Planning Scratch build planing [20/3 triple loop or one three parted loop?]

Since I'm planing a scratch build and have already posted some post with questions for it. Though to not make to many posts I will make one post and ask my questions here instead.
To get a pre-taste it will be a large water-cooled black painted aluminium with plexi details that will be light up with with blue and red LED:s, wasn't my intention when I made the design but it is actually kind of Tron inspired Will also paint one of the sides with a custom paint job since I have a friend that is really good on using spray cans to do some real art with

I'm currently doing some planing in Skecthup and I'm not sure what thickness I'm going to use. So the main frame will be made from either 10 mm or 15 mm aluminium square bars. Then I will use 1mm aluminium plates on the sides with a frame around them that will be 2 mm plexi and then topped with another layer of 1mm aluminium. So here's the first question. Will 10 mm aluminium bars be enough or will it be unstable? For the stability should you go with 2 mm aluminium for the base plates or will it be enough with only 1 mm?

 

Without knowing all of the components you intend to install, you would get a ton of different answers.

Clarify what mb/gpu/drives/ps/etc you expect to use, and the overall size of case you are aiming for, such as ft03/tj07/800d, and then you should much more useful answers.

 

I really depends on how you put it together. The whole thing could be done in 1mm alu if designed well.
-That being said - don't just build a simple box frame with six side panels. Put some thought into how it goes together. Some of the awesomest builds here are more interesting in HOW they are put together..
-Sorry, I'm ranting again.
Anyway, a frame can be eliminated in many places with some well-placed bends, etc..

 

That's true. Was planing a WC build with SLI/crossfire and 2 3x140 radiators in the bottom. Going to have 5 3,5 HDD and 2 SSD with one slot in DVD drive that I will replace with a Blue-ray when the price is not so damn high The dimensions on my first draft was 60x60x26 cm but I think I will move the PSU to get a little less depth. The PSU will be either a Corsair HX 850 or 1000 so that I can power all the independent LED:s and cathodes I will have in it and be able to have the option for a third card for the SLI/crossfire. Will also have a LCD display on the front and make a custom large water tank that will ad some to the weight. Hope that will be helpful in determine how much it will have to handle.
About the construction I was thinking something like this.



Where there will be stationary panels on the top, front, back and bottom compartment while you will be able to remove the the side panels on the top compartment. The bar in the front will be for LCD and DVD holders. PSU will be either in the bottom with he 2 radiators or under the motherboard and build a box around it to hide the cables. The second option will decrease the depth and make it about 10 cm shorter since I was going to have it mounted sideways behind the 2 rads.

First I was thinking I wanted a completely screw less outside and use glue to fix the the frame on the side panels at least the top 1mm aluminium and then use countersunk flat-head screws through the base aluminium plate and plexi to have some sort of internal fixture to mount it to the frame and on the removable side panel I was thinking to add some pop lock like many front panels have but a better version obviously Will see how I will solve it. Going to make a full-scale model in wood and hard paper first and see how it looks

About the frame on the side panels, don't worry won't be any boring square frame. I have some ideas sketched up on paper and I haven't seen that sort on any case before at least what I remember But with most artistic inspiration I'm probably influenced by something else As I said it's sort of Tron inspired but I didn't realize until after I made it and saw the Tron Lightbike mod post in the forum.

No worries about the ranting either it can happen to the very best of us

 

Just looking at the case compared to your mb tray, I would estimate that you could get by using extruded aluminum angle for the frame. But that would entail careful bends and riveting.

However based on how much weight in components you are listing, You would probably be better off with your plans for the 10mm bar ( either square tube or solid ) if have/know a good welder.

Either way, as cheapskate already confirmed, 1mm should be fine for the side panels, since they aren't integral/weight bearing.

 

Yes that might be right but I don't really like the look on angled bars. It's hard to get it to look good and to get the corners to work without having a edge so that the side panels will touch the frame all the way for support.

Ok so you think that 10mm will be enough then or should I go with 15 to be sure it will be stable? Welding would be hard though since I don't have that kind of connection and aluminium is hard to weld what I know of so was planing to use screws to put it together.
The panels in the bottom compartment will probably hold up the weight of the radiators so those should maybe be a little thicker.

 

Si I have another question. I was planing to have some sort of screen on the front to show info about the computer like the Alphacool display. However I like to have a something similar as full colour display and with touch functionality and between 5"-7". Can you find something like that?
If you can't then just touch or just a colour display will work.

 

lilliput touchscreens are very popular for car systems, most common size is 7 inches. you can get one for around 150USD on ebay.
They behave like regular screens so its probably what you want.

Cheers,
Chris

 

Well my thought was to program them to show temp, load, media-info, and run fan/light control from it. Was thinking of trying to make some sort of Java application or something for it. Or use a already existing one that can be configured to only show up on the touch screen. On a side note does anyone know what dimension the internal screen of a Lilliput UM-70/C/T is so that I can see if it will actually fit in the front or not?

I also decided to go with 1mm aluminium and just have square rods for the base columns in the four edges and then use bent 90° profiles for the horizontal supports.

 

you can write a small app to do this, but as i said, they behave like regular monitors, you can extend your desktop on it and do something like this


about the dimensions, i couldn't find anything, but the dimensions with the frame, are 188×123×25.8mm（with touch panel）so i dont think you will have any problems with that.

 

Yeah that i got jsut wondered if you can make a program that you have in autostart and have it show up in the secondary display instead of the regular one?

Yeah i found those dimensions aswell though since I will remove the normal frame and create a custom one for my frontpanel i will need the internal dimensions. I sent a mail to Lilleput anyway so we'll see if they reply.

 

That is certainly doable, but i also think that with a google search you might find a couple of programs for that.

 

I guess you could. My google skills is mediocre though so will have to see what I find.

 

heh, yeah i searched a lot but i couldn't find anything
looks like i was wrong
will give it another shot tomorrow and see what we come up with.
you could also consider extending your desktop on that screen and use something like rainmeter, which is fully (an easily) customizable to show some info, but i dont know whether it provides fan controlling options. i also dont know how "hungry" it is, so check it out and see from there.
hope i helped.

cheers,
Chris

 

Already using rainmeter but haven't really gone through the configuration that much There is allot of options and I don't have that time atm or I'm just lazy, take you pick
The fan controller part is secondary fan speed and temps is more important. Going with an automatic temp-controlled controller. Maybe the one from Koolance since you can plug it into USB and it have support for the Koolance flow-meter I'm going to use.

Been sitting for 5 hours now in Sketchup It's a very nice application but damn it have some serious bugs that drives me crazy sometime Anyway it's going to look freaking awesome if I can build it like I want to Going to take allot of work to make it happen though so will see how long it will take I'm tempted to show a preview but I don't want to give to much spoilers Now I just need to get the time to make my vision come to life

 

it seems that a lot of mobo manufacturers give out specific hw monitors for their products.
if you have some experience with programming there's this open source project, although i dont know how old or active it is.
Also, since you already use rainmeter, it seems that speedfan is supported on rainmeter skins, so you should be able to make something up like you want it. you just need to study rainmeter a bit and you could cook something up with some effort. it has a relatively big community and good support, so you can find all the info you'll need. just google "rainmeter speedfan"

cheers,
Chris

 

Have to check that open source thing out Thanks for the tip.
Already have a Speedfan addon for Rainmeter but haven't got it to work properly it just say N/A on fan speed even if I can see in the actual program it if I have Speedfan running

 

So some other questions. It's about how I should build the water loop. As it is now I will go with 2 580GTX or the new 590GTX if the price isn't way to much when it's launched and how my economic situation is at that time. Probably will go with the Core i7 and cool the motherboard and RAM:s with the loop as well. Will power the loop with 2 Laing DCC pumps and cool it with two EK 3x140 radiators unfortunately I don't think I will have room for a push pull configuration in that case it will be about 4 cm between the fans pulling air in different directions pulling up air through the floor of the chassis. I hope that will be enough to cool the loop. Anyway my second question is how I should have the loop? Is there any difference to have to separate loops, one on the GPU:s and one on the rest? or have everything on the same loop powered by two pumps connected after each other?

On a side note if I have different loops can I have one large tank that both loops use or is it better to have one loop if you do it that way?

If I have one loop does it mater if I have the pumps connected serial or parallel and connect them with a Y connection?

 

If you're using res for both loops, then the water temperature will equalise, and you may as well have one loop.

Serial = extra pressure parallel = I don't know, but would presume better performance in case of failure of one pump.

Gabe of Swiftech did a straight comparision of single vs dual loops, the basic conclusion was CPU+1GPU=best with one loop CPU+2GPU=marginaly(one degree? can't remember) better with two loops CPU+<2GPU=two loops better.

 

Ok well the reason I ask this is because I was planing to do something special with the water-cooling loop. Mainly for the pure awesomeness of the look of it. Not so much for the actual cooling tough. However I think I can manage to make it some other way as well so I only have one loop through the whole system and maybe have them separate after they have passed all the blocks on the way back to the reservoir to get the effect that I'm looking for. Will affect the flow a little but hopefully it will not make the heat go up too much.