Project-Intro

My Project . . . the first EVER . . .
"Bubbler PC"

- demo machine, featuring many of the items showcased here -

BlowUp - Click to Enlarge image above

Before

July 19, 2005

After

Feb 13, 2006
90% Done

Awesome !!! Plasma ball and LED sequencers add a lot of pizzazz - but the 3 bubblers kick ass (2 side panels and one center cylinder). Still need to add an RGB fading power LED underneath the cylinder - so for now I put a blue Lamina BL-2000 there.

Have all the lights in place except a Casino Candle Tower light from HAPP controls which will sit on top at the back next to the LED fan. I also need to add the Lamina BL-4000 RGB light under the center cylinder bubbler. Still need to get the pump running, and the panels and cylinder filled with water - the funnest part !!

Once assembled, the system
will have the this lighted PSU, LED CPU Fan, and Tracer LED Memory Installed

At least as far as I know, this has never been done before. It looks great, and is amazingly quiet considering all the bubble activity and the pump. It is about 90% done.

Unfortunately, this really is a Rat's Nest - I mean, how do you hide a thousand wires in a clear case? The best thing to do is diagram every wire, and then work on the diagram . . . moving them into common bundles. Then strip everything out and painstakingly re-wire the whole damn thing !!!

Obviously this is a very "busy" theme and includes everything but the kitchen sink. Therefore I included three extra power switches on the front (UV Lighting, Colored Lighting, and the Bubbler Pump system) - so that I can shut down major areas of lighting and activity when I just want some quiet. This is actually a demo for my Website, showing a bunch of various things you can do to a machine. Lots of electronics are included [2 types of RGB power LED controllers, 2 types of LED chasers (8-cherry drop LED's on top and 16-blue LED's on the bottom), plasma ball, LED sequencers on the fan faceplates, etc]. Here is a full-size image of the case - as you can see I have a lot of wire management work to do before boxing it up. The Plasma Ball globe has not been sealed yet since I need to take it out a lot right now, which is why it is at an angle.

The Bubblers - to make the side panels, I created 2 watertight boxes (6 x 15 x 1/2") from acrylic and a lot of trial and error using Weld-On #4. The panels are attached to the bay panels using velcro so that they can be easily removed. I also made a tall acrylic cylinder for the center of my clear acrylic PC. Everything is tightly sealed. I included exhaust tubing for all the bubblers which I used two "T" fittings so that all 3 of them merge into one tube that runs out the back - this way the water vapor coming out of the top of the bubblers does not get into the case and cause corrosion. That lightning thing on the bottom is a 6" "Luminglas" plasma disk - there is one on the right too, just inside the bubbler panels.

To get air bubbles into the 3 bubblers, I added a sealed bulkhead to the bottom side of each - this was the most difficult part of the entire mod - especially to make it NOT leak !!! I connected aquarium airstones to the bulkhead, and they stay at the bottom, and send up a wall of bubbles. I then ran in aquarium tubing from the outside, sealed it with epoxy, and connected the tubes to a set of lighted gang valves to control the air flow amount. I added LED's into the Gang Valves, which are not lighted normally:

Gang Valves with LED's
*** the dials allow you to adjust airflow from none to full ***
1 airline in from Pump - 3 airlines out to the 2 panels and the cylinder

The gang valves will hang neat the back top of the left panel so that I can control the air flow to any given bubbler from outside the PC. The gang valves have air pumped into them by a "Whisper 30" aquarium pump (the Whisper 10 and 20 were unable to power all 3 bubblers). The pump requires 120vAC so I drilled holes into my PSU, soldered wires directly into the 120vAC input lugs, and ran the wiring to a switch mounted on the front of my PC. I then ran another set of wires back to the pump.

Bubbler RGB Lighting, done with Power RGB Controllers and Power RGB LED's with color change Fader controllers - included 2 types of RGB power LED controllers (Clive's and FOP's). A set of illuminated pushbuttons are mounted on the left side panel. They control the sequences for the two RGB controllers and power LED's - they, in turn light the bubbler panels (from the top by two custom made power RGB LED strips) and the cylinder (lit from below by a Lamina BL-4000 RGB power LED on a heat sink). The top bubbler light strip continually fades colors, so the red color you see will fade to blue, then to green, yellow, etc - the color fade speed is adjustable by a button on the left panel.

EL wires on a Sequencer - when done - the cylinder bubbler will be wrapped with 4 different colored EL-wires, barber-pole style, and then will be sequnced to turn on one at a time using a Sunbeam Lightbus which sits in the front bay and allows you to control the pattern, or light them up with no flashing.

Lumindisk - that lightning thing on the bottom is a 6" "Luminglas" plasma disk - there in one on the right too, just inside the bubbler panels.

Extra Power Switches - since this is a very "busy" theme I included three extra power switches on the front (UV Lighting, Colored Lighting, and the Bubbler Pump system) - so that I can shut down major areas of lighting and activity when I just want some quiet.

Plasma Ball - I wanted this fully on top, and not just a third of it peeking out as I have seen others so. I was able to do this by taking a dreamel, cutting a line in the collar, and popping out the globe. Then I drilled a 3" hole and stuck the collor through from underneath and popped the globe back in from above.

LED chasers - mounted on the front panel - 2 types: DonnieJ's 8-cherry drop LED's on top, and KnightLight's 16-blue LED chaser on the bottom. I can control the various sequences by lighted pushbuttons that I mount on the left panel.

Scrolling LED sign - this was made from an LED belt buckle, by craking off the buckle hinge and mounting it with 3M mounting tape, to the floppy drive. I rarely use the drive, but if I need it I just pop out the LED sign.

The whole project has been very challenging, but a blast. I will, when time permits - create a full work log. Here is a full pic describing the items I have added - I still have some more items to add, too

When done - the cylinder bubbler will be wrapped with 4 different colored EL-wires, barber-pole style, and they will be sequnced to turn on/off sequentially, using a Sunbeam Lightbus which will sit in the front bay. The Lightbus allows you 2 patterns (they should have added several more), or you can turn any of the 4 lights ON with no flashing, or fade them all On/Off/On/Off etc.

First off - I wanted to make a case with something, or maybe a couple of "somethings" - that NO OTHER CASE HAS. That way I can truly feel I have created something new and interesting. Also - this is a great demo of this website . . . showing a lot of the items that I describe here.

Just got the bubblers working. Still need to add the RGB LED under the cylinder, but I am waiting on the cathode resistors (22, 15, and 15 ohms for RGB)

have the exhaust tubing designed finally and connected up - except the rear exit and hole

the Lumindisk on the side panel causes the FOP RGB controller to go haywire . . . flashing on and off instead of doing the color fade. I tried everything to fix this - shielding of all sorts. However, the only fix is to move the FOP away from the Lumindisks, which is what I finally ended up doing. Oddly - they have NO EFFECT on Clive's RGB controller.

the converted "belt buckle" scrolling LED message device went bad - the bottom half went out so all you could see is the top half of the scrolling message. Bought a new one, but I have to go through all that electronic re-wiring to get the battery contacts connected to a 5v source, which is a pain for this small device.

I ordered my 3rd Sunbeam Lightbus. Apparently they do not handle voltage fluctuation well at all. Something happens when you connect two external power supplies to the system. Most components require just 12v and some 5v. But the Lightbus needs both 12v and 5v, and when I connected up two separate external power supplies, everything was fine, except the Lightbus and the 16-LED chaser - both instantly went out. This has happened twice to (yes I am an idiot !!).

I was going to also order my 3rd PWM fan controller (called "Noise Isolator) - I love the 2 power buttons, whihc no other fan controller has. But they are junk and continually break !!! I decided to NOT use the broken button. NO MORE !!!

KnightLight 16-LED sequencer are flaky as hell. 3 of them have gone out completely - 2 for the same reason as the Lightbus - my stupidity !! But the remaining one I have, just as with all of them, never acts as it is supposed to. Goes out suddenly, does not display all sequences, randomly screws up in many ways !!!