[Arkaine23]

I want to modify a blorb by attaching a lapped old US silver dollar to the base. Not a Copperfoot Blorb, not a Slorb, but a Silverfoot Blorb. I'm wondering what would be the best type of interface between the coin and the blorb fins?

Should I remove the Blorb's existing base, or just lap the whole thing flat?

ASII + adhesive or get creative and figure out a way to solder or fuse it together? Any advice?

[The Overclocker]

dont bother, the orb is not a good cooler any way, the c/w is wway above 1.

if you still want to do it then take off the original base and use the silver coin instead, make use their is a good sonnection between the coin and the fins by adding some solder

[Arkaine23]

Just got a 99.9% pure silver coin, and have started to lap it. Ran out of rough grit sandpaper before I could finish even one side, but its coming along nicely. I'm going to put a thin layer of ASII around the topside edge and mount the fins directly on top of the coin, then put the fan in the center, but glue it in place using the screws so that it sits slightly above the surface. Will take temps with Sandra before an after and post results sometime in the next week.

[Silversinksam]

One tip I can tell you is to drill the holes for the fan to the new silver base before you put it all together so the fan will be aligned properly.


Another suggestion to improve the performance is to push the new base further into the shell. The original base extends to far down, if you push it into the base by even a half millimeter difference it will perform better.







My last suggestion since your using a coin is try to determine of you can get away with not lapping the inner side of the coin.

-

[Arkaine23]

Thanks for the advice siversinksam! You mean to not lap the top side of the coin? I was going to rough that side up with sandpaper in order to give it even more surface area, but lap a smooth ring around the top-side edge for the fins to sit on. I'm also going to leave the ridges on the outer edge, since they increase the surface area too. Artic silver will of course be used between the coin and fins and between the coin and GPU.

I'm thinking that there is a larger contact area for the fins if I sit them directly on top of the coin (it's roughly the size of a silver dollar and 2 mm thick, and b4 I go through the trouble of cutting it up to fit it inside the fins where the old base sits, I'm going to see how well it works with just the fins and fan sitting on top of the full-size coin.

I'll have to make some kind of clamp that'll fit over the top edge of the fins without obstructing the fan and drill holes into it so that I can bolt my silver orb onto the card, since the coin isn't wide enough to drill holes for the spring clips. I'll probably use two small flat pieces of metal that fit into the clipped-fins parts of the fin ring and drill a hole into each for either a screw or the spring clips if they're long enough (making 2 upside-down-L-shaped clamps if that makes sense). Or if the fan is in the way there, I can try the same thing, but the clamps would sit on top of the fin ring's unclipped fins. I'll just have to see how high the fan sits, and where I could attach the clamping mechanism(s). It's hard to describe, and I really have to have everything ready to assemble before I can assess how to mount it.

I'll post any questions I have for you here though, and try to get a pic scanned once it's done.

[Dissolved]

why would u wanna waste a us silver dollar?
you do know thats illegal to use in that way right?

[Arkaine23]

Three weeks since the original post have given me time to retool this idea a bit. I'm not defacing US currency. I found a better coin, I hope. It's not a US silver dollar. It's made by monex international ltd, and the royal canadian mint. It's not legal tender in any country as far as I know, although it does carry the value of silver, naturally. It's a 99.9% pure silver 1oz coin. It's the same size as a silver dollar though, maybe just a bit smaller. Cost me $5 US.

[Arkaine23]

Finished lapping this coin at last!!! Mirror finish on the bottom. Rough on top with a very smooth ring around the edge for the fins to sit on. Man, that took hours and my arm is tired. So when I get home from work this AM, I'm going to pop my blorb apart and see about attaching the fin ring to the coin base and reseating the fan.

Soon to come- before and after idle/stress temperatures and old/new core overclock and 3dmark2001 score.

So far I've spent: $7 for the blorb, $5.60 for the coin, about $4 for sandpaper. I should have gotten a better cooler than the blorb to start with, but I was a noob not so long ago and made more than a few mistakes. Anyway, I'm hoping this will pay off by letting me get a higer OC on my GF2 Ti's core. Right now I can get 255 from 250 stock, and that's it! I might also try mounting small extra fan to blow on my card since I've got plenty of space in my PCI slots area (only using slots 5 & 6) and power to spare. Maybe 2. One on the back of the card where the GPU is, and one below the card pulling in fresh air from the PCI slot covers and aiming it at my card's gpu and memory from an angle.

Silversinksam: Any suggestions as to how to mount this badboy when it's done? Though our Slorbs are different, I see that you removed the original base like me. So how did you mount your slorb when you were using it? I want to bolt it on tightly, so I guess I'll be hitting up the hardware store for a solution.

[Arkaine23]

Finished! The coin was smaller than I thought, so I wound up fitting it into the fin ring just like the slorbs pioneered by silversinksam. I left the top side of the coin scratched-up and roughened with sandpaper, lapped the bottom side smooth, and smoothed out the outer edge.

Instead of cutting the coin to size, I split the fin ring using a screwdriver and hammer. It was a really close fit just the same. Since the fin ring had to be bent just slightly, I used ASII to make sure there was a good thermal connection between the base and fin ring. Then I hit up the hardware store for some bolts and drilled holes into two thin metal bars and made clamps that fit over the top of the fin ring. I attached the fan with a dab of silicone, and I think it's running a little bit faster because now it's not quite as hot as it was when bolted into the old base.

Results:

Blorb GPU temp at idle- 43 C
Slorb GPU temp at idle- 38 C
Blorb GPU temp at load- 48 C
Slorb GPU temp at load- 44 C
Blorb max GPU core OC- 255 from 250 stock
Slorb max GPU core OC with stability- 279

3dmark2001- previous high score 5720
3dmark2001 with Slorb- 5867

Now I'm in 3rd place for Athlon XP processors up to 1633 MHZ with a Geforce2 GTS/Pro/Ti class video card. Here's the link:

http://gamershq.madonion.com/compare2k1.shtml?2545320

There are some other factors to consider... One is that a cold front came through my area and it got down into the 50's this morning when I did the test. As a result, I was able to OC my FSB one MHz higher than usual and my CPU went up by an extra 10.5 MHz. This would obviously have boosted my 3dmark score a bit. But let's not belittle the added 24 MHz to my GPU core, and the five degree Celcius reduction in GPU temperatures. All in all I'm quite pleased with this $10 mod. The Slorb is just so cool looking! And I've still got a little tweaking and benchmarking to do to see if I can get my 3dmark score any higher.

Edit: I just did the SoftQuadro patch and converted my Ti into a Quadro2 Pro. I used 22.40's, and my 3dmark went up ! I can OC this card to 281 core now. New score is 5916.

[Silversinksam]

AWESOME!!!

Sorry I didn't reply sooner, thats about the same temp difference I noticed. But I used Arctic Silver adhesive and a clamp to mount it, not bolts which would have been better.

PS Whats even more astonishing is the silver I use is 3mm thick (Same as the blorbs original base) You used a 2mm thick base and netted the same results as me.

[Arkaine23]

Yeah, the coin started about 3mm thick, but after lapping, it was more like 2.5. The slorbs you do.. are they sterling? The 99.9% silver may have something to do with it...

Anyway, got and extra silversink cape that I can don?

[Silversinksam]

The last Slorb I made was Sterling, I just ran out of Fine Silver sheets....I was supposed to smelt my own Cusil im Feb, but now Im not going to do so seeing that Cusil has been over-rated for the past 30 years

ps The SS cape is in the mail