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Project: parallel HEX (completed!)

about the HDs and watercooling: Many HDs transfer most of their generated heat away via their sides. If you secure them between two watercoolers which cover these, you´re set and dumping them into a well-isolated box will result in no overheating problems whatsoever.
The one I´ve been using for years is similar to an Aquadrive Dual from Aqua Computer, but the looks are much more simple (Stainless steel box with copper coolers and insulation inside, the copper weighs about 3,5kilograms).
My Hds are now really inaudible and their temperatures are great. The downside is that I lost 2 5 1/4-bays for 2 3 1/2 drives.
 
jackkife, I ruled out hard drive enclosures due to not having enough space, or trying to create the space for them.

Just a little update for today.

The dvd-rw's are installed in their position.

stage_140.jpg


stage_141.jpg


You might recognise the modded crossflow fan in the pictures, the next job is to mount these. Then I need to work out a suitable arrangement for the distributor, push buttons and fan controller pots. The fan controller pots will be wired remotely from the actual circuit board.

Then it's a complete strip down, clean/air-dust/polish and reassemble, wire management then eventually water cooling tubing back in and leak test - before I can even turn it on...in less than 21 days. Got my work cut out for me!
 
Incredible! :eek:

I haven't seen this thing since you got any of the plexi in, definitely looks better than wood! :p

I can't wait to see the water distribution thing in action.
 
Whoa! must of missed the last 2 updates... looking good; also looking nice and snug and planned out ;)
 
Guy's, you are too kind!

Solarfall, you have keen eyes! Both drives are NEC, one being a ND3550 and the other a ND4550. They are pretty much identical and since they were both the same price (£30) I thought I'd try one of each. They are pretty resilient too, if you look closely at the pictures above you can see the corner of the top drive is er, dented. I dropped it a while back but it still works perfectly as it's been in my current system for a bit.

Why 2 dvd-rw's? I'll keep a rewriteable disc in one drive to make scheduled backups without having to do anything. Cheaper than another hd, plus it makes copying another disk much easier.

At the moment I'm waiting for the glue to dry on the mounts of the crossflow fan then I can put the first one in place.

Thanks for keeping me motivated guys.
 
at this point, I finally realise how effing big this thing is :eek:

real thing looks much cooler than the concept sketches lol...

I'm interested as to how you're going to manage cables. Have it running along inside edges, sleeved, or in those shower hoses, OraC3 style? Or maybe a hexagonal junction box with one massive bundle leading in, and the individual cables coming out?

looking forward to completion :D
 
n00btard, I'm interested in how I'm going to wire manage this thing! It's the next issue I have to face and have been thinking about it and looking forward to it. The shower hoses like OraC3 are neat, but I don't think I will have the space for it, once all the pipework goes in place. I'm certainly not going to leave the cables lying anywhere, something has to be done, and done uncluttered if possible.

I've got a load of blue sleeving and heat shrink sleeving, that's one option. I was toying with the idea of running the cables through spare water cooling tubing, don't know if that would work out well, need to try it. The psu is sleeved in black so that has saved me that job.

Talking of wiring, my mind has wandered into fan controller leds, power and reset buttons and general illunination. It goes something like this:

> Fan Speed Indicative Lighting - The fan controller is not going to be up front like in other cases, but hidden between the dvd drives with the pots of the controller wired out to the front of the case, as per normal. The leds from the controller won't be seen between the dvd drives, so the idea is to move the leds from the controller to their respective fan. So when the pot is turned for a fan, it will change colour in that general area, so I will know what fan I'm altering. Should light up the crossflow fans nicely - blue = low, green = mid, red = high.

> Stealth Mode - I don't think I will want all these lights on all the time, there times to be discrete. So I am working on a circuit that with a push of a button most of the lighting in the case will turn off. This includes fan controller leds, button leds, and the general UV leds that are used to react with the blue coolant. Other system leds will remain untouched.

> Freakin' Laser! - A friend joked that all my pc needed was freakin' lasers! Sounds good to me, and I have the perfect candidate, a daytime 120m laser level. Cheap, compact and powered by 9v, it's going in. How? It will be hooked up via a solid state relay to the output of the psu high current led. Where? It will be placed directly under the collector of the water cooling system :cool: . So it will be off in normal operation, but when playing high load games and the current demand exceeds 20A the laser will be enabled and zap the collector with red light! I'll probably fit an override so it can be turned on or off it becomes annoying. I may post a video or two of it on youtube if it turns out well.

I need to stop thinking of ideas....

Enough words, here's some pictorial updates:

One crossflow fan complete and fitted:
stage_142.jpg


In position:
stage_143.jpg


My gluing could have been neater.
stage_144.jpg


I'm getting there...
 
I like the laser idea!

I lit a side panel with 2 cheap laser pointers once :D. Worked really well because they give off a "sparkle" rather than just light.

:)

Lasted about 1000 hours before it died. But, well... I DID pay 1$ for them (BOTH!)
 
I don't think I could say anything that hasn't already been said. I love it. Simply amazing work.
 
I'm glad you don't think the laser idea is a step too far Arcygenical!

You are right about the light they give off, a certain mesmerising random sparkle effect. I'm really looking forward to seeing how the red sparkly beam of light going through the clear acrylic into blue coolant, viewed through the green acylic will look like! Damn I wish this pc was built already!

To find the best way to switch the laser and fan controller leds, I have started a thread in the Electronics sub forum here. I thought it best to start a thread about it separately and bring the results of it back here in the form of something built.

Normal service will resume shortly!
 
Wow yeah the laser idea is great if it works as you say. Is there going to be an overall "dome" light. Meaning is there going to be a single colored light source to fill the entire case, along with other little lights; or while there just be many individual lights thacollectively give the case it's color scheme?

Sorry for the stupid and vague question :p
 
how about just white LEDs lighting up the collector, and let the colour of the coolant do the rest of the work?

I'd hate to see this project die from Las Vegas-itis
 
Geo Fry, I've not finalised the lighting and I'm trying to be careful not to Las Vegasitise it, eh n00btard ;) .

There will be a few UV leds strategically placed to illuminate the coolant in the tubes. I have a bag of 50 UV leds and 50 blue leds, but they're not all going in!

I'll be experimenting with the lighting, and what ever that may be can be turned of for when somebody with taste walks into the room :p .

I'm a bit behind schedule because my backup pc (the one I'm using for design, research, posting etc) threw a right wobbly when I moved it back into it's case. Refused to boot, lost it's bios settings, randomly crashed etc, you get the picture. All's fine now.
 
I have finalised the layout of the dials for fan and pump control and the push buttons for various things, what do you think?

Front_Control_Panel_01.jpg


As I've posted in my thread in the Electronics sub forum, I have my prototype control circuit working!

switching_circuit_02.jpg


The laser I have used is from a laser level; it has a wierd lens on it that creates the line effect you can see above.

I've decided that the blue leds I have are just too bright and will not be going into the case. I'm going to be sticking with the uv leds that give off a satisfying purple glow and will light up the coolant (there's one in the image above). Also, the Bulgin led swtiches look too cool to turn off so they will be removed from the switching circuit and be pernamently on.

It might be hard to see from the sketch above, the switches are:

Green - Power On/Off
Amber - Reset
Red - Laser Override
Blue - Case Lighting On/Off

I just need to get the circuit on to circuit board or pcb before it can go in the case.
 
what i think:

I think you should combine both fan sides for both the Radiator and the caseflow fans to one control knob, not two. What will this do? it'll give you 6 'orbiting' buttons/knobs around the central power button. 6, hex, getting the idea?

try this layout:

_____1_____
__2_____3__
_____4_____
__5_____6__
_____7_____

1 = Reset
2 = Case Lighting On/Off
3 = Laser Override
4 = Power On/Off
5 = Caseflow L/R Fans Control
6 = Radiator L/R Fans Control
7 = Pump speed control

all knobs are at the bottom, all buttons at the top, power in the center. would look like this:

_____O_____
__O_____O__
_____O_____
__Q_____Q__
_____Q_____

sure, you wont have individual control of the left and right fans, but do you really need that?

</my $0.02> :)
 
Everfalling said:
what i think:

I think you should combine both fan sides for both the Radiator and the caseflow fans to one control knob, not two. What will this do? it'll give you 6 'orbiting' buttons/knobs around the central power button. 6, hex, getting the idea?

try this layout:

_____1_____
__2_____3__
_____4_____
__5_____6__
_____7_____

1 = Reset
2 = Case Lighting On/Off
3 = Laser Override
4 = Power On/Off
5 = Caseflow L/R Fans Control
6 = Radiator L/R Fans Control
7 = Pump speed control

all knobs are at the bottom, all buttons at the top, power in the center. would look like this:

_____O_____
__O_____O__
_____O_____
__Q_____Q__
_____Q_____

sure, you wont have individual control of the left and right fans, but do you really need that?

</my $0.02> :)
Click to expand...

yea I second that suggestion, good idea and keeps the "theme" of the hex going.
 
Everfalling said:
what i think:

I think you should combine both fan sides for both the Radiator and the caseflow fans to one control knob, not two. What will this do? it'll give you 6 'orbiting' buttons/knobs around the central power button. 6, hex, getting the idea?

try this layout:

_____1_____
__2_____3__
_____4_____
__5_____6__
_____7_____

1 = Reset
2 = Case Lighting On/Off
3 = Laser Override
4 = Power On/Off
5 = Caseflow L/R Fans Control
6 = Radiator L/R Fans Control
7 = Pump speed control

all knobs are at the bottom, all buttons at the top, power in the center. would look like this:

_____O_____
__O_____O__
_____O_____
__Q_____Q__
_____Q_____

sure, you wont have individual control of the left and right fans, but do you really need that?

</my $0.02> :)
Click to expand...

WHAT A DAMN FINE IDEA! :cool:

Thanks Everfalling, I mean that, why do i need to control the pairs of the same fans? I simply don't. Not only is it in keeping with the HEX theme, but the knobs and buttons will also be in symmetry with the distributor that is mounted to the left of them.

I may change (ever so slightly) your arrangement. Here's what you suggested:

Front_Control_Panel_03.jpg


I might rearrange them so the knobs are vertical like this:

Front_Control_Panel_02.jpg


I like both arrangements, I'll see what it looks with the actual hardware before I drill the holes for them.

To achieve all this I'm going to have to swap out the existing poteniometers of the fan controller and use dual gang ones, exactly like that used for the pump speed control. You see the fan controller I'm using doesn't like doubling up fans on the same channel. It's no problem though.

Thanks again Everfalling!
 
Nice one Everfalling. The idea really looks nice on the sketch-up model. I think Mysterae's arrangement will look better with all the knobs being in the middle. But then again I do like the idea of the Power button being in center
 
just make the bottons and knobs alternate, with the power button in the cnter? to not cofuse yourself you could etch what each one does under it...jsut a thought though.
 
fenton06 said:
just make the bottons and knobs alternate, with the power button in the cnter? to not cofuse yourself you could etch what each one does under it...jsut a thought though.
Click to expand...

Ooooh that would look so cool, granted a bit expensive, but laser-etched labels would look very sleek and professional
 
I'm not sure what you mean by buttons and knobs alternating, they're kinda hard mounted once in the plexi :confused: . If you mean the lighting, then no. The colours of the buttons are fixed with no way to change them (they are vandal proof ;) and I've just finalised the lighting control circuit.

I was thinking of taking the switches to someone for engraving. Perhaps little icons of what they do. Still thinking!
 
I think he means like this
_____Q_____
__O_____O__
_____O_____
__Q_____Q__
_____O_____

With the outer buttons alternating between the two types. I think it is neat, but I'd rather see the fan controls all stay together in some form
 
Geo Fry said:
I think he means like this
_____Q_____
__O_____O__
_____O_____
__Q_____Q__
_____O_____

With the outer buttons alternating between the two types. I think it is neat, but I'd rather see the fan controls all stay together in some form
Click to expand...

This one gets my vote, WTG Everfalling.

Beautiful Mod, Mysterae
 
my fav is personally mysterae's, but with the power and reset button swapped, and put the pump on the bottom with crossflow in middle

i think that would be functional

maybe put power and reset on the left side, and lighting on the right side, and then potentiometers up and down the middle
 
Thanks for the ideas and comments guys. I'll pick up some pots tomorrow, but since I'm really busy right now (who isn't huh) I won't be able to mount them for a day or so. Then I will be able to see what looks best.
 
Only in a forum like this would people get in such a huge debate over the organization of buttons and knobs...
 
Mohonri said:
Only in a forum like this would people get in such a huge debate over the organization of buttons and knobs...
Click to expand...

I've been in debates over much MUCH worse on other forums :p.
 
I like the one with the 3 knobs in the middle.

Arcy, Ever been in an arguement about the differences between the MX 1000 in the MX3000 bundle and a seperate MX 1000?

It's not pretty.

and there are several differences too
 
Bbq said:
I like the one with the 3 knobs in the middle.

Arcy, Ever been in an arguement about the differences between the MX 1000 in the MX3000 bundle and a seperate MX 1000?

It's not pretty.

and there are several differences too
Click to expand...

lol at this 4sure!

oh, cuz i havent said it in awhile - this mod rocks. you are taking time and making everything perfecto. good for you!

btw, i am on a few forums, and this is the only subscribed i have where i get DAILY updates :D thought you might like to know
 
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