Touch Board Key Construnction
We all remember this thing - the touch control board. Also remember how ugly it is. Why? because the keys are ugly and there's no hiding the subunit anywhere... not a problem anymore. I've got to do something while I wait on a response from Ben @ mountainmods. http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/...inputboard.jpg Raw 1" plexi cylinder arrives @ my house from the land of ..well... everything. McMaster-Carr, what DON'T they sell? http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/...ath/31/001.jpg Setting the fence on my bandsaw to 3/4" for each 'key' section of the cylinder. This appears to be (by imperical investigation) the approximate best length for LED light spread of the blue and white LEDs I'm using. Any shorter and the light is too intense, any longer and the light is concenrated in the middle (bad as you'll see later) http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/...ath/31/002.jpg 4 keys cut. Note that these went for a little ride on the belt sander after these shots http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/...ath/31/003.jpg http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/...ath/31/004.jpg My ingenious way of marking the center of a circle... I got lucky that the label on the solder was symeteric and had a line down the center of it. so I put a piece of tape on the key to be marked, marked one line, rotated, marked another. Boom, where the lines cross is the center. http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/...ath/31/005.jpg http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/...ath/31/006.jpg http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/...ath/31/007.jpg Key secured in my drillpress, ready for the hole through it. The hole is to accomodate the wire going up to the touch-sensor's electrode (a sanded flat penny). http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/...ath/31/008.jpg Drilled with a 5/32" straight through. http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/...ath/31/009.jpg Preparing for the shallow 3/4" hole to accomodate the touch electrode (penny, which is about 3/4" diameter) with 3/4" wood spade bit (works fine on plexi if you go slow - plus is easy to center with the pilot drill!) http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/...ath/31/010.jpg |
3/4" at 1mm deep relief drilled. (Ignore the holes in the bottom for now, I'll explain those shortly)
http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/...ath/31/011.jpg Touch sensor electrode in place (pre-sanding) http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/...ath/31/012.jpg http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/...ath/31/013.jpg Sanded penny - touch sensor electrode. I plan on painting it flat black to match the rest of the parts - polished nickle or even sanded nickle won't look right. I'll get to that sunday when its supposed to be like 45*F out! yay! http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/...ath/31/014.jpg Sanded Electrode in place. Still have to get gas for my torch to heat up the penny enough to solder some 24AWG copper stranded wire to it, and then paint the electrode. The wife is using my torch gas for the BBQ! Arg! http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/...ath/31/015.jpg Marking centers for holes to accomodate 2 5mm LEDs (1 white, 1 blue) http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/...ath/31/016.jpg Drill with a 7/64" (hey, I don't own metric bits!) bit and have just a little wiggle room (enough for the adhesive goop to sit in) http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/...ath/31/017.jpg Holes drilled (yes, that's what those holes were for) http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/...ath/31/011.jpg Chucking the key into my hand drill (the corded one) via a nail through the center to 'frost' the edges (evenly distribute light around the body of the key) http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/...ath/31/018.jpg Sanding with 220 grit emery paper (flexes a lot easier than regular aluminum-oxide sandpaper since its on a fabric-like base) http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/...ath/31/019.jpg |
"Frosted" key with electrode in place.
http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/...ath/31/020.jpg 2x5mm LEDs, 1 white, 1 blue. http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/...ath/31/021.jpg Key on LEDs (no illumination)... hrmm... http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/...ath/31/022.jpg Key on LEDs (White illumination- a little too intense in one spot) http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/...ath/31/023.jpg Key on LEDs (blue illumination (which in real life doesn't have that nasty aqua spot, not sure how to photoshop that out)... same problem.) http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/...ath/31/024.jpg Time passes... I come in 3rd at a LAN tourney... I return home Manufacture 3 more keys! Wrap them in aluminum tape to rid myself of 1.) Light leaking 2.) uneven intensity around the key ring. http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/...ath/31/025.jpg 4 keys with electrodes (1 flipped, just to show what the keys are, its sanded on the other side) http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/...ath/31/026.jpg 4 white LEDs with their tops sanded off. This also helps diffuse the light out of these narrow-angle LEDs a bit more, plus the fit into the holes I drilled perfectly now, I guess I drilled them just a little too shallow. http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/...ath/31/027.jpg 1 white and 1 blue 5mm LED GOOPed into place on each key. http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/...ath/31/028.jpg Money Shots! Lights on, white LED on (normal key state). A little intense in the one corner, but a lot of its the camera, and the angle. http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/...ath/31/029.jpg Lights off, white LED on (normal key state). A small degree of light leaking out the bottom, but nothing that won't be cured when I spray paint the electrodes black, and spray paint the key bottoms black to eliminate light leakage) http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/...ath/31/030.jpg Lights off, blue LED on (key touch state). It's a little less aqua and a little more blue in real life, but I was unable to get the effect I wanted in photoshop. http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/...ath/31/031.jpg So that's the state of affairs. I've redesigned the front panel baste plate to allow me to have these keys perfectly aligned by CADing in 1.05" (the extra 50 mils for the foil tape) holes into the base plate design. I'm waiting to hear back from Ben at mountain mods about the ETA to get the new parts in my hands. Until then, I'll keep chomping away at what I can do. For the time being, I'm going to split the chassis control board off from the board that has all the case indicators. For one, it was getting too big for me to use my favorite board fab house, and 2, I've dediced it'll get its own PIC for controlling 8 RGB indicators for ANY friggin color I like. Until next time (and I'm not sure when that will be...) Stay tuned, same bat forum, same bat post. |
Nice!
Sorry I missed your earlier post. I'm not doing anything terribly fancy, so I'll just post it all when I'm done. ;) In short; 3 * 300W redundant PSU array, front bezel mod, case re-paint and windowed 3 way, 4 * 12" UV CCFLs, 3 * 6" blue CCFLs, water cooled, Ford Mustang blower, 6" x 8" x 2" core, general theme is black, blue and copper. |
I hope to see a worklog, maybe even on www.wizdforums.co.uk. I know its low-flow stuff, but it's a groovy place for modders and water cooling folks to come together, and I'd appreciate your presence, even if it is only maintaining a log. Sometimes I wish we had someone who was a bit stronger in theory than the rest of us.
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I'm joined, thanks for the invite!
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Cool, and your welcome.
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Almost There!
The touch keys are almost done, very little left. Final integration will be when I install/assembled the new bezel. Laser cut parts are on there way from Oregon (mountain mods - ben kicks ass!) and are slated to arrive on wednesday of next week (the 30th). I'd expect to have a new update a day or 3 after that. Keys prepared for having their bottoms painted http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ars/goliath/32/01.jpg Thank god for the warmer weather, but I still have to heat the paint up - rustoleum satin black sitting in my laundry sink (the black thing is the washers' waste water tube) full of hot water. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ars/goliath/32/02.jpg Ready to rock! http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ars/goliath/32/03.jpg Keys painted http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ars/goliath/32/04.jpg http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ars/goliath/32/05.jpg http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ars/goliath/32/06.jpg Oh... that worked well - money shot (note no light leaking out the bottom now) http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ars/goliath/32/07.jpg Death by electrodes? The touch keys have to connect back to the QT150 somehow, so I've got to attach wire to my electrodes. The average soldering iron (and obviously not what I have - hakko 936) can't heat up a penny enough to solder to it... but a propane torch can! Ready to solder - don't try this at home, kids. This is all the stuff I took outside to the concrete back porch. The wife would get kinda pissed if I burnt the house down, ya dig? http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ars/goliath/32/08.jpg *Squints* look real close and you can see the propane flame. The bright side (pardon the pun) is that the solder burnt off all the crap on the penny - I had a feeling it would, which is why I didn't prep/polish them beforehand. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ars/goliath/32/09.jpg First one soldered - 24AWG stranded copper for flexibility http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ars/goliath/32/10.jpg |
All 4 soldred with tails.
http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ars/goliath/32/11.jpg Even the shiny silver side wouldn't look real good amidst a sea of black which will be the front panel, so paint the tops of the electrodes. This won't alter the functionality of the QT150 as its a capacitive touch sensor, and is designed to have the electrode not in direct contact with the user interface. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ars/goliath/32/12.jpg Closeup of the paint drying on an electrode. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ars/goliath/32/13.jpg Car Key Gnomes? Gotta attach the keys to the acrylic key backlight diffusers somehow... the answer - GOOP! I love this stuff! (Lick the q-tip, then pickup some goop, don't repeat!) http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ars/goliath/32/14.jpg Small slot milled in key to accomodate the fact that the wires aren't attached dead center to the electrodes. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ars/goliath/32/15.jpg Slide the wire through the key http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ars/goliath/32/16.jpg Apply goop... http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ars/goliath/32/17.jpg Then push key down and embed into goop, keeping it as level as possible and centered in the indent. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ars/goliath/32/19.jpg 4 keys - goop curing http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ars/goliath/32/18.jpg All done. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ars/goliath/32/20.jpg all that remains is to put foil tape back on the keys (I removed it because it looked crappy with the painted foil tape) and install them into the bezel. I'll be leaving a 2 or 3mm gap between the top of the acrylic backlight diffuser and the top of the key so you don't see the foil tape's edges on the bezel... which is the other reason I nixxed the first round of tape. Until next time! |
Very cool!
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Thanks killernoodle!
Hoping for some time on the bridgeport here at work in the (far?) future. No coolant pump on it though, so copper could be tricky. I'm thinking custom backside VRM blocks. |
http://www.overclockers.com/tips1115/ is something I remembered from way back. My voltages are a little wiggly and that's something I probably need to fix to get any higher in my oc. I may build one of these for my IC7, but not using the water chamber design... just a copper pipe with barstock 'pads' stuck to the back of the FETs. I'd like to get some baseline readings on my VRM FET temps before I install it, but it looks like an easy couple-hour project to build. I hope to have LOTS of stuff to do next weekend, because I'll have the whole thing to myself - the wife and child are visiting someone in philadelphia... and I'm an antisocial modder ;)
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Here's a little preview as to what I've been fiddling with before the acrylic pieces got here (which it did today!).
If you want the gritty details, hop on over to the procooling thread Pics: http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ars/goliath/33/01.jpg http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ars/goliath/33/02.jpg http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ars/goliath/33/03.jpg http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ars/goliath/33/04.jpg http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ars/goliath/33/05.jpg |
Door Mounting
Remember when I broke the base plate for the door a few updates ago? Well, I got the new door and marked out lines on either end to align my straight edge for the flat side of the router to ride against. I'm using a 1/2" carbide tipped slot cutting bit on low speed. First step was to cut the deeper portion of the indent for the knuckle of the hinge to sit in. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/34/001.jpg Then cut the more shallow, wide porition for the leaf of the hinge to mount in. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/34/002.jpg http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/34/003.jpg Closeup shot of both indents cut. Its a little ugly from the router, but it matters not. Also, don't sweat the fact that the protective paper covering is still there. It'll stay as long as possible. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/34/004.jpg Mounted with tape, as it's not yet screwed into the hinge. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/34/005.jpg Bottom hole for relief of the bolt that holds the hinge to the main chassis. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/34/006.jpg Top hole - and yes, I measured 13.7mm when I meant 12.7mm. Measure twice, drill once, darnit! (doesn't matter, you won't see it behind the smoked plexi front up top) http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/34/007.jpg Front plexi's taped on to check alignment of the optical drive hole (for burner) and slot (for DVD reader) http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/34/008.jpg Oh yeah, slides out with just enough clearence. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/34/009.jpg Badda bing http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/34/010.jpg Badda boom http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/34/011.jpg It's a... http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/34/012.jpg ...Beautiful thing http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/34/013.jpg |
Next step: mount the face plates to the base
Mark holes for set screws http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/34/014.jpg Drill hole, tap it, then insert set screw. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...h/34/015.5.jpg Presto, mounted! Since the bottom part of the face plate will be painted to match the rest of the case, the mounting hardware had to be flush. It will be glued (probably with goop) along with the screws, but the screws had to be fitted to maintain the alignment between the face plate and the base plate, so the optical drives lined up properly. The holes will be filled, and then the whole thing painted. Strong, stealth mount! http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/34/015.jpg Untape the whole thing, and the base plate is held on... Look ma, no tape! http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/34/016.jpg Mark the base plate location for a hole that will be tapped for a screw to join the hinge to the base plate. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/34/017.jpg Back side of said hole, with aluminum hardware screwed into base plate, plus a relief hole in the hinge so that it'll close up flat. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/34/018.jpg Base plate mounted to hinge. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/34/019.jpg Open... http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/34/020.jpg ...Sesame! http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/34/021.jpg Nice fit and finish (lines up real well) http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/34/022.jpg Woooo http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/34/023.jpg ooooT! (yeah, it does look a bit off - the black plexi is so black that it looks like there's a gap but its so dark that you don't see the plexi itself. This stuff is a pain to photograph. :mad: http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/34/024.jpg |
Reattach bottom face plate to base plate, photograph with fingerprints and all (will be remedied, of course)
http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/34/025.jpg Opening... http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/34/026.jpg ...Open! http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/34/027.jpg VFD Mounting The headcap screws I have are just a shade larger than the holes in the VFD, but no problem. Busted out the round file (yes, a round file, not the garbage can!) and enlarged them all. Hint: chucking the round file in your drill makes things go reaaaaaaaal fast ;) Be careful not to go too far! http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/34/028.jpg Now I couldn't mount the screen flat to the back of the base plate, as its too thick. So I needed spacers. Hrmm... The old pen casing trick! http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/34/029.jpg Moments later after a date with my bandsaw... http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/34/030.jpg And mounted. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/34/031.jpg Hiding behind the top face plate. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/34/032.jpg Animation + flash = bad. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/34/033.jpg Temporary install of 2 layers of blue filter. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...h/34/034.5.jpg A few snapshots while I'm on the phone with the wife -- "what are you doing??" ;) http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/34/034.jpg |
Money shot - oooh baby!
http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/34/035.jpg (And you can see all the wiring because the side of the case is open - that'll be taken care of once I put all the stuff back in). Font test on the display (well, by fonttest.bmp from my custom VFD software) http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/34/036.jpg And the same thing without flash. The color here is more true to life, but its a bit blurry minus the flash) http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/34/037.jpg Now... how to keep that door closed. Magnets! The wife was kind enough to donate some of that magnet-on-a-roll to my project. It's not in one continuous piece because it would interfere with the cages/rails for the drive mounts, so it has to be cut up into evenly spaced pieces. On the side. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/34/038.jpg On the top (I can have a big piece there since there's no drive or cage in that spot) http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/34/039.jpg So that's that for this update. I haven't mounted the touch keys (as I'm sure its obvious what those round holes below the VFD are for) because I can't permanently attach the top face plate yet. That would make painting the bottom more difficult, so I'll hold off on them for now. So my next immediate step is to glue to the bottom in place after getting everything nice and clean. Then, I suppose, its off to paint. I take forever doing paint, because I finally HAVE to commit to my window design (which still ain't cut!) Feedback, please. Even if it's just "wow" or "that's ugly"... |
I have been following this thread for a while...
all I can say is.. I'm impressed Look realy sweet... |
Thanks madhacker... I've been meaning to ask... are you the same dude who did the max1668 project? aka www.madhacker.org?
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Oh. my mistake then.
*Now returning you to your regularly scheduled project log!* |
I must admit... that's a nice project you're doing.. and it seems it's taken you a LONG time...lol.. since 2K4...wow.
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"Movement!"
Yeah, like in the alien movies... just when you think there's nothing around, there looks like there's nothing around, and all is calm, a blip on the tactical scanner appears. In this case, the blip is this meager update. Front Panel Glue-Up After thinking about it for a good long while, I decided that using goop to glue the bottom outer plate to the base frame (to augment the set screw fasteners) wasn't such a bad idea. Off I went... Off the front of the box, set screws removed. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ars/goliath/35/01.jpg Wiping down the surface with a tack-cloth http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ars/goliath/35/02.jpg http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ars/goliath/35/03.jpg Goop! (Plumbers and all the other varieties, it's basically all the same.) This stuff is nice and sticky and should bond the front together no-problem. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ars/goliath/35/04.jpg Goop Applied http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ars/goliath/35/05.jpg Parts mated together... at which point I put the set screws back in so that everything lines up A-OK. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ars/goliath/35/06.jpg Cover in a rag, wood blocks to distrubte the weight, and weights plus some extra 'liquid' weight. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ars/goliath/35/07.jpg The whole thing stuck together just fine, but you'll have to wait till I get the set screw holes bondo'd shut and the whole thing shot with automotive (lacquer) primer before I show it again. Front Ports Before when I sleeved and extended the front panel firewire and USB I never dyed the parts. Zittware's "Dye Everything" attitudte motivated me to go back and dye it black. Taped up and ready for dye http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ars/goliath/35/08.jpg All dyed up :) http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ars/goliath/35/09.jpg Edit: Fixed Image tag locations... doah! |
This part got scrapped
Basically, I messed up. I milled the slots for the front port holder too big, and it ended up looking like butt. I tried to put some of mnpctech's famous rubber moulding around it to clean it up, but the bend radius was too tight. The part got scrapped, and I'm also scrapping the front panel headphone jacks... I never work on this beast with headphones, nor do I ever plug a microphone in. I originally put it in there for completeness' sake, but I've decided to scrap that idea. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ars/goliath/35/10.jpg http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ars/goliath/35/11.jpg http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ars/goliath/35/12.jpg http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ars/goliath/35/13.jpg http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ars/goliath/35/14.jpg http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ars/goliath/35/15.jpg To put a long story short as to the lack of progress, I've been extremely busy at work on several fronts (replacing our wired infrtastructure, rolling out wireless, moving to a different backup software, and training new workstudy) and haven't felt like doing much once I get home. hopefully that'll change. Till next time... |
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Part I: Refinement ;) Pilot holes drilled prior to dremel action http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/36/001.jpg Front panel I/O fitted - ditched the headphone/mic jack. Useless for me. Trust me, as I don't say this often, it looks better than it looks. Powdercoating will remedy a lot of the uneven-ness in the color. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/36/002.jpg |
Part II: Bezel paint prep
Before everything can get painted with toyota carbon blue metallic, it has to get primered, and something has to be done about the holes created by the setscrews holding the front bezel plate together with the rear bezel plate. First things first, sanded with 400 grit so the plastikote high-build flexible primer sticks... what can I say, the stuff rocks! http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/36/101.jpg A bit hazy, but it's a good thing -- the primer needs to stick. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/36/102.jpg Bondo'd set screw holes - soon to disappear. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/36/103.jpg Closeup, as well as bondo on the seam between the front and back plate. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/36/104.jpg Hanging for easy access to paint everything. Tip: don't paint outside after dark, the bugs like the light, which is near your work, and get their dumb asses stuck in the primer. they can be plucked out with a fine set of tweezers, and the mark they leave can be sanded out easily in the primer. Still, avoid it if you can. PS: Tiki torches don't work on them. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/36/105.jpg All dry, 2nd coat of high build. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/36/106.jpg Orange peel anyone? -- easily taken care of. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/36/107.jpg A bit of a drip, can be sanded out. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/36/108.jpg Smoooth... http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/36/109.jpg ...and just barely reflective after a 400 grit wetsand (I can't tell you how long this took, jeeze!). Primer, wetsand, primer, wetsand, primer.... http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/36/110.jpg Part DCLXVI: Don't anger the bandsaw Oops! http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/36/200.jpg Done while cuting a new pump mount from 3/4" 6061 Aluminum. Crap! Fortunately, it didn't whack me in the face, hands, or other parts of my body when it snapped. Part III: Radeon 9800 Pro + AC Twinplex Since I'm going over to small-bore stuff to cool my additional components, I ditched the danger den VGA block in favor of an AquaComputer Twinplex. The mounting hardware is non-standard, primarly due to the fact that AC's supplied (well, I bought it used -- Thanks Dr. Fibbles!) was a bit small for my taste. The mount is standard operating procedure: threaded rod with a bolt on one end and a thumbscrew on the other, and a few washers here and there to prevent the PCB from shorting out. Sexy, aint it? http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/36/300.jpg Mounting close-up. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/36/301.jpg |
Part IV: Hybrid System 4-way splitter, part 1.
With me taking the direction I decided to go, which is a hybrid system with a Storm/G5 waterblock at the core (requires high flow)... I couldn't use the small-bore stuff without causing a lot of pressure drop. The solution: 4 parallel loops split off after the CPU, with the knowledge that each sub-loop is roughly equally restrictive, and flow balance shouldn't be much of an issue (and I have a solution if it is) And how would I know about flow imbalance? You'd have to ask Zittware about that. On to the show! This unassuming, freshly cut (by bloody hacksaw, thank you - see DCLXVI above) and freshly sanded on the belt sander with 220 grit to true up the edges, will serve as a splitter. 1/2" tubing in, 4x6mm ID tubing (Plug and cool for you AC folks) out. Once again, thanks to Dr. Fibbles for hooking me up with the fittings. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/36/400.jpg The bit used to pilot the plug-and-cool holes. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/36/401.jpg judging out the spacing a bit... http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/36/402.jpg The block drilled out, 1/2" in the top, 4x1/2 (for G1/4 thread) for the plug and cools (aka instant tube fittings) http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/36/403.jpg Threading the end with 1/4 NPT. The key here is to go in a bit, then back out to clear the tap's teeth of debris. All in all it took me half an hour to get the NPT tap in. the taper is what makes it a bitch, it keeps getting tighter and there for harder to turn the tap as you go in. But, my ratchet with a 5/16" socket holding the tap did the trick. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/36/404.jpg And w\ fitting (stolen off my maze 4 waterblock, hehe!) http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/36/405.jpg Same thing, but G1/4 thread this time... aka BSPP. Much, much thanks to scopEDog for splitting an order of these. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/36/406.jpg Rigged for the old blow-hard test - passed with flying colors, no leaks. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/36/407.jpg And partially polished - just the end (it was 12:02 last night, had to stop, esp since I had network gear swap to do at 8AM the next morning -- You ever think you could get $180K of gear into a $2000 car? you can.) http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/36/408.jpg That's it for now. The splitter needs to be polished, the pump mount finished, parts and tubing ordered from www.mcmaster.com. I can't wait to unleash the Storm! |
http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ngs_tubing.jpg
Goodies ordered from McMaster-Carr Can you spot the problem? . . . Yup. I ordered 1/16" wall 1/2 tubing. It could bite me in the ass, or maybe it's not so bad. We'll find out. |
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can't say as I have and I don't think I have the equipment to do so with. max head out of an eheim 1250 is spec'd on their site as 6 ft. 7 in or 2.0m. could probably go to PSI from that but I don't know the math to do so off the top of my head.
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