Watercooled Shuttle

[ItsTooHot]

I have always wanted to water cool a Shuttle. I had been making a list of parts and dimentions for a while, but getting a pump in such a little box frustrated me for the longest time, until Xoxide came out with a really cool looking pump/res that solved my last problem.

Then the mod built itself and I was along for the ride.

This is just the first phase of this project, but by far the coolest phase. And I was so excited that it worked, and worked WELL, that I had to post it. This is an integrated watercooled Shuttle.



The first cuts. Where the radiator and pump will go.


I wanted this huge freaking radiator because I wasn't sure the pump would be up to the task. So I stuck with my "Too much is never enough" philosophy and wedged teh sucker in.


You can see it takes up the entire length and top of the Shuttle. And I loved how the back says "Look at my watercooled rear end!".


You can see vaguely where the hose will be run.


I needed to route the hose into the 3.5" bay in order to get around the power supply (not shown). I decided bending the edges away would chaffe less on the hose, and it would never be seen.


You can see the hose goes in the 3.5" bay and over the hard drive.

[ItsTooHot]

Finally got the hose in the right place with no kinks.


This was the first shot of the completed cooling circuit.


I just can't describe how tight it is to work in there.


And now you can see it with the power supply mounted. It takes up a good percentage of these little cases.


No room in there at all. Alcohol120% will be used for mounting CD images in this baby.


Those edges will get cleaned up later, in the second phase of this project.


That return hose is the only thing I don't really like. I'm still working on that one.


One more little trim on the cover, and it fits like a glove.

This thing worked out beautifully. I got this SN41G2 to power an XP2400+ at 2325MHz. And it never gets above 40c.

Here are the final shots for now. Now I'm off to make it look pretty...



Ready for a LANparty Baby!


Pick me up! I wanna go!


Baby got watercooled BACK!

[Zogthetroll]

VERY nice use of space there. looks really nice. I can't wait to see more pics once you get more completed with your project. btw, what kind of waterblock did you use for it?

[ItsTooHot]

oops. a whole series of shots didn't show up. its fixed now.

Its a DD Maze4 block. Despite the current controversy over the RBX, I've been reasonable happy with this block.

[Joe]

Very impressive, I take my hat off to you sir!

I have long loved the thought of extremely small extremely well cooled machines ( my Pro/Mini was an attempt at a small cooling system that had some serious power to it also). GJ

[Brians256]

Nice little package!

[pHaestus]

Yea I think if you could tap a thread on the other side of the res so that your return line was not looping around then it would be pretty much perfectly executed. Great job on the radiator up top it looks great!

[ItsTooHot]

Now thats a great idea. The upper barb is the return, so that wouldn't be hard to do at all.


I either needed a kick in the head or a good suggestion to solve that problem. Given everything else I did in this project I'm kinda disapointed I didn't think of that myself.

Thanks man!

[the_chad]

Congrats, fantastic work there, great use of space

thank god for alcohol 120% hey?

lol

great job

[pHaestus]

Glad I could be of some minor help. You make me want to get one of these cases and copy your work; it's that well done!

[ItsTooHot]

Ack. I bought another one of those pumps and tried to drill a return line on the other side. It cracked right after I finished drilling. The crack probably could have been sealed with silicon or something like that, but when I tried to tap it, it chipped.

So after blowing $60 and destroying a pump, I think I'll just leave it as it is.


And yes, I couldn't have done this project without Alcohol120%. At least not in this form.

[rocketmanx]

Nice job ITH

Been thinking about doing that to my Shuttle Reflexion. Now you've inspired me to buy the parts. Ordered em last night, should be here tomorrow. I have a MCP300 pump that would probably fit with the t-line internally but liked the Xoxide combo (had forgot about those) and the way it mounts to the back nicely. I WON'T attempt a retap though, sorry bout your luck with that

Got a single 80 mm Black Ice Micro for a rad. Hope it will mount where the heat-pipe goes. Space out the Xoxide to allow air flow.

Did you have any trouble with the gpu block fitting below where the cd tray is? I want to still have my dvd-rw so I'm slightly concerned. -Woops, dumb question, shoulda looked at pics

How's your performance been? Better than the heat-pipe I'm sure.

[ItsTooHot]

Performace has been great. I have 2 120mm fans under the rad, so cooling in kinda overkill. I got the 2400+ up to 2313 and it Folds all day long at 40-42c.

I think you will have enough room for a DVDRW. Replacing the ICE with that small rad should be fine. You can see in the pics that the 3/8 tubing just rests against the HD. You should be fine for spacing. Definately tight, but it should all fit.

The cracking was probably due more to my impatiance than anything else. I'm sure someone with more experience with acrylic can do this. I'm just not willing to try again right now. With my rad how it is, I can't use the fill hole as a return, but that might be an option for you. You can just block off the return barb and use the fill cap instead.

[winewood]

If you used a small rad.. ie bix or something similar, could you possible fit in the cdrom drive?

[Ruiner]

Not to nitpick, but...
Wouldn't you get better flow by replacing the 2 90's with a single piece of tubing (with a gentle curve, like your inlet tubing)?

Can you fit an AGP card in that rig?

What are the specs on that pump?

[ItsTooHot]

The pump is definately a weak link, but it fit into my plans so perfectly I had to use it. Its only 90CFM and the head is only 20 inches I think. But I only needed a head of a few inches, so I wasn't worries about it too much.

Working with something this small you have to expect compromizes, so I was thrilled that I was still able to get the overclock that I did. When I started, I was worried it wouldn't cool as well as the ICE.

Yes, I can still fit AGP card in there. I run it with a 9800np without any problems.

I know the 90 degree bends rub everyone the wrong way, but I was still trying to keep it as small as possible. That was just personal preference. I wouldn't have minded if f the tubing went up, or farther back, but I didn't want to make the Shuttle any wider, because I might makd the mistake of catching it on something when I moved it. So yeah, I ended up limiting the flow an an already weak pump. But that was why I also chose the dual 120mm fans and the big assed radiator. Its not ideal, but it still works well.

[superart]

If you mounted the fans on top of the rad, would you have enough room for a slimline cdrom or dvdrom drive?

But then the airflow would be extremely hindered, right?

[bikr]

if you want to get it all inside the case , bust open that Xoxide pump , that is a SysFX pump tank that was made for Xoxide , the pump inside , if i'm not mistaken , is a rio 180 ,



with a tiny bit of work this can be run entirely inline. with great performance , your radiator is huge and would adequately hold/ cool enough to keep your system down to a temp that doesn't require a res at all.. you could mount the pump outside of the drive cage opposite of where your tubing runs currently..

Great work btw , but i'd love to see it fully internal!!! --Josh

[FallOutBoyTonto]

I was impressed enough to send the url of this thread to hardnews@hardocp.com. Guess what, they posted it! You're on [H]! Its on "[H]ardNews 6th Edition" for Monday, December01, 2003. Nice job!

[ItsTooHot]

Originally posted by superart
If you mounted the fans on top of the rad, would you have enough room for a slimline cdrom or dvdrom drive?

But then the airflow would be extremely hindered, right?

You could definstely mount the fans on the top. And that would leave pleanty of room for a laptop CDROM. It wouldn't decrease the flow by any noticable amount. I used the gasket that came with radiator, so blowing and sucking should give very similar performance. As a matter of fact, I made that cut very narrow to make sure the gasket was well hidden. If you opened up the top a little more and stuck the fans on the outside, it would cool better that what I did.

I definately sacrificed cooling potential for style when I did this mod. And the wind tunnel 2 120mm fans on full blast (mine aren't - very quiet) would keep everything inside nice and chilly.

[superart]

No, i meant that would cut down on airflow through the rad since the cdrom drive would be obstructing it, or would it?

[Stratu$]

Hi, I just purchased a Shuttle SN45G and I'd like to watercool it the same way you did. Can you put out a complete list of all the parts you used, where you purchased them and how much everything costed so I can replicate your awesome watercooled case?

I also wanted to know how difficult it was to do this modification? I've never water cooled a case before and I really don't know too much about it. But, I'm doing a lot more gaming and I want to overclock my SN45G. Any help you can give me would be awesome. Thanks and your case is awesome! Stratu$

[Sc0rian]

Nice use of space. And I had a problem with a normal size case

[*klonk*]

Heres a nutty dane whos done the same.
Unfortunatly the text is in dansih but it has really nice pictures.

http://www.tweakup.dk/article/202/dk/

[Stratu$]

Hi all. Just wanted to see if you could answer my previous question. Thanks.