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Title: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: loglow on September 01, 2011, 07:32:04 AM hi!
I've had a mining machine running for a few months, and I thought I'd share some images. I've benefited from many ideas, designs, guides, and photos from this forum! so, this is the third iteration: v1 was 2x5830s in an Antec 300 case, v2 was 4x5830s in an improvised open frame, and v3 (below) is 4x5830s in an aluminum and lexan (polycarbonate) case which I actually planned out before building it. in a nutshell: v1) ran fine but had no room for 4 cards and v2) ran too hot, required external fans, and was huge. my goals for v3 were: a) no external cooling and b) smaller than 12" x 12" x 18". plans were made in google sketchup first. http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6087/6102145338_42083fa975_m.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/loglow/6102145338/)http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6207/6102145612_036675f871_m.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/loglow/6102145612/) http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6188/6101596385_529bcc6ee8_m.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/loglow/6101596385/)http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6070/6101596647_827085364e_m.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/loglow/6101596647/) the frame is 1/16" x 3/4" aluminum L-shaped strips, and the siding is 3/32" sanded lexan. the frame is held together with #8 machine screws and a combination of hex nuts (internal) and cap nuts (external). the panels have 1/2" holes which can fit around a hex nut, yet be secured with a fender washer, so they can be removed without taking apart the frame or needing to get inside the case; they're also secured with sections of velcro. here are a few more pictures; the last one was taken with the top panel off. http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6193/6101596583_6586db1dea.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/loglow/6101596583/) http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6064/6101596519_88fa4a3d66.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/loglow/6101596519/) http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6088/6101596459_d6ae8a6d95.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/loglow/6101596459/) http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6207/6101596423_83a769b4a2.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/loglow/6101596423/) after much (too much) trial and error, I'm running debian wheezy (testing) with catalyst 11.6 and app sdk 2.5. through a combination of mostly python and rrdtool, I've built a visual monitoring system for the machine: http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6089/6101704575_d60e39533c.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/loglow/6101704575/) anyway, I'm happy to go into more detail about any of this stuff; feel free to ask! take care, -dan Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: edtks86 on September 01, 2011, 07:46:21 AM looks awesome!!! what are the temps like?
Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: haploid23 on September 01, 2011, 07:53:12 AM looks awesome! do those 6 fans blow at the cards, or do they exhaust the heat? how much in material did this build cost you?
Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: loglow on September 01, 2011, 07:58:27 AM looks awesome!!! what are the temps like? thanks! a script runs once per second to measure the temps and fan speeds. if a card's temp is 68-72C then its fan stays put, otherwise the fan is increased or decreased by 1%. fans range 40% (night) to 60% (day), occasionally reaching a peak of 70-80% on especially hot days. this means the temps (first column, green) remain reasonably constant, while the fans (second column, blue/purple) vary as the ambient temp changes. here's the console output of the script: https://i.imgur.com/PKCRX.png Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: loglow on September 01, 2011, 08:08:41 AM looks awesome! do those 6 fans blow at the cards, or do they exhaust the heat? how much in material did this build cost you? thank you ;D. the 6 fans blow inwards, onto the cards. raw materials were roughly $80, more or less. I think ~$25 for the lexan, ~$30 for the aluminum, and the rest for hardware (nuts, bolts, screws, velcro, etc). I wasn't trying to be as cheap as possible. I wanted to use quality materials and have an extremely solid result, yet not waste money or materials on anything unnecessary. you can pick the case up and shake it, or turn it upside down; nothing moves. Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: BkkCoins on September 01, 2011, 12:17:52 PM That's awesome. I'd love to know more about the script and if you plan to share it. I'm running Ubuntu with very similar setup but my rig is mounted in a wire shelf unit that cost $8 here. Maybe next phase would be something like this.
Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: Reckman on September 01, 2011, 01:46:42 PM That's badass. Might get better airflow around the gpu if you sealed below the gpus as well
Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: cicada on September 01, 2011, 02:23:50 PM That's badass. Might get better airflow around the gpu if you sealed below the gpus as well I thought about this too. I was considering a very similar setup but with isolated GPU 'slots' - basically a box around each GPU. You can cut a slot in the lexan/acrylic/whatever for the PCIe connector to poke through, but otherwise it keeps each GPU from sucking down it's neighbor's heat, while efficiently exhausting it's own. Such a thing would work pretty well even in a 'traditional' closed case as long as you can push enough air through the GPU channels. Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: BkkCoins on September 01, 2011, 02:31:04 PM On my Sapphire 5830s it blows quite a bit stronger out the back end of the card than the front (with the grill). So I would have though pulling from that end would be better than blowing into it as wouldn't that go directly against the direction the cards fans already blow? I'm curious if you tried it with the back end fans reversed and saw what difference it makes?
Wouldn't you want to get cool air into the center of each card where it intakes rather than directly against the hot air coming out? Just curious how much you experiments with this. Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: cicada on September 01, 2011, 03:04:44 PM On my Sapphire 5830s it blows quite a bit stronger out the back end of the card than the front (with the grill). So I would have though pulling from that end would be better than blowing into it as wouldn't that go directly against the direction the cards fans already blow? I'm curious if you tried it with the back end fans reversed and saw what difference it makes? Wouldn't you want to get cool air into the center of each card where it intakes rather than directly against the hot air coming out? Just curious how much you experiments with this. On these cards, the only direction the fans blow is 'into the heatsink'. The exhaust comes out whichever path has the least resistance, which by default happens to be the open 'rear' of the card rather than out the grill. A powerful fan can reverse this, but probably at an efficiency reduction. Sapphire's coolers work well for stand-alone cards, but when you've got a mess of them and need to actually try controlling the airflow, man they become a big PITA. Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: loglow on September 01, 2011, 08:47:52 PM That's badass. Might get better airflow around the gpu if you sealed below the gpus as well this is something I'm considering. the lexan turned out to be so pleasant to work with that I might try to make a piece that mounts over the open back area of the case; this would direct the airflow even more and further lower the fan speeds. it would need some careful planning so as not to block ports, cables, or the power supply fan. thanks for the suggestion. Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: loglow on September 01, 2011, 09:00:02 PM That's awesome. I'd love to know more about the script and if you plan to share it. I'm running Ubuntu with very similar setup but my rig is mounted in a wire shelf unit that cost $8 here. Maybe next phase would be something like this. thank you. I'm happy to share it. the only change I've made to it here is that I removed a few lines that have to do with updating the rrd (round robin database) with some of the stats, since that action is very specific to my setup. the rest should work pretty well for general purposes. let me know if it doesn't, or if you have any questions about it. Code: #!/usr/bin/python Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: stryker on September 01, 2011, 09:11:20 PM nice script, works fine for me using python 2.6 on linuxcoin distro
Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: loglow on September 01, 2011, 09:18:17 PM I'm curious if you tried it with the back end fans reversed and saw what difference it makes? I haven't tried this yet, at least not with the hardware in its current setup. this would definitely be worth experimenting with, and if and when I do I'll share what kind of difference it makes. currently, the case fans are providing a significant flow of fresh air to the individual card fans, and except for the grille, it seems like the heat piped away from the core is more or less equally dispersed in each direction. the "slots" idea is also fascinating, essentially giving each gpu its own little independent air channel...something to think about. Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: loglow on September 01, 2011, 09:27:45 PM nice script, works fine for me using python 2.6 on linuxcoin distro thanks :) I run it using the "watch" command so its persistent and gives real time stats. also, you're right, it works fine with python 2.6; I guess the 2.7 requirement was for something I'd been using at one point but ended up removing...I edited the original post Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: stryker on September 02, 2011, 07:49:32 AM @loglow haha me too watch is so handy.
BTW you ought to know, when you set your fans to a fixed speed as I do, your script puts them back to automatic speed.... I'm not sure why I've only just this min noticed so have not had time to look into it..... thought you ought to know tho. Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: loglow on September 03, 2011, 01:50:33 AM BTW you ought to know, when you set your fans to a fixed speed as I do, your script puts them back to automatic speed.... I'm not sure why I've only just this min noticed so have not had time to look into it..... thought you ought to know tho. all you need to do is remove the "adjust_fan(adapter)" line near the bottom, or comment it out, and then the fans will just remain at whatever speed anything else has them set to. Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: critical on September 03, 2011, 04:21:47 AM try to put some fans at the EXHAUST of the card, help to exhaust out more heat from the hard
Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: stryker on September 03, 2011, 05:16:23 PM I've never been one for sticking big fans right on top of the cards.... notice the cards tend to blow the air all over the place out the front and back.... so putting too much blow or suction right on top of a card probably just causes cavitation in the air around the cards vitals.
Now setting up a gentle air movement front to back or back to front does seem to work. Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: loglow on September 04, 2011, 05:21:56 AM try to put some fans at the EXHAUST of the card, help to exhaust out more heat from the hard I'm not sure if it needs more exhaust, to be honest. first, I'd like to try installing larger lexan panels on the front and back to get case a little less open-air and a little more contained. as it is, I'm happy with the temps, even on hot days like today. Now setting up a gentle air movement front to back or back to front does seem to work. I agree with this; I think it's all about the air moving in a consistent direction... Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: vapourminer on September 04, 2011, 12:55:10 PM I like this too. simple, clean layout, reasonable protection for the hardware.
perhaps a bit more closing off in front and (if it were mine) maybe some mesh filters for the fans. got cats here, hair can get anywhere it seems. Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: Yanz on September 04, 2011, 05:32:23 PM That looks exactly like my asus mobo, which one is it? I couldn't get mine to run with 4 cards.
Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: loglow on September 05, 2011, 08:02:24 PM perhaps a bit more closing off in front and (if it were mine) maybe some mesh filters for the fans. thank you for the suggestions. I took your (and previous posters') advice and created full-size Lexan panels for the front and back, replacing the old narrow ones. of course, the new panels needed cutouts for the fans (back) and inputs, ps, and card exhaust (front) as well as all kinds of little holes for bolts and screws. anyway, I got it setup, and airflow is definitely better now, and temps seem a few degrees cooler. also, I grabbed some fan grills from newegg ($2 for 6+), so I'll add those over the fans when they show up; I don't have a cat, but I do brush into the fans more than I'd like to admit :P and it always scares the hell out of me. http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6183/6117625564_bdf4e2df1f.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/loglow/6117625564/) http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6061/6117625232_f72d874454.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/loglow/6117625232/) Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: loglow on September 05, 2011, 08:12:13 PM That looks exactly like my asus mobo, which one is it? I couldn't get mine to run with 4 cards. it's the M4A79XTD EVO (link (http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_AM3/M4A79XTD_EVO/)). I picked it for price ($100), pcie slots (2@16x, 2@1x), and generally good newegg reviews. haven't had any trouble running four cards (all sapphire 5830s); I did have to RMA one of them, but that was the card's fault, not the mobo. system was unstable (but did run, believe it or not) w/ a 650w ps, so I replaced it with the current 1200w and it's been no trouble since. board has worked fine with win7 and (more recently) debian. Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: stryker on September 05, 2011, 09:17:03 PM very very nice!
Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: BkkCoins on September 06, 2011, 03:57:53 AM still very cool. all it needs now is some little rubber feet positioned so they can stack.
Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: loglow on September 08, 2011, 07:04:54 AM On these cards, the only direction the fans blow is 'into the heatsink'. The exhaust comes out whichever path has the least resistance, which by default happens to be the open 'rear' of the card rather than out the grill. A powerful fan can reverse this, but probably at an efficiency reduction. I was feeling experimental, so I reversed the bank of 6 fans; they were intake, they're now exhaust. temps are cooler! exactly by how much is hard to say, since ambient temps have been up and down over the past few days. but more than anything else, I've noticed that temps are more consistent with this negative-pressure setup. I'm going to keep it like this; however, I think I'm also going to put two 140mm fans blowing down onto the cards from the top, since I have the space for them. case pressure will still be negative (180 CFM in, 360 CFM out). I'd love to hear any suggestions, comments, whatever; my background in airflow/cooling is basically nonexistent, besides what I've researched in the past week. Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: stryker on September 08, 2011, 12:20:49 PM Its my guess they do better pulling air out as the fans are evenly spaced all over the back of your box. When they are pushing air in, looking at the front of your box and the openings there may be a lot of "dead" spots in the air flow...
interesting Q, while the fans were pushing air in and before you had the lexan front panel, were the temps low then? Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: BkkCoins on September 08, 2011, 12:48:01 PM I have one of these digital indoor/outdoor thermometers hooked up to show me the ambient and exhaust air temps. It's really the only way to relate your core temps to what's going on with your fans. I find the in/out differential for me is always about 7C. I guess that's a measure of how well the air is moving thru as poor airflow would probably result in higher spreads.
Rather than cool my cards as low as possible I tend to select what I think is a good temp and then have a monitor script that slows the fans down rather than let temp go lower. This gives me more quiet as the ambient cools at night time when I'd like to sleep. Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: cicada on September 08, 2011, 09:49:06 PM This gives me more quiet as the ambient cools at night time when I'd like to sleep. Lmao.. I'm wager my server closet is ~80-90dB, there's no such thing as 'sleep' anywhere near my rigs ;) I couldn't hear my phone ring, at full volume, while I was in there yesterday. Also, that rig is kickass loglow, very smartly built. You've got me thinking about redesigning my setup yet again :) Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: loglow on September 09, 2011, 05:25:16 AM interesting Q, while the fans were pushing air in and before you had the lexan front panel, were the temps low then? my sense is that:
I tried removing the top panel and pointed a box fan down onto the cards, and that further lowered the temps by a solid 5+ degrees, so I'm feeling good about adding the two 140mm fans on top. Rather than cool my cards as low as possible I tend to select what I think is a good temp and then have a monitor script that slows the fans down rather than let temp go lower. This gives me more quiet as the ambient cools at night time when I'd like to sleep. yep, I'm doing the same thing with a target at 68-72C; posted my script earlier in this thread. fans have been hovering between 45-55%, which is pleasantly quiet. in fact, the fridge is louder when its compressor is on! Also, that rig is kickass loglow, very smartly built. thanks! I'm happy to share my sketchup file if anyone's interested in that. it doesn't have any of the holes or bolts though. Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: stryker on September 09, 2011, 07:58:48 AM it is a thing of beauty though.... rigs as "art work" who'd of thought it ;D
Must admit I've been thinking of what could be done in terms of one of those display case type styles, free standinging tower, hold about 4 rigs or so.... just the noise is an issue. Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: plastic.elastic on September 09, 2011, 08:27:55 AM This gives me more quiet as the ambient cools at night time when I'd like to sleep. Lmao.. I'm wager my server closet is ~80-90dB, there's no such thing as 'sleep' anywhere near my rigs ;) I couldn't hear my phone ring, at full volume, while I was in there yesterday. Also, that rig is kickass loglow, very smartly built. You've got me thinking about redesigning my setup yet again :) What so smart about it? I dont mean to offend the OP but every custom/open mining case i have seen has the same frame structure/design. As for the air flowing, the OP made the mistake right off the bat by having the fan blowing to the non ref cards. They're known to exhausting air to the rear (which i really hate, stupid cheap engineering from the card markers) Someone even posted and said that doesnt matter as the air will find the least restrictive path to flow ...!!! (really? facepalm...) OP wasted 3 fans at the bottom.... even if he has them exhausting. Why? too much pressure from the back... negative pressure.... guess where the air is coming from? Ppl are always over complicating things. Having bunch of fans blowing or sucking at the damn case doesnt mean better cooling. I can design this with 3 fans and have cooler temp... guarantee. Wanna bet? Hint: check out server chassis designs. Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: vapourminer on September 09, 2011, 11:03:42 AM I can design this with 3 fans and have cooler temp... guarantee. Wanna bet? Hint: check out server chassis designs. then do it. but make your own thread please, and reply to this message in that. server chassis usually have straight as an arrow (much as possible anyway) enforced air flow.. how you gonna do that with side sucking and all around exhausting video cards (I assume by force feeding air to only ref design cards and using their fans to augment the other fans, but thats cheating)? with a multi level (cards on extenders) design? and what 3 fans? how quiet will it be? how expensive? Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: cicada on September 09, 2011, 04:27:24 PM What so smart about it? Lets try making our points without being condescending twits, eh? Building mining rigs with power-hungry hot-as-hell GPUs isn't exactly old hat for anyone. By 'smartly built', I meant this is clean, concise, and functional. Certainly there are rigs with better cooling, fewer and cheaper materials, that doesn't make this one any less nice. Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: plastic.elastic on September 09, 2011, 05:31:43 PM I can design this with 3 fans and have cooler temp... guarantee. Wanna bet? Hint: check out server chassis designs. then do it. but make your own thread please, and reply to this message in that. server chassis usually have straight as an arrow (much as possible anyway) enforced air flow.. how you gonna do that with side sucking and all around exhausting video cards (I assume by force feeding air to only ref design cards and using their fans to augment the other fans, but thats cheating)? with a multi level (cards on extenders) design? and what 3 fans? how quiet will it be? how expensive? I'm not a farm miner, there is no reason for me to build one. My ref to server chassis is NOT about its shape, size and color.... LOL. You're quite smart there. And i would use the same fan as OP. Just 3 of them.... I will give you time to digest and think. Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: plastic.elastic on September 09, 2011, 05:36:21 PM What so smart about it? Lets try making our points without being condescending twits, eh? Building mining rigs with power-hungry hot-as-hell GPUs isn't exactly old hat for anyone. By 'smartly built', I meant this is clean, concise, and functional. Certainly there are rigs with better cooling, fewer and cheaper materials, that doesn't make this one any less nice. Its not that cheap, giving the materials. Functionality could have been improved. Actually in term of cooling, its terrible. So if you wanted to say its a nice build, why did you say smartly built? Give credit where its due, its a clean build. "Building mining rigs with power-hungry hot-as-hell GPUs" ---- Wrong,it has nothing to do with GPUs. The concept is still the same, why do ppl think its some sort of science to cool computer or any electrical components? Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: cicada on September 09, 2011, 06:26:23 PM Its not that cheap, giving the materials. Functionality could have been improved. Actually in term of cooling, its terrible. Ok, next time actually read the post you're responding to. I said: Certainly there are rigs with better cooling, fewer and cheaper materials, that doesn't make this one any less nice. I was clearly referring to other rigs as having better cooling, and using fewer and cheaper materials. So if you wanted to say its a nice build, why did you say smartly built? Give credit where its due, its a clean build. Funny thing about the English language, sometimes a word can have more than one meaning. Also, many different words can mean the same thing. I was giving praise, not writing a technical manual. In the future I will just say, "I'm going to praise you now by saying this thing is not terrible." Better? Wrong,it has nothing to do with GPUs. The concept is still the same, why do ppl think its some sort of science to cool computer or any electrical components? Ugh.. name one other component that uses as much power or produces as much heat as a modern high-end GPU. Next, show me a computer with 4 or more of that thing. Outside of really high-end gamer builds (which don't run the GPU at 95%+ 24/7), or folding@home builds, nothing else really compares. The fact stands that my opinion is that loglow's build is nice - it's a hell of a lot nicer than my open-air $5 wooden frame, and incidentally appears to stay cooler as well. You can keep shitting on my opinion if you'd like, but I'm done responding to it. Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: BkkCoins on September 11, 2011, 05:29:55 AM The fact stands that my opinion is that loglow's build is nice - it's a hell of a lot nicer than my open-air $5 wooden frame, and incidentally appears to stay cooler as well. You can keep shitting on my opinion if you'd like, but I'm done responding to it. I wouldn't worry about it. Some people are just plain rude and mouth off at every opportunity. Unless we see spastic.elastic actually show us his claimed abilities in the real world I'd just take this as a childish loud mouth blabbing off. Grown ups with respect for other peoples work don't act this way.Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: loglow on September 11, 2011, 07:02:14 AM stryker, I'm flattered to have the rig described as art! wow. thank you.
... aaanyways, nice to see the forum back online after the hack. I've added the two intake fans to the top, and I'm remounting the rear fans to better accommodate the grills. there are just too many unnecessary metal pieces back there, and I can do it much simpler by mounting the fans straight to lexan, which is plenty strong. I'll post an image or two when that's put together. the airflow seems reasonably good to me with this setup, and the cooling across the four cards is the most consistent I've seen so far. the intake-only setup was giving a 5-15% (sometimes even greater!) fan speed differential between cards. reversing the fans improved this to some degree, and the addition of the top fans is now giving me almost identical readings across all cards, which I'm psyched to see. as far as the overall efficiency of the build goes, I'd love to hear any concrete suggestions in terms of further optimizing it. as I said before, the science of cooling is still very new to me. Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: loglow on September 13, 2011, 05:53:16 AM So many people ignore the importance of industrial design. I strongly agree with you. I think many products are over-designed, to the point of being toy-like. ...if you just used the frosted stuff because it was the only material you could find, or that it was the cheapest... my choices were basically acrylic (plexiglass) or polycarb (lexan). acrylic is shit to work with; it melts and cracks. polycarb is much easier to cut and shape. a 1' x 2' sheet of acrylic is $9, and the same size sheet of lexan is $12; it's worth the extra 3 bucks. also, both come clear. the frosted comes from sanding the lexan with 150 grit sandpaper (w/ a handheld random-orbital). the one downside of lexan is that it scratches easily, so the decision to sand it was initially a practical one: if it's going to get scratched, why not pre-scratch it? are you involved with industrial design in your career? not exactly. my career at the moment is uncertain. I was in hollywood vfx for three years, but ended up leaving because of a health issue and because I hated los angeles. at the moment I'm taking woodworking and cabinetry courses. I've also started designing and building lamps, as well as some furniture. how all that will translate into a career is still up in the air, but at least my expenses are a fraction of what they were in the city. anyway, thank you so much for the kind words. :) Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: loglow on September 13, 2011, 06:16:48 AM after receiving the new fans and grills in the mail, I modified the top panel to hold them. I also modified the rear panel so the grills would fit, but ended up scrapping it and making a new one because the modified one was extremely narrow in a few places. I adjusted the layout of the six fans and also removed three of the aluminum beams that had been supporting them. the result--with the fans being supported by the lexan panel alone--is just as sturdy, but simpler, lighter, and cleaner looking.
with this setup: fan speeds are now consistent across all four cards, and are lower by about 5% overall. the box is still nice and quiet because the additional case fans are still quieter than the video card fans at higher speeds. the new fans are gelid wing14s (140mm). the original six are wing12s (120mm). I'm very impressed with the quality of these fans. the only remaining concern I have is thinking about dust prevention for the open slot on the front of the case, and the intake fans. any ideas? http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6079/6142635537_11302f3a0b.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/loglow/6142635537/) http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6081/6142635613_81992296ca.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/loglow/6142635613/) http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6163/6142635571_9f61115b87.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/loglow/6142635571/) Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: dovewing2000 on September 15, 2011, 02:34:33 AM can always try dryer sheets - they keep dust on them... just put them over your intake and exhaust fans...
the only other thing i kept on thinking about is.. if the cards were to exhaust up and intake is from bottom... would that sound weird? (hope didn't sidetrack the thread)... Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: loglow on September 16, 2011, 05:10:45 AM can always try dryer sheets thanks for the tip if the cards were to exhaust up and intake is from bottom this would make a lot of sense, since hot air likes to rise, and it's something I've thought about too. the reasons I have it running this way at the moment are: a) I want negative pressure overall so there aren't any pockets of hot air, and b) because I have the rig next to a window, and having the exhaust coming out horizontally allows me to vent the heated air directly outside. Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: cicada on September 16, 2011, 05:27:36 AM I think you'll find getting cool air to the fans on the cards in any way possible is paramount.
Yes, hot air does like to rise. In a building, in a tent, in a room with still air, etc. With the amount of air you're moving through this case the heat doesn't really have enough time to 'settle' to the top. You're probably not going to get much cooler at this point unless you plug an air conditioner directly into the intake ;) Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: loglow on September 16, 2011, 05:29:07 PM With the amount of air you're moving through this case the heat doesn't really have enough time to 'settle' to the top. You're probably not going to get much cooler at this point unless you plug an air conditioner directly into the intake The fans have been running at an average speed of 42-48%, both day and night... satisfied with the cooling ability of this rig ;D Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: dovewing2000 on September 16, 2011, 07:29:58 PM do the top fans exhaust the air out or pull air in?
Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: loglow on September 16, 2011, 08:22:03 PM do the top fans exhaust the air out or pull air in? The top fans (140mm, ~90CFM x2 = ~180CFM) are intake. The rear fans (120mm, ~60CFM x6 = ~360CFM) are exhaust. Title: Re: [DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case Post by: stryker on September 18, 2011, 10:13:02 AM would love to see footage of a high speed camera looking in the front of your rig as smoke is added via the top intakes ;D
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