Liquid Cooled Carpc.

[angel od]

I decided to make a small worklog in here as this is the true forum for this.

I have the complete thing @ http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=207889

So if you want more details, you can just go to bit-tech.net and find it. :) I also have my other mods there.

Just a short background info:

I love to mod my computers. I have only one rule, and that is that it must be watercooled. From there the project will take a life of it's own. :)

My stationary is a neverending mod, and I also made a Watercooled Nintendo Wii that some of you may have seen online.

So when it came to my carpc there wasn't really any choice. As I live in Denmark, water is a bad option since we get -20 degrees centigrade in the winter. So it's going to have engine coolant running through it's vains.

But on with the pictures.

I started out with a standard Xenarc MP-SC3. This has been working great for a couple of years, but something new had to happen.

http://i1103.photobucket.com/albums/g477/uheldigengel/Watercooled%20Carpc/19042011677Small.jpg

I have a couple of sponsors on this project;

Mushkin Enhanced hooked me up with 2 gigs of memory.

Centrafuse were willing to pitch in with a complete version with Western Europe navigation maps in!

Runcore helped me out with a 32GB SSD! :)

I made a couple of sketches of how the finished product would look, but this tends to change along the way.

Topless:

http://i1103.photobucket.com/albums/g477/uheldigengel/Watercooled%20Carpc/untitled3.jpg
Top mounted:

http://i1103.photobucket.com/albums/g477/uheldigengel/Watercooled%20Carpc/untitled4.jpg

As the renderings show, the front will be curved plexi. I made that with a piece of wood I cut and then baked it in the oven:

http://i1103.photobucket.com/albums/g477/uheldigengel/Watercooled%20Carpc/28042011687Small.jpg

Top and Bottom plates roughly made in the CNC mill:

http://i1103.photobucket.com/albums/g477/uheldigengel/Watercooled%20Carpc/30042011692Small.jpg

http://i1103.photobucket.com/albums/g477/uheldigengel/Watercooled%20Carpc/30042011697Small.jpg

The Aluminum Front panel got started in the cnc as well:

http://i1103.photobucket.com/albums/g477/uheldigengel/Watercooled%20Carpc/06052011706Small.jpg

http://i1103.photobucket.com/albums/g477/uheldigengel/Watercooled%20Carpc/06052011707Small.jpg


http://i1103.photobucket.com/albums/g477/uheldigengel/Watercooled%20Carpc/06052011708Small.jpg

And done:

http://i1103.photobucket.com/albums/g477/uheldigengel/Watercooled%20Carpc/09052011709Custom.jpg

Mounted, with a modded aircooler for setting up the pc, before moving on the watercooling:

http://i1103.photobucket.com/albums/g477/uheldigengel/Watercooled%20Carpc/20052011746Custom.jpg

Backplate done, and mounted. Fits perfectly! :) :

http://i1103.photobucket.com/albums/g477/uheldigengel/Watercooled%20Carpc/20052011745Custom.jpg

Top of the case finished, with a word from our sponsors:

http://i1103.photobucket.com/albums/g477/uheldigengel/Watercooled%20Carpc/23052011752Custom.jpg

The waterblock:

http://i1103.photobucket.com/albums/g477/uheldigengel/Watercooled%20Carpc/15062011807Custom.jpg


http://i1103.photobucket.com/albums/g477/uheldigengel/Watercooled%20Carpc/15062011809Custom.jpg

The reservoir parts done:

http://i1103.photobucket.com/albums/g477/uheldigengel/Watercooled%20Carpc/21062011820Custom.jpg

Most of the parts put in, just the pump missing:

http://i1103.photobucket.com/albums/g477/uheldigengel/Watercooled%20Carpc/22062011830Custom.jpg

I tend to mess up the pump when I mod it, and this was no exception. Broke 2 of them and have just received 2 more. But it DOES get pretty heavily modded...

The stock pump, look at the size! :

http://i1103.photobucket.com/albums/g477/uheldigengel/Watercooled%20Carpc/30052011758Custom.jpg

Aluminum impeller for the pump:

http://i1103.photobucket.com/albums/g477/uheldigengel/Watercooled%20Carpc/28062011859Custom.jpg

Impeller done, and mounted on the stock magnetic part:

http://i1103.photobucket.com/albums/g477/uheldigengel/Watercooled%20Carpc/28062011865Custom.jpg

All the parts for the pump:

http://i1103.photobucket.com/albums/g477/uheldigengel/Watercooled%20Carpc/01072011878Custom.jpg

Assembled:

http://i1103.photobucket.com/albums/g477/uheldigengel/Watercooled%20Carpc/01072011882Custom.jpg

I won 3rd place in MOTM on Bit-tech.net for this, and to hide the ugly green pcb, I decided to make a small plaque:

http://i1103.photobucket.com/albums/g477/uheldigengel/Watercooled%20Carpc/21092011001Custom.jpg
It had a scratch on it, so I made a new one. 

Filling the system was not fun… I had no room for a fillport or anything, so I had to drown the loop to get all the air out:

http://i1103.photobucket.com/albums/g477/uheldigengel/Nintendo%20Wii/25092011007Small.jpg
Filled:
http://i1103.photobucket.com/albums/g477/uheldigengel/Nintendo%20Wii/25092011013Small.jpg

Aluminum front mounted:

http://i1103.photobucket.com/albums/g477/uheldigengel/Nintendo%20Wii/25092011015Small.jpg

And with the top on:

http://i1103.photobucket.com/albums/g477/uheldigengel/Nintendo%20Wii/25092011017Small.jpg
Hope you like it! 

[angel od]

Thanks a lot guys! :)

Finally It's done!

So here are the pics from the last photoshoot!

http://i1103.photobucket.com/albums/g477/uheldigengel/Watercooled%20Carpc/CarPCPhotoshoot026.jpg

http://i1103.photobucket.com/albums/g477/uheldigengel/Watercooled%20Carpc/CarPCPhotoshoot027.jpg

http://i1103.photobucket.com/albums/g477/uheldigengel/Watercooled%20Carpc/CarPCPhotoshoot028.jpg

http://i1103.photobucket.com/albums/g477/uheldigengel/Watercooled%20Carpc/CarPCPhotoshoot031.jpg

http://i1103.photobucket.com/albums/g477/uheldigengel/Watercooled%20Carpc/CarPCPhotoshoot032.jpg

http://i1103.photobucket.com/albums/g477/uheldigengel/Watercooled%20Carpc/CarPCPhotoshoot042.jpg

http://i1103.photobucket.com/albums/g477/uheldigengel/Watercooled%20Carpc/CarPCPhotoshoot049.jpg

http://i1103.photobucket.com/albums/g477/uheldigengel/Watercooled%20Carpc/CarPCPhotoshoot059.jpg

http://i1103.photobucket.com/albums/g477/uheldigengel/Watercooled%20Carpc/CarPCPhotoshoot061.jpg

http://i1103.photobucket.com/albums/g477/uheldigengel/Watercooled%20Carpc/CarPCPhotoshoot062.jpg

That's it guys! Hope you like it! :)

[angel od]

that may just be the coolest carputer evar!

are you puttin' that jank up on mp3car.com too?

It IS in there! :) Just do a search on it. :)

And the pics IN the car. :)

http://i1103.photobucket.com/albums/g477/uheldigengel/Watercooled%20Carpc/02102011031Medium.jpg

http://i1103.photobucket.com/albums/g477/uheldigengel/Watercooled%20Carpc/02102011032Medium.jpg

Now noone can say it's not a CarPc! 8)

[angel od]

what are you using for a monitor?

It's a fully motorized in-dash touchscreen. It's called K90, it says "Cartft.de" on the label! :)

I bought it second hand after breaking 2 others.. :lol:


That's the problem with my car pc.. it turned into a media server because I am too cheap to buy an ssd so I dont have to worry about head crashes.

In all honesty I only had one hdd die on me in 3 years of driving around. It was a 2.5" so it's a bit more sturdy than the 3.5 though! :)


Very nice.. looks right at home there! I'm with Xr4man, whats the control side of things look like, if you don't mind me/us asking. Details man! We like detail. :D

Nice work!!

Sorry! :)

As stated above, I use a 7" motorized touchscreen.
And I use the Centrafuse frontend. No way to navigate in windows on a 7" touch! :)

I actually got the Centrafuse sponsored. After using it for their 30 day fully open trial period I was sold! I tried a couple other frontends, but this is just so frikkin easy to use.

Hope that answers your question! :)

[angel od]

yeah, thanks.

i've tried centrafuse and i like it. also tried riderunner and frodo and something else windows based. i like centrafuse because it lets you interface with garmin pc.

i also tried linux ICE. which i liked a lot and it even recognized the gps antenna i pluggin without a hitch. but i could not get the gps nav to work. i could bring up a map of where i was, but i couldn't figure out how to get it to give me directions. that was a few years ago, so maybe there's a new better version out.

I tried Roadrunner back then, didn't really do it for me. But the options were limited some years ago unless you were a programmer and wanted to mess around with it! :)

I always wanted to try linux purely for speed. But I never got around to it! :)


My hard drive would be practically sitting on two 12 inch subwoofers.. if I have my way it will be 15s soon i would need an ssd i think.

Yeah, then you go from bumpy to bouncy! lol

I've been meaning to steal a 12" Earthquake shallow from a friend for some time now, but we just never got around to it. I only have a single 10" in there now and it's okay. My main concern is the space, and a shallow can be built into my spare wheel so nothing get's taken out! :)

My pc is so old that it's runing IDE not SATA. That made it a bit harder to find an ssd, but it's around $100-130 for a 32gb and mine cut the boot time in half! :)