Scratch Build – In Progress The Mineral Oil PC - 3/24/2011 - More leaks :(

Should cause a couple of second glances! Again. And again.

 

glad to see it moving again
can't wait to see it all finished and fired up.
keep up the good work!

 

I hope so! I rarely go to big lan parties, but this one should be fun.

Thanks. If anyone wants to catch me at the lan party, it's Lanwar July 9-12 in Louisville Kentucky. My handle is legoman666 and I'll be recognizable by my distinct case mod

 

Looking Good! Glad to see that you're working on this again!

 

For God's sake! Don't set up on one of those flimsy card tables at the LAN!!!

 

Ahaha, I hadn't even thought of that. That could be bad....

 

Hard Drive Mount

Moving right along...


Finding a place to mount the hard drives inside the case was difficult. I attached a piece of L angle to one of my drives to find the best spot.


This was as good as I could do, but even here it's blocking the top most ports on the motherboard (keyboard and mouse PS2 ports). Hopefully this won't be a problem. All of my crap is USB anyway.


I have 6 drives I would like to put in the case, but only two are going to fit. I drilled a piece of sheet so I could attach the 2 drives.


Lookin' good.


After double checking and triple checking the measurements for these screws, I drilled the holes in the top of the case.


And here they are on the inside with the lid closed. As you can see, they kind of lean one way since they're only supported on one side.


A quick little bracket on the other side fixed that.


Much better.


The drives on screwed to the top of the top compartment and will not be submerged in oil.


Who planned this thing anyway? The handle for pulling up the motherboard tray is in the way of the hard drives. Since this is the only place that the hard drives will fit, the handle will either have to be modified or removed.


This shot and the ones following are simply money shots to show the overall progress on the case.








And from the back.




These are the cables that provide power for the lower compartment. The remaining slot on the spacer will hold the power, reset and power LED wires.

And that's all for today. All that remains is fixing the mobo tray handle, re wiring the plugs, installing the fans on the 2nd radiator, installing the tubing, installing the pump, and cleaning the case before I fill it with oil.

Comments?

 

That is an awesome beast. As for the handle not fitting, I would move it over slightly or try to get a smaller handle.

 

Your wooden computer was 80 some lbs? This one should be fun to move

Are you planning on re-sleeving or doing something with the external power cables for the lower bit?

 

looking good, nice and clean, nice work!

 

If the hard drives are blocking PS/2 ports I hope your motherboard doesn't require a PS/2 keyboard when it goes into psycho panic mode (lol). Mine does so I can't get rid of my old PS/2 keyboard.

 

cooleo

 

what about drive vibrations? they will cause a lot of noise when loaded IMO

 

Thanks, I was just thinking about cutting it in half. I could still lift it up by half.

I already sleeved them. You can see the black mesh in the last picture I posted.

Thanks!

I had an older motherboard that did the same thing. My USB keyboard worked in the BIOS but not after that. It started working again after Windows was booted. It was a pain in the ass to press F6 to install RAID drivers when installing windows. My current motherboard doesn't have this problem.

Thanks.

I'm not too worried but I'll try to come up with something.

 

Is there any room to mount the hard drives in the lower compartment? They should get plenty of airflow to cool them if they fit.

The only problem would be getting long enough SATA cables to route down there I think..

An alternative would be side-LCD-style acrylic pockets in which they could sit to avoid a dunk in the oil.

Great to see you working on this mod again.

 

Thanks for the suggestions!

I considered the lower compartment but I don't really think there's a good spot for them there either. If I mount them vertically between the radiators, they'll be blocking quite a bit of air flow, not to mention the 3 ports coming from the bottom of the tanks. Besides, the tubing for the drain, inlet and outlet will be taking up a lot of a real estate between the radiators. I might be able to mount 1 or two on the bottom of the compartment, but there's already a few things down there. I'm at work now, but I'll take a few measurements later to see if I can maybe shove 1 or 2 down there. Can never have enough hard drives.... I have 2 1Tb disks, 2 500gb disks, and 2 250gb disks that I would ideally cram somewhere.

It's too late for pockets I would have needed to attach them before I glued the entire tank together. I'm hoping to score a few SSDs at a later date. If I do, they will definately be in the oil.

Keep the comments coming!

 

your lucky it doesn't do that with the keyboard. when I was having trouble with my power switch my pc was turning on and off constantly and then after a few times ti goes crazy and i have to use a PS/2 keyboard to reset it or whatever.

 

Almost done!

I should be able to finish the case tomorrow or the next day! All I need to do is break down my current PC, clean it, put it in the new case, and fill it with oil. Here's what I've been working on for the past 2 days.


Noctuas are ridiculously expensive. I bought these instead. Great performance at half the cost. Win!


I was bored yesterday, so I stuck my retro gaming machine in the case and fired it up.


Dual P3's, Voodoo 5 5500, 512mb Rambus. Pro specs!


Enough silliness; I installed the second rad. There isn't much space between the two. And to think I had originally intended to stick two pumps down there...


The two radiators are connected in parallel. Oil will flow in to both simultaneously and then back out. The two rads are identical so the same amount of oil should go to both.


Then I attached the tubing to get the oil to the inlet and outlet on the bottom of the tank. You can see the two temperature sensors that I mounted in the sawed off T's here.


Then I installed the drain. I made sure to mark which position was what so I didn't accidentally fill the tank when the drain wasn't shut.


And this is the view of the bottom compartment in its final state. Fingers crossed on no leaks. I only get 1 shot at this, I can't leak test with water because I will never be able to get all of it out of the radiators.


The bottom of the tank sure is dirty....


After thinking hard about what to do with the handle so it doesn't hit the hard drives, I just simply moved it off center. It was previously attached to the left two screws that hold the backpane to the tray. Now it's attached to the right two. Brilliant eh?






I gave the tank a good cleaning with a few blasts from the compressor and some Windex. Squeeky clean!


Can't wait to get it running!

 

Dude.. freaking SWEET!

I hope you have a hella powerful pump, since you're only running a single.

Otherwise, maybe this would be of help (linky)

 

getting there! i cant wait to see this running!!!