The Orb

[|NQ|Squelsh]

Not much, but at least a little update:

Today I ordered my watercooling stuff. I hope it will arrive soon.
I continued with the inner housing a little but the progress is not worth any pics

Back to the reservoir:
I cut out some spacers and bent them with hot air. They are needed because the inner reservoir has slightly smaller diameter than the can.

The drawing you see are the outlines of the parts with IDs. I made a map of the layout, so I dont have to puzzle later. I need this, because I now painted both sides of the parts and so the numbers on the pieces are wiped out.

This thing here is the modified pump from the shampoo bottle. I removed any mechanics and perforated the outlet so it will hopefully produce many small bubbles.

I needed caps for the can. So this old MS Mouse was my dremel-victim:

For better grip I cut the can and the cap:

Can+Cap+Bondo:

Those are the spacers glued onto the can pieces with some silicone:

I will also use the silicone to glue the pieces onto the bottle.

I still have to make the bottom with the air-inlet and the UV-LEDs. And I still haven't found some UV-active red water-additive... Links are verry welcome!

Well, thats all for today. Hope to have some news on the weekend.

[|NQ|Squelsh]

My watercooling stuff from AquaComputer arrived!

I had a lot of fun disassembling my 8800 GTS. I read the manual too late
It says that one should keep the heat-conductivity-pads on the voltage regulators. I read this when the new cooler was already on the card When I removed it again, I could see why: The space between cooler and transistors is too big to be filled by thermal paste.

I removed the cooler again, put back the pads and now I have to monitor the cooling performance.

But off course the first thing I tested, was if the cooler fits into the sphere!

I does

Finally two pics of my test setup:

I wasn't sure which pump to buy. But I think I chose the right one: It's the most basic Laing pump (DDC-1T) with an Watercool DDC-Case on top. This pump is amazing! In my previous machines I used Eheim pumps. They were bigger, louder and had less throughput than this little thing. You can berely hear it and the throughput impresses me.

I also made progress with the inner housing but I could not take pics, since the glue wans't hard enough to move the parts...

See you soon!

[|NQ|Squelsh]

What a nice weekend. I was only modding and eating (and set up a new Linux NAS)
So, here are 12 new pictures for you:

After some hours of intensive Crysis gaming I disasembled my rig and started to transfer the WC hardware into the Orb.

First of all, here is the second inner housing. I already sanded the bondo and it's ready for painting.

As you can see, I used a more simple pattern on the right side.

But: One little detail is missing: A hole in the side for the tube.
That is added right here:

So far so good. I turned the base upside down and continued with the pump. I have no idea, why the DCC-Case is so much bigger than the pump itself. It needed some filing on two corners so it fitted nicely next to the harddrive.
Before:

After (Topmost and lowest corner vanished):

Also the mountings had to go:

I tapped the two holes and use them to fix the pump.

This is the mounting for the pump. It's made of an aluminium profile and two vibration absorbers. The corners are rounded to save space.

On top of the absorbers comes a bent sheet of aluminium that holds the pump. I had to mount the pump in an angle of about 15deg so it fits inside the sphere.

The tube coming from above is connected directly to the outlet of the pump. The tubes are not final yet, of course the will be straighted.

Well, thats the first part. Next step will be the mounting of the radiator.

Again I have no pics of the fake reservoires I am working on I had to redo the paintjob because I used the wrong tape to mask the outside while painting the inside. The tape was so agressive that it destroyed the paint

(I am not good in writing worklogs, so if I forgot things that are obvious to me but that can't be known by a reader, please leave a comment. Of course I will be happy on any commets


So long,

Squelsh

[FrooP]

looks like the awesomeness, but why did you installed the harddrive upside down?

[p0Pe]

better print airflow?

and OMG its nice this thing is gonna be purely amazing when done!!

[|NQ|Squelsh]

Thanx a lot!

@Pope: The air will have to search its own way No, seriously, I hope the airflow will not be a problem because the hardware in the lower hemisphere does not produce much heat. The harddisk is rather warm then hot, the DVD-drive and the pump don't get warm. I hope its the same with the controllers for the light and motor effects...
I visualized the airflow in my first post on the hand-drawing. But the components are now built in in a different configuration. I think I will add two sheets of plastic on the left and right of the harddrive, so the PSU sucks the air through the gap between baseplate and harddrive.
In the upper hemisphere will be a 8cm fan in the back to cool the motherboard. I am thinking about making a special fan duct for it so it especially cooles the northbridge which gets pretty hot. The air can exit the sphere through the gap between the visor and the rest of the sphere.
But I will have to figure all that out when the system runs, so I can find the critical spots.
Oh, and the radiator will be cooled by 2 red glowing 12cm fans.

@Froop: Hehe, the HDD is not upside down. On those pics the whole baseplate is upside down The HDD and all the other parts hang down from the baseplate when the Orb stands on its feet.

BTW: I am still searching for red coolant additive and a red glowing 8cm fan Any hints?

[Matt9882]

Red 80mm fans:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...k=&srchInDesc=

Red coolant:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835127055

I suppose the red coolant is really more of a pink color... I'll see if I can find anything else.

[p0Pe]

i was answering froops question of why is was hanging that way... that maybe it were beacuse of better airflow over the hdd print

[|NQ|Squelsh]

Thanx a lot Matt! I found a German reseller who has the Revoltec fans!
Hehe, Pope, nice one

I dont have much time, so there are onky three pics of my progress today.

I started to build the second foot:

And painted the inner housing red and black and added a clear coat. Nice and shiny:

And last but not least the air-duct for the PSU in red:

More to come soon: It's semester break

[FrooP]

ooooooooooooooooooh shinyyyyyyyyyyyyy can i touch it?