Copper Build

cammmy

cammmy

cammmy

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4 Sep 2013
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56
Hi All, I'm in the process of doing a copper build and figured I would put up a preview and write down some tips before I forget them.

Firstly, you will need 16mm OD tube and fittings. This is not common in the UK but they are available from BES. The only 45 degree fitting is M/F, so you would need to use one with a straight coupler if you go down that route. The standard UK size is 15mm, DONT TRY USING THIS. I mocked up using scrap 15mm and it's extremely loose on the fittings. There's also 12mm but I wanted the chunkier look of 16. The fittings are cheap but it's £5 postage everytime from BES. Just order way more than you think you need, tees, 90s reducers etc as if you forget anything or your plans change, the postage stacks up.

I was originally going to try using all bends rather than solder fittings but you would need a 16mm pipe bender as the tube won't fit in a 15. I would stick with fittings as in hindsight, I think the tighter radius looks better.

There are no 16mm valves with compression fittings but you can adapt 16mm to 12mm and get a valve for that. I will be doing this for the fill/drain port.

Make sure you have good deburring tools. It's very easy for the copper to just slice chunks off of the O-Rings.

My plumber friend will be coming over tomorrow to solder it all.

IMG-20210311-181404-01.jpg


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Yeah I already had the CPU block and rads though. I have a 280 in the bottom. I have another 120 but just couldn't make it work in the front. The whole thing cost more than I wanted as it was, so couldn't justify replacing rads purely for aesthetics :D. I would keep the top clear for a cleaner look to keep the pipework in focus.

IMG-20210315-215534-01.jpg


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Another note for anyone doing this. Rinse the pipes with high pressure water before use. I rinsed them in the tap but unfortunately the flux caused scabbing that's been knocked off by the higher flow of the pump and been caught in the GPU block. I'm going to strip it down again and backflush everything.
 
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Looks mint with the lights on, good job. Annoying having to take it apart straight away though because of the bits, I've been lucky enough to never have to do that.
 
Thanks guys. Yeah, I need to add another fill port as it's currently an arse to fill and I also want to tweak the front rad a bit. So it was going to have to come apart anyway. Hopefully that will be it for a few years though X-D
 
Nice work, although I'd have just bent the tube instead of soldering angles. And personally for me I'd have gone 12mm copper instead, your case and layout is too small for such big tubing, it looks a bit chunky.

But that's my preference, bang up job regardless!
 
LePhuronn said:
Nice work, although I'd have just bent the tube...
Click to expand...

I was originally going to try and use bends but it wasn't possible. The pipe doesn't fit in a 15mm bender and getting a 16mm one in the UK is £100+. When the fittings are about 35p each, I couldn't justify the cost of buying one to use once. After comparing test bends in 15mm though, I prefer the tighter bends of the fittings. The radius from a bender is quite large.

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I wanted the chunkier, industrial look. This case is absolutely massive (that's a full size 30 series and those fans are 140mm). I have some 12mm I used for fitting a valve on the drain/fill port and it's super dainty. I think it would have been too small given I wanted the copper to be the main feature. You're right that the setup could fill the case more but choice is really limited at the moment for full tower. I erred in the side of caution and went big as the Black Ice SR2 radiators are an arse to fit. I still had to modify this case to get the 280 in. I swear they didn't test fit those radiators in anything when they made them. The blanking plugs for the extra ports foul everything.
 
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Dwarfy said:
The main problem being that compression and solder fittings that close to say acrylic could be challenging
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In what way challenging? It's no different than using official watercooling fittings. Both those things you linked to will need o-rings of course.
 
Looks good! Be sure to flush all the flux and residue out of the pipes after soldering before refitting them, wouldn't want to block any rads or waterblocks with crap.

I did some thing similar but used 10mm chromed copper so I could bend the pipes and use easier to get push fittings.
 
You can't really just hand tighten compression fittings, and soldering that close to the acrylic would be challenging, I may be wrong but I have so far only done domestic plumbing (no solder) and not pc water cooling though I have all the gear now just waiting on a gpu (who's have thought I could've gotten the block first LOL)

In my mind it would be best to secure the pipe then screw into the acrylic but then you have this tube sticking out, so then you would have to have the block not attached screw it in then install it as a larger assembly.
Perhaps my imagination is running away lol
 
Good lord, I assumed it was the idea that once you have the layout, you should remove the pipes and get them soldered outside the case :)

No way would I take a blowtorch near a case with parts in, and definitely not heat any metal that's touching acrylic. It should be doable to mark or secure the pipes as you have them installed, then remove without changing the layout. That's what I assumed OP did.
 
You definitely couldn't solder in the case. It needs a big torch and the heat travels.

Whilst I would have preferred not having to solder, I think it's the best way to do it. Just be sure to rinse everything with high pressure water afterwards. I had to strip it down again and backflush the GPU block. I rinsed it all under the tap but that clearly wasn't good enough. I'm using a D5 Next and when it powered on at 100% it knocked a bunch of flux loose.
 
cammmy said:
Yeah I already had the CPU block and rads though. I have a 280 in the bottom. I have another 120 but just couldn't make it work in the front. The whole thing cost more than I wanted as it was, so couldn't justify replacing rads purely for aesthetics :D. I would keep the top clear for a cleaner look to keep the pipework in focus.

IMG-20210315-215534-01.jpg


IMG-20210315-220015-01.jpg


Another note for anyone doing this. Rinse the pipes with high pressure water before use. I rinsed them in the tap but unfortunately the flux caused scabbing that's been knocked off by the higher flow of the pump and been caught in the GPU block. I'm going to strip it down again and backflush everything.
Click to expand...

This build is absolutely amazing. Loving the effort. Totally worth it, when you can look at it and see the DIY success after taking time to do something like this! It gets my imaginary viewers choice award for innovation.
 
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