the curve and the rstriction you can prdict how the pump will perform. You can estimate these for your pump if you can't find a PQ curve for it.