New website!

For a while this blog was my website.  However I quickly outgrew it and so I've launched my new shiny website which can be found here:

www.extremerigs.net

All static page content has been moved over and links put it in place.  This blog will no longer be active so please refer to the new site for everything :)

Koolance CPU-380 Review is done

You can find it here

Painting Jameco Meanwell 24V PSU for the Iwaki RD-30

Morpheus from OCN stopped by and gave me some fan splitters which come in very useful for the quick disconnect of the radiators.  Each radiator has two 3 pin headers that come from each side.  This little PCB is then attached to the backplate of the pedestal:

One for each side of the case.  The distance between the two is conveniently sized to feed from a single molex

I also got done painting the 24V Power supply for the Iwaki pump. I don't think I showed a pic of it before, but it looked like a very beat up version of this:

Except that the mesh part was painted black on mine and had been worn off over time.

So I thought I'd paint the whole thing red and then mod a PSU support from the bottom heat chamber so that it can be mounted next to a fan from the HDD rack.  I also need to hook up a relay so that it only turns on when the computer is on.  Here are the pieces after painting and clear coating:

With the PSU back in and the heatsinks retimmed:

All sealed up:

That's it for now.  Now that I have my windows PC up and running I can finally get sketch-up back and running and start playing with ideas for custom blocks and reservoirs!

Corsair Dominator GTs!

Well time for a bit of an update!  A big thanks to Corsair for sponsoring the build :)

My original dominators (same part number) came in a much more boring box than this one:

And if you're wondering just how small those overclockable low profile sammy dimms are:

Thief again again again ;)

Another update - big one too!

So this is where we were last time - gaming rig trying to get up and working in a temporary state.  Main loop not yet connected:

To finish the main loop we needed to connect the EK400 reservoir with the custom 1" NPT tap to the Iwaki RD-30 pump.  First we need to build a T section for the drain port:

These are standard schedule 40 pieces of PVC that I'm gluing together.  I took a T junction and two 1/2" NPT reducers as well as a piece of 1" grey electrical conduit for making the 90 degree turn:

This is all based on amuseme's idea except that I'm using 1" pipe instead of 0.75" and I connect to the pump slightly differently.  So now we have to connect to the pump:

So we take a 5/8" brass barb from your local hardware store and tape it up with teflon tape:

1/2" tube can be warmed up and stretched over the barb.  The idea is that the barb lines up right next to the 5/8" input to the Iwaki giving less restriction to the input feed of the RD30 unlike regular 1/2" tube would.  I also added a 2nd barb for the drain tube.  This reservoir coupled with the 1" pipe means there is a lot of water that needs draining easily:

Both barbs in:

Now let's hook up the pump:

Add some worm clamps so that nothing flies free when you turn the pump up to 29V:

Now let's add the drain tube, the tube color is temporary for now:

Add the drain port:

Add a worm clamp and we're done for now:

Now it's time to put it in the case.  As the reservoir was temporarily mounted we need to fix it first.  There's a convenient metal plate in the case that you can unscrew and drill holes in:

Now let's reinstall that in the case:

And done:

The reservoir is fed by two drain ports.  When feeding a larger amount of water it's useful to have one for water coming in and another for air coming out:

Now here's the Iwaki Plus feed tube situated in the base.  The cardboard box will be replaced with anti-vibration gel soon enough:

Here you see the gap between the Iwaki feeding tube and the tapped base of the EK reservoir:

I cut a piece of schedule 40 tube to size to glue in here:

Later I will paint all of the tubes so it doesn't look so bad :p  The cardboard box doesn't quite raise the Iwaki high enough so we'll need to swap that out:

But here it is fully connected:

And here's the whole side of the gaming case in it's temporary state:

Now we can add the 360 radiator back in quickly (30 seconds) due to the Koolance quick disconnect fittings and the CaseLabs side mount design:

I can't fit a 480 in because of the placement of the radiator and the feed tube.  I may move it later, but for now this works.  So it's time to fill up with water:

Project Thief Update #9723469

Some of the pics from the last week's adventures:

Fitted the sniper to the 990x and installed some of the samsung superOC ram.  Corsair promised to sponsor me some ram, but it never showed up and after 3 months of my emails being ignored I've officially given up on them :rolleyes:

I want to make a custom waterblock for the RAM anyway, but that's still a gleam in my eye right now :thumb: Time to get to leak testing on the motherboard loop:

After leak testing got done, I swapped the painted fan for one that worked and installed the motherboard tray into the *empty* chamber.

I need to swap out the circuit board from the broken GT fan for a good one and then swap back in the painted one.  Now it's time to start hooking everything back up:

Plugged in the PSU cables, but the PSU is not yet there:

The sleeving is the stuff that came with the evga psu, that will be replaced with mdpc-x later:

Finally with a PSU:

Those extra 6 pin headers are annoying but the nice thing is that most of the PSU cables can be flipped so you can hide some of the extra unwarted parts by plugging them in the other way round :)

Tidying up a bit:

There's still so much to be done, and so much of this is still temporary e.g. fittings/sleeve/loop layout etc etc.  But for now I'm just glad to be finally getting this rig up and working after 8 months!