Phobya water-cooled case design thread - Stage 2

Looks like I got 1 vote in the bag

Thank you man. I got some new stuff to show a bit later on.

Would you still like it, even if it's not rendered?

 

Hi guys. As I've said, I have made the HDD and pumps swappable.

Things on the list for tonight:

• 
  Fan filters

• 
  Slim optical drive bay

I want to know if there is any suggestions or feedback on the window shape. It is very plain, and very big. What do you guys think?



Here you can see the slide-in mechanism at the top (HDD) and bottom (pumps)



In-Your-Face Window

 

Render are just eye candy to me. I just think your design is great wether it is on paper or rendered.

 

I also think you case is a great design!! What software are you using to design and render it?

 

Thank you guys! I'm modelling with SketchUp and rendering with VRay

 

Razer2007 - Windows shape. My personal choice would be to have the motherboard area as a full window, maybe a grill over the bottom bay but solid over the hard drive area. Being solid over the drives would allow soundproofing material to be fitted for the drives without compromising looks.

As you may have gathered from my earlier posts noisy, resonating hard drives are one of my personal bugbears. I go to a lot of trouble to have a quiet running system with extra rads with quiet fans, changing the PSU fan if needed but often have difficulty with the hard drives.

 

I figured out the optical drive. slim.

any thoughts?

 

Thank you for the input. the soundproofing is a good pint.

come back in an hour or so.




Man I can't make the window smaller. It looks crap when smaller than THIS:

 

Here are some test I made tonight, trying to fit an HTPX mobo and to improve stuff location :

The mobo is an SR-2 placed on a removable tray. Radiators are triple 140mm. There are 6 x 3.5" HDD and 2 x 5.25" drives. Reservoirs (blue cylinders) are EK multioptions 250. Green rectangles are GTX580. The Red box on the bottom is a 1200W modular corsair PSU.

To give an idea of the case size, I did place a TJ07 sized white box.

Hope you like the changes. I'm now working to refine the previous case moddeling to match those modifications.

I forgot, the case will be approx 350 x 410 x 650 (w x d x h).

 

Some comments for you Razer:

- Dust filters for the front grill at the very least. Preferably easily accessible from the front. Maybe 2 monolithic strips down either side. A shallow recess could be ground out around each grill to make them flush with the front and hold them in position. They could maybe be attached by push clips (like the door on the 800D)?

- Do DVD drives work in the vertical orientation? Maybe you could make a 5.25" or slimline bay on top and have a 'toaster' like configuration?

- Fillports. Two of them hidden behind a door on the roof at the back of the front compartment. I assume that what they were and there is space in that compartment for tube res's as well? That would be horrendously neat. Those fillports need to come back. It's highly unlikely that anyone outside of a folding rig would be use using two PSU's. I'd mount the top HDD cage position further back.

- Maybe offer an alternative, smaller HDD rack that's orientated horizontally with greater vibration damping (bungees?) and front fan mount.

It's developing quickly. Keep it up!

 

You got some good stuff there Gille. It can be an epic case.


Pocket Knight:

Thank you very much. most of those are very good point. I'll put it on my "to do list", to see if I can implement the fan filters, and bring back the fillports.

There is a slim optical drive up on the top currently. I also thought about the "toaster", but it wouldn't fit.

The HDD rack? why horizontal? I can fit in more like it is now. I can maybe include another HDD rack that mounts the same as the current one.


I want to know, do you think airflow is a problem? the hot air from the rads slightly move through the components, and the rest through the side vents. Do you think it is an issue?

 

Depending on the components and rad area the 'hot' air out of the rads can be surprisingly cool. In the system in my sig it's roughly (I use cheap sensors/infra-red thermometer) a degree or two higher than ambient with CPU load e.g. ambient 20ºC, water temp 25ºC, vented air temp 22ºC. I'm not quite sure why it's not around the same temp as the water though.

 

Cool ok. I wont be here till saturday, so cheers peeps! I this must be up to page 8 when I get home.

 

I made some improvement inside the bottom area. I moved the HDD to the front and place a 120 mm in front of each 4 HDD rack.

Thus, I gained some place to add support of a second PSU. The Red on is a 1200w and the Yellow one is a 850 W (to give you an idea of the remaining place.

Also switched to a single slim optical drive.

 

cool. the only problem is the cable coming out of the PSU and HDD. it's gonna crash. there might not be enough space.

 

OMG, you just gave me an idea, thanks mate. I'll turn them 90° and model the HDD rack and backplane connector (I didn't modeled it, but there's a power connector on the backplane ).

I'm still wondering if I should leave the support of SR-2 or only support mobo up to EATX size.

Time to work on the outside design, but I have some nice idea up my sleeves for the inside ease of use. Keep watching

EDIT 2011-01-07 : I'm editing this post to avoid double post

I have improved the HDD rack, turn them 90° and added the backplane connector. Just to mention, it thus leaves 85 mm between HDD and a 1200W corsair PSU (and 125mm between HDD and a 850W corsair PSU)



Hdd will be accessible from both left and right side, hot swappable thanks to a rail system.



I made an attempt to moddel a RAD / RES / PUMP tray on the backside. I've not moddeled this yet, but this tray will also include a little PCB to connect all rad fans. You'll only have to connect this PCB to the PSU then.



The main purpose is to have the minimum operation "inside the box". Just connect everything with the tray out. On this screenshot, you can only see rads, fans and res. I'll add pumps and fillport later (fillport will be accessible from a hole cut in the top of the case, but they will be attached to the tray, above the res).

This is still a "box", but I'll refine the design later to make it really appealing. I prefer to spend my time on the ease of use aspect for now.

 

Eye candy... .



And yes I am still working on my design not just making pretty pictures

 

Yummy ... make a gingerbread one and I could truly eat it

Just a question : What is the part on the left ? Is it the front of the case, but detached ?

 

Haha thanks! That would be the option front bay. The entire front bay is removable allowing you to choose from a bay with 3x120/140mm rads, or a bay with 3x optical drive bays and 2x 120/140mm rads.

 

facebooked.