The water block

I started watercooling with a copper cross-drilled waterblock and then went onto a DangerDen maze2. Both were good but I wanted to make a special waterblock that was different from the standard cross-drilled and maze types. Firstly, it must have good flow rate. Secondly, it must have the cold water splash in at the centre core area. Thridly, I want to maximise the amount of cold water in contact with the copper as heat transfers increase with the difference in temperatures. In the end, I decided on a 2 inlet 1 outlet block.

Since I wanted 2 inlets, I decided to go 3/8" for both so that there is enough pressure from my pump. Then for a good flowrate, I decided on 5/8" for the outlet. A little restriction there as 2 3/8" volume of water would be a little more than a 5/8" but its good because it prevents the problem of water not being refreshed or not moving in certain parts of the block due to its special design.

In the end this is the rough sketch of its design. I actually had planned dimensions on a piece of paper which I lost. The centre chanel is around 1/2" while the outer ones a little bigger than 3/8". Base plate is a little higher than 1mm.

Blue for inlet and red for outlet. I wanted inlet 2 to be a little higher than centre to even the flow as it splits into 2 directions, taking into account gravity.

Next thing was to find a place to make these. Luckily, one of my friends has a drill press in his shop and with some milling bits, the block could be made. Also, my friend said he could help me braze the top plate on so everythings ok. Since I was going to make a waterblock, I decided to do it with my friend who is also in need of one. The design for his is around the same as mine only he has only 1 inlet at the centre and fittings are 1/2".

Next was to go shopping for the stuff we needed. We bought 2 copper blocks of appropriate sizes from some metal shop and a plate for the tops. These cost us around $12 US dollars. Then we went to get the hose barbs. As the designs made it so that it would be pretty impossible to screw the barbs that are so close together, I decided to braze the fittings there. So, I bought those 2 ended hose barbs and cut them into 2.

Finally, we had to buy some milling bits and so we bought a few of appropriate sizes. We had bought bits with 2 cutting edges at first but we found that it was easier to cut with those 4 edged bits.

Then, we were ready to make the blocks...