Photon - High Performance Enclosure

[xaruum]

I am starting a thread to follow the production of a case I started designing last year.

Full Disclosure :: The design was originally developed for the Liquid Cooled Case Design Competition over on the Bit-Tech web site. - I don't want to start any wars or trash talk over the sponsors of that event, I think enough of that has already taken place here as well as on other forums.

On top of the competitions stated goals, I had my own goals and they were:

> Size = Small enough to fit under my desk or next to it and still house an SSI-MEB Motherboard
> Power = At least 2 PSU's + DC PSU to power quad SLi / multi-CPU / pumps / tecs / misc
> Cooling = Separate compartments for the heat generating electronics and the heat dissipating radiatiors
> Configurability = Everything needed to liquid cool insane setups had to fit inside the case without any mods
> Style = just make it as sleek as possible

So from that starting point I ended up with a few pictures of my initial concept::





This was my first time ever using rendering software so please be kind. After getting this far I realized that all the work I did up front to make

sure that everything would fit, didn't matter without pictures. So then I really started to dig in and produced these::







And for comparison here are a few pictures next to a TJ07::




Something to note is that the power/reset/USB/Headphone/DVD are all mounted in the top of the center section, so you really don't see them in any of

the pictures.

So that is about it right now. I have a couple of sessions with an engineer over the next few weeks, so obviously some things will change. But I am

pretty confident that it won't be anything significant.

I will post up any signigicant changes here, and as the parts roll out I will get real pictures posted up too.

[Frag Maniac]

Wow, very high tech and ambitious. Am I mistaken though or do none of the above pics show a video card included in the build?

[lowfat]

I am afraid to what something like that would sell for. But it does look very sick. I would love to have one for one of my SR-2s.

[killerxp100]

Very cool. I like how the doors open up.

[Church]

Ouch. It's beautiful.

[Johnny87au]

wow mate really awesome work, the question is, can you pull it off?

[barfastic]

AMAZING!

im confused though... in the gold one you have a dual socket board with 4gpus (understandable), and in the blue one, you have 3 atx boards horizontally and 6 mATX boards vertically? what is this thing suppose to be?

[masska]

Love it! Really nice work on the renders too. The whole concept design has a very fluid feel to it and the design is beautiful.
Good luck with it and hope to see these in production one day

[xaruum]

Frag - You are right about the video cards on the SR2, sketchup found errors in the geometry and every time I tried to render it would crash, it took about five days to isolate the problem, and I tried cleaning up the geometry manually but it didn't help, I pulled the card out and ran the renders with just the GPU waterblocks in place, on the blue version those are mini-ITX in a cluster config - video isn't necessary

lowfat - I wanted to do an SR-2 build as well, but I am torn between that and building a grid as in the blue case

killer - I originally envisioned just the window opening on a cantilevered hinge, but after a lot of work I figured out it would not afford enough access, so I came up with the "gull wing" doors

spots - I wondered if you would see this thread -

churchy - thank you!

Johnny - I believe I can pull it off, but the engineer may say otherwise, I will find out in two weeks (!)

barfastic - the blue one is actually 12 mini-ITX boards, It is a cluster/grid, using the right combination of board/cpu/ram it could total up to 72cores/1.5TBram, I have another design for NAS that can total 90TB.

masska - thank you! rendering is a really pesky effort - so many details

[Origin_Unknown]

barfastic - the blue one is actually 12 mini-ITX boards, It is a cluster/grid, using the right combination of board/cpu/ram it could total up to 72cores/1.5TBram, I have another design for NAS that can total 90TB.

the blue one looks awesome! and i have a feeling that the NAS one will be just as awesome

[KGB7]

TJ07 in the first picture need to be fixed. There 4 exhaust fans.

[Chris_redfield]

TJ07 in the first picture need to be fixed. There 4 exhaust fans.

Two of them are just a reflection.

These cases look amazing and incredibly flexible in terms of what you can put inside. Thats a really nice job and I wish you all the luck in getting them fabricated.

[game_matter]

This design is simply amazing Can't wait to see how it will be in real life

[theseeker]

This really gets my attention. A very beautiful design all around and exceptional rendering.

[Johnny87au]

Counting down that 1 week, really can't wait tomsee this prototype

[m_jones_]

Amazing concept can't wait till this goes into prototype.

[fatherTime27]

holy crap those cases look ridiculous!

[xaruum]

Well the first "Engineering Review" is over without too much trouble.

He talked a lot about "feasibility" and manufacturing processes, but didn't layout a plan for adjusting the design to meet those needs. Afterwards all I came away with was a short list of items that "should be changed" without advice as to the best way to change them.

Kind of disappointed.

The bright side of things is that I was already working on most of these items. So I kind of have a "plan of attack". But now I am searching for a different Engineer to go over the revised designs.

I don't want to weigh down the thread with useless updates, so after I incorporate the changes I will post new renders here.

There have been several requests for a Mini-ITX size design, so I will attack that next, stay tuned!

[theseeker]

Thanks for the update and I want one!

[theseeker]

Any update?

[xaruum]

I did find another engineer who will be willing to go over the design. But I don't meet face-to-face with him until Wednesday.

At this point the items that I have redesigned are:

Door hinges
Window mounting
Top power button/usb port mounting
Rack mounting
Foot mounting/support

After the meeting I will make any other adjustments necessary for the prototypes to be built and post those design in the thread.

[h20xide]

The design is not normally something I would fancy but I must admit this doesn't look bad at all

[xaruum]

Good news!

The engineer certified that the design is not crazy!

The changes are mostly incremental and will result in only subtle changes to the exterior of the case. I will be finalizing the design over the next few days but the pictures will have to wait until next week because I have to move. Luckily we found a good place just around the corner, so the move should only be a few days.

Also, as long as the move doesn't run into any problems, I will start working with the fabricators next week as well.

>knock on wood<

[Quattrix]

Keep us updated ......what materials were you thinking about using?

[xaruum]

Sorry for the lack of updates,

There were some hitches with moving and I am ironing things out.

There is a small issue with the shop, everything I designed was in 3d, but the shop needs 2d in order to set everything up for the laser cutter. Problem is that my app will only convert the outer face of the solid objects to 2d, not the overall shape. So I am rebuilding everything as 2d pieces

This first prototype is going to be 5052 aluminum all around. The windows are plexi. I do not expect to put a finish on the first couple prototypes, I would rather wait until I have it production ready to do good finish.