Project: SPARC_Table (Coffee Table PC)

Well, getting "Back in the game" with modding, so to speak, I decided to revive an older project, one I hadn't worked on for about a year or so.

The root of this project began well over a year ago when shopping at the local computer show. One of the vendors was selling tons of surplus used parts, and I came across an old Sun SPARC Station 2 pizza box. Being an ex-government machine, it was heavily stripped down.

It did contain the heart of the machine, but was lacking a floppy drive, hard drive, and RAM.

But, I paid 5 bucks. So couldn't complain, and I wanted to mess around with it and add it to my computer collection. Soon afterwards, I scored a pair of Sun Ultra5 workstations that were complete and fed my desire to mess around with older Sun equipment.

So the SPARC 2 sat...until I had a great idea.

I needed a media PC, something to drive my home made projector and also pump some music to my home theater speakers. Something also that could be a next-to-couch entertainment center that had a wireless keyboard setup with Internet. Games weren't a huge priority, but the ability for a few older ones here or there were of interest.

Originally all I had was an old Shuttle KM133 board and a few spare AMD Duron and Tbird chips. However, I later scored 2 KM400 mATX boards from newegg refurbs.

These boards sat awhile but one would be destined for this project. I dusted them off, and tested them, one being a Gigabyte, the other a PC-Chips, both VIA KM400 Socket A mATX boards. Both worked, but the Gigabyte was acting a tad finicky, so I decided to focus on the PC Chips board. In the end I will have to bench test both to decide which I want to use - it will be a mix of stability (paramount concern), onboard audio performance, and PCB color.

I also gathered some more components, mainly the CPU and RAM that will be used.

Oh, and did I mention, these parts are all going to be custom installed in the SPARC 2?

And did I mention, it will have table legs?

That's right, this is the making of the "SPARC_Table" project. A media PC that pays homage to an old Sun workhorse while pulling triple duty as a coffee table and just plain art.

The plan is to put all these PC parts custom installed in the SPARC 2 chassis, cut the top off, and install a lexan (or glass) top. A custom air cooled setup (or watercooled if I can design a proper yet small setup to fit) will keep things cool. LED's and cathode lighting with an on/off switch will keep things looking cool when I want, or unobtrusive when necessary.

So here's the start...

The system's planned specs:

PC-Chips or Gigabyte mATX KM400 board
AMD Athlon Tbred 1700+
1gb DDR RAM
80gb IDE or 200gb SATA HDD
DVD/RW combo drive
200w Seventeam micro-sized ATX PSU

Right now I have most of the parts, including the table legs.

Here's the starting point, the SPARC 2:


First step was to open her up, gut the old components, and cut away various internal baffles and supports. I needed a clean slate to start with.

Next I sketched out basic locations for future reference, and began to drill some mounting holes. At this time I also mounted the base plates for the table legs (got those at IKEA...)



Had to test the basic rig, make sure the CPU worked well with the board, that the RAM was good, and that the mini PSU would be happy powering it all.



I'm not sure I'll use the hard drive above, it's an 80gb WD and gets pretty hot, plus it's IDE and even round cables are a bit of a pain to route compared to SATA.

I may not have much of a choice though, as the two boards do not have onboard SATA...at anyrate, I'd prefer a cooler drive for these tight quarters. SATA could be an option since I have a PCI riser, which can allow me to mount one PCI card horizontally...if I leave room. If I use it, it will either be a nice sound card or possibly a low rise SATA controller is an option.

Next I test fitted the components. I adjusted the orientation from my original design due to a desire to try a different cooling design. You'll see in this pic, the basic cpu cooling components are layed out, more info below.

Part 2

To help cool this machine, I'm considering a setup similar to displayed above. Being such a short pizza-box style case, there is no room for a standard HSF and a 1U setup may not be effective. Even a 1U setup doesn't leave much room between the top of the case and the top of the HSF, so airflow will suffer.

My preliminary idea is to make a custom fiberglass duct system to draw cool air from outside the box into the intake of a custom mounted squirrel cage fan such as the Nidec Gamma in the picture. This will blow through the heatsink (copper, the on in the pic is an old Vantec unit) and into another squirrel cage fan that will exhaust the hot cpu air as well as the rest of the case air outward.

Here's a closeup of the proposed setup:


The second squirrel cage fan (the all metal one) was taken from an old HP Laserjet II printer that had to be disposed of, hence I harvested as many parts as I could from it.

It claims to be 24v and I've not yet tested it on 12v. I'm hoping 12v will be enough to start it, and if so, it should run pretty quiet. I'm also not set on the Nidec Gamma, but it's what I had in my box, I may look for a smaller blower.



Finally, the PSU, is a mini ATX unit, 200w but plenty of oomph for a 200watter. It has two 40mm fans, one intake, one exhaust, and is rather quiet, so will probably be left as is.





NEXT STEPS:

Next will be to mount all the hardware, this includes creating brackets for all the hardware and mounting the board and PSU properly. I'll have to be more settled on the orientation of parts.

After that the rear section will be cut off and I'll have to machine a custom backing plate. I can do it myself with hand tools, but would be open to paying for a custom made peice if it was cost-effective to have it CNC'd or cut professionally from thin steel so I could just bolt it in. That takes away from the DIY but would yeild a more professional look.

Also I'll need to cut the side exhaust port, and DVDRW port. I plan to cut this carefully and have the plastic side of the SPARC act as the door for the DVD, so as to keep the original aesthetics...but we will see.

I already have the table legs, they need to be cut to length though as they are too long right now.

I'll keep things updated as I make progress.

Cool lets see more

For the cooling, I've run across a few heatsinks made for servers, so they're very flat. I found 'em on newegg and svc I think.

atomic ferret said:

For the cooling, I've run across a few heatsinks made for servers, so they're very flat. I found 'em on newegg and svc I think.

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Yeah, those are 1U HSF's, there are some out there for Socket A. I'm a tad concerned about them becuase the thin 60 or 70mm fans they use are generally not all that powerful, or they use 60mm Delta's which are taller and too loud for this application.

My fear with the smaller quieter fans is that they will still be too close to the Lexan top and therefor their intake will be restricted. Servers often deal with this by having 60mm case fans (basically delta38's usually) blowing through to increase airflow through the HSF.

Many servers also use a bare heatsink with a side mounted 60mm fan or a squirrel cage blower. This allows for a taller heatsink and therefore more surface area for cooling.

I'm willing to try a 1U but I don't have one handy whereas I do have a nice Dynatron skived copper heatsink that should fit with a side mounted blower. So, I'm going to try that route.

I'm going for a quieter machine, so I'll need to detune the blower most likely. To get the cooling efficiency and quiet operation I want with air cooling that means maximum surface area and COOL air.

So, rather than leave the blower bare I plan to build a fiberglass air duct that will attach to the Nidec's intake and route directly to the back of the case. This will allow it to take in external-air directly and feed that cooler air over the HSF rather than getting the warmer air that's sitting right near that northbridge and CPU.

There are some hurdles though, I'll need a custom mounting frame to position it right, and the intake may still be close to the top so I need to be sure I can get good airflow into the intake mounted this way. I do not want a hole in the top - it needs to be relatively waterproof up there to survive a spilled drink. This will be functional as both a computer and table. That may mean I need to include a "splash guard" over the rear panel to keep spilled liquid IF IT HAPPENS off the conections in back.

I'll no more as I start moutning things and checking height clearances. The ductwork should be an interesting peice to build I'll be sure to document that. I plan to make the mold out of foam and then create it out of fiberglass and then painted. If I could find sources I would even consider carbon fiber, that'd be sweet looking!

Last night progress was slowed because I lost my drill, I left it at my folks house I believe. I may pick up a cheap one today as it was getting old anyway, I need to be able to drill mounting holes, and I need some new attaching hardware anyway.

That and I'll power up that 24V fan and see if she runs on 12V.

Also not pictured, I do have the original "feet" from the pizza box case, they were glued on, they will be modified to clear the table legs and reinstalled to keep the true Sparc Station 2 look. Hopefully the front and side of the case will clean up too.

I may paint the inside of the case for looks but right now plan to keep the outside stock sparc 2.

Also, I will probably window the CD drive and have considered running PSU without the top portion of it's case but wonder if there would be any electrical interference doing this so close to the board and HDD. I have done this one before on my VCR computer (which I only ran for about a month and lost all but three pics of)

Update

First off, a question. I tested the 24v metal squirrel cage fan. 75% of the time it will start on it's own with 12v. However, there are times if it stops at the right spot (between the bearings for instance) that 12v isn't enough to get it started - a simple nudge gets things spinning.

Is there any way to get more than 12v to the fan, even if only for a second (like a push-button switch integrated to the power-on button) to be sure it starts up? Can you run the power lines in series at all, say 12v + 5v to get 17v out of a PSU without causing damage?

Now on to the update...

Well, I did some more work on the SPARC_Table tonight. One of the big things I realized is just how thin these pizza box cases really are. This is definitely a 1U height and even then it feels like less. The cooling will be a real challenge. I've been able to study many 1U setups for cooling in servers, but most of those focus ore on airflow and not silence. They are kept cool by staying loud.

That's one reason why I chose the 1700 Tbred, at least it's a fairly cool running chip...

There can't be more than about 30mm of clearance between the CPU core and the top of the case.

Anyway...

I started off by hitting the hardware store to update my hardware bin...this feeds other projects I have going on.



I did make a mistake though, I bought #10 machine screws, which depending on the manufacturer or the screw or the board may be JUST A HAIR to thick to fit through a motherboard's mounting hole. Yes, mine were. Luckily I had #8 screws in the bin already, and I used those.

When I setup something like this, I like to just use a longer machine screw and go in from the bottom of the case rather than drill and tap for regular standoffs. After that I like to use neoprene coated washers as standoff's - another option are nylon spacers, which I found in 1/4" size. Either will work and I've used both before.

In this setup, I chose to use one nut to hold the #8 screws tight followed by a neoprene coated washer. (Nylon washers are OK as well, of course.) Then lay the board on, and use a second nut to secure the board. This gives a uniform height across the mounting plate that is very modular - I can easily raise or lower the mounting height by removing the base nut and using just the neoprene washer, or by adding a third nut or spacer.

At any rate, I test-mounted the board. Everything lined up and it will secure. You will notice there are several other screws that are loose, some are coming out as they aren't needed, others secure the table-leg mounts, while few hold a panel I made to cover a large hole where the old PSU extended below the case floor.

(Yes, even Sun couldn't fit all the hardware in here without breaking out of the case - my hope is to engineer a solution that fits completely within.)





Here's the nylon spacers I found, for those doing setups like this or test benches, nylon spacers through some machine screws could be a good solution...I'll link to this pic not display in the thread to save room: http://www.neuralimpulse.com/sparctable/100_0813002.jpg

Once the board was in, I began to test fit the DVDRW, HDD, PSU, and metal squirrel cage fan. I used old hardware for the test fitting, the hdd and CD drive are not the final pieces.

In a setup like this I find often there is no need for specially fabricated mounting hardware. The hardware store carries an assortment of "L" brackets that are very handy for mounting stuff.

I used "L" brackets to mount most of the stuff. Depending on how you orient it, the "L" can go in or out, and depending on the size used you can adjust the height the device will sit. For the Hard drive, I chose a bracket that would position the drive about 1cm in the air to promote cooling under the drive. For the DVD drive, it will need to sit just off the ground, again, the right size L bracket got me where I needed to be.

As you can see in this pic, the orientation of the "L" works for what I want to mount. Putting them inward and mounting them before hand into the case will create a "drive cage" wherever you need it. Putting them outward does the same thing, if you have room, and lets you have the option of securing the drive to the brackets, or the finished cage assembly to the case.



For the PSU I found that I could use the cover mounting points to anchor a pair of L brackets. Unfortunately of the sizes I have, I'm about 1/16" too high. It should work though without modification, though I may need a small spacer on the other side to keep things tight. The front of the PSU has mounting holes already in it, so I based my solution off what was already there for me.

Here is the hardware in it's near-final spot:



As you can see, not much room for a watercooling setup at all...it's sounding like air will be the way to go.

Once everything was preliminarily in, I wanted to see if my Nidec fan would fit without too much trouble, i.e. capacitors in the way, peripherals in the way, etc. Good news was that it fits over the board with good orientation of the fan's outlet near the CPU heatsink fins.



Bad news is that the board takes up so much space, there is virtually no room above the Nidec for air to actually enter the intake.



The image is a tad deceiving since some things were just sitting unattached at the time, but basically installed properly it will sit just about flush with the top of the case.

I will have to think it out a bit, hopefully I can find a thinner blower. Heck it could be as easy as flipping it over! However, I fully expect the cooling aspect to be a challenge considering the height limitations. I will be checking out 1U coolers but fear they too will sit to close to the ceiling to be effective.

Something like this may work once adapted, like a case blower such as this Antec unit: http://www.amazon.com/Antec-Cyclone-Blower-Case-Expansion/dp/B000051299 - but, airflow is somewhat limited, certainly no match for that mighty Nidec Gamma.

Just a quick update, I'm waiting for a shipment to arrive, got 3 new blower fans to try out, they are thinner, should be about 20mm thick instead of 30-33mm like the Nidec. They are each between 25-30cfm, I will have to choose between output and noise, as well as thickness.

I can't build the mount until they arrive, but already have the plans in my head.

Once mounted, I'll build the fiberglass air duct.

In the meantime I'm just working on final-mounting the rest of the hardware.

Once that is done, I'll complete the metal fabrication including trimming and welding in the plate i had put in to fill a hole in the case's bottom, as well as filling in unused screw-holes. Then I'll smooth and paint the inside of the case.

woot very clever indeed, waiting to see how this turns out

/subscribed

Looks pretty cool! can't wait to see more

You know if you could get that squirrel cage fan to turn on reliably I think it could be enough to cool that chip with that Vantec 6035D. Especially since the Tbreds could undervolt decently at stock speeds.

i was going to suggest a water-tight clear top so you can admire the innards of that sweet coffeetable.

Why not just get a 1U rack server? Awesome log! Subscribed!

/subscribed
Nice build

tyler_bishop said:

Why not just get a 1U rack server? Awesome log! Subscribed!

XXXXXXXXXXX

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No selling outside of classifieds section, I'd recommend editing your post before you get a talking to.

tyler_bishop said:

Why not just get a 1U rack server? Awesome log! Subscribed!

Edited by cw823. Still don't allow advertising outside of the classifieds.

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A 1U server would have the fun and well...tribute...to the old Sparc 2.

Sorry I don't have too many updates, I hurt my back 2 weeks ago after lifting some real heavy stuff on a weekend and as a result didn't work on this too much, I feel much better now and will be getting back into this project.

I did get my fans, I think they'll work!

Anyway just wanted to touch base, I'll hopefully have a better update shortly.

splat said:

i was going to suggest a water-tight clear top so you can admire the innards of that sweet coffeetable.

Click to expand...

You read my mind, plus, some switchable case lighting will make it look pretty cool at night.

This looks like an awesome thread / project. I will most definetly be reading it through completely when i am done my accounting hw / bottle of vodka-n'-coke.

EDIT: Yeah, an excellent read, even in my current sleepy condition. (grr @ 3.30am)

I don't think a capacitor in line in front of the salvaged metal blower will work, but for some reason that was the first thing into my head. The only thing i can think of to increase voltage over 12... Is to use one of the negative lines (-3 -5 -12 etc...) as a 'ground' and a 12v line to get a spread over 12v to the motor. I doubt it would hurt anything in the PSU or fan given that we run 5v as ground and +12v as power to the fans all the time to under volt fans. The only challenge would be finding which of the lines going off the PSU is a negative of sorts. But I am SURE its there because I see a small amperage line on the spec sticker of every PSU i look at.


Keep up the good mod, and keep us posted.

-- Steve

LOL my post got raped