scratch built mineral oil pc CAD planning

[ewan_stockwell]

Hi LTT comunity, I'm a 17 year old student that's a little too obsessed with oil pc's. After the unfortunate discontinuation of puget systems own own oil pc kit I've decided to build my own, I'm doing this crazy build as part of a UK qualification by Edexcel/Pearson called the "Extended Project Qualification" (basically do what ever you want and write about it/ build something). The whole system is made of 10mm laser cut cast acrylic and uses liquid submersion cooling in a mITX form factor so it fits on my desk. Also all dimension are in mm (the correct units )

 

"typical forum stuff" list is here:

1x mITX motherboard (i've decided on the Z97E-ITX/ac    http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z97E-ITXac/)

1x dual slot graphics card (undecided and not relevant as I only play CS:GO )

1x i5-4690k

some RAM

1x ATX psu (Superflower Leadex Gold 750W because I allready have one and it looks cool    http://www.super-flower.com.tw/products_detail.php?class=2&sn=17&ID=101〈)

1x noctual NH-D9L cpu cooler (this combined with oils superior cooling properties should allow for some overclocking    http://noctua.at/en/nh-d9l.html?___from_store=fr)

1x 240gb SANDISK SSD PLUS (oil resistant     https://www.sandisk.co.uk/home/ssd/ssd-plus)

 

"less typical oily stuff"

1x pump (XSPC / Laing DDC-1T Pro 3.1 (10W)    http://www.watercoolinguk.co.uk/p/XSPC--Laing-DDC-1T-Pro-31-10W_45558.html)

1x pump top (XSPC Laing DDC Acrylic Pump Top V2 (Multiport)    http://www.watercoolinguk.co.uk/p/XSPC-Laing-DDC-Acrylic-Pump-Top-V2-Multiport_48668.html)

some 13mm/10mm fittings and tubing

1x 240mm radiator with ports at either end for intake at one side of the case and output at the other side (Black Ice Nemesis Radiator GTS 240 XFlow - Black    http://www.watercoolinguk.co.uk/p/Black-Ice-Nemesis-Radiator-GTS-240-XFlow-Black_44942.html)

10l + of white mineral oil/paraffin (depending if your a british or american    http://www.neatwholesale.co.uk/raw-materials/natural-ingredients/white-mineral-oil-bp?gclid=CjwKEAiAw4e1BRDfi7vghaWU9jESJACzo9jucYWZa9Bzuh9GPmphtxly5cMs8i6COzCo83dU3VwQlBoC75Hw_wcB)

some generic steel handles for the lid/inner case

 

The PC consisted of a inner and outer case that are detached but locked together by a indentation in outer cases lid, this is fairly common to puget systems original larger kits but you cant reinvent the wheel too many times (full credit to puget here). The inner case is filled with the oil while the outer case can be removed from the oil for PC maintenance/upgrading/troubleshooting. The inner and outer case is made of 10mm thick clear cast acrylic, it will be jointed with Tensol 12 acrylic cement (that will hopefully "fuse" the acrylic together for a oil tight seal), the pump is mounted on its own little ledge to maximise space efficiency, standard motherboard standoffs and standard screws will be use for mounting the various components and finally the handles are general steel handles.

 

I'm asking for any design based feedback or advise in general I'm also very aware that oil pc's make no sense and are for stupid people with more money than sense who also want pc bragging rights (this describes me). For all of you CAD wizards I'm using solidworks 2015, I'm heavily self taught so could and CAD advise be in plain English please!

I'm fairly close to needing to build it soonish due to the nature of completing this as part of a qualification. If you have any questions please ask!

[Menzenski]

Cool.  I did something similar, although not quite as ambitious four years ago.  Instead of doing something like Puget, I just made a rectangular box of acrylic and mounted the components vertically on a HSPC techstation motherboard tray and had the PSU just resting on the bottom of the tank.  

 

The PC consisted of a inner and outer case that are detached but locked together by a indentation in outer cases lid, this is fairly common to puget systems original larger kits but you cant reinvent the wheel too many times (full credit to puget here). The inner case is filled with the oil while the outer case can be removed from the oil for PC maintenance/upgrading/troubleshooting. The inner and outer case is made of 10mm thick clear cast acrylic, it will be jointed with Tensol 12 acrylic cement (that will hopefully "fuse" the acrylic together for a oil tight seal)

 

I can vouch for the acrylic cement, that stuff has held together my acrylic tank for going on four years, and has had zero problems.  Also I would say you can go thinner on the acrylic you use, I used 1/4 inch (~6.5mm) acrylic all the way around and it was plenty.  That will save you some money on raw materials.

 

I will add that getting the mineral oil is a pain in the butt.  I had to special order more from Tractor Supply because they only had 2 gallons in stock, and it took almost three weeks to get to my local store.

 

Best of luck, make sure to post some progress update!

[RoroTheDeer]

This looks like a great project! Good luck in the building part! (I know I did)

[ewan_stockwell]

thanks for the encouragement, do you mind if I ask what type of acrylic you used (cast/extruded/don't know), i'm using 10mm acrylic as puget systems used 3/8 inch acrylic, also I'm taking this to uni so any strength bonus will be useful as it will be moved by care every few months. Don't worry plenty of pictures to follow, it may take a few weeks for them to come. i was surprised to find out how much the oil costs, its about £50 for 10l in the UK

[Bananasplit_00]

this is pretty cool, looks solid, @ me when you get around to building it!

[Bananasplit_00]

thanks for the encouragement, do you mind if I ask what type of acrylic you used (cast/extruded/don't know) and how thick it was? don't worry plenty of pictures to follow, it may take a few weeks for them to come. i was surprised to find out how much the oil costs, its about £50 for 10l in the UK

also welcome to the forum and use the quote button for replies

[ewan_stockwell]

also welcome to the forum and use the quote button for replies

you can tell i'm new to this, i've earned that newbie status!

[Bananasplit_00]

you can tell i'm new to this

it says you have 4 posts under your picture, well have a good time on the forum and i hope we can be of help here!

[ewan_stockwell]

it says you have 4 posts under your picture, well have a good time on the forum and i hope we can be of help here!

ok mum!

[Menzenski]

do you mind if I ask what type of acrylic you used (cast/extruded/don't know), i'm using 10mm acrylic as puget systems used 3/8 inch acrylic, also I'm taking this to uni so any strength bonus will be useful as it will be moved by care every few months. Don't worry plenty of pictures to follow, it may take a few weeks for them to come. i was surprised to find out how much the oil costs, its about £50 for 10l in the UK

 

As far as I can tell from my old emails, I just used standard acrylic (whatever that is).  I ordered from TAP plastics (http://www.tapplastics.com/) and my email invoice just says clear acrylic sheets.  

 

If you're planning on moving this thing then the thicker acrylic would make sense.  I built mine for a project in high school, including an end of the year presentation.  I brought the thing down to school empty, then filled it with one gallon at the beginning of my presentation.  Of course, I had the pc powered on and connected to the projector so that was definitely good for the grade.  I also didn't have the pump and radiator set up yet, so I basically just watched the temps climb and climb during my presentation, because the oil only half covered some of the fans.  Afterwards I had to roll the thing back to the parking lot on a cart and drive incredibly carefully back home.  Since then it hasn't moved because it weighs an incredible amount.

 

Oil was the most expensive part for me as well, I think I spent $150 bucks on 8 gallons, and of course I didn't do any volume calculations and only ended up needing 4 once all the components were in there.  Hindsight right lol.

[ewan_stockwell]

As far as I can tell from my old emails, I just used standard acrylic (whatever that is).  I ordered from TAP plastics (http://www.tapplastics.com/) and my email invoice just says clear acrylic sheets.  

 

If you're planning on moving this thing then the thicker acrylic would make sense.  I built mine for a project in high school, including an end of the year presentation.  I brought the thing down to school empty, then filled it with one gallon at the beginning of my presentation.  Of course, I had the pc powered on and connected to the projector so that was definitely good for the grade.  I also didn't have the pump and radiator set up yet, so I basically just watched the temps climb and climb during my presentation, because the oil only half covered some of the fans.  Afterwards I had to roll the thing back to the parking lot on a cart and drive incredibly carefully back home.  Since then it hasn't moved because it weighs an incredible amount.

 

Oil was the most expensive part for me as well, I think I spent $150 bucks on 8 gallons, and of course I didn't do any volume calculations and only ended up needing 4 once all the components were in there.  Hindsight right lol.

I plan to use the pump to remove the oil before moving the pc (the large holes on the lid are to remove the radiators outlet tube so the tube can be removed, aimed at a bucket and the oil will be pumped into the bucket). what motherboard size where you using, i'm trying to gauge how much oil i'll need. i got 10l from rough volume calculations but i haven't factored in the actual pc components volume.

[Menzenski]

I plan to use the pump to remove the oil before moving the pc (the large holes on the lid are to remove the radiators outlet tube so the tube can be removed, aimed at a bucket and the oil will be pumped into the bucket). what motherboard size where you using, i'm trying to gauge how much oil i'll need. i got 10l from rough volume calculations but i haven't factored in the actual pc components volume.

 

That's a good idea to use the pump, I will say that you don't need to get all of the oil out to move it, just the majority of it.

 

I used an ATX board (a DFI P965 board) with a celeron E3200 in it, along with a GTX 9600 GSO video card.  However the psu placement made the overall tank size pretty small considering.  It's basically just enough for the gpu to stick off the motherboard.  Yours will be bigger but to give you an idea:

 

[ewan_stockwell]

That's a good idea to use the pump, I will say that you don't need to get all of the oil out to move it, just the majority of it.

 

I used an ATX board (a DFI P965 board) with a celeron E3200 in it, along with a GTX 9600 GSO video card.  However the psu placement made the overall tank size pretty small considering.  It's basically just enough for the gpu to stick off the motherboard.  Yours will be bigger but to give you an idea:

 

thanks for this pictures, it should give be a better idea for the amount of oil needed