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Bending Heatsink Fins to form Waterblock...

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brendini

New Member
Joined
Jun 15, 2003
Location
Bay Area, CA, USA
I'm trying to come up with ideas for making my own waterblock, and I had a few. But I really don't have amazing tools (although I can get them). People's usage of heatsinks to make waterblocks got me thinking about how I could use my current heatsink to make a waterblock.

Here's a pic of my current heatsink, which comes with the AERO 7:
a7_base.jpg

The special thing about this puppy is that the fins are soldered, they are "skived". i.e. no probs with the thermal resistance of the solder.

Now, what I was thinking was that I could cut the fins down to a reasonable height, and then bend or cut them to get a good design. Maybe push all of the fins towards the center, and then have the water enter to this spot. This way the water would hit some part of each fin. Or something like that.

If you have any ideas/comments/your an idiot comments, please respond.

Thanks.
 
Water conducts away much more heat than air, so your thin fins are unnecesary after the first 1/2 inch. There have been some decent results like this, but I think they used the 1U units, which didn't have the gap with the mounting clip down the middle. I'd recommend cutting the fins to 1/2 / 3/4 inch high, taking the outside 1/2 inch of fins away, so you're left with the fins standing approx 1/2 inch high in a square section in the middle of your heatsink. Then you could have a centre jet, with two funnelled outlets at either side in a plexi / clear top. My two cents... It's not a stupid idea btw, it'll just take a bit of work. I'd go with a pin style 1U heatsink to start with though and keep that one looking nice.
 
Great idea man, and I found what appears to be a perfect candidate:
1U copper heatsink

So if I applied the same deal to this heatsink, it could turn out to be pretty effective. I think I saw some one on these forms who's using/building a similar heatsink and making a spiral with it. Could work....

In this case, is there any thing I should really do with the pins? i.e. bending or cutting them? I'm not quite sure how much more turbulence I could create...
 
Scary-MoFo said:
how many people from the bay area are on this forum?

What does that have to do with anything? If you want to ask things like that head over to the General Chat forum, otherwise please try to stay on topic.
 
you want some thing like this to start

http://www.dynatron-corp.com/products/cpucooler/cpucooler_model.asp?id=32

then cut the fins down to 4mm and make the finned area 30mm x 20.

next thin the base plate down to 1.5mm with a belt sander.

use a WW style jetplate in the center to creat turbulance and also cover all of the fins.

and use 2 outlets.

see hoots thread he made one. i will find it later.

(edit found it)
http://forum.oc-forums.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=185764&highlight=hoot


this is my attemp made from a thermaltake tinyfin 1u cooler.

tt3.jpg

v2middle.jpg


this gives temps 1C lower than a maze 3 on my p4 system.

hoot also made one from the ak350 pin cooler.
with a central inlet and a maze.
http://forum.oc-forums.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=80618&highlight=pinfin
 
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