Scratch Build – In Progress Cherry wood case water cooled

I love computers and I have a vast love for wood working. I have used my computer to design wood projects but this will be exciting to design and build a case out of wood that will house my computer. I watched (over the shoulder so to speak) the Dark Blade project and was very impressed with his project. I dont have metal working background (as many of us don't) but I do have 35 years experience with wood working.





Dual power supplies to help with the cooling system (I am using a TEC chip to cool the reservoir and it uses 234 watts)
I begin at the water pump housing because I need the location of the radiator to drill air holes and align the fan grills.



This is a 1:1 cad drawing of the layout for the water cooling pump.
It matches very close to the actual layout.



I have learned so many lesson on this project that you would be surprised.
Next I built the water cooling rig that will be used in the case.



Next step was to cut the plywood to size.



The radiator was fitted with (2) 120mm fans for cooling.



Now I mounted all the componets on the plywood to check the layout.



Thats a Ultra 600 watt power supply for the cooling system. I will run the fans, water pump and TEC chip.
At this time I will not be cooling my video boards.



Well thats enough for today. I have the wood standing by for milling tomorrow to start the pump housing.
Let me know what you think.

 

As one would expect, I'm very interested to see how this project turns out. Cherry is one of my favorite woods too and with 35 years of experience, I have high expectations for this.

Slightly off topic, what kind of woodworking have you been doing? Any specialty favorite tools or anything? Favorite woods? Any university schooling? I'm always curious about that.

Good luck with this project, I will be following it closely, mod on.

 

Is that your case? I have looked at that work of art on the net for months. I am a engineer in the medical field. I have been at that for 19 years. Prior to that I was in the US Navy on submarines. I left the Navy after 10 years as a Master Training Specialist on computers. Wood working has always been my hobby and just last year I made Christmas jewery cases (New Yankee Workshop style) for my wife, mother in law, sister in law and daughter. I learned to do the dove tail by watching Norm. If I get a chance I will find some of the pics on the cases to show you my skills. I look forward to your comments and advise.

 

I would like to point at a water-cooling loop will not have a "warm" or "cool" point since it is a closed loop. The temperature differential between the inlet and outlet of the CPU block is going to be extremely small.

 

I can't wait to see how this turns out. I also love wooden computer cases. Last year I made one in my highschool woods class using Walnut. I have only been wood working for about since I was 9 years old and now I'm 17.
heres my nut case project log http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=112514&highlight=walnut
Good luck

 

Nice Job. I love walnut too. I did a project for my car where my laptop would set on it much like a car secretary. I had a slide out to write on and all the PS including the dc to ac convertor were housed in the electronics compartment. It was held in place with the seat belt and it had one of the HP 350 portable printers built in.

 

You are correct yet the flow of the water is very important because of the design of the danger den water block. It will still be a warm side and cool side because of the water flow. Besides its just for explaination and making sure the water is flowing accross the control set Accelerator Nozzles.

 

lol @ slug way to ruin a happy start with cold logic

the plan looks awsome Tale, i wish you luck. Very nice layout with the cooling assembly; it looks very organized and ... spiffy...

 

Well slug just wants a voice (LOL Slug) . He even counterdicts himself when he says theres only a slight temperature difference. Well that makes one side warmer then the other right? Oh well thanks for the compliment. I will be planing my lumber to the thickness required today so I can begin to mill the stock for glue up. In my work (Im a project manager for a large medical company) I use chillers to cool cold heads on MRI's (cyrogens are used to create a super conductor out of copper). I take an outside chiller, feed it to a cryocooler that has cold lines runing to the cold head to prevent cryogens from "burning" off (but we know cryogens don't burn the evaporate) at about −272 °C or −457 °F. We use liquid Nitrogen to cool the liquid Helium. Maybe my next project will be to create a cryogen cooled system (colder then the units sold at $800). Hey we can dream huh?

 

The equipment I will be using is a list a mile long

Delta contractor saw tricked out including dual cast iron table wings with a Woodworker II blade
DeWalt Planer with digital readout for thickness
General joiner
Jet 14" Band Saw with Kreg fence and carter bearings
Several different routers
More router bits then I ever wanted to list
7518 Porter Cable 3.25 horse power router on a lift
Delta Drill press
DeWalt Scroll saw with stand
Porter Cable Plate Joiner
Leigh dovetail jig


I will be making a raised panel door for the computer case. This presented a major problem in that the DVD recorders stick out. I came up with a plan to create a extension of the case that the door will shut against and not hit the DVD recorders.

My favorite wood is Cherry and Maple. Maple tends to dull my blades faster then any other wood because of the strength. (far greater then Oak but twice as expensive)

I can't say which tool is my favorite because there are different needs for each. I love my table say but I would like a cabinet not a contractor style (no room). My band saw if fantastic with the carter bearing but it has limitations. The DeWalt planer is a great tool but only cuts boards to thickness. Routers are very versatile and I love my Porter Cable 7518 on the router lift.

I have to snicker when I read under my name Whats a dremel? Oops Ive been promoted to minimoder!

 

That is quite a nice list of tools you have there. I wish I actually owned those but alas, I am a student and until I have a garage (who cares about the house), i get to rely on my school and the few tools i own.

I love cherry and maple although cherry here is rediculously expensive, about 8 bucks a board foot. I fell in love with maple while building Yuugou as it cuts really nicely with my hand saws and doesn't do a lot of the stupid crap soft woods do. I also love my planer (I got the delta one) and I agree, router tables are a must.

Norm is a great guy and I grew up watching him but I began liking guys like David Marks better since his stuff is a little more my style although his techniques tend to bug me. Furniture making is also great for making christmas presents as such as you demonstrated which is great. Those things will always be more appreciated than anything store bought.

Alright, i'll shut up and go back to class. I'm looking forward to the next update.

 

This should be interesting hope u get some work pics up soon.

Regards.

 

Im watchin to i love mods made from wood

 

Sorry for no updates today but I will be getting back to this soon (tomorrow hopefully). My next step is to take that cherry and cut it to 28" lengths and prepare it to be planed and joined. Then I can glue up the boards trying to match the wood grain as close as possible with out making it too obvious that the boards have be joined. Then one last pass through the planer and then major fun.

 

looks like its starting pretty well

 

Well I got some time for the next step. I've cut all the boards into workable size. The boards are thicker then needed which is what you want so that you can plane them down to a great finish.



I used my circular saw with laser and a speed square to cut them down.





Lots of cherry planks to work with here. Next stop is at the DeWalt Planer.



The DeWalt has a digital readout (add on) to insure the thickness. This is a necessity when doing cabinet building. Well I didn't have a bunch of time tonight to do much more and it takes about 1.5 hours to clean up. An the planer is very loud and the neighbors I sure would not want me to start this late.

 

I'm getting a new toy this weekend. Jet lathe and that will be the last big tool I need in my wood shop. So really what is a Dremel....

 

Well now the fun has begun to take more shape. Not in the way of a computer case but a piece of quality board to which something can be made.





Now that this is beginning its going to take shape a little quicker.

 

I ment to talk about the wood and problems here. One board was warped but not so bad that it could be reshaped. But when I planed it off the fibers that were cut during planing allowed the board to warp more. This resulted in having to replace the board with another. Thankful that I had about 5 extra for this project

 

i am very interested with this. i am only 18 years old but have great woodworking enthusiasm, i do it as a hobby as my calling is architecture. I have always wanted to build a case out of wood but was unsure about actual safety with wood burning temperatures and such. I am definitely subscribing to this as i really would like to see where this is going. just an idea: maybe for the side of the case where the mobo is against, maybe you could do some sort of inlay.