[Beowulf] Re: Beowulf of bare motherboards

[Alvin Oga]

hi ya glen

On Mon, 27 Sep 2004, Glen Gardner wrote:

> I've gone on a bit of a rant here, but I've done this, so I thought I 
> might share some of what I have learned.
> You can see some pictures of what I'm discussing below in the mini 
> cluster links on my web site at:
> 
> http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze24qhw/index.html

that mini-itx based cluster used to be hosted at verizon.net too ??
( in either case, some of your pics didnt work )
 
> I have built a cluster on standoffs, and it has worked quite well. While 
> I am a relative newbie to Beowulf, I'm not new to computing and 
> electronics. I have roughly 40 years experience in electronics.

what fun you've been having .. :-)  30+ here
 
> Hand fabricating enclosures is a lot of work.

it is gazillion times harder thanit looks .. when you want it done
right the first time ... ( each pass costs time, $$$ and agrevation and
delays )

> This needs to be a labor of love, because it is a ton of work.

an simple CNC machine ( x-y table attacched to the drill press and 
laser interferometer ) should help solve the drilling problem
 
> On the mettal plate is a DC-DC converter board which converts 12VDC to 
> the required ATX voltages used by the mini itx boards. All of the DC-DC 
> converters are fed from a single 12VDC regulated power supply at a power 
> distribution panel built into the top of each 6 node rack.

exactly... my power distribution panel as oyu call it is the
standard 600W 2U power supply

> My solution for this is going to involve the following: Replace the IDE 
> hard drive with a laptop drive that will operate on the much cleaner 5V 

i'm aiming to put 4 ide disks per blade .. ( motherboard )

> The mini cluster racks were designed to be cheap and effective. 

and "stackable" and removable and airflow ( front to back or top to
bottom ) in my experiments 
	http://itx-blades.net/gif.blades/4U-BLADE.jpg

	- and oneday, a nice 6" svga screen on the front :-)

c ya
alvin