Project: Irrational Exuberance

Looking at the photo I am starting to think I need to paint that green strip on the Nvidia HB bridge white, anyone else got a view on this?

Neutrino101 said:

mounting screws provided with the reservoir were not long enough....
...new screws which obviously when they arrived were the wrong ones...
so this added another few days wait for parts.
...only 9mm when I measured it!...
...Have now ordered the Primochill 10mm insert which should arrive tomorrow...
...not all 13/10mm tubing is actually the same size...

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Welcome to watercooling!!! It's a joy, isn't it?!

Green line on SLI bridge: hadn't noticed it until you pointed it out...but am on a 5" screen. Either white or black would fit in better unless you want an accent colour.

Monoblock looks really clean on that board with that colour scheme....and I generally prefer clear too.

The Primochill silicon insert arrived today and this time it is too big to fit in the tubing! Despite being made by Primochill it won't fit their own tubing. Can't get it more than an inch in to the tube before it is stuck solid... Does anyone here have an insert that they recommend to use with Primichill 13/10mm acrylic?

I have a short term work around, popped in to Tescos and picked up some KY jelly which when applied liberally allows the insert to slip inside the tube with relative ease, surely this can't be what everyone has to do to get them to fit?

Aw mate, you gotta laugh! (I know I did!)
I have of people sanding it slightly smaller before if that helps. I also vaguely remember it being said that one insert was often sold as 1mm larger because of imperial to metric conversion but I forget if it was 11mm for 10mm or 12mm for 11mm.
The black Barrow insert I got (off the bay) measures 9.5mm...which I got because the blue Monsoon insert was only 8.8mm.

i like the look of the monoblock a lot will have to get one for my next build

Cenedd said:

Aw mate, you gotta laugh! (I know I did!)
I have of people sanding it slightly smaller before if that helps. I also vaguely remember it being said that one insert was often sold as 1mm larger because of imperial to metric conversion but I forget if it was 11mm for 10mm or 12mm for 11mm.
The black Barrow insert I got (off the bay) measures 9.5mm...which I got because the blue Monsoon insert was only 8.8mm.

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I have been experimenting this weekend and have found that Olive oil appears to be the perfect lubricant for the silicone insert. I sanded down the Primochill insert very slightly and when lubed up with Olive oil it slips in nicely and holds the shape of the tube well when bending. Unfortunately it looks like KY jelly does weird things when it gets too hot and was leaving a slight whitish discolouration in the tube, so olive oil it is. Hopefully will have some progress to show shortly.

Plus with olive oil you don't have to go through the malarkey of "No, no, it's to lube my tubes", "I bet it is sir, I bet it is. A nod's as good as a wink to a blind bat, eh?!"

Knew a scuba diver who tried to claim the KY he had to stop and buy was for the o-rings and seals in his kit. Might have been convincing if it wasn't water-soluble!

A bit of spare time at last this week so finally got all my hard tubes bent and ready to fit, having trouble getting the last of the acrylic dust out from the middle of some of the longer tubes, have tried soaking, running fast water from the tap but still have little bits hanging on, likely stuck with some olive oil. Anyone got any tips for getting the rubbish out of the middle of the long bendy tubes?

Once they are clean then it's time to fill the loop....

Drag a bit of kitchen towel through with some thread? Or push some through with the bending silicone?

It's finally almost finished and is now running. I have taken a quick shot above to let people see how it looks, will take some more detailed photos in the next few days under better lighting.

The only bit that remains is to choose some suitable LEDs to place in the case. Currently thinking of a single strip of white LEDs along the top but open to suggestions, The MB has a RGB LED header so could hook one up pretty easily.

I had a single leak when filling, one of the mounting sockets on the big 480mm radiator had not been fitted properly at the factory, I had tightened them all up before screwing in the fittings but it turns out this one had the rubber O-ring seated badly so it leaked pretty rapidly when filling the loop. Lesson for the future, undo all the factory fittings and make sure they are seated properly before screwing in the fittings for the tubing. Fortunately thanks to the drain valve I added in the lower compartment it was relatively easy to drain the loop and fix the problem.

I am sure that my acrylic bending could be neater but I am happy with the results for my first attempt. I may go back and improve the tubing when I upgrade the graphics cards mid life. I would recommend anyone looking at hard tubing for the first time to spend a few weeks practicing getting the heating just right before attempting your actual build. Budget for a lot more tubing that you will need simply to use for practice.

Well they look good from here. Maybe some slight thinning of the far left tube (GPU to rad) but that's being overly picky and could just be the angle of the pic.

If you've got an RGB header I'd go with that. Give you the opportunity to try different colours and pick what you like best - or change your mind. You can probably balance the colours by hand to give the whitest white if that's what you want....or swap it out if you decide white is the way but it isn't bright enough.

I'm becoming a big fan of Aqua Computer's Dr Drop - despite mine leaking It gives you a good way of checking it's not going to leak before you get stuff wet. For my overkill res, this was really helpful as it needed to be tightened up much tighter than I was expecting before it held the 0.5 bar (8 psi) of test pressure.

Cenedd said:

Well they look good from here. Maybe some slight thinning of the far left tube (GPU to rad) but that's being overly picky and could just be the angle of the pic.

If you've got an RGB header I'd go with that. Give you the opportunity to try different colours and pick what you like best - or change your mind. You can probably balance the colours by hand to give the whitest white if that's what you want....or swap it out if you decide white is the way but it isn't bright enough.

I'm becoming a big fan of Aqua Computer's Dr Drop - despite mine leaking It gives you a good way of checking it's not going to leak before you get stuff wet. For my overkill res, this was really helpful as it needed to be tightened up much tighter than I was expecting before it held the 0.5 bar (8 psi) of test pressure.

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I had a look at the Aqua Computer's Dr Drop, with hindsight it would have been worth getting. Will likely pick one up before my next build, got the bug now and my VR PC could do with some hard tubing....

Just a few bits to sort out on this one before it is fully finished. Will get some LEDs to experiment with this week and also having an issue with the EK WB D5 pump not being recognised by the Aquero 6. Whilst not a show stopper it does mean my pump is currently stuck running at full power. Its controlling the fans brilliantly, very easy and all sat at about 750 rpm so barely audible. The noisiest fan in the case is the Seasonic PSU which sounds like a rocket in comparison.