Waterproof motherboard?

Hey guys, im not sure if this is the right section to ask in, but i want to create an underwater PC. The brief is to put a mini itx system in a working fish tank with real live fishes and everything! Any thoughts? Any help greatly appreciated!

lol dont u wil kill the fishes

You could encase the motherboard in a container with fluorinert I suppose but I don't think it would be good for the fish if any leaked...

i think your pc would fry if you didnt have some sort of tube extending from the pc to the outside of the fish tank, there would be no place for the air to go. And if you got it in the water without water getting in it, how would you put CD's in?

Wicked idea!!!!! i love reading stuff like this

how are you planning on cooling this puppy? You could water cool the cpu, and gpu for that matter but you'd need to have the pipes coming out of the tank. The general heat in the case may cause the water temp to raise, which may be a problem for your fish.

Plus the water temp will very a lot depending on if you have the box on or not, and fishes like a constant temperature, so you will need to leave the pc on 24/7.
No matter what you do there will have to be some outside contact. If you submerge the thing in fluorinert (actually it doesn't have to be fluorinert you could even use vegetable oil - its non conductive and has good thermal capacity) you will still need some kind of a pump to allow to flourinert to heat exchange away from the case. If you choose not to use flourinert then you'll need two exhausts one air in (probable need to be air conditioned somehow) and one air out.

You could just leave the top of the pc, but then that kind of defeats the point of submerging it.

Personally i think a better bet may be to redesign the fish tank so as to have a sealed hole/well in the bottom (made out of clear plastic) and then place the tank over the pc. This way it looks like the pc is in the tank, but really it doesn't make contact with the water, but even then you have the ventelation issue.

you may want to read
http://www.octools.com/ramil/newscientist/faster.htm
http://nobispro.com/aquatank/
http://www.eppenga.com/folder.php?id=21
http://www.octools.com/index.cgi?caller=articles/submersion2/day1.html

i will post more later

there is another thread about this
http://www.computerforum.com/showthread.php?t=11270

And if you got it in the water without water getting in it, how would you put CD's in?

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Who said the CDdrive was underwater?

how are you planning on cooling this puppy

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Well.... submersion cooling Of course with fishies youll want to avoid fans too.

Basicaly i am trying to get the motherboard and the connected components as close as possible so i will not be using a conventional 3.5" hardrive, but a 4gb Compact flash card with the operating system and what have you on. The cd i am trying to do away with completly, but if i was forced to get one, it would be external (hopefully Wireless-USB if and when they ever get round to giving it to us!) thus resulting in a complete system in one unit, which will be easier to insulate from the water. The mini itx currently runs at about 30 degrees c with a copper heatsink, but when it is in the tank it will be water cooled. They will be tropical fish aswell so will enjoy the temperature anyway. Submersion cooling was an option but as praetor noticed, fishes dont like fluorinert! The ideal solution is to dip the whole lot in PVA glue (or something that would actually work.) and drop it in the tank and hope for the best. One of the main problems at the moment is seperating the motherboard and attached components from the water. Thanks for all you help so far, especially apj101. Cheers!

O and also is there any way I can delete stupid posts like "lol dont u wil kill the fishes" from evilxp2800? They are just cluttering up this post from the serious business. Admin please help!

Admin please help!

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Freedom of speech. Subject to my dictatorship. Granted it is cluttering however I'll let it slide now as I dont suspect anymore clutter to come here (if it does, it'll be dealt with)

the whole computer would be underwater, and unless the cd drives are usb, they would have to be in the water

and unless the cd drives are usb, they would have to be in the water

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You can have the cd drive outside of water and the cables snaking out

I think he was looking for the computer to be "completely" submerged in water, not the cd drive above water

you'd have to make sure your system is stable as hell before you putting it into a fish tank.
i was thinking that you could use water cooling for the various chips (no not the fish tank water ) and have the motherboard etc with the water cooling hoses and blocks encased in a block of perspex... dunno how that would work with regards to heat but it'd be pretty damn permenant lol.
a water-tight tub with your motherboard mounted inside would be a better idea tho

underwater pc... u are too crazy. i personally wouldnt risk it, but if ur rich, then go right ahead!!!!!1 lol. but if u afraid of ur mobo getting wet, then y dont u just make like a plexy glass "fishtank" or w/e like a box, and put the stuff in there.

The "gubbins" tub was a last resort really, but ultimatly the most practical. It would have hoses sucking the air in and blowing it out so would also be kept cool especially with the water cooling. The question is though, what can i sealmy motherboard with to stop water getting to it? It needs to be 100% see through, non toxic to the fishees, and also pretty non electro conductive would be good aswell! Cheers for all the help so far guys, its been invaluble!

i remember seeing something a while ago on the television something having trophies sealed inside a block of clear perspex; i also remember them saying that they would put almost anything in perspex.

i've tried a quick search on google for it but i cant seem to find anything. hope the info helps if you can follow it up

another option i have just thought of is vacuum forming around the gubbins (the 'board,ram,psu,cf hdd,etc) which, for thouse who dont know, is when you heat up plastic so it gets a bit flexible, and then suck it down really hard onto the object underneath, completly encasing it in plastic. But as hairy lee noticed, the system would have to be damn stable before I embalm it in plastic, unless it was somehow removable. hmmmmm...Would the vacuum forming follow all the properties listed in my last post? Would i be able to remove it again afterwards? So many questions, so few reasonable replies!

a difficulty with what you mentioned there is the pressure involved... i did some work with plastics in school and the main problem here is the force being exerted on items such as the capacitors.

in order to prevent this you could mount a sheet of glass or plastic on the underside and upper side of the motherboard to create a gap to protect the electronics.

if you use this in conjunction with the vacuum formed plastic you could get at the motherboard itself by cutting the plastics off... but you'd have to get it reformed every time you want to put it back again

Hmmm. I could get it vaccum formed in a two piece shell, and seal it with some sort of putty that i could cut through and repaste everytime. This link was in another post on here, so i stole it. http://home.versatel.nl/robertstoppels/274_big.jpg .This is what i want to create, but without the perspex box, and the board mounted at an incline facing the front of the tank. My project will have fish aswell.