Mercury S8 - Acrylic and LEDs - Build recap

[fuji]

So way back I made a post here with my first jump into water cooling. Looking back at it now, it wasn't all that great. But I was pleased with it. So pleased with it, that I continued this hobby.

I addressed my main concern from that previous build 2 years ago when a buddy gave me his S8 and a 360 rad. That build was done with what materials I had lying around, so no post made here - but I have an image. I used EK pastel white

.

This is what I found in my res. .... and when I say found, I actually mean, slowly watched happen waiting to do a hardware upgrade as an excuse to tear the entire loop down. Is that algae? Is it pastel that has solidified? I have no idea! I had that liquid in there for 2 years (never changed). Yes, I was lazy, but that's a lot of crap stuck on my res! Anyway, I purchased Mayhem's Blitz Cleaner from Daz, ran that for 24 hours, flushed, cleaned the blocks by taking them apart and everything came out spiffy looking.

So on to the build ...I don't have a cool name for it. This isn't a build log, let's call it a build-recap


Mercury S8



The goal of this build was attempting hard-line and using LEDs everywhere I could. Let's make it bright!

Parts:
- i5 6600k
- Gigabyte z170x Gaming 7
- Gigabyte G1 GTX 1070
- 16GB G.Skill Tridentz (really love the look of this ram)

Water Cooling:
- D5 Vario
- Bitspower D5 acrylic pump top
- Aqualis 450ml Pro
- EK-FC1080 GTX G1 - Nickel
- EK-FC1080 GTX G1 Backplate - Black
- XSPC Raystorm (this thing is going on 4 years now).
- XSPC AX360
- 3x Noiseblockers eLoop
- 2x Yate loons (I finally got a build together to use these beauties)
- Bitspower Crystal Link Acrylic 12mm Blue. (I used 5 packs of 500mm).

On to the lighting!

- 2x Darkside 30cm Blue LED
- 2x Darkside 30cm Ice Blue led
- 2x 3mm Darkside blue led
- 4x 3mm Darkside white led
- 4x 5mm Darkside blue led
- 2x 5mm Darkside white led
- Bitspower LED X-station

I posted the entire album here. I can't take pictures as well as a lot of you guys do, I don't have the camera or the know-how.

http://imgur.com/a/wnzdD


Working with the acrylic

- I cut it with a jigsaw using 24 tpi blade slowly. I held the jigsaw upside down and just pulled the acrylic tube towards me while the jigsaw was at full speed. Make sure you wear safety goggles, as acrylic flies up in your face! I also had a mitre box and hacksaw for smaller cuts (1 cm cuts). Used a square to ensure my cuts were 90. If not, I sanded it down.

- I used a round file to clean up the insides of the tube after a cut.

- I used 220 wet sandpaper to chamfer edges and fix any off-angled cuts. Then used wet 600 to smoothen it out.

- I bent with the darkside kit sold by Daz. When doing a 90, I would bend 30 at a time, and then have to re-heat. I tried doing a 90 in one go, ended up with a deformed piece. I did not quench the plastic, as I feared that would make it brittle.

- I found it easy to cut my piece larger than needed. Bend the 90 degree, then trim up with a hacksaw one side, then to the next side.

- The 90 degree (w/fittings) I used were way tighter than the regular fittings. I tore up a few of the o-rings in there.

Some notes on the experience with this build

- Those cable management things that line up your cables straight and are attached to the motherboard/pci-e extensions are an amazing invention.

- I mistakenly bought a second PCI-E cable thinking 8-pin would work for the motherboard 8-pin. Oops.

- That LED xstation was amazing. if I didn't have that, I'd have daisychained all those LEDs into a giant wiring mess and probably a fire hazard.

- I really like how the 2-tone blue colour came out with the bottom being a dark blue glow and the top being a white with a hint of blue. That icy blue LED adds an almost surreal look to it (not sure it comes across in the pictures) and makes the white case jump out a bit.

- I hooked up the 4x 30mm LED strips to my fan controller after I tried to watch a movie while I was bleeding the loop. The lights were too distracting!

- The blue LEDs I put in the graphics card block don't really show. This is due to the case. If the motherboard was vertical, and you were looking top-down on the graphics card block, the blue LEDs add a nice glow.

- If I were adventurous, I'd remove the red from the motherboard and plastic dip the ek backplate white. I'm not, I'm too afraid I will ruin the hardware. I don't have the setup (painting in a condo in winter is not good), equipment, or experience to feel confident enough to do it on my main box.

- I think this case could use thicker tube. Maybe in 2 years I will try 16mm.

Disappointed with the Aqualis 450 pro

I bought it two years ago when I used ek pastel white. The waterfall effect with pastel white didn't show up, but I attributed that to the liquid choice. Fastforward 2 years...

I am now using distilled water. I have the vario set to 5, and that effect is pretty minimal. However, prior to assembling my system I was cleaning the loop with Mayhem's Blitz (small soft tube runs, no 90 degree turns) it actually worked adequately. It would appear this res requires a certain amount of flow in order to achieve the waterfall effect. Unfortunately I can't achieve that amount of flow right now.

It has slots for six 5mm leds. Since the darkside ones were sleeved, I could fit 2 in. I unsleeved them and was able to fit 4 in (2 on each side). With the room being dark, and those 4 as the only LEDs that were on, the effect did not look good. It may be due to it being plain distilled + Daz Protector, but I doubt it. 4x LEDs just couldn't light up the res how I envisioned it would - and what a pain in the ass it was to get the lid on with 4x LEDs in there. I did, and they are in there. I can't notice it, and I'm sure you wouldn't be able to either from the pics.

It's not a bad res, in fact, I'm still happy with it's looks. I'm just disappointed in it.

Final

I'm not sure I'm pleased with distilled water. I've been thinking about using a blue coloured coolant since the EK graphics card block looks pretty plain with distilled. Plus the res looks plain as well. I'm wondering if anyone has used blue tube with blue liquid (or any other colour for that matter) - will it change the tube to be really dark? I love the blue that this tube already is.


Thanks Daz for shipping everything in a timely manner letting me do this build during my time off work.

[trestles126]

Love the s8's and anything caselabs. Trying to finish up my rebuild. How do u like the led hub? Never seen that. Is there anyway to adjust the brightness? I usually hook my leds up to my aquacomputor a6

[Hooded]

The build looks great. Two tone blue looks cool.

That crap in your res is mostly flux, resins used in the building of the rad and some plasticizer from the soft tubes.

The waterfall effect require a good strong flow. You could get a 24V controller to power your D5 that would increase the power of the pump and the flow, or you could add a second D% to the loop to increase the head pressure of the loop. Either would improve your flow. Every tight 90° fitting reduces your flow by 5% as well. Larger tube bends are usually around 1% decrease in flow rate. The rad probably knocks off around 7% the GPU, CPU each closer to 10%. Waterfall effect requires a very simple loop on a single pump or dual pumps or 24V power to get good effect.

I think adding just enough blue die to distilled so you can just see the fluid in the blocks wouldn't make your blue tube too dark.

Keep on modding

[nass]

Had to turn down my old d5 on the kids build on a aqualis 450 with water column effect, using just mayhems black pastel, works mint.

The only thing I notice different from mine, nice build by the way love the runs and the bends, colour am not so keen on though, is your not using the d5 adaptor like me mounted on the res itself, maybe is why your seeing such a difference in the effect idea, too much going on before it hits the res idea. Maybe a dual pump setup idea would have the balls to drive your setup done like this.

[Bartacus]

I think it depends on how old his tube is too. I have an original 880ml Aqualis tube with waterfall, and I found that even with 2 D5 varios pushing at full blast, the effect is kinda lame. It seems newer versions like Nass's one don't have that issue. Not sure how to tell them apart though.

Good job on the build!

[Necrodead]

Build looks stellar! Good use of LEDs and I like the white and blue theme.

I also had the same issue with my res and using LEDs, they just don't work like they are supposed to. I had some 3 mm in mine, and since that didn't work I tried 5mm LEDs and still nothing no matter what liquid I used.

[DazMode]

I doubt that organic, looks like copper oxidation on radiator flux or plasticizer from tubes.

Nice build, case labs cases are awesome.

[fuji]

Thanks everyone for the feedback on the gunk in the res. It seems I didn't clean/flush the rads as well as I thought I did.

Yes, case labs cases are awesome!

Love the s8's and anything caselabs. Trying to finish up my rebuild. How do u like the led hub? Never seen that. Is there anyway to adjust the brightness? I usually hook my leds up to my aquacomputor a6

I like the LED hub, it helps keep the cabling to a minimum. The darkside connect stuff works with it without the needed adapter since it's a 2 pin. There isn't a way to control the brightness that I could figure out since it takes a molex as power input. It works great for the 3mm and 5mm LEDs since they're not overpowering.

I hooked up the four 30 cm LED strips to my fan controller though using a series of Y connectors since I couldn't dim the bitspower LED station.

The build looks great. Two tone blue looks cool.

That crap in your res is mostly flux, resins used in the building of the rad and some plasticizer from the soft tubes.

The waterfall effect require a good strong flow. You could get a 24V controller to power your D5 that would increase the power of the pump and the flow, or you could add a second D% to the loop to increase the head pressure of the loop. Either would improve your flow. Every tight 90° fitting reduces your flow by 5% as well. Larger tube bends are usually around 1% decrease in flow rate. The rad probably knocks off around 7% the GPU, CPU each closer to 10%. Waterfall effect requires a very simple loop on a single pump or dual pumps or 24V power to get good effect.

I think adding just enough blue die to distilled so you can just see the fluid in the blocks wouldn't make your blue tube too dark.

Keep on modding

Thanks! That's a lot of information and very helpful.

I've been sitting here contemplating switching out to clear tube and X1 blue coolant or try feser dye with dazmode protector and keeping what I have. Decisions, decisions...

From what I've read, the d5 vario (which I currently own) does not take advantage of the 24v, let alone where to get a decent converter. I'd have to go the dual pump route, but that's an expense I can't afford right this moment.

I think it depends on how old his tube is too. I have an original 880ml Aqualis tube with waterfall, and I found that even with 2 D5 varios pushing at full blast, the effect is kinda lame. It seems newer versions like Nass's one don't have that issue. Not sure how to tell them apart though.

I bought the res 2 years ago around this time. The thing is, when I was cleaning the loop, it looked adequate (still not as nice as some of the youtube vids I've seen).

I was reading a thread at OCN about this res, where I believe you were posting. I began looking at the center cylinder, and I don't believe I have it screwed all the way down at the bottom which means the flow may be too restrictive at the top. Did you notice that or play around with the center cylinder, ensuring it measured correctly and was completely screwed down to the base? Next time I change my fluid, I'll play around with it.

your feedback of running dual pumps and it still not working is very helpful. Probably saved me $300 lol




Thanks everyone for the feedback and suggestions!

[nass]

Your res has 3 connections on it? One on center 2 below that was another problem for some. Not the right res connections. ?

[nass]

mine is also from a few years ago Bart, not new.

[fuji]

Your res has 3 connections on it? One on center 2 below that was another problem for some. Not the right res connections. ?

My res has 3 bottom connections. The middle goes up the cylinder and comes out at the top. The top screw I can unscrew a bit and water leaks out the top. There are 3 other G1/4 screws.

It looks exactly like this one: http://www.watercoolinguk.co.uk/p/Aq...G14_56924.html - except it's 450ml.

I do not have the deflection plate installed as I believed I didn't need it for the waterfall effect. I believe it's only used if you do not have the input come to the center channel.



[EDIT:

Here is a video of the waterfall effect taken with my phone and converted to a gif.

[nass]

Ya that is a little low, my sons system was creating noise on his on 5 till I adjusted it down to look like yours on 2, I think it is now. Again my mount is on the res not remoted like yours. The deflector is just to stop vortex and keep a bit of air out of the system on the returning water. Head, fittings and bends as Hooded was saying guess is your problem. Your res is correct same as mine.

Asked whats his name the Mod for aqu on ocn about that plate he said it made no difference.

FF used it another way on his at the top to make his cascade down the sides in his p5 build. With his pump setup simular to yours.

450's they call the column effect, only 880's are the waterfall ones.

[fuji]

I made a few small changes to my loop.

First up, I bought a DDC 3.25. The plan was, if this pump can fix the fountain effect with my res, great. I'll use it in this one. If not, I will use it when I get around to watercooling my other computer. I grabbed the white Bitspower heatsink and the EK acrylic top. The acrylic top is so clear and clean. It looks like a block of glass.




You'll also notice there's a piece of silicone folded up and sitting under the DDC. Just kind of laying there all bent up. Believe me, I had big plans to mount this thing.

First I was going to attach rubber stickers to the bottom of the heatsink (which I still did).
Next, I woulds screw it securely to the 120mm mounting bracket I found on Daz's store. Finally I was going to lay this silicone noise absorber under the bracket and let the items sit on each other.

This all went wonky when I couldn't securely screw the DDC into the 120mm mounting bracket as only 2 screws would work. As well, the silicone noise absorber was a little thinner and didn't stick to the metal (like the D5 pump legs from Bitspower) as I would have liked. Just not the ideal material - should've gotten rubber as opposed to silicone.

The next time I do this, I will buy the proper DDC Mounting bracket and a decoupling kit.

It's not too noisy now, but if I can make it quieter, I will. Just not right now.



I also cleaned up some of the bends near the radiator. I had 4 hard 90 degree turns, and I brought it down to two hard 90's and 1 bent 90. I moved the temperature sensor out of one of those 90s (a 3-way block connector) and attached it to the bottom of my res.


( Here is the original: http://imgur.com/EHyOjkT )


This resulted in the fountain effect of my reservoir finally working nicely! I guess it doesn't matter how many D5's you throw at it, what you need is some DDC action.





Finally, as you can tell from the picture of the reservoir, I've dyed the liquid using Feser's Blue UV dye to a nice rich blue. It didn't impact the tube colouring in any noticable way. In fact, I'm quite happy with how the colour came out. This makes me now wonder what a white pastel would look like behind the blue tube. I'd lose the fountain effect that I struggled to achieve though.

Before:




After:




Here's a picture of it without the 4x 30cm LED strips.


I add more sleeved cables, tried to clean up the cabling with zip ties more and added more cable management guides to the motherboard extension. Maybe not the best thing to spend money on, but the wiring is a bit cleaner now.

I've updated the imgur album with some more pictures (at the top of the album)

http://imgur.com/a/wnzdD

Some are embedded in this post, but a few others that are not. You can also see the difference in fluid colour, a sort of before/after.

[Hooded]

Turned out great. Cables are nicely managed.
The Blue fluid looks great.

DDC produces a lot more head pressure than a D5 does so I'm not surprized you're getting a better waterfall effect from it.

[nass]

yup, ddc produce more pressure but less flow they say though than a d5. Looks good.