Bubbas Water Cooled HAF-922

[bubba]

The tee for the T line is right at the inlet above the pump, runs to the top rear of the case for the fill port/res.

[Skippman]

Ok, I see it now. Should have looked at the earlier posts. It was obscured by the feed line from the radiator to the waterblock in the filled pictures. My bad.

[bubba]

Due to a small meltdown the other day I am redoing the loop. Just another reason why you should not use the vinyl tube from Home Depot.

While having the system overclocked a fair bit and pushing it HARD the tubing at the block got warm, relaxed, and twisted on itself; choking the flow. This resulted in the system shutting down. No clue how hot it got, but when the tubing cooled it was stuck in the twisted shape.

Yanked all the tubing out and replacing it with Masterkleer 7/16" ID 5/8" OD tube. I get some images together to show the carnage and other reasons that the vinyl tube sucks.

[InspectahACE]

Ouch..sounds like everything survived it so i guess it ended well. I wouldn't mind water cooling, just events like this scare the crap out of me since I'm near broke to maintain it lol.

[bubba]

Yeah, no leaks, so there is the upside. If I just ordered the Masterkleer in the first place it wouldn't have happened. Its a thicker wall, fits on the fittings better. Think I saved a whopping $4 by not ordering the tubing and buying it at home depot, well nothing was saved really, seeing as I had to re-buy the stuff. Oh well.

Here is a shot of the tubing after it cooled


The tubing ends after I took the clamps off


The home depot stuff is 1/2" ID, the masterkleer is 7/16". The slightly smaller ID is snugger on the 1/2" fittings, actually have to push to get the tubing on. Think I can get away with zip ties or spring clamps rather than the worm gear clamps and avoid the marring like in the pic above.

[bubba]

In the process of switching out my tubing I decided to add in a set of Quick Disconnects to make getting things in and out of the system easier.

I picked up a set of Koolance "no drip" VL3 1/2" QD's from Performance PC's




Male half, notice the pins


Female half, the pins on the male half lock into the grooves on the female half.


What makes them "no drip" is an internal plunger that is slammed shut by a spring when the halves are pulled apart.
The plunger, connection side

The spring, hose side


Assembled, not that short.



With them in the loop I started my leak testing. The 7/16"ID tube and 1/2" fittings, no leaks. Feeling nervous I added zip ties for the "warm fuzzy" factor. (yes I eventually cut the curb feelers off)


Now to split the connection. Not quite "no drip", very small drip better then just cracking a fitting loose.
In the catch towel are the drops from the male side of the connection.


From the female side, there was a little more then a drop BUT I was able to control where it went.


Separated


Even with going to the smaller tube and adding in the QD's, witch slightly restrict flow, with my big pump my temps were not affected. Think this is due to the fact the tubing holds its shape better and doesn't collapse (restricting flow). If I took the QD's out it may get better temps, but I like how it makes changing blocks or getting the board out of the case with out draining the whole system MUCH easier.

[skier]

those fittings look pretty cool, definately the way i'd go

[DMB2000uk]

I really like the QD's on the CPU idea, makes for an easy life for someone that has to change out the CPU cooler too often. Might have to look into that when I plumb my system up.

Dan

[bubba]

Does make it handy. When I swapped the block out I was able to somewhat fill it out of the loop, then put it into the system. Instead of taking all day and most of an evening to bleed out the air, it was only a couple hours before it stopped gurgling.

I start testing a lot of blocks I may look at getting a small cheap-o pump and another set of fittings for cycling fluid through the block before so no bleeding will be needed.

But I don't see a a lot of blocks in the future, but I'm set up for it now and it does make it SO much easier to get the board in and out.

[eyna21]

Always cool to get the goods tucked inside, nice job!