Home Brew Waterblock

I just finished my waterblock, finally. I've put a bunch of small pictures up on Geocities, here are the links if you want to see a detailed breakdown of the parts.

http://www.geocities.com/limeygreg/Early_Waterblock.html
http://www.geocities.com/limeygreg/Final_Waterblock.html
http://www.geocities.com/limeygreg/WB_Final_Assembly.html

I will post one image to get you interested.

Looks very professional. Well done.

Nice looking block!!! What is the top made of. Lexan, Plexi?? And how thick is it (the top)?

Again, nice job.

looks nice, when does production start?

Yeah, that looks nice. I'll take one.

what size are those barbs? they look huge! Very cleen design also

The top is polycarbonate 7/16" thick, not sure of the manufacturer as I found it at work, it had plain brown protective paper on it with no name.

the barbs are for 1/2" id tube, the id was 3/8" but I put them in a lathe and ran a 7/16" mill down them, thats why they look huge.

The bottom is made rough by using a dremel engraver, I wanted to shot blast it but the one at work is a beast and kind of indiscriminate, the engraver gave ne much more control.

It was milled and drilled on a small hand operated milling machine which has since been traded for a larger bridgeport milling machine, the guys in our hellicopter repair depot needed the small machine rather than the Bridgeport. Unfortunately the Bridgeport needs repairing so I'm dead in the water for the time being.

we are supposed to be getting a small CNC Mill/Drill/Lathe but I don't know when, so i don't think I'll be going into production until we get that up and running.

To those of you that tried to access the links, I'm sorry if you can't, I didn't realise they had a cap on the amount of downloads and now it'd locked for the time being. I'm open to any suggestions of where else I can post the detailed pictures without incuring a download limit.

That looks awsome.

How deep is the water path?

that is very very profesh
excellent work!

Channels are 3/16" x 3/16", smallest mill I had at the time, and the fins are 1/16" thick. My next block will have 1/16"w x 3/16"d channels as I now have a 1/16" mill bit (used for o-ring channel). The copper is 1/4" thick, from an electrical grounding bus plate.

I calculated the CSA and SA at one time but can't find them now, however, the CSA is greater than the 1/2" dia tubing that will be used to supply it.

When do you plan on getting some temps on yoru block?

Very well made block for sure. Tell us how far you can overclock with it, heheh. Around how much time did it take from start to finish?

I'm presently looking for a radiator, I have a really nice stainless steel and copper one made for IBM by lytron - BUT, it's for a freon based system and so is too restrictive (12 pass 1/3" or less ID).

I was at the local rad shop looking for a heater core, about $42 but they will make a custom one for about $50 so I may go that route - I'm still looking but when i get the system cluged together I'll have something very special for you to see - trust me it will be cool. If this post has dropped below the daily posts I will resurect it then so you will know what I will be refering to.

I am also planning another poly top with special barbs which I need to machine on the lathe - when I get the hex brass stock that is. I'm also probably going to incorporate the same barbs on the radiator - all will be revealed in due course.

This project has been on the drawing board for a while and I want to do it properly.

Actual machining time is a little difficult to say, but about 5~6 hours for the base (I didn't want to screw it up by rushing), the top was maybe 2~3 hours. I know it seems a lot but it was evolving as I went along, the next ones will be a lot faster as I know where I'm going now. The hold-down was about 2hrs.

The worst part was taping the threads in the base after I had spent so much time and effort machining it and knowing that if I broke the tap in the thread that would have meant disaster as I don't have access to an EDM to burn it out. Next time I'll drill and tap the holes first - that way if I break a tap it won't matter too much - as you may guess, tapping copper is not easy, it's worse than aluminum.

That is nice keep it up

I had a desing simular to that but I dont have the tools around to make it As I said before nice.