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FEATURED Build Log: Water & Wood

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RL hit hard the last few weeks...the good? -- I moved into a new place on the opposite side of town, which has been a ton of work, but its twice as big, and we're really happy to be out of the 750sq/ft apartment we've lived in the last two years, the new place is more than twice the size.

the bad -- a good friend of mine passed away last week. We drove down to Tokyo to visit her in the hospital the day prior, and I was able to see & encourage her husband while she breathed her last.

Anyhow, all the parts have arrived, and I got work under way tonight. Here are a few pictures of the progress:

Here is the old desk I'll be modifying....it's not much to look at, but it'll work:
mobo_sliders9.jpg

I'm using the Mountain Mods XL-ATX (10-slot) motherboard tray in black wrinkle:
mobo_sliders1.jpg

The plan is to attach the motherboard tray to the inside of the left wall of the PC opening on the left. One of the parts I was not sure about was how I would attach the sliders to the motherboard tray.
mobo_sliders2.jpg

After mucking around a bit, I decided to use a couple pieces of wood, and attach them to the tray with some M3 bolts through these freshly drilled holes:
mobo_sliders3.jpg

While getting the first slider attached, I had to attach the wood to the tray further back from the slider mounting hole, due to the CPU backplate opening. This was not an issue, until I tried to slide out the slider, and realized I'd have to come up with a plan to recess this nut, as it was impeding the slider's movement.
mobo_sliders4.jpg

After a bit more fussing, I got everything lined up, and the sliders working happily.
mobo_sliders8.jpg

mobo_sliders7.jpg

Next, I disassembled the desk, and removed the wall where the motherboard will be mounted, to get the sliders attached.
mobo_sliders10.jpg

Getting them lined up and screwed in was not too difficult, but I measured about 4 times to ensure the first holes I drilled would be correct.
mobo_sliders11.jpg

I'm planning to run the rig a bit on air, just to make sure all the components are happy together before I install the water cooling, so I finished off the night with some basic assembly.
mobo_sliders12.jpg

mobo_sliders13.jpg

mobo_sliders14.jpg

mobo_sliders15.jpg

When shopping for sliders, I wanted to ensure I got some heavy duty units...IIRC these are rated to hold a 300lb drawer...
mobo_sliders16.jpg

That's it for tonight...I'll be hitting this hard again tomorrow, so I should have another big update soon ;)
 
Water cooling components are now being flushed....here is a brief video showing the process:

th_flush.jpg
 
That's one heck of a loop there. I'm curious about the two CPU blocks as well.

Either way, you are so over-radded, those components won't even think about getting warm!
 
He said in the video that the larger rad and the HF block were for a different project. It seems he is just flushing them all at the same time.
 
Here i was hopeing he would use the extreme route, of one block ontop of processor, and one block under the socket from the bottom of the motherboard side of things :D

Nice clean build, Really like your GPU block setup, its very attractive and clean.

What is it thats acting as a cover/support across the gpu blocks for where the waterlines go between the three?
 
@ SecrtAgentMan...just one :thup:

Yesterday I posted my video about flushing the loop....but I neglected to post the photos taken leading up to that point....I've also updated the OP with more parts pictures.

EK Full cover blocks:
parts2.jpg

tri-SLI1.jpg

3 way parallel bridge and bridge links:
parts3.jpg

Bridge links installed:
tri-SLI3.jpg

Bridge installed:
tri-SLI4.jpg

tri-SLI5.jpg

tri-SLI6.jpg

tri-SLI7.jpg

Well, progress continues...I worked on getting the rad wall setup last night.

I started by taping together some rad templates and placing them on the rad wall (the inner right wall of the PC opening in the desk).
radwall1.jpg

One of my goals for this build (being a daily use rig) will be low noise, to mechanically decouple the fans from the desk, I'm using a 1mm layer of cork under the fans.
radwall2.jpg

After getting the template placed, I drilled holes for all the fan screws, and at the center of each fan hole, then removed the template. Then I needed to cut the fans holes in the cork, I marked the holes with a compass (using the aforementioned holes as the center for my compass) and began to cut the cork by hand with a box cutter (razor blade).
radwall3.jpg

Cork layer all cut.
radwall4.jpg

Next, I removed the cork, and proceeded to cut the fan holes in the wood.
radwall5.jpg

Next, I ran into a bit of a hurdle....the fan screws that come with the Swiftech rads are 30mm long, and I was using 25mm fans....which would work fine under normal circumstances. However, we know that ducted fans are more efficient, and I had a 16mm wood wall that I was mounting on, my plan was to kill two birds with one stone by mounting the fans on the outside of the wall and use the wood itself as a 16mm duct to the radiator. The problem was the 30mm screws were now 16mm too short. The Japanese HW stores carry plenty of standard M3 and M4 screws/bolts, but Swiftech uses the less common M3.5 size, which they do not stock. After wasting 3 hours going to various HW stores all over town, the longest screws I could find were 20mm....not 45mm like I needed. So, I brainstormed a bit, I thought about tapping the holes. But knowing me, I'd screw one up and get mad....on top of the fact that I'd have to by a tap and more expensive screws. I thought a simpler solution would be to open the corners a bit to allow the fans to be mounted from the inner flange, instead of the outer. The original fan corner:
radwall6.jpg

Now, with the hole on the outer flange opened a bit, and the Swiftech provided screw for size reference:
radwall8.jpg

This would give me a depth of 16mm for the wall, plus 5mm for the inner fan flange, plus 1mm for the cork...or 22mm total. 3mm less than the original fan depth. Since my plan was to decouple the fans mechanically anyhow, this left a little buffer room for a neoprene pad to dampen vibration. The final assembly looks like this:
radwall9.jpg

Shaving from drilling out 48 fan flanges :p:
radwall10.jpg

Poking the screws through the drilled out flange, through a washer, punching through a 5mm thick peice of neoprene, and through the lower hole proved to be a PITA, so I sat down for some quality time with my wife and watched an episode of "The Event" and she helped me with the process :D
radwall11.jpg

All finished:
radwall12.jpg

Next, I just needed to mount everything on the wall:
radwall13.jpg

radwall14.jpg

radwall15.jpg

Well, that's it for now...thanks for all the comments. :)
 
Damn Miah... You're going all out on this one! I kind of figured it would be a massive build when you mentioned that you wanted to control 12 PWM fans from a single knob... but this is beyond what I had envisioned...

Three 580s? I am green with envy.... I think the whole "going to Japan and breaking into Miah's house" idea is looking better and better every day... I know I could score me some nice hypers and a couple 580s now if I did go "shopping" at your place... ;)

I can't wait to see them fans all spinning around, and stopping on command when you plug them to the little controller you got for them... It makes me feel as though I am part of this amazing build; although my only participation in the building of the controller was the three or four failed attempts at putting it down on pcb. I'm sure Ed (Bnova) and bing will be just as proud of that little circuit once it proves that it can handle that many fans...

:thup:

PS: Props for getting the "better half" involved on the build. Maybe one of these days you can put on a LN2 stream and have her as your very own "pouring babe"... :D
 
You're welcome to come anytime Sebastian :thup:
My wife was tired, and was yawning in the picture.

Thanks again for the PWM controller help....we'll see how it does very soon :D

radwall19.jpg

radwall18.jpg

radwall17.jpg
 
Can't wait to see the final build ! Keep pouring new pics please ! :attn:

Miah, just a thought, since those fans are tightly placed each other in a row, just wondering if cutting these red lines I made at the pic below will have any improvement ?

Cause those small areas are practically dead spots, don't have any idea how big those areas are, maybe 5% ? Also this to even out the air flow, btw since those fans will be fully synchronized, and when using PWM controlled, pwm fans will have even cfm/static pressure.

Not sure though, its just a wild idea and it will be easy job too.

Miah Rad.JPG
 
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Thanks for the suggestion Victor...I had already considered it, and I have not ruled it out :thup:
 
Here are a couple pics of the desk reassembled, the rig is on air for basic ops testing.

onair1.jpg

onair2.jpg
 
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