Case window with a purpose.
Last Christmas, I built my Opteron rig in a Coolermaster Praetorian RC730 case. It is a great case with lots of nice features such as great build quality, all aluminum construction and a removable mobo tray. But that removable mobo tray also robs at least 1/2-1 inch of room, width-wise over a case such as an Antec. So this led to problems mounting high performance tall heatsinks such as the Scythe Ninja and Big Typhoon in that they were too tall to mount and then put the case side panel back on. I ran an XP90-C with a Delta 3 Blade fan for a while in the case, but decided to use that in my Conroe build. In the meantime, I had found a Thermalright SI-120 heatsink for a great price in the OCF classifieds which I bought. And about that time, Sidewindercomputers finally got some of the 120 X 76mm Delta GFB fans in, which are a real beast that has 2 fan assemblies in it and move a ton of air. I had been wanting one of these to play with so I bought it also. It wasn't cheap but it is typical Delta fan high quality and is also pretty unique. So, I decided to see how well the SI-120 and the GFB combination would do on cooling a hot running dual core Opteron system. I mounted it up and it works fantastic and even cools real well with the GFB turned way down with my fan controller, but the problem remained that it stuck out too far to put the case side panel on since it's about 3/4 inch taller than the case side when mounted on the SI-120. So I ran it like that a while and started thinking on a way to get around this problem. I thought about just cutting a hole in the case side panel, but that wouldn't have done much good as far as keeping bugs and cats out of the system due to the side panel having to slide forward about 1/2 inch after you put it on the case to finish installing it. That would have left a large gap all around the fan to allow the sliding. Compounding this problem was the fact that the side panel already had a cutout in it from the factory that had a hsf duct built into it that didn't line up with the socket placement on my mobo, so the hole would have been ugly to say the least.
After thinking on the situation, I decided that a windowed side panel with a spacer for the window to allow extra room for the fan would be doable. I looked around and there is a windowed side panel you can buy that fits the Praetorian, but it cost around $30 and was hard to find. Since I would still have to make some kind of spacer anyways, I figured that I might as well see if I could make my own window in my present side panel. If I screwed up, I could still go ahead and buy the windowed side panel and since I have never done a window before, a new project was born.
Here is a couple of pictures of the mounted SI-120/GFB in my case and a pic of the tools I used to cut the side panel and mount the window.
After thinking on the situation, I decided that a windowed side panel with a spacer for the window to allow extra room for the fan would be doable. I looked around and there is a windowed side panel you can buy that fits the Praetorian, but it cost around $30 and was hard to find. Since I would still have to make some kind of spacer anyways, I figured that I might as well see if I could make my own window in my present side panel. If I screwed up, I could still go ahead and buy the windowed side panel and since I have never done a window before, a new project was born.
Here is a couple of pictures of the mounted SI-120/GFB in my case and a pic of the tools I used to cut the side panel and mount the window.
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I went to a local glass place and ordered 1/8 inch plexiglass. If I remember right, the piece I ordered was 15 3/8 X 12 3/8 and cost about $5.00. After seeing to the plexiglass, I then made the trip to Lowes for my spacer material. I decided to do it with wood because wood is fairly easy to work and I already have a power chop saw to build my frame with. I decided to go with a piece of 1 X 3 X 4' Red Oak instead of a soft wood such as pine because it was knotless and also would be much tougher to dent and tear up too. I also picked up some spray polyurethane finish, my mounting screws for the spacer and window and some 220 grit sandpaper. All this ended up costing around $22.00 more. I then went to a buddy's house who has a table saw and ripped the Red Oak in half lengthwise into 2 pieces that were 1 X 1 1/8 X 4'. This gave me more than enough wood to build my spacer frame with. After picking up my plexiglass the next day, I went home and started measuring and cutting out the wood for my spacer frame. After cutting out the pieces and checking them to make sure my cuts were accurate, I glued them together using a corner jig and Tightbond II glue. Glueing this together took the rest of the day and while the glue was drying, I started looking at the piece of plexiglass and found that the edges were not perfectly straight in a few areas. So I broke out my sheet of glass I use for lapping heatsinks and taped a sheet of the 220 grit sandpaper to it. I then smoothed out the high spots and generally cleaned the edges of the plexiglass up. After this, I went ahead and grabbed my sidepanel and after putting tape around the window edges (to help protect the plexiglass), I went ahead and centered my sheet of plexiglass on the window area and taped it in place to hold it for drilling my mounting holes. I then measured and drilled my mounting holes through the plexiglass and side panel with my cordless drill, using a scrap piece of plywood on the bottom side to keep from buggering up the holes when the bit cut through the side panel. When drilling the plexiglass, use light pressure only and a low bit speed. Otherwise the friction will actually make the plexi soft and not drill as clean. A sharp bit is a must also.
After letting the spacer frame set and the glue dry, I then did an initial quick sanding on it and shot it with a quick coat of polyurethane to help seal the wood. After letting that sit overnight, I then took the plexiglass and the spacer frame to my buddy's house and used his drill press to drill the mounting holes through the spacer frame and using the plexiglass as to mark the mounting holes on the frame. While drilling the mounting holes, one of the corners came unglued while drilling the mounting holes:rolleyes2, but I was able to finish the holes out. I then went back home and blued the corner again. It seems like this Red Oak is some hard stuff to get good penetration by the glue.
After letting the glue thoroughly dry again, I then sanded the frame down well and then wiped it down with paint thinner to remove the sanding dust. I then applied 3 coats of polyurethane to it and let is dry overnight.
Now it was time to mount the window and spacer frame to the side panel. There were no problems with that and then it was time for the acid test. Will it fit on the case with the fan mounted? I went ahead and mounted the side panel to the case and everything mounted up just fine, with roughly 1/2 inch of clearance for the fan. Now that is much too close to the fan for good airflow, but I had already thought of that and I knew that I would need a duct in the plexiglass for the heatsink's fan. So I took the wire grill I have been using with this fan (hey, you don't want something to get in and break a blade on a $50 fan) and carefully positioned it on the plexiglass right over the heatsink. I then marked the screw mount holes in the fan guard on the plexiglass with a sharpie and then very carefully drilled the mounting holes in the window. I started with a 5/32 bit and carefully drilled the holes, then tried the fan mounting screws out. That size hole was too small to get the screws into, so I went with and 11/64 bit, but the holes were still too small. I then drilled them out with a 3/16 bit and the screws were able to thread themselves into the plexiglass then. You don't want to try and force it on plexiglass because it will split or crack on you if too much pressure is required to make the screw thread in it. After getting the screwholes right, I went ahead and mounted the fan guard on the window, then took a Sharpie and drew around the inside edge of the outside ring of the fan guard to get the hole size I needed to cut out for the fan duct. I then took the fan guard off and took the side panel outside ro cut my hole. Again, I used my Dremel with a cutoff disk and made a rough cut to get the greatest majority of the plexi out of the hole and brought the hole to about 1/4 inch from my duct markings (Dremel on low speed). I then changed to that cone shaped cutter and the Dremel on low speed, carefully worked my duct hole until I had it very close to the markings. I then switched to the drum sander with a 150 grit sanding drum mounted and finished off the hole and made sure it was as round as I could get it by hand. A light touch is necessary when finishing up doing this, or you could easily remove too much material.
Now that my duct hole was cut, it was finally time to put it all back together and clean the plexiglass up. After mounting the fan guard back onto the window and cleaning everything up, I went ahead and put the side panel back on my computer and just checked everything out.
Here's a few pictures of the side panel with the spacer and fan guard all mounted on it. I wish that I had thought of it before yesterday evening and took some pics while I was actually doing all the cutting, but I didn't think about it until people started talking about cutting a window in that thread that prof has going about the new case he wants to get. I also have a closeup of the Fremel and the 3 pieces I used to do all my cutting with.
What would I do different if doing this again? I would drill my corners and insert wood dowels to help support them. That way I wouldn't have the problem I ended up having on the corner that came apart on me when I was drilling out the mounting holes on the spacer.
Here's some more pics:
not to mention innovative!
More food for thought as I make my own case decision.
I used wood mainly because
A: It was cheaper and more available than aluminum for me.
B. I don't have any access to tools to fabricate with aluminum without traveling 50 miles (another buddy).
Plus, it is different too.
And in the future I would go with a hsf that doesn't sit so high, I can always just remove the wood spacer and then screw the window directly to the side panel, just like the way that Coolermaster does their own windowed side panels.
A few tools, couple of hours and some good old ingenuity
I would experiment exhausting that booger out ...might cut down on dust magnetism a bit as well as provide cooler temps. Idunno experiment.
Looks excellent!!!!
No issues running that monster off of a fan controller? I notice it has two leads..
Actually I'm not planning to leave that wire grill on there for long. You can't tell it from the pics, but the case front has a filter for the intake fan and I'm thinking of ordering either this Silver fan filter from SVC or maybe this clear fan filter from FrozenCPU. I'm trying to decide which of the 2 would look the best on my window. That way I'll have all incoming air pulling through filters. I didn't think about having the fan suck air through the heatsink, but I might give it a try. The only thing about that is that I then lose the airflow around the mosfets and ram on the mobo. Since I go back out to the rig tomorrow evening, I'm in no hurry to make my mind up yet. I'll order it while I'm out on the rig so that it will be waiting when I get back in.
No real issues with it, because I had Sidewinder Computers wire each individual fan in it separately. That way it doesn't overload the fan controller, since I use 2 of the fan controller circuits to power each fan in it.It's got the poor Antec TC550 in that system in a bind on startup though. The power draw of that beast makes it tricky to get a reliable cold boot because it overloads the 12v rail on a cold boot startup, so to cold boot I have to turn the psu switch off and press the power button, then while the power button is pressed turn the psu power switch back on. Otherwise it trips the overload protection in the psu. And I know it's a psu issue because it wasn't doing this when I had my Turbo Cool 510 in that case (before I built my Conroe).
And Shorty, Leo and Hawk, thanks for the compliments.:D I wouldn't mind trying to build a wood case if I knew more about cabinet work; it would definitely be different.