Stylencio: Passively cooled custom designed HTPC (Images)

Hyphe · Post by **Hyphe** » Mon Jul 31, 2006 1:39 pm

Time for an update.

I put some filler on the model, Plastic Padding Ultimate, we'll see if it can handle the heat. The peace of polycarbonate was a bit small so I bought some perspex, 2 and 3 millimeter thick to start testing with.

I started out with a piece that was 3mm thick.

Sawing the perspex: It did crack at one edge but the size is enough to cut it away later.

Here's the perspex attached to the model. The heating took shorter time than I thought, but the result was not as impressive, I think I did something wrong, I might have put pressure in the wrong places.

I did the setup all over again, this time a little different. This time it was better but there are still gaps between the perspex and the model. This piece is probably ruined, but I will continue working towards a complete cover with it to get some more experience. The filler is starting to losen and gets stuck to the perspex, so far I have been able to polish it off with a piece of paper.

The gap between the perspex and the model.

Here's an image of the perspex on the case, looks pretty motivating so far.

ultrachrome · Post by **ultrachrome** » Mon Jul 31, 2006 4:17 pm

Nice job. I wonder if some of your difficulty is due to using a point-source heat source. As you heat one area, other areas cool. It's difficult to get a uniform temperature.

I bought a plastic bending strip heater element for a plexi project that I never got around to. The advantage of the strip heater is to heat the entire width of your material uniformly.

Another idea when using plexiglass and polycarbonate is wet sanding the material for a frosted look. Smoked plexi when wet sanded uniformly in a single direction takes on the look of brushed anodized aluminum. An example of this can be seen here: Building Mark Levinson 38 preamp chassis from scratch at diyaudio.com (requires account to see pics.)

In the linked thread, the author made a display window by simply masking off that area and sanding around it.

justblair · Post by **justblair** » Wed Aug 02, 2006 2:32 pm

A sever hyphe I am eager to see where you get to next on this build. Plastics are a bitch to form, but from what I have read, its a practice thing. I took the cowards road out and kept my design to flat pieces.

It looks like you didn't apply enough heat. (cause having read less than 10 guides and bent as many as 3 pieces I consider myself to be a professor in this art) Though apply too much and it bubbles, this much I have achieved!.

I remember at school being taught how to bend perspex. As I recall, we were taught to smear carbolic soap on the perspex. When the soap started to brown, it was bending time. That was a long time ago, the soap was carbolic cause I was a school, i dont know how modern (makes your skin feel like a babies bum) soap works in comparison. The toilet paper in those days doubled up as tracing paper! In fact it was more effective as tracing paper as I recall... the memory of the pain still gives me the shudders.

i searched the available guides though and saw no mention of this. One thing you could try is not to weigh it down.

Hyphe · Post by **Hyphe** » Wed Aug 02, 2006 9:32 pm

As you guys have pointed out, the reason was not enough heat and too much pressure. I took a 2 millimeter sheet and shaped it with less pressure, the result was better but still the precision is not good enough. I probably need help from a friend that can heat while I work with shaping it. A stripheater would be perfect but I cannot seam to find them in Sweden.

Thanks for the idea of the frosted look ultrachrome, I might test that in my next project.

Pretty interesting material to work with, acrylic, I've already found tons of things I can use it for.

Here are a couple of pics from the last sheet, I got pressure marks on it

, otherwise I would probably have been able to use it.

The setup

Pretty nice result:

I got some pressure marks though...

Overall I am pretty happy so far with the results but I need some more practising...

justblair · Post by **justblair** » Wed Aug 02, 2006 11:29 pm

I can see your skills improving picture to picture... A bit of patience and you will have that perfect.

Spot on. Its going to look brilliant. You must be excited!

Hyphe · Post by **Hyphe** » Thu Aug 03, 2006 1:06 am

justblair wrote:You must be excited!

Oh yeah! That's what keeps me going!

Hyphe · Post by **Hyphe** » Thu Aug 10, 2006 4:15 am

I must say that perspex is not easy to work with, specially not in these sizes, It might be because I am a beginner

. I have spent 4 pieces of perspex so far. After a couple of hours with the 3 millimeter sheet I gave up, It did not give after for my attempts to bend it around the model. I succeded with the last piece of perspex I had, which was 2 millimeters. After heating it up four times, it stayed in the shape I wanted it to stay in. I got some weird warping and a "bubble",which can be seen in the pictures below. I managed to push the "bubble" to the edge of the perspex, a part that I removed later on. The last piece got a good shape and as a result from heating it a couple of times it got kind of melted look which I see as positive, gives the little extra.

This is the last post in a while, I will be moving on Saturday and I get my things moved in three weeks, so I can't work on the project much the next month, but stay tuned, it will hopefully be rewarding.

Glossy!

The melted look:

Masking, Here you can see the "bubble"

After taking away the bubble and cutting it to the right length it fits perfectly

justblair · Post by **justblair** » Thu Aug 10, 2006 5:52 am

That looks damn near perfect now. I take it that will be your final for now attempt?

With the tape on it, we get a really good impression of what the final result will be.

Good luck with your move.

Blair

Hyphe · Post by **Hyphe** » Thu Aug 10, 2006 10:40 am

Thank's Blair,

It was my last piece of perspex, so it has to be the final, for now at least

I will order more though since it's hard to work with and, who knows what will happen before I have finished it, I still have to cut it to correct width, do the routing for the slot-load dvd, and paint it.

Hyphe · Post by **Hyphe** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 7:36 am

Thought I'd give a quick update.

The project is not dead, I've been busy with other things like moving and getting a new job. I have decided to take the project to phase two before finishing it. I just ordered new hardware to get one step closer to be able to watch DVB-T and playback Blu-ray and HD-DVD. I also decided to get rid of the passive PSU and get a passive external PSU. I also ordered another HD and new DVD since I broke the last one.

New hardware:

Aopen i945gtm-vhl
Core 2 Duo T7200
1024Mb SO-DIMM
FloppyDTV-T
HFX Mini DVD
HFX EF16 Power Supply 165w (120w)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320Mb

I will need to cut out a new backplate, a new rack for the HD's and finish the cover.

More updates when the hardware arrives.

RasmusseN · Post by **RasmusseN** » Tue Dec 26, 2006 5:08 pm

Hyphe wrote:Thought I'd give a quick update. The project is not dead, I've been busy with other things like moving and getting a new job. I have decided to take the project to phase two before finishing it. I just ordered new hardware to get one step closer to be able to watch DVB-T and playback Blu-ray and HD-DVD. I also decided to get rid of the passive PSU and get a passive external PSU. I also ordered another HD and new DVD since I broke the last one.

New hardware:

Aopen i945gtm-vhl
Core 2 Duo T7200
1024Mb SO-DIMM
FloppyDTV-T
HFX Mini DVD
HFX EF16 Power Supply 165w (120w)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320Mb

I will need to cut out a new backplate, a new rack for the HD's and finish the cover.

More updates when the hardware arrives.

I think you mean GB in the bold

Hyphe · Post by **Hyphe** » Wed Dec 27, 2006 12:48 pm

RasmusseN wrote:I think you mean GB in the bold

Hehe, you are correct!

It's GB. The HD arrived today but I can't fit it until the power supply arrives.

The motherboard was out of stock at the supplier so I'll wait with updating that part, I do not really need them at the moment.

I got the FloppyDTV-T card last week, I'll upload some images later this week. It's a cable card tuner which works with Media Center in Sweden, unfortunately, when I tested it, I could not recieve the dvb-t signal from inside my apartment with the antenna so I will have to do some more tests from the outside.

I am still waiting for the DVD and the power supply, hopefully I will get them later this week.

Hyphe · Post by **Hyphe** » Mon Jan 01, 2007 3:41 am

Here are a couple of images of the FloppyDTV card. No sign of the PSU yet...

Unfortunately I cant recieve DVB-T signals from my apartment, so I have switched back to the analog tuner. Had to try it though

The card with CAM module:

Installed

Hyphe · Post by **Hyphe** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 6:00 am

I got the DVD Mini and the EF16 PSU but the PSU started beeping when I tried it so I will have to return it and get a new one. The temps went down dramatically somehow so I am happy but I need a silent one

The S3 Resume function stopped working when I used the EF16 so that makes me a bit worried.

I did some work with the DVD. The images:

The DVD is enclosed in rubber for silencing purposes, and it has a cable attached to where the open/close button is on a original slim slot-in DVD. The heat is suppose to be transfered from the side of it through some copperplates and be transfered to a heatsink with heatpipes. I suspect that I wont have to attach it to the heatsinks since these drives consumes very little power. We'll see about that when I test it.

I drilled some holes in the existing piece of aluminum and moved it down a bit.

Cut out a piece of plastic and drilled some holes in it as well.

Ready for mounting!

Hyphe · Post by **Hyphe** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 10:32 am

Found a button for an old project that fit perfect, and I got the cable from an old reset switch, after some soldering it's now ready for test tonight. I will drill a hole for the button that can be accessed on the backplate.

McBanjo · Post by **McBanjo** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 11:14 am

Just 1 or 2 years and it'll be ready?

Looking nice

nici · Post by **nici** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 12:28 pm

Nice =)

Hyphe · Post by **Hyphe** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 2:56 pm

McBanjo wrote:Just 1 or 2 years and it'll be ready?
Looking nice

Hehe, if you knew how many ideas I have, but oh so little time... and space...

It got real tight with the old PSU. Works perfect though.

The button on the backpanel:

I got a new mouse as well, a Microsoft Wireless Notebook Presenter Mouse 8000 (couldnt they find a longer name?), it works perfect as a mouse for a media center, bluetooth gives you long reach and it's small and the same style as the MCE keyboard.

nici · Post by **nici** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 3:15 pm

I know i am repeating myself, but i have to say nice again

Im not aurprised the old PSU gets hot in there, with a 120W load mine idles at 45-50c outside of the case. Runs a lot cooler with minimal airflow though. Too bad about the S3 not working with the brick..

So when are you going to polish it?

McBanjo · Post by **McBanjo** » Sun Jan 21, 2007 2:34 am

Hehe, if you knew how many ideas I have, but oh so little time... and space...

Try to settle for 1 idea and finish it

I'm on my third case since I started...this spring

But ok, your case is nicer tho[/quote]