Ok, I started a few comments and photos on an old thread, but decided to start a proper project log as I've managed to get some actual modding stuff done at last... The original thread, with pictures of my old rig, is here: http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=188690 But I'll start again now. The name, Prometheus, is simply a mythological name I like, and I found a symbol for it to go on the front of the case when it's done. By all accounts he was a Titan who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to mankind, and for his trouble was chained to a rock to have his liver eaten by a bird, only for it to grow back over night. Repeat every day for several years till he is rescued by Hercules... Anyway, I liked the name, and also the 3-piece ship from Star Trek with the same name... As for the mod itself, I drew inspiration from various Dream PC's, as I did with my old rig, and originally wanted to experiment with TEC's like the Jellyfish, but most of the parts they used have been discontinued and they had to order them from the States to begin with. So bog standard water cooling it is then... Starting point is the Corsair 700D. I chose this over the 800D because I wanted to make my own side panel, and I had no use for the hot-swappable bays. A few quid saved there, and more options for modding - especially as the hard drives won't be there anyway... I try to get most of my parts off-the-shelf as appose to fabricating them myself. I'm an aircraft engineer by trade, and have the skills to do so, but a combination of time, materials, tools and the space to work that sort of stuff makes it easier in my mind to buy things which can be modded to suit rather than made from scratch. Case in point is the power supply I bought just to use the square box aspect of it in put the water pumps in. It only cost 8 quid delivered from eBay, so could be argued as cheaper in terms of man-hours and materials than making it myself... Anyway - some pictures... And now with a few extra bits I've bought for it - and yes, that's 3 reservoirs and 2 140mm radiators... Hmm - some acrylic tubing that fits perfectly in a hose barb... Some 3mm aluminium plates, masking tape and a pencil later... ...and some Bitspower Black Sparkle bulkhead fittings... I also bought myself a dremel, complete with a load of cutting discs - 36 in all, along with a load of other bits. After a couple of days of sawing up the 700D, I'd gone through them all. At this point my variable speed Dremel decided it didn't want to be so variable, and worked on full speed only. As it was only 2 days old, I took it back and got a new one - complete with a new box of accessories and cutting discs... With various holes and several support and styling brackets added, the case now weighs a bit less and looks like this: The PSU I mentioned earlier was stripped down, cut up and fitted out with various supports to install the pumps in. It will be covered in material on the exterior and interior, so won't look as rubbish as it does at the moment. On the plus side, it all fits in happily... Other various cuts made: Another item I've bought for research purposes was a Tagan Piperock PSU. This is a modular PSU with a different approach to connections: I liked the way it used the 5 and 6 pin connectors and the lights around them. Hoping to install something similar, I bought one from eBay and did some stripping down to find out exactly how it worked. In a nutshell, although I can find exactly the same male and female connectors in Maplins going up to an 8-pin type, they have limited amperage which I can't be certain will not melt, catch fire or disrupt the power to motherboard and graphics cards when operating at full power... I still have an idea for something similar, hence the bitspower bulkhead fittings seen earlier... A lot of this build is being designed 'on-the-fly', as I haven't used Google Sketch-up or the like, and I'm find some things don't fit perfectly with other things when it's put together. However, I shall overcome all of this, and I will end up with a finished computer at some point in the future...
Ok, so I finally have an update! I've spent the last week or so trying out an idea I had for part of the cooling system. It is puerly auesthetic and serves no useful purpose other than looking good. in my head anyway... Basically, it started life after I saw a random picture of a PC with straight hoses/pipes in it connecting the various components. Obviously for 99% of the PC this isn't practical, but i started planning in my head how you could have a section with jsut straight pipework in it, purely for the looks. I considered it would look somewhat like Scan's Jellyfish where the hoses meet and travel up the back of the case together for a short distance, except mine would be better... To start with, I'd need to test the whole concept and see if it was even feasible. ebay provided some acrylic piping, which handily fitted right inside a standard 1/2" hose barb. Along with a load of Bitspower fittings ordered from the States, I set about building a proof of concept/prototype. Pictures taken on iPhone so I do apologise for the quality... I few bits of wood in my Dad's shed allowed me to come up with this as a basic testing rig: ...to mount all of this lot in: Some more Bitspower pron... The basic idea was something like this, with the fluid following a single path through all 5 pipes: I started with a small o-ring seal in each bard, along with large quantities of bathroom sealant around the seal and the end of the pipe. The dramatically failed during leak testing, so I ripped it apart and tried again with more sealant. this had the effect of actually blocking some of the pipes, so I tried one more time with ludicrous quantities of araldite to seal everything. Clamped together while drying: And finally stuck together with test equipment and hoses: And then filled with coolant. These photos were taken during the first trials, where the sealant was actually blocking the fluid flow and at once stage caused such an overpressure that one of the pipes blew out of the bard. Luckily this was not captured on camera... Also, you may notice that the earlier photos don't feature the drain valve that the later ones do. This was a small mistake on my part, as i simply forgot to put it in before filling the loop. Don't make that mistake twice... And the final image of the system running and (mostly) leak free. God bless araldite and all who sail in Her. There is a small seep from one of the barbs, but it's proved the concept and allows me to modify it if necessary for the final build itself...
