Part 9 - Project Blue Dragon – Water-cooling and Case Mod Build Log

Update - final fittings, filling and bleeding:

I held off filling my loop for a while as I was investigating flow and temperature sensors. Initially I thought about going for a full centrally monitored setup, temp, flow and the Koolance TMS-205 Software Thermal Interface Controller but my budget has got to the point where I just cant pump any more money into it (excuse the pun).

I have a Lamptron FC5V2 fan controller, this comes with four little analogue type temperature sensors that stick around the case to monitor air temperature. Instead of using the supplied sensors I thought about plugging four inline temperature sensors, into the controller and monitoring my water temperature that way.

But then I thought do I really need all of this information, would I ever use it and the answer is probably only some of the time so I've decided to go for just a flow meter only, I think it is more important to monitor coolant flow than coolant temperature, I can monitor my CPU and GPU temperatures just fine with AIDA64 or some other similar monitoring software. So I am going to be using these little fellas and I'll be connecting the adapter onto one of my spare motherboard fan tachometer headers to give me an alarm/shutdown should I loose the pumps.

Koolance sensor and adapter

Sensor

Adapter

I have finished sleeving the flow sensor so that I can get it in the loop in an appropriate spot and then start filling the loop and leak testing.

In Part 8 I mentioned how I didnt like the colour of the Blu Ray drive from inside the case, I did think of spraying it but that would mean taking the whole thing apart. Another forum member suggested this stuff 3M DI-NOC Carbon Fiber Modders Vinyl - Black. The only thing is I am struggling to find a supplier in the UK that supplies it in small quantities, all I can get is 5m of the stuff. However, an Overclock.net forum member offered to send me some in the post as a donation to the project, what a nice chap.

Just before updating on filling the loop. Here are a couple of final goodies that will add the finishing touches, the little push buttons are for turning the lighting on and off.

Lighting and other goodies

Filling the loop, leak testing and bleeding:

I started to fill my loop and it became a bit of a nightmare as air was getting trapped just like my forum friend predicted.

So I eventually got rid of the fill port completely and filled the loop using the ports on the reservoir, it was much easier. After 12 hours of leak testing I didn't have any leaks but the little air bubbles seemed to be taking forever to disappear.

Prior to filling my loop I took the following pictures. Initially I was having great difficulty getting water into the system through my fill port which was fitted to the top of the case and connected to the reservoir (see above), but after filling and pumping water round the loop for at least 24 hours there was still no sign of any leaks. The air in the loop was taking ages to disappear, it would be running silently then suddenly there would a whooshing of air through the pumps, I set my pumps on setting 3 with the case tilled back slightly and the fill ports on the reservoir open to let air escape. I shook the case, tapped the tubing and tipped the whole thing backwards and forwards until eventually after 36 hours of running the bubbles appeared to be gone.

Bits of tissue everywhere, on the CPU.

On the CPU

More tissue on the CPU

On the graphics cards

More tissue

My flow sensor.

Flow sensor and drain pipe

Flow sensor

Drain port.

Drain port

A bit of leak testing, kitchen roll included, this was early on trying to fill from the top fill port.

What a lot of tissue

Reservoir and 360 rad from inside the PC.

Tubing to reservoir and top radiator

Bottom 240 radiator.

Lower radiator

Reservoir with loads of tiny micro bubbles, after nearly 24 hours they were almost gone.

Reservoir, gotta get rid of those bubbles

You can see here that I have removed the fill port which was plumbed in from the top of the case to the right hand top port on the reservoir.

Bleeding operations

There are still bubbles in the system

After running the pumps for 36 hours the bubbles were almost gone from the front of the reservoir but I can still see tiny little bubbles passing the flow sensor. To pass the time I messed about with my Canon IXUS, it's not a particularly great camera but in the right lighting conditions it takes some reasonable snaps.

So I put an LED behind the flow sensor and a magnifying glass in front and took this picture, you can still see tiny eddies of bubbles flying by. How much longer do I have to wait?


By the time I post my next update those bubbles should have disappeared and I'll have my cable management sorted.

Build log pages: 1..2..3..4..5..6..7..8..9..10

Thanks again for looking and as always comments are welcomed, you can leave comments below or on my Blog Home page, here.