The next test PCB will be the fan carrier board. I already have two Noctua 40mm to try it out. The LEDs are plenty bright and I think they turned out well. I didn't know how much light would shin thru the PCB but I'm happy with the results!

I'm not sure how many folks use or need a multi-PCI spanning bridge, but I decided to craft a 40mm and 60mm bridge with custom artwork. The 40mm has a knock-out Quake logo but decided to not add LEDs, while the 60mm bridge has a knock-out and LED backlight. Not sure it was totally needed but I trace length matched on the 40mm and 60mm PCB because I had to route around the knock-out causing some traces to have <10mm mismatch.

Once I know the other test PCB works, I'll upload these designs to GitHub for everyone! Thanks for the inspiration for everyone who contributed to the original post by @matze79.

Woa, that's really cool!

Didn't the "need" for a 60 mm version arise from the extra room for fans?

H3nrik V! wrote on 2024-03-19, 11:30:

Woa, that's really cool!

Didn't the "need" for a 60 mm version arise from the extra room for fans?

No... The 20mm bridge fan carrier board (using 40mm fans) "should" work. I've done a simple test of placing the two fans on top of the Voodoo2s and they really do a good job of pushing air between the cards. The 40mm and 60mm span gives a bit more distance and regular case air flow would probably be enough. Besides, the 20mm version with two fans covers both cards. The larger span puts both card faces out of reach for the two fans and might get pretty ugly with multiple fans trying to cover both. A single larger fan might work, but I don't think I'd like the aesthetic very much. 😋

Finally got the fan carrier board assembled and preliminary testing. So far, it's looking really good!

I did some super limited testing (I ran out of time but wanted to post the results) with a thermal camera. Running Quake v-sync off for 10 minutes with and without the fan bridge, the main 3DFX processor is cooler by 15°C with bare chips. With attachable heat sinks, I'm sure it would be even better.

Holy fudge, that is absolutely awesome!

Uploaded the fan carrier PCB to git. Will do the rest later. 😋

https://github.com/MagicPhase/Voodoo-2-SLI-Bridge-PCB

Got the latest boards and they're looking pretty nice. The 60mm bridge has 8 neopixels and an ATTINY85 micro to control them. I'm going to assemble one soon to see if it works...

I don't like the mask relief on the silkscreen parts so I'm going to remove those on another revision.

It's ALIVE!

Tevian wrote on 2024-04-06, 00:35:

Got the latest boards and they're looking pretty nice. The 60mm bridge has 8 neopixels and an ATTINY85 micro to control them. I'm going to assemble one soon to see if it works...

Is the neopixel an ARGB LED?

H3nrik V! wrote on 2024-04-06, 13:27:

Tevian wrote on 2024-04-06, 00:35:

Got the latest boards and they're looking pretty nice. The 60mm bridge has 8 neopixels and an ATTINY85 micro to control them. I'm going to assemble one soon to see if it works...

Is the neopixel an ARGB LED?

Ah yes, they're addressable! I'm using these, https://www.adafruit.com/product/4691.

I completely suck at coding BTW. This little flame effect was written by chatGPT. It's not what I want, but it works ATM. Dave's Garage YT channel had some great-looking fire effects, but the coding is all for ESP32 and I don't really understand how to port that to a small ATTINY85. Oh well...

Here's a short vid demo!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B25BmlSav9U

Nice looking!

Regarding the ESP32 code, the attiny may be too weak for a code port to make sense

have you considered putting a light up 3dfx logo where the quake or doom logo is?

I just put in a order for some of the 20mm Quake 1 ones.

Oooo very very cool!

Wonder how that 3dfx logo I worked on on the bridge I made would look led backlit. (You can use it btw)