Mineral Oil Cooled PC
Project Ready DIY Kit for the PC Enthusiast
Unfortunately our mineral oil aquarium PC kit project has been alleged to infringe on the patents held by a company who holds several patents related to mineral oil cooling of PCs. They offered to license this technology back to us. We decided to shut down this project instead, because the licensing cost was infeasible for this type of project, and we did not want to set a precedent of paying to license something we conceived and developed on our own.
Here at Puget Systems, this project has never been motivated by profits. It is a project that we have had a lot of fun with, and that we enjoyed using to enable the enthusiast community to do new and interesting things. As such, regardless of how we feel about the validity of this patent pressure, we cannot devote the time, finances and energy to take up that battle. We have a very successful business manufacturing high performance and high quality PCs and workstations, and will be focusing our energy there going forward. We will continue to host information, photography, and videos about our mineral oil PC kits, but we will be unable to continue to sell the kits themselves. We look forward to seeing what you all come up with as we pass off the torch to each of you!
is there any place else that will sell the kit or at least the parts i am planning on making one for a senior project but the kit is shut down
Wow, what a dbag move from LiquidCool Solutions.
Can we get the blue prints of yours builds so we can make ower one builds?
i asked via email. they cannot do this
Too bad they were allowed to patent this in the first place. It seems like their patent application could have been rejected as an "obvious" idea.
You should patent a Aquarium PC without the Mineral oil, so liquidcool Solutions can't do anything. And the customer could by his Mineral oil hisself if he want. I really need your System, ist fkn awesome.
pretty cool that a company that doesn't even offer a desktop version of what you guys had has taken issue with this...
Sigh... I was slowly acquiring the parts to build a ATX and had gotten my hands on an Eclipse the 12 gallon tank.. and now to find out that they are being jackasses and doing this to you... you were no threat to them and they don't deal with the same things... they are just being bullies.
So now do I just make this a fish tank or continue on...
I could possibly place the motherboard at the bottom of the tank and and just lean it against the side, if I get extenders it should minimize wicking, possibly could make a bracket for hard drive to keep it out of the mineral oil.
The pumps you used and the radiator, did you manufacture those yourself or can you legally tell us where you acquired them?
The pump and radiators are all standard liquid cooling components. The only thing is that the pump has to be a bit more powerful than you expect since oil is much thicker than normal liquid cooling fluid. Specifically, our kits were using the Swiftech MCP35X pump. For the radiators, we used the Watercool MO-RA3 360 LT 9x120 (still available on our parts store: http://www.pugetsystems.com/st... and http://www.pugetsystems.com/st... or the Swiftech MCR220-QP-K 2x120mm radiator depending on the cooling kit.
how well would a D5 Vario pump handle this?
and also could you point us to the other company, so i may know who not to buy them off!
That pump should work just fine. It looks like it can pump a max of about 5.3GPM, whereas the Swiftech MCP35X we used could do a max of about 4.75GPM. Unless you are pumping through a lot more radiator than we did or want a really high flow (which actually isn't a good thing since the oil requires more time in radiators to cool down compared to normal liquid cooling fluid) that pump should have no problem.
As for the other company... things are a bit sensitive right now so we actually took their name off the post above. From my understanding, however, they don't have any actual commercially available products so there isn't really any risk of you accidentally supporting them.
Wow I read the patent and claims 1 and 9. It's a sad thing that anyone who has a mineral cool pc could potentially be sued under the patent for claim 9.
Only people selling it could be sued - not people who built their own.
I don't know if you can, but what if you released a PDFs of the plans? it would allow people to build there own and possibly it would still be legal
NOOOOOOOOO. Can you give another company any recommendations? I'd hate to support someone who would do this, but I want to build a submerged PC!
So who is the douche claiming patents on products they don't sell? I don't see any other types of these cases on the market.
Is ist possible that the patent of the other company will expire? If yes will it be in the near future?
I don't know a ton about patents, but this was just issued recently I think... so I imagine it won't expire for many, many years.
2007 filed wont exp till 2027 if they keep paying the patent fees. no this is not a classified patent that can be extended past 20 yrs.
Can you please make the designs availible for 3D printing?
My first comment was removed for obvious reasons, oh well. But I think you guys need to seriously set up a fund to fight this. I will be more than happy to donate.
We appreciate your support, but it is just not a fight worth having to us. This was never something we made a lot of money off of (we didn't want to - in fact, we had never planned selling kits or anything when we made our first video years ago). Even if we had all the monetary costs covered, somehow, it would still be a big commitment of our time and focus.
how the hell can anyone take a patent on this? thats just ridiculous... I get that somone that has spent a lot of resources to develop something can get to protect themself from somone just copying their now develop product.... but there is no seriously development behind this. cooling heated parts with oil is as old an idea as oil itself.
Could selling the case without cooling supplies and pumps be possible without infringement?
It looks like this is an old conversion. I have a comment and a question. Isn't that a monopoly? Monopoly's are illegal too. How much do they want so you can have the license?
Is there any way you can post the part files, please?
Which company decided to patent the technology?
ok got one idea way don"t you give us out the blueprints of how to make this for ore selfs , way don't you put it for free, your not making money of it so you don't get sued , make it free for every one to download , and we can make it out of acrylic, and buy pc parts form you ...
House holds hearing on fraudulent patent demand letters... https://www.google.com/url?sa=...
Patent and Trademark Office doesn’t know if examiners are doing their jobs, watchdog says
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Do you think you could provide some high-resolution photos of the cut acrylic parts, preferably on top of grid paper, taken as top-down photos? This would be really useful for historical purposes.
So has anyone used transformer oil (dielectric silicon-based fluid)? Yeah it is $30 a gallon but wouldn't it be less likely to eat away at the rubber wire casings that mineral oil? I am very upset about the shut down of the kit but planned on making my own one piece tank and motherboard tray anyway out of semi-rigid polyurethane, but your specifications were my greatest inspiration. The U.S. Patent office is obviously just following their tradition of technology suppression by any means necessary. Imagine the stink in the market if all water-cooled trash was left by the wayside. Wet works is coming as soon as the Internet is not free. Hopefully you guys are doing the same as me and collecting massive amounts of technical data on this kind of thing. Not to make money, but to insure the information doesn't disappear or get buried from the public eye like the magneto crank generator, the electric car, the water car, and of course Thorium fuel. Submersion is the future.
I found this document about the Cray-2 system from 1985. It clearly states that the system use immersion cooling in the first paragraph describing the system: http://archive.computerhistory...
I'm not a lawyer, but this seems to prove that immersion cooling was available for purchase for 21 years before that patent was applied for...
Unless they also offer a kit, which they do not, you are free to use the IP. IP law is based on damages.
So what company are we suppose to avoid for their crappy business tactics?
Here's what you guys should do. Sell your product without saying mineral oil in anything across your site. People can figure out the rest. There's no patent for you to break in that regard.
Is there a way to get the templates and cut the acrylic myself
please, start up the oil machines, please please please. If you pay, you could make the money back and make all of us happy, please
We should start a crowdfunding campaign to pay for the rights to use the design so Puget can sell this item again
Best of luck too you guys you should ask for donations for legal fees and try to get support for this, complete bs that they have a patent on mineral oiled computers yet they cannot have patents on mineral oil, aquariums, glass really hope you get more support that patent wont hold up in court for too long and anyone thinking of making a mineral oil computer do it they cant stop you its unlawful what there proposing.
God damn patent trolls. Anyone having found any exactly fitting Tank to the Open Air Test Bench? I would really like to start building my own Oil Cooled PC to, but those asshole trolls just had to do patent trolling, and the best is, they dont even provide any kind of the same thing, like i would understand it if they were to sell Kits or like to, but they dont do anything even close to that, so fuck those patent trolls. If anyone knows where i can still buy one of these or if there is a Tank fitting the Open Air Test Bench, then it would be nice if you commented below.
can you give the drawing and part list? so any one that want to make it can make it. well giving is a bit to much but for a small price.
Do you have any CAD files with dimensions for the parts that you used? I understand that you can no longer sell them, but I would like to make my own and I really like the way your clear cases look. I'm interested in the "Aquarium DIY Kit Micro ATX Version 2" as used by Linux Tech Tips.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Please read the comment I posted in this video.
I know you don't want people stirring the pot but I had to throw my 2 cents in. I also left your name out Puget.
AMK
patents held by a company who holds several patents related to mineral oil cooling of PCs.
I can't find shit I want a case but I cant find one :/
Should've filed for your own patent for this.
Love what yall tried to do.. Unfortunately I caught wind just as all the legal crap was happening and waited for Linus to do his video before buying parts for myself to attempt a build. Thanks for the updates and keeping up with your followers on the matter. Shows you amount of dedication to the community.
Would have loved to have made one of these, I have a few spare 560mm Rads lying around and could find a good sized aquarium, but seeing your mobo tray design w/ the meters etc makes it all come together. guess it was fun while it lasted, sucks someone had to pull the plug on your companies leaps
i think that the people at puget systems should sue the people or company that orignially posted paten and if nessary to federal counter suu
i'd like to know whether it would be possible to get the schematics that you guys used for the motherboard tray in the system. Id like to try to build a clean layout with it later on in the year. Also I did originally see your case from Linus Tech Tips
is it posible that when the patent end you will bring this back
It's such a shame that this never worked out because of someone else's greed. I, personally, wouldn't want to deal with a mineral-oiled PC, but the fact that you can is just fantastic and many people out there would have loved to do it.
Unfortunately, they'll have to find their own way of going about it, now.
Would a Liquid cpu cooler work with this?
By law; if it has been over 10 years since they got their patents it becomes public domain as to prevent a monopoly
Why not re-open as a corporation (LLC) and let them sue you? As a LLC you are not personally liable, and chances are they are trying to scare you out of business (and it worked). Anyone can send a cease and desist letter, it doesn't mean they own your work. It sounds like you aren't infringing on their patents. Find a lawyer to talk to, go back in business.
There should be a way to appeal that patent. 1st they didn't invent mineral oil, nor PC systems, nor aquariums. 2nd they don't own science nor material properties (nobody should be allowed to "own" Nature's / Universe's properties anyways, a discovery is not an invention). 3rd, if it was only for the use of the idea of emerging a PC tray into a container of mineral oil... But they don't even do it !! So if someone come up with this idea (as I did before searching for it and fumbling onto Puget systems), they won't be allowed to do it because of a flawed patent system, from then on being a real barrier towards human technological evolution in regards to applications tied with some material properties they didn't invent : this "company" is essentially "parasiting" a market where it's not even an active participant, and should get its patent canceled.
BTW, did they file for such patent internationally ? Fortunately, patent laws aren't the same everywhere (USA is probably THE country where companies are abusive with such otherwise basically legitimate legal tool, where corrupting the government is so easy so as to put forth such patenting ill-devised rules... i.e. patenting the human genome should be illegal, as I wrote a discovery of a natural / biological / material property is not an invention).