Need feedback on custom WC case design

[voigts]

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/voigts/FinalModelPics/front2Opt.jpg

I have been modeling a case design that I am looking into making sometime in the near future and would like to get feedback on it. My basic idea in making this is to make a case that to me is optimized for watercooling and that will still fit in my desk. I haven't had any leaks, but if anything leaks on systems, it runs on MBs, PSUs, etc. causing problems. I also wanted to be able to put my radiator horizontally instead of vertically as in my current setup as I think that it will cool even better passively oriented that way. My current car rad setup for those of you who might be interested is here (http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=401801&page=1&pp=30)

Working with metal is a pain in the neck, so I am looking at using wood and acrylic as I have an entire arsenal of woodworking tools to include a compound miter saw, table saw, router w/table, rotozip, drills, and sanders. And having made a few reservoirs out of acrylic, I have a good grasp on working with that also.

The sides will both swing out, and the bottom and front will be removable. I plan on using a removable MB tray to simplify things. I also am going to route the corners with some kind of nice edge and add trim, etc. that I did not model.

I have two 3/8"ID hard drive coolers, and hence the "Y" adapters going into and out of them as everything else is 1/2"ID. I already have made the res in the pics (3/8" thick acrylic!). I have to give credit to the Sketchup components collection at http://scc.jazzle.co.uk. I sure helped save a lot of time, although I have probably spent 30+ hours getting the hang of Sketchup and drawing this model.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/voigts/FinalModelPics/front2.jpg
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/voigts/FinalModelPics/front1.jpg
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/voigts/FinalModelPics/front3.jpg
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/voigts/FinalModelPics/side1.jpg
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/voigts/FinalModelPics/side2.jpg
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/voigts/FinalModelPics/side3.jpg
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/voigts/FinalModelPics/side4.jpg
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/voigts/FinalModelPics/bottom1.jpg
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/voigts/FinalModelPics/bottom2.jpg
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/voigts/FinalModelPics/bottom3.jpg

Let me know what you folks think and if you see any improvements that can be made.

[doulos]

so from what i can see from the bottom pics your going to invert the motherboard? do you have a way to mount the pci/agp or pcie cards upside down like that? that might be a design issue and also accessing the components upside down might be hard as well. couldnt having to turn your rig over cause air issues into your system if your not careful?

_________________________
intel northwood 2.8 @ 3.4ghz
ausu p4p800-vm 800fsb
1 gig of ram ddr400
dual 80gig wd drives
gforce 6600 @ 333 550mhz
digi 001 audio 18 in 24 out
dual 19inch hansol monitors

[clocker2]

It's an interesting design.
Some of the tube routing looks unrealistic though, have you performed real-world tests to see if the hose you will be using can actually bend to the degree in the drawing?

[rogerdugans]

Very interesting design- I like the idea of doing things different too.

The issues raised by others do make sense to me, although I don't think they are insurmountable.

*For expansion cards- you say you are planning a removeable mobo tray: possibly building this so that you can remove mobo AND pci/video cards in one shot would allow you to include a card retension device of some sort. This would make cards slipping out a bit a non-issue.

* Tight bends- The pics show some very tight tubing 90s, which would be likely to kink; it may just be the graphic program, but if you DO end up with very tight bends somewhere, I suggest either copper or pvc plumbing fittings, preferably of a slightly larger size to reduce flow restriction. Even a 1/2" ID copper elbow would be better than kinked tubing though.

Last concern- how will the mobo tray be removed? Looks like it would be out the back- will the radiator hoses block it from being easily pulled out? I'd think that setting the mobo/card assembly on a unit that can be pulled straight out the back would make access as easy as possible, but might require re-routing some tubing.

Ideas to ponder. :)

[ƒÓÒl]

I'd point out one thing I noticed too. The acrylic mounting of the CD and HD's is going to get the drive quite hot. I killed a CD burner that way once, so I make my carriers of copper flashing. It's easy to bend/solder/rivet it to your will, and the only tools required are a hammer, drill, some snips/heavy scissors, and an edge to bend it over.

Nice design though. I like the way the components all fit together.

[voigts]

Thanks a lot for the input everyone. You all have points that make me think through the design to try to make sure I have the bases covered.

do you have a way to mount the pci/agp or pcie cards upside down like that? that might be a design issue and also accessing the components upside down might be hard as well.

duolos: I thought about that issue of mounting the cards upside down, but I think that as long as they are screwed in on the end as you normally do they won't go anywhere. I could always go with a cardkeeper for the sound card (not in the drawing) if that becomes an issue. I already made one out of acrylic for my VC to prevent bending due to the weight of the waterblock and tubing. I don't think air will be an issue although I'll have to do a little tossing around when bleeding to get the air out of the rad..

Access is something that I am concerned with also, but the way I want to set it up, both sides and bottom are removable. I should be able to get to any components more easily than a normal case allows for. I want the drive mount frame to attach to the top so that i don't have to move it when I take the bottom off.

how will the mobo tray be removed? Looks like it would be out the back- will the radiator hoses block it from being easily pulled out? I'd think that setting the mobo/card assembly on a unit that can be pulled straight out the back would make access as easy as possible, but might require re-routing some tubing
Rogerdugans: I appreciate the different complement. I just got to trying to think "outside of the box" with this and having the MB upside down seems to me to be a logical way to avoid any potential drip problems killing components. This is the motherboard tray that I am planning to use. http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=130_210&products_id=3387
It has both the MB and PCI slots connected and removable. The hoses in the back would be in the way if trying to remove the MB tray, but I see no way to avoid that. So far I have found that the removable part really is handy when initially putting the system together, but after that I don't see a need to remove it.

As far as tight bends go, the only one that in real world might be tight is the return from the hard drive cooler back to the res, but I think there is enough extra room for it to work OK. I'm using 1/2" Tygon R3603 which has like a 2 1/2" or so bend radius, and I am only looking at about 3 1/2". The other ones are a result of trying to draw tubing which is a REAL PAIN in the neck. I just wanted to get an idea of how the tubing will route to make sure it will work. I figured in how the tubing would naturally run in my head and I don't see any problems. I allowed room for extra tubing in the runs.

The acrylic mounting of the CD and HD's is going to get the drive quite hot
Fool: I don't think there will be a heat issue. I want to leave a slight gap, like 1/16" airspace above and below the DVD drive. I think that should be adequate. I also have under the rad in the top of the case a place for a 120mm fan to be mounted with a hole in the top of the case above the MB for an exhaust fan. Using copper for the mounting is an interesting idea I hadn't thought of. I thought of using acrylic as it would make it easy to mark and drill mounting holes.

The one thing that I am trying to still work out is how to actually attach the sides and bottom so that they are easy to remove and will last. I don't just want to use wood screws as they tend to work loose after screwing and unscrewing over and over. I am also thinking of using a couple of metal hinges for the right side by the PCI slots.

Thanks for the feedback. keep it coming!

[sunrunner20]

Upside down motherboard is perfectly A-ok. Computers are designed to where they work from all angles(or they should at least). The only expecption I know of is a cdrom drive won't work upside down :rolleyes:
One advantage that you might not have realized is that if it leaks the water falls to the bottom instead of onto something else.

[rogerdugans]

That tray takes car of a bunch of issues. :)
With the cards being screwed in on the ends, no worries there at all, I'd think.

As for the radiator tubing in the way of sliding the mobo tray out backwards when needed:

Might not be worth the hassles involved, but if you used elbows of a sufficiently large diameter (say 3/4" ID in a 1/2" ID system) flow restriction would be minimal and allow you to have the tubing enter the case just about wherever you wanted, with little impact on cooling performance.

As for the removal of the sides, etc:
Wood screws will definitely loosen up over time, but there are also metal inserts you can get that fit flush with the surface and will last much longer.
Another option might be magnetic latches. Placement of magnets is something you would want to be careful of, but cabinet latches are NOT very strong and a few inches should be plenty. Might work quite well with some cabinet hinges. :)

Last option that occurs to me is the cam latches that a lot of "kit" furniture (desks, shelves and cabinets) are assembled with. They are usually carried at decent hardware stores and a decently durable and not expensive. Pain in the neck to use in custom work though- drilling/routing and such may be a bit involved.

[Albigger]

I would definatly attach the cards like a conventional tray if hanging upside-down.

The only thing I'd worry about is I'm not sure some of the components on the motherboard will dissipate heat the way they were designed to if the mobo is inverted. Seems it would be VERY susceptible to any dead spots/recirculation zones where the air would just continue to heat. As long as you have good case airflow though, I bet it would still work fine, just something to think about.

[citronym]

Albigger makes a good point, I would keep an eye on that. Otherwise I think its a great idea. I'm a fan of passive cooling.

[voigts]

One advantage that you might not have realized is that if it leaks the water falls to the bottom instead of onto something else
Sunrunner: That is exactly the idea for mounting it upside down!

Rogerdugans: The cam latches or metal inserts are a good idea. I will have to take a trip to ACE to see what they carry. They seem to be a lot better at stuff like that than any Lowe's, etc. around here. I especially like the idea of the cam latches if I can get them.

I have used 5/8"ID brass 90 degree elbows before in another setup and they seemed to cause very little flow issues. If all else fails I would do that but of course I would rather avoid it.

As long as you have good case airflow though, I bet it would still work fine, just something to think about
Albigger: That is a good point. Underneath the rad in the top of the case I want to put a 120mm fan so that it will suck air out from on top of the case, on the backside of the MB. The MB and tray will have about a 1/4" standoff from the top of the case to allow air to pass over the MB and out of the top. Otherwise I could see that the top of the case is going to be a heat trap. Hopefully that will do the trick. I might also need to mount a fan on 5 volts blowing directly onto the MB for the chipset heatsink, etc. I hadn't really thought of the heatsink heat dissipation.
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/voigts/topFan.jpg

[voigts]

Well, I just took my acrylic res made out of all 3/8" and plugged it up to the sink faucet using a waterbed fill kit last night. I opened up the faucet all the way using warm water and let it sit for about 1 1/2 hours. It took the full pressure without so much as a hiccup (about 55 psi). I even tapped it and knocked it to see if it would break while under pressure. Now that is a res I can be confident in!

[xCRF450]

as far as i can see from the model it looks damn sexy.. i dont konw how to do any of that modeling stuff, so that makes you a god among men to me...

[d94]

very interesting design..if you build it i deffinetly want pixxx

[bryan_d]

Very Cool,

Is this case made primarily for the sake of flexing your fabrication muscles or do you intend to make the case for performance reasons? I see your intention of trying to prevent leaks to fall onto components but other than that all I see is an awesome way to kill some time.

Good Luck and keep us posted!

Bryan D

[Captain Slug]

From personal experience I would recommend designing in 1 or 2 inches of "buffer" space around the edges of a full ATX motherboard. This extra space becomes valuable when it comes to routing cables or tubing later in the build.

[voigts]

i dont konw how to do any of that modeling stuff, so that makes you a god among men to me...
xCRF450: Now that's funny! I forget how I ran across the Sketchup collection I linked to above, but that got me started on modeling this thing. Believe me, I barely know what I am doing, but I must say that for developing something like this, the ability to model it to scale and really make it work is very sweet.

Is this case made primarily for the sake of flexing your fabrication muscles or do you intend to make the case for performance reasons? I see your intention of trying to prevent leaks to fall onto components but other than that all I see is an awesome way to kill some time.
bryan_d: Preventing leaks doing any damage is part of the idea, but also I am thinking that by having my car rad mounted horizontally instead of vertically like it is on my current setup, it will work even better than it does now for passive cooling. Otherwise, I do think it will be a fun project!

From personal experience I would recommend designing in 1 or 2 inches of "buffer" space around the edges of a full ATX motherboard. This extra space becomes valuable when it comes to routing cables or tubing later in the build.
Captain Slug: I see what you are saying. Right now in my current case there is only about 1/2" at the bottom and 1" at the top of the MB. I did get about 1/2" top and bottom, but I don't have much room in front of the MB. I tried my best to figure in cable routing and where it will all go, which is always a challenge. Most of the cabling will stay on the PS (left) side of the case. I really don't want to go any wider as at 1' 2 1/2" wide it will still fit comfortably inside of my desk. I could however make it a little deeper, which might be a good idea for cable routing as you mention. I will see how that will work out. BTW, your CPU block thread looks slick!

Thanks for the suggestions and feedback! :) Any more?

[MoreGooder]

Wow! That's very creative indeed.

Some thoughts:

Have you considered expanding this idea to be not your CPU case, but your ENTIRE desk? This is something I have thought about doing, and it looks like you are well on your way. Since you'll be building the case out of wood, build your desk too while you're at it.

Some things to consider: Particle board or MDF + water = soggy mess. Stick with plywood.

Sand, stain and put a couple coats of poly on the plywood sheets BEFORE you start cutting it. That way, once assembled, you only need to put a final gloss of finish on. I highly recommend this stuff: Arm-R-Seal (http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=10928). This stuff is amazing. I built an entire kitchen full of cabinets and finished them with this, and the finish looks factory made, extremely durable.

Rockler also sells some iron-on wood edging that you can use to cover up the plywood ends, but I think that the exposed plywood layers would look really nice. If you go that route, try to find "cabinet makers" grade plywood. Most Grade A plywood will do the trick and doesn't cost much more than the cheap stuff.

Rockler is a great website, and they might have a local brick-and-mortar near you if you live in a large metro area.

With regards to magnets near stuff. Hard drives are shielded using a special alloy call Mu metal. It has extremely high magnetic permeability, meaning that it absorbs magnetic fields readily. Magnetic fields also fall off as more of a square of the distance. Thank goodness, otherwise motors wouldn't work. I wouldn't worry too much about getting a magnet too close to it, but certainly don't put a magnet directly on it.

Zalman makes a neato bracket for mounting case fans. I think you could use one of
these to blow onto your chipset and/or DDR: A few websites sell it as a separate accessory. Zalman Bracket (http://www.directron.com/br123.html)
It mounts using the same screws that holds your expansion cards in place. I use one in my case to hold an 80mm fan over my DDR memory. Highly versatile and inexpensive. Compatible with any fan size since you just use one corner of the fan to mount to the other end of the bracket. It ships with special hardware for holding the fan onto the bracket.

Hope all of that long-winded mess helps you. Keep us posted!

[Albigger]

This is slightly OT but since MoreGooder mentioned making an entire desk this may be worth the read for those interested. It's a neat project.
http://www.procooling.com/index.php?func=articles&disp=143

[voigts]

Have you considered expanding this idea to be not your CPU case, but your ENTIRE desk?
MoreGooder: Wow, lots of interesting ideas. Making the entire desk into a big case is however in my situation out. We have an oak roll-top computer desk that my wife and I bought a few years ago. Really, it is not optimal as far as my setup is concerned, but it does work ok, and it is nice to be able to just shut the top when someone drops by. My wife would not be happy if I announced that I was getting rid of the roll-top for a custom pc watercooling desk! She thinks I am half-nuts as it is (which may be true). I'll have to check out the Arm-R-Seal.

I think I am going to use panelboard for the project. This is various boards glued together to make one board. It is quite warp resistant, and would give me a regular board edge which I can route and make look nice. I thought about plywood, but I don't care for plywood edges and they don't route well. I don't want this project to just look like a box. I want to be able to really give it some nice edges, etc. to make it look like something.

That zalman bracket gives me some ideas...

Albigger: That project is something else. That was an interesting read and is a very interesting project.

[MoreGooder]

Ah yes, the wife factor. Didn't see that coming.

Another idea: Build the hole case out of acrylic. Gotta be carefull with the glue though, or it will look like a mess. Best leave the paper on until the very last minute.

[Etacovda]

Id look at doing some creative duct work to cut down on fan noise, and to target specific componentry, personally.

[voigts]

Build the hole case out of acrylic
I seriously considered doing that and haven't thrown out the idea completely. Having built a number of acrylic reservoirs, I also know that it can be a pain to work with. I don't know that I can get the cuts made in acrylic that I want without a LOT of trouble, if at all, namely the cut for the PS mount and cover and some new cuts like it for the sides to pivot open (don't have it in the pics yet). I'm still batting this around, although right now I am siding with wood.

Id look at doing some creative duct work to cut down on fan noise, and to target specific componentry, personally.
I might make a hole in the back of the case with a duct blowing over the chipset heatsink/ram area. Other than that, I am only looking at a yate loon at 5v for intake, and another in the top of the case for exhaust, and at 5v, they are nearly silent. I don't know of any other duct ideas to go with. Any specific ideas?

[bryan_d]

I did not realise that you are creating a passive radiator. In that case I would even suggest creating a chimney!

http://tinypic.com/kdoal5.gif

[MoreGooder]

Since you are considering mounting your fans and creating your own fan holes, how 'bout considering a "blower" instead of an axial fan? Surpluscenter.com I believe has them. I've long lost my links to the ocforum threads on this topic, but do a search. They provide high air flow but low noise, but usually require plugging into 120VAC I believe. Someone might, by now, sell a 12VDC squirrel cage or blower.

If just bought 2 of these (http://www.directron.com/4412fgl.html) fans for my rig. I'll let you know what I think.

[voigts]

bryan_d: A chimney is a good idea for a passive setup, however, I don't think my wife would be too pleased at me putting a chimney in the middle of our living room where my desk is! (not to mention I'm not so sure I would either). Good suggestion though.

MoreGooder: I am really a silence fanatic, and I have not seen any blowers that are quiet. All of them seem to be just too loud. After trying many different fans, I am running yate loons at 7v and are very happy with them as they are VERY quiet.

I'd like to know about those papst fans. They are rated a barely better than the yate loons according to the specs, although they cost like twice as much.

[MoreGooder]

SilentPCReview has info on them.

Here's a pdf file with the data: fan specs (http://www.silentpcreview.com/files/fanspecs/fanspecs.pdf)

Page 2, near the end of the document. Be sure to look at the FGL one and not the FGML one. The FGL is the one I linked to previously. SUPER quiet.

Note how quiet they are at 7 volts, and what their CFM rating is. Amazing.

[MoreGooder]

Dangerden wooden cases (http://www.dangerdenstore.com/product.php?productid=201&cat=1&page=1)

[bryan_d]

bryan_d: A chimney is a good idea for a passive setup, however, I don't think my wife would be too pleased at me putting a chimney in the middle of our living room where my desk is! (not to mention I'm not so sure I would either). Good suggestion though.


Hehehe whoops.

The more I look at your drawings the more I am beginning to want to make my own case!

You're infecting me!
Bryan d

[voigts]

MoreGooder: I can't get that link to pull up for some reason. As for the Danger Den wooden cases, I have seen those and I have had those in the back of my mind! I'm going to try to beat them! (for a LOT less)

The more I look at your drawings the more I am beginning to want to make my own case!

You're infecting me!

bryan_d: That's funny. Since I started pondering this idea, I have spent at least 30+ hours over several weeks working on the modeling, and as much as I like my current case, I can't seem to get away from this case idea. Maybe it is a virus or something! I was even at ACE this morning looking at what kind of hinges to use on the sides and how to make the mount for the fan grill. I am waiting on some money from a website I have done and billed for to come in during the next couple of weeks and then I am hoping to get this thing started.

[MoreGooder]

just go directly to silentpcreview, and click on the fans section.

[voigts]

I still haven't found the data on that papst fan. I must be dense at the moment.