I'm planning on building a custom case and am looking for some feedback and ideas before I order the materials and start. This is the basic idea here. I've listed the outer dimensions in red and the inner dimensions in blue so that it is easier to read. It's pretty darn big. I will be putting it under my desk kinda sandwiched into the corner. This image should cause it to make sense. The desk is 24" deep so I'll have about 6" behind the case for wires and airflow and stuff. Now this is what I was thinking... The top 2", although it's large enough for a drive, I was thinking of just putting all the switches (power, reset, pump, blacklights, whitelights, cable power, hub power) as well as all the leds (power, reset, pump, blacklights, whitelights, 5 cable modem, 13 hub, 6+ HD activity, 6+ HD fault) up there. The bottom would contain all the actual components. The radiator would go in the small black tower that connects the top and bottom areas. Now this is where it starts to get interesting. The whole clear middle area is the reservoir. It is a little under 15 gallons, not counting the water that would be in the system itself. The radiator would go in the black tower that connects the top and bottom black compartments. This is also where the reservoir connections would be (into reservoir at top left, out of reservoir at bottom right). I would also have some black lights in there, and would use that clear blue uv dye in the water. I would also have some white lights inside the bottom and maybe the top of the case. The black areas, ideally, would be extremely dark window tint so that it's black and opaque until I turn on the white lights, then you could see inside. I haven't done much research on the tint yet though so I may not do that. If I did that the tint would also be on the interior, so the whole exterior of the case would be "connected" which should allow the lights to travel through the plastic and make the whole outside of the case glow a little bit, which could look really cool. Anyways, I'm just wondering if you guys have any cool ideas. I was thinking I could get some 2" acrylic tubing (the case would be made out of 3/8" acrylic, btw) and put them going through the reservoir and put the black lights there instead but I don't know yet. I'm just looking for ideas. That's a big reservoir and I'd like to do something really cool with it but I can't think of much else. I've been thinking of things like air pumps to make little bubbles and stuff like that but I really can't decide. I'm also trying to decide if I want all the switches/leds/bays exposed, or if I want to make it kinda a "stealth" case and have all of that behind fake panels so that when closed, you can't even tell its a computer you'd think it's a fishtank or something. What do you guys think?
Dude, that is seriously awesome - One thing about it is you aren't going to be taking that thing anywhere with you for sure. I love the idea of the monster Res. Too bad you couldn'yt make an aquarium out of it or something
I was thinking about trying to find those little plastic fish type things that float around up and down depending on the temperature (or however they work). That might be kinda neat. I don't know though, I'm just running to radio shack and autozone and a few other places to see what neat stuff they got that I can make use of.
Sounds very sweet. I think since you have so much water you can make pipe-fitting directly into the resivor, making a parrallel set of pipes that flow down to your components. You then use the weight of the water to push the water accross the components, then to a bottom Resivor that you then pump throught the res up to the top. This would be a very sweet and clean effect instead of using a mess of tubes. The tinting sounds like a sweet effect.
you can put some artificial fishes in there... (i dont know if live fishes can survive in there), but are some little plastic fishes.. and i think that will be cool.
mebbe put the water in the bottom, just in case you spring a leak. that way your stuff wont be drowned by 15 gallons of water. nice design
Considering if I remember correctly 15 gallons of water is like 125 pounds. I would be a little concerned with my structural integrity.
gas is lighter than water, and weighs about 100 lbs for every 15 gallons, so yeah, thats why i prefer the res on the bottom of any system, i think u seriously need to reconsider your ideas or plan on purchasing thick steel L channel to support it all.
DAMNN!!! That totally rocks! I've never thought of incorporating an aquarium as a custom case/rez. Pure genious! About adding real fishes, that would definitely mean disaster. Either your anti-corrosive chemicals in the water would kill the fish, or if you used none, the waste products from them little buggers would contain millions of bacteria just begging to clog your tubing, waterblocks, and promote algae! If this was a custom built design, i.e. not prefabricated aquarium/cabinet setup, I'd suggest seperating the middle tank area and your actual components in the bottom with something to secure and support the structure and weight of the water. Maybe a wooden frame or metal bars. You may want to ditch the pure plexi construction the way it appears. You could still keep the bottom clear with the tinted plexi but please have it attached to some sort of frame and not actually supporting everything above it... meaning a windowed frame, not components distributing weight to the poor plexi!
Find out if your anti-corrosive chemicals or UV Dye will kill fish or not. If they won't kill the fish you can use a water filter to strain off any waste that comes from the fish. One other thing if the water gets to warm from cooling your system it will kill the fish as well.
dude, that's a sweet idea. i wouldnt put acctual fish in there, but you said you're gonna have UV lights, so you could get some UV reactive fishtank type things(skulls, castles, etc) you could also have a sectioned off part of it that's not truely visable, but completely blocks off a section, and put fish into one of the sections. i'd suggest a front/back divider, put the fish in the front, then the whole thing looks like a fish tank.
Hmm, this does give me some ideas. I like the idea of splitting it into two sections, one for watercooling and the other for real fish. I might be able to do that actually, I just gotta figure out how I'd have access to it to feed them and stuff. I figure the case will weight around 200lbs or more depending on how much the plexi weighs so I won't really be able to move it once I fill it up. As far as temperature goes, do any of you know what a typical water temperature is for an xp2000 cooling setup? Simple goldfish tolerate temperature pretty well but I don't know what the average temperate would be so they may not be good enough. As far as that black space in the back corner of the reservoir goes, that is a connection between the top and bottom compartments. All the switches and leds will be at the top, but all the components at the bottom, so I need some place to route the wires and stuff. I will also be putting several black lights in there, as well as the radiator on the back of that section. There are two things I can't decide how I want to do though. The top area has plenty of room for the leds, but the switches I want to use are little metal sub-mini toggle switches. The problem is that I'm worried about stuff falling off the desk and accidentally hitting the toggle switch(s) and accidentally turning on or off something. I could recess the switches, but if I do this should I recess the leds too or maybe just some of them, and is it worth the fact that I may not be able to see all the leds anymore? The other problem is inside access. I figure I'll have the front panel as a door which I can take off to access the inside but then I need to add some kind of support to hold the weight. I'm still trying to decide on the best layout for internal components and access since it will be hard to get to anything once it's in place. I kinda do like the idea of having an actual fishtank built into it somehow so I'm trying to figure out how I can get access to that as well now. Any ideas are appreciated.
mmm i think in artificial ones... because you need a lot of things to keep real alives... food, air, clean the pool every 2 weeks... Artificial ones keep that away.
you should build a titanic model, hit it with a hammer, then silicon glue it to the bottom of the glass get some mexican fighting fish, paint the amd logo on one and the intel logo on another and settle it for once and for all
_______________ I like your idea, but as a proud possessor of an aquarium, I can tell u that puttin an aquarium next to ur PC, in that position it's a waste of effort... Keepin a bunch of fishes alive is a lot of work, and when the system start to became stable u want ppl to look at it and say: OOH!! it's beautyful!! And I don't believe u'll want ppl to look under your desk...
I'm thinking of adding a second black tower in the center of the water reservoir to connect the top and bottom. I'll make a vertically sliding hard drive cage that slides up into this tower then locks into place. To access the drives I would just release the lock and slide the cage down into the main area where I have access to it. The slides can also act as some support for the weight of the water, which if I add the second HD tube will be reduced by a bit. I'm kinda worried about the heat of the drives though. The front/bottom door of the case will have stealth air intakes and I figure if I put a 120mm fan (or maybe larger) blowing up into the HD tower it should cool them down enough. The problem is the air would be rushing past the sides of the drives not the larger top and bottom surfaces so it could get too hot even still. The top of the case would also have air vents on the back to exhaust the air, though probably no fans up here. I'm going to model this new part in 3d to see how well it will fit first, I'll try to update with a screenshot soon. Until then if anyone has any wild ideas let me know, I'm really trying to think of more things to do that would really make this stand out.
Don't forget about metal contamination. The fact that the water would be passing metal will cause a high concentration of copper that would kill the fish. Anything like UV dye and antifreeze/water wetter would kill them straight away! You lot aren't being serious are you?????
I think some people are getting confused I never intended to put real fish or anything like that into the reservoir. The fish food and poop would be bad for cooling, they'd clog up the radiator and stuff like that. I'm just looking for stuff to do with such a large reservoir. Big flashy reservoirs are cool, but not if it's just a big empty tank, there has to be some kind of special effects or neat setup or it won't be that impressive. I think I've got some cool stuff worked out though. Hopefully sometime tomorrow I can update the design/pictures to include all the hardware positions and stuff, then it will make a lot more sense and if all goes well I can start construction next week.
