Rastalovich
New member
This is a culmination of a number of theories I`m running through, pretty much @work in my time - with a tremendous amount of help from a college (tbh most of the manual work) and a fine job of putting my theory into practice he`s doing.
The concept is that I`d like to enclose 3 regular pcs and an Amiga system. The idea is I`m almost sick and tired of opening cases, moving them around, plugging and unplugging and so on - I`m sure I`m not alone there with a number of people.
Also I`m posting this as an ongoing thread with the hope the site`s WAP can be used to show it off also, and prehaps, with any luck, there may be a point where work in progress can be posted as it`s done via the mobile phone - we`ll see if the technology/plug-ins are up to that.
Anyhow, the first thing thought of was a cooling base. The idea was three inlet fans, three outlet fans, and in between, inside the box, was to be something akin to the wire-wooled-looking-oven cleaning rag type things u can buy. Theory being, if the room is hot/warm, as the air is blown in, the mass of metalic surface area will induce somewhat of an amount of heat. If u`ve never seen the rags, they`re like as if u took shavings off a metal block and scrunshed them all together into a handsided cloth-shaped thing. Surface metalic area will be massive, and they`re a relatively cheap product. So somewhere along the line I`ll test the theory. It was hoped that it would be the base for the 4 pc unit, but moving on with other thoughts, the 4pc thing is going to already have a big minus of heat by the way it`s constructed, so it may be negated. Thinking that there is really only a certain amount of cooling u can do with fans and objects, so the level may already be reach by the construction as it is.
Here`s the base as far as it got b4 other thoughts came along:
I`m sticking to a 6mm plyboarding as a case exterior (well 2x3mm laminated) only because it`s very easy to work with, we have a very nice stock of it atm, and as things develope there can be changes to be made and any other medium could prove expensive. As a mock up, the stuff works well, and who knows the finalized item my just need a little pimping to become acceptable as a "household item" ~ or more conventional looking shall we say.
At the moment, work moved to the module for the 4 motherboards, the idea right now is to get 1 or 2 motherboard trays installed (hence the request for LL ones a while back) so that thoughts of the further 3 modules can progress at a similar pace. Here`s a few angles of the mobo module.
These are from the 28th, the shelves are in now, as are the 2 mobo trays and some cladding (which is a woodflooring underlay with a metalic reflective surface) are in place, further images will be posted to show how the theory comes together.
The 3 modules to come are basically for the hard-drives, PSUs, and optical/floppy. The principle is that hard drives alone can pump around 60°, opticals somewhere close and I wouldn`t mind betting the psus work somewhat below that. Closely housed inside a regular pc case, it means your processor is amoungst this before you start doing any work. It obviously doesn`t help, sure there are ways to be cute with fans, but anywhichway you put it each department is not helping the temps of the other. (aside from the obvious wc approaches)
The concept is to isolate each, as much as possible cables permitting, including each mobo level from the other. Each able to be worked on either from the front via a door setup - likely to be perspex in nature, or from the rear via the mobo shelf runners that will alow them to be pulled out easily, totally out if necessary.
It helps to get the ideas down on the forum too, it will permit an easy way to look the project over as thoughts are dawning. It`s easy to get a rough idea of where I`m going by the images of the mobo module, but it has to be said that the places where fans and cables are to run will be cut at some point using something like a Dremel. (one of which we`ve already blown up LOL) this is where using a medium like ply comes in handy for the mock up, it may be decided to take the whole unit once completed to a fabricators and have it converted to aluminium - who knows at this stage, and of course costings will come into it.
The dimensions of the finished 4 modules will be approximately 75cm high x 45cm deep x ~60/65cm wide (very much depending on the outcome of the other 3 modules).
The black cases I use atm, which I have to say I`m sticking with coz they`re the easiest ones I`ve found to work with, are 55cm x 47cm x 20cm - multipled out, maybe I`ll even save some room space.
Chances are the finished product will have either lazy wheels or a turntable-effort too, to get to the rear easily.
Not something that I`m immediately thinking of, but it would appear from the paper sketches I`ve made, that the remaining 3 modules will not fit squarely (or cubely) together without an empty 5th module space - if this is the case, it`d be a future thought in terms of wc or similar, but atm it`s not the first consideration.
The concept is that I`d like to enclose 3 regular pcs and an Amiga system. The idea is I`m almost sick and tired of opening cases, moving them around, plugging and unplugging and so on - I`m sure I`m not alone there with a number of people.
Also I`m posting this as an ongoing thread with the hope the site`s WAP can be used to show it off also, and prehaps, with any luck, there may be a point where work in progress can be posted as it`s done via the mobile phone - we`ll see if the technology/plug-ins are up to that.
Anyhow, the first thing thought of was a cooling base. The idea was three inlet fans, three outlet fans, and in between, inside the box, was to be something akin to the wire-wooled-looking-oven cleaning rag type things u can buy. Theory being, if the room is hot/warm, as the air is blown in, the mass of metalic surface area will induce somewhat of an amount of heat. If u`ve never seen the rags, they`re like as if u took shavings off a metal block and scrunshed them all together into a handsided cloth-shaped thing. Surface metalic area will be massive, and they`re a relatively cheap product. So somewhere along the line I`ll test the theory. It was hoped that it would be the base for the 4 pc unit, but moving on with other thoughts, the 4pc thing is going to already have a big minus of heat by the way it`s constructed, so it may be negated. Thinking that there is really only a certain amount of cooling u can do with fans and objects, so the level may already be reach by the construction as it is.
Here`s the base as far as it got b4 other thoughts came along:
I`m sticking to a 6mm plyboarding as a case exterior (well 2x3mm laminated) only because it`s very easy to work with, we have a very nice stock of it atm, and as things develope there can be changes to be made and any other medium could prove expensive. As a mock up, the stuff works well, and who knows the finalized item my just need a little pimping to become acceptable as a "household item" ~ or more conventional looking shall we say.
At the moment, work moved to the module for the 4 motherboards, the idea right now is to get 1 or 2 motherboard trays installed (hence the request for LL ones a while back) so that thoughts of the further 3 modules can progress at a similar pace. Here`s a few angles of the mobo module.
These are from the 28th, the shelves are in now, as are the 2 mobo trays and some cladding (which is a woodflooring underlay with a metalic reflective surface) are in place, further images will be posted to show how the theory comes together.
The 3 modules to come are basically for the hard-drives, PSUs, and optical/floppy. The principle is that hard drives alone can pump around 60°, opticals somewhere close and I wouldn`t mind betting the psus work somewhat below that. Closely housed inside a regular pc case, it means your processor is amoungst this before you start doing any work. It obviously doesn`t help, sure there are ways to be cute with fans, but anywhichway you put it each department is not helping the temps of the other. (aside from the obvious wc approaches)
The concept is to isolate each, as much as possible cables permitting, including each mobo level from the other. Each able to be worked on either from the front via a door setup - likely to be perspex in nature, or from the rear via the mobo shelf runners that will alow them to be pulled out easily, totally out if necessary.
It helps to get the ideas down on the forum too, it will permit an easy way to look the project over as thoughts are dawning. It`s easy to get a rough idea of where I`m going by the images of the mobo module, but it has to be said that the places where fans and cables are to run will be cut at some point using something like a Dremel. (one of which we`ve already blown up LOL) this is where using a medium like ply comes in handy for the mock up, it may be decided to take the whole unit once completed to a fabricators and have it converted to aluminium - who knows at this stage, and of course costings will come into it.
The dimensions of the finished 4 modules will be approximately 75cm high x 45cm deep x ~60/65cm wide (very much depending on the outcome of the other 3 modules).
The black cases I use atm, which I have to say I`m sticking with coz they`re the easiest ones I`ve found to work with, are 55cm x 47cm x 20cm - multipled out, maybe I`ll even save some room space.
Chances are the finished product will have either lazy wheels or a turntable-effort too, to get to the rear easily.
Not something that I`m immediately thinking of, but it would appear from the paper sketches I`ve made, that the remaining 3 modules will not fit squarely (or cubely) together without an empty 5th module space - if this is the case, it`d be a future thought in terms of wc or similar, but atm it`s not the first consideration.