Sandcrawler project

[DarthBeavis]

you could ask Danger Den so send you a different color (white, black, silver, etc) tubing in 3/8" 5/8" then just give me the tubing back when you see me next. If you want to come to PDXLAN 16 I bet Danger Den will give you a seat or two at their table!

[artoodeeto]

oooh...that's tempting. I'll have to see if I can afford the gas....that's a looong drive from LA. wire flex tubing is a good idea too - is that yet another DD item, or is that a home depot item? although, I can run the tubes through pieces of PVC cut to fit just the visible area, then the tubing can do all its bending in the hidden areas. I'll have to think on this one, probably take a look at the different options to figure out what'll look best.

[x88x]

Or copper tubing in the visible areas.

[mofo]

Im not sure if this is what you mean, but if it is its genius!

you're gonna slide pvc joints over the tubing and install them with cut aways
allowing the fluid to be seen yet blending into the interior nicely.

I suggest leds backlighting the cut aways to illuminate the fluid.

[p0Pe]

dude this is looking amazing George lucas would have been proud!

[artoodeeto]

Or copper tubing in the visible areas.

I'd thought of that LOL - my only hesitation with it is that I don't have anything other than a hacksaw that can cut copper, so my feeling is that it'd be too labor intensive, especially when I'd just be painting it and it wouldn't look much different than PVC.

Im not sure if this is what you mean, but if it is its genius!

you're gonna slide pvc joints over the tubing and install them with cut aways
allowing the fluid to be seen yet blending into the interior nicely.

I suggest leds backlighting the cut aways to illuminate the fluid.

man...I'd love to say yes, that's exactly what I meant. What I meant was that the tubing would run inside PVC pipe cut to fit the area that's visible when the side flaps of the crawler are open. In those areas, the pipes would fully encase the tubing. The bare tubing would come out of the pipes in between walls into non-visible areas, where it could bend and go to wherever it needs to go.
I hadn't originally intended to leave the fluid visible or lit...technologically I think would look too advanced for an ancient, beat up sandcrawler. But maybe not...I agree it would look awesome, I'll have to think on that one...

dude this is looking amazing George lucas would have been proud!

heheheheee, thanks! Now if only I could, with dignity, walk over to the new Lucasfilm buildings across the street from the Exploratorium in San Francisco, and say hey guys, so I got this really cool thing I been buildin'...George might like it...
yeah...somehow I think I'd end up looking like a weirdo LOL.

[artoodeeto]

k, some of the water cooling setup is here, specifically the items from Outoftheboxmods.com

Opened the box, and amongst copius amounts of packing peanuts was this behemoth:

And these two little mystery mummies:

This one was a little more obvious - the pump:

nice looking Danger Den waterblock, socket AM2:

Danger Den DDC pump with clear acrylic top. I'd originally planned on painting the whole pump, but that clear top looks nice...so I may detach it, paint the pump itself, and stick the clear top back on:

This is one SWEET reservoir, custom made by someone on Xtreme systems (not sure who). It even has a cold cathode, presumably UV from its black color, to illuminate the bluish spiral inside. Also has 2 plastic mounting clips.

whoa that's...GREEN. probably will make the tubing not visible, much of it will run in areas that can't be seen from the outside, and the few bits that can be seen I'll probably cover with PVC pipe to make it look more like pipes inside the crawler. I also don't expect to use all of it - the components will all end up being located in fairly close proximity to each other.

oh man....this rad's HUGE. normally I wouldn't mind, but I'm a little worried about fitting it into the model along with the above reservoir...

I was told it'd need some cleaning/vacuuming/irradiation with gamma rays....they weren't kidding...time to bust out the air compressor and clean this puppy.

Unfortunately I can't set all this up just yet - Danger Den is going to be sending me some more goodies; the only totally necessary bit will be mounting screws for the cpu waterblock. But, they're sending a few other things that'll be incorporated into the loop, so there's not much point in leak testing yet. More pics soon...

[x88x]

Heheh, you might be surprised how quickly tubing adds up...I have ~10-12 feet in Zeus...that really came as a surprise once I started actually fitting it.

Nice score; lots of shiny.

I would not recommend using an air compressor on the rad; I would be concerned that the high air pressure would damage the fins. To clean off my rads, I use a small brush attachment for my vacuum. In absence of that, a small brush or cloth to loosen the dust and just a normal vacuum hose should work fine and not risk any damage to the unit.

[artoodeeto]

Heheh, you might be surprised how quickly tubing adds up...I have ~10-12 feet in Zeus...that really came as a surprise once I started actually fitting it.

Nice score; lots of shiny.

I would not recommend using an air compressor on the rad; I would be concerned that the high air pressure would damage the fins. To clean off my rads, I use a small brush attachment for my vacuum. In absence of that, a small brush or cloth to loosen the dust and just a normal vacuum hose should work fine and not risk any damage to the unit.

yeah...hehehee....you could be right on the tubing. it'll be interesting to see at any rate. as for not using the compressor, those are good thoughts. I've used it on heatsinks before with no damage to them - it's not a real high-pressure compressor. it's a little Badger compressor designed for airbrush use. But I can just as easily use the vacuum

[artoodeeto]

If you want to come to PDXLAN 16 I bet Danger Den will give you a seat or two at their table!

emailed danger den about it...but then had to scratch the idea as my girlfriend just found out she got accepted to a month-long summer opera program...in Italy! woo hoo! so now we're going to Italy this summer.... I won't be there whole time, but at best I'll be coming back a couple days before the LAN, and I ain't crazy enough to try and drive 1,000 miles a few days after coming back from Europe.

On that radiatior, the air compressor ended up working fine, got most of the dust off. I'll probably hit with the vacuum to try and get the rest. Next step is to mount it. it's going to have to go over the motherboard - not the ideal spot, but I built the internal parts of the crawler so close over the computer parts that I can't raise the motherboard up without it hitting stuff. The radiator's so big it won't fit anywhere else. i'm envisioning bent metal bars, sort of an upside down U shape, going up and over the motherboard, with the rad/fans sitting on top of that, and warm air venting out the holes in the roof. I plan on tackling it by making cardboard mockups first to ensure I get the angles right, then making the pieces out of aluminum.

actually...new thought....if I hinged the bars and left the tubing long enough, I could lift the rad out of the way without having to drain it and unhook it when, say, I want to stick an extra card in there or change the RAM...yeah. I'll do that.