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—17 12 07
-This is actually not an uncommon sight in my kitchen. The wierdest thing I ever boiled was a carburetor from a ‘63 Falcon. I know now that vinegar steam is one of the few things that can make me shed a tear. -It burns!! It was worse than that bottle of 25% ammonia I ‘found’. (probably because I couldn’t run away and wash my eyes out.)
After all that stink I don’t think it washed out much gunk. I ended up with a pot of green liquid.
-Leak testing the Cheapskate way. My gallon of Mr. Bubble has helped me find many gas leaks. The pressure test was brief. The pen used as an end cap in the picture is probably orbiting over your home as you read this.
-This is not some wierd holiday ornament. I’m just letting the clear coat dry. I had trouble getting the Minwax polyurethane off the line I had to splice. I soaked it overnight in paint thinner, worked on it with an acetone-soaked rag, and hit it with PVC cleaner/solvent. The PVC cleaner worked best, but it was still a pain. As I was sitting there with the chemical mask and gloves on, I realized I was under my buffing wheel, so I tried that. Next time I’m machine polishing this sh*t!! It worked great!
-ANYway… the punchline is after all that I had to clean the blackened polish wax of the pipe, so I rubbed it down with isoprophyl alcohol and a rag. The varnish just fell off when the rubbing alcohol hit it.
-Some parts for a speaker mount I cut.
-Two pipes in… I think I used only a foot of the tygon that DangerDen sent me total.
-The pump had to come loose to get this connection on. Everything else was easy.
-Another one of those problems with the new board. The AGP video card is in a higher slot, and is nearly touching the pipe. The floppy cable is stuffed between them to prevent any mishaps.
-Big gobs of clear epoxy were used to secure the speaker in the mounting bracket, and fix the fit problem with the fillport threads. Any one know if epoxy resin and computer coolant get along?
-I taped my riser screws in place so they would be ready for the clumsy motherboard refit. The cold cathode tubes are out… There’s no room for them anymore.
-All in, and my cablemass is still a freaky mess.
-The first sign I didn’t think my loop out right. The air is impossible to bleed out. The tilt in the reservoir feeds worked like a toilet U-bend. The placement of the T-line and fillport is drawing air into the loop too.
Back after intermission. [ music…]
A HUGE part of this update was brought to you by DangerDen!
I had to find another pen for a temporary fillport cap.
-The leak test. As I suspected, the bit that had to be siliconed into the T-line was damaged putting the hoses on. I also have an air leak in the expansion bottle. Silicone does not stick to polyethylene, (that’s why they use it for the glue tube cap.) The seal on both ends has failed.
-A blurry shot of the waterblock. The collision of the in and out line can be seen here. There’s not much restriction in the loop. The foam is shooting through the inlet tube at a billion miles an hour. The red coolant turns the entire block red. It’s much better than the green!
-The other design flaw: The reservoir was intended to be like an expanded area of the tubing,-linear, in-line, whatever you call it. The problem is The pump is so strong it’s creating a current that pulls air down to the intake. Air in the system is somehow being transfered to the fill line. Because of that upward tilt, it stays there, and little bits of it get sucked back into the pump. So until I fix the expansion bottle, I can’t get air out of the reservoir, and the loop.
So the whole thing sounds like a dishwasher right now.
-My solution to the leak? Just gob it over with a ton of clear epoxy. -I already had it out, after all. Now you know why I want to know if the coolant will mix badly with epoxy. It just needs to hold for the holidays…(JINX!)
A few last tidbits…
The new watercooled temp: 88 F at 68 F room temp. (with lots of foam in the loop.)
Total weight completed: 41 pounds. (OOF! It’s a brick!)
I’m almost done for the year. After the dust settles from holiday chaos I’ll get to cable management and putting together a custom mousie. I have pics of this beast running to upload too.
For all your one-stop Christmas shopping! Get Grandma some cool WC gear!
—19 12 07
Have some blurry pics of everything running. I will take better ones if the sun ever comes out.
-Da block. The foam breaks up the light quickly.
-lights on…
-mid day darkness…
-curtains closed. I stuffed the stray UV LED under the pump mounting for a nice creepy glow.
-A blutty shot of the finished and installed Coca-Cola fillport for you. The undersized barb required a stronger hose clamp.
Again, I thank DangerDen for helping me get this system running.
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