DIY computer enclosure for RPi cluster

[benrules2]

I'm looking to build a transparent enclosure to house 8 Raspberry Pis
in a cool looking display. I was thinking acrylic sheets (aka
plexiglass, lucite) would be the best option for this. I have a few
questions about this:

Where can I buy acrylic sheets in Galway?

Does anyone have any tips for cutting / gluing acrylic?

I have heard the static buildup can be dangerous for electronic
components in acrylic. Is this a real concern? What is the simplest
and safest way to ground this?

Thanks for you help, and if anyone wants to lend a hand building this
enclosure (it will be shaped like the symbol for pi), or wants to get
some experience building a small compute cluster and running parallel
programs, feel free to get it touch!

[Duncan Thomas]

You can buy it from the DIY shop on the same site as the Omniplex
cinema, opposite Terryland Tesco. I forget what the sop is called.
Quite possibly Woodies?

Yes static is an issue... I'll have a think about how to mitigate. You
can buy a clear transparent spray but I don't know what it costs.

You can cut it with a hacksaw or deremel, but to take advantage of the
nice joins you can get you need a very clean, flat, sharp edge - a
mini-router being the standard way to achieve this.

Personally I'd start by roughing out a design in thin MDF - it is dirt
cheap, easy to cut & join (no more nails is your friend) and you can
use the pieces as a template to do something pretty in plex later. It
also has far fewer static problems than plexy.

Do you have 8 pis? What are you thinking of running on them? (I'm an
ex-HPC engineer, I might be able to make some suggestions)

--
Duncan Thomas

[Alanna Kelly]

Don't buy stuff in Woodie's it is horrendously expensive. 

[benrules2]

Thanks for the advice Duncan, I think your MDF suggestion is a great
one. The pis are currently en-route to me, should have them any day
now.

Ex-HPC engineer eh? I just started working for the Irish Centre for
High End Computing, fresh off a master's in HPC from Edinburgh. This
cluster is for a display at the BT Young Scientist expo, so the idea
is to run codes with decent visualisation. We were thinking of running
"the game of life", a calculation of pi, and maybe some computer
vision examples. Do you have any ideas for codes that make an exciting
demo? The idea is to have an observable difference as more pis are
used (and maybe some fancy LED display showing which pis are active).

On Oct 22, 1:33 pm, Duncan Thomas <duncan.tho...@gmail.com> wrote:
> You can buy it from the DIY shop on the same site as the Omniplex
> cinema, opposite Terryland Tesco. I forget what the sop is called.
> Quite possibly Woodies?
>
> Yes static is an issue... I'll have a think about how to mitigate. You
> can buy a clear transparent spray but I don't know what it costs.
>
> You can cut it with a hacksaw or deremel, but to take advantage of the
> nice joins you can get you need a very clean, flat, sharp edge - a
> mini-router being the standard way to achieve this.
>
> Personally I'd start by roughing out a design in thin MDF - it is dirt
> cheap, easy to cut & join (no more nails is your friend) and you can
> use the pieces as a template to do something pretty in plex later. It
> also has far fewer static problems than plexy.
>
> Do you have 8 pis? What are you thinking of running on them? (I'm an
> ex-HPC engineer, I might be able to make some suggestions)
>

[benrules2]

Anywhere else to recommend?

[Duncan Thomas]

So there used to be a nice display on the Miako CS2 parallel machines
that could be quite nice here from a display POV. Are you about at the
labs some time this week and I'll talk to you about it?

Eoin and Alistair are both friends of mine from my HPC days, I've been
threatening to stick my head round the office for last year, I'll pull
my finger out and actually show up.

If I can give you one piece of advice, it would be learn to love padb
(http://padb.pittman.org.uk/). It is one tool that is specific to HPC
style tightly coupled jobs that is different from the rest of the
world, and saved me many hundreds of hours over the years.

--
Duncan Thomas

[benrules2]

Good to know. I should be around once or twice this week, if you let
me know when you're in I can make a point to be there.

On Oct 22, 2:48 pm, Duncan Thomas <duncan.tho...@gmail.com> wrote:
> So there used to be a nice display on the Miako CS2 parallel machines
> that could be quite nice here from a display POV. Are you about at the
> labs some time this week and I'll talk to you about it?
>
> Eoin and Alistair are both friends of mine from my HPC days, I've been
> threatening to stick my head round the office for last year, I'll pull
> my finger out and actually show up.
>
> If I can give you one piece of advice, it would be learn to love padb
> (http://padb.pittman.org.uk/). It is one tool that is specific to HPC
> style tightly coupled jobs that is different from the rest of the
> world, and saved me many hundreds of hours over the years.
>

[Duncan Thomas]

Current plan is tonight after 8, Tuesday after 10 ish, same wed but not certain. Drop me a text on 087 737 2168 if you want to check if I'm there.

[benrules2]

Just thought I'd update you guys on my progress, as I had to run out a bit abruptly. It looks like a combination of dremel and score/snap will give me the best results for my build. 

Even with scoresnap, the edges are a bit rough for a clean glue.

I'm going to pickup sandpaper, and either a bigger dremel blade to clear the body for straight cuts, or one of the rubber necks that were mentioned (unless it's rather expensive). Proper building will take place either tomorrow morning, or Tuesday of next week. 

Thanks for everyones help, and I hope you had a grand talk this evening.