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Weirdest Case Mod You've Ever Seen
mattman writes: "Here's the stangest case modification you've ever seen. Someone assembled a pile of computer parts, hooked them up without a case and covered the lot with quick-dry spray foam. The result is a light-weight computer ready for LAN parties." This is wrong.
It was covered in on Slashdot However, use the previous link, the story's link is no longer valid. You've been warned.
http://www.maximumpc.com/ did more or less this.. but they left the computer in the case and filled the case full of foam.
Though their computer would not boot after they filled it with foam.
It was just eye candy, but at least its *good* eye candy.
The heavy equipment needed for water cooling would defeat the purpose of having a light foam case, so I was thinking a series of ducts.
:-) The duct idea is one I think would be most reasonable, if someone were crazy enough to relly want to try this with a modern PC. The foam idea is kind of neat, though, in a weird way--you could probably sculpt it into just about any shape. Just imagine, you could show up at a big LAN party with a PC-sculpture of the Q3 logo... ;-)
Picture a thin plastic duct leading from one end, to the CPU, to the GPU, and to anywhere else on a given modern system that would get particularly hot--northbridge on some systems, perhaps. *Then* with the ducts in place, one could encase the whole thing in foam and have an intake on one side and an out-take on the other, with a high-capacity fan on each side to keep the air moving and pump the heat out quck.
Then of course one could power on the PC and hope the thing doesn't overheat anyway.
Chasing Amy
(We all chase Amy...)
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws"-Tacitus
There might just be another way to look at this... don't take it as a "finished" deal, more as a proof of concept to be extended further.
I have a PC running inside a Wizards of the Coast cardboard box (K6-2/300), and have been considering other wacky ways of doing the case for it (no, I will not just use a spare PC case
The PC isn't going to be upgraded any further, as it's already just a linux development workstation and test web/db server. I could take the assembled components, build a basic cardboard frame around the assembly to keep a rectangular (1 PCI card height) form factor, and then simply fill the interior with spray foam. This would yield two benefits: (1) The exterior cardboard frame doesn't actually support the components once the foam has solidified, so it doesn't have to be strong (and could probably be removed afterward), (2) the PC is still a rectangular form factor and *very* stable (no cards coming lose in this thing!).
Yep, this is definitely a go. I'll be headed to a hardware store in the morning, and my finished result should at least be more aesthetically pleasing than the "sheep mound" these guys built
Lol! Yes it does. That's the ugliest fucking computer on earth. And yet it's kinda cool. Wonder if I could do that to my iBook ;)
"There is no Death. Only a change of worlds."
Neat idea, but the execution is horrible.
Surely the next step is to create a nice mould for the case, and inject the mould with the foam. I've done pretty much the same thing using cans of insulation foam (used to fill large holes in walls). I took large balloons and filled them full of foam, then cut the balloon away from the foam. This gave a really nice teardrop of hard foam, that was very light.
Off the top of my head, I fugure the same thing can be done using a styrofoam cooler box with a PC in it, fill the thing full of foam after blanking off the internal guts with card, and when it's set crack the case off and shape with carving tools.
The beauty of doing this is that you could, with some serious planning, create some amazing looking designs that had built in air ducts that forced the cool intake air to spiral around heatsinks and hot components. I imagine a nautilus shell would be easy to do - you'd end up with a PC that looked really cool and would be built with great cooling capabilities from a single fan or set of fans.
Shell shaped quiet PC anyone?
Now wash your hands.
This has been brewing in my mind for some time now. I have seen transparant cases, transparent harddrives, tacks and now foam cases. Where are the laptop mods. Please post any links you have to laptop mods that are not stickers and spraypaint. This has been bugging me for some time. I want in on the mod action.
Ascii artist &
I've come across the idea of mounting electrical components in a moulded foam support while searching for general info on EPP foam. I don't have any experience with this myself, but it does look like an interesting idea.
0 01
Try searching google for "E-PAC" EPP foam.
The URL for an article on the subject is http://www.cconvergence.com/article/CTM20000515S0
The EPP design guide that I originally found is a pdf file that can be downloaded from http://www.tuscarora.com/components/epac.htm
Due to the one-of-a-kind nature of the NHP200NC, reproduction is impossible and orders are thus futile.
Carbon is an electrical conductor (at least when it's in the form of graphite). The foam in the article you mention is talking about a graphite foam. Hence I would be willing to bet it would cause all sorts of havoc with the electronics in the system ...
Now what would be cool would be someone running a system in a fish tank full of pure de-ionized water (hint : that doesn't conduct electricity)
TastesLikeHerringFlavoredChicken
TastesLikeHerringFlavoredChicken
Yeah, I don't think it's a major issue.
I make racks out of hand formed portland cement and newspapers mushed together into a slurry and then pressed into shape with nothing but gloved hands. I can easily stack four PC units along with room for a few audio amps in this kind of rack that goes up to the ceiling taking up the floor space that one ugly ol' PC case would take up.
I just lay the boards out on the racks with the PSUs and HDs off to the side and the ethernet cables dripping off of one end. It's a far cry from portable, but if you tend to collect quite a few machines, a rack is the way to go. I have way less problems with boards laying out open on my hand made racks than I do with the few machines I still have in conventional cases. And, when I do have problems they're way easier to fix and swapping parts is a breeze. Cheap cases suck and expensive ones are . . . expensive. I say build your own racks.
By the way, I got inspired to make these racks after I made a squashed spheroid sub-woofer encloscure out of the same cement/newspaper mixture about three feet in diameter and weighting at least a hundred pounds. It's the funky jelly donut from hell. This thing thumps big time. I highly recommend it although my downstairs neighbors mourn the day I built it.