They called me a madman. It'll leak. It'll break. It's heresy.
Not heresy. Science.
Through the power of 3D scanning and printing. At long last, we've done it. A
hardline water cooled gaming PC with
impossible tubing bends. And all it took
was some really cool technology, a bit of modeling, and patience. Let's start
with the first one. This thing is so freaking cool. The Einscan Pro2XV2 from
Shining 3D is a multi-functional handheld 3D scanner that is exactly what
it sounds like. This can be used to create a digital representation of small
and mediumsiz objects, just like our computer here. After calibrating it
against their handydandy calibration board, it works by shining a white LED
pattern onto an object, then registering any deformations of that pattern through
the attached camera. Of course, because our computer is black and even worse,
kind of reflective, it uh works so good
out of the box. Fortunately, fixing that is as simple as picking up a can of this
Asub's matte vanishing spray, which no,
before you ask, will not make your computer disappear.
But what it will do is help out the iron scan by covering your object in an 8 to
15 micrometer layer of matte material that can even be in different colors and
will sublimate away or change from a solid to a gas after just a few hours.
Now that our computer is no longer reflective or refractive, we're good to
take a short break and tell you about our sponsor, Acronis. Their business
solution, Acronis Cyberprotect, delivers protection against cyber threats along
with a full suite of backup and recovery solutions. Check it out at the link in
the description and unify your business's data protection and cyber
security under one platform.
We did a full ShortCircuit video on the Ein scan where you guys can see the
whole process, but in a nutshell, it's basically Star Trek and then you export
the rough model from their software for a bit of cleanup in Blender or the
modeling software of your choice. That's it. Even before cleanup, actually,
unless you're doing something more elaborate, it is more than usable for
some quick, simple tubing runs. At this point, all we've got to do then is model
our tubes from one fitting to the next using Fusion 360, which by the way has a
hobby license that is free, and then hit the print button, right? Well, not
quite. Part of the point of this project was that we didn't want to bring out the
saws and pipe cutters, heat guns, torches, and deburring tools. Though,
one final step that we're going to add to the modeling process is to add our
own chamered edge to the end of every tube so that it can slide right into our
compression fittings. Now, we print. And while you wait, you can head over to
ltdstore.com to check out our new Labs phase shirts and sweaters. For our
tubing, we started by testing the most common 3D printing material, PLA, on a
Prusso Mark IV. I mean, in theory, it
should work, and you can't beat the ease of use. But as it turns out, people
don't do this for a reason. The glass
transition temperature of PLA is around 60° C, and our water shouldn't ever get
that high. But in the event of a pump or
a fan failure, it could happen, which would cause our tubing to soften and
deform, turning a bad situation into an absolute catastrophe. Now we could
switch to PETG which is the same material used by many hardline tubing
suppliers. But solving the material issue still doesn't solve the paracity
issue. This style of layered deposition
means that there are teeny tiny gaps between the layers that prevent our
system from being completely watertight. Now we could fix it if we really wanted
to by smearing epoxy along the entire length of the tube. I mean, come on.
That's a pretty goofy solution when we can do this instead.
Man, these are cool. Do I get any credit
for this being my idea to try? No. Justin said yes.
This was my idea. What? The resin? Well, just 3D printing in general.
I suggested the resin printing. Fine. Fine. Whoever's idea it was or wasn't. This is
so freaking cool. Some of these are really clean. Like, look at this bend.
Yeah, it's like perfect, right? It's It's almost too perfect.
It's perfect. I mean, there are parts that are less perfect. Clearly, we had
to do some sanding here with a resin goo kind of drip. But like, dude, have you
ever tried to hardline bend a tube before? Yeah.
Could you do this shape? Oh, no. Oh, no. No, no, no. I mean, look at this 90° coming out of
one of the fittings. You cannot do that. You can do it and then cut down.
Sure. But, but it still won't be that tight. If you have a clearance issue, you cannot
achieve that radius by hand bending. Now, obviously to get things this exact,
you're going to need models of the fittings that you're going into so that
you can ensure it's going to line up perfectly, but you don't even need to do
that. You can do a little bit of trial and error, and you can actually cut or
sand these down to length just like you would with regular hardline tubing if
you overdo it. SLA printing is super
cool. It works by UV hardening resin in a vat. And one of the biggest
advantages, aside from a lack of paracity and a glass transition temp
that's higher than PLA, is customization.
I mean, you could buy resin in various colors and keep them all in stock. But
why do that when you can buy clear resin and then dye batches whatever color you
want, or better yet, use UV reactive dye
to make your tubing glow under a black light. SLA printing is also the secret
to being able to achieve shapes that would be impossible with traditional
manual bending. Guys, I've done a fair
number of hardline water cooled systems and even I am not about to sit here and
try and bend my own shell spiral. Let's see what our system looks like with
something more like this.
Oh, I love it so much. But Lionus, you
might warn, resin is brittle. it's going to crack or even shatter under the
pressure of a custom water cooling loop. Well, I mean, you're not wrong, but
you'd also be surprised by just how strong this stuff actually is. We bought
some Monocure 3D tough hightensile strength resin from Spool 3D Canada, and
it's worked out pretty great so far. And while we of course aren't going to
recommend that you do this at home because I don't want to be liable for
your RTX 480 or whatever, I'm confident enough to risk my own RTX 480. And we're
going to leave this computer running for 6 months or until it leaks with regular
updates on Twitter and Flowplane.
Oh, this looks incredible.
And best part, guys, is that it looks
like any other hardline build except for people are going to look at it and go,
"How on earth did you do that?" Because these builds are wild. I mean, even a
skilled artisan like Charles Harwood, creator of the MBX MK2 Murder Box,
couldn't do something like this. Charles, that's not a challenge. Just
sit down. And look, I'm not going to sit here and tell you guys that this loop
has the best possible flow rate. And sure, um, some of it looks more like a
silly straw or a water slide than an actual, you know, tubing job, but the
point of the experiment was to find out where the limits are. And I feel like
we're just scratching the surface. I mean, okay, we did kind of find some
limits. Um, can you tell me what happened with this?
Yeah, I basically showed up, installed a tube, it leaked and delayed the shoot by
like a whole day because all of this was covered in water. So, we had a small pinhole leak. But I
don't think that that invalidates the concept. Especially because looking at
this tube, it's not even immediately obvious where you guys fixed it. What
did you even do? Just put a little bit of resin on it or CA glue. That's a really simple fix then.
Yeah. Okay. Tell me this. Knowing everything you know about this. Okay, we haven't
done the durability testing yet. Would you do a system like this?
Probably not. Oh, I just hate resin printing. Everything
else is awesome. I just hate the resin. It's so terrible to work with. The
fumes. Okay, that's why we have Justin. If someone else could print it for you
if you just used like a 3D printing service. Sure. Yeah, this is actually pretty
awesome. Okay, moment of truth.
That's pretty fun watching their photos. That is so cool. It's the impossibility
of it. Like, yeah, you could maybe create a custom mold for something like
this, but it would be specific to that model of PC, it would not be fun,
that particular case and damn near impossible to injection mold. But with
the beauty of additive manufacturer, look at it go.
To be clear, even 3D printing this, there could be some trickiness. You'll
have to play around with supports. We might have to do some finishing to get
it to look a little bit nicer, but the sky is the limit.
We went with 10/12 mm tubing, but you
could do bigger tubes, smaller tubes, and this is kind of cool. Okay, you've
played with Solid Works flow simulation. Yeah. Would anything prevent you from like
Okay, this is so close to being assigned to
you already, and I haven't even talked to you about it yet. Would anything
would anything prevent you from creating a an open loop? So you actually have
like a a water slide that you like create laminer flow and like blast the
water over to a receptacle and like a waterfall.
Can we do the loop such that we're cooling the GPU and the CPU has an NHD15
and it waterfalls over it? I mean, can we?
Yeah. Okay. No promises though. I think the best part of this though is that while
we did use a 3D scanner, you don't have
to. You can totally do the work the traditional way by just measuring out
your runs and then modeling accordingly. And if you think about it, even the 3D
printer is kind of optional, right? Like we've got an Elgu Saturn 4 Ultra, which
retails for around $400, but there are online services that will print things
for you as long as you find something with a good amount of vertical print
height for your lengthier tubes or a wide printing bed. Just make sure that
you're using something that's precise enough that your tolerances aren't going
to cause leaks at your fittings. So, an Elgu Mars 4 or better is what we would
recommend without breaking the bank. This limits us to either smaller form
factor machines though or a lot of money spent on interconnecting fittings for
extensions. As for the resin itself, the price does vary quite a bit. But we can
get a liter of the same stuff that we used for about $80, which will create
quite a lot of tubing. For example, our proof of concept here took only 87.4 ms
out of our 1 L jug, which is about $8.
Now, realistically, I don't see that many folks putting this into action um
outside of maybe niche small form factor builders, but just like everything in 3D
printing, as the quality goes up and as the costs come down, I could conceivably
see a small to midsize system integrator shipping hardline systems at a super low
cost. Because most of the cost of a hardline system is not in the tubes.
It's in the labor, all the measuring and all the cutting and bending and
installing. Or I could even see home users sharing models with each other. So
that hardline tubing could become as simple as copying your buddies case
selection and build list and measurements and then just printing out
the same set of tubes, throwing them in, and calling it a day. If you do want to
get your own SLA printer, by the way, just make sure you take the proper
safety precautions. Resin is hella
toxic. Like gaming subreddit toxic. So,
you want to avoid that. But don't avoid our sponsor, Charge. Their Ice Mag isn't
just any regular old power bank. It's the world's first magnetic power bank
with active cooling built right in. That's right. It not only runs cool, but
it also looks cool thanks to a transparent window and full spectrum
dynamic RGB lighting. Supported is 7.5
watt max wireless charging with MagSafe and Gi compatibility with wirefree use.
Or you can plug in a USBC cable and reach up to 20 watts of charging power
for a quick boost. Plus, it features a unique low current mode for efficient
charging without draining the bank. It's even airline safe, making it a fantastic
travel companion for your adventures. Check out the Charge Ice Magnetic Power
Bank at the link in the description. Man, what on earth are we going to think
of next? If you guys liked this video, make sure you check out whole room water
cooling. Maybe next time we do it, we will 3D print everything.
God, what a time to be alive. Look at this tube. It works.