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VanCleef2012

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 27, 2012
23
0
till you actually do it it's not done. no matter if it is drawn up fully it still needs to be built and tested. I remember these architect students brought me their chair design to cut out for them. chose the cheapest plywood and had all these small parts. they learned the lesson when they had to assemble it and what a pain it was. just because it can be drawn does not mean it will work.

Well I never said it was done, but I did say I was updating the thread when progress is made. So thank you for your input! I will be checking out kickstarter in a bit. But I wanted to see what the mac community would think and if the thread would gain any interest, which it did! If you want the thread to go away then I understand completely. But I've gained a lot more knowledge from peoples responses!
 

RogersDA

macrumors 6502
Aug 19, 2009
271
0
I've recently designed and have a patent pending for a mac mini watercooling "kit". The design itself looks like something out of apples design studios, its amazing!

Well I never said it was done...

So I am confused. For a design patent (in the U.S.) the design must be done before you file your application. For a utility patent the device has to function, and allow others to make and use; i.e., the invention is enabled.
 

iPhisch

macrumors 6502
Jun 22, 2010
353
82
Indiana
What's your Patent Application Nubmer? I want to check this out.
If your patent is "pending" you could post a link to the application from freepatentsonline for us to see.
 

RogersDA

macrumors 6502
Aug 19, 2009
271
0
What's your Patent Application Nubmer? I want to check this out.
If your patent is "pending" you could post a link to the application from freepatentsonline for us to see.

I asked this in post #19 above. Also, it will only be available to the public if/when the application has been published (in the U.S. it is called a pre-grant publication).
 

iPhisch

macrumors 6502
Jun 22, 2010
353
82
Indiana
I asked this in post #19 above. Also, it will only be available to the public if/when the application has been published (in the U.S. it is called a pre-grant publication).

This I know, sir. Takes 18 months to publish after filing.
So how big is this rig that's being discussed? You know what I do when my mini gets hot from video encoding? Slap an ice pack on top. Maybe I should file a disclosure with our IP department...
 

Consultant

macrumors G5
Jun 27, 2007
13,314
34
My imagined MacPro mini is patent pending too.

So I am confused. For a design patent (in the U.S.) the design must be done before you file your application. For a utility patent the device has to function, and allow others to make and use; i.e., the invention is enabled.

Exactly.
 

sampers

macrumors member
Apr 7, 2010
55
0
Belgium
As said before, I'm currently interessed in more air cooling for my mini.
But i'm still very curious in what this would be, I reread the thread a couple times, and it has me wondering. and if like you said the pricing is set from 149$ maybe there could be some additional people experimenting.

The housing I'm convinced it will be a 'seamless' integration with the mini. what makes me wondering is, what kind of 'water blocks' there will be? and for which parts? Aluminium or Copper, ... ?
like for desktops it exists for cpu, gpu, ram (but those are DIMM, not soDIMM)?







This is somthing I want to see. But even better would be a water cooled Mac Pro.

http://www.asetek.com/blog/163-asetek-liquid-cooled-a-overclocked-apple-mac-pro.html
 

CoolmaxMini

macrumors member
Jan 22, 2012
35
0
Hey guys I recently purchased a 2011 Mac Mini i5 with the 6630m and love it. I mostly do gaming, movies, the usual college student stuff. I've noticed when my cpu hits 90+ degrees that my fps drop, youtube vid skips a bit, etc. Recently I've fallen in love with watercooling PC's. I've recently designed and have a patent pending for a mac mini watercooling "kit". The design itself looks like something out of apples design studios, its amazing! But a big gap in the plan is whether or not the community would be interested. 2012 will be a big year of gaming for apple as blizzard will be releasing 3 big hits this year(diablo 3, starcraft xpac, and warcraft xpac). As well as steams Counter-strike:Global Offense and Dota 2. Also considered other games in bootcamp.

So I come asking for opinions! Would anyone be somewhat interested in a watercooled mac mini setup? How does the idea sound? Any opinion at all! I know I have not supplied much information on the kit to really get an opinion. None the less please, any input is greatly appreciated. :apple:

I know this is my first post but it is not a troll or fake thread!

To me, it does not really make sense as a business plan because I don't think you've done enough research to validate your water cooling system as being one of the best and only option to cool the Mini while gaming. Also, had you done some research on how many people actually own the Mini with discreet graphics yet?

Have you investigated other available less expensive cooling option? How do they fair against yours? Do you have a working prototype yet? Do you know or are you sure yours is the only best cooling system. Just because you think a water cooling system is a great idea does not mean that you're going to get people buying.

Let me tell you why. Traditionally, experience gamers buy PCs to play games so from there, you are gambling whether there will be people defecting from the PC to the Mini as this is probably the most plausible switch most people who go from where your product will end up being bought. Secondly, if you've look at the sales figure from Apple lately, their computer sales have slow increases; only the iPhone 4s and iPad2 have dramatic increase which means, sales of the Mini Core i series will be at what slice of the pie of all aggregated sales?

My concern is that, some people already presented alternative cooling systems that may do a similar job to yours at a lower cost, but you don't know this until you have a prototype. But you don't and you don't know for sure it works much better either. I suggest building a prototype first, do some tests and make sure it works as you claimed. Because if it doesn't, then expect returns of your product plus twitter rants from upset customers claiming your product a dud and you don't want that.
 
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RogersDA

macrumors 6502
Aug 19, 2009
271
0
My imagined MacPro mini is patent pending too.

Exactly.

You are too late to this.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/13/mac-mini-pro-mod-is-almost-the-midrange-tower-mac-youve-always/

----------

This I know, sir. Takes 18 months to publish after filing.
So how big is this rig that's being discussed? You know what I do when my mini gets hot from video encoding? Slap an ice pack on top. Maybe I should file a disclosure with our IP department...
I'll keep an eye out to make sure it is summarily rejected. :p
 

choncholito

macrumors newbie
Mar 13, 2008
1
0
Put me down as INTERESTED

I think its a cool idea, but I agree the GPU is mediocre at best. The idea of creating a WC rig is to push the components beyond the rating. Doing this on integrated GPU won't really give you a lot of bang for your buck, nor will gamers be really interested in it

I'm not a "gamer" but I do love my games, and the mini is looking to be my system of choice going forward given it's small footprint and near silent operation. i mean really what other rig is this attractive, small, powerful, and VESA mountable?

WC would be at the top of my shopping list if it becomes reality.
 

ratsg

macrumors 6502
Dec 6, 2010
382
29
To the OP, I am asking this because it wasn't clear in your original post.

Will your kit essentially be a CPU radiator design similar to what was done on the PowerMac G5 towers?

Or are you planning to immerse your mini in a non-conductive fluid?

Thank you
 

sampers

macrumors member
Apr 7, 2010
55
0
Belgium
i mean really what other rig is this attractive, small, powerful, and VESA mountable?

WC would be at the top of my shopping list if it becomes reality.

Those might change when the kit is applied.
But do share your point of view;

Lot's of games were played on older computers, lot's of video editing done, ...
 

eutexian

macrumors regular
Jan 6, 2012
119
9
Mapperley, Nottingham UK
I'm not a "gamer" but I do love my games, and the mini is looking to be my system of choice going forward given it's small footprint and near silent operation. i mean really what other rig is this attractive, small, powerful, and VESA mountable?

WC would be at the top of my shopping list if it becomes reality.


It wouldn't be in my shopping list at all.. because it would no longer be a mac mini. It would have to be larger.. and I want smaller.

I don't want a 'Moist Mac Maxi' :rolleyes:
 

drrbc

macrumors newbie
Oct 29, 2009
24
0
Water cooled mini

I'd be interested in seeing your work as for more than a year now I've been using an original water cooling solution on my Mac Pro.

Hopefully, within the month, I'll be turning out another "Over-clocked, Water-cooled Mac Pro" that utilizes heatsinks/exchangers of my own design. Personally, I've found designing and fabricating these parts to be quite challenging, and I'm happy you've been able to progress so well. I hope you'll share your design thoughts and test data with the forum.

Regards,
Robert

3.3Ghz MacPro1,1
2X BSEL/VID'd Intel Confidential X5350's
Koolance and EK waterblocks to GeoThermal loop cooling
6GB 667 FB-DIMMs
2.5TB (total) twin internal striped RAID arrays
.45 Longslide (laser sighting)
ATI 5770 to 2X 30in. Apple Cinema Displays
Phased plasma rifle (in the 40 watt range)
Internal Pioneer BDR-205
 

TheMTtakeover

macrumors 6502
Aug 3, 2011
470
7
Very Interested in this. I produce and run studio software are on mac mini and do some small gaming and I know how hot this thing gets in a short period of time. I worry about turning up the fan speed because I don't want to burn them out. I do have a fan underneath of it which helps a lot but if this can drop the temp as much as you say it can I am very interested in it.
 

drrbc

macrumors newbie
Oct 29, 2009
24
0
Market for?

Don't put any money in this. There's no market for it.

Don't know about that.

Although I had to water cool to prevent over heats whilst encoding, my main concern was to cool off my office.

High end users tend to produce a lot of watts. My system pumps the heat outdoors and into the dirt, making the office more comfortable and reducing my electric bill. Money saved.

Robert
3.3Ghz MacPro1,1
2X BSEL/VID'd Intel Confidential X5350's
Koolance and EK waterblocks to GeoThermal loop cooling
12GB 667 FB-DIMMs
2.5TB (total) twin internal striped RAID arrays
.45 Longslide (laser sighting)
ATI 5770 to 2X 30in. Apple Cinema Displays
Phased plasma rifle (in the 40 watt range)
Internal Pioneer BDR-205
 

paulrbeers

macrumors 68040
Dec 17, 2009
3,963
123
Don't know about that.

Although I had to water cool to prevent over heats whilst encoding, my main concern was to cool off my office.

High end users tend to produce a lot of watts. My system pumps the heat outdoors and into the dirt, making the office more comfortable and reducing my electric bill. Money saved.

Robert
3.3Ghz MacPro1,1
2X BSEL/VID'd Intel Confidential X5350's
Koolance and EK waterblocks to GeoThermal loop cooling
12GB 667 FB-DIMMs
2.5TB (total) twin internal striped RAID arrays
.45 Longslide (laser sighting)
ATI 5770 to 2X 30in. Apple Cinema Displays
Phased plasma rifle (in the 40 watt range)
Internal Pioneer BDR-205

The heat given off by a 100 watt Mac mini is in no way comparable to a Mac Pro. Further the heat doesn't go away when water cooled. The while point of water coolin is to more easily pull the heat out from inside your case. Water cooling would theoretically increase your office temps more so than non-water cooling.
 

drrbc

macrumors newbie
Oct 29, 2009
24
0
The heat given off by a 100 watt Mac mini is in no way comparable to a Mac Pro. Further the heat doesn't go away when water cooled. The while point of water coolin is to more easily pull the heat out from inside your case. Water cooling would theoretically increase your office temps more so than non-water cooling.

Agreed.

But again, my interest isn't necessarily just to "pull the heat out from inside (my) case", but to collect the heat to transport it out of my house entirely. The fact that the two overclocked Clovers never go over 60ºC and shutdown the Mac during a long encode is simply a bonus that allowed me to get 4 extra cores with a 10% increase in clock frequency. I'm paying a penalty in more electricity to run the Mac, but I'm mitigating that by not paying for that electricity twice (once to run the Mac, and once to cool it).

The point being if you have an appliance, a Mac mini, and it "costs" you 100 watts to use- it will again cost you more than 100 watts to cool the environment your Mac mini is in. It's like having a tax on a tax, and I HATE taxes.

So if this gentleman has a method of transporting heat from an appliance, any appliance, I'm interested. And if he figures out a way to watercool my refrigerator (yeah, that's the one that really bugs me) i'll be all over the guy like stink on... shoot, let's say he'll have my full attention.

But let's say all he gets out of this is fewer artifacts while gaming, I'd still say "Bravo to you" and I may also wonder if others would like such a product.

So pal, here are the links to my stuff. Now teach me something I can use.

http://blog.macsales.com/10724-adventures-in-creating-an-octocore-mac-pro-part-1

http://blog.macsales.com/11354-adventures-in-creating-an-octocore-mac-pro-–-part-2

Regards,
Robert
3.3Ghz MacPro1,1
2X BSEL/VID'd Intel Confidential X5350's
Koolance and EK waterblocks to GeoThermal loop cooling
12GB 667 FB-DIMMs
2.5TB (total) twin internal striped RAID arrays
.45 Longslide (laser sighting)
ATI 5770 to 2X 30in. Apple Cinema Displays
Phased plasma rifle (in the 40 watt range)
Internal Pioneer BDR-205
 

grapey

macrumors newbie
Mar 28, 2012
2
0
Not sure if it was already mentioned but I don't think you're idea could be profitable because anyone who is serious enough to water cool their mac would want to play games from a disk as well as downloaded and the super drive is really not as conveniant. I really like the idea but I do not think it's the right computer model to target. A system for the Mac pro however.....
 

kenofstephen

macrumors newbie
Jun 25, 2012
3
0
no offense but Apple had filed this patent many years ago,
just they haven't use the tech. in the production yet.
 
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