Guys, have you ever wanted a powerful HTPC yet looks nice to put besides your TV? However, there is something which bugging you the most, is the HEAT! Yes, the heat definately is your worst enemy when you are in the same condition as I am.
a) No air con.
b) Room temperature is high
c) No budget for water cooling

Well, when I was setting up my home theater, with 42 inch Toshiba and Sony HT, my plan was clear at that time, to turn my current gaming rig into a HTPC, small yet powerful (hehe, with Gigabyte 460GTX, entry class lah... no budget ma...

At first, when i try to play game, the temperate is sky rocketing, CPU reaching 75 degree and GPU around 83, wow, I worry the heat will kill my rig within a year. At that time, I was thinking: I wish I have intelligent hardware which automatically open up my case and let the heat out !

When I was a child, I actually planned to be an E&E engineer, but I was unlucky, end up be a software engineer. When I was child, I always think of: one day if I old enuf, when I have the $$, I hope I can buy this, do this... To me, I just wanted to play with RC Motors, remote controller and be creative to build something, something like Robot. Why not since I'm still single, and got plenty of time, why not I build something so that my HTPC can take it breath while trying to serve me the best during gaming?

This is the thing i have prepared:
a) An old Dell Workstation Casing (which going to be my new HTPC Casing, save the existing one so that I can sell it later)
b) Bought a Servo micro controller
c) 2x Servo
d) and Help from RonModz to help me cut the Dell casing into the shape that I wanted.

This is how it looks like:

(I wanted to put my PS3 on top of it, caz putting PS3 into the small area will also causing it to overheat)


(This is the sofware I wrote, to detect temperature and open the hatch at will)






(When remove my PS3 out)


(Closed)

This post has been edited by lkp857: Oct 16 2010, 12:33 PM

good luck!

Hey, looks cool Bro!! Glad it worked out

like torpedo hatch on submarine!! cool!!

Very cool!

So do the hatches open and close automatically according to temperature? Does the PC sound noticeably louder when the hatches are open? What's the impact on the CPU/GPU temps?

wow..this is interesting..can show the proecss on what you did and how much u spend total to design the stuff?

wah so nice bos...like bonet kerete...
blh buka & tutup....
awesome job++ nice PS3 there..huhu

Temperature stop raising and getting lower of caz, however, yes the noise is loud (depend on your Fan). Yes I can configure what temp it should open and which one to open.

---

Added on October 20, 2010, 8:27 pmArr... Forgot to shoot during fabrication. Just design two big square holes in adobe illustrator, asked Ronz to help me to cut it, bought the servo controller from cytron, hook up, test it, wrote my own software to control it

This post has been edited by lkp857: Oct 20 2010, 08:27 PM

maybe u can teach us here how u do it in detail~like me
im not pro~so need a bit step by step

ok, let me schedule a time to do some writeup

most creative case mod year 2010.......

cool man~~~

damn nice and great job !

hey not bad man...creative..

woww~ rare casing! comes with ps3 summore.. hehe

Yeah, nice mod...

post some details or some howtos..

Mind to hare with us where did U get the below items and how much do they cost?

b) Bought a Servo micro controller
c) 2x Servo


Is the software written using VB?

Wow nice. This project is cool.

<lkp857> : Can I know what type of controller do u use to control the servo and also its connected via usb or serial onboard ? How about the programming language used ? I've some mc68 left from my FYP that can be used.

I think can control using arduino microcontroller. It can control some device; servo, motor, lights, temperature sensors as well. It also come with SDK.

Could you please at least give us a link to the software? Or your basic device controlling software?