It is always exciting to start with bending tubes. Feels like a water cooled project moves into it’s readiness face. I started bending much earlier then I usually do. Mostly due to all the pass throughs. The loop is really complicated as it is. Making all the pass throughs with hand tools, it’s a real challenge.
I bought a real drill for the occation. Expensive, but hopefully worth it.
Made a test drill in a scrap acrylic piece and it was such a difference using this real drill. Those pass throughs will look amazing in the build.
After mounting the wall one extra time, controlling every single measurement both once and twice I took a deap breath and started drilling (please hold, please hold)
Like a dream. I realized I will have to drill out the hole from both sides as the steps on the drill are not 5mm deep. No problem, just good to know so I don’t end up with to big holes on one side.
It’s not all the holes, but this is where it starts to become even more complicated. Some holes will drive others that drive a third. The GPU will enter the shroud in the front, but will need to exit in the back. Would prefer to have the holes exactly opposite of eachother. Still very proud and happy. A lot of holes in the right places without any cracks.
Moving on to bending. I can’t say I felt like Bender. I was off my game so took two tubes untill I started to feel I had the feel for the heat, the time and the optimal radius. Bending by hand but still controlling angles when cooling.
The first 3 went fine. They are also pretty straight forward. Dual 90 bends with one side higher. The CPU and one VRAM. The last VRAM will have a little different route so I could keep the 4 pass throughs symetrical (the VRAMS equal distance from the center CPU tubes).
One, two and three. Super excited.
Nice and parallel. Took 3 tries to get the tripple 90 bend in different planes exactly right, but can’t leave a tube that isn’t perfect.
Spent another 15min with a hand file to make sure the lengths was exactly right. Hard tubes are so sexy
Next step will be to start with the shroud pass throughs and connect the reservoirs. Also need add the 2nd pump and work on the backside. Both the shroud part that will drive the location of the pass throughs and the last of the loop.