Plexi Glass case... good heat dissipation?

[SUlfUR-CyCLoNe]

Hey Guys!

Wow, it's been a really long time since I was last on the forums, but it's good to be back .
Anyways, this is in regards to the article on creating your own case outta plexy glass.. well, sort of.
My friend and I are thinking of building our cases out of plexi glass for our upcoming watercooling rigs, but I was wondering about the heat dissipation of plexi glass, I mewan, would it not be a very good idea to put your computer in a case made outta plexi glass?
Before we found that article we were gonna use the Lian-Li PC-70 full tower for our rigs, but when we say the plexi glass case we got some awesome ideas for putting the new Lazer LEDs inside of it and make some sweet lighting
the only thing holding us back are the question whether or not we should stick with the heat dissipation and electrolysis abilities of the aluminum cases vs. the plexi glass case... whether it could increase our temps a lot or not. we want the coolest systems (temp. wise) possible because we want to OC the new Sledgehammers to the max (we are'n't going to finish building our rigs until the hammers come out anyways.. so why not wait ) and we also want the beauty factor as well. if you got answers, please give'em!

-SUlfUR

 

[Topo]

Probably not a good idea if you are trying to keep your case cool. Unless you have well planned out airflow.

They make greenhouses out of plexiglass....

 

[AntiHeiss]

Topo is right. If you have plenty of case fans then you shouldn't see a big difference over regular cases. But the heat dissapation wouldn't be as good as with an aluminum case. Aluminum offers improved (but not great improvements), over regular cases, but plexi offers none. Well, let me rephrase that. A thin plexi will, but with the thickness you would have to use to support a computer in it, would offer no heat improvements. So if you want to go with plexi, and have good temperatures, then have good case fans, and watercooling wouldn't hurt either.

Just my 2¢

 

[Darrenct]

I used to have a plexiglass case, and it really wasnt that hot inside. It only had one low CFM 80mm fan too. Greenhouses only get hot because of the sun shining in.
With a plexi case, you can easily design it to have fan holes in places that are optimum for good veintilation w/Low Noise. I say go with the plexi, it will look sweet when it's done.

 

[brothernod]

what about the emf?? The metal cases block the emf coming from the high frequency computer parts. Is there a problem with the emf on the plexi cases??

Damn it, you've sparked my interest again, and I just had a bad *** idea to make my plexi case unique

so once again, what are the disadvantes to a plexi case??
and woulnd't it be better to make it outa Lexan?? the stuff is stronger.

 

[AntiHeiss]

Lexan is good. Plexi is good too. Whatever you want to go with. They are both clear plastics.

As for EMI...check THIS thread out. It sums it up for me, but think what you will.

 

[The Overclocker]

i dont thinnk heat dissapation is a problem - most of the reasons for buying the aluminum cases is for looks not heat. All of the people here use at least two fans in their system and just on their own these fans will mak the material choice of the case useless - using plexiglass will not affect cooling.

 

[Diggrr]

I think the EMI problem is more like the computer causing interference with other devices.
I had a friend who was running a 900Mhz Athlon that would interfere with his cheapo cordless phone. He overclocked his FSB, and the interference went away until his next bios flash reset it (temporarily).

Me personally, I want to build a lexan case of my own, and I have a removable mobo tray that I'll use to do it partly because I'm lazy and don't want to spend two days cutting perfect slots, and partly because I want the back slots to look nice, and finally, so that all the cards are properly grounded.

I'd be more worried about cheap case fans causing interference then stuff that's yards away from it. (yes, some fans can...remember the monitor cooling done by Donny_Paycheck?)

 

[tft]

I'm using a plexiglass case now, with the same airflow setup as I had in my aluminium case. I've only seen a 2 degreees F. increase. With decent airflow, it won't make any difference.

 

[SUlfUR-CyCLoNe]

Thanx a lot for the help guys. A few of you were talking about greenhouse's being made outta plexi glass, but see, greenhouses need specific dimensions for the plexi glass and are also in the sun (as mentioned before) that way they keep the heat in. Anyways, what we are going to do is create a watercooling/pelt system that can cool to less than 10C, possibly less than 0C. We are working all of the engineering right ow, I was just curious whether or not going with a plexi glass case would compromise our goal. We are going to run two 92mm delta's in the bottom-front of the case with two 80mm's in the back, then we are going to use a 120mm panaflow to aid the radiator and we will also have the PSU fan as well. We should be pretty safe with the airflow.
An advantage that we found with Plexi also is that we can make all of the holes ourselves anywhere because we can have the layout made based on how our components are setup, that way we can place intake and outake holes anywhere we need to get the most efficient cooling.
Thanx for your time guys, we'll be sure to post pics and stuff when we finally get to building this summer l8r.

-SUlfUR