Project: Hush! - updated 26/12/23

[Monkey Puzzle]

nitro-mors is next to useless now. the orignal mix they used was very potent but also hazardous. what they sell now will only make the worst/weakest waterbased type coating to bubble useually the stuff you buy in cans from b&q and art stores.

thats very impressive finish, you arms must be aching now

Safer now I'm sure, but very annoying that products have been nerfed to lower VOC emissions etc to the extent they don't work anymore!

 

[qbhatti]

That is an absolutely sensational build...where do you guys find the time.?!
Seeing this work lets some of us live our dreams

 

[Monkey Puzzle]

That is an absolutely sensational build...where do you guys find the time.?!
Seeing this work lets some of us live our dreams

Thank you! It's taken some time haha.

 

[Monkey Puzzle]

Took a dremel to the I/O PCI card aluminium bracket to fit the vertical GPU bracket which is resting on it in this photo (those horizontal struts with the pressed grooves seen behind it had to be cut to fit it, 3 countersunk M4 holes drilled to attach it at the front, and 5 m3 holed redrilled and tapped as countersunk M4 instead at the side to attach the vertical GPU bracket.

PSX_20230429_181207 by Tom ., on Flickr

Vertical GPU bracket fitted:

20230429_152606~2 by Tom ., on Flickr

PSX_20230429_174845 by Tom ., on Flickr

PSX_20230429_175205 by Tom ., on Flickr

I drilled and tapped five 6-32 UNC holes to attach the vertical PSU bracket: This is the back of the case - the PSU will sit up and behind the case unseen (and not impede passive airflow in the case). The case needs some space around it for airflow from the bottom anyhow so mounting the PSU on the back won't really affect case footprint. It's not really seen behind the case, and the PSU is black, so may leave the PSU bracket as it is here rather than strip and polish it.

PSX_20230429_180058 by Tom ., on Flickr

PSX_20230429_175608 by Tom ., on Flickr

 

[ALXAndy]

Wow that riser looks incrediballs. Nice work man !

 

[Monkey Puzzle]

Made a jig (from a slightly sorry looking 10mm thick sheet of plexiglass) to keep the veneered backwall flat for sanding and coating with more coats of 'finishing oil' - the backwall is thin and fiddly and tricky to sand between coats and needs to be flat for applying the oil (and messy if this is done installed in the alumunium frame) without damaging the veneer edges otherwise. Just 22 countersunk m4 holes later :

PSX_20230503_132224 by Tom ., on Flickr

PSX_20230503_132414 by Tom ., on Flickr

 

[Monkey Puzzle]

Sanded down the walnut veneered back-wall to 1500 grit on a sanding block, then rubbed out the gloss with a fine microfibre cloth. Ahem. The pits from the wood grain as you lay down layers of oil finish (which is tung oil and polyurethane mainly) on the wooden veneer surface is almost gone. Gloss finish looks lovely and brings a 3d depth to the wood grain, but when installed in the case with the lighting it was getting glare/reflections so you juat see glare, so reducing the gloss should look better. 1500 grit then scuffing is likely still too shiny, will have to see what's like installed.. I sanded the edges of the veneered backwallaround the countersunk holes and sanded through the finish to wood in places so will need another coat of finishing oil or two. Got frustrated and decided to stop working on the veneer and put the hardware in and do some therapeutic hard copper piping instead as a less frustrating option. This was an error.

The 14mm pipe bender I have is rubbish, and the 'half-hard' copper pipe I got won't bend - it snaps instead, and broke the 14mm pipe bender in the process. Sigh.

Got some prebent Barrow 14mm copper tubing instead - it has the benefit of a tighter bend radius of 30mm compared to ~36.5mm ish for the hand 14mm pipe bending tools.

Here's some photos of copper pipes not fitting properly yet! - the straight copper pipes here are the 'half-hard(very hard)' copper pipe to show clearance and possible loop routing.

Vertical GPU riser fitted (the motherboard tray's a bit dusty here)

PSX_20230510_134520 by Tom ., on Flickr


Ah, some non-aligned 45 degree fittings between GPU block and CPU block.

This may align with some different 45 degree fittings without the 10mm of knurled rotary section, and maybe using 7.5mm knurled male to female spacers if needed, but may well not...

I keep hearing all these adverts saying that with all of the rampant money printing of western countries and the consequent hyperinflation, that it's time to invest in gold. Sadly I misinterpreted that as 'buy more gold compression fittings'. Can't find any in stock in the UK. They'll get here from aliexpress in 2 weeks.

PSX_20230510_135355 by Tom ., on Flickr

An alternative is to connect from the other side with a 90 degree fitting to 90 degree bent copper pipe. Looking horribly tight and that the compression fitting will clamp on the curve of the bend...

20230508_125244_HDR by Tom ., on Flickr

Yep, even putting the copper tube in a pipe spring, 12mm soft silicone pipe bender inside and putting in a vice and hammering to tighten the bend hasn't worked as the compression fitting rides the angle of the bend at the end so haven't got it to fit so far.. I know hard tubing is supposed to be a PITA, but putting tubes in vices and hammering them to try and get them to fit might be a sign I'm doing it wrong! A replacement 90 degree fitting with the 14mm OD compression fitting integrated may give a few more vital mm to avoid clamping on the curve and make it work, or prebending a longer piece of prebent pipe may work, will have to see...

20230510_015804_HDR by Tom ., on Flickr

Those two horizontal copper pipes are possible routes for pump to gpu block - the bottom one would be a 90 degree bent copper pipe from pump outlet to the 90 degree fitting on the gpu block there, the top copper pipe there would just about fit a degree fitting from pump to the block with the gold ek pump housing sat just about on the veneered wall, so borderline. May still cut a 'slightly-larger-than--gold ek-d5-pump-housing' sized hole in the veneered backwall to sit the pump housing down through the wall and have the plexi d5 res top more flush, and mount the pump housing in a vibration damping frame/box section (hidden in the back/behind the case) for a cleaner look, so the pump isn't taking space inside.

The grey scuffs on the veneer at the edges are from sanding and will go.

PSX_20230510_140954 by Tom ., on Flickr

PSX_20230510_141209 by Tom ., on Flickr

PSX_20230510_140954 by Tom ., on Flickr

20230510_015915_HDR by Tom ., on Flickr

20230510_015804_HDR by Tom ., on Flickr

20230510_015729_HDR by Tom ., on Flickr

That's all for now, thanks for reading. TLDR: looks pretty but very frustrating and doesn't fit yet!

 

[Cenedd]

What you need is some nice easy soft tube! ....is what I kept telling myself when I was cutting the glass tubes. Hey, on the bright side, yours don't break or give off a nice abrasive dust that you want to avoid breathing in when you cut them!
That CPU-GPU link is awkward. Too close in one dimension for either of those ports. A few suggestions

* Could you swap GPU ports and go in where you have the temp sensor? Direction of flow supposedly doesn't matter on some blocks.

* If you went for the first port you've shown, your 45's are too tall and it's never going to meet. You might strike lucky on some non-rotary 45's or even just one of them. Not as tall so might get you the line-up....but could also point in entirely the wrong direction. You've got two ports so two threads to play with so you're doubling the chance of one of them pointing in the right direction. You may also find that some fittings are 'clocked' differently - ie the thread starts in a different position so they'll end up pointing in different directions when tightened. Barrow also do a 1.5mm 'extension' or spacer. Essentially a washer with an O-ring in the back. Given the G1/4 pitch, that ought to (at least in theory) get you 44° CCW rotation of the fitting.

* Would a double or triple snake fitting work and not look too horible?

* Is there enough room to put 90° fittings on both ports and then your line-up is adjustable by adding height to one or both with small spacers/extensions.

* Are you in range of an offset fitting? Some go quite a distance now - EK do one up to 28mm offset

EK: 3, 7, 14, 21, 28mm​

Alphacool: 8,16mm​

Barrow: 14mm​

You'll definitely get a tighter bend by bending the tube long (more leverage for a start) and then cutting the end back. Measure once, cut twice, swear many times
You could always anneal the tube with a blow torch (heat to a dull glow and then let cool naturally) as that will make it softer and 'bendable' without snapping. Copper will work-harden too so it'll get harder as you're bending. It may require re-annealing half-way if you're having that much trouble with it.

Last idea would be a block of acrylic/delrin, steel even - copper's too pricey and you don't want aluminium in your loop. Brass maybe? A square prism (square bar) with a hole most of the way down the middle, tapped G1/4 at one end for a stop-plug. Then a G1/4 hole tapped in the right place for straight m/m rotary fittings (if enough room!) to connect to your ports.

 

[Monkey Puzzle]

What you need is some nice easy soft tube! ....is what I kept telling myself when I was cutting the glass tubes. Hey, on the bright side, yours don't break or give off a nice abrasive dust that you want to avoid breathing in when you cut them!
That CPU-GPU link is awkward. Too close in one dimension for either of those ports. A few suggestions

* Could you swap GPU ports and go in where you have the temp sensor? Direction of flow supposedly doesn't matter on some blocks.

* If you went for the first port you've shown, your 45's are too tall and it's never going to meet. You might strike lucky on some non-rotary 45's or even just one of them. Not as tall so might get you the line-up....but could also point in entirely the wrong direction. You've got two ports so two threads to play with so you're doubling the chance of one of them pointing in the right direction. You may also find that some fittings are 'clocked' differently - ie the thread starts in a different position so they'll end up pointing in different directions when tightened. Barrow also do a 1.5mm 'extension' or spacer. Essentially a washer with an O-ring in the back. Given the G1/4 pitch, that ought to (at least in theory) get you 44° CCW rotation of the fitting.

* Would a double or triple snake fitting work and not look too horible?

* Is there enough room to put 90° fittings on both ports and then your line-up is adjustable by adding height to one or both with small spacers/extensions.

* Are you in range of an offset fitting? Some go quite a distance now - EK do one up to 28mm offset

EK: 3, 7, 14, 21, 28mm​

Alphacool: 8,16mm​

Barrow: 14mm​

You'll definitely get a tighter bend by bending the tube long (more leverage for a start) and then cutting the end back. Measure once, cut twice, swear many times
You could always anneal the tube with a blow torch (heat to a dull glow and then let cool naturally) as that will make it softer and 'bendable' without snapping. Copper will work-harden too so it'll get harder as you're bending. It may require re-annealing half-way if you're having that much trouble with it.

Last idea would be a block of acrylic/delrin, steel even - copper's too pricey and you don't want aluminium in your loop. Brass maybe? A square prism (square bar) with a hole most of the way down the middle, tapped G1/4 at one end for a stop-plug. Then a G1/4 hole tapped in the right place for straight m/m rotary fittings (if enough room!) to connect to your ports.

Thanks, those are some good ideas - yeah there's a few different things that would work I think.

Those 1.5mm barrow spacers look very useful - thanks for the headsup.

I've got a 3 way/section 180 degree snake - tried this when feeling defeated - (soft norprene tubing and compression rings not screwed in so looking extra shonky! It's still offset by a fair bit if I tried to use hard tubing)

20230507_185852 by Tom ., on Flickr

The annealing hard copper pipe with blowtorch then pickling in vinegar + salt works, but it's time-consuming and also tricky to the get the oxide scale out of the inside of the tube even with pickling and pipe brush cleaners, so would likely deposit crap in the loop/blocks. Luckily the prebent tubes seem to be soft copper.

The GPU block inlet and outlet are direction specific unfortunately as the inlet goes to a jet plate over the core microchannels.

So far I have several ideas

1) overbend a prebent 90 piece of tubing then cut to size, use combined 14mm OD compression+90 degree fitting so the compression o-rings are further from the bend - I think the trouble atm is the o-rings clamp on the bend so when the compression ring/oring clamps it's on the curve/angle and it then deflects the tube away from the cpu block inlet - it looks dramatically out by about 6mm at tge cpu block inlet in the pics but really it's that the compression ring is clamping several mm into the bend at the gpu block end.

2) Just use 2 straight copper pipe sections and use a 90 degree dual compression fitting instead of 90 degree bent copper tube gpu outlet to cpu block inlet.

Screenshots_2023-05-11-10-30-26 by Tom ., on Flickr

3) use a 45 degree fitting screwed into a 90 degree fitting on the gpu outlet then use a 45 degree bent copper pipe instead

4) fit on the other side of the gpu block outlets, straight copper pipe, and use non-rotatory 45 degree fittings with combination of 1.5mm, 7.5mm spacers to align to a 45 degree fitting on the cpu block inlet

 

[Monkey Puzzle]

Slow progress (as always!). Managed to bend the copper tube. Needed to blowtorch to anneal the copper to bend, and use a slight question mark shaped copper tubing run from the GPU outlet to CPU block inlet. Can either keep it like this, or instead use the low profile delrin alphacool gpu block terminal I've bought (this has 1 inlet, one outlet, facing up ( https://www.highflow.nl/images/wate...erminal_flat_straight_-_Acetal_1019459_02.jpg ) rather than 2 inlets, 2 outlets facing forwards and backwards with the plexi terminal in the following photos.

Here's some photos with a proper camera! (Click for full res versions)

PSX_20230606_094101 by Tom ., on Flickr

PSX_20230529_032227 by Tom ., on Flickr

PSX_20230528_013800 by Tom ., on Flickr

The eagle-eyed will have noticed there's some sag with the gpu block and motherboard tray.

The D5 with the EK FLT80 reservoir top is a bit bulky and didn't like how much space it took up inside the case, so the plan is to mount the pump behind the case, poking through a rounded square hole so only the plexi reservoir sits within the case. It'll be dampened and held within a piece of 4" x 4" x 1/4" thick walled aluminium box-section with some sorbothane vibration isolating hemispheres around the pump and some neoprene foam matt to keep the vibration hemispheres appropriately loaded and hold it in place. May be pointless trying to vibration damp it whilst using hard copper pipe, will have to see!

20230611_142816_HDR by Tom ., on Flickr

20230611_143008_HDR by Tom ., on Flickr

20230611_193756_HDR by Tom ., on Flickr

Picked up some aluminium z-section and dremelled to use in place at thw back of the case by the vertical gpu riser bracket, to have it bolt into it, and provide a vertical support for the pump dampened box to bolt to.

20230610_195019_HDR by Tom ., on Flickr

20230611_024732_HDR by Tom ., on Flickr

20230611_132132_HDR by Tom ., on Flickr

...and the z-section bit of aluminium isn't quite the right size for the gpu bracket (the sides are short by a few mm) for the bolts on the gpu bracket to bolt through. Doesn't come in the right size, so will have to cut down and use some aluminium angle instead. :-/

 

[Cenedd]

Looking great so far. If you find that the hard tubing transmits the vibration too much, you could always put a bit of soft tube either side of the pump. If the look of that is wrong, another option is that Barrow (and I'm sure others) do something called D-Plug. It's a solid fitting but in two parts that slot together with o-rings. A long enough one has room to add an additional o-ring so that all the contacts is slightly damped. Probably not as good as a length of soft tube but would look better. Used them to suspend the res in my Self-inflicted project. You can see them here

Project: Self-Inflicted

Off the top of my head it's 60x19mm, 10mm thick should be enough to fit but I'll dig out the bag of Barrow fittings and check their thread lengths. Need to confirm final final final final drawings now that I've dismantled the case, so will give you a shout :)

forums.overclockers.co.uk

 

[Monkey Puzzle]

Looking great so far. If you find that the hard tubing transmits the vibration too much, you could always put a bit of soft tube either side of the pump. If the look of that is wrong, another option is that Barrow (and I'm sure others) do something called D-Plug. It's a solid fitting but in two parts that slot together with o-rings. A long enough one has room to add an additional o-ring so that all the contacts is slightly damped. Probably not as good as a length of soft tube but would look better. Used them to suspend the res in my Self-inflicted project. You can see them here

Project: Self-Inflicted

Off the top of my head it's 60x19mm, 10mm thick should be enough to fit but I'll dig out the bag of Barrow fittings and check their thread lengths. Need to confirm final final final final drawings now that I've dismantled the case, so will give you a shout :)

forums.overclockers.co.uk

Thanks - those Barrow D-plug fittings are interesting - do you find that they're effective at reducing transmitted vibrations?

 

[Cenedd]

I'm not sure I can give you a good enough answer to that. I put them in from the design phase fearing the problem rather than retro-fitting them because of the problem. I also run a DDC in that loop and undervolt it (or PWM, honestly I forget which but the effect is the same) so it is quieter. In theory it's completely isolated with o-rings but that said, o-rings aren't that soft. If you've got room for a length of decent soft tubing like a Tygon 3603 or a Norprene, that would probably be better. You've already decoupled the pump.
Ok, went and checked. Pump is at 8.4V = 70% = 3120rpm. The pump and res can be felt to vibrate. If you put a finger on the fittings (I'm running a chain of solid fittings top and bottom of the res) you CAN feel vibration but it is reduced. Most of the noise is from the fans....which mainly look pretty for cheap rather than being nice and quiet. So yes, definitely reduce it but may not be as effective if you're running the pump at 4700rpm.

 

[Monkey Puzzle]

I'm not sure I can give you a good enough answer to that. I put them in from the design phase fearing the problem rather than retro-fitting them because of the problem. I also run a DDC in that loop and undervolt it (or PWM, honestly I forget which but the effect is the same) so it is quieter. In theory it's completely isolated with o-rings but that said, o-rings aren't that soft. If you've got room for a length of decent soft tubing like a Tygon 3603 or a Norprene, that would probably be better. You've already decoupled the pump.
Ok, went and checked. Pump is at 8.4V = 70% = 3120rpm. The pump and res can be felt to vibrate. If you put a finger on the fittings (I'm running a chain of solid fittings top and bottom of the res) you CAN feel vibration but it is reduced. Most of the noise is from the fans....which mainly look pretty for cheap rather than being nice and quiet. So yes, definitely reduce it but may not be as effective if you're running the pump at 4700rpm.

Thanks for checking - much appreciated. I wouldn't think 3 extra epdm rubber o-rings really helps that much - they're pretty small and probably overly loaded in compression past what's ideal to dampen vibrations, compared to a decent length of say silicone tube (which would be better for the natural frequency of 30-80 Hz of the D5 - see https://antivibration-systems.com/vibration-isolators-silicon-vibration-control-rubber/ ).

Fingers crossed that the dampening of the pump does a decent enough job that I don't need to use any silicone or norprene tubing!

 

[Monkey Puzzle]

Update part 1 (click the photos below for the 42mp versions):

I've made a bracket for the pump to 'float' through a hole cut in the walnut backwall, and also double up as a support for the vertical GPU bracket to prevent sag.

The IO bracket supporting the vertical GPU looks like this from behind, with little m4 round lugs the gpu bracket screws to, that you can see at the top of this photo:

PSX_20230828_203027 by Tom ., on Flickr

Some 1/4"(6.35mm) x 1"(25.4mm) x
1"(25.4mm) aluminium angle, cut down and milled with holes that those lugs snap into - from clamping them against the cut down aluminium angle and using some m4 spike screws, it marked the aluminium bracket pretty exactly for drilling out holes/using an end-mill for the hole for the 'lugs'.

PSX_20230828_200029 by Tom ., on Flickr

The box section is 1/4" thick x 4" x 4", and those are a few bits of drilled and polished 1/2" x 3/4" rectangular bar, plus some m6 and m4 bolts.

Bolted together:

PSX_20230828_200655 by Tom ., on Flickr

PSX_20230828_201535 by Tom ., on Flickr

PSX_20230828_194725 by Tom ., on Flickr

PSX_20230828_201906 by Tom ., on Flickr

To bolt to the back wall/frame the 'leg' (to the left there) needed a bit cut out and some countersunk holes for clamping into place - needed to be countersunk as the walnut-veneered aluminium back wall sits ~1.7mm above it, so no room for nuts or bolt heads.

PSX_20230828_202517 by Tom ., on Flickr

With the pump support bracket in place, with the IO bracket clipped into place(though only bolted with the countersunk bolts to the frame on the left in this pic). The black perforated thing on the right is the PSU bracket.

PSX_20230828_203545 by Tom ., on Flickr

 

[alexakasloth]

Glad to see this is still going, it's a timeless design and a beautiful build.

 

[Monkey Puzzle]

Mods please delete this post!

 

[Monkey Puzzle]

Glad to see this is still going, it's a timeless design and a beautiful build.

Thank you, very kind of you to say!

 

[Monkey Puzzle]

Update 2 of 2 on the pump bracket:

Firstly, can anyone recommend a good free image hosting site? - flickr's trying to force me to pay them when I have 507 of 1000 free images uploaded... I've deleted some photos to get it to let me upload - click on images for full resolution versions

---------

Time to mount the dampening for the pump in the aluminium box section - first with some adhesive backed neoprene on the inner walls. Those black hemispheres are the squidgy vibration-dampening sorbothane hemipheres. They're sticky and look black and shiny like this for about 5 minutes out of the bag before they encounter dust.

PSX_20230909_211234 by Tom ., on Flickr

And then with some sorbothane adhesive backed hemispheres - this is a type of urethane that's better than silicone, rubber and neoprene at absorbing vibrations, and particularly at the base frequencies the D5 runs at in its PWM range.

The golden EK pump mount is understandably upset at my choice of 'extra strong' duct tape to try and tape down and guide the pump's power and PWM wires so they don't press against the walls and transmit vibration...

PSX_20230909_212146 by Tom ., on Flickr

I'll probably bed in the pump to the gold mount with some soft silicone resin and use that to guide the cables. Either that or thermally insulate and kill the now potted pump, though the D5 apparently dumps all it's heat into the loop, so hopefully not!

Squidgy vibration dampening hemispheres mounted and pump in place

PSX_20230909_222636 by Tom ., on Flickr

PSX_20230909_223319 by Tom ., on Flickr

Right then, time to mount the pump/GPU anti-sag bracket to the case back wall section. Here's some shiny stuff that won't be seen! For reference this is one half of the skeleton case that holds the copper radiator. At each side are aluminium angle legs. The slits are where the copper radiator fins slot into, the milled step is for the walnut veneered backwall to sit in, the I/O and PCI bracket clips into the pump bracket thing, the black perforated doohickey is the PSU bracket that sits behind the case.

PSX_20230909_210805 by Tom ., on Flickr

PSX_20230909_231145 by Tom ., on Flickr

PSX_20230910_001300 by Tom ., on Flickr

PSX_20230909_233114 by Tom ., on Flickr

PSX_20230910_000659 by Tom ., on Flickr



One hole cut from the veneered aluminium backwall. EK couldn't just have rounded corners on a square could they? Sadly a little bit of veneer got mangled in the process and will likely need to be cut out and replaced - can't see this with the pump res top mounted but will likely be visible when it's filled with water.

The veneer looks a bit beaten up here - those funny grey-white marks at the top are from sanding and will disappear as soon as another coat of finishing oil goes on.

PSX_20230909_232315 by Tom ., on Flickr

Time to put the veneered wall back on, with the pump poking through the hole.

PSX_20230910_002007 by Tom ., on Flickr

Ta-da! A floating pump. There's around 3mm between the acrylic reservoir top and the wooden veneered wall.

PSX_20230910_003030 by Tom ., on Flickr


PSX_20230910_003434 by Tom ., on Flickr

PSX_20230910_003837 by Tom ., on Flickr

 

[Gepetto]

I am trying to get my head around the sheer amount of detailed work that is going in to this build. I've been pondering what word to use to describe it and I'm coming up with Epic! Hat's off to you Sir!