A custom computer case meant for water-cooling obviously means a custom distribution plate for said water-cooling. Designing one is actually fairly simple, especially if you know some CAD and follow the Bit-Tech Youtube Guide by Alex.
I did just that, but I wanted to highlight some things that I didn’t catch in the tutorial or had been refined. Instead they were caught by Arya from AquaCustoms when he reviewed my CAD-file. Some of these are measurements that differ from the video guide, others are me being a dumbass and not listening to the guide. Arya learned a few of these from Alex himself, who I assume has refined his measurements from the time he made the guide.
- The channel for the O-ring.
Apparently this is only supposed to be on one of the sides of the block. I did it on both the first time around. I completely missed it because I am a bad student. - Countersunk holes
The guide itself specifies the holes for screws should be chamfered with a 2.1mm chamfer. I was informed by Arya that a 2.2 will make M4 screws sit flush. At 2.1 they’ll stick up a bit. - Chamfer your G1/4 hole
Acrylic is a brittle material. If the holes are left without a chamfer you are likely to chip the edges when you screw in your fittings. A chamfer removes that risk and helps guide the fittings into the threading. A suggested value is 0.6mm. - Consider your fittings and their thread length
If your fitting has a thread length of 7mm and your distro has a thread length of 5mm it’s not gonna be right. I had to doublecheck some Koolance QD3s to make sure that my 5mm were enough. Turns out it was. - Channels for RGB
For RGB I asked Alex what kind of cutouts he would suggest. The suggestion was a 3mm wide channel that’s 6mm deep. The part that this is in should also be frosted to better help diffuse the light. The strips he recommended are the Alphacool ones. - Don’t trust your digital measurements
Always measure your actual case before ordering. There will be differences due to machining. I am currently waiting to do so, but almost there!
With all of these adjustments, and when I have done proper measurements next week, I will order a distro from Alex. You can do so as well by heading to his website and contacting him from there.