Basic tips on cooling, acrylic and heat.

[ervand]

I have good experience on building all kinds of wood models, but never done computer moding. I also never worked with acrylic/plexy glass.

I need some help from more experienced moders, like most of you guys!

Scenario:
- I am not planing to add and remove stuff from an existing case.
- instead I am going to build one from scratch, and it is not going to look like a box. Almost every part will be separated to it's own box.
- I am going to use acrylic or plexy glass as my main materials.
- I want to plant some neon lights in my model. I was planing to use about 3 different colors. I am going to connect every color to a separate on/off switch, so I turn it of when I want to sleep =).

Help me our with some useful suggestions:
1. I need basic tips on cooling. I am going to use fans to cool this thing.
2. Hard drives are going to be "wrapped" around with acrylic/plexyglass in separate boxes.
3. is that too much heat for this kind of material?
4. should I plant a separate cooler for each box with a hard drive?
5. or should I put something in between hd and acrylic/plexyglass?
6. any other tips?
7. Any suggestions on the neon switches, how to connect them correctly or about electricity in general?
8. Help me with material choice.
9. What should I go for? Acrylic or plexy glass? Or is there something else you suggest that looks similar. (I need it to be see through and not see through)
10. Where do you guys buy this kinds of materials.

Before I model and build my project. what else should i consider?
any other tips or comments or anything that can help is very much appreciated.

Thanks!

[elbarto241]

3. wrapping your HDD cages with acrylic is fine. done do any hard to either of them.
4. you could just have one HDD box with several HDD insides and just cool that baby. you could probably add another HDD box under the 5.25 drives.
5. i would actually recommend putting the acrylic on the HDD cage itself, not the HDD. this way its easier to swap out parts. but again its your case, do what you think looks good. in the end your gonna be looking at it every time you plop down.
7. there are some nice guides wondering around here...
8. i personally like acrylic better but i get poly carb. cheap where i live. it depends on your budget and what color you want it.
9. overall i recommend acrylic. why? because of the varieties of the size and thickness.
10. http://www.delviesplastics.com/

[ervand]

@elbarto241

- I am not done with modeling this thing, but I thought putting 2 hard drives in hard drive cages would be a nicer idea.

- I also thought of putting something inside of the boxes, so hard drives can slide out. I am probably going to make some kind of drawers for each hard drive =) but i am not sure what i need in order to achieve that. i will think on it some more.

- Also, it is going to be a server station, so I plan not to include rom drives. instead put two more hard drives in. no video card too, just a build in one.

1. Where do you get polycarb from? can you give me a link?

2. i wish i can give you +rep, but it says i need to give it to someone else before i give it to you again. is there a topic on the forum that explains how the reputation system works? would be useful to know. thanks for always answering my questions and helping me!


@ others:

3. I need basic tips on cooling. I am going to use fans to cool this thing.

4. Hard drives are going to be "wrapped" around with acrylic/plexyglass in separate boxes.

5. any other tips?

6. Before I model and build my project. what else should i consider?

7. Any suggestions on the neon switches, how to connect them correctly or about electricity in general?

any other tips or comments or anything that can help is very much appreciated.

[jbaldwinroberts]

hey, welcome to the forums.

there is a good cooling tutorial here, (http://icrontic.com/articles/pc_airflow_heat_cooling_guide) and here (http://www.overclockers.com/articles578/) that should help you decide where u need fans and how many etc.

what do u mean by wrapped for the hard drives, do u mean completely encolosed with just parts cut out for molex connectors etc, or on a hard drive rack enclosed in plastic that opens up? both ways should be fine in terms of heat, only problem not being able to replace, move hard drives in the first idea.

here (http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2326) is a good tutorial for working with acrylic/plexi etc.

by neon lighting do u mean cold cathodes or actual neon tubes?

good luck
joe

[ervand]

yes, i talked about enclosing a hard drive from all sides. hard drives that i have tend to get very hot. i wondered if plexi will melt. should i plan a fan on the back? and yes, i will make it able to replace later.

thanks for the tutorials i will check them out and yes I meant cold cathodes.

[elbarto241]

any heat that a HDD produces wont melt the plexy or anything else you put in there.

i got my poly carbonate at the local Homedepot. i think i got a 2x3 foot piece for around 15 bucks, cant remember for sure.

THIS (http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7312) thread explains a couple rules and the rep system.

oh and i would also recommend putting a fan on the hdd case pull air through it to cool your harddrives.

[xRyokenx]

What you could do with the HDD is make a tube that it's suspended in with some heatsinks on it and have a couple fans blowing through it... like a box with fans on either end, with a HDD in the middle... if you get what I mean. o0

[elbarto241]

i dont know about that tube part but ive seen some people throw on some heatsinks and a little AS5. lowers the temps a bit i presume.

if you want to spend a little cash, buy THIS (http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=210&products_id=4329) and throw on some UV acrylic to spice things up.

[ervand]

@ elbarto241
Great! I didn't know Home Deapot sells those, I might have to go check it out before I start building the thing. Good price too! do they not sell it in different colors? what is UV acrylic? I couldn't find it on the internet.

xRyokenx
I didn't get the tube part! but I think i will go with Hard Drive Rack + fans + some kind of thin heat sink (don't want to spend too much space on that, I want it to be compact.

Thanks for the links too.

I am already very excited about this project ;)

[xRyokenx]

Just a square box without anything on the ends, like an elongated cube with fans on either end. I'll do a sketch one day, maybe after this PC I'm upgrading is functional.

[elbarto241]

no, homedepot only sells their poly carb in clear and yellow last time i checked. HERE (http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&manufacturers_id=61&products_id=2870) is an example of UV acrylic. its a little more expensive than regular acrylic but it definetly looks better. Adding a UV led or CCFL (http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&manufacturers_id=61&products_id=21524) makes the acrylic glow. ive used ACryan acrylic before and was very satisfied with the product.