Custom made water cooling parts?

I'm just wondering if there is any interest about custom made water cooling parts? I'm thinking about it seriously, so far I was in extreme cooling stuff, but water cooling seems to be much more popular.

I was thinking about custom made water blocks, reservoirs, mounts etc. Is there anything what is impossible to buy but do you want it in your loop?

If you're looking and have read up and understand custom water cooling, have a look at Performance-PCS. They have most of the custom water cooling things you'd need.

I think he is testing the waters for offering services...

That said, seems ok for some parts, not sure on others. You don't have the backing these large companies do to test (properly) many many iterations of say a block and make sure it is performing as it should.

I don't think you'll get too many orders for custom CPU or GPU blocks unless you have the resources to compete with the big dogs on performance, but you might get a few people looking for solutions for less demanding components.

There is likely to be some interest in custom parts for the sake of bling. If you can paint, powder coat, or plate standard items to order at a reasonable price, I imagine you'd have some takers. You might also get some orders for one of a kind reservoirs.

One thing I was looking for recently and haven't found yet is a G 1/4 wye for use with rigid tubing.

Good luck.

It might help if you would list what materials you are comfortable working with as well as what capabilities you have such as cnc mill/lathe or glass gaffing, etc.

Not sure for the demand, but I would expect some novelty stuff to be in decent demand assuming price was right, something like a Darth Vader cpu block would probably be a huge hit with the StarWars fans. In my mind I am picturing a deep dark grey or gloss black in the shape of Vader's helmet, lol (add some red lighting to a dark/black colored case, then each time you press the Power button for the computer a speaker emits the engaging of a lightsaber sound, which adds to the could be fluctuating LED in front of the case that starts at a low-point position at the bottom point of the front panel and the front of the case looks like it has a lightsaber extending with led's timed to come on one after the other when pressing the start button).
*ok, I'm getting too deep into thought for that /end*


I think also if you had some "prototype" work you could display as examples of your work, you would get a higher response. You have this community, XtremeSystems, HardOCP, Overclock.net, and others you could advert in if you saw a positive response.

sobe said:

Not sure for the demand, but I would expect some novelty stuff to be in decent demand assuming price was right, something like a Darth Vader cpu block would probably be a huge hit with the StarWars fans. In my mind I am picturing a deep dark grey or gloss black in the shape of Vader's helmet, lol (add some red lighting to a dark/black colored case, then each time you press the Power button for the computer a speaker emits the engaging of a lightsaber sound, which adds to the could be fluctuating LED in front of the case that starts at a low-point position at the bottom point of the front panel and the front of the case looks like it has a lightsaber extending with led's timed to come on one after the other when pressing the start button).
*ok, I'm getting too deep into thought for that /end*


I think also if you had some "prototype" work you could display as examples of your work, you would get a higher response. You have this community, XtremeSystems, HardOCP, Overclock.net, and others you could advert in if you saw a positive response.

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I think you found your first customer.

Lochekey said:

I think you found your first customer.

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LOL, no, I actually just recently bowed out of custom loops

honestly, if you would make gpu blocks for cards that none of the big companies make full cover blocks for, i would probably buy 2-3 off you, as long as the pricing was reasonable, and the quality looked good.

dyckah said:

honestly, if you would make gpu blocks for cards that none of the big companies make full cover blocks for, i would probably buy 2-3 off you, as long as the pricing was reasonable, and the quality looked good.

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There is a reason that none of the big boys make blocks for some of the cards....they can't sell enough of them to justify the cost of developing it. I would think this would hold true even more so for a small time fabricator. Step 1 to making the block is going to be to acquire a card to measure from. That alone is going to put him into a hole that he probably couldn't sell enough blocks to make it out of.

Yawn. Seen more than a few posts like this over the years..................

tachi1247 said:

There is a reason that none of the big boys make blocks for some of the cards....they can't sell enough of them to justify the cost of developing it. I would think this would hold true even more so for a small time fabricator.

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Actually not true.
Small time guys typically don't have the overhead such as employees, big building, expensive ad campaigns, multiple big machines financed at the going interest rate.
Take me for instance. I've got a 1500 sq ft shop with the latest CNC equipment (lathe and mill) as well as support equipment, all paid for. I sell a few items on eBay and it pays the bills so I can devote time to development and experimenting as well as buying those cool GPUs and CPUs for testing purposes.
Not only that but I can offer one on one service for my customer. No need to talk to the PR department who will route your call to the machine shop manger who will fill you full of BS.
Also.. it's quicker. Email with a design change and BANG! it's done that same day.

Anyway. just wanted to rant about that scenario.

I think the underlying point was performance... not the rest of the rigmarole. My questions/comments are...

How can one compete with their R&D to optimize the product? Sure you can make anything that will fit, but will it perform good enough to warrant the generally more expensive parts from a small company? Sure you don't have a staff, PR, big building, but are you (read: one person, the OP) going to sink money into making a comparable performing product? And will that price be in the ballpark of the mass produced, known good performing parts already on the market? Do you (read: OP or anyone that wants to try) know enough about thermodynamics and flow rates to make a good block or will that R&D take too much time and money since there likely wouldn't be any computer modelling done with it (which can actually save a company money as they change parms in a program versus in actual samples).

Just thinking out loud. I could be wrong.

waterJunkie said:

Actually not true.
Small time guys typically don't have the overhead such as employees, big building, expensive ad campaigns, multiple big machines financed at the going interest rate.
Take me for instance. I've got a 1500 sq ft shop with the latest CNC equipment (lathe and mill) as well as support equipment, all paid for. I sell a few items on eBay and it pays the bills so I can devote time to development and experimenting as well as buying those cool GPUs and CPUs for testing purposes.
Not only that but I can offer one on one service for my customer. No need to talk to the PR department who will route your call to the machine shop manger who will fill you full of BS.
Also.. it's quicker. Email with a design change and BANG! it's done that same day.

Anyway. just wanted to rant about that scenario.

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I realize you have far less overhead than bigger companies. I guess I was just looking at it in terms of actually producing a custom water block for a card that the big manufacturers don't offer. Anyone looking for a custom block like that is probably putting it on a high end card so you're looking at $400-600 to acquire a card to use to develop your block. Let's say you charge a 25% premium over what the retail price is on a comparable block from a known company. That's about $160 per block. That means you need to sell ~3 blocks for that exact card before you even earn back your investment and that doesn't include material cost or pay you for your time.

Not trying to knock the idea, but it just doesn't seem practical to me. Custom fabrication works better for things like custom cases or sub zero pots and mounts where someone can just tell you what they want. I don't think too many, if any, customers have the tools and skills necessary to give you the info needed to make a custom gpu block, nor do they have the knowledge of thermal dynamics so they are going to be looking to you to provide all of that expertise.

If someone needs something simple fabricated then I'm sure you could pull that off at a good price and make customers very happy, but water blocks for a custom pcb gpu are anything but simple.

I do wish you luck, hopefully someone can utilize your services.

tachi1247 said:

I realize you have far less overhead than bigger companies. I guess I was just looking at it in terms of actually producing a custom water block for a card that the big manufacturers don't offer. Anyone looking for a custom block like that is probably putting it on a high end card so you're looking at $400-600 to acquire a card to use to develop your block. Let's say you charge a 25% premium over what the retail price is on a comparable block from a known company. That's about $160 per block. That means you need to sell ~3 blocks for that exact card before you even earn back your investment and that doesn't include material cost or pay you for your time.

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To me people that buy $400-$600 cards to water cool buy ones that have blocks available, that price range is where the most variety exists. It's the lower end cards that don't have near the saturation in the market and in some ways where the performance of the block itself would be less of an issue as they don't produce near the amount of heat that the high end does. Just my thoughts.

Could you imagine, water cooling a Socket A Duron?
Or some old PII's/PIII's on socket 370?

I imagine you'd find a few people in that kind of place

Why imagine... http://www.techspot.com/old-articles/reviews/hardware/leufken_watercooling/index.shtml

Sure but would it worth spending the funds on the rest of the loop on very old equipment. Things aren't priced low enough. If say, you could build a full loop out of $100 or less, sure.

I think that custom reservoirs would be a better idea than water blocks. You could provide a lot of variety in an area where there aren't that many interesting choices.

AnimeMania said:

I think that custom reservoirs would be a better idea than water blocks. You could provide a lot of variety in an area where there aren't that many interesting choices.

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Definitely agree. Fittings would also be a good option. If he can make some nice looking compression fittings (or maybe just barbs too) for less than the $5 each I can buy them from online we might have something.