Project: Cold Angel - [Drilling and assembly, have jig saw!] - [Updated 22/9/05]

Project Cold Angel - By Kaboom22​

Index

Firstly, here is a pic to entice you to read further…

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Prelude

Well….where to begin. This project started out as a bit of fun to relieve the longing to play the game EVE online, which I had left that week. Whilst I missed the game, the money from selling my character paid for a substantial upgrade (along with money from selling my old components). Here is my current spec as it stands.

- Antec Plusview 1000AMG case (slightly modified to take the board)
- Antec True power II EPS12V
- Tyan Thunder K8WE (Quite possibly the best motherboard ever made. No word of a lie)
- Dual Opteron 838 2.2GHz, CG stepping (Yes I know the part number is strange. Usually run them clocked at 2.2 GHz)
- Pair of Artic Cooling Freezer 64’s to cool the above
- A Pair of 512Mb Corsair PC3500 Registered ECC sticks (Either BH5 or CH5, not sure. If you have another pair of these for sale, drop me an email)
- A Pair of Leadtek 6800 GT’s in SLI (don’t fit you say? Bah!)
- Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 2 Platinum with the external bay doodar (currently not fitted due to space constraints, another reason for the project)
- A Pair of Seagate SATA120GB Barracudas in Raid 0.
- Maxtor PATA 120GB drive for use as backup.
- Pioneer Slot loading DVD drive
- Dlink 108mb/s Wifi Card
- Dilapidated Logitech wireless keyboard (Still going strong…)
- Logitech MX1000 wireless laser mouse (Best….Mouse….Ever.)
- Fans, cold cathodes, the usual.

Now I’ve managed the squeeze all this into the Antec barely. I had to remove both HDD bays and cut off one of the mounts just to fit the board in. the HDD’s have eaten up my remaining drive bays and forced me to remove my soundcard front panel.

I also have elaborate plans for a water cooling system. In short:

I Need A New Case​

 

The Design

I think its best if I just walk you through the main features of the case and the ideas behind them. So anyhow, here goes:

Overall Shape – I wanted something completely unique, yet functional. The T shape allows for many drives and general electronic gubins in the base, whilst giving a good view and access to the motherboard at the top




Arms – The arms where placed to allow both access to the side of the case, and to get around the problem of the height of the innovatek rads. There is no way to fit the rads vertically under the desk, hence the slant.




Switch-back motherboard mount – I wanted to have as much flexibility as possible with the motherboard mounting. I therefore decided to have a semi-removable motherboard tray (as in you can take it out, but takes a small amount of unbolting) that can be reversed to allow the CPU’s to go directly next to the rear intake, or to be put on display at the front. This feature was mainly to ease the transition into water cooling from air.



Dual PSU mount – Dual processor board take an awful lot of power, and the K8WE is exceptional in this quality as it also has SLI to contend with. I also plan to run peltier cooling in the future, so a facility for multiple PSU’s was crucial. The supply are place central to the case, allowing easy cable routing to any part of the computer.



The PSU’s are placed opposed to each other to allow the air intakes of the PSU’s to aid cooling of both the motherboard section and the drive bay, without the need for additional fans.



Pump Bay - I didn’t want the beautiful pumps to languish at the bottom of the case, so I decided to mount the pride of place, directly at the front of the case, allowing the outlet to easily feed directly on to the CPU’s. The pumps can be acoustically dampened within the confines of the bay.



The piping will be very tight down there, but I should be able to get everything in. I should only have to externalise two pipes briefly, and that should just add to the character.

Note: ignore the reservoirs; they will probably be changed to the Aquacomputer Aquatube, or something similar.

 

Cooling

To be written…

 

Update: 16/9/05 and a few days before (even though i posted today...)

Firstly after a month of finishing the design and raising cash, I decided to crack on. I bought a tone of aluminium angle from B&Q, and acquired a sheet on 2mm acrylic from a mate of mine (hi mat, if you’re reading ).

First step was to tape up the top of the acrylic with some masking tape that I got for a quid. Although the acrylic did have backing, it was damaged on one side, so I decided to just rip it off and tape the whole darn thing.




I then decided not to do any more until tomorrow as it was late.

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This took me the best part of a day to do, as I had to be extremely careful over accuracy. I would of use templates, but I couldn’t persuade sketchup to print correctly, and know one and bit-tech seemed to know how…

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Up to the loft I go! (Some of you heathens call it an attic, but I think your nuts). I ordered a mitre saw blade off of eBay for aluminium, and I used it to cut up an awful lot of aluminium. After a bit of experimentation, I discovered that you get much straighter cuts if you clamp multiple pieces into the cutter at once.



I then decided to use my dremel-like tool, which cost me an amazing amount of 3 pounds at a car boot sale to attempt to clean up the edges. One thing became abundantly clear: this thing is not man enough to do what needs to be done. I’m going to have to buy/borrow a proper dremel. I snapped the fixing in half when trying to fit a cutting disc to it :-S
pic of the “dremel”



After making a lot of noise and making zero progress, I switched to using a draw file that I got at B&Q whilst I was there, which cleaned up the edge a treat

After using the “dremel”



After filling down, much nicer.



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after much more cutting, I have something to show for my work. In the pic below you can see the aluminium starting to take shape. In the top, you can see the top and bottom of the drive cage, all mitred together and looking lovely. At the bottom you can see the top and bottom of the motherboard section, not mitred yet, but should be by the end of my next update.



I have ordered the fixing and taps from here, so when they turn up, I should be able to start making the first joins of this project.


So far things are going fairly well. A few of my earlier pieces of alu I cut I’m not too happy with, but the later pieces fit perfectly. They all should be to tolerance once they are cleaned up.

This is definitely going to be a steep learning curve; I’ve never fabricated anything before in my life (other than at school ages ago), and I’m just hoping I have the skill to carry off my concept.

I’m trying to get hold of a jigsaw, so I might start on the acrylic soon…

 

Update: 17/9/05

Didn’t do much today, just some general cutting and finishing, the bits that weren’t mitred from yesterday (bottom half of the photo at the bottom of my last update) are now mitred nicely.

I discovered that the brush-bit-that-looks-like-a-chimney-sweep-that-i-don’t-know-the-name-of is really quite useful for cleaning up the ends of the aluminium after filing, so I have begun to clean up the ends of the existing bits I have done more fully. Here are some pics.

Cutting aluminium with the mitre saw


Old IDE cables make an excellent space to stop the clamps damaging the metal. I also found that if you hang random things of the end of the saw, it cuts much better.



Here is the dremel bit I was talking about, don’t know the technical term, but here it is.


My vice, actually taken of my drill press and clamped to the table, as I cant afford a proper one.


After polishing up the ends of the metal. You can see where the bit has lashed up against the side, but also handily removing some of the burs that wouldn’t come off.


And here is the end result, one of the motherboard tray sections fully mitred.


I’m afraid the log is going to be really dull for a while, at least until the fixings turn up, then I can start building stuff up, and you should be able to see something a little more exciting…

Stay tuned for next update.

 

WOW....very nice idea!
I really like the looks that the rads give.

Can't wait to see more of it!

 

If this looks like the concept, its gonna be amazing....

 

Looks cool, in both ways! Mod on

 

OMG, that's some sweet sketchup work m8!

 

Darn-It... Looks like you got a little bit of a headstart on me.... hmmm.... well i guess i will have to kick it up a notch and skip the drawing phase.... MUWAHAHAHA

Also have you ordered the RADS yet? i would like to know how heavy they are?

 

Sadly i have spent all my money on materials for the case at the moment, so its going to be a while before i can actualy fit rads to it. I read somewhere they weigh about 6Kg each , and thats without water.

Im not trying to compete with anyone, so if you get the rads first id love to get your impressions of them. Il lend you my sketchup model of them if ya chuck me your email, although it isnt amazingly accurate as i dont have the actual item in front of me...

So sadly its air cooling all the way for a while

 

Yeha well at $269.00 a pop i think i will have to give it a month b4 i can think of purchasing them! also have you thought about which ends you are going to put your water connectors on (opposing ends or the same side) > refer to http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=98113&page=2

 

ohh yeah also there are only 7 perpindicular lines not 8 just for reference!

 

You will likely get them before me then, unless i come into some money. I was planing to put them both on the back nearest to the hinges, but if there is a noticeable difference in performance i will run a extra long pipe to one side to allow a cross flow. But the difference must be noticeable.

Ah yes well spoted , still the dimensions should still be roughly correct as i got them straigh from the innovatek site. I will probably do a better model when i get the actual rads.

I am very interested to know the actual pipe sizes of the radiators, both the physical pipe size and the barbs, as this affects the cooling layout quite a bit.

 

Well with the little german i know, i e-mailed them about alot of stuff and yes i asked some of the sizes!

 

Fixings and tap wrench just arrived! expect an update later.

Edit: also got jig saw and some more aluminium, will update tomrow instead of today.

 

Is it my computer, but I don't have any pics,

 

No pics for me.

 

Pics are down, in the process of re-hosting in my new space, they will be back up later, hopefully with an update too if i crack on with it

 

Pics are back online

Im heading out today to buy a few bits for the project, i really will post an update tonight.