Phobya water-cooled case design thread - Stage 1 - Complete - see Stage 2 thread

Lol. That's about how I feel about them, too.

Yeah, I figured you were doing design in some capacity; who else but a designer uses "ideation"

I haven't studied design formally or done it in any professional sense - I just appreciate good design and have developed a bit more than a passing interest in it. I've also developed the rather odd hobby of PC case design (just design, never built any), which I've been doing for a fairly long time now. I'm sure it pushes some psychological pleasure-buttons to fit components tetris-like into small boxes (did I mention I usually do SFF?), and attempt to wrap it up in an attractive package

 

OK here are is my entry !

prototype case 02

-Full tower, overall dimensions (width, depth, height): 25.4x63.5x68.14cm (10"x25"x26.6")



-10 PCI slots (although a shorter version could be easily made)

-Up to HPTX size. Long video cards can obviously be fitted as the SR-2 is already very wide at 15", plus 5cm of extra clearance

-top compartment for 120/140mm wide rads, up to 4x120 or 4x140 (eating up the space of the two front 5.25" bays). About 9.5cm of vertical clearance for different combinations of fan/rad widths.



• top cover is designed so air exhausts diagonally up-backwards of the case
• if using a 4x120 for example, there's about 10cm left of horizontal space (and a 2 drive vertical space) which would be very useful for electronic mods such as LCD indicators, self-made light or fan controllers, etc. If the rad is long and already in place this small area would be accessible from the front (removing bay cover of course) and/or the top (removing top cover)


• slanted cover of equivalent appearance of the radiator exhausts would be used to fix the PCB that controls the usual on/off, reset switches, HDD/power leds that would face to the front of the case, but the twist here would be the USB ports which would face to the BACK of the case and be "hidden" by the slant of the cover, this would avoid the horribly-looking protruding USB drives and still be accessible




-Bottom compartment for 1/2 PSUs in vertical position.
Can be divided in two compartments for optimal airflow in case of using one rad on each side. Rads are mounted using the usual L shaped brackets. Up to 140x4 rads on each side, of course depending if using a PSU and/or pump in the same compartment. Around 12cm of horizontal clearance for different combinations of fan/rad widths, these compartments are even more spacious than top compartment so cable slack from the PSU can be easily fit in this area. Example shows 1 PSU + 2x120 rad with push/pull + pump on one side, 4x120rad with push/pull on the other.




mobo area is isolated from top and bottom rad compartments
For better airflow of fan rads, aesthetics and even the possibility of mounting pump(s) in the "floor" of the mobo area. This area has an ample width, able to accomodate the wide SR-2 and has clearance of ~5cm until 5.25" drive walls start, allowing placement of cylindrical type reservoirs.
• Slot-shaped grommets for cable management, from mobo area to top and bottom compartments





5.25 drive area for up to 11 drives.
The walls will have slits instead of holes, offering the possibility of offseting the drive placement backwards and use the included meshed covers, this would be useful for non-ejectable units that don't match the overall color appearance of the case, such as GPU-dedicated PSU’s, or ejectable ones but not so-often-used as sata/sas backplanes.
-There would be included several sets of brackets to allow placement of SSDs, up to 4 of them in any 5.25 bay. These brackets could also be used by the user in any other compartment. In my opinion, dedicated spaces for certain uses are nice (like racks for HDDs) but the user should always have the option of placing other components in it as well, so any supporting pieces should be removable and reusable elsewhere.




-bay covers not only for single drives but also for 3 drives, allowing the placement of a 10mm fan on the back. Can be used for just direct airflow to the mobo area or to cool HDDs directly.





Wide and sectioned doors.


• Instead of the usual one piece side door, each comes in 2 pieces and are wider than the main body of the chassis. The bottom part of the doors are grilled covers for the bottom radiator compartments, so if maintenance is needed on those compartments just that cover can be removed directly. These are the widest part of the body, allowing fat rad/fans combinations.



• Above that comes the windowed door/cover (3.4cm width). Slightly narrower than the rad cover but still wider than the body, could allow placement of lighting, LCD mods or other things without interfering with the rest of the components.


• On the opposite side this door is windowless of course. This cover can be used to hold one of those large external radiators if desired. there's an already made hole and fixture for holding a 3.5" drive, hopefully not for floppy but for the more useful card readers. This would be great as most of the time the 3.5" hole aesthetically "breaks" the lines of the 5.25" drives, it also wastes space. The rest of this spacious cover can be used for cable routing or drive placement if wanted. The extra twist for this cover are the couple of holes on the back that would allow a couple of PCI-sized brackets to be placed. Why? Just in case you already filled the normal PCI slots with all your vidcards and raid controllers, there's this additional place so you can have a place for that eSATA+molex or USB 3.0 bracket that just doesn't fit or simply looks as crap when put along with your awesome GPU waterblocks

 

My stage 1 design

It can take a 3.120 radiator in the roof, base or front and upto two psu's. 10 5.25" bays in the front with removable hard drive caddys.

The motherboard can be inverted, and the hard drive caddys can be moved to an alternative position in the roof or base if a radiator is installed in the 5.25" bays.

The construction of external panels will be made of thick plastics to reduce any vibrations and noise. The vents in the base and roof will contain dust filters, and allow air to move freely whilst minimising noise.

The case is slightly smaller than a TJ07.

 

LOL I thought it ended when 28 Nov arrived !

 

This is Black Owl my first atempt at modding and at using solidworks 2011
I' having serious problem with texture, decals and color so please be gentle. That yellow triangle should be phobya's logo...but the dead line is tomorow so here goes my entry...hope you like it.

Spec:
- Case dimension (mm): 517(H) x 228(w) x 540(L)
- 2x 180 or 200mm roof mounted fan.
- All aluminium construction 4mm thick
-

Cooling:
- 2 water cooling 150mm reservoir
- Rad (qty):
-2 x 140 (2) or 3 x120 (1) or 4 x 120 (1)

Room for:
- 5 Hdd or Sdd bays.
- 2 Power supply.
- 2 5.25 cd/dvd bays

 

@SnowyOwl- Looks great! (You might have trouble getting it by the Steve Jobs police though ). I feel the same way about SolidWorks 2011 . I just started getting used to PhotoView 360 and now everything is changed again.

Great designs everyone! Too many good ones to choose from!

 

Here is my final design for this stage













At time!!! (Narrowly)

PS: Email sent

 

Wow all of the designs looks so awesome. I am very proud to be part of this competition!

Good luck to all in the voting!!

 

Hello again,

here are the final design. Well I didn't made the tubing, but you can see the barbs .

This is a micro ATX motherboard and the case size is 36 x 42 x 50 (w x l x h). It can fits 2 x 360 rads, 6 x 3.5" HDD and 2 big GPU (GTX480 on the pics).

All HDD are on rails and the racks has backplane connector, so just slide the drive in it .

Hope you'll like the design (it is my first time trying a case design).













Thanks for watching.

 

As above

@GF4rce liking it, but youve just made me realise I forgot to put feet on my case! doh! lol

apart from my own, Ive got the top three in my head that I would like to vote for.... make that 4! wow votings going to be tough

good luck

 

are we only going to be able to vote for ONE!!!??? that will be very hard. there are also four deigns I would like to vote for.

 

if we only get one vote then to make it easy for me Id have to vote for myself, but if you cant vote for yourself I'm not sure how to pick between the 4 I think are the best!

Maybe the people that have entered dont get to vote...... ???

When does the poll/voting go live ?

 

I always think is is kind of selfish to vote for yourself until I lost a prefect position by one vote...

I dunno when the voting is. BT is probably writing an article on it first.

 

zukomonitor Thanks

I agree only one vote makes it very difficult choice. But can we vote or not?

PS: all cases are awesome

 

Yeah it is abit selfish but like you said...... lol that must of been a bit gutting! cant wait to see an article.
I think this comp is great, its inspired me to design. whether I get anywhere (or even any votes) in the competition or not, I will keep designing and learning SU etc

Loving it

 

I think we shouldnt be able to vot for ourselves but cant see how that could be implemented.....

Im trying to decide who to vote for out of my four...... and clock watching......

@ Bit Tech / Aquatuning whats going to happen!!!! lol im an impatient sod!

 

Yes but it was the most logical

 

I've post here mine and send e-mail, now is wait and die waiting LOL wish good luck to everyone

I hope everyone see and read all of the candidates and them posts before vote. And especially thing, "would that case be good for be selled worldwide?" and little questions like "will the case be pratical to work with?" and "will it fit everything i must need?"...
I see here some cases that even been beautifull it will be a pain for me work with them, with radiators on sides and some things that will not pe pratical. I speak for me, i don't like to have to redo all the WC water job just to have acess to the "dark side" or put another HDD on my computer. Put that kid of thing are details...


And now a little offtopic thing. This stage is rough sketch, don't vote just because the project have awesome look or renders. I have afraid that this contest "die" after middle dezembre just because everyone that have passed have the cases barelly finished or prepared to end. Stage 2 is supossed to add detail, hardware, with less candidates it's supposed to them add details propoused from comunity, change things and make changes that other people say to complement the project. Take really care on the vote, it is more than a vote, it change the contest. But this is my opinion, have the value it have.

 

Inspired me too. I learned a lot on modelling, and even more rendering!

Agree. I check on the front page the whole time!