Project: LavaStone Nimitz-03 (04-08-06)

Im not 100% decided on that yet, I may still run through the bottom of the case, but what I do want is a place where I can easily drain the system, and by installing a valve and a T-Coupler on the exterior of the case there - would be the very easy to just push a bit of hose on and pump the system dry.

Will see how it goes.

But I do take your point and I will have a good think about it :)
 
DISASTER STRIKES!!

Well I went with you two on the decision of tube routing, and so I finished the CPU loop.

I thought that because of the use of copper, when soldering with flux etc etc I ought to flush the system through...

only to find that the pump I bought doesnt work properly :mad:

Ive never used one of these eheim pumps before, but on closer inspection it appears that the impeler doesnt spin quite right in the chamber - it will work for a few seconds, it vibrates like mad and then it stops spinning and just "trembles" in the middle of the chamber, Ive had to drain and disassemble the loop twice, to no avail.

any suggestions as to whats causing that? maybe its just a duff pump, but tbh I did think I'd bought it in working condition, even from the MM :(
 
BLEERRRRGRRRRRRRRRHHH MORE PUMP PROBLEMS!

F_F_S!! :mad:

well I got my loop all set up, Ive changed my plans dramatically BTW - but I will get to that another time...

so I went to fill the loop up, sorted out my Eheim pump problems, fixed the DDCw/Plexi to the base of the case, and proceeded to fill the system.

Let me tell you this was bubble CITY there was loads of air in the system, and after a long slog of tube squeezing to get the air to the res, and topping up I was nearly there - then suddenly my DDC stops!...

omg Im thinking what now? is this project completeley cursed when it comes to pumps? well maybe...

Whats happened is, I was running the DDC from a seperate PSU, using the paper-clip method, and it was running fine, but on filling the res that the DDC feeds off of (in the drive bays) a bit of water spilt onto the top of the pump which sits below (my fault shakey hands) I thought I had mopped most of it up fairly quickly, but it appears I hadnt, and the DDC was sat in a puddle of water for a while! DOH! :(

Now every time I plug it in to the running PSU it cuts the PSU out dead, and the pump wont start - so my guess is that the water has gotten into the DDC and caused it to short out, because I can use other devices on the PSU (I tried an old CDROM drive).

So Im in a bit of a situation here now - what do you think I should do?

1 - Drain the whole system, remove the pump and let it dry in a warm place?
(if I do this I will have to go buy more water, and order some more Water Wetter, this wont arrive until Monday at the earliest)

2 - just leave the pump in situ - I have unsecured it and mopped the water up now (and its temporarily raised about an inch off the bottom of the case now) and hope that by tomorrow it should be dry enough to carry on the bleeding?

Ive tried to pinch the tubing with a jubilee clip just in front of the inlet and outlet, but to no avail, the clips I have dont shrink down enough :(

This is a real bummer, and a silly mistake of mine, all I hope is that Ive not mullered the pump, as the flow rate in the loop is barely anything at all without its help. I had also hoped not to be spending any more money on this project - just to add to the mess there is only one of my regular suppliers that have the Water Wetter in stock and thats only a pathetic 12ml bottle :(

grrr....
 
OK, so I removed the faulty pump without having to fully drain the loop, and for the mean time Ive put a coupler where it was.

TBH the flow isnt as bad as I had thought without it, and I might just leave the DDC out all together and just run the whole loop off the main pump.

I will post an update either late tonight or early tomorrow, like I said before theres been some major changes in the way Im running the system now - lets just say the Copper pipe didnt work out as I had planned, and Ive done away with that idea and just gone with ordinary 1/2" tygon.

I still plan to make a fully Copper-Based loop in the future, just not at the moment; I'm in talks with an engineer I know who I hope will make some fully custom fittings for me that will consist of a 1/4" thread to a compression fitting, thus doing away with the need for small couplers made from the 1/2" rubber tubing.

stay tuned for a big update in the VERY near future :)
 
Wow, excellent log and really nice to read :)

Sorry to hear about all your problems, when things go wrong normally curse a little and then all is fine, but when your messing with water and expensive computer parts, all is never good :(

I found out to my cost my frying 2 Epox 8RDA+ Motherboards and 1 2800 XP chip, never tried watercooling after that :P

Excellent work though, look forward to reading the rest.
 
Sorry to hear about your troubles mate, it'll be worth it in the end though. Your posts are inspiring me to get off my ass and start a mod :) . The fully custom fittings sound good.

Mark
 
UPDATE 19 AUG 06

Well, Ive not had a hugely productive day, Ive been helping a friend get some bits together for a mod on his P180.

But anyway here is the product of the last few days work on my rig - as I said before, the copper pipe idea has been scrapped for the moment until I can get a better way of fitting the pipe to the blocks (its a work in progress). So here are some pics of the rig as it stands:

side_main.JPG


^^ Here you can see where the tubing now comes up in the corner of the case, notice it is connected via a small piece of copper - this is for the future for when I do the piping proper, I can just sweat an in-line coupler on to there.

PSU.JPG


^^ My nice new 700w FSP PSU.

res.JPG


^^ Repack res all sorted and nice amount of flow going through it - water looks kinda cool and blue in the photo, but really its not coloured at all, only water wetter added.

innards.JPG


^^ Radbox innards and PSU cables - I remounted the pump, this time with a section of Acoustic Foam underneath, nice and quiet now, only a vauge humm in the background but nothing noticeable.

rheobus.JPG


^^ Got the mounting sorted for the Rheobus, those two pieces of batten allow it to just sit snuggly in the side of the radbox.

Notice in the Fourth picture that there is a small blue and white braided wire going by the drive bays - this is the red LED for the back of the Rheobus, it works great, but Im saving pics of that for tomorrow!

I did have one problem today though (grrr) when I was doing some work inside the drive bays, I was having to fight the tubing a bit to get the angle on the screw I needed to put in, and for some reason I'd forgot to put a hose clip onto the right hand barb of the NB block - DOH!, so on knocking the pipework, a little bit, and I mean a LITTLE bit of water dripped onto the top of the GFX card, I'm hopeful that overnight it should be OK to power on the sytem. Ive now rectified the problem, not with a hoseclip, as that would mean having to drain the loop and put a clip on, but Ive secured it with a nice big cable tie, and no matter how much I wiggle that tube now no water escapes so I think problem solved!

On another note, Ive left my DDC in the airing cupboard overnight and given it a try not so long ago, and its still dead, so Im gonna leave it til Monday, and if it doesnt work then I will have to RMA it to Alphacool.

Thats it for now, I hope tomorrow to get the front bezel back on and start installing the rest of the components back in, the Eudemon unit is going to take a while, but all being well I should be able to power up around this time tomorrow evening (hopefully it wont blow up due to that bit of water on the GFX card!)
 
to be honest i would stick with using tubing rather than copper piping. reaon being if you decide to mod it further i.e add lights you could see if its possible to colour the water and then the pipes would show a kind of glow to them with the lighting. plus it will be easier to move about, as if its knocked there is a possibility the pipes may break or damage a piece of equipment especially since they seem to look like they will be extruding from the casing out the back.

is it possible to get a solution that can be added or exchanged for the water that is uv reactive??
 
ok i found out it is possible to get a uv solution but doe to rules i cannot post the link.

i was speaking to my girlfriend earlier and we were talking about the fact that you are using copper pipes. another shting that struck me was the fact that copper is a conductor so there is a chance anything electrical could damage the motherboard if anything goes wrong.
plus with copper being used in heating pipes so is it possible that the pipes may keep more heat in than take out or can it work the other way round? ( im not a heating expert so meh).
 
Well! very very IMPRESSVIVE! i want to start my latest ideas, i just have not got the time nowadays! NOT IMPRESSED!.

All this amazing work is making me jelous! I am sorry to hear about the problems!!!

Looks awsome mate! keep it up!
 
sic6six said:
ok i found out it is possible to get a uv solution but doe to rules i cannot post the link.

i was speaking to my girlfriend earlier and we were talking about the fact that you are using copper pipes. another shting that struck me was the fact that copper is a conductor so there is a chance anything electrical could damage the motherboard if anything goes wrong.
plus with copper being used in heating pipes so is it possible that the pipes may keep more heat in than take out or can it work the other way round? ( im not a heating expert so meh).



im really sorry to insult you and your gf, or any woman buuuut, i found it rather odd that you had to speak to a woman befor you realized that copper conducted, loloool

well at least you got the modding community going with this mod even if you cant finish it, but i can see copper pipes exerting quite a bit of heat even before it gets to the rad, so copper imo is better than crappy plastic pipes,,, nice one :d
 
Yeah sadly I didnt ever get round to finishing this project, I got side tracked with another one, simillar in style; radbox etc, you can see the results of that one here

Its funny though that this thread has been revived, as yesterday I started work on the TJ-03 again, Ive a different idea for it this time, but be assured there will be a tastefully modded TJ-03 coming out at the end of it all!
 
FrostedNipple said:
im really sorry to insult you and your gf, or any woman buuuut, i found it rather odd that you had to speak to a woman befor you realized that copper conducted, loloool

well at least you got the modding community going with this mod even if you cant finish it, but i can see copper pipes exerting quite a bit of heat even before it gets to the rad, so copper imo is better than crappy plastic pipes,,, nice one :d

no no i didnt speak to her to realise it. shes into computer modding too and i was thinking about it and forgot to put it on the first thread.
 
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