Project: TJ07 Revived

[Harpss1ngh]

Pics or GTFO!

Everyone loves pics here, so here they are:


New case feet!

MNPCTech Diamond Knurl Case Feet:

Case Feet Porn:

More Case Feet Porn:

Filled and screwed the case feet in (I later took a dremel to this screw so I can fit the PSU in there:

OEM Fan gril with the top mounted Magicool G2 Slim 240mm Rad:

The Magicool Rad with those Silverstone 15mm fans!

POWERRRRRRRRRRR cables (and my attempt at cable management):

 

[Harpss1ngh]

Waterloop plan

Here is my (poor) water loop component diagram:

This shows all the components of my loop that need to be tubed together.

Can anyone suggest what would be the best (easiest) loop?

Having a quick look I came up with this:

AC Pump/Res > Koolance dual Pump/Res > Primochill Vortex Flow Indicator > EK Parallel SLI Bridge > Mosfet1 > NB > CPU > Mosfet2 > Top 240 Rad > Bottom 240 Rad > Bottom 480 Rad > Aquacomputer MPS Flow Sensor > AquaComputer Mesh Filter > AC Pump/Res

I know it looks a bit ****** but I'm not the best artist in the world evidentally, but hoping someone can use their imagination

 

[Harpss1ngh]

The only thing I'd comment (apart from the visual flow indicator seeming a bit redundant with the flow sensor) would be the run from top rad to bottom. You don't have to have them all in a line. You could stick the bottom rads in before the GPUs - either before or after the indicator, whichever is easiest to tube. Ultimately the order makes very little difference - it gets to a point where it's all in equilibrium anyway so where you have the cooling makes little difference.

I only have the visual indicator because I like it and its UV and it spins . That's literally the only reason I have it haha.

I didn't intend to stick the rads all in a line, it just seemed the easiest to do, looking at it visually, I know water temps normalise in the whole loop as it's not like the extreme temps in a car (you can guess which famous YouTuber I've been following now )

The plexi parallel sli bridge and the CPU block are directional (there's a specific inlet and outlet) afaik so I'm just trying to take that into account as well as the mesh filter which will go last before the aquacomputer res/pump.

I'll take into account what you're saying, I'm just going to do it the easiest way. You'll also see tomorrow why I've done it that way in my next update (hint: added/modded a new bulkhead )

Btw..
I got another huge update to make!!! Bottom rads all tubed up! The remaining components are easy peasy to do. I'll do a quick power on test tomorrow by making sure my motherboard still posts after all the stress I've put it through (various youtubers swear it's safe to do for a quick test), and that the main (top) GPU shows an image before I tube up and wire up the rest of the components (hopefully all the drilling and dust doesn't short out anything and I don't need to get a fire extinguisher out )

Pics and proper update tomorrow!

 

[Harpss1ngh]

Pics update!

Drilling the midplate and adding a bulkhead for the rear AX240 Rad!
This pic is before I realised my measurements were a bit off, so what you don't see here is when I rubbed out the markings and moved them nearly 10mm back as I conveniently didn't take a pic

With the bulkhead added! It's a little loose as the fitting on the rad pushes it a bit up, can be rectified by installing the USB port in the 3.5" bay (Will need to mutilate it to fit) and threading the bulkhead through it.

I decided to take a knife to clean up the dampening foam sticking out from the bottom (and totally screwed it up, should have left it how it was in hindsight ), luckily no one will know, except me..

Koolance QD4 Quick disconnects for the bottom in/outlets of the bottom rad's, to help me be able to remove the rads for cleaning or draining (if the drain port doesn't work well)

Here you can see the nice clean look of the Hammond box covering that ugly green front panel PCB and also that rear AX240's fitting screwed into the bulkhead, you can also see the Rad pushed right up against the box, hopefully it'll hold...

You can see here how tight the space is between the Rad and that massive beast of a PSU (they're touching!), that Rad is pressing on both sides, I hope that strong gauge Alchemy 2.0 cable kit holds (Crap I forgot to plug in the Molex/Sata Power! Going to have to take it apart again)

Yes, it fits! Front EX-480 fitted nicely. Tried to alleviate pressure between both of the bottom rad fittings as best as I could (keep tubing long enough to be able to remove and disconnect using the Koolance QD4, but also not to damage the fittings in the long run. I hope anyway). You can see the rad had to be pushed right to the left.

The rear with the PSU bracket thing removed. I might keep it like that as I can make the PSU and Rad stick slightly out to alleviate any long term stress of the PSU's cables and the two Rad's tight fittings. Will probably modify the rear mesh cover to allow a few mm's of breathing space and to drill a hole for that high quality bitspower ball valve I'm using for the drain line. Or maybe just leave it, I dunno!

Side views showing the space between the rad's and the tubing.

That PrimoChill PrimoFlex Advanced tubing is so clear! Granted, the (XSPC HighFlex Hose) tubing I'm comparing it to came out of my old loop with old 4 year old pastel coolant and crap floating in it :d but I don't remember it being as clear as the Primochill!

Here, you can see the tubing from the top fitting on my front facing EX-480 Rad going up through the midplate through a hole in the sound dampening. I have a few choices how/where I can tube this up to, up to the Mesh filter before returning to the Aqualis pump/res or somewhere else I haven't figured out yet. Once I finish looping up the motherboard, CPU and the GPU's I'm sure I'll figure it out.

Angled view of case (porn)

A different angle (it's starting to look great now)

Front view looking in

Let me know what you think!


More updates coming soon, pretty sure I will get this done over this weekend

 

[Harpss1ngh]

I've been thinking about getting a couple of Poweradjust 3's to control the two XSPC D5 Pumps in the Koolance Reservoir, but there's mixed opinions about controlling pump power. Many seem to say just leave it at a setting slow enough that doesn't annoy me to death. Flow rate doesn't really have that much of an effect on temps anyway (in the grand scheme of things such as compared with the quality of blocks, rads and fans and the fact that there's 3 friggin D5's in the loop proving crazy amounts of head pressure!). In any case I will aim for 130-200 Litres per hour of flow and see how quiet it sounds then!

 

[Harpss1ngh]

Just as long as you weren't daft enough to post the evidence up on the internet....doh!


I would have suggested ditching the ball-valve and just using a stop plug to drain....but it would leave the point of spray uncomfortably close to the box of electrickery just next door Is there room for a similar cube junction (if it exists) that has an exit on the top face and then have ball-valve followed by 90°? Would save a bit of the overhang that's just asking to be knocked.

PowerAdjusts are good but they are voltage control only - not PWM. If you want PWM, you'd need an Aquaero 6 (the 5 only has one PWM header). Entirely depends on what type of D5 you have. If it's the Vario, just set them where you're happy with them. If it's the PWM or a basic, this would be a good way of controlling them - even if it's just a one-time set. Other option would be to 7V them but I've no experience of D5s to say whether they'd tolerate it.....my DDC did until I got an Aquaero.

Oh, and for the record, Flix29 has got us both beat with an uber-kill 4 D5s!

Hah! Can't hide the evidence now.

Don't understand what you mean by cube junction, the case will be sitting on an Ikea side table which ishalf the height of my desk and the case will be angled so no one will knock into it and it won't hit the wall, but now you mentioned that I'll be well aware of the dangers of being close to that PSU lol.

Is the D5 Vario the one with the manual speed selector and the one that goes to 24v? That's the one I have, it has a blue wire which i suspect is an rpm wire and I'll probably plug that into the Aquaero 6 XT I have,to monitor pump speeds at least (I'll have a couple spare fan headers to use for this as I'm only going to use 2 on the aquaero). I saw an example online of someone ripping out the pcb and replace it with the PCB for aquacomputer d5 with aquabus and usb! They don't sell those (i tried, i really did) and the only way is to find a faulty aquacomputer d5 pump and use the pcb board. I thought PWM on the Laings doesn't work as the Aquaero follows the intel spec and the Laing doesn't. I guess ill have to stick with the old fashioned way!

4 D5's?! Madness

 

[Harpss1ngh]

The white Bitspower Q-ball (I think they call it) cube junction. The square thing you have attached to the drain valve.

The default Laing D5 doesn't implement PWM properly as far as I'm aware. EK have apparently just released a fixed version and Aqua Computer have been fixing theirs for a while now. I believe you can fix it by adding a resistor somewhere - though you'd have to Google that.

If you have the one with the speed selector, I'd just pick a speed that works and not worry. You can probably report the speed back with the tacho wire to either the Aquaero or to the motherboard - the Aquaero ports could be more use for other things if you are running short. Technically there's nothing stopping you running it as voltage controlled though - assuming you're comfortable changing the plugs on the wires. If you were to put either a 3-pin or 4-pin fan plug on the end, the Aquaero could both power it (at variable speed via voltage) and report its speed. Also tidier as only one cable....just a thought.

I think I know what you mean now. I'm going to cut the hose a little shorter so I can allow that front 480 rad to move a little in (it will reduce the stress on the tubing going up through the midplate as well. That will push the ball valve an inch inside!

I'll stick with the standard pump speed selector. I used to keep it at 3. The Aquabus D5 I'm not sure how to set it up right in Aquasuite

I've just installed Aquasuite 2016-4 and updated the firmware to 2007. Plugged in the Aquaero 6 XT and the D5 top with fill level and the D5 Pump via USB. I've change the ID to 13 on the D5 pump. Changed the fill level sensor from a Pressure delta 40 sensor to a Fill delta 40 sensor.

I haven't gotten around to configuring alarms or the Pump speed or even the fill level and flow sensor (It's the 'High Flow' one that plugs into the Flow port on the Aquaero, it doesn't have Aquabus or USB).

I'm still trying to figure out how to set all the fans and sensors up as I don't know how really, is there a guide on how to set this up? The phobya and bitspower watercooling temp sensors are reporting roughly 26 degrees (slightly different on each one) room air temp which is probably a couple degrees off but that's fine with me.

I just powered on the PC to the BIOS and it all works and is detected perfectly, just before the thermal shutdown kicked in and shut the PC down . Glad that's working as a last resort!

Hooked up the Aquaero's RPM to the CPU header on the motherboard and configured an alarm to send a 0 RPM to it if there's an alarm or emergency shutdown. Then set it to shutdown when 0 rpm detected in BIOS.

 

[Harpss1ngh]

Sounds like you've got most of it done.

From what i can tell, temp sensors seem to be accurate to within maybe as little as 5C - even by the same manufacturer.

Fans you need to set to be either voltage controlled (power) or PWM. After that you create a controller - either fixed (which let's you control by hand on a slider) or curve (which let's you set speed based on a temp sensor).
Then you assign the fan header(s) as the output for that controller - and for a curve, what temp sensor as input.

If a fan isn't assigned to a controller it runs at full speed (and noise) unless you've set maximum limits on the fan.

Other than that, ask and I'll try to answer when I'm not out tomorrow.

Thanks, after fiddling a little more I can see what you mean.

I also need to consider whether to get a SPLITTY9 as my old 3x3pin fan splitters have all the RPM wires connected and also because I need more than 3 fans per channel as I have 12 fans. I will want the speed of 1 or 2 of the dual D5's in the Koolance reservoir monitored too so fan splitters with 6 or more pins would be great. I can't seem to find any that have more than 3 ports though. Temporarily I can use the crappy cables I have to power some of the fans at least but need a long term solution. I'll probably need fan extensions to get the cables to the splitty9 anyway so might be better off finding the right fan splitter cables instead.

 

[Harpss1ngh]

You can just snip (and insulate) the unwanted tacho wires on a splitter.
Personally I'd run at least one pump off the Aquaero so you can monitor and control it (assuming it's PWM or voltage controlled rather than vario). I would say two but as you've got three there's less issue with needing to know in case one fails.

Can you solder? If so, you'd probably be better making up your own fan cables. You can do it without soldering by crimping two wires into each pin and chaining one of the next. You can buy 3 or 4 pin fan plugs and crimp on pins. It would mean you can make them the length you want and also sleeve them if you want while you're after it.

Make sure you group fans by what you want to control - like all on a rad. Otherwise you'd be turning up or down things together. Also make sure they are identical on a channel because with only one monitored for speed, it's only valid to assume the rest are at the same speed if they are identical fans.

If you need additional channels of voltage controlled (not PWM) you can add a PowerAdjust for an additional single channel - the standard version is all you need; the Aquaero does the control via aquabus.

I can solder yeah. I have 4 of the Corsair SP120 fans, 4 1800RPM Scythe Gentle Typhoon's, 2 silverstone 15mm thick slim 120mm fans and a couple 92mm noiseblocker fans. I don't mind combining the silverstone and the noiseblockers together on one channel and separating the SP120 and the GT's which leaves me with 1 channel for the pump rpm cable.

I might just get the 4 way Phobya or Gelid Y cables if I can find them as those would be perfect so I don't have to mess about with soldering or crimping, or even sleeving lol.

The Pumps I have is the XSPC D5 Vario (This one), so I'll just set them to 3 (TBH the pump noise never bothered me even at full on 5 with even 2 of these, but that might be completely different with 3 D5's lol, the Aquacomputer D5 isn't mounted on dampening and bolted onto a mixture of steel and aluminium so might make noise, but I'm going to dampen the back of it so hopefully it won't be bad)

 

[Harpss1ngh]

Yeah true, The Aquacompuiter D5 is connected via Aquabus and so is the Fill Level Sensor in the Aqualis D5 Top.

I'm also going to set up an alarm for the Flow Sensor, I'm just waiting for the Flow Sensor cable as I didn't realise it has 4 wires otherwise I'd have used the RPM cable as I have two of those for some reason!

 

[Harpss1ngh]

I'm a little stuck with the tubing as you can see from the pics below there are a lot of tight angles. I'm running short on 45 and 90 degree fittings and trying not to use too many of them wherever I can but it's looking a bit difficult.

Any suggestions? Photo's might work better than that horrible diagram I tried to draw earlier, hopefully the pics show things in better perspective...



After shortening the bottom rad's hose I managed to get the bottom rad further in the case about an inch so that drain port shouldn't stick out as much:

I've connected the GPU WB Outlet to the CPU WB Inlet and trying to plan how the rest will go, as you can see things are a little tight. I used 90 degree fittings in my old water loop and I thought that was too restrictive but looking at this again I might have to resort to it again or try and do bigger loops to avoid kinking the tube as it's quite tight:

Ignore the mess for now, I'm going to sort that out right at the end . I'm going to leave those USB cables connected to the board and kept hidden away so when I need to connect the Aquabus devices via USB for firmware or calibration or something I can do that easily (Unless of course Aquacomputer finally allow us to do all that via Aquabus instead!)

That's not the only issue I need to solve, the Aqualis res/top's outlet (the left one) needs to go to the Koolance's Inlet (The left one behind the Res) I can't seen to find a easy way to tube it. I also have the Mesh Filter, the 240mm rad in the floor of the midplate as well as the tube coming up from 480mm that's under the GPU's, not to mention the flow sensor (not in the pic atm).

Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

 

[Harpss1ngh]

If it's the high flow non-usb version, it's only 3 pin on the sensor end but they're a lot bigger than fan pins. Not sure why they don't supply the required cable with it!

Correct for some reason I thought the RPM wire would work (perhaps I read that somewhere...). All these different cables required (and not included must generate Aquacomputer some nice revenue lol...)

For the GPU, can you not put the inlet where you have the temp probe? Alternatively come in from the bottom from the 'basement'?

I'll try to have a look at the rest when a bigger screen is available (mobile not optimal ) but the first thing that occurs is that if your Aqualis res is feeding the Koolance res AND it's below it, doesn't that negate all/most of its benefit?

There's no bottom inlet (afaik) otherwise that would be ideal. Yeah I can go from the side, the reason I didn't was because of the tight proximity to the 8 pin connectors in the GPUs and the compression fittings are quite large but I might try and do it, maybe with G1/4 extenders.

I clearly didn't plan the reservoirs properly lol. I didn't put the koolance res lower because the aquacomputer d5 top gets in the way of the tubing as I have to bring it behind the reservoir (and without the tubing pushing against it) so I had to raise it higher. The mesh filter and the steel plate the aqualis is mounted on also stop me going any lower.

The height of the pumps won't have much negative effect as having a lot of angled fittings does. The D5 has a 3.9m pressure head, thats measured by how much pressure it can generate against gravity (upwards) so should be fine feeding the other two pumps and shouldn't be too restrictive.

If I ever get this completed I'll know for sure via the flow sensor and the water temps of the impact, although having 3 pumps in the loop it probably will be negligible lol. Youtube videos from the various popular channels show it should just work fine.

I probably won't do anything further in this case after this project, the next one would have to be a giant caselabs! I would look forward to those waterblocks on Skylake that cover the CPU and the Motherboard with one single block too!! It's been a pain having 8 inlet and outlets to work with in a tight space!

 

[Harpss1ngh]

Ah, ok. So it's parallel with in and out from the top. Looks like you could use the side as an input but you'd have to either stick something like a 90 on it or a double 45 to clear the power cables. An off-the-wall idea is you could flip the bridge upside down and have in and out at the bottom through the floor. The engraved writing would be upside down though.

The angled fittings don't have that much effect on temps - I think someone tested it and worked out that it would take about 20 right angles before it had more than a degree difference in temp. It was probably Martin's Liquid Lab - which is worth a Google anyway. With three pumps it's not going to be an issue. What I meant was more that the res wasn't having gravity feed the column of water to the pump....but I missed the pump on the bottom of the res With that pump there, you're going to be pumping the water from that res into the other res. That effectively does nothing as the water just collects in the Koolance res waiting for the pumps to pump it. Would you be better (and would it simplify tubing) to have that pump at a different point in the loop (I'd say after the double pump to avoid one starving the other) or as an alternative, make it a dual loop - the single pump and res for the CPU and the dual for the gfx?

Yeah Martin's Liquid Lab is awesome.

If I have all 3 pumps in the loop the weaker one would need to feed the stronger ones but guess I could still stick something in between them, that would help the angle of that tubing and I've thought about that but not sure what I could put there. Maybe the visual flow indicator? 90 degree fitting from the Aqualis OUT port, (around to the right of the Aqualis instead of left and behind it), going to the visual indicator which then goes straight up to the koolance's inlet?

The aquacomputer Mesh filter is also at an annoying angle, I'd need to figure something out with that too.


I could do dual loops too (the koolance itself can handle dual loops but I would miss out on the Aquacomputer fun array of sensors), just the CPU with the top 240mm rad with the motherboard and GPU's on the 2nd loop (the mosfets dump a lot of heat into the loop so would want it with more rads) but I'm not sure whether or not that two loops would be too complicated to plumb up in the tight space.

This case is showing its age now compared with monster cases that have plenty of space to do all this while I'm here spending months on trying to cram it all in here!

 

[Harpss1ngh]

Ah I understand what you mean.

I thought about this before too and reading forums where people had done something similar they went into some sciencey stuff (that's the technical phrase ) explaining that it would all balance out. Provided the pump before the two keeps up with the two pumps in front of it and are the same type, which it will as they are all D5's. I just need to keep them all at the same speed. They all will perform with the same flow speed, it's the head pressure that will be greater in the dual bay compared with the single bay.

The flow (pump) speed should remain the same across all 3 pumps and that will reduce any extra wear on the weaker D5 as well as ensuring the res doesn't empty.

I think the same principle applies for anyone thinking of sticking a different type of pump (DDC, etc) with a D5, that wouldn't work because they're rated differently and work differently and there'd be an inbalance

I can't remember where I read it now but it made sense. Once I get everything together I will test it out and determine the settings to keep. I won't have the Aquacomputer D5's speed change according to temp or anything, I'll just match it to the Dual D5's in the Koolance Res.

 

[Harpss1ngh]

Makes sense!

I'm going to buy a bunch of different rotaries and try and get it all fitted.

I'm thinking of those angled adaptors with 2 45 degree angles for a couple of those tight awkward bends. I have some chrome angled fittings I'm still using so might take this opportunity to replace them all with black bitspower stuff

 

[Harpss1ngh]

Bitspower is good but pricey. Barrow is very similar but without the logo and much cheaper. Worth a look.
Koolance also do some useful fittings. Specifically a 30° fitting (ADT-DXG30-BK) a double-rotary 60° (ADT-DXG60-BK) and a 3-segment 90° fitting (ADT-DXG90-BK).

I just bit the bullet and spent a tiny fortune in fittings lol. I love bitspower, they look and feel quality, they never leak and the O rings they use are always nice and snug! The rotaries are also very stiff (heh) so they don't move all about loosely. I have a bunch of xspc chrome rotaries I will replace because with a bit of stress they start to very slowly leak, although they don't completely fail. I've noticed blue coolant coloured stains on my case from those dripping over time but slow enough not to notice or cause problems and not noticeable from the usual res top up when the coolant evaporates.

Koolance are very good too. I only pick EK or XSPC when I can't find Bitspower or Koolance in stock, even though they might be fine, I just don't want to take chances.

Also I've put huge strain on my X58 Asus waterblocks for 4 years with tight loops adding stress and the motherboard nor the fittings have failed!

 

[Harpss1ngh]

Ok so I've been playing around with the angled fittings, I can now make that tight fitting of the two reservoirs together without going around behind the Aqualis res (so that's one challenge completed).

I'm now trying to experiment with tubing direction with the Mesh filter, the rear 240mm rad's bulkhead, the top 240mm rad, the Out port on the Koolance res, the In port on the Aqualis res and both of the the flow meters! They're all in close tight proximity so making them all loop is a PITA! With all the screwing and unscrewing I'm doing to experiment with which loop would be best I hope I'm not wearing down the Plexi and Acrylic threads!

I'm trying to put the Mesh filter right before the AQC pump so that it catches any crap in the tubing before it kills my pumps but it's becoming difficult to make that angle. Is having the mesh filter right before that Res the best way to do it?

I know the flow sensor should have straight connections but I have nothing in front of it that I can connect to easily, the easiest I can see is having it go straight into the mesh filter. So the bottom 480 rad's tubing that comes through the midplate below the GPU > Flow sensor > Mesh filter. But the filter is off angle, so I will have to use a tight fitting with a tiny 1-1.5" tube between them. Then from the mesh filter I need to get the tube to run into the Aqualis D5 top inlet port, again another awkward angle.

I also have the 240mm Radiator in the top I need to get into the loop. There are two ways I can seem to achieve this, either have it connected to the Koolance's Out port and then to one of the 8 Motherboard barbs, or have it connected to the bottom 240mm radiator (via the bulkhead in the front of the case) and then to the motherboard, without hitting the 5.25" blu ray drive or the koolance res.

Then there's the loops in the motherboard that are a pain too


The pic of my case layout from earlier is below and I'll mark out the points I need to tube up somehow..

Hopefully you can see my frustration here!!:

 

[Harpss1ngh]

Spin the top rad by 180 degrees and have it between the VRM blocks. Something like GPU > top left VRM block > top rad > top right VRM block > CPU > southbridge > res
or wherever you need to get to. Can always got to one res/pump through something else and then through the other - probably preferable to be honest.

The MPS flow sensors are no moving parts, based on differential pressure. They're picky about having straight input and output or can be inaccurate. You've got the high flow with a spinning impeller haven't you? These aren't fussy as far as I know but they are best mounted flat or the bearing the impeller spins on can be a bit noisy.

Filter: that's where I've planned to put mine. Seems the most logical to me but I suspect that gunk is generated evenly across the loop so it probably makes little difference. It tends to get trapped in the pins of the blocks so there's an argument it should go before those too.

I can't flip the top rad that way as in the corner there is a triangular bracket that holds the backplate to the motherboard plate. I don't think cutting it down is a good idea either with the amount of weight hanging on that thing! My motherboard with all those blocks fitted is very heavy! I'll look at it again, there may be something I can do. I moved the membrane to a different inlet on the top res so I think I can swing some tubing on a 90 degree angle towards the motherboard using a couple extensions.

Watch this space

 

[Harpss1ngh]

The MPS flow sensors are no moving parts, based on differential pressure. They're picky about having straight input and output or can be inaccurate. You've got the high flow with a spinning impeller haven't you? These aren't fussy as far as I know but they are best mounted flat or the bearing the impeller spins on can be a bit noisy.

Filter: that's where I've planned to put mine. Seems the most logical to me but I suspect that gunk is generated evenly across the loop so it probably makes little difference. It tends to get trapped in the pins of the blocks so there's an argument it should go before those too.

Yeah I have the high flow with the impeller! I've heard the noise on YouTube. If I hear it i'll try coating it in sound dampening foam lol. I have a ton of the stuff left over. I have 3 D5's I can crank up to block it out as a last resort

Yeah that's the problem with the filter placement, everything can gunk up and everything can get destroyed by it, depends on what you cherish the most I suppose lol. 3 expensive D5's and two reservoirs. Toothbrush and vinegar for the rest

I'm using X1 coolant instead of pastel anyway so hopefully I have less gunk and staining problems than I did last time.


Also, this is my planned loop now! It looks to be achievable having had a look last night:

That blue box is the visual flow meter. I've got it screwed into the GPU via a bitspower rotary extension plugged into a male to male xspc extender. It's a bit wobbly for some reason, I'm worried the fitting might fail over time and leak everywhere, the stiffness could damage the plexi threads too, what do you think?

It just seems like the perfect place to put it.

 

[Harpss1ngh]

It concerns me that pumping into the Koolance res is going to completely waste the power of that pump. Could you go GPU > VRM > Southbridge > CPU > VRM > Top rad > top centre inlet of the Aqualis (assuming you want fountain) then go out of that through your lower rads? The filter and flow meter either on the way up or down from the Koolance.

The spinner it depends how much force it's applying to the sli bridge. From earlier tests, it's quite hard to break the thread in acrylic by pulling it straight out, but reasonably easy by pulling it sideways - like a lever. The more weight the spinner and the tubing above it exerts, the more risk...but you'd have to judge whether it's an issue by feeling it to be honest - could be fine.

There is a male to male rotary (without the rotary, it would be guesswork at to which way the spinner faced) by Bitspower: https://www.overclockers.co.uk/bits...ng-male-to-male-rotary-adapter-wc-141-bp.html
XSPC do one that's probably cheaper but OCUK don't seem to have it.

I was just looking for one in black. I have that one in non-rotary. Rotary in that looks good and it's bitspower so it will not fail me! I have some old BP fittings and even being about 5 or 6 years old they look in mint condition.

I can use the top center inlet of the res? I didn't know that was an option! I thought for the fountain to work I can only use the D5 top inlet and outlet as I thought the coolant goes up inside the inlet and comes out through the holes to the side of the nano borosilicate glass. I might just be misinterpreting the german to english translation on the manual.



EDIT: Just saw a YouTube video where someone had done exactly that - going through the top and it still works. What's the middle shaft for then? I guess that's if you want to use the bottom inlet so the water goes up the middle? Had another look, I suppose what happens is, fi you use the top, the middle shaft fills up and the water spills over the top through the holes.

I might just end up creating a temporary loop, fill it with DI Water to test how it works! In fact that's an awesome idea, could test the Koolance Res with it while I'm at it and just make sure that the pumps are running fine.