Modular.

Yeah I guess so huh. It's deffo sturdy as I stubbed my toe on it earlier ffs.

BTW I don't need to mill the cold plate on the second block and I can mount it without gluing it down.

Basically the core part and memory around it are central. So if you flip it upside down as I need to they are all in the correct places. I am not bothered about the back of the core making a good contact, just the memory. And those are the highest on the plate, along with the VRMs which look identical. I will, however, vernier.

Will talk more about how I can mount it without gluing it on when I come to it, but yeah I am 99% confident I can do that no problems.

I did treat myself to a couple of absolute essentials though.

xChA3ve.jpg

The ones I saw before were something stupid like £40. For something you will destroy. Oddly enough it was only when I added this to my basket after measuring the motor that it popped up for £20. TBH? at that much it isn't even worth the aggro of designing one.

CbfgnJM.jpg

And these, 'cause I want to use really small ones for lettering and etc.

DU01q6p.jpg
 
Mind those last ones. I've seen them sold as endmills but they aren't. They're basically burrs; very similar to the one you've no doubt got with your Dremel. They ought to do fine for wood and probably acrylic but they will run much hotter as they're closer to an abrasive than a cutter. Check the bottom to see if the points come correctly down. Ifnthey don't, it'll only side-cut (well) rather than plunge.

If you want to check where bumps of coldplate sit, you want something non-drying and transferrable like micrometer blue or prussian blue. You smear a thin layer on the cold plate and then put the two together carefully. It'll leave prints where it made contact....and on your chairs, carpets, shirt. It's fun! The tubes are less irritating than the tins....which seem like such a good idea until you've tried them.
 
That was what I used to carve a 3mm deep line in some 5mm before dude. One of the cheap carbide burrs that came with it when I bought it.

BTW some confusion here. I can tell the software what sized bit I am using. I get 1/8 or 1/16. However, that is not the actual tip. Should I be able to change that?
 
I've not played with that software but yes, it's critical for most work. Some just let you specify the tip diameter (cutter size) but some may require you to set up a tool library... which is really more relevant to fancier setups with automatic tool changers.

If you cut, say, a circle of 100mm diameter by moving the spindle in a 100mm diameter circle with a 10mm diameter cutter, the circle you end up with would be 110mm in diameter (half the diameter of the cutter extra but on both sides) if you didn't take into account the diameter of the cutter. The hole is too large. If, instead, the inside piece is what you were going to keep, that's now too small. Same applies if you're cutting slots - which (at least in hard materials - you'd probably get away with it in plastic) you want to cut it with a cutter that's smaller than the slot width you want and then take cuts either side until you get to width. Take it all in one hit with a cutter the same size and it'll end up jagged where the cutter deflects under load.

I think your collet is 1/8" so it ought to take a 1/8" or 3mm shank...but the cutter itself could neck down to a fraction of a mm.
The length of the cutter will change from cutter to cutter and also every time you chuck up even the same cutter - it'll sit higher or lower in the collet. (Unless you have a fancy tool-holder that avoids this) So it's important to set your Z height after every change of cutter and every change of stock. With the depths of cut you may be taking, you may even find the stock isn't flat or bows when you clamp it down and that's enough difference that you start fine and snap the end off the cutter by the you get across the work piece. A dry run is a good idea (cutting say half a mm above the workpiece) and see if it gets closer or further away as it goes.
 
If you're doing it manually, you have to add ir subtract half the width ofnthe cutter from the measurement regularly. It sounds complicated but your CNC software should take care of it for you. It's useful to understand why though for when you're diagnosing why it didn't come out right. You get used to it pretty quickly with some colourful language and the forethought to order more stock than you thought you'd need! :D
 
OK cool. I figured it out, BTW. I set it to a 2mm tip. I also finished measuring up for the back of the PC, which tbh is the most critical, fussy part. Reckons it will take 44 mins with a feed rate of 300mm per minute.

J70fm64.png

And that is with the engraving. I just wish I had my Dyson ball here. It is about half the volume of the Oreck. Plus I haven't use it at all since I got my cordless.
 
I ordered the water cooling parts I needed for the pass through. Two of these at each end.

ZN4CP79.png

And big fittings and hose to make sure it doesn't get too congested.

lm0HrHU.png

BKiGpUr.png

Also, since the last time I did anything like this about 5 years ago, someone somewhere has realised that a 20mm disc is annoying as you have to keep titling the Dremel in order to cut. Meaning you need to rip the material down, leave about 5mm there with a angled edge *and then* you can cut your nice straight line. Who would have thought you could just make them as 40mm discs and avoid all that?

PVktSFV.jpg

And the almost completed design of the back IO of the PC.

NEqO7b2.png
 
Update Seven. "It's time to innovate".

So there was just one thing left for me to resolve. Holding down the material to cut it.

Obviously from the back panel design you can clearly see I will be using all of the space available to me. This is a problem, as it leaves me no way to hold it down.

In one of the videos I watched a guy was putting masking tape down over the spoil board, then putting masking tape on the back of the cut face, then pouring super glue all over the tape on the board and gluing it down, thus, creating his own "double sided masking tape".

Double sided tapes are generally very strong as they are designed for carpet, but man all that super glue. That looked hella expensive to me !

"Come on surely someone makes double sided masking tape" - nope. Not from my first few searches. Sheesh really, has no one invented double sided masking tape?

After A LOT of digging it seems they have. Kip, Kip has. Cheers Kip.

IIKVjrM.jpg

Was expensive though. £8. However, whichever way you shake it that sounds a whole buttload cheaper to me than masking two faces and then "gentleman's relishing" superglue all over it. Also, if you make a mistake in masking you either ruin the acrylic or you pull lumps out of your spoil board.

And yeah, that is a whole update because IMO? it is a critical piece of using this machine.

So now you know, Kip rocks.
 
As long as your bed is flat, that ought to work nicely - you'll have other problems if it's not. You should be able to deck it off with the router but you'd want to make sure it's properly trammed (cutter is square to bed in both directions and moves square to bed in both directions) before you do that or it'll end up worse. Not sure it has to be masking tape though; as long as it comes off the workpiece without damaging it, you're good, right? Pretty much any double-sided tape should do that. Worst case, you stick it to the peel-away of the acrylic or even mask the bare acrylic and then use double-sided tape on that.
Cutters went in the post this morning for Royal Fail to do their worst.
 
Wicked thanks dude.

I do have carpet tape but man, way too strong tbh. Especially with fine areas. With masking tape I can just heat the acrylic with a hair dryer and hopefully get it off without breaking it !
 
Update eight "What about the god damned Jaffa Cakes?"

OK, so this is the block that shall be going onto the rear of the card.

uu77MaG.png

I was going to glue it on with thermal expoxy. However, last night it struck me. What if I drill holes in the back plate, put bolts in from the back side, mask the bolt heads with non conductive material and then drill holes through the block? Reverse mounting, with sprung nuts. I then realised I could machine off all the waste acrylic at the sides (as per the pic) and put the holes as so, as they are not in the water channel.

vaS6xaL.png

Sweet. I can just use thermal compound, and can remove it if I ever need to.

So, this is the cold side.

vaLFN1b.png

OK and this is how it seems. All of the red areas "appear" to be the same size, and the blue CPU area is lower.

iuBM3K5.png

Now obviously I am going to test that. But if that is the case then I can just smear all of the red with thermal paste, and fit a pad in the middle where the CPU die part is.

I can also pre machine the drill holes with the CNC to get them accurate, then go through the copper with the drill.
 
So if I've got this right, you're going to drill holes through the backplate and put screws through that with the head of the screw against the GPU board (but masked off so as not to short it) and then have those screw into the block? If that's the case, I don't think you have room for a nut to hold the block onto those screws because the acrylic top will be in the way. If you machine enough of the acrylic away to fit a nut, I think you'll have issues getting it to seal. Depending where the mounting screws for the backplate are you could either:

1. Drill your holes round the edge of the block but smaller. Clamp the backplate to it in the right position and then drill through both so all the holes line up. Transfer punches would also work if you have them. Then tap threads into the holes so that you can screw the screws through the backplate and directly into the block without needing a nut on the top. This requires - assuming you want to be able to assemble/disassemble things again - the mounting screws for the backplate to the GPU to not be under that block anywhere.

1b. If you can transfer the existing screw holes on that block to the backplate and they don't clash horribly with the backplate's own screws, you could screw through the backplate into the existing threaded holes. You can get transfer screws to do this - they screw into the hole and have sharp pointy tops like a centre punch. You screw them in, put the plate on the top and hit it to leave a dimple in each point.

2. If you backplate screws line up nicely with the edges of the block (or the acrylic before you cut it all off) then you could screw all the way through the acrylic, the block, the backplate and into the card where the backplate screws would normally mount. So long as you don't have screws in the acrylic a long way from the edge of the block as that could distort it enough to interfere with the seal.

If you have screws on the board side of the backplate, you're going to have to check they don't clash with things on the board like the chip. Either that or have enough thickness in the backplate that you can countersink them. If they're M3, the standard says you'd need at least 1.7mm of thickness to make the head flush.
 
No. Long bolts, springs and nuts.

Think your old EK block, but more of them.

And yeah, will make sure nothing hits. I can always grind the heads down to literally nothing. Edit in, and epoxy them in place with some JB.
 
Last edited:
So clearance holes all the way through the waterblock (out of the channels, where you marked) AND through the acrylic with the nuts on the top of that?
How thick is the backplate? Just thinking, if it's thick enough, you could drill and tap threads into it. Spot of (high-strength) Loctite on the threads and it wouldn't even need a head on the back - could even be just some all-thread (US name for it. aka threaded rod).
 
It's probably 2-3mm. Not enough tbh. And yeah, all the way through. I will use the machine to put the pilot holes into the acrylic and then finish with the drill. At least they will be reasonably straight.

But yeah, there is a lot of room behind the back plate. That is why the pads are so fat. Which I can't use, because apparently the AC ones literally melt into slush.

xu4Wagh.jpg

But aye, you can see by the standoffs how far from the card they sit.

Edit 2. I don't even have it yet. Ordered it from another place and tardy would be an underestimation ffs. Apparently it shipped today, to the flat. So that is long off the agenda given I am not going home for nearly 2 weeks. Thankfully it is signed for, so I can just go round and collect it when I get back.
 
Last edited:
Have a measure when you get that far. The standoffs will be to the board but where there are components you may not have anywhere near that much clearance. If you're talking M3 screws, they typically have a 0.5mm pitch (0.7 for M4) so if the backplate is 3mm thick, that would get you 6 threads in it which is plenty. Even M4 would get you 4 threads. Worst case of 2mm with M4 you're down to just under 3 threads...but with some Loctite 638 it'll be enough....you know, if you don't get the clearance you hope for. Plan for the worst and all that :D
 
Oh I see what you mean. Thread it, screw in, nice and sturdy. Yeah I can do that, I have taps.

TBH if I did that I could then take the belt file to them. Especially if I used red thread locker (which I have) and let it cure.

Edit. Wait, we are still going in opposing directions :D

Hmm. Something to think about that.
 
Last edited:
You could go either way if you can get threads into the backplate. If you want to do it springs and nuts, I was thinking you can just thread posts into the backplate, threadlock them in (the 638 is supposed to be akin to welding strength) and not hve anything sticking out past the backplate. Then block on top and spring plus nut on the top of that. You could just screw down from the top but if you're limited on the thickness of the backplate and can't get many threads in it, you can't use a really strong threadlock without making it a permanent lump. Threadlock will decompose at about 250°C if you need to remove it...but I'm not sure the GPU will take that :D
 
Update Nine - It started out fun....

So tonight's mission was to get the rads both in and the fans connected. First thing I did was cut off all of the RGB wires.

I then realised that the top of the case does not have through holes for the rad. They are threaded holes. I guess this makes it easy to screw an AIO into. However, no good for me. So I took it all apart and drilled them to 4.5mm.

I then messed up the fan orientation about four times, and finally got it in. Only to realise the stop plugs were on the wrong side. So it all had to come out yet again.

Got that in, turned the case over and started fitting things. After about 30 mins of head scratching I realised the holes for the two fans do not conform to a radiator. They are too far apart. Take whole case apart again, **** up the fan orientation three times and then finally.

aNneVc5.png

OK so the rads were now in with the fans on. Which was nice. I did, however, have to change something. Cougar put a 92mm fan in the back there but with it in I do not have any clearance to make the plates fit that will hold this in (see next pic). So, I dug out a NOS Antec clear fan, removed all of the LEDs and put that in (it's 80mm, leaving me the clearance I need) and fitted that. Oddly they give you a 80mm mesh dust filter but not a 92? odd.

G5Uq0LY.png

That is about where it will end up. I also connected up the CNC, installed all of the drivers and etc and gave it a "hello world" with the PC sending the data.

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music that you love, upload original content and share it all with friends, family and the world on YouTube.
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com

All seems to be doing what it should and it didn't blow up, so there's that....

Well, aside from the hour of troubleshooting because it refused to connect and me then realising that, you know? you need to actually turn it on.....

Oh and that button on the floor.... That is an ancient external power button for a PC. However, I realised the Arduino has a safety stop header so I shall be wiring it to that.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom