Retail G4's coming soon....

madmat said:
I take it your vast experience in plastic molding comes from years spent not doing it?
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I wouldn't doubt that TN has at least some knowledge of the subject. If you read her earlier post precision injection molding is used for medical supplies. TN is a registered nurse who happens to be a tech geek so she might have learned a little bit about it. You dont have to actually do something in order to know about it....
 
cathar mentioned earlier that the plastic tops are machined, so this whole little forray into injection moulding techniques is not truely necessary.

not criticizing the side discussion, just pointing out that there is a definate answer to how the g4's top is made floating around out there.
 
Well injection molding's viability all comes down to the cost difference between machining vs molding multiplied by the number of parts expected to be made.

The cost of the mold is of course dependent upon how good you want it to be, and how complicated it is.

One of the issues with water-cooling is that the market is sized in a way that makes injection molding tantalisingly close to being viable, but not so much that it's a guaranteed "sure thing".

It is true that a "guarantee" tends to come at around 10000 mold parts, but it can be justifiable down to as low as 1000 parts if the machining expense of the part is high enough.

The other issue with molding at waterblock market levels is that you really want to be absolutely sure that you've got the design as good as it can ever possibly be. Streamlining, which is the practise of introducing minor/trivial improvements over the life-span of a product will add up eventually to produce something that is noticably better than the very original parts that came out. This is one of the added issues with a design like the Storm where it is very complicated design with about 15 different physical variables, with many inter-related in different ways and there may still be a small amount of room for improvement, which is something that is very hard to do with a fixed mold, but easily prototyped and put into production with a machining process.

So machining makes sense almost always at least in the short and perhaps even medium term, and depending on cost viability, maybe even long-term too when it comes to waterblocks. Once a certain level of confidence gets reached though with the design and if the market is still selling strongly, then molding would definitely become a viable consideration.
 
sigh, wednesday has come and gone, no announcement. I guess we wait and hope for tomorrow. I really want one of these for my computer I am building, that is if I can figure out the best way to fit a nice radiator into my brand spanking new P180 that arrived today! (If only the PA160 was 5 mm shorter :eek: , I was planning on taking out the 3.5" bay, secondary HD rack and bottom 5.5" bay but from what I measured I am about 5mm short on space.)
 
I jumped to the conclusion of molding for a number of reasons, first being the bandying about of the Swiftech name, they've obviously been using molded parts on their WC gear for several years now including them introducing the innovation of blowmolded reservoirs. Second is the time frame, if a company wanted to turn out sufficient volume to be a world market supplier within a limited amount of time and keep up with that supply it would only make sense to lower the time needed to replicate the most complicated part which on the G4 is the nozzle plate assembly.

If I bumped my ass on this jump them it's embarassing but such is the cost of speculation.
 
madmat said:
I take it your vast experience in plastic molding comes from years spent not doing it?
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You know just because I am a Registered Nurse now doesn't mean I have been so all my life. :rolleyes: If you want to know what I did before 1988, I was a tooling engineer. So no I have never actually made a mold as there are always skilled people around to do that highly specialized work. I would be most suprised to find out that Swiftech actually had a precision injection molding machine (PIMM) as you can own a whole bunch of CNC mills and lathes for the price of one PIMM. I don't think Swiftech has the production needs to justify a machine like that. :)
 
Either they mold their own parts (like the tubing connectors on their old line of blocks) or they farm it out. I very seriously doubt that the plastic parts Swiftech uses are machined.
 
madmat said:
Either they mold their own parts (like the tubing connectors on their old line of blocks) or they farm it out. I very seriously doubt that the plastic parts Swiftech uses are machined.
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ROFL... I never said they did machine the parts. Most likely they farm it out to a company that specializes in injection molding or they have a source for their tubing connectors and buy them off the shelf in bulk. ;)
 
Erasmus354 said:
(If only the PA160 was 5 mm shorter :eek: , I was planning on taking out the 3.5" bay, secondary HD rack and bottom 5.5" bay but from what I measured I am about 5mm short on space.)
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Hammer? Cutting torch? ;) New Case? :D
 
Erasmus354 said:
sigh, wednesday has come and gone, no announcement. I guess we wait and hope for tomorrow. I really want one of these for my computer I am building, that is if I can figure out the best way to fit a nice radiator into my brand spanking new P180 that arrived today! (If only the PA160 was 5 mm shorter :eek: , I was planning on taking out the 3.5" bay, secondary HD rack and bottom 5.5" bay but from what I measured I am about 5mm short on space.)
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Maybe cut a hole in the divider and allow the PA160 to protrude into the lower chamber 5mm?
 
Cant really let it protrude into the lower chamber because that would destroy the removable drive cage assembly there, I am more likely to take away a second 5.5" bay if I decide to try and make the PA160 fit.
 
I don't really know how precise molding can be within reasonable cost... But to tell you the truth... The block needs VERY precise machining as is the way it is setup... I wish there are some good pics so people can get ideas... I was nerve wrecked cleaning the block as those palstic nozzles were very think and holes in them were very small (had to find really small needle)
 
jinu117 said:
I don't really know how precise molding can be within reasonable cost... But to tell you the truth... The block needs VERY precise machining as is the way it is setup... I wish there are some good pics so people can get ideas... I was nerve wrecked cleaning the block as those palstic nozzles were very think and holes in them were very small (had to find really small needle)
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IMHO, I think that might be the downfall of these fine nozzle jet coolers in that they clog easily. Perhaps someone could come up with some kind of replacable filter that would take the junk out of the circuit before it reached the block. :)
 
Top Nurse said:
IMHO, I think that might be the downfall of these fine nozzle jet coolers in that they clog easily. Perhaps someone could come up with some kind of replacable filter that would take the junk out of the circuit before it reached the block. :)
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Pot calling the kettle black? These cross-slit designs are more restrictive with small gaps for lint and particles to get trapped in. I used a micro-irrigation filter ($3 at a hardware store) to strain my water first for the jetted blocks and they never clog up. Stuck a cross-slit style block in and it clogged up. Had to restrain the water again for a while to get it clean enough.

Sounds just like more uninformed FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) from Top Nurse in support of her argument.
 
CAD OC'er said:
Does the micro-irrigation filter effect the flow?
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If you leave it in the loop, yes, by around a 10% impact on flow rates. This is recommended if you're running an open-to-the-air loop where dust and lint can get into the water.

Otherwise you can just use the filter as a pre-strainer when filling the loop up. Just stick a hose onto the end of the strainer and pour your water through it to filter the water of lint and fluff before it goes into your loop.

The filters have ~0.1x0.1mm sized holes in them and will pretty much catch anything that would clog up all but the very finest of structured waterblocks.
 
Cathar said:
Pot calling the kettle black? These cross-slit designs are more restrictive with small gaps for lint and particles to get trapped in. I used a micro-irrigation filter ($3 at a hardware store) to strain my water first for the jetted blocks and they never clog up. Stuck a cross-slit style block in and it clogged up. Had to restrain the water again for a while to get it clean enough.

Sounds just like more uninformed FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) from Top Nurse in support of her argument.
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Sorry to burst your bubble ;) I reported the same problem with the Cuplex XT when the first shipment arrived here in the USA. It was also well documented by other people who have the same block. I figured it was an isolated incident related to the XT design until someone else in this forum reported the same thing with his G4 made by you. So that is why I brought it up now. However, since you are aware of this problem have you been warning people about it? Are you suggesting that people get a "micro-irrigation filter" to filtrate their system or are you throwing one in with the block since it's only "$3 at a hardware store"?
 
Cathar said:
If you leave it in the loop, yes, by around a 10% impact on flow rates. This is recommended if you're running an open-to-the-air loop where dust and lint can get into the water.

Otherwise you can just use the filter as a pre-strainer when filling the loop up. Just stick a hose onto the end of the strainer and pour your water through it to filter the water of lint and fluff before it goes into your loop.

The filters have ~0.1x0.1mm sized holes in them and will pretty much catch anything that would clog up all but the very finest of structured waterblocks.
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Well that pretty much takes care of the water, but what about contaminants inside the other cooling components? That is where we have seen some problems as well. Anything inside the loop that normally would go right through a different style block seems to get caught in the nozzles. So it would behoove someone to put an inline filter in for a while to catch that stuff. Either that or make sure you carefully monitor your water temps so if you see a sudden spike you will have a good idea as to what might be the problem.
 
Top Nurse said:
Sorry to burst your bubble ;)
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WTF are you talking about?

I reported the same problem with the Cuplex XT when the first shipment arrived here in the USA. It was also well documented by other people who have the same block. I figured it was an isolated incident related to the XT design until someone else in this forum reported the same thing with his G4 made by you. So that is why I brought it up now. However, since you are aware of this problem have you been warning people about it? Are you suggesting that people get a "micro-irrigation filter" to filtrate their system or are you throwing one in with the block since it's only "$3 at a hardware store"?
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FYI, even though the Storm block is less prone to clogging than a cross-slit block, yes, it is documented. It is actually documented in the manual, which is also on-line and in an FAQ form before people even think about buying a block, along with a recommendation on how to address the issue, and what are acceptable measures to take.

I like to think that people didn't have to wait until they get a block and then uncover issues that they should have been alerted to ahead of time. I'd like to think that it was and is good business practise to alert people and make them fully aware of what they are getting into ahead of time.

It's called transparancy and honesty.
 
CAD OC'er said:
I got news that some blocks are being shipped out to stores today!! ETA: 07-06-05
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Apparantly there was a hold up with some part supplier not delivering on-time, causing a delay in both shipping and announcement.

Should've been announced earlier this week, but this has been put off on a day-by-day basis.

Essentially it's just an "any day now" sort of thing pending final parts delivery.
 
at a nice price, too........as compared to what the special order units cost.

are thry going to be sending a first off to procooling for testing?
 
Nice Cathar. I hope you are making a good chunk of change licensing the design because you deserve it.
 
yay !!

very nice price indeed, I must see how my finances work out after ordering the parts for my new computer to see if I can get watercooling right away or if I will have to wait a bit.

I like the new look that swiftech gave to it.
 
Congrats Cathar!

I noticed in the propaganda sheet it mentions modifications to the original design to increase performance. Could you enlighten us?

Oh yes, and at $76 duckies, I may have to get me a new "test" block...
 
plywood99 said:
Congrats Cathar!

I noticed in the propaganda sheet it mentions modifications to the original design to increase performance. Could you enlighten us?
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(Copied from my response over at OC forums where I answered the same question):

It's been almost 12 months since the original design was laid down and subsequently tested. Been able to make a few little improvements here and there in that time to tweak it out to be better flow-per-flow right across the entire flow range, and with a slightly lower pressure drop to boot.

On the performance per hydraulic power graph, which IMO is the single best indicator of a design's performance & efficiency, it is almost uniformally about 3% better (i.e. 3% lower temps) with any given pump.
 
Cathar said:
On the performance per hydraulic power graph, which IMO is the single best indicator of a design's performance & efficiency, it is almost uniformally about 3% better (i.e. 3% lower temps) with any given pump.
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NICE!
 
That's one hell of a pretty block. I'm so happy to see that they didn't make it look as fugly as the 6000 series that I'm beside myself.
 
CAD OC'er said:
Is the new mounting bracket compatible with the G5?
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Yes - it should be. All block clamping holes are in the same location and the oval cut-out is the same size.
 
I'm glad to see that the wait is finally over! I just ordered me up one directly from Switech's site. I should have it in my grubby hands by Monday. :D
It should work wonderfully with my current WCing setup...
DD TDX (will be replaced with the Swiftech Storm)
DD Acetal-topped Maze4GPU
Swiftech MCP655
DD dual-120 HC
DD dual-5.25 bay resevoir
 
Hi,
I just wanna check that is the STORM Extreme Performance Universal CPU water-block the 1 wich just came out? on the Swiftech's site.
 
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