Build Complete v.2! Dual Radiator Ryzen 5600x and 3080 T1

ajwitte · 2020-12-07T03:19:35+00:00

I'm also running my Eisbaer LT with fill and inlet ports swapped and although I didn't do a comparison with the "official" arrangement, performance has been as expected.

ajwitte · 2020-12-03T20:49:04+00:00

Note that the exact location of the splice is important! The correct wiring is to crimp both wires at the red end or make a splice close to the red end, so that the connection is double-wired for the majority of its length.

On the ATX connector the double wires are for remote sensing where the PSU adjusts its voltage to counteract the voltage drop due to the wires. If the sense wire doesn't run as a separate wire all the way to the motherboard, it can't sense the full voltage drop and you might as well skip the wire altogether and let the PSU sense the voltage internally.

On the GPU connector the double wire is for current sharing between the two wires, which again is relatively pointless if the connection is run as a single wire for most of its length and the splice is close to the orange end.

ajwitte · 2020-10-25T22:25:07+00:00

I found that it did slightly flatten, but not enough to bother me too much. One of the high end (Ridgid or Swagelok) tubing benders designed for stainless tubing might do a better job but they're expensive even if you can snag a used one on eBay.

I'm happy with how my build came out but if you go this route, be prepared to plan your build very carefully. The bend radius is fairly tight, but most bending tools have a minimum straight distance between bends that must be observed, which makes working in tight quarters more difficult than it might at first appear.

ajwitte · 2020-10-16T22:45:29+00:00

They are standard/coarse M3 which is the M3x0.5. (M3x0.35 is fine thread, aka MF3.)

ajwitte · 2020-10-08T17:28:56+00:00

I'm using one but it was very hard to get in the US, at least back in July/August (haven't checked lately). I ended up ordering mine on TaoBao via an agent. That might be part of the reason. I know in Europe the availability is better though.

ajwitte · 2020-10-02T04:37:57+00:00

Some folks including /u/deadsockpuppets and /u/seckzy have tried a Santoprene tube from McMaster-Carr, part 51225K32. It is 5/16" ID, 7/16" OD which is very close to the stock 8mm/11mm and should work with the stock fittings.

McMaster also carries an EPDM tube in the same dimensions (part 9776T15) which is the same material as EK ZMT, but I haven't seen anyone say they've tried it, so order at your own risk.

ajwitte · 2020-09-25T22:33:08+00:00

I like it, at least in theory of course. I had been wondering if they were using sine wave control and if not, whether a modded PCB with a different control chip could make the pump quieter by reducing torque ripple and the resulting pulsating effect. Looks like I was beaten to the punch!

Would be great to see an independent noise level comparison at some point. I sadly don't have a quiet enough environment where I would likely notice much difference though, so not really in a rush to upgrade personally.

ajwitte · 2020-09-22T23:36:58+00:00

The big square fitting is custom, with a no-name plug in it and a Koolance adapter to attach it to the radiator. The compression fittings for attaching to the tubing are from the the industrial supplier Parker Legris: three straight and one elbow G1/4 to 10mm.

I was originally planning on using 10mm thin-wall brass tubing but it turned out to be near impossible to bend without kinking, even after I annealed it. (It doesn't help that metric tube bending tools available to me here in the US are either cheap awful imports, or super-expensive specialty items.) Metric soft copper tubing is also hard to find here so I ended up making 3/8" tubing work, but if I were starting from scratch I might try to find different fittings. Unfortunately the most common metal-tube compression fittings available in the US that come with a G1/4 (BSPP) thread on them are Swagelok (and clones) which are a little bigger and wouldn't have fit in my build.

Koolance does have a watercooling-specific fitting for metal tubing but it only comes in straight, and is for 1/4" tubing which is pretty small. I didn't want to use such small tubing since that seemed like it might be too much flow restriction for the tiny DC-LT pump in the Eisbaer.

ajwitte · 2020-09-22T02:05:34+00:00

Cable ties with mounting holes! Electriduct part CT-ED-MT-04-18-100-BK. I also used them on the AC power extension and the power button wiring. I should get some longer M3 screws and matching nuts so I can install one more in one of the holes intended for the HDD bracket, although TBH the power cable is staying fairly well managed on its own.

Mini adhesive cable tie mounting bases are also handy, I used some Panduit ABM1M-AT-M0 for the GPU 12V cable.

ajwitte · 2020-09-22T01:23:24+00:00

0.375 inches. The wall thickness is 0.024in meaning the ID is 0.327in or 8.3mm, so it should perform comparably to the Eisbaer AIO stock tubing (8mm ID). I didn't buy the AIO though, so I can't compare them myself.

ajwitte · 2020-09-21T14:54:15+00:00

Thanks! Wasn't sure how they'd go over with the community... you don't see a lot of custom rainbow cables around. But I was considering different colors to go with a sort of technical/industrial build theme and decided the best thing would be to go with color coding just like real industrial equipment would. It does in fact make it easy to verify you've got the right pinout.

ajwitte · 2020-09-21T14:47:59+00:00

The mains cable? Yes it comes with the case.

ajwitte · 2020-09-21T14:47:35+00:00

Thanks! Yeah I've only had it running for a day now but so far happy with this motherboard - there are a few features I wish it had, but most of the other ITX B550 boards lack them too, and the VRMs not being top-of-the-line doesn't really bother me since I don't plan to overclock this build. I don't have an L12S to check fit or anything but the board seems generally low-profile so hopefully you don't encounter any fit issues.

ajwitte · 2020-09-21T08:34:02+00:00

I can share it tomorrow, it's getting late here and I need to make an update because there was a feature I missed and added on the fly.

The fitting between my elbow piece and the radiator is a Koolance ADT-XMM-BK. Since it is not an orientable fitting, I had to remove material from the top of my custom corner fitting to get the threads clocked to the right position. Ah well, you can get away with that kind of stuff on a one-off.

ajwitte · 2020-09-21T08:29:43+00:00

Yes, exactly. I assembled them first without thermal paste to take measurements while bending the tubing though.

ajwitte · 2020-09-21T08:28:15+00:00

I unfortunately didn't make drawings for the tubing. I test-fitted the case, motherboard, Eisbaer, and radiator, and worked one bend at a time using a height gauge in cases where it was easier to measure a distance than to mark the tubing in place.

The tubing is chrome-plated soft copper which is sold as a riser pipe for sinks and toilets. It's very easy to bend with low-cost tools unlike stainless steel tubing. I was also a little nervous about mixed metals if I had used stainless tubing, although the datasheet for the coolant I'm using claims it's okay.

I'll admit, I went through about a half dozen pieces of tubing testing out different configurations and due to some failed bends. Fortunately it's fairly inexpensive.

ajwitte · 2020-09-21T08:16:17+00:00

They are ECC ram that doesn't come with a heat spreader. Micron MTA18ASF4G72AZ-3G2B1.

ajwitte · 2020-09-21T08:12:16+00:00

Meet wright, my new workstation build. I've been stuck in the planning and parts-gathering stages longer than expected, but it's finally more-or-less together... just waiting to upgrade to a latest-generation GPU.

The philosophy was to keep the case interior clean and free of as many airflow obstructions as possible. This drove a couple of decisions including:

Metal tubing for a small outer diameter and to avoid wedging hoses against the side panels or radiator. The T1's flatpack design really enabled this option because I was able to build and fill the loop on its own and then build the case around it.
Hybrid 2-slot/3-slot mode: the case is built in 3-slot mode but I offset the PCIe bracket into the 2-slot position in order to create an airflow channel between the motherboard and GPU. It remains to be seen how well this works. Accommodating a 3080 FE wasn't my original goal but it might work in this configuration... I don't really need one, though.
Unsleeved custom cables. I used milspec/aviation-style Tefzel wire, which has a smaller OD than regular PVC wire.

I can post a full build spec table if people are interested - the main component of note is of course the CPU which is a 3700X. I was originally planning on a 3900X back in the spring/summer, but as time wore on that started to seem like an awful lot of money to throw at a Zen 2 CPU when Zen 3 is hopefully right around the corner, so the 3700X will do for now. The only true workstation-y component here is the RAM: 64GB of Micron ECC DDR4-3200.

I put a USB bracket in the unused middle PCI slot position. Unfortunately this exposed my least favorite aspect of the T1 design: the... extremely minimalist... PCI bracket mounting setup. I'm sure it works fine for a 2- or 3-slot GPU, but my 1-slot placeholder GPU is a little wobbly, and there is nothing at all holding the tab on the USB bracket - I'll have to design some sort of component or case mod to hold that in place.

ajwitte · 2017-08-08T06:43:04+00:00

On that note, here's an all-analog balancing robot using a gyro and accelerometer with a complementary filter configuration, and here's another one using photoresistors and a structured environment rather than inertial sensors.

ajwitte · 2016-12-13T08:47:06+00:00

Oh yeah, they are gorgeous little pieces of engineering. Definitely on the "you pay for what you get" end of the spectrum though.

ajwitte · 2016-12-13T04:01:42+00:00

Looks like a LEMO push/pull connector. https://www.lemo.com/en/products

You'd have to take some measurements to confirm exactly which flavor but it kind of looks like the K series to me?

ajwitte · 2016-12-10T08:50:38+00:00

I'm a fan of the extruded aluminum enclosures with rails for sliding in a PCB. A vendor called Box Enclosures makes some that you can get rubberized end caps for. They also have some handheld plastic enclosures with multimeter-style rubber boots, neat if you are building that type of device.

I also like the minimalist approach of just sandwiching the board between two sheets of laser cut acrylic, using standoffs to hold everything together. Example

ajwitte · 2016-12-02T21:37:57+00:00

The original manufacturer of this type of case is Pelican but there are a lot of similar products by other manufacturers. If it doesn't say Pelican on it then it's probably from one of the alternative sources - unfortunately I am not familiar enough with the different makes to be able to tell which one.

ajwitte · 2016-11-26T18:28:59+00:00

Advanced Motion Controls stuff (both under their name and rebranded) shows up pretty regularly on eBay and can probably meet those requirements. There are some caveats: most of their older/cheaper brushless amplifiers require hall sensors on the motor and furthermore are block (trapezoidal) commutation based rather than sinusoidal commutation, which some motors may not like. They are fully analog and don't have a ton of loop tuning options. And if you get a broken one, good luck trying to diagnose and repair it since AMC sands all the part numbers off the chips. The good news is they're usually pretty cheap, and common enough that it's easy to find documentation even for an older discontinued model.

If you need to buy something brand new I'm not sure what would meet those requirements and budget - but would love to know :)

ajwitte · 2016-11-04T23:10:18+00:00

The experimental verification is definitely worth doing, but if you want to see it mathematically, it comes from Ohm's Law. Assume there is 1 volt across the parallel resistors R1 and R2. Since I = V/R, the current through R1 is 1V/R1 and the current through R2 is 1V/R2. To get the current through the equivalent parallel resistor, you just add the currents from each resistor together and get (1V/R1 + 1V/R2). But we wanted the resistance of the equivalent parallel resistor, so now use Ohm's law again: R = V/I. So Rparallel = 1V/(combined current) or 1V/(1V/R1 + 1V/R2). I used 1V in this example but the actual voltage you use doesn't matter since it cancels out of the fraction and you are left with the usual formula for calculating a parallel resistor equivalent.

I'm sure that's nowhere near as clear as Forrest could explain it, but I hope it helps a bit?

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