NUC in a Mac Mini case

[minihack]

Nice work! It would be tempting to use the OEM PSU with the space available! Its rated at 12v, 7.1 amp. Does the NUC require more than 12v?

It needs 19v - I have plans for that space though……

One other thought I did have when planning this out was that it would have been possible (instead of me using the space for extra ports) to make the space be used for having a hot swap 2.5" drive connection.

But sure, I think on board power would be possible but would also add heat and I don't want to add any more.

EDIT: You may have guessed by now I am obsessed with cool and quiet!!

 

[JuanLobo]

EDIT: You may have guessed by now I am obsessed with cool and quiet!!

And a vision... Hard to stray from a vision!

 

[iCubeFan]

Minihack,

Will the SATA power port be able to power a couple of 2.5" HDD/SSD via a splitter?

Cheers
F

 

[minihack]

Minihack,

Will the SATA power port be able to power a couple of 2.5" HDD/SSD via a splitter?

Cheers
F

….I was actually thinking that there would be room for 2 2.5" drives in there and was considering using a pair together with a small dedicated hardware raid connection. I have one of these:
in my box of "things" and was wondering if it might be disassembled to fit the parts efficiently into the casing.

The tech spec.s does not give a power limit to the SATA power connection, so I imagine that as long as power draw remains within whatever the overall rated 5v output connection is then the connection will supply it.

 

[minihack]

And a vision... Hard to stray from a vision!

Actually, looking further into the power supply needs, it may actually be possible to use a Mac Mini power supply unit. Although the NUC spec.s mention voltage being 19v + or - 5% (or similar if I recall!) the spec.s are also littered with mention of 12-19v power connector. And checking out some forums it appears that a clean 12v supply might be okay to power an NUC.

So maybe on a future project I will try to use an original internal Mac Mini PSU.

 

[iCubeFan]

Actually, looking further into the power supply needs, it may actually be possible to use a Mac Mini power supply unit. Although the NUC spec.s mention voltage being 19v + or - 5% (or similar if I recall!) the spec.s are also littered with mention of 12-19v power connector. And checking out some forums it appears that a clean 12v supply might be okay to power an NUC.

So maybe on a future project I will try to use an original internal Mac Mini PSU.

Kiwi uses a 12V input to power his Haswell NUC

http://www.tonymacx86.com/imac-mods/107859-kiwis-next-project-imac-g5.html#post657970

 

[minihack]

Kiwi uses a 12V input to power his Haswell NUC

http://www.tonymacx86.com/imac-mods/107859-kiwis-next-project-imac-g5.html#post657970

Okay. Guess it works then!

 

[kiwisincebirth]

Okay. Guess it works then!

yep, it works. The power socket on the NUC is the same as that on an external HDD PSU, So I was able to power it from a spare one I had lying around. It was rated at 12v 2A, and ran a little warm but performed well, even ran short benchmarks without issue. Only needing to prove 12v was one of the reasons to wait for Haswell for my build, removing any need to provide the 19v via specific PSU, or having to use an upconverter.

 

[minihack]

yep, it works. The power socket on the NUC is the same as that on an external HDD PSU, So I was able to power it from a spare one I had lying around. It was rated at 12v 2A, and ran a little warm but performed well, even ran short benchmarks without issue. Only needing to prove 12v was one of the reasons to wait for Haswell for my build, removing any need to provide the 19v via specific PSU, or having to use an upconverter.

Yes, good to hear. I had a look at your build thread after iCubeFan posted the link……quite a job you have been doing there!!

By the way, I have ordered one of the Mac Mini internal supplies from China to play with as it was only £15 including shipping. Even if it is not used on this build I have another Mac Mini case here, so the PSU will be worth having and if it works it also might be a good one for other space challenged builds as it is rated 85W and seems pretty compact.

Thoughts for the new case and supply at the moment are to make an external Raid drive case with eSATA by using parts from a dual 2.5 IcyDock item I have, and maybe stick another 2.5 disk in there for USB connection along with a small 12v-5v buck converter. Also to make a 12v out jack on the back, so that the NUC Mini can either be used by itself with the brick I have at the moment or sit on top of the raid case and draw power from it as well as use the disks in it. Conversely the little RAiD enclosure can also go walkabout to give me extra storage among other builds. This would make a nice little flexible Mac Mini stack!

 

[minihack]

So, still not 100% happy with mSATA cooling. After an hour or so idling, watching TV on the Mini etc , mSATA temp always seems to be around 55C.

The RAM heatsinks I am not convinced actually helped that much anyway as the thermal pad that was between them and the NAND chips did seem to come loose from the chips very easily when I set about removing them.

So today I got hold of some 1mm copper strip (a piece of 30cm by 5cm) and from that made a two piece construction consisting of a pair of "L" shapes. One of these I am thermally bonding to the roof of the Mini, and the other of which I have bonded to a couple of copper contact blocks.

I am leaving them to set as shown:

​

The roof plate has a pair of slots made in it and the mSATA plate has a pair of holes so that I can use a pair of nut/bolts to clamp them together at the right height and I will use thermal compound where they join and where the contact plates meet the chips of the mSATA. If all goes to plan then this I hope will successfully conduct away a good amount of heat to the Mac Mini case. As it seems the mSATA is just about the hottest thing in the case I am hoping to gain a few degrees of heat reduction.

There might even be enough room given by the "bulge" of the plastic case bottom to also bond the RAM heatsinks to the top of the copper mSATA plate and that too would improve over the unpressured thermal pad that was there before.

Yes, yes I know perhaps I am getting paranoid about seeing how much I can cool this card thing, but a cool quiet computer is goal….

BTW, cable shortening of the Bitfenix unit was aborted yesterday when I got too hasty and ended up messing up one of the USB 3 connections…..I'll come back to that later!