Case Mod - In Progress Il•lu•sion - Worlds Smallest Watercooled Pico Itx, Watercooled Shuttle & LCD Screen!

Oops very almost missed you again!
Thank you!

Mini-itx has massive advantages over using a pico... the features for a start!
The pico is small undeniably but lacks some real key features which i'd have liked. a way of changing cpu would be great.. and losing the 1gb memory limit would be handy too!

Thank you matey!!

To be honest.. i'm pretty amazed how much so far has fitted.. its taken some serious head scratching and i've found myself day dreaming about different aspects.
I'm hoping it will pull through and be a success.. otherwise its going to be a expensive mistake!

Small update

5th and fiinal filling stage applied and filed down..






deceivingly its actually very smooth.
Also fitted the spacer plate for the moment to check it fitted. (it did with some moments filing!)
This will lose its tabs over the weekend as well.. and again will be sprayed black to match the chassis and heatsink. This then leaves the heatsink with a single copper circle in the centre - i hope this will make it look 'pretty'
​

 

Doesn't look smooth but I'm sure after some paint/polish it will look superb. Brilliant work once again .

 

Will look great when it's done- awesome!

 

I can't wait to see it sprayed.

 

same here

 

Very interesting project! That´s some tight space. And sleeving? Don´t spare any molecules of air in there!!

 

This is awesome, Love the ammount of space you've managed to cram it into, Keep it coming!

 

Sorry for the delay boys and girls!


Right... Heatsinnk painted...


Tested

and...












powered up!​

 

Awesome, that's only a good sign of progress!

 

will take some better pictures tomorrow..
But yes.. much sigh of relief!!!

 

Shuttlemodder in tha house!!!

 

Really like what you're doing here

a small tip though, but one which would make your life infinitely easier - why don't you grab a couple meters of Turnigy 20AWG silicone wire, and rewire your system with that?

I use the same in my Macho Mini project, and the spaghetti-noodle like flexibility makes for super easy and clean cable-routing. In the confines of this pic-itx setup, would go a long way of simplifying your task, and clean it up for that special look

Well done though, it reminds me of Depeche Mode's 'Just can't get enough"

 

Thanks for the suggestion MrBean,
For the most part the serious bulk of the wiring will come from the psu to the system.. and i love the braided bulky look of that. Makes the board look even smaller.
The pump has very thin wires and as such only few cables... green, red & grey to positive, black to negative and yellow as a feedback wire (hoping i can wire this through the fan controller at the front)

Thats then the majority of the wiring with the exceptions of front panel and usb stick
The next stage is to make a usb socket for the usb drive... and to make a location for the power switch and leds. I'm unsure where im going to go with that as i thought an acrylic lid would look lovely lit by the power led and hard drive led. Thoughts?

I wont need keyboard and mouse for this unit only for the maintenance and installation and to reduce the bulk of wiring i can just use the plug in socket method for these times.
Now that i've established it powers (which is a huuuuge relief) i can get the outside casing sprayed and start laying in the pipe and watercooling setup.
Then get it filled and hope to go theres no leaks - its so small that everything will need to be in place at the time of testing.

Is my project missing something? Let me know!

 

Awesome work!

Always wanted a Pico-ITX especially in a 5 1/4 bay. Even better having it WC'd!
Just so expensive for such a little thing

Will probably revisit the idea with the release of the Raspberry PI

Sub'd

 

Would we like another update??

 

Absolutely!

 

When you spend many many hours of hard work, stress and deliberation over a single object it can start to turn you crazy - you begin to make silly mistakes and break things.
For this reason the pico has been put back in the box for the moment until i progress further with the remainder of the project

So on that note... Lets see what we can get up to with the shuttle then!
Note - there will only be a small amount of updates of the coming weeks as my work schedule has increased dramatically!

I endeavour to get it water-cooled by the weekend.
In most cases this would be an easy task but each pipe has to be measured, marked, measured again and then cut to the exact size.
Its simply so cramped and tight in there that there is little room for error!


Cpu in - thermal paste on.. nice and thin


heatsink on


First pipe on... i think that look shexy!!

At this point realised that in order to fit the watercooling the power supply had to be in place to fit the pump so i knew my tolerances.
So started on cable tidying!

Snipped off what i didnt need.. but decided to shrink the ends and hide them within the power supply just incase i needed them at a later point.
There goes the warranty!



Num num num!




Still a fair amount of room!


The pump is hiding in the back ground with a rough idea of how i will route the pipes

i was then able to put the graphics card in place and add the pipe from the radiator to the graphics card.
The pipe runs along the front of the car first... then into a 180 degree coupler which runs it up behind the card into the radiator - In my opinion the tidiest looking option!
With the power supply and graphics card in place i am able to later on add the pump. I need to trim down the other metal coupling as it sits too long for the pump!



All cables currently stand being trimmed, untidy and unsleeved.
When all final locations are decided i'll be making better quickly!


All untidy at the moment!
and a loose clip on the watercooling pipe!

So to clarify to finish the watercooling i need to;
Mount the pump - unsure if i should use a sticky pad or velcro?

Run loop to cpu - this will double back over itself from the pump. Its the only way i could see to get the entire loop running smoothly

Run loop to graphics card - this is tricky as if the pipe is too tight the aluminium bar touches the card.. too loose and the aluminium bar touches the lid!

Shorten aluminium tube - the angle difference with the pump being lower than the card results in a big kink in the pipe. By shortening the tube i hope to take out some of the difference and should give a nice smooth 'step'

Has anyone ever wondered what a evil genius buys with his salary?
Other than building a htpc for £100 - See here - http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=224783

He likes to get more bits for his project...
in this instance... the screen!



7" HI definition screen which allows hdmi input, vga input and phono inputs to boot.
Over kill for this project imo


i might be able to keep the front looking reasonably normal as well.
I will need to use after market connectors for sound, usb and firewire and i will also need to lose the card reader. Is it really that important? ​

 

That's great! So much packed into little space, that deserves some scotch!

 

Ill be happier when i can see the end in sight!

 

Nice progress mate, looks like everything will fit. And that screen *drools*