Industrio

[theintrospective]

Let's start at the end, then go back.

 

MSI X99A SLI Plus

i7 6820 (running at 4Ghz)

32GB DDR4 2666

Dual Asus STRIX GTX 980ti in SLI w/ IK waterblocks

512GB Samsung 850 Pro

2TB Seagate Baracuda 2.5" SATA platter drive

Koolance CPU-360 waterblock in stainless

MCP655 pump

Dual EK reservoirs (one large, one small)

350w TEC peltier cooling unit

Dual custom cooling towers

LOTS of PETG tubing

 

I had this idea to use a couple of Opteron 6372 CPUs as a virtualization/gaming/design machine. All the best things under one hood. Unfortunately, the clock on there was only one dual G34 Mobo on the market worth a hill of beans, and only one incredibly generic looking but ugly case to house it in, so I decided to do it from scratch. A friend provided me with a GTX590 and a rather massive 360w TEC . . . .

 

So that lead to a platform+tower configuration after I decided to use two large reservior/cooling towers. They're 15" transmission cooling towers, commonly used in off-road trucks. The glass tube that is used to control airflow over the fins is lab glass provided by a friend, and the mounting collars and lower collector are rubber plumbing connectors. 

 

All the metal is 18 gauge stainless, 1/4" perforated 16 gauge cold-rolled steel, and aluminum flat stock or angle stock. Held together predominantly with rivets, screws where needed for serviceability. 

 

It has three power supplies. One for the main system (a bit of overkill here, but my plan was dual Opteron, dual GTX590s with 128gb RAM). The second is a 24v 500w PSU for the TEC, and a small 4a 12v PSU so I can run the pump independent of the main PSU, for purging purposes or in case of thermal runaway (for whatever reason).

 

I also included a bypass valve on the lower right below one of the cooling towers. These have speed connectors and a valve inside the chassis to open the bypass. This bypass is located in the loop just before the pump, so I can use it to fill the system, or do a fluid exchange.

 

Other unusual features are the cutoff valves before the video cards so I can remove those without causing too big of an interuption to the loop, switch to flip the pump from main PSU power to the auxilary 12v unit, an air bleed on the top of one of the towers, and a hot-swap drive dock on the top of the platform section.

 

The thing is big, really big.  Too big, really. 30" wide, 22" deep, and 24" tall at the top of the air bleed on tower 2.

 

The cooling towers are electrically isolated in order to prevent electrolysis, and therefore leaks. They have hand fit o-rings in order to prevent rattles against the glass. I started with copper tubing, which proved to be problematic, as well as one too many steampunk comments. I was going for industrial, but trying to avoid steampunk. I switched to PETG with black fluid to try to move more that direction.

 

For lighting, I used white and red LED strips controlled by the two switches on the right front of the machine. The big switch below the overhang is for power the TEC's PSU on and off.

 

In the finished picture, you'll see a couple soda bottles there for size comparison. The larger one is a 500ml Sprite.