plan: 50cm high 40cm wide 40cm deep lowest 10cm as cablemess, router and so on, closed of with a 40cmx40cm plate (like top and bottom) L-brackets covering the edges passive selfcontained watercooling of 2100+xp@2700+ passive gpu zalman heatpipe passive psu q-tec 550 (is dual fan at the moment) suspension mounted silentdrive with 80g barracuda4 suspension mounted eheim 1048 pump innovatek tank-o-matic mounted in front cutout innovatek dual radiator mounted at the top idea: no fans, and as airtight as possible to maximize convection. in through psu at the bottom and out through the radiator at the top. I am pretty confident about the cpucooling, but if convection is not enough to cool the psu I might thermally connect it to the side of the case. at the moment it all works under normal use in a standard hightower case with the psu fans barely spinning as the only fans. but i turn the radiator fans on while maxing the cpu. goals: silence! selfcontained without fans and without sacrificing performance too much. if it looks good as well ... great name: no welding will be done on the case, the weldery is a reference to the musik I make which is nicknamed welding techno by some friends, and since I make the stuff on my computer ... hey presto - the weldery - was born --- got the metal today, 3/5mm thick aluminium, quick tape together test:
your surface area is good, but not good enough to have passive cooling be effective enough to pump out the heat of the psu, vid card, and cpu... that is a fair amount of heat you are generating there... maybe seal the caseand have the radiator external with a 120 mm fan@ 7v and shrouded... Just looking out for your best interest. I will be watching this one to see how it comes out, and am happy to offer any advice with any q's you may have.
That's ummm... well... a very insteresting design on the aluminum... kinda, but not quite, hypnotic. It'll be one heck of a show piece for sure..
Perhaps get something like the Zalman Passive Rad for your system. I will try to get a link for you. These passive rads are usually quite large and will probably need to be out side of the case, but might look cool next to a case like that! EDIT: linky one: http://www.highspeedpc.com/Merchant...Y&Store_Code=HSPC&Category_Code=InnovaKonvect These actually arent that big! Oh and the one I was thinking of (wasnt Zalman sorry):http://www.innovatek.de/contentServ/3.0/www.innovatek.de/index.php?StoryID=767 sorry it isnt in english!
the thing is I already have all the parts, I am only building the case, not a new computer. and I am on a strict budget. I know it might be a stretch going totally passive, but the system is pretty close as it is, in a standard case, with the rad down front. only worry at the moment is that the psu might dump a lot of heat inside the case, so it might have to be connected to the case, or watercooled, to get the air temps down before the radiator ... but I need to experiment before it comes to that I have seen the innovatek radiators designed for passive cooling, and if I bought watercooling today I might go for that, but I got the watercooling parts one and a half years ago, and am not going to upgrade just yet. Another thing to note, I am not aiming for low temperatures and high overclocks, I am going for silent and stable, somewhat higher water temperatures will actually help convection.
I might not have been clear enough, there _will_ be holes at the top for the radiator to breathe out through. So surface area should have nothing to do with it, a clear unobstructed path for the air from bottom to top is what matters. the reason to make it as airtight as possible is to make the convektion path the only way for the air inside, so that the rad at the top will be "pulling" and the psu at the bottom "pushing", thus faster convektion than if they were placed outside the case.
Welcome to the forums bo.V Any idea when we might be seeing some more modding work/pics? I really want to see more!
Interesting project...can we see more pics or a sketch of how this will look like in that box!? I will be watching for more updates and also wishing you the best of luck that you dont burn up anything. Happy Holidays!
bought some extra tools and the L-extrusion? .. 6 meters of it, almost as expensive as the plate. spent the day experimenting with cutting and filing some of the excess material. it seems to go okay, so now I just need some time to work on it I experimented with sketchup and 3dstudio when I planned this out, the closest to my vision but without the L-extrusion is this: I will try and make the top cutout a bit more detailed, but if that does not turn out good enough I will do the cut-across, put some netting behind and call it minimalist design ... the two lines across the front, is that exact cut-across, top one is for a slot-in dvd drive, the lower for a tray cdr drive. the red thing is the innovatek tank-o-matic ...
Have you thought about annodizing all that alum??? I made a guide for how to do it at home in the mod guide section... just an Idea... It will make a really good finish. much better than paint because it grows a layer of special film from the metal and is part of the metal... much stronger than paint and you can color it any color you want! Just a thought! Sorry if I hijacked your thread... Just offering suggestions.
yep, thought about it, and I read some guides. my concerns are: - I remember reading that you need bigger powersupplies for big pieces. - I would probably have to do it one piece at a time, and I would be concerned about getting the exact same colour on all pieces. - I am not big on chemicals - No powersupply/battery charger for it either ... I might look into getting it done professionally once everything else is done ... anyone care to estimate a price, total surface 1.5 m2 if you only count one side of the material ... So far I like the raw look of the material, but I have never seen treadplate painted or anodized, so if anyone have some links to projects with that, please post them.
worked a bit with the L-brackets, and got a preview of how it is going to look. The jigsaw broke down so I still have to cut the hole for the radiator and the reservoir. backside mounted: top front view with the holes for slotin dvd, and tray cdrw, old atx psu for size reference. perspective front drive holes up close I found that 45 angling the L-brackets is pretty hard to get perfect, at least with my lack of skills and cheapass tools .... I have bought some "chemical metal", which I hope works sort of like bondo. So I'm going to fix the corners and paint the L-brackets once I'm further along.
What kind of chemical metal is that? I'm doing a mod right now which also involves this L-brackets cut at 45° (pain in the ass) Nice work btw
it's made by Loctite and is called "kemisk metal" here in denmark, it's two component fast drying and supposedly very strong. edit: thanks btw
you might try looking in auto places, some ricers use it on floor mats ... some also have some chrome plastic checker plate on a roll that you could possible use, just dont expect to be able to polish it Got mine through a friend whose brother ordered and cut it at his job ... wholesale pricing can't be beat ...
ok, progress report: - all L-brackets fitted - hinges fitted to front - optical drive holding plates made, not mounted yet - hole cut for radiator - mesh fitted to radiator hole, classic ikea trash can mesh style overview zoom on mesh, no flash I haven't decided on the color for the L-brackets, and the mesh, how does white sound?
