Planning Project Gunner/Home Machine Shop-Got the Lathe on the Stand and have pics 5/19/2012

[GCOFIELDD]

First off, I would like to start this thread by saying thank you to everyone here. For the past few months I have been reading and looking at people’s work on this forum and it is amazing what everyone is doing. Thank you for the ideas and the information that is shared without a second thought.
The initial reason I started thinking about designing my own case was because I could not find what I was looking for—quality or functionality (water cooling). I realized the design was going to take some time, so I went ahead and bought a TJ07; it's a great case, but I want to make my own.
When I first started working on the design, I thought this was an original idea. I didn’t realize there was a whole group of people out there doing this.

Here are a few pictures of the design as it has progressed:


The picture above was my first attempt, but I realized it was not going to work so I scraped it.

The following pictures are the beginning of my new design:










Currently my plan is to use an SR-2 motherboard, have three separate cooling loops, with three radiators, three reservoirs (Aquatube G ¼), and three pumps. I would like to put in dedicated LCDs for temperature monitoring like one of the murder mod cases. I am trying to figure out how to use aqua computer’s Aquaero to monitor three pumps (pretty sure it works great for two pumps, but not sure about three). I am not sure if I want to use the aqua computer aquastream XT or use the Laing DDC-Pump; if I use the Laing I have to use the aquacomputer poweradjust (not sure how that will work with more than two pumps either or what happens if I need to have two poweradjusts in the same computer (software issues?). Other than that I need to work on layout of the inside of the case and styling of the front panel of the case. I am also planning on trying to design my own hot swap drive bays with custom back planes and make the motherboard tray removable without disconnecting cables (got the idea from craigbru in Project: OSIDIAS) by using contact terminals; this also means I will have to do my own PCB layout, which is totally new to me. So, this one is going to take a while due to money and developing the needed skills, but if you have any suggestions or design ideas please let me know because I need the help. Also, please let me know if you know anything about Aquacomputer’s monitoring and control hardware/software—I am struggling with it.

[GCOFIELDD]

Thanks for the tip about the water loop! I am going to try and give outside access to the reservoirs.

The fans are actually pulling the air through the radiators and exhausting inside the case, hopefully it will work well.

[GCOFIELDD]

Thanks Paradox42, I have been working on it for a few months now. I am hoping to finish the design work in about 3 more months and start working on the drawings, so I can send it out to fab. I might just drop down to two water loops so I can finish quicker or maybe just not worry about monitoring the third loop.

[GCOFIELDD]

I have been working on the design for the past couple of days (had Friday off) and I think I have finally figured out the motherboard IO…it was a pain in the a**. When I make the motherboard IO panel and verify it works I will post up the drawings for it. I have never seen a real set of drawings for one. There is an AutoCAD sketch posted on the forum but it is a little bit off. Here are the pics from the work:

[GCOFIELDD]

Originally Posted by Cheapskate

I like. -Gonna need wheels though.
You certainly will not be able to cradle carry it and walk through a doorway.

Hmm, hadn't really thought that part through. It’s a pig...hopefully I will not have to move it after it is built

[GCOFIELDD]

I went shopping and it turns out I have a large supplier of computer parts in my backyard







I chose the aquastream XT USB Ultras because of the monitoring and control features, reliability, and cost. The Laing DDC 3.25 is initially cheaper but after adding a new top into the equation the price exceeds the cost of the aquastream.

More stuff is on the way from Germany

[GCOFIELDD]

So I finally got the parts I ordered from AquaComputer; I am a little disappointed. The packaging was not as good as it needed to be for international freight. One of the copper aquatubes, which are stupid expensive, has a small dent on the side where it was dropped or banged or something, also all three of them have small spots of corrosion on them, which means I will have to buff them out and clear coat them. I may be wrong, but I thought they came clear coated from the factory. And finally, they did not ship me the right parts; instead of temperature sensors they sent me flow sensors. I will have to contact them and see what can be done . Here are some pics of the parts:









It is still some cool stuff, but I have high expectations when I spend that amount of money on parts.

[GCOFIELDD]

Originally Posted by The_Beast

The first pic somewhat reminds me of a desktop mac


The second one is cool too

You are right, the mac was my inspiration for the first design, but the second one is all mine . It is still changing, but will look very similar to what I have posted up now. I am going to post some more pictures when I get more noticeable changes incorporated.

[GCOFIELDD]

Originally Posted by [<x>] Kiyusoma

reminds me of this:

http://i.dell.com/images/global/prod...0x-design2.jpg

I am going to take that as a compliment because that is a sweet looking rig . Thank you for posting the link I might be able to get some styling ideas from it .

[GCOFIELDD]

Originally Posted by alleyne

like the idea, keep the updates coming

Thanks man

This project has taken a life of its own. I am going to setup a workshop in my garage, but that means I need to get a mill, lathe, and sheet metal break to really get started. I have been researching milling machines and it seems like all the bench top mills are made in China and the quality is not that great. I am either going to get a Grizzly or get an old Rotex knee mill, but they are hard to find. The old American bench top mills have become very popular with enthusiast and are going up in price.

[GCOFIELDD]

I had a little time to work on the design and here is what I was thinking for the hard drive mounting:





The problem with this idea is that I am going to run into problems with tolerance stack up. The dove tail groves cut into the plates mounted to the side of the case will move in or out based on how accurately the side panels of the case are made and the two middle cross members; this will cause interference when trying to slide the hard drive trays in…I really like the way this looks though, so I am going to have to figure out how to make it work. Also, by making one big side panel I have driven the cost of fabrication way up. It sucks bringing reality into design

[GCOFIELDD]

I did a little work on the design last night and this is what I came up with. I am mounting the hard drive trays in channels, which also double for 5.25 drive mounts with some adapting. I got rid of the top bend/jog in the side panel; I didn’t think it looked good, plus it would have made making the side panels very expensive due to the difficulty maintaining a descent tolerance with all those bends.

I am not sure how I feel about my front dive bay covers…I was hoping you guys could give me some ideas on how to change it to look cooler?

[GCOFIELDD]

I put my current chassis design next to a TJ07 (the computer I have now) to see how big it was and I think things have gotten out of hand . I am going to try and arrange things better and shrink the design. The first step is redoing the hard drive mount so the back of the drives face the mother board tray. Here is what I have so far.





I still need to add some sort of feature to retain the drives and dampen vibration.

[GCOFIELDD]

I have almost finished the design of the new hard drive cage. I just need to put in the fasteners and figure out the back plane.

Does anyone have a spec sheet that defines the location of the SATA connector on the back of a hard drive; that would help with the back plane?

Here are some pics of the work:







Let me know if you guys have any suggestions

[GCOFIELDD]

Originally Posted by The_Beast

Please tell me what you're going to use for the backplane. I've been looking for high density HDD case for a while. I looked at pre-built hot swap 5.25" bay things and the cases they use for large scale CD duplication. Before that even I found individual backplanes but they wanted $35 per backplane, and you needed 1 for each drive!!!!!!!

I am going to make my own PCB I downloaded a 3D model of the connector I need from the Molex web site. I was then going to mock it up in Pro Engineer, import it into PSpice (you can download a free version) set the traces and send it out to a PCB maker and have it professionally made; it is surprisingly cheep.

When I finally get it done, (finding the information about connector placement on the hard drive is going to be the hardest thing) it should be easy for me to help you design your own as well. I would just need your hard drive spacing and number of drives

The reason I am setting this up is so I can store all my movies on my computer and stream them to my TV; there is an article on bit-tech somewhere (thought I had book marked it…but didn’t) on how to do it.

[GCOFIELDD]

I did some digging and realized I had the information I needed to define the location of the connector on the back of a hard drive (at least I think it is right), but incase anyone is interested, any information you could possible want for drive form factors and a lot of other design information, including information about designing backplanes, can be found at this link:


ftp://ftp.seagate.com/sff

[GCOFIELDD]

Originally Posted by that_du^de

wow this look very nice! how is it going to be made laser cut or punched? steel/alu? if you make it in 3 parts(top, middle,bottom) that should cut the manufacturing cost by a fair bit,the only issu i can see is the size off the rad on the top and bottom corners(look about 15mm?) as thay will need special tooling.and i wouldent worry about difficulty maintaining descent tolerance with all the bends as a good fabricaton shop should be able to work out the blank size before bending........god i wish i had cad/cam skills like you, and yeh good link that!

Thanks man It will probably be a combination of water jet, punching, and machining. The top and bottom of the case will be made of 304 stainless steel (either .0751 or .09 inch thick material); the side panels will be made of .19 thick aluminum, probably 5052-H32; and the long fan guard inside will be stainless as well. So, basically the black parts in the model are hard anodized aluminum and the gray parts are stainless steel. Things are still changing, but I think I am starting to reach a stable design/look for the case.

And don’t give my modeling skills to much credit…it is part of what I do for my job. The guys who do this stuff and have taught themselves the software are really impressive, but thank you

I am heading out of town for a few weeks, so I will not be able to work on it, but things will pick back up when I return home.

[GCOFIELDD]

I have done a little work. In an effort to shrink the design I have made a mess of the model , but I think things are starting to come together. I am switching to a four 120 mm fan radiator and giving up on the SR-2 motherboard (by the time I finish building this case it will out of date anyway). After moving all the parts around in the case, I have come up with the layout you can see below in the pictures. I am going to try and mount almost everything to the mother board tray, which includes 2 reservoirs, power supply, 2 pumps, and the mother board. This will allow everything to be pulled out as a unit. I will use the self sealing Koolance quick disconnects for the water lines; have fill ports on the top of the chassis, and a drain port at the bottom.

I need to start looking into raid controller cards; not sure what is out there right now or what is good. If you guys have some recommendations let me know.

[GCOFIELDD]

I spent yesterday working on a design for the hard drive cage door—didn’t like my old one.
I came up with two designs; the first one did not work, but I like the look better. The reason it did not work is because the point of rotation for the handle is in the wrong place; it should be before the point of rotation for the rod. The second design is the one I am going to keep. It is simpler and will function better. It is shown on the hard drive cage.

The reason the design has been going so slow is because I have started to learn how to program Android and it has been eating my lunch.

First desing (the one that doesn't work):



Here is the second design (the one I am keeping):



Here it is on the hard drive cage (not all the components are designed/shown yet):



If you guys have any ideas or thoughts let me know...

[GCOFIELDD]

Originally Posted by -Jv-

Loving the idea of those locks, are you going to thread the end of those rods and just screw them into those square 'pull things' ?

That is the idea; I might need to prototype one to see how well it works...