AC Ryan's MeshxPanel - Will I get enough airflow?

[Darkenreaper57]

Hello all,

I'm looking to replace my current mesh on my external w/c box with an AC Ryan MeshxPanel for aethetic reasons. See below for the images. Now, my current mesh allows for plenty of airflow for the 3 120mm fans. Do you guys think the MeshxPanel will allow enough airflow? I cannot find any figures that dictate the percentage of airflow the the MeshxPanel. The other reason I'd prefer to use the MeshxPanel (as long as it doesn't hinder my cooling capability) is it can act as a built-in filter. I constantly need to clean off the fronts of my heater cores, which are difficult to get to. I'd much rather clean off the front of a mesh.

If all else fails, I could go with some Modder's mesh, but I prefer the look of the MeshxPanel, even though it costs quite a bit more (but you get more mesh, so it evens out I suppose).

The current mesh side:


The exhaust. As you can see, air moves laterally as opposed to front-to-back.


I suppose I'd also like get some feedback - which mesh do you guys think would look the best? Note that I would modify the latch mechanism and handles a bit to suit the new mesh.

Thanks.

[RickH]

Awesome box; beautifully done.

I think it would depend on fan velocity. Is this a low velocity, low RPM quiet rad? Air resistance raises very quickly with air speed, and is quite low with quiet fans at low RPMs, and quickly gets very restrictive with high airflow and high RPMs.

So if this a a 500 RPM Yate Loon kinda rad, I'd say go for it. If you're cooling a 200W pelt with Deltas at 2000 RPM, it'll choke you.

For looks, I think the black MeshxPanel would be sweet there.

[Darkenreaper57]

Awesome box; beautifully done.
For looks, I think the black MeshxPanel would be sweet there.

Thanks, it took a lot of time and effort to build it. It isn't looking as nice or operating as quiet right now as I would like it, which is why I am revamping a few things .

I use heatercores and am swapping out the undervolted (to about 5-6V) Panaflo U1A's for 120x38mm Sanyo Denkis. I will undervolt these as well within 5-7V.

The system is cooling the CPU and GPU in sig. I have no intentions of going with a TEC or Quad-SLI setup within the near future, but I do plan on reusing my external box for the years to come.

Not a TON of air is flowing through the a heater cores, so I would be *inclined* to think the MeshxPanel would be fine.

[Solarfall]

the AC ryan mesh plate whould look really nice on your "box". i just got mine from germany( alphacool) i found that it's really easy to bend into shape too.
here take a look at something that i'm curently making for my thermochill pa120.3, it's a "rad holder"



by the way nice jop with that box it looks awesome
and yes i think that you will get enough air flow!

[Darkenreaper57]

Wow, I love the temperature display you made. The mesh really goes with the blue LCD's.

I actually used the same blue LCDs on the enclosure above to monitor water temperatue (as you have probably noticed).

I'm glad I ordered the MeshxPanel over the Modder's Mesh.

[ChongL]

That box is beautiful!

[vudoodoodoo]

[eXa]

btw, can u turn of the light at those displays?

[virtualrain]

This got me thinking that my next water cooling project might be an external box like this built inside a sleek HPC chassis! You have inspired me.

[Darkenreaper57]

btw, can u turn of the light at those displays?

Right now, I can turn off the blue LEDs behind the knobs via a switch, but I did not wire in a switch to the rest of the front-panel lights (temp display and bar LEDs). I did wire in a switch to the cold cathodes, though, so the system isn't obscenely bright all of the time.

I'm going to make some changes to the system once I get some time (as I'm sure you guys have found out) and I may very well make a switch to turn on and off the lights to the front panel devices.

By the way, thanks for all of the positive feedback everyone. This external system took a LOT of time and effort to design and build. I had quite a few mishaps along the way, too. But hey, it was a great learning experience, and I will surely work on more projects in the future.