January 12 2014

So having located and fixed all the main water cooling components, it was time to connect these parts up. I don’t really like flexible hose so that was out. Trying to join up the components with copper pipe and fittings ended up looking very messy as only one connection could be made that linked parts directly. So it was obvious that a connector block needed to be made. I’ve seen these around on various projects. They are usually made from several pieces of acrylic sandwiched together. I have a block of acrylic left over from a previous project, so this will form the basis of my connector block.

The first connections to mark out and drill are the inlet and outlet from the CPU block. For the drilling, an 11.9mm bit is used. This is so the holes can be tapped for G¼ inch fittings. Then the BP C47 fittings are placed and then connected to the CPU block via some 12mm copper tube.

The inlet from the radiator was also drilled and tapped. The photo at left shows that the drill bit I have will be just long enough to connect the inlet from the rad to the outlet for the CPU block.

The drilling is fairly easy but the bit needs to be extracted frequently to clear the swarf.

Plenty of lubricant is used. My greatest fear was that the bit would bind and crack the block.

Almost there. Below shows that I just made it. The hole is about 130mm long.

The drilling is successful. The block is connected to the rad and CPU block and then the measurements for the outlet to the res can be taken. A plug is used to seal the drilling.

© Copyright 2014 Attila Lukacs

To make the drilling from the CPU in to the res out ports, a flat spot needs to be created. This is because this drilling is not perpendicular to the edge of the block. This flat will also be the location for the plug.

This is a much shorter drilling.

All the fittings in place on the block.

Once everything is checked, the block is trimmed down and sanded. Much later in the build, this will be painted and some trimmings attatched.

The decision was taken to stop work on this project for various reasons, however, I’ve decided to leave these photo’s here as people have reported that some of the ideas here are useful to them.