noen
12-04-2003, 10:04 PM
This was the first completed concept case I ever created. It took me about a week of drawing and cad work to design it, then I whipped out some foamboard and a hot glue gun to make a prototype.
If anyone is interested in making one from Plexi, I have full cad drawings to full ATX 2.03 spec for mounting holes, psu etc. So you can send the cad stuff to a plastics maker and have sheets of plexi made up pretty quickly.
The concept of this case is thermal isolation and maximum airflow to pressure differential. The mainboard and its components are given major priority for airflow since they generate the vast majority of heat. The drives are located in a separated airspace with its own airflow via the PSU to keep in good operating range.
The flow works in an opposite flow from regular PC cases. Intake is in the rear, with an intake of approximately 60cfm through 2 80mm fans. Exhaust is in the front with 3 120mm fans rated at 200cfm each, though they can easily be changed out for nearly silent 60-100cfm fans. This creates a pretty extreme pressure drop inside, causing the air to stay much cooler and the generated heat to be exhausted much more quickly and efficiently. The reason for the reversal is pretty simple. The average temperature behind a case is the same as in front once the PSU has been removed from the equation. However the exhaust needs to be unobstructed to maintain a pressure differential, and this means it needs open space in front of it.
This case can VERY easily be adapted for watercooling and vapor phase use. There is intentional room for a full size radiator behind the 120mm fans which will serve as excellent exhaust.
I have a bunch of other concept cases that I will be putting up slowly, thought most have innovative features more than a completely new design like this one.
http://www.snotmonkey.com/content/stuff/computer/angled.jpg
http://www.snotmonkey.com/content/stuff/computer/back.jpg
http://www.snotmonkey.com/content/stuff/computer/leftinside.jpg
http://www.snotmonkey.com/content/stuff/computer/rightinside.jpg
It will hold a regular ATX board, regular PS2 style power supply, up to 3 hard drives and the computer cad version will hold two 5.25" drives as well as a floppy.
The test system was a passively cooled PII450mhz processor, 512mb of ram and a small 2 gig hard drive. The processor was overclocked to 500mhz and the system was tested under two scenarios. First it was placed in a standard ATX cooling compliant midtower case
http://www.snotmonkey.com/content/stuff/computer/comparison.jpg
Then temperatures were measured at idle, boot and full load.
The idle temps were nearly 15 Deg F lower at idle in the windtunnel case, only about 5F at boot, and nearly 22F lower under full load.
If anyone is interested in making one from Plexi, I have full cad drawings to full ATX 2.03 spec for mounting holes, psu etc. So you can send the cad stuff to a plastics maker and have sheets of plexi made up pretty quickly.
The concept of this case is thermal isolation and maximum airflow to pressure differential. The mainboard and its components are given major priority for airflow since they generate the vast majority of heat. The drives are located in a separated airspace with its own airflow via the PSU to keep in good operating range.
The flow works in an opposite flow from regular PC cases. Intake is in the rear, with an intake of approximately 60cfm through 2 80mm fans. Exhaust is in the front with 3 120mm fans rated at 200cfm each, though they can easily be changed out for nearly silent 60-100cfm fans. This creates a pretty extreme pressure drop inside, causing the air to stay much cooler and the generated heat to be exhausted much more quickly and efficiently. The reason for the reversal is pretty simple. The average temperature behind a case is the same as in front once the PSU has been removed from the equation. However the exhaust needs to be unobstructed to maintain a pressure differential, and this means it needs open space in front of it.
This case can VERY easily be adapted for watercooling and vapor phase use. There is intentional room for a full size radiator behind the 120mm fans which will serve as excellent exhaust.
I have a bunch of other concept cases that I will be putting up slowly, thought most have innovative features more than a completely new design like this one.
http://www.snotmonkey.com/content/stuff/computer/angled.jpg
http://www.snotmonkey.com/content/stuff/computer/back.jpg
http://www.snotmonkey.com/content/stuff/computer/leftinside.jpg
http://www.snotmonkey.com/content/stuff/computer/rightinside.jpg
It will hold a regular ATX board, regular PS2 style power supply, up to 3 hard drives and the computer cad version will hold two 5.25" drives as well as a floppy.
The test system was a passively cooled PII450mhz processor, 512mb of ram and a small 2 gig hard drive. The processor was overclocked to 500mhz and the system was tested under two scenarios. First it was placed in a standard ATX cooling compliant midtower case
http://www.snotmonkey.com/content/stuff/computer/comparison.jpg
Then temperatures were measured at idle, boot and full load.
The idle temps were nearly 15 Deg F lower at idle in the windtunnel case, only about 5F at boot, and nearly 22F lower under full load.