DangerDen Dual 3.5 Bay Reservoir

Today we take a look at one of Danger Den’s 3.5 dual floppy bay reservoir, they also sent us some UV green water dye to show the thing I its glory. This item will be added to the current PCI-Express test bed. Now the first thing I want to point out about this review is that its not performance related but more of a useful addition to a kit, the only thing I will be able to check performance wise is the flow and whether there are any restrictions in the flow due to the design. We also took this opportunity to look at some of there water dye in the green variety.

In the Box

As you can see the reservoir arrived shipped in a substantial amount of protective polystyrene. Taking the contents out of the box I was pleased to find noting damaged and not one mark or scratch on the res.

Well the photo above shows why there are no scratches on the res as there is a protective sticker all around the res itself. Not only does this insure it arrives in perfect condition it sows you Danger Den want you to receive it that way rather than selling you a picture n the net and sending out a interpretation of the picture (mind you not much chance of that ever happening with these guys). There were also 4 screws for mounting (should really have supplied one spare) although I never lost one if you did well put it this way I have a large quality street tin full of pc screws and I couldn’t find one to fit the bay. I know most people wouldn’t loose any but what if you did?

The cap for topping up the fluid is situated close to the front and the rear houses the inlet and outlet. What is even better is the holes are huge and the only size barbs available for this bay are ½ and 3/8 high flow, as my setup is based on 10mm inner diameter I chose the 3/8 barbs. Before I attach these let’s take a look at the reservoir without the protective skin.

It was nice to see the unit so well made, I couldn’t spot any imperfections in the design at all.

With the protective layer off you can see the bay is actually very well made right down the flow guide inside, by this I mean centre strip of acrylic inside the unit this basically helps with the flow of the water and causes it to move in a U shape through the res. Also evident was the pre drilled holes for mounting the bay and the ½ screw insert on the rear. Speaking of which lets get them barbs on and take a look at the fit. It was here I noticed the pre drilled LED holes as well, nice!

The barbs screwed in perfectly and with a slight nip with a spanner they were nice and secure (don’t over tighten though, remember your screwing it into acrylic). Now for the hard part getting the 10m tube over the 3/8 barbs. Well here is were a saucepan and a bit of distilled water come in handy???? I know but its simple boil up a bit of water say 2 inches in the pan, then once the waters boiling insert just the area of the hose that’s going over the barb for a few seconds and that’s it. Tubing will now be soft enough to get other the barbs in second’s rater than minutes.

Here is the test systems water cooling setup

Hydor L30 pump

1xBlackIce Radiator 120mm

1xBlackIce Double radiator 80mm

1x Antarctica Block

1x Danger Den dual floppy bay reservoir

additives to water= Danger Den water dye and Water Wetter

Second the flow route starting with the pump

Pump—120mm radiator---Cpu block----1xDual 80mm radiator---reservoir and back to the pump.

Now before I install the res let e tell you how I am going to mount it. As I will need to top up the water now and again I don’t want to have to take both side panels off to loosen the screws so on the reverse side of the system I only screw on screw in, the reason for this is so I can just loosen the two on the windowed side and then slide the unit a little forward to top up the water. To get a chance to see the flow I pt the dye into the radiator so as soon as the pump starts I can look and see how fast the green goes through the system. And should see no change from when I first set up this kit with standard res.

Mmm very nice, what surprised me most was there was no foaming and I have to put that down to the reservoir as when I done the exact same setting up procedure, but the tiny res was full of foam and air all the way trough the system were as with this there was none. Also noticeable for me was the flow the dyed water hit the res and back out again in milliseconds, which was impressive as my old one the dye sort of nested for a few seconds  the res before going back out e inlet

It was quite ice to see my overall temps drop by a few Celsius (2-3) just from this reservoir, this also lead me to the conclusion that the flow in my setup has been greatly improved  as well as looking well nice in the dark with Danger Dens UV reactive dye. Before I give you my conclusion let me show you how the dye reacts to UV.

As you can see the dye’s UV properties are excellent and really brought the dull looking water to life. Much better looking and better flow just from laying out about 18- 20 GBP or around 30 USD it cant be wrong

Part 4 – Conclusion

Well anything that can improve temps even slightly is a bonus in my book and 2-3c is a bit I the overclock world. Enough to get a bit more juice the res was well made and had excellent flow compared to most on the market, it also along with the Danger Den dye gave an excellent finish and would do to any ones kit. Ok let’s not o completely overboard with the praise of this device, I will just leave it with a few words. This was a permanent sample kindly provided by Danger Den, but if it wasn’t I wouldn’t be giving it back they would have to send the national guard to get itJ. A much appreciated improvement on my old setup and t looks nice too.

Pros

Excellent flow

Looks good

Had a temp drop after fitting

Available with ½ fittings

Available for 5.25 Bay

Cheap addition to any kit

Well constructed

Cons

Should come with a few spare screws

Thanks to Dano at Danger Den for supplying the Reservoir

Also a big thanks to WaterCoolingShop.com for help with the Extra connections I needed for this setup

Review by R Bowzer

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