I have a neat idea
 

I have a neat watercooling idea. I think I'm going to do a PodCast of the build.. :) PodCasting is the future, man.. :) I think I need to do about 5 years of watercooling catch up before I start, and make a fool of myself. :) Should be fun though.

Re: I have a neat idea
 

Ahh hell.. Might as well discuss the plan, Ben already guessed it somehow.
Let's start with how I came up with the plan.. So I was sitting at my wife's desk looking at her desktop background. I recently installed Vista on her machine. Mostly due to the fact that ram is rediculously cheap now. I figure 8gigs for under $100, I might just be able to get Vista to move at a decent speed. heh.. Sorry, going off on a tangent already. Where was I? Oh yes.. Desktop background.. She's got the one with the rocks. I was just kind of staring at that noticing how each rock is a different color, but they all have the same pockmarks and cracks and generally all look to be the exact same kind of rock. Must have been some photoshop hackin goin on to get each one such vastly different colors. Anyways. That gave me my idea.. I'm going to build a window into the side of a very tall tower case (like my old project "The Rock" kind of tall) except that the window will be a plexiglass enclosure that kind of sticks about an inch into the case. I'll fill it with decorative rock, and set up some kind of water distribution system at the top that will more or less evenly rain water down onto and through the gravel. It's not going to be an evaporative cooler, though I have considered making the inside wall of it aluminum so it will disipate some heat, and double as a bit of a reflective surface. So the waterfall will be airtight. I have access to a laser engraver, so I'll probably toss a big apple logo on the front window too, since I'm running OS X on this machine (no Vista for me!). :)
Anyone besides Ben reading this? :) Chime in.

Re: I have a neat idea
 

Cool..........
Sterilize the rock first. Oven, 350*F, for an hour.
Terrarium...plants, frogs, lizzards!

Re: I have a neat idea
 

Good suggestion. I'll do that.
I went to the hardware store today to buy some plexiglass. Wasn't too impressed with their selection. They had super thin, or super thick.. .080" or .250".. I was kind of hoping for around .187" or so.. I picked up some PVC pipe for the top of the waterfall. Made a test run with it in the sink. It's surprisingly powerful with my little pump. I think I'll mock up the form for the waterfall with cardboard this weekend, so when I finally do find plexi in the size I want, I'll be ready to start cutting.
Oh, and the other problem at the hardware store.. They didn't have acryllic cement. They just had some silicone based adhesive. Am I better off with the silicone adhesive, or should I order the cement online? I've never built anything out of plexi before.. This should be interesting.

Re: I have a neat idea
 

Reminds me of this.

Re: I have a neat idea
 

Nice.. I don't see anywhere selling that thing though. Ooodles of reviews, but doesn't seem to be actively in stores. Might save me some work.

Re: I have a neat idea
 

Directron hits on Froogle, but you have to buy the whole case.

Re: I have a neat idea
 

speaking of directron, I just checked the site, and they still have: http://www.directron.com/procooling.html

Procooling case badges ;) hehe

Re: I have a neat idea
 

I thought about something similar. making a res that has a maze like shelf system so water is forced to trickle through the res. Shelves could be metal as well as outside case for a bit more cooling.

For aesthetics only I thought it be funny to have a similar design but put blue oil in the res, like those old paper-weights that you flip upside down and the oil makes its way to the bottom. Obviously you don't want it getting out of the res, but there are ways to use some of that mech energy from the water to stir up the oil a bit.

At the end of the day though I really don't have any interest in "candy" modding of cases, I prefer performance to being pretty.

Re: I have a neat idea
 

Joe! :mad: Dammit, I thought I was going to surprise people... :hammer:

Re: I have a neat idea
 

Thinking about this topic, I'm really surprised someone hasn't done an ant farm yet.