Hey guys, I thought I'd go ahead and start a new thread to keep you updated on my progress with my folding/mining operation. My wood bench was only temporary until I was able to get a custom bench. I purchased 2 custom benches from@Spotswood to sit beside my PC's, and I'm utilizing 2 x16 ribbons + x1 to x16 risers to hopefully fill out each bench over time so I can beat @Avacadoand @Bastiaan_NLin our foldathons .
Rick customized the project and configured it to adapt to the ribbons/risers combination. He was able to build custom brackets to hold the ribbons as they're not typical mining bench protocol, but important for folding@home, or any gaming I'd like to do from the bench GPU's. It's these types of customizations that led me to Spotswood because he has fabrication he can do, and everything can be custom. For years, he's given our folders free tech benches in our folding events over on OCN, and may do the same here for us soon, so please consider him before you buy a pre-fab you have to jerry-rig to comply, or wood. Also, look at his finished work. He built actual drum cases that are out of this world!
Here are the renderings of the benches he sent to me. I believe this is a common practice on custom benches from him.
The plan is to have 1 bench populated with 2x 1080ti's (ribbons so I can SLI for some titles too) and 2x 1070's (risers) + the independent cooling loop. I will be moving the 3070 to the Lanboy. The 2nd bench will sit for a bit as I work to obtain more GPU's to fill it.
Some things I did consider were asking him to add attachments for my custom cooling, but I nixed that because I feel like my cooling needs will grow as I go, and there's not a real need to attach these to the bench. I also considered asking him to enclose the bench like a case, and cut a hole in the wall of my garage office to exhaust the heat, but I'm just going to get a split ac unit because I like the idea of not running my heater in the Fall/Winter, nor dealing with that big hole. Most of my months are cooler months in Ohio, and opening the door is enough to keep it cooled.
So, when I receive the benches in the mail, I'll update the OP with my progress, parts used, etc. Should be a ton of fun.
Here are some pics from the building of the bench on Spotswoods end of things. Pretty cool!