Scratch Build and web app for scratch builds.

[andylad]

Here is my latest scratch build.

If you are interested in building a custom PC of your own I have also made a web app for you to do a 3D layout here PC Design Foundry

I wanted a medium tower size with good air flow bottom to top. I also wanted to have a distributor plate on the front so there are no vent openings to keep it quiet.

I moved the power supply to the front of the enclosure and used an SFX form factor to get a good fit with the pump. Then I was able to fit two 360 rads along the whole length of the enclosure.

I used a Micro ATX motherboard because I was not going to need 7 PCI slots.

Looking back on the build I wish I had got a motherboard with built in RGB LED headers as I ended up having to get separate cables with built in controllers for the LED's in the Fans.

I also should change the connection from the pump to the front distributor plate to be a soft line tube at some point to minimise the bump vibration noise.

• CPU. Intel i7 9700k
• GPU Palit RTX 2080Ti
• Samsung 970 EVO Polaris 500GB M.2
• Kingston HyperX Predator RGB 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 3200MHz
• Asus ROG Strix Z370-G Gaming (Wi-Fi AC) Micro-ATX
• 800W Silverstone Strider SFX Power Supply
• 2 x 360 Alphacool NexXxoS XT45 Radiators
• 6x EK Vardar 120 mm fans.
• EK Water Blocks EK-XRES 140 DDC 3.2 PWM Pump
• Bitspower Matte Black Fittings
• Custom sleved internal cabling

Machined corner extrusions form 1" square stock Aluminum 6082 on my Stoney CNC JBEC 1259012 router

It takes three setups and about five hours of machining for each part.

Installed Tappex M4 inserts so that the other enclosure parts can be assembled. I tried M3 inserts but the installation toosl kept breaking.

Machined the sheet metal parts form 2 mm 6082 T6 Aluminium Stoney CNC JBEC 1259012 router The bed size is 1.25 m by 0.9 m with a vacuum table installed.

Folded using Baileigh Industrial, Magnetic Box and Pan Folder I have to machine a recess at the bend points about 1.2 mm deep and 3.5 mm wide to get really accurate bends and avoid cracking. I also need to have a minimum of 16 mm flange length to get a good bend. It means I have to finish machining out the rear IO recess after bending.

Press in PEM inserts using Baileigh Industrial, BENCH PRESS (BP-3) These are the main motherboard mounting standoffs.

All the metal parts bent with PEM's installed.

Start assembly test.

Machine first part of front distributor plate from 10 mm Cast Acrylic

Tap holes for G1/4 fittings

Test assembly fit check.

Some components

Fit check. I really wanted to have both the radiators and pump mount directly to the distributor plate with adjustable fittings instead of any additional hard line tubing.

Make some custom O rings.

The top fans are exhaust fans so I had to make a trim part to cover the rear labels.

Powder coated. I used an outside supplier for this.

Hand sand a brushed aluminum finish on the corner extrusions. I tried using a sander but it gouged the metal too much.

Bottom fans are intake. A bit of a shame as you cant see the logos.

Build some custom cables. Since the power supply is up front I needed some really short ones.

Also sleved the pump cables.

Making some custom PCI power cables.

Here you can see the radiator connected straight to the distributor plate.

Make some hard line tubing. PET 16 mm

Machine a carbon fiber side panel and top fan trim. Machined in a water bath.

Carbon Fiber Side Panel

 

[WantoN]

Lovely, lovely work. Particular clean wiring and tubing, love it mate, great project.

How’re you finding the DDC? I’ll be swapping mine out as it’s frustrating having a particularly quiet system, with a noisy pump. Swapping to a D5 though it’s going to be a horribly tight fit.

 

[chroniclard]

Heh this is great, will just knock one up in my shed.

 

[andylad]

Lovely, lovely work. Particular clean wiring and tubing, love it mate, great project.

How’re you finding the DDC? I’ll be swapping mine out as it’s frustrating having a particularly quiet system, with a noisy pump. Swapping to a D5 though it’s going to be a horribly tight fit.

Well funny you should ask about the EK_XRES DDC PWM Pump noise. I'm just starting to work on improving it as it is really bugging me. It currently has an easily discernible tone/whine to the noise at 266 Hz when the pump speed is at 20% duty cycle (minimum setting with my motherboard around 1280 Rpm) and going up from there as the speed increases.

(Using an iPhone app for the following spectrum captures.)
20%

26%

It also has some noise loudness spikes down at the low end of the rpm range. One at 26% duty cycle and one at 30% duty cycle. For some reason the speed tops out at 70% duty cycle with my motherboard.
(Using a sound level meter VLIKE VL6708)

In all this testing I had the fans and all other noise sources completely off. Just changing the pump speed in the BIOS settings.


I think the noise is really exasperated by the mounting I currently have. Since the pump is directly connected with an extendable fitting to the front distributor plate of the enclosure it is probably coupling a lot of the vibration to it. First thing I am going to try it changing to some high quality flexible soft line tubing between the pump and the distributor plate. After that I will also see if I can improve the pump mounting bracket stiffness and isolation.

I was actually considering getting a D5 as well to see if that helps. Luckily I have plenty of space.

 

[NMBlack]

That's a fantastic piece of work there! You don't appear to have dust filters in the intakes though?

 

[andylad]

That's a fantastic piece of work there! You don't appear to have dust filters in the intakes though?

Correct. I don't have dust filters on the inlets. I really wanted to keep the air flow restriction to a minimum. I'm just planning to clean any dust build up when I do coolant flush every 6 months with vacuum and compressed air.

One additional thing I have found is that with fans on full I get a rhythmic surging of the air flow as the 15 mm feet don't provide enough space at the bottom and the fans get starved. I have to put the whole thing on 15 mm blocks to get more height. Not a problem at any normal fan speed though.

 

[WantoN]

Well funny you should ask about the EK_XRES DDC PWM Pump noise. I'm just starting to work on improving it as it is really bugging me.

It also has some noise loudness spikes down at the low end of the rpm range. One at 26% duty cycle and one at 30% duty cycle. For some reason the speed tops out at 70% duty cycle with my motherboard.


I think the noise is really exasperated by the mounting I currently have. Since the pump is directly connected with an extendable fitting to the front distributor plate of the enclosure it is probably coupling a lot of the vibration to it.

I was actually considering getting a D5 as well to see if that helps. Luckily I have plenty of space.

I use flex tube, the EK LMT stuff, it’s excellent. I prefer the aesthetic, and maintenance is so much easier. I use a decoupling system, the rubber mounts are fixed to foam, then the foam to a decoupled piece of the chassis. Even with the mounting I’ve undervolted the DDC to make it quiet enough for me not to throw it out the window.

The DDC is just a really noisy pump, and as you point out, it’s a particularly unpleasant noise. My advice would be just to switch to the D5, it’s
super quiet with great flow, though it don’t think it’s got quite as much pressure as the DDC for overcoming restriction. I went for the DDC because unlike you space is at a premium.

I’ve got 240 and 360 rads, 5 drives, seperate res and pump and a full ATX build in a Meshify C. Great case, I picked it for it’s compactness, but the D5 be a squeeze. It’ll be worth it to get rid of that damned noise though.

One additional thing I have found is that with fans on full I get a rhythmic surging of the air flow as the 15 mm feet don't provide enough space at the bottom and the fans get starved. I have to put the whole thing on 15 mm blocks to get more height. Not a problem at any normal fan speed though.

You’ve got more rad space than me, and my fans almost never go above minimum speed. They’re based off water temp. How have you got their curves setup, and are they based off water temp?

 

[andylad]

You’ve got more rad space than me, and my fans almost never go above minimum speed. They’re based off water temp. How have you got their curves setup, and are they based off water temp?

I use water temp for the fans. Have it set to 27c - 26% up to 36c - 45% then 45c - 100%

For the pump I can't seem to make my motherboard bios (ROG Strix Z370-G) use anything but the CPU temp. So in order to avoid it ramping up and down all the time I have is set as follows. 50c - 34% up to 68c - 54% then 75c -100%

These are my temps and noise AT 23.4 C AMBIENT

Idle
Noise 36.4 dB
Pump 2671 rpm
Fan 650 rpm
CPU Temp 30c
GPU Temp 29c
Water Temp 27c

GPU Stress (Heaven)
Noise 37.2 dB
Pump 2746 rpm
Fan 970 rpm
CPU Temp 44c
GPU Temp 49c
Water Temp 35c

CPU Stress (Prime95 Small FFTs)
Noise 38.6 dB
Pump 3147 rpm
Fan 817 rpm
CPU Temp 66c
GPU Temp 35c
Water Temp 33c

CPU + GPU Stress
Noise 40.5 dB
Pump 3655 rpm
Fan 1167 rpm
CPU Temp 68c
GPU Temp 49c
Water Temp 38c

 

[WantoN]

I have the same problem with my Maximus X. Both the CPU header and CPU_2 (or whatever it’s called) are tied to the cpu temp and you can’t use an external sensor. It’s very annoying, as I built my system around not needing a fan controller. I’ve used Corsair Commanders in the past, and it very nearly made me switch back. I still might.

I’ve only done two levels for my cpu header connected fan, it’s just the rear exhaust, so it’s set to lowest speed until the CPU hits 75C.

Judging by the effort you’ve taken in measuring your acoustics, Aquero Aquabus system from AquaComputer might prove a very nice fit for you, you’re probably already aware of it.

If I weren’t skint, I’d be getting their awesome new D5, an internal controller and some other bits. It’s likely a future upgrade for me. I’ll do my usual and keep a keen eye on the MM until the right gear pops up.

 

[andylad]

I changed to EK Duraclear soft line tubing at the pump and also improved the stiffness of the pump mounting plate. The result was really good. The tone noises are barely noticeable now and the overall noise has been reduced a lot. I think I will stick with the DDC for a while.

I had an old pump mount shelf in my scrap pile so I flipped it upside down and moved it over by one set of pump mounting holes. The result is that the shelf for the pump is now much stiffer.

I will have to take the old one out and paint it black next time I drain the loop. Need to get some new coolant asap as it is going cloudy.

Sound Quality has improved and does not have the big peaks. The ones you can see here are barely audible to me now. This is at 36% pump duty cycle.

At 20% duty cycle minimum speed.

At Full Power. Just a bit louder but no tones.

New Stress test noise levels. Temps are about the same.

Idle
Old Noise 36.4 dB
New Noise 35.0 dB


GPU Stress (Heaven)
Old Noise 37.2 dB
New Noise 36.3 dB

CPU Stress (Prime95 Small FFTs)
Old Noise 38.6 dB
New Noise 36.2 dB



CPU + GPU Stress
Old Noise 40.5 dB
New Noise 37.3 dB

 

[WantoN]

PWM DDCs are quiet but still super load. Goes to show how solidly built your Case is I guess.

Enjoying this mate, thanks.