I also worked on modding my CT-479 adapter. I used the hipro5 mod from xtremesystems. A friend of mine has a 90x microscope for electronics which is where mine was done (thanks Frozendeath ) In this photo you can see the addition of 5 yellow capacitors, 1 black capacitor, and a blue pot so i can vary my voltage. Here is the bottom of the CT-479 one capacitor is on the bottom. This mod boosts voltage and makes the card less limiting to the chip Thats it for now, hopefully soon I'll get my cooling parts
Ya, i got it for a good deal about $130 USD from Germany, just had to do a group buy with 30 other people Thank you, I wanted to do something that looked origional and hasent been done before.
the original face cracked because of heat differences Resin, when it hardens, lets off a lot of heat (you might have noticed this). The thickness would have meant that the inside was a high temperature (it can be pretty damn high, over 60 degrees C) whilst the outside was cool, resulting in contraction and ultimately cracking. Interesting mod.
Greetings all, now that the semester is over I have more time to work on my project. That's not to say I wasn't working on it. To start off I needed to make a motherboard tray. I wasn't sure what I wanted exactly, so i just started folding a piece of paper. I ended up with this: I decided to use a piece of dimond plate for the tray, it is 1 foot by 2 foot Here I drew some lines where I wanted to bend it. I dont have a bender so I just clamped it to the table to bend it. Bending and cutting went pritty well. I then put a monther board ontop to mark the places where I wanted to drill. After I drilled them I added bolts with standoffs. That's it for now.
I began working on 3 small pieces of the project. I cut pieces of aluminum to wrap around the wrists where the 3/4 inch square tube goes in. They will look kinda like bracelets or markings. The main reason I needed them is because origionally i was going to use 1 inch square tube so the holes are to big. I decided on blue, so I gave them the first coat. Here is where my hardrives are going to be attached. MY camera was on the fritz, so I dont have any pics of the construction. It can hold 5 hardrives. Here it is with 2 drives The other small thing I did was drain the oil out of my compressor in preparation for the cooling system. That's it for now.
With all the things I need to attach to the orb I realized it was going to be difficult. So I thought what was going to be the easiest and stongest way. Answer, plexi rings, since they are round they sit perfictly on all edges and different sizes can give me different places to attach to. I had my brother cut some for my on the laser cam at his university. Here is one, the black marks are where the lasr burned the blue coating. I sat some in one haf of the orb to see which ones I would use. They are all 1 inch wide and I have one for every half inch from 21 to 1 inch. I didn't know exactly how to place 8 evently spaced holes around each so i made a template. I laid each ring at the correct distances and marked it. Here is one all drilled. I had to order bolts because the local hardware stores didn't have the type I was interested in. Here are some of the ones I will be using. I'm going to try and stay with 1/4 bolts for most things just so everything fits together. Here are the rings bolted together. I wasn't to keen on drilling through 32 times when my overall goal is to get it airtight. I liked the look so i decided form would overcome functionality this time. Neoprene washers should seal it enough. That's it for now.
My cooling parts should be ariving over the next few days Here are some parts I got last week. This is the fan, It is a 10 inch duct fan and it moves 655 CFM of air. I just have to build fins to direct the air over the entire condenser. Filter/Dryer, this is to absorb any remaing water in the system so it doesn't freeze and clog the line. Screader valve for charging the system. Low and high side gauges. Here is one of my CPVs, constant pressure expansion valve, this is basicly where the phase change takes place. liquid comes to the vlave and leaves as a gas. Most people use capilary tubing, but valves should be easier to adjust and if I ever add load all I ahve to do is adjust the valve. Here are what both valves look like. Here are a few fittings that I will explain more about when I use them. This is the condenser I used. It is from a 93 Toyota pickup. I had to cut all the brakets off to make it fit. Also the fittings were AI and peanut fittings. I cut them off and ordered weld on bungs that go to NPT. It's only 1 inch thich but pritty large, I hope it is big enough. Here is the whole thing ready to for fittings. Hopefully the rest of the fittings make it here this week so I can put it all together.
Small update today. I got bolts that were the correct length so i finished bolting the rings. I decided to fill it with water to see if it was atleast watertight. I only had 1 small leak and all it needed was to be tightened slightly Now to drain it. I also mounted my motherboard and hardrives to the tray That's it for now, hopefully tomorrow I can start working on the cooling system.
wow i signed up for this forum just to tell you how cool i think this project is.. ill definately be watching! .. especially love the hard drive mounting design.. thats just sexy
I put this project on hold for a number of reasons, with the new year I thought it was time to get back into it. My camera wasn't cooperating for 2 weeks so I tried to backtrack as much as possible but some steps arn't included. Thanks to both of you, like the rest of the project I wanted something I havent seen before.
Greetings everyone! Lets jump in where I left off. Here are two shots of my motherboard tray. I ran the sata cables and started on power, 1 plug short. 4 of the harddisks are 74 gig raptors and the other is a 400 gig WD. One big challenge that I didn't really think of at first is getting power up to the motherboard and getting usb, cat5, dvi, 3.5mm jacks, IDE, cooling hoses, essencially everything else down to the bottom while still keeping the top as air tight as possible and making it look nice. To achieve this I am putting 4 1 1/4 inch pipes through, 1 in each corner and two 2 inch pipes in the bottom. One small pipe will carry power, another will carry ide cables, another will carry usb, 3.5mm, and cat5, the 4th will carry everything that doesn't fit in the other ones. The bigger 2 inch pipes will carry the cooling hoses and dvi cables. The pipe I will be using is sink pipe, its stong easy to assemble and comes with a chrome finnish. Each piece had 3 lables and it was getting quite tedious to remove them by hand so with a little help from a piece of paper and WD-40 they just fell off. Luckly this piece was plastic which made it easy to shape. After some cutting and sanding. The rubber seal should keep the outside nice and tight, and once all my wires are in silicone will seal the inside. Here it is all assembled Now to start drilling the holes. The last thing I want at this point is a crack, so after the center guide bit is through the drill is switched into revirse and the holesaw melts through. Here is the pipe in place IDE cables To get all the power cables up without hurting my powersupply I bought extensions for all needed cables. In all its one 24 pin, one 4 pin, two 4 pin molex, and two 6 pin pci express, or 48 in all. I cut all the extensions in half and spliced in 3 or 4 foot pieces for each specific cable. The reason I cut them and didnt repin is two fold, it was easier matching up wires when you have the same color on each end(I only used black white and red) and 100 crimps was alot cheaper than 100 new pins. Now to drill the 2 inch holes All thats left now is to paint the fittings flat black Here are three pics showing the whole project at this point. (You may notice some cooling stuff in the bottom, I'll get into that in another update) I hope to have continuous updates from now till completion (when ever that is )
good to see this project isn't dead. I like how you routed the sata cables. Also the pipe work for the other cables. It would be very over-the-top in most mods, but in yours it's just...well, 'fitting'.
WOW! This project is really starting to come together. I really like the hard drive rack. Just out of curiosity what part of PA are you from? I almost forgot, SUBSCRIBED!
Today is a small update. Since im doing vapor cooling and dont plan to insulate inside of the orb I need a desiccant to dry the air out. Also, I need a way to change the desiccant easily being that it is near impossible to get the orb completly airtight. I came up with three 2 inch pipes in the top that can be pulled out without taking the 16 bolts out and basicly making all the air saturated again. Each desiccant container is made of a 2 inch male adaptor with a seal and ring, a 1 1/2 bushing with female threads, a 2 inch cap, and a 1 1/2 pond filter with male threads. Here are all the pieces basicly assmebled, the all need to be cut or sanded to fit properly, the filter has a big base that doesn't fit through the 2 inch male adaptor, and the other fittings make the rig to tall so they will be cut and sanded. Here are all three of them cut and glued, the top cap is glued to the bushing which is screwed pond filter. Now that those are made I need to drill the holes I was a little hard getting equal thirds without a protractor, thats where the triangle comes in Here they are in place, it's a little tight next to my cpu and on top of my raid card, but it should workout. All thats left is to paint them black. More to come!
can you say ubermod? I do have to ask why you went for compression cooling rather then your normal standard state cooling. Was it because of the AC unit simply being on hand?
