Project: Gr1zz

[WarMace]

Are you gonna try baking the (metal) painted bits? After they're dry, throwing them in an oven heated to 180f then shut off, creates an incredible finish.

I read that in your Worklog and I am considering it. 150 is not too bad, I just hope it does not smell like chemicals in my kitchen.

 

[Adidas4275]

how do you plan on controlling your PC with the PDA?

will it always be connected via USB and what program will you use?

 

[WarMace]

how do you plan on controlling your PC with the PDA?

will it always be connected via USB and what program will you use?

I stated it earlier, but i can give more details now that I have the PDA operational, just not mounted yet.

I plan on using Innobec Technologies "SideWindow" application. It is a modders dream application that turns your PDA into a standard (240x320) and high (480x640) resolution mini-monitor.

Its really too bad the guy who wrote it couldent turn a profit, so he will not be updating it to run on Windows Vista. He did mention turning it over to open source.

I will Dual-bood XP and Vista, so the window will only work in XP.

I also have access to visual Studio so in the future I may write an application to read data off the internet, but that could be next year.

 

[zero_vertical]

I heart this thread.

 

[Teknokid]

wow! ill deffinately get that app. gonna sell my xda iis and get an xda exec. should be great on that.

 

[WarMace]

25 Days till $10,000 in cpu's will be given away.


Went to staples and picked up a $1.50 3-ring binder.

So I could cut off a piece to fill the gap across the hinge.

Its kind of a hack job but it fills the gap nicely, too bad its too stiff to open the lid.

Removing the plastic that was trying to fold over the hinges allowed the lid to open freely. But i still would rather the hinges covered rather than painted. I may cut up a black t-shirt to use instead.... If I do stick with the plastic, I will remake this part to fit tighter, this was a working sample.

Drilled the remaining holes for the instrument panel L-Brackets.

pretty good for using scrap metal cut out of this case.

Plenty of space for the PDA and a plethora of switches.

It does not close perfectly, but its pritty good. I will light this compartment with a nice soft glow before I'm finished. My theme has always been blue and green, but red may be more fitting here. Kinda' like a cockpit.

I updated the watercooling plan to reflect my changes.

• Dropped the Radiator
• rotated the TEC chiller
• inserted the digital thermometer
• re-routed the T-Line to go around the optical drive and meed a danger den fillport on the instrument panel.

I hope the T-line wont burp coolant on my instrument panel, but to be safe it will be mounted in a lower position.



Large Version

Ok, now that I have gotten this far I still don't have a way to prevent hot radiator air from heating the air cooled components. While I was surfing around for tips to mounting the radiator I came across This and instantly knew it was perfect for me. So in the greatest form of flattery, I plan on copying it. (Citing my sources like a good creator). My only change is I will tweak it a little so the PSU will not get hot radiator air. And I will paint the backside of the clear plexiglass (no lexan needed on internal parts) with chrome paint to create an effect rarely used in computers these days.

Go to any hot-rod car show and you will see at least 1 person using mirrors to show off their goods, so I will try my best to add mirror-like flat surfaces inside the case to better show off the items inside. You like? I will not only add it to the radiator baffle, but I would like to add it to the wall opposite the motherboard, this is a "only if i have spare time" mod, that might be done before the LAN party.

 

[WarMace]

The Chiller will be made up of a TEC (Peltier) placed after the radiator and before a digital thermometer.

I will use a heat sink with fan to cool the hot side, and the cold side will be inline using a high-flow water block.

Many thanks to MjrStryker , D'oh , and especially Bob S., and Arcygenical (whom of which I promised a couple beers (for the record)). I appreciate your help getting me on the right track to wiring the TEC without killing my parts or myself.

I hit a odd bump in this road. Come to find out my TEC I have had in my toolbox forever is quite powerful. This can be a curse if i cannot figure out how to cool its theoretical 130 watts of heat dumping off the hot side. If i fail it will end up heating my coolant rather than chilling it.

My water block and heat sink I was planning on using may have to be scrapped for something with greater surface area in the future to be able to run at 12Volts. Until then I'm planning cooling to run it at 5v for the time being, this was a unexpected setback, but I can handle it.

What are my plans?
To use my current parts I will need to make a hot and cold plate to sandwich the TEC with around 200lbs of pressure. That will spread the heat the way I need it to.

I am tossing around the idea of fabricating my own waterblock for this, because it could be cheaper than buying one. Unless you have a water block that will cover a 4 1/2 x 4 1/2 mm TEC corner to corner that you want to sell me cheap.


The benefit of making my own will allow me to make the inlet and outlet on opposite sides rather than on the same side, which will make it fit better in my layout. I just need to find copper stock somewhere and see if any of my relatives own a drill press and a tap&die set.

 

[Adidas4275]

this is interesting... i have never seen a pelter used this way... i have seen them between the CPU and a water block... usually a maze4 i will definitely be watching this

nice work man.... i have an old pocket PC laying around I might use with my HTPC with that program

hmmm

 

[Teknokid]

i just love the pda idea. im gonna copy if you dont mind, but it wont be in my case... yet.
gonna try get one with WMP so i can play tunes after the pcs offf....

 

[Arcygenical]

this is interesting... i have never seen a pelter used this way... i have seen them between the CPU and a water block... usually a maze4 i will definitely be watching this

nice work man.... i have an old pocket PC laying around I might use with my HTPC with that program

hmmm

Yes, the peltier will add anywhere from -70 to -100w of heat into the loop... It's not going to CHILL the water very much, but it's about the eqivilent of an extra 120mm radiator

 

[Jomanscool2]

Yes, the peltier will add anywhere from -70 to -100w of heat into the loop... It's not going to CHILL the water very much, but it's about the eqivilent of an extra 120mm radiator

With about 1000% the e-peen value!

Looks very good btw, glad to see you figured a way to incorporate that PDA.

I am still tossing around the idea of trying to do a casemod with a 15"+ LCD, but I think I'll wait a little bit before I bring in that kind of voltage into my case (15 a lil young don't ya think?). If the darn laptop LCD controllers wern't impossible to find for any model you want, and didn't cost $200, I'd probably have them in all my cases already

 

[Indignity]

I don't know if this would affect the "Bling" factor of the case, but is there some way you could possibly get the hot side of the peltier on the outside of the case to help with the heat dissapation?

You are creative enough to make it look as part of the mod & heck, it might help with functionality of the internals as well.

hmmmmmm.. I could see a box-like protrusion of plexi/metal with 2 80mm fans in a push-pull configuration moving across a finned heatsink... maybe another option would be to extend the height of the case off the floor & place it at the bottom?

 

[Arcygenical]

I don't know if this would affect the "Bling" factor of the case, but is there some way you could possibly get the hot side of the peltier on the outside of the case to help with the heat dissapation?

Yeah... I think you really need to do something like this warmace... or forget the TEC alltogether

It's a great idea (in theory), but it dumps a LOT of heat into the case, it dumps a lot of noise into the mix, and adds restriction to the loop...

If it was a good idea in practice, we'd all be doing it by now.

Unless you have an aluminum case, and are using the aluminum case body as the hot-side HSF... I don't see this working out in the long run. Too Loud and Too inefficient.

FYI I was using a BIP 240 Xflow to cool the exact same things (which is also for sale!)... Worked really well I might add too. I don't even know if you NEED the wattage that the TEC adds.

 

[WarMace]

Thank you all very much for your support, and words of appreciation!

i just love the pda idea. im gonna copy if you dont mind, but it wont be in my case... yet.
gonna try get one with WMP so i can play tunes after the pcs offf....

Copy away! Im sure every thing I am doing here has been done before.

Just make sure that if you decide to use the PDA software to but it and send a note to the author asking him to reconsider a Vista version so it can live on.

If the darn laptop LCD controllers weren't impossible to find for any model you want, and didn't cost $200, I'd probably have them in all my cases already

I have a junk armada laptop that I am tossing around installing Linux and mounting on the side wall of the case. I figure if I unscrew the hinges it will allow me to open the lcd 360 degrees around to the back and mount it. Its huge and I am pritty positive it will bulge out of the case and require a special mount to be made. The only plus side about keeping the entire laptop is no crazy 200$ controller.

I don't know if this would affect the "Bling" factor of the case, but is there some way you could possibly get the hot side of the peltier on the outside of the case to help with the heat dissipation?

Thats kind of the reason I flipped it upside down. In every version of my plan it is drawing in cool air from its own opening in the case and I just havent ironed out how to exhaust that air.

Yeah... I think you really need to do something like this warmace... or forget the TEC alltogether

I have ample power supply, ample space for routing air, just not ample water block and heat sink for this part. Once I get these parts i can just splice it into the line, but at least its not holding up the system.

 

[Teknokid]

can you not use sideshow in vista?

 

[WarMace]

can you not use sideshow in vista?

Sideshow is pretty much just a concept right now IMHO with only two compatible device. (an Asus laptop, and a digital photo frame).

Plus the only mention of it ever being backwards compatible with todays PDA's requires the OEM manufacturer to write code for it. Not to be negative, but HP would rather sell new sideshow devices then spend any time developing a sideshow enabling firmware update for a 2 year old PDA.

 

[Teknokid]

yeah, u can see where they're coming from.
im looking to use that software to watch all my vids and dvd's thru my pc on PPC. ive got a 5m usb hub then a further 5m lead.

 

[WarMace]

Like the title shows, I got a special treat for you at the end of the post.

Its late, so I will be brief.

Tearing it all down.

Wiping it down with a degreaser.

Ready to go.

First coat is looking good.

Mobo' tray.

I painted the bolt heads for good measure.

I was planning on having the outside of the case professionally painted, but after cutting all the windows, there was so little of it left on top, I just went ahead and gave it a coat.

The fibers from the ratty carpte got into everything I painted today. Will have to wet sand them out and do the final coat elsewhere.

Drying in the oven at 150c, following Arcygenical's advice for a stronger coat. Wish my whole case would fit.

I painted the back side of a bit of scrap lexan to see how shiny it looks. This is how i plan on painting the Instrument Panel, along with many other Lexan parts. It looks like 1000 clear coats, just the effect I was looking for to make the mirror.

While that was drying, I decided it was time for the ultimate WinXP installation onto the WD Raptor.

I promptly got the SideWindow working. I am enthralled with technolust just looking at it with NVTweak running!

And it only gets better with Intel's thermal analysis tool. This 3rd window is so usefull, its hard to resist not mounting it in my case, and leaving it just under my monitor in close view.


But what do you care, your here for the Movie I promised, right?

Video of SideWindow in action! 5MB (right click - save as)

I had a lot of fun making that short clip, I look forward to making a grand movie of the entire project once finished.

 

[Jomanscool2]

Looks good! What type of paint did you use? It looks very good just after the first coat. Are you going to do the typical over two week painting thing with painting, wetsand, paint, wetsand, paint, wetsand, clear, wetsand, clear?

Also, I would do the same thing, cept that I was going to get this laptop from a friend because the logic board had gone kabloomy. Maybe I can hack my old 12"G4 Logic board to power the 15" G4 LCD.... Now.. to convince my family they dont need it...

Btw, is that PDA still like if your company needs it you gotta return it to them? If not, I'd try to mod it so that it fits in the bays more centered (assuming its going into the bays).

 

[lillimon04]

wow this is lookin great!! i love the pda idea! its the shit, and the movie was hella cool. how u get the pda to be a screen? through usb?

 

[Teknokid]

wow, great video, i expect ill be using mine for the same thing. great work.

 

[Adidas4275]

this has given me some ideas on using the PDA with HTPC to controll music w/o having to turn the TV on....

can the screen run DX9?

 

[WarMace]

Looks good! What type of paint did you use?

Rust-oleum Flat Protective Enamel

It looks very good just after the first coat. Are you going to do the typical over two week painting thing with painting, wetsand, paint, wetsand, paint, wetsand, clear, wetsand, clear?

Yes, except the inside I want to be FlatBlack, so no clear, and the outside will get a different color and then clear. The only trick I do here is thin coats, so less sanding needed for each coat.

Btw, is that PDA still like if your company needs it you gotta return it to them? If not, I'd try to mod it so that it fits in the bays more centered (assuming its going into the bays).

Because it was labeled damaged, I'm pretty confident it will be written off the next time we have a spring cleaning. Until then I will leave it stock and do my best to center it in the case without modding it.

wow this is lookin great!! i love the pda idea! its the shit, and the movie was hella cool. how u get the pda to be a screen? through usb?

Thanks! SideWindow runs over active sync, so if you can sync via Bluetooth, it could be wireless. I am using USB.

wow, great video, i expect ill be using mine for the same thing. great work.

Thank you, I cant wait to see your creativity.

this has given me some ideas on using the PDA with HTPC to control music w/o having to turn the TV on....

can the screen run DX9?

Hmm, give me a specific DX9 application, and ill give it a go. I know some people in the Innobec forums use a extra long USB cable and watch movies in bed. You should check them out.

Edit: WMP9 will run on the window with hardware acceleration enabled but its quirky, It runs a lot better with acceleration disabled.

 

[Arcygenical]

Run RTHDRIBL as your windowed DX9 app... It'll let you drag it across provided you make the window small enough

 

[Trilic]

But what do you care, your here for the Movie I promised, right?

Video of SideWindow in action! 5MB (right click - save as)

I had a lot of fun making that short clip, I look forward to making a grand movie of the entire project once finished.

LOL I had the Fight Club soundtrack playing in the background while watching that movie...I was like..."wtf is wrong with my music" lol

 

[Teknokid]

thanks warmace but my creativity really isnt that great. i did find a 7.5" pda (screen) but it would be cheaper for an aux screen. gonna use my xda exec but not build it into case, just on the side.

 

[WarMace]

Run RTHDRIBL as your windowed DX9 app... It'll let you drag it across provided you make the window small enough

Hey, thats a nifty app. If you cannot see, it "claims" to be running at 45 FPS.

HDR App running on PDA.

It appears the SideWindow application renders everything server side (my PC), and streams the image to the PDA over activesync.

 

[Teknokid]

wicked, try a game on ure pda.

 

[WarMace]

Soo many cool gadgets to add to my instrument panel, soo little space.

This guy on e-bay has so much cool stuff, I want them all!

• Wireless remote
• Volt meters
• Current meters with shunts (to monitor TEC Amps)

I'm currently laying out the instrument panel on paper so I know what items I am missing, and thought a tiny analog volt meter or something would be cool, but I might not get it due to space constraints.

 

[WarMace]

Started raining again, so I was saving you the water cooling parts for just such an occasion.

• Swiftech Apogee GT
• Swiftech MCP655™ 12 VDC Pump
• Swiftech MCR-220 Radiator
• 4x YATE LOON 120mm Case Fan - D12SL-12
• Dangerden Fillport - Delrin
• 2x T-Lines. (One for a T-Line, the other for the thermometer's housing)
• Inexpensive Digital thermometer
• Masterkleer Tubing 7/16" ID 5/8" OD
• The smallest Jug of Pentocin G-11 I could find
• Distilled Water
• Rubbing Alcohol for cleaning thermal compound
• Distilled vinegar for flushing the radiator before first use.
• And I threw in some of my old parts that may or may not become the chiller.

I made my first draft of the instrument panel layout. I'm not sure I like how it came out. Theres a lot to consider here. Long flipper switches bumping the lid, long devices hitting the top ROM, the sync cable coming out of the pda is a good 4 1/2 inches of unbendable obstruction making little you can do with that big gap in the center, easy to find power button, cat-proof reset button, the fill port spilling onto instruments, etc.

I think I will just go with something close, and redo/improve it later on once I have tried out what works.

Starting from the top left:
-Cooler Master Fan speed switch
-Light switch
-TEC Off, Low, High
-TEC Fan
-PDA
-Power LED
-Power Switch
-HDD LED
-Reset Switch
-Fill Port
-Digital Thermometer
-2x ESata
-4x USB
-???

Today I thought that because I am stealthing the drive(s), that I should reroute the eject buttons and disk activity LED to the Instrument panel.

I picked up more switches. The buttons will be power and reset. The flippers will be Lights and Chiller-Fan. I got big ones so they would match the TEC switch. Mental Note: Scavenge every switch out of anything I throw out for the rest of my life.

I hope the humidity is not too bad to paint another coat tomorrow, because its the only rain-free day in the 7-day forecast.

 

[synaps3]

Are you going to compare temps with and without the peltier on?

I am quite curious about it; I posted a long time ago asking about the same exact concept you have going and basically everyone shot it down because they didn't understand or thought it would never work.

If it works well for you, I'm definitely going for it. Good luck, this mod is going to be great.

 

[Adidas4275]

how are you attaching the HSF to the pelter and the pelter to the waterblock??


also i love the idea of the switch pannel... i have no real way of copying it but it would be really cool to use on the media server...

hmmm...

you have me thinking

 

[WarMace]

Are you going to compare temps with and without the peltier on?

I am quite curious about it; I posted a long time ago asking about the same exact concept you have going and basically everyone shot it down because they didn't understand or thought it would never work.

If it works well for you, I'm definitely going for it. Good luck, this mod is going to be great.

I will compare the idle temps and post them for all to see. Arcygenical kindly showed me the math and proved to me I need a MUCH better heatsink and a little better waterblock if I even want to consider getting it to work. I try not to think of it as shooting my idea down, I like to think of it as telling me to "go big or go home". If you try to ghetto' it with crap parts then your only going to cook the water in your loop, and even if I get it working, It will be a large waste of electricity compared to just adding another radiator into my loop.

how are you attaching the HSF to the pelter and the pelter to the waterblock??

Well for the beta version of the chiller I will make make a couple heat spreaders for between each device and sandwich the whole device together, and use a large worm-drive hose clamp to cinch it tight. This is in no way the final version! Its just to see if it works at 5Volts. Then I will consider if its worth it to look into a better water block, copper heat spreaders, and a much-much better heat sink to get it to run 12 volts. Honestly a mini water cooling loop for the hot side is the best thing to use, but that would be pretty expensive. And a better bracket than a hose clamp naturally.

The problem with upgrading these parts is it puts me over budget on an item thats more for bragging rights than functionality. Especially since I could buy a 8800 waterblock for the same money to get the chiller going at 12V.

Really it comes down to money, and I will see what i can do with what I have budgeted.

 

[WarMace]

Its weird how photos with a space in the name will work for a day then the link dies. No more spaces.

Got a couple things done today with the nice weather.

Laid a second coat of paint on everything.

Picked up some more material. Thats chrome paint BTW.
Can you guess what the 2 ceramic tiles are for?


The Chiller

After the above post about the chiller I felt I was too negative. So I wanted to put my theory to the test.

The layers in there are...
Water block - AS5 - square aluminum shim - AS5 - TEC - AS5 - Square aluminum shim - AS5 - Heat sink. And tied together with zip ties.

In the final version I was told to use thermal epoxy instead of Arctic Silver 5 and I will need 200lbs of pressure clamping the items together. Plus in the future I will get a water block and heat sink with a square bottom, so the shims will not be needed to spread the temperature. Not too hard to do.

Heres the money shot! Ambient air temp is 24.5C. The block is 0.3Celcius running the TEC at 5volts and the fan noisily at 12 volts is doing its job well. After 15 minutes of watching the condensation bead I switched the TEC to 12Volts and as suspected the heat sink was unable to handle the load and the water block started to warm +1C a minute.

The next test will be If the heat sink can still keep up with constant warm coolant flowing through the block. Because that will (theoretically) increase the temp on the heat sink.

 

[Teknokid]

where did you get the chiller? looks good, the case also llooks very nice, great job.

 

[WarMace]

where did you get the chiller? looks good, the case also llooks very nice, great job.

All used parts I have collected along the way. The TEC itself I don't know where it came from, it just showed up at college a few years back and was used with a 9volt battery for party tricks until now.

 

[Willsonman]

When I ran my Tec at 5V with my BIP360 the CPU temp was 20C on load. That was the traditional way though... with the cold plate tec waterblock sandwich. It all depends on how well you dissapate that heat. I would think that a separate loop for the hot side of the tec would be more effective. use that rad on that loop and just run a continuous one through the chilled loop.

 

[piako]

those radio shack switches will last forever

 

[WarMace]

No update Friday because I donated blood, but Saturday and Sunday I spent a lot of time getting work done.

My Wife had a family thing in NH this weekend, so I packed up the project and went to my parents house to use their workshop to get some things done i couldn't do on my back porch with just a dremel and a leatherman.

Its nice to spread out with a plethora of fine tools. You can see my other project in the background, my 79' Honda. Needs a little tune up before I start riding again this year.

I got right to work measuring. and making the first cut on the instrument panel. When working on a delicate project, nothing can be "Close" so measuring can consume hours of a project. The jigsaw made short work of the hole.

Filing forever to make every side straight. The jigsaw had a large blade on it so I did not get too close to my lines, I chose to file it close.

After careful measuring to make sure their the same distance apart, and not bumping anything behind the panel, I drilled 3 switch holes below the data cable from the PDA.

Here you see the power and reset button holes above the PDA cable, with 2 LED holes. (HDD, and PWR)

The micrometer is a little beat up, but still deadly accurate. I used it for all of my work on the instrument panel.

The digital thermometer is in place finally.

 

[WarMace]

Sunday went to the hardware store for a 1" hole saw for the FillPort, and some more nuts and bolts.

This saw is designed for wood and not too safe to use on harder materials, but $3 cheaper than the proper one, so I clamped it down tight and went slow.

The whole time I was adding parts to the panel, I was cutting out bits and pieces of the case to give those new parts clearance.

I knew I was going to have to take some out, but in the end I took out a little more than I wanted as you will see in the last picture.

I mounted the LCD using a couple bolts and a large zip tie used as strapping.

It worked out real well, and does not budge.

I knew this part was going to give me problems. Its the speed switch for the long centrifugal fan "Cross Flow". I wanted to mount it above the LCD.

I ended up cutting it to mount it.

I measured it so the screw heads would line up with the ones fro the LCD.

Cutting the tiny square slot for this switch was imposable, and I am pleased I got it done. I had to carve it all out using a itty-bitty engraving tip and a steady hand.

All together and looking hot. The empty space between the thermometer and the fillport will be for a bank of USB ports and a couple eSATA ports soon. And below that is reserved space for future expansion.

Here you can clearly see how important the spacing with the switches around the data cable was.

It took a whole weekend to get the work you see here done, luckily there were no mistakes setting me back.

Here you see how much i had to gouge out of the case to mount that PCB board.

With the lid on, I barely miss having the hinge screws hit the fan speed switch.

All buttoned up with the lid on. I'm kind of dreading cutting the slot for the USB and eSATA, but it needs to go there. I expect it to be as difficult as making the small square slot X6.

Another big part that needs to get going is the front grille. I may go to my parents next weekend to get the grille made. The shop speeds everything up, and a tapped keg of beer dosent hurt either.