Battleground Europe Theme Case

[Bleeble]

That's awesome. Unlike a lot of custom builds, this one emphasizes function as well as form.

 

I'm just wondering how those 120mm flow straighteners would affect my temps if I put a few on my radiator. I'm not a physics expert, but wouldn't turbulence between the fins be a good thing? If those work, don't create extra noise, and don't kill the airflow then I might just have to put some on the fans I have strategically placed around my case.

 

What exactly does that wide angle diffuser do and how does it prevent the LCD and computer from sharing heat?

[EM3Bilko]

I got a few shots of some decent looking screens:

And this one I made to mess with my friend Barry who said many times last december-janurary "your gonna burn that thing up"

And I modified a screen to look as though there is critters living in my box.

 

And ever since I started modding PC's I have wanted a box with this screen on the case, and now I do

 

I made another diffuser for the lower portion. This cut my Reynolds number in half per diffuser, but the PSU and video card need their own supply. I forgot how much work I put into this little part until I had to copy it.

12 triangular pieces ready to go, it uses only standoffs on 4 of the vanes, unlike the force the NASA one contends with, 5MPH will be about the max this intake ever sees.

Making something can be a challenge, copying it can be much more difficult.

And I had to make another hole in the side panel,

I attempted to cut this plexi without any masking tape on it, it just glued itself right back together without tack paper, so after a few passes I just put masking tape on and it cut like I was used too.

And my scroll saw cuts anything but straight. So on edges I use the hand file to get straight and smooth. But for circles I have used sandpaper around something round and coned, in this case a drinking glass. For aluminum and plexi circles I have just used this technique and turned it until it's a perfect circle.

Since I had the side off I took a few more close up's of how the monitor sits and the hardware from this side.

And a close up of the keyboard area, you can see it is a pretty tight fit for everything that is there. When I first got my Viewsonic 20.1 inch I was putting the keyboard on the LCD stand (kinda) and it seemed pretty tucked out of the way, this is how I really got the idea to stick the keyboard in this thing. Since the drives were going to be facing me anyway.

I also added a deflector to the outputs of each of the honeycombs. Once the air has been straightened it is very easy to control. One is aimed at the video card fan input and one deflects towards the monitor.

The new right side:

Then I run lots of tests with the handheld anemometer to check flowrates and pattens.

And smoke testing also, I cannot get a good photo of smoke going through the dark plexi yet, but it is impressive. Natural smoke goes in leasurly and kind of mills around to find the fans. Through these 2 diffuser/straighteners it is all business, the trails get in, and get out quickly. And smoke crossing the entire input diffuser you can see it hits the monitor entire back panel

(great to add active cooling where it was passive), and many seperation layers in between so they don't share heat. And what really surprized me was the airflow past the CPU. I bet if I had a straight fin heatsink instead of the spiral one, I could 86 the CPU fan. I am getting 2.1MHP flow past the CPU, not much less than passes through the heatsink with the low RPM stock fan.

That was with the turbine 1000 fans. Today I got the Extreme Turbine2000:

And they seem much more controllable on a bus, here I connected them to my blue PC bus. The lowest speed is about where the 1000's topped off. Extreme, I liked the sound of that. I just need to remove the manufacturers stickers, which I have done with all the parts. It looks like a stock car if you leave all the stickers on.

 

I think my fascination with acrylic cases is being able to test them with smoke. The pink Gucci PC I made I spent hours messing with the fans, only to see they didn't really do much to help cool the P4 that it was running.

This pic you can clearly see how the monitor is mounted, the black and silver ring are still attached.

Compare with the stock monitor.

Well that is pretty much it for the worklog. I have tons more pics but plenty were out of focus. And some are not much different than you see, if anyone wants a close up of something let me know.

I want to thank EM3Bilko also, he has been very supportive and commented on my build many times. :thumbs-up:

And thanks to everyone who took the time to read this and took interest in my work.

 

Thank you for your comment, you deserved all of the backing and praises that you got during this build. After all you put in a large amount of time, frustration, thinking, testing and every other thing that is required to fit each and every piece for maximum performance and keeping them all in operating temperatures. So my hats off to you sir for a job well done and done in style and grace. Happy Modding to ya.

[saxxon]

That's awesome. Unlike a lot of custom builds, this one emphasizes function as well as form.

 

I'm just wondering how those 120mm flow straighteners would affect my temps if I put a few on my radiator. I'm not a physics expert, but wouldn't turbulence between the fins be a good thing? If those work, don't create extra noise, and don't kill the airflow then I might just have to put some on the fans I have strategically placed around my case.

 

What exactly does that wide angle diffuser do and how does it prevent the LCD and computer from sharing heat?

You do mean on your PC radiator right? I have had people order parts for their automobiles. Especially Mass Airflow Sensors.

If your fan is connected directly to the radiator it might not help much. But then again the honeycomb connected with the 1/4 inch spacing toward the fan you get a good flow in the center dead spot, so it might work well. If you want to PM me your address I will send you one and then you can give me a review for radiators, how does that sound? I have not tested them much on radiators.

"The wide angle diffuser makes the flow speed decrease and the pressure rise. The recovery of pressure from kinetic energy reduces the power needed to drive the tunnel (airflow). " diffusers

To my best understanding for the diffuser, it takes energy/work to get the air into the diffuser opening and expanded to the larger size. This comes from the fan, but as the air starts it journey through the rest of the system, that energy is not lost but captured by the settling chamber.

 

The vanes ensure that the 120mm area gets filled evenly. Heat cannot to pass through 200 layers of air that is traveling straight between these two sets of hardware: PC/Monitor.

Edited November 14, 2007 by saxxon

[Bleeble]

"The wide angle diffuser makes the flow speed decrease and the pressure rise. The recovery of pressure from kinetic energy reduces the power needed to drive the tunnel (airflow). " diffusers

To my best understanding for the diffuser, it takes energy/work to get the air into the diffuser opening and expanded to the larger size. This comes from the fan, but as the air starts it journey through the rest of the system, that energy is not lost but captured by the settling chamber.

 

The vanes ensure that the 120mm area gets filled evenly. Heat cannot to pass through 200 layers of air that is traveling straight between these two sets of hardware: PC/Monitor.

That helps clear things up a bit, although that website goes into far more detail than I understand at the moment. That first sentence really sums things up: "The diffuser is the gradually-expanding passage following the test section (e.g. Fig. 4), in which the flow speed decreases and the pressure rises."

 

So the purpose of the diffuser is more to separate the case into two air "chambers", not ventilate it, correct?

[saxxon]

That helps clear things up a bit, although that website goes into far more detail than I understand at the moment. That first sentence really sums things up: "The diffuser is the gradually-expanding passage following the test section (e.g. Fig. 4), in which the flow speed decreases and the pressure rises."

 

So the purpose of the diffuser is more to separate the case into two air "chambers", not ventilate it, correct?

Well as much as I tried to read about it, "Almost all the knowledge acquired about diffusers is empirical.", so once I made one it was time to test it, and it has impressed me quite a bit since then. The purpose is really to maximize the input profile. With an open orifice, air takes the easiest path. With the honeycomb cells, all of a sudden the easiest path is restricted at that "easy" cell, so the rest of the cells more evenly distribute the force.

So it is for ventilation but like wind tunnels application, is ensures consistency and uniformity.

A diffuser on the other end was planned at first, to speed back up the airflow, but it is not really needed for this application.

My next case I want to build with 1 fan and a few honeycombs to see if I can pull it off.

Here is much more info about diffusers:

wide angle diffuser

Great questions by the way!

This application of honeycomb is for the fanless input, but mated directly to the fan here I tracked out the airflow profile with an anemometer.

Edited November 14, 2007 by saxxon

[Bleeble]

You've done a lot of research for this. Where did you even get the idea from? I know you said you were inspired by the diffuser in the Ames Research Center, but did you find out about diffusers first and then see the big diffuser? Or was that your motivation for researching in the first place?

[saxxon]

You've done a lot of research for this. Where did you even get the idea from? I know you said you were inspired by the diffuser in the Ames Research Center, but did you find out about diffusers first and then see the big diffuser? Or was that your motivation for researching in the first place?

I knew the LCD/PC would be hot, and the pixels can get damaged from extra heat, and my buddy kept telling me I was going to burn this thing up.. well, besides not wanting to have it burn up, I was hell bent to prove this guy wrong.

But instead of getting on Tom's Hardware and reading what the latest best fan of the week was, I started reading about how to move air efficiently. It did not take long to find the wind tunnel research for dummies... (you know minus all the math)

This is the highest study of fluid dynamics. And the more I read the more it made sense to apply to what I was doing.

Reynold numbers and all the math I cannot calculate, but It seems to have proven very effective for seperating the hardware heat and cooling each one. Another great question, no one has asked me how it came about. Within weeks of opening the webstore I had orders from Dell, Analogic, several universities and such. Analogic used them on CAT scanners in the rotating gantry that has several video boards very tightly packed, they said they could not believe the performance increase.

My other 2 PC's have honeycombs mated to the fans. These have been running for months, the biggest benefit I have noticed besides lower heat is the air moves so fast past the chipset and MB dust does not build up. Here is a pic of the one running on my blue PC:

Edited November 14, 2007 by saxxon

[Bleeble]

Reynold numbers and all the math I cannot calculate, but It seems to have proven very effective for seperating the hardware heat and cooling each one. Another great question, no one has asked me how it came about. Within weeks of opening the webstore I had orders from Dell, Analogic, several universities and such. Analogic used them on CAT scanners in the rotating gantry that has several video boards very tightly packed, they said they could not believe the performance increase.

I see you've got the "patent pending" on your website. That's a very good idea, especially if this is gaining popularity in the industrial sector. The number of potential applications for a product like this is huge! I'm curious if you have any more details on what Dell was using them for.

 

My other 2 PC's have honeycombs mated to the fans. These have been running for months, the biggest benefit I have noticed besides lower heat is the air moves so fast past the chipset and MB dust does not build up. Here is a pic of the one running on my blue PC:

Nice. Less dust is always good. Which motherboard is that in the picture?

[saxxon]

I see you've got the "patent pending" on your website. That's a very good idea, especially if this is gaining popularity in the industrial sector. The number of potential applications for a product like this is huge! I'm curious if you have any more details on what Dell was using them for.

Nice. Less dust is always good. Which motherboard is that in the picture?

The MB is a Gigabyte GA-8I945P-G running my Pentium 805D

Dell never wrote me back about what they found, It was an engineer from the thermal server division who contacted me. It was right about the time thay had a financial issue, about May. Most companies I try to work with to get what will work best for thier application, I have a few different choices besides the sizes. Different cell sizes and thicknesses.

I was quite surprized how many industrial applications 120mm fans have. Here is a pic of the 10 video boards from the CAT scanners, this is a design guide from Coolit for fan placement:

Coolit makes thermal CFD estimates.

Coolit thermal image applications

[saxxon]

Today I opened the other side up to upgrade the lower fan to a 2000 RPM, this is much better with the bus, I think I will get another 2000, it runs super quiet and about 60cfm at 1500rpm.

And a somewhat decent shot of the DVI connection and USB port.

I tried to go with a 1 foot DVI cable, but it was about 1 inch too short. So it has a 3 foot DVI cable.

Edited November 15, 2007 by saxxon

[LivingGhost]

You are awesome.

 

http://digg.com/design/Guy_uses_honeycombs..._with_less_fans

Edited November 17, 2007 by LivingGhost

[saxxon]

You are awesome.

 

http://digg.com/design/Guy_uses_honeycombs..._with_less_fans

Hey that's cool. I better post some pics of them actually working. I had to "borrow" the clear acrylic top from my other PC, but then I was able to film the inside with smoke going through.

I can only supply a small amount of smoke at once. But this is what the flow looks like all across the inside:

I will try to get more like this.

Edited November 18, 2007 by saxxon