I worked with a guy that did the mineral oil computer in an aquarium. One problem he found, he forgot the hard drive needs ventilation. People believe hard drives are 100% sealed, they aren't, the mechanic drives all have at least one blow hole in them. If you are going to use a non-solidstate drive, make sure it's NOT in the aquarium.

Now, I had an idea of putting a snorkel on the drive's blow hole but my co-worker never got to trying that before he left the company.

 

Woah that's crazy! I bet that's a bitch to move around Why does it need to be this specific aquarium?

 

Maniac i'm aware of the hard drive issue. The oil will slow it down and it wont work properly, non solid states stay out of the oil.

The reason it had to be that specific tank was i was going to buy an acrylic mounting board that a company made and it was for that specific tank. I saw it online earlier in the week, wanted to wait until i had the tank. Went to order it today and they dont carry it anymore, emailed them and no dice. So i wasted my time getting this tank for no reason, i'm gonna use it anyway but now i have to get creative.

 

I still can't believe that this can be done.

Amazing!

Mineral Oil Submerged PC in Aquarium (original video) - YouTube

 

Amazing, now if u could put fish in one id so be wanting one

 

Thats the video where i originally got the idea, that company (Puget Systems) Sells DIY kits, but they're like $600, so i tried to piece together their old version and they just stoped selling the board, otherwise i'm full of ideas for oil computers

 

This sounds very interesting and creative. I can't wait to see it completed. Good luck Keane in your search for parts.

 

@Leprechaun93 - I assume this board you needed was an acrylic back plane to mount the system board to? If so, you can buy plexi-glass that you can drill your own holes, mount the stand-offs to and hopefully do the same thing (just a little more DIY).

As for the hard drive, I'm still curious if a snorkel rig was made for the blow hole on it, would it function fine in the mineral oil. The guy I know sad his worked fine for about 10 minutes. We assume that's how long it took before the drive over heated or the oil seeped into the blow hole and on to the platters.

It's certainly a neat concept to play with (putting the PC guts in mineral oil).

 

Yes it was an acrylic panel to mount everything to and it was designed to fit into the top of the tank was an L shaped board. I dont think a normal hard drive would survive, once oil gets in its ruined and it wont spin right and so on

 

Sound's like a cool project. can't wait to see it done.