Sekigahara

A couple of days ago, I was thinking about spending some of my graduation money on a nice WC setup for my quad. I wanted to make some part of it customized so that it would be unique to my system, but I couldn't decide what I wanted to mod. Later I was playing Bioshock, and it hit me.

Make a custom reservoir that is the head of a Big Daddy!

I was pretty psyched about the possibilities, so I got to work on some concept sketches.

For whatever reason, the pictures came out blue. I think the color calibration for my CS3 is going bonkers in collaboration with my monitor. Oh well.



They aren't the best drawings, and seeing as how I'm a perfectionist to the extreme when it comes to my personal artwork, I couldn't let these lie. I wanted this to come to fruition, so I took the time and energy (about 12-14 hours overall) to perfect the design in Photoshop.





The pictures are nice, but they don't do too well of a job explaining how it will work as a reservoir, so I'll do that.

95% of the objects you see in the Photoshop images are scaled correctly in millimeters. Some things, like the distance between the eyeholes and the bars, don't have any exact measurements, but those are details that can be ironed out later. I think that I'll have every part of the helmet and the reservoir made out of acrylic, and then possibly work the faceguard out of some hobby metal tubes and pipes and such.

The inner grey circle is supposed to be like x-ray vision, because that will be the inner hollow area. The distance from the grey line to the next black line is 5mm, so the acrylic will be 5mm thick, if you can picture that. The circles that could form a square from their position around the helmet are 120mm screw holes so that the res can be attached to a case fan mount. The eyeholes will be clear so that the water inside the interior hollow area of the helmet will glow through the eyeholes much like an actual Big Daddy. I'll be hand-painting and texturing the helmet with modeller's paint used for things like Warhammer, along with giving it a bit more rugged and pitted look to the helmet with sand/dirt/gravel used in model train sets. I think I might attach the flow barbs to the helmet where the little chin nozzles are now, but I don't know if they'd be too big.

There is a lot of detail that would need to go into this to make it work, and the forming of the reservoir shape from cut acrylic will not be easy (or cheap), but this could be a really kickass mod when everything is said and done.

I'll update this as I get more information on the possibility/expense required to have the shapes cut and make more progress with the mod.

UPDATES
6/22/08 - I've managed to find a retailer that sells 120mm acrylic domes, multiple kinds in fact, so I'm pretty sure that I've found the most obscure piece to the mod.
6/27/08 - The 120.7mm acrylic dome has been purchased, and I've made a list of my WC parts. I should be getting the acrylic for the rest of the mod in the next week or so.
6/28/08 - WC components have been ordered!
7/27/08 - Pictures of the dome and pictures of the watercooling all set up!
8/8/08 - Updated the design for the backplate.

Attached Thumbnails

     

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Syrillian

Oh Man! ...this is gonna be so schweet!

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McStuff

This would be totally awesome if you can pull it off. The one thing that would be difficult is to get the acrylic half dome. You're most likely going to have to find a pre-made one because making one would be incredibly difficult. I do like the idea for the barb placement and the fact that it would fit a 120mm fan hole. Another thing for you to consider is a fill port. I would think that having one of the top "eyes" unscrew would make a great way to fill it. Also, having uv yellow fluid to give the effect of the eyes glowing would be cool. I'll be happy to provide input along the way if you want it.

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ImmortalKenny

I will give you MAJOR amounts of cookies if you can successfully pull this off.

Subscribed for sure!

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nafljhy

that does seem like an awesome res. i can't wait to see this come into fruitation!

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Sekigahara

I only mention acrylic because it seems to be what most reservoirs are made from. another material that sounds like a better option was mentioned by CyberDruid in his waterfall res thread: Lexan, i believe it was. I'm in the dark about what kind of material would easily form to a half-sphere, so any suggestions from more expertised individuals would be much appreciated.

The barb idea was kind of an afterthought, but I'm really digging it now that I think about it. As far as the UV color goes, that was what I was thinking as well. A more complex idea I had would be to use Feser UV reactive tubing and a white/clear liquid for the loop and placing red, yellow, and green LEDs inside the reservoir that change the color at random, or even based on the water temperature!

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Gauvenator

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McStuff

I am not an expert at materials, but I would think molding 5mm thick acrylic into a half-sphere would be a pita. Just my thoughts, and I would wait for more experienced people to chime in. The barb placement is a pretty good afterthought; it seems the most logical placement to me. And while that led idea seems neat, I think it's overly complex and would probably look gaudy. I would go for simplicity. But if you were to go down the led route, I would get one led color because unity looks better than randomness imo. At the very least, a thought out color theme would be optimal. Red, yellow, and green share little relation. Analogous colors (colors next to each other on the color wheel) would look best. If you were to change out the green for orange, it would look much better.

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Sekigahara

The multiple LED idea was based on the game, since the Big Daddy eyes glow green when they're friendly (cool temps), yellow when they're neutral (mild temps), and red when they're hostile (hot temps). That would be awful complex, though, so I scrapped it to go with the yellowish green.

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McStuff

I was just sayin' that in one confined area, it doesn't really provide an aesthetically pleasing combination. But ya, yellow-green is a nice color. What would be cool is if you could get the acrylic a transparent neon yellow. That would look really nice.

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