I bought the Barrowch Flow Meter (OLED) V2 - Black during PPCS stay-at-home sale but it always read 0.21L/min. I know there's nothing wrong with my loop's flow as the temps are within expectation. This morning I decided to do some searching online and reached Barrowch's page for this flow meter.

http://www.barrowint.com/plus/view.php?aid=1211

"Interchangeability of inlet and outlet: The inlet and outlet can be changed according to needs (The reception mode is factory preset to the right entrance)."

Hmm... my loop is flowing left to right... OOHHHH!!!

So the rig spends yet another afternoon getting drained, taken apart, gymnastics, filled.

All good now.

1/10 - Got the Silent Base 801 delivered. Time to gather for the "family photo" and do some measurements for radiator clearance + cable management planning.

Received a couple of parts for the custom loop over the last few days. I also started making the custom cable set. The idea for the 24-pin ATX and 8+8-pin EPS is to mimic Hans Peder Sahl's (p0Pe) perfect cable management. Bought a set of HPS closed panel mount combs from James Weist of Clockwerk Industries, together with some OverkillPCs metal combs and some plastic ones.
One of the main difference in routing through these closed combs compared to Lutro0's method for heatshrinkless is that the pre-measure and cut sequence is switched around. With these combs, you can't push the cable through after crimping on the other end's terminal. Personally I like this method more because I can build in some margin for the PSU-end of the cable where the swizzling sometimes messes up even-length cut wires.

The EK-Quantum Volume FLT 360 D-RGB - Plexi reservoir was really big and I was getting nervous about mounting this in the case. Furthermore, there's no 3x120mm mounting holes at the motherboard tray where I want to mount it on.

Over the week, the radiator came and with my existing ML120 Pros, I was ready to do some test fit.

I also had the 24 and 8+8 sleeved and slotted through the combs.

One of the concerns I have is about using that fill port which is blocked by the first fan (removable) and half-blocked by the radiator (non-removable after rigid tubing connects to the ports. For now, I'll be using a CSQ plug and an EK fill bottle. Otherwise I may need to flip this beast on its back and use the reservoir's drain port hole as a fill port :embarrassedsmile:

The other concern is at the 8+8 header of the motherboard and whether it will clear the top radiator + fan stack. If it doesn't here's an extreme measure. Recommend to use aluminum combs when wrangling 16 AWG wires. I've broken my fair share of plastic combs before.

For this build, I've decided forgo technical correctness for aesthetics. The 24-pin ATX has 4 split wires for sense operation. Technically, they are supposed to be split as near to the sink as possible. However, that means I'll have an unsightly 28-bundle running along the back of the case. So I just split it near the PSU.

It's alive!

Some help in training the 16AWGs

I was also itching to join the darkbright side with one of those fans that young people use nowadays with this technology called RGB.

I spend a few days being unhappy despite how much some friends I showed the pics too said they look great especially with the aluminum frame. I even swapped them out for a set of ML120 Pro RGB. Then I realized that I cannot stand transparent fan blades.

The Silent Base 801 comes with a vertical stack along the motherboard panel that allows for modular 3.5" drive bays to be installed. Be Quiet! did a great job of covering the holes with modular beauty panels. Along that stack though, are mounting points only for the supplied drive bays. This means there is no support for 120mm fan style mounts. While it is entirely possible to drill those holes through the casing, I'm trying to minimize any irreversible changes to this case after the fiasco with my Alienware Aurora R8. So I bought a Bitspower radiator pump mount and tried to use it here.

Also finalized the fans to use. Staying loyal to my existing ML120 Pros and just adding some more.

The flow will be: res --> pump --> CPU --> GPU --> parallel front + top radiators --> res. To that end, this is how the assembly near the T-split looks like:

The bulkhead with EK passthroughs would mean getting a metric step drill bit. That rules out walking into local Home Depot no thanks to the imperial system. Luckily there's Amazon to the rescue.

Checking that the cable runs are long enough and doesn't hit other components. Nobody wants those aluminum combs near live circuits, do they? :nerd

This was probably the most significant in my going from "integrating" to modding. I've spent a few weeks frustrated with making a plexi cover + bracket for the FLT 360 reservoir. First 3 attempts were riddled with inaccurate grooves, misaligned holes, and cuts that just scream amateur/ homebrew. I was close to throwing in the towel and saving for a Shapeoko CNC machine until a conversation with a friend on Dell Community reminded me that I was using Optix acrylic sheet from Home Depot which is... extruded acrylic.

So I ordered a 24"x24" piece of Mifflin cell cast acrylic on Amazon. Funny how everyone calls it plexi here because of Plexiglas. Growing up in a Commonwealth country, I was more used to calling it Perspex like our British friends.

Long story short, I put that Dremel on the router attachment and this time, 12000 rpm with no melted goop. Also gave me the confidence to use that step drill bit on the beauty plate for passthrough fitting installation.

Now I have another problem at hand. The connection from reservoir to pump doesn't allow for rotary fitting. That means one end has to spin. I chose the pump:
1. Start by removing the screws from the pump top mount.

2. Install the EK-Uni Vertical 140mm pump bracket in the basement, screws left loose for final alignment.

3. Install the pump top mount onto the bracket.

4. Turn pump until inlet extender fitting is secure. Tighten pump top mount and EK-Uni bracket screws.

5. Happiness

With the reservoir, bulkhead and pump in place, I was ready to work on the waterblocks. The CPU waterblock was straightforward.


GPU waterblock was a little scary. Actually, the removal of the hybrid cooler was tougher than the actual installation of the waterblock. The thermal pads were behaving like mounting tape and I triple checked that I have unscrewed everything before trying to pull the heatsink and backplate apart from the card.


Initially I was thinking of a vertical GPU build:

But I think horizontal looks better. Plus the vertical card mounting was tilted and wobbly.

Ok, so that Dragon plate is a custom order from PPCS. Jeremy from the modshop gave me a lot of details about the plate but I was dumb enough not to tell him I was using oversized fittings.

All ready to spew orange juice all over the place because o-rings aren't compressed over the CPU block.

Orange juice anti-spew workaround #1: The ugly extenders.

A quick email exchange with Jeremy shows that he has some magic powers and able to come up with a plate that takes that 23mm diameter fitting. Was already listing my block on eBay as I wanted to jump over to a Velocity nickel-acetal block but looks like the dragon is saved and I've yanked that listing. It's a pristine block other than the opened EK seal for test fit.

Last weekend I found the determination to sit down and make that VGA cable I have been putting off for so long. It's no accident that the motivation comes with me joining builds.gg, FlippinFred . JimboPCBuilds matt.gg

Crimp-crimp-crimp:

Melt-sleeve-melt:

Combs-combs-wait... only 2 14-pin combs?! This will resume after more combs are delivered:

With this, I'm caught up to build logs which I have been posting retroactively. Next update will be in 2-3 weeks hopefully as I make some progress with tube cutting, bending, and installing. Keep on building!

Took a while for me to bulkhead that shroud beauty panel for the other 2 passthrough fittings. I was measuring and deciding which fitting to connect the pump to the passthrough and how best to route the tubing from to and from the GPU block. After dropping off some orders for black fittings because I think they look better once connected by tubes, it's back to completing the drilling. Now it's done.



Also sleeved the pump to match the color scheme and replaced the power connector for direct drive from PSU.

Thanks to a big package from PPCS, I've been able to make some serious progress, including putting that dragon back on the CPU waterblock.
This first one I could have done but kept kicking it down the road until yesterday. That is probably the minimal bent 16mm OD tubing that can be made to be inserted into the fittings. Took me an hour of wrestling with a lot of knuckle scrapes and trimming (cutter tool doesn't cut below 8mm) before getting it secured.

These (GPU downward) are probably the easiest to measure and cut:


The GPU to dragon looked easy initially until I realized how difficult it was to get the right length to fit without risking breaking anything. 8.6mm would have had the tube touch the second (inner) o-ring on both ends' fittings but at least the inlet or outlet won't cooperate once one set is fixed. So I had to trim the second tube to 8.4mm. Technically I'm within spec of the EK-Torque HTC usage but looking at getting one of their leak tester as PPCS is having St. Patrick's Day sale this weekend.


Initially I thought I would need to bend tubings to connect the bottom fittings. However, my earlier calculation of using extenders, 90 degree F-F and 45 degree fittings came together. I did make one mistake: a 30mm extender is needed. I ordered a 20mm extender because I forgot Pythagoras's theorem when travelling in a diagonal. :face_with_tears_of_joy:



Later in the evening, I fiddled around with some extra extenders and decided I didn't need the 30mm extender. I still had 3 more tubings to work on and it wasn't a good idea to tackle them when fatigued. I've wasted 1 50cm tubing as I attempted a double 45-degree bend:

Second mistake was trimming a tube too short. That long piece from top to bottom may look ok in the pic but I'm sure it'll cause an orange-fountain the moment I turn on the pump.

Bunch of cable sleeving material from Titan Rig also arrived this evening. I'll take a break Sunday to recuperate though. Distance learning due to school closure for my kid in elementary starts Monday.

The last few sessions were for bending the basement connection and proved to be more challenging that expected. The u-shaped tube had little tolerance in length and angle. Had to redo it 3 times to get an ok fit in both ends.



System would not POST on first power on. Debugged to be flipped 12V-Gnd connection on the 8+8 EPS cable.
Loop was first filled with high purity distilled water and ran pump for 4 hours. No leak. The front fans didn't spin though and it was because the masking tape I used to mark the side of the fan connectors when I removed the cables dropped off. Simply following the other 3 identical fans on top was wrong. Apparently the marked side of the 4-wire set changes from batch-to-batch.




After re-tightening all the fittings and making sure the tube-to-fitting connections are as strong as can be, I topped up the loop once again. System has been up and running for 48 hours but I still don't dare to let it run while I'm not nearby and ready to turn it off in case it leaks again.

Images of the completed build will be posted in the build pictures section. From here on, I'll be cleaning up pictures gallery by moving the pictures related to updates to that update's particular picture gallery itself. I would like to get some foldable project panels to make a photo-taking booth hopefully by this weekend. I've also ordered an A-RGB split cable because the reservoir and GPU block are 5V RGB and there's only 1 header on the mobo. :hilarious

Thank you everyone on builds.gg for checking out/ approving/ dropping some kind words of encouragement and advice. It's my first custom build and definitely won't be the last. Cheers!
[img=131278]

Drained the loop and swapped in new CPU.

More update in coming weeks after PSU arrives.

After kicking this down the road for a few weeks, I can no longer put it off because the PSU arrives in 4 days. I'm talking about the cable for the second 2080 Super.

Wish I could attempt something like those superb custom loopback for dual GPU cables I see on some builds here. I'm thinking of skipping any acrylic cutting/ drilling because I only have 1 N95 mask left and everything is done with a Dremel. Furthermore, there's that fitting really near to the soon-to-be 2nd card which may block out the loopback.

As you can see in the pics, the 24-pin spacing is too much to fit in between the card (or where it's going to be) and the fitting.

Finally done with putting in the second graphics card and filling the loop.

The main card goes up to mid 60s in temps during heavy load. I'm stupid for putting the newly waterblocked card in that main slot (PCIE0). Now I cannot tell if I made a mistake installing the waterblock, the EK-Scalar Dual block shunts too much to the second block, or I just don't have enough flow or radiator.

I'd say triple parallel config like this looks great but without a stronger flow or something, it's not gonna be stellar in cooling performance.

Guess this weekend will be rife of draining and refilling while I try out alternative configs. Maybe put plans in place for v3 to dual loop this thing.

5/2: Some of you may have heard but the hot main card was actually due to me using the wrong screws for the waterblock. Now that it's resolved, only the CPU runs tad hot at 5GHz due to the parallel flow. Both GPUs are happy at 50C with fans ~50%.

Adding some benchmark scores.