OK I just spent the last week and a half designing and building an external rad box. It's in the testing stage at this point in time, but getting straight to performance figures: 2500 @ stock speed, idling at 44C with fresh AS5. my temp readings (coming from cpu socket) are inaccurate, but what does matter is that it was 55C idle before with an internally-mounted BIX.

First I started with the rad - I really wanted to move upstream from the BIX so I got this heatercore from a VK commodore, new from carlingford auto cooling:



They also soldered on some 1/2" copper tubing for me. Total cost for the rad was $83.05. I then cleaned it with a scrub thing (from the kitchen) and spray-painted it silver.

I essentially built the box around the rad (as it was the biggest component) so after I got it I designed the box in 3d software:



I had decided to make the box out of 12mm MDF (as opposed to 14mm pine, as I had earlier planned) due to cost reasons (MDF is 4x cheaper) and the fact that MDF was much easier to work with. After a failed attempt trying to make the box using butt joints (alignment, squaring and stripping problems) I decided to make the box using hand-cut dovetail joints. (all you hardcore woodworkers can cheer now.) Surprisingly, this was a huge success.

I wanted the system to be modular, so I got some neat fittings from bunnings that are essentially 2-ended barbs but with threads and screw on fittings which are intended for hose security, but also function well as a means to rigidly attach them to the case / box. Here are the two that are mounted to the back of the case, I simply popped out one of the port press-outs and enlarged the hole a little bit with my wiss tin snips:



Now without further ado, here are the pics of the assembled box:







The rad is held in place by friction provided by the foam squished between it and the surrounding walls. The fan(s) are held in place by friction provided by acoustic material, in a similar fashion to the rad. The pump is bolted to the side wall and the res bolted to the front wood panels. The wood panels themselves are attached with PVA+ glue.

Electronics are provided by a 9V/1A ac adapter which is actually feeding my evercool fan well over 12v (because it's drawing less power than the ac adapter's designed for). I hacked up some 3-pin fan extension cables to accept 2 3-pin fan connectors which will receive the power in series. There's only one fan in there at the moment (running at ~6v), since I'm still in the testing stage. Ghetto cardboard divider makes sure the fan is pulling air through the rad.

The box was designed to allow the pump cable, ac adapter and double adapter to sit inside the case, under the pump. There's also a rear door, which will go on afterwards, that hides everything and leaves only the rad visible (when looking from the back). The notch at the bottom-right (when looking from the back) is where the power cable is fed out. That was one of the main criteria when designing this box: 1 power cable for both the pump and the fans.

Here's a pic showing the tubing, it goes pump -> rad -> out … and in -> res:



Here's a more detailed pic of the side, which shows those neat barbs (mounted on some steel salvaged from a retired case in the spare room) as well as the tell-tale dovetail joints:



The silver things are nuts/bolts, the upperleft 4 for the steel plate for the barbs, and the other 4 for the mounting bracket for the eheim 1048 pump.

And finally.. Here are some pics of it in action:





And a last picture for the amusement factor: a photo of all the bunnings receipts I've gathered during this project:



If you've read down to here, then thanks for your patience I really enjoyed making this box and it's an extremely rewarding experience. That it pips my previous setup's performance by more than 10C is an added bonus

Chylld, Top Job there Matey.

Looks excellent and a damn good write up featuring nice and usefull pics.


Outstanding.




Go to the top of the class, WELL DONE.


Pete

Holy cow that's amazing!!! Mad props to you, bro!

thanks

my girlfriend just came over and she loves it she questions why the res is hanging out the front though, says it looks a bit odd / lop-sided! heheh

next design will be better.

BTW I just noticed; if my eyes to not deceive me, we have the exact same IKEA computer table!

is it a jerker?

YES IT IS! I got the dark brown, with the extra shelf extension on top (the model with the cut-out, not the totally flat one), along with the magazine and CD holders.

I didn't have the guts to say, "Jerker." ROFL!!!

heheh
the extra shelf thing on top would've been nice but i liked the big flat one pity everything goes out of fashion so fast at ikea, if they were selling the extension swing-out table that bolts to the table legs, i'd get one.

Very nice work.
I've been thinking about going external with a radbox too.
Just a couple of suggestions.
With the "shroud" you are using , you are only using half of the radiators surface.
With a properly made one , using the entire surface , you'd be able to pass some serious air through the rad , even with 1 fan , but with minimal turbulence.

Also I see you bolted the pump to the box , don't you get a lot of vibrations that way?

re shroud: yeah i'm aware of that, i just couldn't be bothered making a better one at the time that lets a single 120 pull air over the entire rad. however seeing as how i can't afford a 2nd 120 atm, i may as well try it out testing it with 2 120's atm, borrowing the bqe's rear case fan to act as a 2nd radiator fan atm.

yes the box is vibrating quite strongly, but it's sitting on carpet so i don't really mind. i couldn't think of a way to softmount the pump, especially when i want the whole thing to be rigid enough to withstand being ported about.

convinced that the box is leak-free now so i've put all the electronics in their place, i.e. a 9v1a power brick, a double adapter, the power cabling for the pump and an extension cord head into their places under the pump. it's a snug and comfortable fit

i put a white face towel on top of the joints to prevent any mishaps with mains electricity, purely precautionary but also kinda because those things seem to reproduce by themselves in my house.

here are some pics:

the papst fans arrived, so i put them in. here it is - complete setup:

Interesting

The "green goo"-effect reminds me rather of the Simpson's nuclear waste/sludge flowing through your system...

But then, I believe that's the point.

I am quite impressed. For what it's worth, from a watercooling virgin.

it's UV reactive as well mmm green glow..

thanks shathal, look out for my next radiator box, i have plans already and it's going to be something much, much more impressive

sweet chylld! good job, btw whats your ambient? great temps but id have expected them to be a little better unless you have a high ambient.

The reason why i say that is because im only running a tiny heatercore with a single 120mm fan on 5V on it (a crap one at that) and im getting 43 deg C full load atm.

I rekon you could turn those fans right down to 4v or probably even have them off most of the time! You should design a circuit that turns the fans on only when the water reaches a certain temperature (only to 5v or so) and then turn off when the water is cool enough. that'd be cool

i planned to redo my watercooling setup this easter but unfortunately didnt get the time

I couldn't help but think of Fight Club when I read that
Er, sorry, back to irritating questions..

thanks for the comments Seal

ambient is pretty low, around 18 - 22 most of the time. i have a stupid motherboard which only lets me read cpu temp from the in-socket diode, not the on-die diode. the correct temperatures are around 10 degrees what i reported

keep in mind i'm watercooling my cpu too, which is a radeon 9800 and my cpu is overclocked, 2500+ at >3200+ speeds.

currently, it's at 100% load (been so for past 15 hours) at 50C with 18C ambient. so figure on 40-42C real cpu temp.

funny thing is, i have the case fan on at 5v atm, if i turn the case fan up to 12v my cpu temp drops about 4-5 degrees - obviously the airflow around the socket area is playing with the socket diode.

i'm going to leave this setup as is, but when i have the time i have plans for a new radiator box (not really a 'box' ... hehehe) which will take full advantage of convection. it'll also look bloody stylish and no one has ever done it before

Yeah i notied that a LOT actually on my old motherboard when i placed a fan over the cpu socket the reading would drop about 4-5 deg C!

Anyway my motherboard lets me read both, the cpu socket currently reads 45 C and the cpu diode currently reads 42 C. A clear difference as you can see.

Your ambient temps are around the same as mine so i bet your temps are pretty good realistically.

BTW you have sweet cad skills too! Where du learn to do all that with the curves and stuff? Looking forward aLOT to your new box contraption thing....!

Great job, sir.

Do you happen to know if it matters what orientation the radiator sits in? I need something similar, but want to mount it through 90deg:

O----------------
|+++++++++|
O----------------

Assuming this is possible, I guess the inlet (hot) would be at the top?

DS

@ DynamicalSystem

Orientation doesn't affect performance , I have the rad mounted @ 90deg angle with no problems.
As for inlet , I'd put the lower as inlet.
If you use the higher as an inlet , the rad will function also as a tank (air will get trapped inside).

yep as apocalypse80 said: that orientation is fine, as long as you have the lower barb as the inlet.

one bad orientation, however, is with both barbs at the bottom, because this will make it nearly impossible to remove air pockets stuck at the top of the rad. (i've tried.)

seal: i'm self taught, the curves are actually quite easy. all you do is draw a durve, attach a circle to the curve and extrude a surface using the curve as the extrude path. as for the rest of the box.. well they're mostly cubes

my 'new contraption' will require a lathe and a router that's all i'm willing to say atm without spoiling the fun

Good use of a router I can well think of.....but a lathe? I'll wait for part 2, will have to be interesting. Lathe isn't just to create bling bling value is it?

well i figured that most of the parts i need are already at bunnings, so i won't need a router or a lathe i'll need to buy a mitre box for some mitre joints but that should be it.

i'm currently in theprocess of deciding whether i should do #2 or skip ahead to #3 which is more commercially oriented.

Chylld: Do you have a link to the VK heatercore? How big is it? Im interested in a heatercore, and dont think that the 1991 lumina heatercore will be big enough. Thanks

Brian

i don't have a "link" to it as such, all that i have on the computer of it is the picture at the start of this post.

i went to a radiator repair place and flipped through the heatercore catalogue and picked one.

Sounds interesting, especially as I'm also in Sydney so know where to get the same stuff from. I certainly want to hear more about #2 and #3. Mind you I haven't made the big leap to watercooling yet.