Well this is going to be a htpc used primarily for listening to music. The case is a 3r System ht-1100 as seen here. I really like the clean look of this case and unlike most modders would, I intend to keep it: this mod is simply about cramming some of features into this case: Watercooling. Partly 'cause it's the only way to fit the other components, partly for silence Pre-amp. Following Ben Hinrich's design. TV-module. This will be a neovo which is complete detached from the pc itself, only hooking onto the vga cable. A regular tv-card will probably find it’s way into the pc at some stage. Enough talking, let’s get on with the project. What the case needed was a rad, and I wanted it to be unseen from the outside. I am too impatient to use a dremmel so shears were to way to fly. In the process it looks rather messy. Meant to straighten it out with a hammer, but a dumbell weight was the only thing I had lying around. Afterwards an electric file made it look almost acceptable. Test fitting along with a dd maze 4 low profile gpu block.. It’s a Honda civic radiator. Can’t be seen here but it was a near-perfect fit, only modification other than removing the original barbs and attaching new ones was sanding a few mm’s of the rad sides. I had planned for a shroud which explains the stray cut near the bottom of the front fan. It didn’t fit too well so it was dropped. It turned out that a very agile person would be able to see the rad from the rear of the case. But with all the effort that would have to be put into it, I think this hypothetical person would deserve a view of the rad to make his effort worthwhile. Now we need some pumps, extremely small pumps that is. Please note that my hands are fairly small. The eheim compact 300 fits the bill, only it’s made for submerged use. Not to worry Holes for the barbs are drilled Barbs inserted. All gooed up with marine epoxy and ready for a test run. This pump mod is fairly simple mod to do and these pictures pretty much shows all there is too it. I got the idea from this (Danish) guide: http://www.hardware-test.dk/test_show.asp?id=3267 That’s it for now guys!
wow, i cant wait to see how you cra meverything inside that case. What was the original purpose of the black shroud/tub on the right side? was that just a channel to get air inside the case?
pretty neat mod you got going on here what is the flow rate like on those pumps (cos i need a small pump for a new mod im planning) good luck!
Looking good, looking forward to seeing the rest of this modd! Great to se some one sticking watercooling inside a case that small. subscribed - because the idear is good, and you are a dane Best regard Stubkier
It's 300 litres/hour but only 0,5m head. Bear in mind that those specs are for submerged use, they are bound to be better when modded for inline. It's only 5W though, so more than one wont be a problem unless your rad is extremely small.. It functioned as an exhaust for the psu (which is mounted in the front) and a 80mm fan. I know that the exhaust from my seasonic 400 is extremely hot so it's actually a quite good idea. I had been looking around for a htpc case that was easy to watercool and as soon as I saw this duct I knew that I had struck gold.
Found a pic of the rad so you can see what it looks like, nothing special about it though.. I had to make my own cpu block to avoid the tubing getting too kinky (err...) and due to height restrictions which you’ll see later. My available tools were a drill press and my dremel and knowing this I chose to make a #rotor like design. Only instead of orthogonal channels with holes drilled at the intersections I went with 60 degrees between the channels. No scientific reason whatsoever. All the holes drilled and a few channels cut. The diamond wheels are very good but cutting these channels still proved very strenuous. Ahh… finally all done. This pattern kind of reminds me of the column wheel in one of my watches (which I didn’t manage to get a proper picture of). It’s the blue thingo in the middle-left of the picture. Made a top in some delrin using a router and voila! When all that excess silicone is cleaned off… well isn’t going to be a stunner, but it’ll have a look I can live with considering that it is going to be hid underneath the pre-amp. Then it was time to install the watercooling and as I was to install my gpu block I noticed something ..What’s this discoloration on the core? The only idea I have would be that it is something heat inflicted. However, my card works just fine, so I went ahead with my evil plan. Here is the watercooling installed, notice that no 90 degree elbows a. k. a. flow killers are used. . The layout was quite straight forward. The case actually seems to be made for this. Forgoing a reservoir or fillpoint gave me heaps of room to work with and still plenty to spare; only two pci-slots on my full atx board are inaccessible. Because of my ghastly cable work the pumps can’t be seen in full atm, but there’s nothing peculiar to their placement so I reckon you can imagine how they are situated.
Allright guys, what would an audio pc be without some loudspeakers? Since I will have a pre-amp in the computer the neat solution would be to have some active speakers. Hey presto the Hypex www.hypex.nl module with 4th order active crossover and 3x60W was the perfect solution. I used WinISD pro http://www.linearteam.org to decide on the dimensions of the case and bass reflex. It was built in 22mm mdf. Seas and vifa drivers, so good Scandinavian quality Holes for the drivers cut and fitting perfectly Attaching the rear side Hole for a bass reflex port cut The box for the amp made and started on the dampening. It really needs to be airtight in so it won’t ruin the bass characteristics so the wiring had a far bit of silicon applied where it goes through the case. More dampening. Clamping on the sides. A few clamps had to make the ultimate sacrifice.
WTF? Did you brake them on purpose or did the just crack like that? Great idea on making your own speakers, can you take them apart say for painting or will you mask the speakers? That is if you are going to paint them. Looking good so far.
Being fairly old the clamps probably suffered from metal fatigue.. All I know is that I was tightening one as I had the others, fairly hard, and then it just popped and one of the smaller shards nearly took my eye out. Then a few clamps later another one gave in, this time around I wore eye protection. I haven't mounted the drivers yet, they were only in the pictures for display purposes. When they are mounted airproofing will be done using small rubber/foam strip that is only adhesive on one side so if in the future I do wish to repaint I can simply unscrew the drivers.
I think that the mod/hTPc build is a great one, making a HTPC primarily for music and building your own speakers and pre-fabricating then, are they going to be painted red or is a fabric material going to be adheard to them? The watercooling setup also looks like a great, yet difficult task, and those water pumps have a great low rate of around 300 litres an hour and they are tiny and fitting them in with no 90 kinks in them is a great feat... Good look, ill be paying close attention to the next few updates of this log...
damn that's gonna be one stylish and silent htpc (exept for the speakers they'll proberly be pretty loud )
nugit I can kiss u because u are NOT usin those 'brai****-pumps' ive the compact 600 and can say that one is enought for a whole rig...mean..cpu ang graka (nb will follow) on adequate temps on an opel/vauxhall car radiator...PASSIVE But plz...do not use that ugly barbs...
Haven't had too much time to spare over the last couple of months, but here's what I've been up to: Here's the pre-amp mainboard which finally got right after countless tries. It was my very first project using photo print and I hope it'll be a while 'till my next. Here's the relay board. On to mounting all the components. Analog and digital psu, mainboard and relay board right after testing. They all worked without a hitch! Eight relays switching two leads each. That adds up to either 8 stereo channels with their grounds connected or 4 with grounds switched. I'm using the latter since I have no need for more than 4 inputs, so I might as well get the improved quality that I hope switched grounds bring. Oh yes, I'm using ultra fast diodes. Haven't tried fast diodes so I can't comment on how they sound, but these are a delight. Here's the box the mainboard and relay board are going to fit in. There's room for a small DAC as well if I ever get around to making one. I'm thinking a pcm2707 plus lots of parallel tda1543's. Here it is in the pc with rca/phono plugs mounted. And with the hardware fitted. My apologies for the overexposed shot. I'm still a diy rookie so I have a slight fear about unisolated mains wiring. So I made this plexiglass mount for the audio psu's. Here they are again, this time around mounted in the airvent. It would have been possible to route the wiring though the case, but It would have been a very tight fit around the rad, so I decided against it. Here you are looking at a mount I made for the vfd, I made it so the imon would still fit. The imon pcb is mounted backwards so i could make the ir-reciever visible without resoldering it, it was just bent 180 degrees. Mounted in the case. With the powersupply fitted it's a very thight fit. Here the tv-module is fitted on top of the od bracket, only required sawing of 4 little tabs that facilitated mounting of an extra hd. Everything went pretty smooth until I tested out the vfd. No matter what I do I cannot get it to display anything in the first seven character windows in the second line. I've tried other vfd's with the same result. It's fed data via db4-db7. Any thoughts on what might be wrong?
Getting pretty crowded in there How come I have a hard time trying to imagine how a diode in the PSU of the pre-amd could effect the sound in any way Maybe I'm just not a hifist enought..
an AC > DC convertor needs diodes. The better the diodes, the less noisy the DC power is (also depends on the size of the cap), hence the less 50Hz noise (or 60Hz in america? ...)
Good to see you updating again, thought you had lost interest or didn't have enough time to keep it going, but its good to see you updating once more... And it looks like its going to be great, you certainly cramming stuff in that case and you're doing a great job to
