Case Design for Liquid Cooling

[sgayol]

Another interesting idea would be if you could make the HDD removable and then add a mechanism to be able to add the cage into the bottom section, most likely on its side. For those that don't have 2 rads, this would allow better airflow into the main compartment and better hidden cable management.

[3Z3VH]

...
Only thing i dont like is the big fan on the front... with all those rads sucking air in you dont really want another fan blowing more air in

Why don't you want a fan blowing in ? Positive pressure in a case is a GOOD thing if you like to control the dust in your machine.

Also, the Radiators are in separate chambers of the case... airflow between the mid section and radiators is kept to a minimum on purpose. The mid section really only has the fan in front, and the 120mm fan in back.

Me likey alot.

Few things I would believe making your idea sell better:

Remove front HDD placement and have HDD holders much like seen in TJ07's at the top and bottom (ie 4 at the top and 2 at the bottom). Easier to market to server / enthusiasts who have much more HDD's (ie me with 10).
Have the front extend down with bays - personally I'd only ever use one for the DVD drive, but others have bay reservoirs, sound card front modules etc.
Ability to have PSU mounted at the top and bottom.
...

I don't disagree that more hard drive room would be better, but I don't think there is room for it in this case without making it that much bigger, which it doesn't need to be.

If you really have THAT many hard drives, it may actually be a good idea to look into building a second machine to treat itself as a NAS. More than 4 Hard Drives and you really are getting into territory that isn't for a performance machine.

Beyond having a fast boot drive, and a fast caching/pagefile drive, all you need is raw storage. You don't need all that much speed for playing movies, or music, or :banana::banana::banana::banana:, or whatever you have filling up that much space. A NAS will work just fine for your purposes (and prolly save you some cash on your power bills).

[Mick64]

Looking real good for WC, which it is designed for. Not sure about the front though, It looks a bit plain with just a 5,25 hole and a big fan, I'm not saying it is ugly, just saying that It could be improved . Other than that, it looks nice.

I love it, my only suggestions for a cleaner look would be to somehow make the front fan stand out less.

And hide the i/o ports somewhat.

Good work though!

i like how the power reset button side is placed
but those usb and sata and firewire just gotta be put differently

i like the big 230 sticking out and get some red leds on that it would look really nice

personal preferance i like the fan the way it is

When I designed this case, I had it mind to keep it as simple as possible. I don't see the need for fancy fascias. Of course, this is still only at the design stage, so the front may change, but I personally wouldn't want it to be too fussy. To be honest, I'm not completely happy with the position of the switches / ports, but I do like the fan as it is. It's not going to be possible to please everybody, but I like this industrial look, so I'm not going to be making any major changes...

sub 300 and it'd be mine

Really can't say how much this would cost if it was to be put into production, but I would expect it to be in the range of a Lian Li or SilverStone.

I am just wondering if the bottom of the case is as nice as the top of the case. So I could take off the feet and use it as HTPC desktop. That is one thing that nobody makes is a decent HTPC case for water coolers and overclockers as I don't care for MM with all the visable screw heads! Nice!

I have designed this case so that the air flow through the rads is going across the case from one side to the other. If you were to lay the case on its side, this would greatly reduce that air flow. I would, therefore, say that this particular design would not be good as a HTPC. However, if this design does make it into production, I might think about designing another; possibly a HTPC case....

seriously i want to know of a system that would need all that radiage! , other than making a waterbox for "SEVERAL" systems there is no need to have that many radiators.

My case has been designed with two loops in mind. The first loop is for the CPU, chipset and VRM's and would be cooled by the 480 rad in the top. The second loop is for the GPU/s and would be cooled by the 360 rad in the bottom. This, I believe, would be the simplest and most efficient set-up. I would configure the rad fans in push pull with shrouds in between on both rads. Of course, that doesn't mean you can't fit more rads or use different configurations. BTW, if you have a look at omaryunus's project I think you'll see why he needs that much 'radiage'

Me likey alot.

Few things I would believe making your idea sell better:

Remove front HDD placement and have HDD holders much like seen in TJ07's at the top and bottom (ie 4 at the top and 2 at the bottom). Easier to market to server / enthusiasts who have much more HDD's (ie me with 10).
Have the front extend down with bays - personally I'd only ever use one for the DVD drive, but others have bay reservoirs, sound card front modules etc.
Ability to have PSU mounted at the top and bottom.

Personally I would love to see a wider one where I can mount the radiators at the top and bottom and still be able to mount a HDD cage infront of the airflow. Kill two birds and still have awesome storage capacity.

Another interesting idea would be if you could make the HDD removable and then add a mechanism to be able to add the cage into the bottom section, most likely on its side. For those that don't have 2 rads, this would allow better airflow into the main compartment and better hidden cable management.

As I've already said, this case has been specifically designed for two watercooling loops. There are many other cases on the market that would be suitable for the purposes you seem to be describing. For those people looking for a case for only one loop or a case to use as a server, this wouldn't be the case for you. My main target consumer would be those computer enthusiasts that would like to liquid cool their PC's, but do not have the time, skills or resources to be able to modify the cases that are available at the moment. Again, I can only say that I'm sorry, but it's imposible to please everyone. I feal that the case is idealy suited for its purpose, and doubt that I will be making any other major changes.

Thanks for all the interest and suggestions though. It is very much appreciated!

[NysoO]

As I've already said, this case has been specifically designed for two watercooling loops. There are many other cases on the market that would be suitable for the purposes you seem to be describing. For those people looking for a case for only one loop or a case to use as a server, this wouldn't be the case for you. My main target consumer would be those computer enthusiasts that would like to liquid cool their PC's, but do not have the time, skills or resources to be able to modify the cases that are available at the moment. Again, I can only say that I'm sorry, but it's imposible to please everyone. I feal that the case is idealy suited for its purpose, and doubt that I will be making any other major changes.

Thanks for all the interest and suggestions though. It is very much appreciated!

If you don't wanna make any changes to the case, then why do you ask for our opinion? "I feel that the case is idealy suited for it's purpose". Nothing, listen, nothing is "Ideal". There are always changes/improvements to be made and as you have seen by this thread, people do have suggestions that I think you really should take in consideration (Not because I don't like your design, but because of the fact that you will be able to reach out and please more people). I almost get the feeling that you have been spending a lot of time on this case so at the present moment you don't wan't to change anything because you think it's ideal.

You need to separate your thoughts a bit from this case and let other have a bit of influense in the case if you really want to reach out to the market. It is one thing to design and build your own case. But when it comes down to mass producing a case, all the circumstances change a bit.

I'm not trying to offend you man. Just expressing my thoughts and opinions which in the end might help you a bit.

[oRIDDLERo]

Count me in... I would buy one of these in a second!

[sgayol]

As I've already said, this case has been specifically designed for two watercooling loops. There are many other cases on the market that would be suitable for the purposes you seem to be describing. For those people looking for a case for only one loop or a case to use as a server, this wouldn't be the case for you. My main target consumer would be those computer enthusiasts that would like to liquid cool their PC's, but do not have the time, skills or resources to be able to modify the cases that are available at the moment. Again, I can only say that I'm sorry, but it's imposible to please everyone. I feal that the case is idealy suited for its purpose, and doubt that I will be making any other major changes.

While I agree this is ideal for two loops, I think one of the biggest selling points of this case COULD also be that it will hold a quad rad inside. There's certainly nothing with finish like this that I'm aware of that comes pre-configured to fit a rad that big internally. Why limit your target audience? I'm not suggesting any modification to the case other than making the hard drive mounts more modular so that people have options. Making your product more widely marketable means more potential customers... That seems like a win/win to me.

[3Z3VH]

If you don't wanna make any changes to the case, then why do you ask for our opinion? "I feel that the case is idealy suited for it's purpose". Nothing, listen, nothing is "Ideal". There are always changes/improvements to be made and as you have seen by this thread, people do have suggestions that I think you really should take in consideration (Not because I don't like your design, but because of the fact that you will be able to reach out and please more people). I almost get the feeling that you have been spending a lot of time on this case so at the present moment you don't wan't to change anything because you think it's ideal.

You need to separate your thoughts a bit from this case and let other have a bit of influense in the case if you really want to reach out to the market. It is one thing to design and build your own case. But when it comes down to mass producing a case, all the circumstances change a bit.

I'm not trying to offend you man. Just expressing my thoughts and opinions which in the end might help you a bit.

NysoO... he has actually been very open to ideas and suggestions. MANY changes have been made since he first posted the case, all based on the forum's collective input. By his reply, you can even see, he has thought it through, and determined that more hard drives are not conducive to the purpose of the case. You are right, nothing is ever ideal, but you get as close as you can to ideal for a target audience, and I feel he has done that well. The target audience is the enthusiast watercooling market. I can't think of a single person who has their watercooled machine, without having another computer of some sort available to them, and a network of some sort to hook both computers to (unless they live in a dorm with no room for anything, in which case they don't buy a large case like this). This means they would have the capability of keeping their storage in another computer, or a NAS, instead of the high-performance watercooled machine.

While I agree this is ideal for two loops, I think one of the biggest selling points of this case COULD also be that it will hold a quad rad inside. There's certainly nothing with finish like this that I'm aware of that comes pre-configured to fit a rad that big internally. Why limit your target audience? I'm not suggesting any modification to the case other than making the hard drive mounts more modular so that people have options. Making your product more widely marketable means more potential customers... That seems like a win/win to me.

The only thing keeping that from being win/win is that the case already comes quite close to the $300 budget everyone is giving this case (by at least a dozen posts in this thread alone). Not much profit margin already, means that adding a modular HDD rack will only cut more into what meager profits the case could garner as it is. If you are passionate about this case, and feel the hard drive cage is a deal-breaker, fight an easier battle, like suggesting it gets held down by screws, not rivets or welds... this way you can take it out, drill and tap new screw holes wherever you want, and screw it down anywhere in the case.

As it stands, I think it would be quite easy to purchase replacement removable HD cages from Lian-Li, CM, or even Antec, and simply drill holes and screw them down in the bottom radiator bay.

[faster3200]

Honestly, any case is going to to have its flaws and there are always going to be things that certain people want to change, that is why modding exists. I love my Rocketfish, but I wish that it had two 120mm fans for exhaust. I really think this case is designed pretty d*mn well for people who want larger WCing setups, if you only want one rad, get a different case. I really don't see how to make this any better without compromising it in some way, especially cost.

[NysoO]

NysoO... he has actually been very open to ideas and suggestions. MANY changes have been made since he first posted the case, all based on the forum's collective input. By his reply, you can even see, he has thought it through, and determined that more hard drives are not conducive to the purpose of the case. You are right, nothing is ever ideal, but you get as close as you can to ideal for a target audience, and I feel he has done that well. The target audience is the enthusiast watercooling market. I can't think of a single person who has their watercooled machine, without having another computer of some sort available to them, and a network of some sort to hook both computers to (unless they live in a dorm with no room for anything, in which case they don't buy a large case like this). This means they would have the capability of keeping their storage in another computer, or a NAS, instead of the high-performance watercooled machine.

If that is the case, then of course I have to give my apologies. But looking at this thread I cannot really see that any major changes have been made.
I think I saw this case in one or two other sections as well. Can be a bit hard to follow 3 threads. Would be better with one thread so it would be easier for one to follow and avoid having to post posts like I did (which showed to be a bit exaggerated when it comes to Micks susceptibility of ideas).
However I still think parts of my post is relevant.

[3Z3VH]

Mick, I did think of one more thing... rotate the PSU spacer (the piece that is holding the PSU off the bottom of the case) 90 degrees, so in the case of non-modular PSUs, we could use that small cavity to stuff all the unused cabling !

[tsukuyomi]

BTW, if you have a look at omaryunus's project I think you'll see why he needs that much 'radiage'

i have, personally i think that is just overkill i don't care how anyone wants to justify this as "xtreme" none of the CPU in the market right now can produce more heat than 1 480GTX(with proper fans) can dissipate so having 2 480 for one CPU other than bragging rights i just don't see any practical use.

Anyways that is personal preference i guess, i justify cooling in factors of 3 degrees as in i would not replace anything with something else unless i get a 3 or more degree improvement.

[faster3200]

i have, personally i think that is just overkill i don't care how anyone wants to justify this as "xtreme" none of the CPU in the market right now can produce more heat than 1 480GTX(with proper fans) can dissipate so having 2 480 for one CPU other than bragging rights i just don't see any practical use.

Well, I think a lot of people here do things like that because they can and it is their money, so let them do with it what they want. Another things is that if you have a ton of rads you can also use lower rpm fans, which I think some might appreciate. I am not totally disagreeing with you though, a lot of the "xtreme" stuff is unnecessary (even though I will freely admit that I love being "xtreme").

[sgayol]

The only thing keeping that from being win/win is that the case already comes quite close to the $300 budget everyone is giving this case (by at least a dozen posts in this thread alone). Not much profit margin already, means that adding a modular HDD rack will only cut more into what meager profits the case could garner as it is. If you are passionate about this case, and feel the hard drive cage is a deal-breaker, fight an easier battle, like suggesting it gets held down by screws, not rivets or welds... this way you can take it out, drill and tap new screw holes wherever you want, and screw it down anywhere in the case.

Simply having it held in by screws would be perfect and allow someone to take the cage out without tearing the case apart That's a perfectly reasonable compromise and wouldn't raise the price in any significant way...

[Mick64]

Mick, I did think of one more thing... rotate the PSU spacer (the piece that is holding the PSU off the bottom of the case) 90 degrees, so in the case of non-modular PSUs, we could use that small cavity to stuff all the unused cabling !

Seems like a good idea to me.

The only thing keeping that from being win/win is that the case already comes quite close to the $300 budget everyone is giving this case (by at least a dozen posts in this thread alone). Not much profit margin already, means that adding a modular HDD rack will only cut more into what meager profits the case could garner as it is. If you are passionate about this case, and feel the hard drive cage is a deal-breaker, fight an easier battle, like suggesting it gets held down by screws, not rivets or welds... this way you can take it out, drill and tap new screw holes wherever you want, and screw it down anywhere in the case.

Simply having it held in by screws would be perfect and allow someone to take the cage out without tearing the case apart That's a perfectly reasonable compromise and wouldn't raise the price in any significant way...

I had already planned to have the HDD rack detachable so that you could change the orientation if required. So you could change its position if you wished. However, because I changed the design of the rack to accommodate 4 HDD's, there's little room for it anywhere else....

[Mick64]

If that is the case, then of course I have to give my apologies. But looking at this thread I cannot really see that any major changes have been made.
I think I saw this case in one or two other sections as well. Can be a bit hard to follow 3 threads. Would be better with one thread so it would be easier for one to follow and avoid having to post posts like I did (which showed to be a bit exaggerated when it comes to Micks susceptibility of ideas).
However I still think parts of my post is relevant.

I apologise if I sounded a bit harsh, you do have some valid points. As you have found out, I do have another thread running in the cases section http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=217611 and I have incorporated some of the ideas in suggestions raised there. I just feel that making anymore changes to try and increase the number of people that would be interested in buying it, is getting away from why I designed it in the first place. That is to have a case specifically for watercooling that requires no modifications.....

[tsukuyomi]

I just feel that making anymore changes to try and increase the number of people that would be interested in buying it, is getting away from why I designed it in the first place. That is to have a case specifically for watercooling that requires no modifications.....

i completely agree with you there the case as it stands is perfect for what it is intended a case that can hold 2 loops without modifications(at least nothing major, i can see people"myself included" drilling a hole at the bottom to add a drain/s ).

one thing that would be great is if it could be offered in 2 versions, painted and unpainted( i hate sanding pain off) so those of us that like painting our cases with "special" paints can do so fairly easily and it could save on the cost for you.

[step]

The target audience is the enthusiast watercooling market.

That's great and all, but it's a small market.
My suggestions were only to help in regards to getting companies interested, which will be much easier if they can market it for more than one purpose. For instance the V2000 has been a popular case for water cooling, it has slots for 12 hard drives and the bays allow for more. It's quite a popular file server case and doesn't require much modification to make it into a great dual loop water cooling case (side vents, which your case already provides).

More than 4 Hard Drives and you really are getting into territory that isn't for a performance machine.

Quite the opposite. The amount of machines I've built through work, seen on forums and such where people have had 4 drives in raid0 for the OS just for the performance and value for money is pretty large (especially non raptor drives). Then there are people who would look at your 2 500GB raid0 storage volume and cringe at how there is not some form of redundancy there.

(and prolly save you some cash on your power bills).

Separating it all into two devices wouldn't save me anything, the HDD's themselves don't use much power at all.

[Mick64]

Just thought I'd keep your taste buds watering with another render....

[SNiiPE_DoGG]

That's great and all, but it's a small market.
My suggestions were only to help in regards to getting companies interested, which will be much easier if they can market it for more than one purpose. For instance the V2000 has been a popular case for water cooling, it has slots for 12 hard drives and the bays allow for more. It's quite a popular file server case and doesn't require much modification to make it into a great dual loop water cooling case (side vents, which your case already provides).
Quite the opposite. The amount of machines I've built through work, seen on forums and such where people have had 4 drives in raid0 for the OS just for the performance and value for money is pretty large (especially non raptor drives). Then there are people who would look at your 2 500GB raid0 storage volume and cringe at how there is not some form of redundancy there.
Separating it all into two devices wouldn't save me anything, the HDD's themselves don't use much power at all.

I'm gonna save mick some time:

its a small specialized market, but by small you mean a few hundred people that are gonna want this case. Mountainmods does fine for themselves, but unfortunately their cases are ugly as sin. A lot of people are gonna want this case exactly the way it is, specialized for watercooling alone.

[Waterlogged]

Mick, you might want to come up with some kind of method for mounting SSD's, whether it be mounting them by means of some simple brackets to your current HDD mounts or removing it a swapping in another "special made" mount. SSD's are just taking off and when the price drops to reasonable levels on more realistic capacity's...look out Concorde.

[oRIDDLERo]

Please have this built now, kthx. I will pay $400.

[Serpentarius]

i hope you don't mind .. but i find you design is not desirable .. well let's say your design has rooms for improvement and thoughts

1. the front intake fan is hrm .. too large .. somehow i looks bit rude and the circular mesh doesn not suit it .. how bout make it 120mm with the grill-like look added to the mesh?

2. the start/reset button can improve .. it's best to place in the area which is easier to access .. either top or bottom of the front fan intake and those usb ... use a less conspicuous area to place the usb/firecable/esata/audio ports as well ..

3. i think the top 5 1/2 slot ... you could pry out 2x 5 1/2in slot to place a LCD screen

4. since i suggested the top section to have another 5 1/2in slots ... then the back of it should have have an output as well .. in case of an additional PSU .. or a grill with 2 80mm fans outtake

5. i think the ventilation is going to be a problem ... intake 140mm .. outtake 120mm? maybe you could incorporate another 120mm at the top of the mobo?

6. the PSU slot .. the bottom suspending the psu .. i think it should be splitted to 2 bars only placed parallel side by side left & right (not front back) .. you might not know if you wish to place the psu bottom air intake

7. this is an alternative idea .. how bout getting 1x 120mm fan for the hard disk section ... and another 120mm fan for the bottom .. section .. means 2x 120mm fan .. try to make it with an adequate spacing .. and with a nice grill look ... i think rounded vertical gaps is quite sexy


i hope you don't mind those comments .. i just speak what's in my mind

[tsukuyomi]

That's great and all, but it's a small market.

For argument sake lets say that the WC community is 300 people(which this is not even close by a long shot) lets say that in a year he sell cases to 1/3 of that (100) multiply that by a (just a random price) $250 that is $25,000.00 lets say he runs in a 20% profit or $5k.

So in a year he made a profit and got the case he wanted for himself and can improve on it quite easily.
Lets say someone doesn't need dual loops and would rather fill the bottom space with HDD, he could sell HDD racks that fit in the bottom,lets say 3 drive per rack could easily fit 9 more HDD there.

And to end even if this case is intended for WC i see no reason why someone would not just buy it for normal PC if for nothing else than just to have something exclusive or "different".

P.S. if me throwing random wild guesses on prices and such somehow break forums policies(unsure of the details) please let me know and i will edit/delete the post and know for the next time.

[Extigy]

As always with nice designs like this, the main cost would be in the manufacturing, which is why mountain mods cases are so butt ugly - their designs are easy to manufacture - angle aluminium frame with flat panels bolted on.

When you start including bends and slots for panels to fit onto (lian li, silvertsone) you require very specialised equipment capable of high accuracy.

Nice design, but i doubt it could be produced for under £500. Aluminium alone would cost somewhere in the region of £100-£150 then coating (anodizing or powder coating) would be an additional £40-£150 and the cost of machining would be range greatly from £50 to £300+ per/hr depending on machine required (from a simple Mill to a CnC laser cutter/cnc press ect.)

[PaRn ssR]

I like layout TJ07