2x120mm rad placement?

[armored]

how do you position your 2x120mm radiators? are there any towers that allow bottom front positioning w/o chopping off all the 3 1/2" bays? I thought the Chieftec Dragon would work, but it seems sized for 80mm fans...
Thanks!

[kronchev]

Originally Posted by armored

how do you position your 2x120mm radiators? are there any towers that allow bottom front positioning w/o chopping off all the 3 1/2" bays? I thought the Chieftec Dragon would work, but it seems sized for 80mm fans...
Thanks!

thats a pretty "tall" order (pun intended ). 2x120's are usually 9+ inches tall...a full server tower would work, but thats huge. I dont know of any cases off the top of my head that look like they have even remotly that much space...maybe someone else can.

[Gooserider]

A really full size tower will maybe work, or you could go the route that I did and get a big server cube style case. I'm using an AMS CK1100B from Servercase.com. This is a really neat case that IMHO is a much better unit than the YY Cube a few folks here have used for projects. (I wrote up a review on it here a while back, but it seems to never have gotten published for some reason...)

The big advantage it has over the YY Cube for this application is that the mobo side chamber is much wider, with 2 5.25" and one 3.5" bay at the top, and a big space underneath that was intended for the main case air intake for an AC system. Behind that space is lots of room between the front of the mobo tray and the front of the chassis. I cut out the sheet metal behind the front bezel so that it (barely) fit my 2-342 single pass rad (~6" W x 9"H (10.5" w/ tanks)) into the front of the case, and built a split duct setup behind it to house the fans (The bottom half of the duct blows out the bottom of the case through a blowhole, the upper half blows into the case for air circulation)

With the front bezel in place, the only thing about the system that doesn't look stock is the fill point for the Res over on the PSU chamber side.

Gooserider

[|kbn|]

for 2x120 rad, i think youd have to chop ur 5 1/4 bays off too! in my case anyway.

[Zogthetroll]

I seem to remember seeing one over at bit-tech. or at least a link to one. Pug from wizard designs made project hexadragon (got some space in custompc magazine) out of a cheiftec dragon case and shoehorned 2 120 fans and a rad into the front bezel, he had to mess with the 3 1/2 bays to do it though. he did an excellent job with the finish if you're looking for ideas. you'll probably find your situation similar if you go that route.

[killernoodle]

Mount it on top, that way you can show the world how big of a *radiator* you got and that you are doin some serious cooling. My 2x120mm rad will be mounted on the top of my case as soon as I get it... which should be anytime.

Actually it is far larger than a 2x120mm, so I dunno what is going to happen.

[HammerSandwich]

The Chenbro Genie is worth a look. Click on "modifications" in the top right to see it with 2 120s.

[pHaestus]

I fit two into this:

http://phaestus.procooling.com/radbox2.jpg

[kronchev]

Originally Posted by pHaestus

I fit two into this:

http://phaestus.procooling.com/radbox2.jpg

I could never hurt a poor li-li like that, even for low temps

[pHaestus]

huh? I made the box myself and just trimmed down a replacement front bezel I bought for $30 for the front. It still isn't finished but maybe, just maybe, one day I will get it done

[Pritorian]

This case is able to have two 120mm fans inn the back

http://www.liteonenclosure.com/products/fs020/fs020.htm

And should be nice for your needs.

[kronchev]

Originally Posted by pHaestus

huh? I made the box myself and just trimmed down a replacement front bezel I bought for $30 for the front. It still isn't finished but maybe, just maybe, one day I will get it done

OH. well I thought you cut a whole case for that.

nice job, carry on

[armored]

It looks like maiming a dragon is my best choice here (e.g. the only one I can afford)...how would you recommend mounting my HDDs after I take off the 3 1/2 bays? should I try something like cutting down one of the bays and soddering it into the 5 1/4 bay?
Thanks for all the advice!

[Zogthetroll]

using the 5 1/4" bays would be the easiest solution, you can go a couple of ways with that, either go the cheap route and get the U-shaped drive bay adaptors, or spend more and get an enclosure that will cut down on noise & vibration, maybe even watercool(a bit extreme though). The other thing you could do, depending on whether you get a full tower or not, is to mount the 3 1/2" bays above the power supply, in front of the rear exhaust fan, like the old-school server style cases.

[Anemone]

You could mount it outside of the door and mount the fans inside, giving you air cooling blowing on the mobo and graphics memory chips (albeit warmed air slightly). This would also position the rad entirely outside the case, which should let ambient air reach the sides of the rad casing, which doesn't happen inside the case. It will look a bit odd, but you could dress it up. Just leave yourself enough tubing length to let you open and service the thing and you should fine.


Yep this is totally theoretical

[Pug]

Originally Posted by Zogthetroll

I seem to remember seeing one over at bit-tech. or at least a link to one. Pug from wizard designs made project hexadragon (got some space in custompc magazine) out of a cheiftec dragon case and shoehorned 2 120 fans and a rad into the front bezel, he had to mess with the 3 1/2 bays to do it though. he did an excellent job with the finish if you're looking for ideas. you'll probably find your situation similar if you go that route.

Hey thanx for the props Zog.

Here's a pic of it in its "ultimate" cooling stage.


and a desktop quality pic I made for mnpctech

Had to do some light modding tho'...
Original Project thread on Bit
Bit mesh mod guide
Original conception thread on Ars Technica


Hope it helps.

[bigben2k]

Congrats Pug! What blue UV additive did you use? (or should i just read the article?!?).

I'm building mine slightly differently:

My rad placement was easy... the hard part is re-fitting the three PSUs somewhere else!

[Pug]

Thanks Ben. (I actually won £1000 sterling's worth of hardware and got a 3 page article on it in the CustomPC mag Zog mentioned, so it was more than worthwhile. )

The dye I used is Aqua Computer's own Blu-motion but I have two 12" CCFL's off a pair of dedicated invertors which I think makes a big difference, along with the super-clear tubing I use.

I might have placed the rad differently given the same case as you but I really wanted to get things in a mid-tower if I could.

[bigben2k]

I picked up 4 * 12" UV CCFLs, so I think I'll be ok...

Just for good measure, I'm also adding 4 * 6" blue CCFLs, to highlight the PSU work.

Some info here: http://forums.procooling.com/vbb/showthread.php?t=6196

So much work, so little time...

[Boli]

Do what I'm planning... a 120.2 rad will fit on the sie pannel, cutting the side pannel in "half" where one part moves allong access and the other is still attached will give room for 120.2 rad in most cases.

it is better tpo have the rads at the bottom, better for bleeding.