Hi all,
If you require extra render power and can build your own computer, then maybe you will be interested in this new product, it is still under development but should be available soon. Renderpockets is a screwless lasercut plexiglas case that fits inside Ikea Helmer drawer perfectly, this saves you alot of time if you wanted to build your own helmer renderfarm.
To keep track of the project you can follow on facebook: www.facebook.com/renderpockets
Thanks,
Art
Very exciting concept, but of course it all comes down to implementation.
Intuitively I would think by the looks of it that this solution would suffer with noise and heat problems. There are several fans pictured that blow the air upwards. What the hell good is that if it blows that hot air right up into the CPU above it–or if that venting is obstructed?!
I hope I’m wrong…and that it is affordable.
This looks cool man. Are you trying to turn this into a business, or doing it just for fun?
Newegg looks flooded with cheap, $50-80 small form factor computer cases that also include a PSU. Some of the cheap square ones can even accommodate larger 120mm+ fans that are reasonably quiet in small numbers. There are some clever designs where the motherboard sits on top of the PSU, and the whole thing is cooled by a giant low RPM fan at the front of the case.
Does anyone work with 6 render nodes running full out right next to them? Does the heat and noise get annoying? I got as far as two render nodes at my desk before they got moved to another room. The novelty of having them at your desk is fun for a while, but when you’ve launched a week long render, you just want them to go away and do their work some where else. 
So far, the working prototype doesn’t get past 80c at full load, and stays cool at only 25c at idle, those temperatures are very good for air cooled systems. I am still conducting tests with various set-ups but it looks like the best option is to have at least 1 front fan and 1 back fan, and a better CPU cooler such as Noctua low profile cooler.
The fan you see in upwards position is the CPU cooler, not a regular fan blowing upwards
The noise level really depends on the quality of fans you buy, I have 3x60mm noctua fans plus noctua low profile cpu cooler and the system is no louder than a laptop. Of-course when you have 6 of those running together you can hear the noise, but can easily be fixed with some music in the background.
Well, actually both, it started as a fun personal project and now has a possibility to become online shop. I do not plan to go big with this, I just felt that this item should be out there for those who are interested to build their own helmer farm. The heat is really not a big problem, I get maximum 80c, which is normal for a rendering computer.
Right now I am experimenting with different CPU coolers, and some can reduce the temperature by 10-15c, a number of my nodes already operate at 65c at full load, and 20c at idle.
The noise level increases when you have more than 3 nodes turned on, if you want to minimize noise you can do a full stealth mode, without front fans, this will be quieter but the temperature will increase.
There are many nice cases on newegg, but most of them are about twice the size of 1 renderpocket, even those HTPC cases for entertainment are twice as long, there are some cases that are much smaller than renderpockets but they are not meant for i7 cpu.
