Project: Feeding Frenzy

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BellaCroix said:
I want to know where you found AC compatible fill ports from... I didn't notice any reducers (might be the 6-pack of Guinness I just finished) but I've never seen fillports with hose sized small enough for the Germans.
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I bought the standard DD Fillport with the 3/8" barb from Sharka and got one of the 3/8" barb x 1/8 BSPP adapters from them as well. Screwed the adapter into the back of the Aquatube and attached the 3/8" ID tube to both and presto-chango I had a Fillport ready to roll on a horizontally mounted Aquatube. :D

Check back here in a few more weeks when the new AC stuff shows up at Sharka and you will see an even better setup. How about a FillPort that will bleed and fill all three loops. :eek:
 
How can someone work in such a messy environment? :eek:

You seem to be doing fine, though ^_-


(nice photograph in the third picture, by the way)
 
Elledan said:
How can someone work in such a messy environment? :eek:

You seem to be doing fine, though ^_-


(nice photograph in the third picture, by the way)
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Thanks for the nice words about my pic :) Well it always gets like that when I am brainstorming in my livingroom. I spend a lot of time just looking at things and thinking up ways to do one thing or the other. Actually now it is all back to looking like home sweet home until I decide to do some more brainstorming.

Started tonight to lap my AC blocks. Figure I should have the three TwinPlex's done by tomorrow with some pics! :D
 
Top Nurse said:
Hey what happened to the post about the dual 6600GT's?

Well as far as the Lian-Li build goes it has been done a lot....but not like this baby! :p This design incorporates what I feel goes to the heart of an Aqua Computer and Lian-Li build which is engineering excellence, performance, and good looks. All the rest of these AC cases look like well just so many parts thrown into a case (excepting Firehed, ShoNuff, and Modsquad2). ;)

About the 6600GT's....well it was back in January and I didn't want to spend more than about $1500 so I got the A8N-SLI Deluxe, Corsair TwinX1024 3200XL Pro, a Winchester 3500 OEM, and while I was shopping for the 6800's I came across a stack of these Asus 6600GT's for about $220 a pop. I hate paying more than about $200 for a video card and they were scalping the 6800's then (still are I think) so I figured two 6600GT's would be fine for me. You see I made the jump to Socket 939 and also decided to do a SLI board just for the fun of it seeing as I used to have some Voodoo cards in SLI many moons ago. Ticked me off when you could only get one stinking AGP bus and that era of fast gaming came to a screeching halt. Though that was when DOS based DOOM was the hot ticket. :D So perhaps I might see my way to a pair of 6800 Ultras if the price comes down to something approaching what appears to be reasonable.

Looks like I gotta upgrade my PhotoBucket account asap! Just got a notice that my account just exceeded a gigabyte of bandwidth. lol
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I edited that out soon as I posted it. Didn't think it was right to get on your case about your hardware.

If you are going to upgrade the vid cards save some money for other goodies. I would go with 2 6800Gt's and OC em. They have tighter memory timings and OC like mad. I got my Leadtek way past ultra speeds on stock cooling easily. ( Still not watercooling yet :( )

BTW. Nice try with the photograph. Thats not you.
 
Is that your parents picture on that end table or yours and your husbands....
 
Dillusion said:
Is that your parents picture on that end table or yours and your husbands....
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That's my parents. :) My pic is somewhere else in the room...
 
Top Nurse said:
What photograph are you speaking in reference to?
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The one of your parents. Nevermind... Now I see in the second pic what appears to be a nursing school graduation photo.

BTW, why no H20?
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Long story... I was heavily into my WC PC-75 project in March/April then sort of lost interest. I have way too many hobbies. I have to say I am getting the bug back again though.

Enough about me. Get to work girl!
 
Vlad335 said:
The one of your parents. Nevermind... Now I see in the second pic what appears to be a nursing school graduation photo.
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Dat's the one :D
 
Okay todqy I have a few new things that showed up this week. The first is my PCP&C Turbo 510 SLI PSU. With all the things I have heard about the noise this thing makes I'm ready to do whatever it takes to quiet it down.

V2000PSU_1.jpg



Here is what they look like inside. Yes they do know how to pack the circuitry in there don't they?

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Here is another shot of the business part of the supply after I took the fan out.

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And here you can really see why this fan is so noisy. They put a boat prop inside the box!

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So anyway the plan was to use a low noise fan and control it via my Aquaero (more about that later this week) and using a temp sensor on the PSU heatsink. So I got on the phone with PCP&C down in Oceanside, CA for a little chit chat and ended up having a 30 minute conversation with one of their engineer's. BTW, the reason I like buying from these guys is I can pickup the phone and talk with the person who designed it. Trust me that these guys really know what they are talking about! (shameless plug for PC Power & Cooling)

Anyway the long and short of it was that what I wanted to do wasn't going to work with all the hardware I am putting into Feeding Frenzy. The bottom line is that it really does need like 50-60 CFM off air to keep the thing cooled enough that it will run 24/7 without any hiccups. So scratch that idea. I also had originally planned to use an Amptron circular bulkhead connector to run power to my MB and that also got shot down to unacceptable loss of current on each pin. So I guess I got to go back to the old idea of taking the pins out of the molex and see about routing them in a less conspicuous way. More case work it seems...

Well while I was doing all this I disassembled everything so I could do some more case work. I wanted to be able to run the SATA cables through a little hole up in the top of the case, but it just wasn't big enough. So I got out my Dremel tool and opened it up and then added some moulding to the case so there wouldn't be any problems with cut wires.

V2000TopHole_1.jpg



While I was doing this I decided to drill some more holes. If you are a water cooler then you will know why these holes are here behind the MB. ;)

V2000BlockHoles_1.jpg


Can't figure it out? They are so you don't have to remove the MB to take the water blocks on and off. The holes give you easy access to the screws that hold the water blocks on.


More new toys have arrived ! I would have liked to use Aqua Computer Aquadrive Micro's to cool my HD's, but they would only allow me to put 3 HD's in each rack. Since I might take out the front rack later on I wanted something that would let me utilize the full capacity of my racks. The other problem was that the AC Micro coolers only come in butt-ugly blue :( So here is what I am using to cool off my three 74 Gb WD Raptors.

V2000HD_2.jpg



V2000HD_3.jpg



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V2000HD_1.jpg



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There are several reasons I decided on these coolers. They allow for a vey low profile so I can use them right next to each other. The connectors are 6mm ID so they will easily adapt to my 6mm Aqua Computer system. The new Hydra-Pak technology allows for the electronics and spindle heat to be easily absorbed and removed and you don't have to use a thermal conductive pad if you want really good thermal transference like you do with other designs. And last, but not least, it looks a lot nicer with my black and silver color coordination.

Well that is it for tonight folks. I will show you tomorrow the pump sub-assembly that will be used to cool the HD loop off. I also will be done with the NB block that I have been lapping. That is a sight to behold :p
 
some people have their case full w/ wires, you have your case full of tubing :)
 
CrimandEvil said:
Wow, it would be pretty easy to make that PSU modular. :)
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True, but the question really is whether you would want to. After having a nice long talk with the PCP&C engineer I decided not to use the Amptron circular connector due to the losses on each pin. So if that is lossy then I assume that having a modular PSU would induce similar current drops off the modular plugs, yes?
 
altec said:
God you most have one BADASS pump. :eek:
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Not really as I am using Aqua Computer Aquastreams on two of the loops. Haven't decided on the CPU/NB loop whether to use a Watercool modded DDC pump or another Aquastream. You might have missed it earlier, but there are three totally independent loops in Feeding Frenzy. The NB and CPU on one, the SLI GPU's on another, and the HD's are on the last circuit. Two of these loops will be controlled by the Aquaero and in addition to water temperature sensing they will have flow meters as well.
 
Hard911 said:
some people have their case full w/ wires, you have your case full of tubing :)
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Well wait till I start running power cables all over the place. However, most of the power cables will be well hidden or routed in such a manner that you probably won't even notice them. Even most of the water tubes will be hidden from view as well or routed so you probably wouldn't notice them unless you are looking for them.
 
One thing which amuses me about the HDD waterblocks I've seen so far is that they cool the top and/or bottom, while it are the sides which get the warmest :)
 
Elledan said:
One thing which amuses me about the HDD waterblocks I've seen so far is that they cool the top and/or bottom, while it are the sides which get the warmest.
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Well the ones I am using absorb some heat from the sides, but remember the Raptor's have those big heatsinks on the side as well. Also I will get fairly decent air flow as the front radiator will probably be setup to suck air into the case and move around the hard drives as well. However, I do see your point :) There are some Aqua Computer coolers that bolt to the sides of the HD, but then you have to mount them in 5.25" slots and all my 5.25" slots are taken up. I could have ripped out the HD racks and put in three Dual Aquadrives, but that was an expensive solution at about $150 a pop for each cooler.
 
If you mount your PSU on the bottom have you thought about placing another fan behind it? I have been thinking about mounting one of these fans behind it in combination with my quieter fan. I would then shape a piece of acrylic such that it will mount to the bottom of the case. I will then make sure it is aimed at the internal heat sinks. If it turns out like I expect it to it should be quite, improve airflow and look good. :cool:

What about the TURBO-COOL® 850 SSI? I found a review and they did NOT say it was loud? Based on my experience with the 510 SLI I bet it is not quite.

Oh, I leave for a few days and you go and get older on me. Happy Belated B-Day. :)
 
ShoNuff said:
If you mount your PSU on the bottom have you thought about placing another fan behind it? What about the TURBO-COOL® 850 SSI? I found a review and they did NOT say it was loud? Based on my experience with the 510 SLI I bet it is not quite.
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I don't think it would work properly by adding stacked fans. As I said I had a prolonged discussion with Larry at PCP&C about this and it appears that the very best fan for the job is already in the box. :( The problem is that it is the only supply around that can deliver 500+ watts continuous 24/7 and that needs a lot of cooling capability. Otherwise as the temp comes up in the PSU the wattage attainable comes down. After discussing my power needs we figure FF will take about 70% of rated capacity. So that means I will be using about 360 watts of power and once I go to 6800 or 7800 Ultras that will be fairly close to the rated capacity. So the fan stays. :D They did give me some ideas to reduce the noise though, so I will look at those issues later on.

All of the PCP&C supplies seem to vary the fan speed based on wattage load of the supply as a ratio to RPM. So the 850 is in fact quieter IF you have less load on the supply. At the same power demands percentage wise there is no difference in Db level of the fans.

Thanks for the Birthday wishes. :)
 
theseeker said:
TN,
Please post a diagram of your flow.
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I never wanted to learn in MS Paint ;) and I don't have that neat program for making them, so:

GPU Circuit:

Aquatube 1 > Aquastream 1 > BI Pro 1 > GPU 1 > GPU 2 > Flowmeter 1 > Temp Sensor 1 >

CPU/NB Circuit:

Aquatube 2 > Aquastream 2 or DDC > Flowmeter 2 > BI Pro 2 > CPU > NB > Temp Sensor 2 >

HD Circuit:

AquaInlet > Aquastream 3 > BI Pro 3 > Temp Sensor 3 > HD 1 > HD 2 > HD 3 > HD 4 > HD 5 >

Pretty straightforward, heh?

Or did you mean: Ovaries > Fallopian Tube > Uterus > .... :D
 
Okay a little tiny update today. Decided to do a little work on my Aqua Computer TwinPlex cooler for my NB. Can't run tubes and drill more holes :eek: without having the NB attached to the board. So the first few pics show what it was like when I got it.

Okay here is the bottom of the block. As you can see this part was cut with a facemill due to the characteristic circular cut marks.


TwinPlexBefore_1.jpg


Here you can see that the lined paper shows some squiggly lines. Definite sign of a not so flat block. However keep in ming that when I checked with a gage block and leaf gauges it was less than about 0.001 from being flat. This appears to be within industry standards and within the capability of Artic Silver to provide a good thermal transference. Not fantastic but good in flatness and so so in finish.

TwinPlexBefore_2.jpg



Here is a pic of the side of the TwinPlex. Also reasonably flat but the side shows evidence of chatter from the end mill. Usually this is caused by to high a feedrate, to big a bite, or an unstable setup though it looks to me like to high a feedrate.

TwinPlexBefore_4.jpg


And another view of the side before lapping.

TwinPlexBefore_3.jpg



Okay enough of what it was like and what Aqua Computer could improve upon. ;) This pic is after lapping with 800, 1000, 1500, and 2000 grit wet and dry sandpaper. I used a new piece of glass and used the kitchen marble countertop to sit the glass on as I think it is reasonably flat. As you can see I was able to remove all the facemilling marks and get a much better degree of flatness as there are no squiggly lines anymore. I suppose I could have gone for the mirror finish, but I was looking for flatness.

TwinPlexAfter_1.jpg



After doing the bottom I decided to also do the sides as well. This does nothing for thermal transference and is pure bling on my part. I did it just because I liked the look and it got rid of that nasty looking chatter. Obviously I didn't spend the time on the sides that I did on the bottom, but it definitely improved in the looks department. :D

TwinPlexAfter_2.jpg



BTW, what do you do with a brand new PSU? In the next update I will show you what I did that most people would be hesitant to do. :eek:
 
Are you going to lap the silver block? I am so tempted to do mine b/c I know it isn't flat. I'm just so far from getting my rig back together that lapping will be the last thing I do.

Nice pics btw. :)
 
ShoNuff said:
Are you going to lap the silver block? I am so tempted to do mine b/c I know it isn't flat. I'm just so far from getting my rig back together that lapping will be the last thing I do.

Nice pics btw. :)
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Thanks for the comments on my pics :)

Yes I do plan on lapping ALL the blocks. I already started on the Silver one. Kind of interesting to see little specs of silver in the water and just watch it go merrily down the drain :eek: If your block is like mine then it definitely isn't flat by any shape of the imagination. More info here. I orginally hit it with some 1000 grit sand paper and it only touched less than 25% of the block and only along the edges of the block. :(
 
Top Nurse said:
Thanks for the comments on my pics :)

Yes I do plan on lapping ALL the blocks. I already started on the Silver one. Kind of interesting to see little specs of silver in the water and just watch it go merrily down the drain :eek: If your block is like mine then it definitely isn't flat by any shape of the imagination. More info here. I orginally hit it with some 1000 grit sand paper and it only touched less than 25% of the block and only along the edges of the block. :(
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I saw that thread some time ago. There is a lot of good info there. I am not surprised that the 1000 grit didn't do much. I am not sure where I will start. I most likely will begin with 600 and go from there. Cathar's tip about the marker is a good idea. Did you continue with the 1000 or did you back down and use something a little "stronger?"
 
ShoNuff said:
I saw that thread some time ago. There is a lot of good info there. I am not surprised that the 1000 grit didn't do much. I am not sure where I will start. I most likely will begin with 600 and go from there. Cathar's tip about the marker is a good idea. Did you continue with the 1000 or did you back down and use something a little "stronger?"
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I started at 800 grit and I think I will go out tomorrow and get some 400 and 600 grit :/
 
WOW TN
This is very turning out to be one helluva project!
I am very impressed with how much you are doing!
 
Thanks all for the words of encouragement. :) I'm building a couple of boxes for a friend next week so I will try and slip in a few updates while waiting for Windoze to load onto those computers. Was up at the Pomona Computer Swapmeet Saturday afternoon busy buying some needed supplies for my SATA HD's. Finding good quality 40" SATA cables is a PITA unless you know where to buy them. Unfortunately they are cherry red in color, so a little black sleeving is in order this week. :D
 
Top Nurse said:
Thanks all for the words of encouragement. :) I'm building a couple of boxes for a friend next week so I will try and slip in a few updates while waiting for Windoze to load onto those computers. Was up at the Pomona Computer Swapmeet Saturday afternoon busy buying some needed supplies for my SATA HD's. Finding good quality 40" SATA cables is a PITA unless you know where to buy them. Unfortunately they are cherry red in color, so a little black sleeving is in order this week. :D
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Cherry red? Sounds like the "standard" quality cables we sell where I work... :) To bad it's in Sweden though :p
 
Figure it is time to start thinking about having my side panels sent out to be water cut. Been thinking of some kind of shark theme (part of the Feeding Frenzy thing lol). On the business side of the case I was thinking of a shark fin with water underneath in a shaped window. The idea is to have it cut so the bottom of the case cuts would simulate the look of waves and the shark fin rising up out of the waves and showing roughly a triangular section of the case side. Have been thinking of also adding in a real water subsection at the bottom of the case side where the wave cuts would be.

The non-business side would just have the window showing only the bottom compartment of the case and would also have a water wall in place. Am I getting too crazy? See any insurmountable problems here? Feedback appreciated. :D
 
Top Nurse said:
Figure it is time to start thinking about having my side panels sent out to be water cut. Been thinking of some kind of shark theme (part of the Feeding Frenzy thing lol). On the business side of the case I was thinking of a shark fin with water underneath in a shaped window. The idea is to have it cut so the bottom of the case cuts would simulate the look of waves and the shark fin rising up out of the waves and showing roughly a triangular section of the case side. Have been thinking of also adding in a real water subsection at the bottom of the case side where the wave cuts would be.

The non-business side would just have the window showing only the bottom compartment of the case and would also have a water wall in place. Am I getting too crazy? See any insurmountable problems here? Feedback appreciated. :D
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sounds like a cool idea!

water cut? is that like the machine on American Choppers?

how about this, maybe like some kind of colored acrylic or something, and you that water cutter to cut out the acrylic design and fit them together like a puzzle

 
Nek said:
sounds like a cool idea!

water cut? is that like the machine on American Choppers?

how about this, maybe like some kind of colored acrylic or something, and you that water cutter to cut out the acrylic design and fit them together like a puzzle
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Thanks for the nice idea! The water cutting machine is located here. Kind of pricey, but the quality of work is fantastic for generating complex curves. :D
 
Top Nurse said:
Thanks for the nice idea! The water cutting machine is located here. Kind of pricey, but the quality of work is fantastic for generating complex curves. :D
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That is my Half-Life 2 case I had him make about a year ago! :D
 
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