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diy water block made from ak370 hsf

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myarse

Member
Joined
Jul 2, 2002
Location
nottingham england
below is the new akasa ak370 copper cooler.

ak370.jpg



It's a single copper block with fins machined from it.


after making the pinfin block from the ak350 (still testing that for leaks) i had this idea.


the idea is to remove some of the fins apart from the part over the core and cover again with acrylic and use a rubber o-ring to seal. should be easy to make

i put 3 in's and 2 out's but i think 2 in's would be ok.

i should be able to use the hold down without any changes.

block2.jpg


what do you guys think.

Myarse
 
well here it is. I used 3/8 barb this time as i am building a new system.

newwb2.jpg


here is the inside. you can see where i removed some of the fins on the out side and in the middle.

newwb3.jpg


i cant get 20mm acrylic so i used 2 10mm sheets bonded with acrylic glue. (acrylic was from ikea it was a picture frame)

i also had a problem with the top of the inside of the block as it was 3mm above the fins and i wanted it to touch the top. i used some special epoxy that said is was very resitant to corosives to fill in the inside and lower it to touch the fins.
i might make another top with a 5mm bottom sheet bonded to a 10mm top sheet of acrylic and take the tops of the fins.

i cut a groove around the base and spot glued an o-ring.

made the holes for the bolts to hold the top to the copper base plus counter sunk the holes of the copper base so the bolts sat flush the the base.

the ak370 comes with special mounting so as long as you leave 5mm on each side of the base you can use that to mount the block.
 
i am testing the new block i showed above and have some figures.

mother board asus p4s533
cpu p4 2.4 533fsb bo stepping

abient temp 23.1 (this was measured in the middle of the table the abient temp away from the table was 20.3C)

temp from asus probe

cpu idle 25C water 23.6
full load after 30mins of sandra cpu test 29C water 25.0C

how do i work out the c/w of this ? sandra shows a cpu load of 56w

i have a 900l/h pump (£10 from ebay) with a heater core 230x180x30 (£5 from ebay) with 3 8cm papst fans (had lyin around)

plus water block £ 30 aprox so all together with some other bits it cost about £50

it all looks very nice on my table in the front room good job the girl friend is not here tonight

test1.jpg

test2.jpg

test3.jpg

test4.jpg


the tube is long as it only a test and i will cut it down when i put it in a case.

i ran the same test later with the 3 fans on 5volt instead of 12volt and the idle was 25C water 24.1 load 30C 26.2C.
this was almost silent.

i want to test this with a temp probe attached to the cpu so when i test it in my main system i can measure the cpu temp without using the asus probe which on the p4pe i use shows temps higher than i think they actually are.
 
Nice! I like the multiple inlets. Most likely, 2 barbs with 1/4NPT threads will be sufficient for the inlets. Keep up the good work!
 
Very nice. 900l/h though is indeed quite a small pump. The block really looks nice & like it could perform very well, but very restrictive at the same time. I'd do some through testing with your current pump, but look around for a Maxi jet and see if you get any improvement.
 
Dude thats a nice micro channel block! Was it pretty cheap? Be sure to put it in the WB gallery at the top of the page~
 
here is a parts list for the wb.

akasa ak360 £21
10mm acrylic picture frame £9 from ikea
3/8 bspt 10mm barbs £1.42 each
o-ring + hardware £3.00

10ft silicon tube £13

900l/h lifetech aquarium pump £10 from ebay

230x140x30 heater core £10 from ebay.

it took about a 2 days to make but i had to do most of the fin work my hand and some grinding with my dremel.

some of the tools cost a bit like the 3/8 bspt tap £20 inc delivery

I have some questions if any one can help.

would removing more fins on the outer sides and at the same time making the inner chamber of the top smaller help to increas water flow /performance ?

my pump gets very warm is this normal ?

i have the copper cooler but the heater core is ali. i use some cooling system conditioner stop corrosion and things growing with de-ionised water will i get any problems in the future ?

is there a easy way to make the acrylic look clear after i have cut it ?


thanks for all the positive feed back guys
 
FYI.

on the front page of overclockers.com there is a review of a DC1U-B02 1u copper cooler this is the same as the akasa ak360 i used to make the wb.
 
i dont beleive my temps are correct from the asus probe otherwise this wb rocks.

my test rig was off all day yesterday so everything had chance to get back to ambient temps.

when i got home i switched on the test rig

room temp 17.9C
cpu 19C
water 18.3C
m/b 19C

after 1 hour

room temp 18.3C
cpu 21C
water 20.2C
m/b 26C

i ran sandra cpu test 60 times
room temp 18.3C
cpu 26C
water 22C
m/b 27C

after 5 mins back at idle

room temp 18.4C
cpu 21C
water 20.9C
m/b 26C


i found this 50w * 0.25 c/w = 12.5C + room temp 25C = 37.5C

the sandra reported that the cpu rated at 56W

the cpu was 8C over room temp 18.3

so is this correct 8C / 56w = 0.14 c/w ?

i left my heater on today so the room should be about 20C i will do the same test again and post the reults.
 
i have made the same test today but made sure the ambient temp is higher.

room temp 19.7C
cpu 21C
water 20.2C
m/b 26C

after 1 hour

room temp 20.2C
cpu 24C
water 23.3C
m/b 28C

i ran sandra cpu test 60 times
room temp 20.4C
cpu 29C
water 24.9C
m/b 29C

after 5 mins back at idle

room temp 20.4C
cpu 24C
water 23.6C
m/b 29C

10 mins at idle

room temp 20.5C
cpu 24C
water 23.5
m/b 29


i am going to put a temp probe on the cpu and get some actual readings.

myarse
 
i know the probe is on the side but i gives a good indication that the asus probe is very close

probe.jpg

idle2.jpg

temp.jpg

sorry about this pick

at full load it only went upto 25C while asus probe showed 29C

i lifted one side of the wb clip and the temp shot upto 30 35 on both asus probe and the temp probe.

i just need to get a copper heater core thats a little smaller as the one i have wont fit in my case and i like my case.

:)
 
looks good to me:)

very good in fact:D

nice idea but that perspex and o ring is very scarey. if i was you i would replace the perspex with a anodised aluminium top and then your looking at one of the best blocks i have seen:)

ps. what heater core is that? you give dimentions but i cant see which car its from
 
it's from a citroen saxo.

i have limited ability's and access to tools , materials so i used what i had. wouldnt a copper / brass top be better ?

the top is 2x10mm acrylic and very stong what part of the top scares you ?

i am a little worried about the glue i used to bond it together .
 
yeh i understand you. i too find getting the right meterials a bit tricky.

All plexy tops scare me as there has been lot of reports of them cracking and leaking. but yours id eaven worse as its glued together i strongly recormend going to a metal top. it dosenot relly matter wether its copper as it does not have to conduct any heat. so alu. is cheaper and easyer to work with (i use alu for all my blocks tops) but it dose need to be anodised to prevent corrosion.
 
i picked up a copper core this weekend to replace the alu one had had.

this core is from a vauxhall nova.

novacore.jpg


i could fit it in my case at the top if moved the dvd drives down but it's a lot of work. I have my eye on a cheiftec full tower on ebay that will do the job so i will wait before i install the system in my main rig and do a transplant into the bigger case.

after testing at differant ambient temps i get the follwing average delta's

idle 3C above abient
full load 8C above abient

i have also used the same temp probe setup to test the temps on the koolance exos that i run on my main rig and can confirm that the asus p4pe bios reports at least 10C above the cpu temp.

ruinning my system unclocked at 2.4ghz doing the same tests as on the new wb test rig and the probe attached to the edge of the cpu i had 23C idle and 25C load on the temp probe while the bios reports 37C idle and 42C load.
 
thanks to much input from bigben2k , blackeagle and maddogme i have aversion 2 of the water block made from the akasa ak360 base

v2block.jpg


this is the new block before i bond the to acrylic pieces together and polish the sides.

v2base.jpg

v2depth.jpg


here is the base with the channles cut and the height of the fins and the depth of the channels

if i had a better way of cutting the channels i would try and go a little deeper.
 
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