Project Prism - A Lian-Li PC-v2000 Worklog

====================[ Intro ]====================

Hello Everyone! Welcome to my humble build log! :)

First things first... I'm going to say first a lot in this first sentence! ;) This is my first post on Xtremesystems' forums, my first super-detailed worklog, my first "all the way down the rabbit hole" custom case mod, and my first foray into a lot of the modding techniques I'll be undertaking in this build. I'm super-excited about all of it!

The goal of Project Prism is, as you might expect, to build a new custom modded and water cooled computer. The inspiration for this project started with my case, a Lian-Li PC-v2000b that I purchased way back in 2005. To this day, it is still regarded as one of the classic 'best' modding cases... simple and understated, tons of room, unique, etc. I seriously love working with this case, and as such, I've kept it throughout all of my mods. This build log will be somewhat of a 'rags to riches' story, as I'll start with the old system in it's state of disrepair, and gradually improve until I end with a (hopefully) impressive looking end product. I had originally planned on sticking with a black and blue motif, but after playing with lighting and such, I was inspired to stick to a more solid black and chrome approach, so that I have flexibility with colors in lighting. Thus the rename from "Azuremight" to "Prism".

Before I get too far into the build log and progress, here's the parts I'll be using:
Case: Lian-Li PC-v2000b
Processor: Intel Core i7-3770K
Motherboard: EVGA z77 FTW (waiting for release still...)
Graphics: EVGA GTX 680 SC+
RAM: 16GB of Samsung MV-3V4G3D/US
PSU: Corsair AX850 Gold
Storage: OCZ Agility 3 SSD, 2x 2TB WD Caviar drives (Raid 1)

As for the cooling components:
Radiators: 2x XSPC RX480 Quad Radiators
CPU Block: Swiftech Apogee HD
GPU Block: EK-Waterblocks GTX680 full cover Nickel-plated
Reservoir: EK-Multioption RES 200
Fans: 10x Scythe Gentle Typhoon AP-15's (8 on radiators, 2 misc)
Pumps: EK-DDC Dual v2 top with two Swiftech MCP35X pumps
Fittings: Tons of Bitspower Shining Silver compression fittings, and some Monsoon free-center fittings

Current Status
- Second case wall design cut
- Top and Front design in progress

If you would like an easy format for reviewing all the posts, check out my website at Omnifront.net. It's in a much more readable format there, and you can even subscribe to an RSS feed!

Random Photos of progress:
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-5...2/IMG_2150.JPG

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-S...ore%2520v1.JPG



Also, a special thanks to my sponsors, for believing in this build and all that it can become!

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-_.../s533/Logo.jpg

Bitspower is sending a 'surprise' package of equipment, very excited to see what shows up!

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-b...heshome_02.jpg

Hughes is a client of mine for my day job, but they graciously supplied me with all the extra Aluminum I want, and access to pressure molds should I want them! Sweet!

====================[ /Intro ]====================








====================[ History ]====================

Before I get into what's coming, first, a history lesson of my computer. I'll start by posting some classic pictures... the 'evolution' of my rig, if you will, so you can get a feel of where this classic watercooling case has been, and it will put all the more context into where it's going. Enjoy!

First, Azuremight v1. It was my first shot at watercooling a system. It housed a P4 2.4Ghz running on an ASUS P4v533 motherboard, with a whopping 4GB of RAMBUS RDRAM. That's right. RAMBUS. That dates this computer around 2005 or so. It was... well... a nightmare, as this set of photos will show you:

Inside the maw of the beast:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-1...lldisaster.jpg

A closeup, showing the P4, my Ram cooler from Koolance, the Radeon 9800 AIW, and the ghetto tubes going out the back of an unused PCI slot:
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-K...512/CPUVPU.jpg

The rear of the case, sporting a 1986 Chevette heater core with a brandless fan tacked on the back (by twisty ties, no less!):
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-I...Y/s512/rad.jpg

Another shot of the insides, showing the DD12V-D5 pump, and the back of a Coolermaster pump/reservoir/monitor all in one unit, along with the ugly 1/2" ID to 1/4"ID up/down converters to tie the whole mess together into one monstrous loop:
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-7.../s512/pump.jpg

And finally, the case all closed up. The blue is great and all, but it's probably best that I didn't have any case windows... eh? ;)
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-i...2/fulldark.jpg

Up next, Azuremight v2! The bold foray into case modding. I bought all new components, including an 8800GTX graphics card, EVGA 680i motherboard, Core2Duo E6600 (which was a beast of an overclocker, mind you), and some premium OCZ 'SLI' memory... whatever the hell that meant. I also planned on getting an EK waterblock for the GPU/northbridge, a switftech for the CPU, and a Thermochill PA120.3 radiator/grill/radbox for cooling:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-u...0/CIMG2265.JPG

I did a complete teardown of the case. I love this case so much... so big, so many options on where to put things:
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-v...0/CIMG2262.JPG

I actually did a little (admittedly ghetto) planning this time, instead of just throwing things at it until they all fit:
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-f...0/CIMG2268.JPG
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-h...0/CIMG2271.JPG
(Yes, that's an empty paper towel tube to emulate my EK-250 Reservoir and a cut up cardboard box roughly the size of my Thermochill PA120.3 radiator. I used them prior to buying, to make sure they would fit. I know. Ghetto. :P)

I benched everything pre-watercooling too... just to make sure the components actually worked, and also to get some temps to compare against, validating that all my hard work actually netted me some gain. :P
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-q...0/CIMG2291.JPG


Dremel time! First, I hacked up the hard drive cages down below, where I planned on putting my Radiator. Rather than strait up removing them, I envisioned them hanging above, leaving me a place to put them while still fitting in the radiator:
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-E...0/CIMG2281.JPG
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Z...0/CIMG2287.JPG
Nice, totally works!

Next, I taped off the bottom of the case and used the Thermochill Radgrill 120.3 as a template for cutting fan holes:
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-s...0/CIMG2292.JPG

Here's my boss, inspecting my shoddy craftmanship. What, no sanding??
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-6...0/CIMG2297.JPG

Now, I fitted the Radgrill to the bottom, applied some of the sound dampening foam, and made sure the self-tapping fan screws would fit through with enough threading to hold the fans in place:
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-H...0/CIMG2298.JPG

I decided to scrap the self-tapping screws in favor of some longer bolts from a local hardware store... that way, I could sandwich the whole kit (Radgrill, Radbox, fans, and radiator) together against the case, keeping it nice and snug with rubber washers and sound dampening neoprene between layers:
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-H...0/CIMG2303.JPG

Awesome, totally worked... but what's this?
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-P...0/CIMG2304.JPG
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-h...0/CIMG2306.JPG

DAMNIT. The radiator ports line up with the hanging hard drive cage, making it impossible to hook them up. Great job self, way to measure. /facepalm. /flipdesk. Time for more dremeling. Nothing a bit of modding won't fix:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-p...0/CIMG2307.JPG
(as a side note, I patched up that hole with some certifiably ghetto electrical tape, to make sure all of my air pressure was going through the radiator, and not out of the gaping hole in the back.)

Much better:
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-m...0/CIMG2309.JPG

Now, where are those tubes going to come up? Not much clearance between the ports and the mid-plate separating the bottom of the case from the motherboard section, where all the tubing needs to go. Quite a stretch to the factory-cut holes in the middle of the mid-plate too. Looking at my Lian-Li fan controller gave me an idea:
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-s...0/CIMG2308.JPG

Dremel time! I marked off the holes in the fan controller with a pencil, then got to work. I wasn't too worried about the irregularity of the hole cuts, as I was planning on using some rubber tubing as an 'edge-guard':
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-Z...0/CIMG2329.JPG

For my reservoir placement, I actually got really lucky. I was wondering how I was going to attach it to the motherboard plate, when I noticed there was a pre-drilled hole already in about the place I was thinking of mounting the reservoir. Works like a charm!
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-0...0/CIMG2314.JPG

Now that my reservoir was sitting where I previously had my pump... the pump needed a new home, and preferably not too far away from my other components to cut down on tubing. Ended up deciding on this location:
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-o...0/CIMG2316.JPG

I attached it using a creative conglomeration of motherboard standoffs and thumb screws. One of the thumb screws ended up being a little close to the pump, to the point where I thought it might cause a vibrating/rattling noise, so I buffered it with an extra rubber washer I had. I know. Ghetto. ;)
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-I...0/CIMG2319.JPG
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-R...0/CIMG2326.JPG

Now we were finally getting somewhere. With all the components assigned a home, it was time to do some tube routing and such. I decided on a path of res>pump>radiator> and figured I would take it from there. You can see I still planned on using my Coolermaster, but now it was it's own loop, just for the hard drives and memory:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-e...0/CIMG2332.JPG
Excessive, I know, but I already had all the hardware. Why the heck not? :P

I skipped a few steps here... but I proceeded to sleeve all of my ET850 power supply (man, what a massive pain in the butt that was) and apply the water blocks to my CPU/GPU/Northbridge. For the blocks, I used a Swiftech Apogee for the CPU, an EK full cover block for the GPU, and an EK block for the northbridge as well.

Now, for the finished product:
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-8...0/CIMG2338.JPG

Nice vortex going, so the water pressure must be doing ok:
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-I...0/CIMG2340.JPG


Temps doing good after 24 hours of torture testing in an apartment on a summer day with no air conditioning:
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-U...0/CIMG2343.JPG

And finally, some night shots to show the 'ground lighting' effects the fans give. Nifty!
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-4...0/CIMG2945.JPG


====================[ /History ]====================

In the interim between completion and now, a few changes have been made (undocumented, sadly) including:
- Overclocking the E6600 from 2.4Ghz to 4.2Ghz, stable, without topping 50C
- Overclocking the 8800GTX by about 15% without any voltage mods
- Removing the Coolermaster/HDD/RAM loop. It got noisy, and wasn't doing much.
- Replacing the coolant mixture several times, always with the same mix of distilled water and Pentosin G11 (a recommendation made here ages ago that I have kept.)


That completes the history lesson. Azuremight v2 is still in service as of this posting, and has been performing dutifully for well on 4.5 years now. The components have grown old, and barely keep 60fps in modern games. The case is dusty and dinged up, but as functional as ever. Next post... the plans for tearing it all apart, and starting from scratch, but keeping the same old tried-and-true Lian-Li PC-v2000B.

See you soon!

So, as eluded to in the previous post, I have big plans for my next system. Each iteration (as you can see from above) has gotten significantly more complicated... and this iteration will be no different. The evolutionary path continues:

Azuremight v0 - Air cooled, stock parts, stock case, no OC
Azuremight v1 - Water cooled (single 1x120 radiator), after-market parts, stock case, no OC
Azuremight v2 - Water cooled (triple 120 radiator), premium parts, intermediate case modding, heavy OC

And now, for v3 naturally I'll be taking things a step further:

Top end components
- Intel Core i7-3770k (great overclocking potential, but high heat... at least, without proper cooling.)
- EVGA z77 FTW (if only they would release it already!)
- EVGA GTX680 SC+ (with plans to go SLI as budget allows :P)
- 16GB of Samsung MV-3V4G3D/US (a little gem found on [H] that overclocks like a beast)
- Corsair AX850 PSU (gold rated by [H], supposedly the best out there)

Water cooled
- Dual XSPC RX480 Quad radiators (more or less the best, comperable to PA120.4's which are hard to find)
- EK-DDC Dual top for Dual DDC 3.2 pumps (redundancy, better head pressure, nearly as good as two inline pumps, and looks cleaner to boot!)
- Tygon 1/2" ID tubing, clear (never faded in my old system, still perfect)
- Aquaero 5 pro (starting to like this more than the Koolance... looks like it has more options)
- 12-14 Scythe Gentile Typhoons (4 for each radiator, 4 between the radiators, and misc!)
- EK-FC680EN for the GTX 680 (love EK blocks, top performers, and look stylish)
- Swiftech Apogee HD (top performer, best mounting mechanism, and found a heck of a deal)

Case Modifications
- Sticking with my tried and true Lian-Li PC-v2000b, shown in all the pictures above. Haven't seen another case quite like it, with so much potential and style.
- Going for dual quad rads in the bottom area, which means I'll be cutting up the sides of the case, making custom ventilation chambers, etc.
- Cutting my own custom-shaped window, to show off all my purdy hardware. :P
- Going to try my hand at adding some case lighting
- Planning on giving the internals of the case a slick paint job from top to bottom, mostly black and chrome with blue highlights.

Getting really excited to get my hands dirty... more and more components showing up every day! I'm also working on a fairly significant render in Google Sketchup, which I'll post some shots of tonight after tweaking it a bit and working on tubing.

Looking forward to your opinions on hardware choices, as well as any recommendations of what you want to see!

Welp, it's time to tear down Azuremight V2 to make way for all the changes V3 will bring. One last thing I wanted to do before the teardown, though, was a quick re-bench of the system to get my system temperatures, clock speeds, etc. That way, when i do make improvements, I'll have something to compare against! :p

So, I threw together a spreadsheet of temperatures under various conditions, just to keep track:
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-z...%2520temps.JPG

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-o...e%2520Info.JPG

Now, you'll notice a few things in the screenshots:

1) My processor is an E6750, not an E6600. I forgot that I swapped out processors a while ago, and gave my brother the 6600 in favor of a 6750, after reading that the 6750 had even better OC potential than the 6600. Turned out to be not so much... I could push it as high as 4Ghz, but it was running rather hot (and made this creepy squeeling sound, like a lobster being boiled alive.) I landed on 3.5Ghz as a safe number for everyday use, as most things weren't pegging out my CPU anyway.

2) My Graphics card is running at stock speed. I recently rebuilt my computer, and haven't put the time into recreating my OC profiles. Lazy. :rolleyes:


Worth noting, these temps are with the sides of the case off, and the three radiator fans running on the 'high' setting... about 2100 RPM. It's also been about a year since I took the system apart and cleaned everything out real good, so the radiator probably has about an inch of cat/dog hair in it, among other things.

Finally, here's some parting shots of the system, exactly as it is right now under my desk. So long, Azuremight v2!
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-e...0/IMG_1241.JPG
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-Z...2/IMG_1236.JPG
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-p...2/IMG_1238.JPG
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-9...2/IMG_1240.JPG

So I took a crack at creating my planned setup in Google Sketchup. I must say, Sketchup is an amazing program. Can't believe I hadn't found a reason to use it until now!

Anyway, here's some renders of the plan:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-m...etchupSide.JPG

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-o...Components.JPG

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-j...tchupPlate.JPG

Here's a shot of the drain port I have planned... It's gonna take around $50 in bitspower hardware, but it should look pretty nice when it's done, and make flushing the lines incredibly easy:
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-d...pDrainAssy.JPG

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-G...ottonDrain.JPG

The tubing is still a work in progress... I am not sure I'm satisfied with the long runs going towards the front of the case. I am considering changing them to go through the midplate more towards the center using some of those 'through ports' from bitspower, maybe meeting with 90 degree brackets on the underside to run back to the radiator. Thoughts? I know the elbow might reduce flow a little bit, but I'd be surprised if it's noticable, and I think it might look cleaner with shorter tube runs.

I'm also not totally set on the Pump/reservoir position. I like the look of the reservoir,and think it might be cool to have it visible through the case window I am planning... but I could also see hiding it back in the hard drive cage area, as long as I have enough room for my Optical/drives/Aquaero... but looking at the renders, that doesn't seem likely. I could also try laying the reservoir/pumps on it's face... but it seems to me like that would potentially cause problems with air getting in the lines if there is any open air in the reservoir. Hmmm... :p

I wonder if it's not worth to pass tubing from cpu block throught that cable management hole in middle floor?

Some holes on the motherboard tray might help you with cable management.

subscribed.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by churchy

I wonder if it's not worth to pass tubing from cpu block throught that cable management hole in middle floor?

---

Yea, I had considered using the central hole that is already present... but it looked goofy to me in the render so I undid it. I am actually thinking that I will replace the midplate with a 'clean' version that I will fabricate myself, so that the pre-cut holes are no longer there.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LeoAndrade

Some holes on the motherboard tray might help you with cable management.

---

Totally Agree LeoAndrade. I don't have it in the render yet, but I actually plan on bringing the motherboard tray forward slightly, cutting holes in the midplate behind it, and cutting a small hole along the left hand side of the tray along the side of the motherboard to route SATA, power, and other misc cables through.

I actually have another very cool idea (a surprise for later) about how to 'clean up' the look of the motherboard as well... to keep it very sleek looking, with some special lighting and acrylic. That comes later though. :)

Thanks for subscribing, hope to make this a rather entertaining project! :)

So I've been playing with several ideas for the airflow on the bottom. My current thought is to have both pushing out each respective side of the case. What's not evident in the render is that I currently have 3 120mm fans in the bottom of the case that are pushing air up through my current radiator. I was thinking of keeping those fans, so they can push air up, which is then pushed through each side of the case. I was also considering developing some kind of "V" shaped Shroud, to make sure the fans on each side weren't fighting each-other. Kinda like this:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-L...%2520Front.JPG

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-i...e%2520Back.JPG

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-J...2520Bottom.JPG

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-f...2520Shroud.JPG


This is just my initial thought. I'm not totally sold on it yet. The rows of fans on the bottom and the two fans on the front/back of the case would be pushing air into the radiator 'cluster', and the rows of fans lining each radiator would push that imported air through each radiator and out the sides of the case. I do agree that the space between the two radiators is tight. I wish I had enough room in the case to put the rows of fans along the outside of each radiator... so that I could have more of a push/pull on each radiator instead of a push/push... but I don't. Not in the current layout anyway.

The other configuration I have considered is putting the two radiators in more of a 'fan sandwich'... so it would go Case > Fans > Radiator 1 > Fans > Radiator 2 > Fans > Case... or something like that. All the air would be flowing in one direction, so one of the radiators would be slightly less efficient due to warm air being pushed through it... but I think the increase in air being pushed through it may mitigate that.

I plan on doing a lot of temperature testing once I actually get the radiators, and I will certainly try these two layouts (plus others) to see which one gives me the best temps.

Feel free to suggest configurations! My only limitation is that I would like it to all fit within the confines of the case. :)

Killing time until Diablo III releases tonight... decided to have a look at what it might look like if I decided to use pass-through fittings instead of sending the radiator lines all the way up to the front of the case.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-l...assthrough.JPG

It's cleaner... but i'm not completely sold yet. Hmmmm....

Why not turn pump-res block 90deg in horizontal plane (or in other words put near/by right case wall/near mobo) to shorten/straighten tubing from pumps to rad?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by churchy

Why not turn pump-res block 90deg in horizontal plane (or in other words put near/by right case wall/near mobo) to shorten/straighten tubing from pumps to rad?

---

Yea, I could do that. I'll mock it up and see what it looks like with the through-ports... I actually had the pump/res that way in the original renders, but moved it around and landed on the current layout arbitrarily to try something different.

The one compelling reason I turned it this way was to try and keep an even length of tube run from both radiators, and to put the two through ports in a line... thought it gave it some nice symmetry, but i'm not super happy with how the tubes coming from/going to the CPU and GPU look now.

Thanks for the suggestion! :)

Whelp, I pulled the trigger on over $2000 worth of merchandise last night while waiting for Diablo III to go live (I told my wife it's Blizzards fault.) This 'ish is about to get real! :)

Performance-pcs.com - $700 (Mostly bitspower parts, and $200 worth of Scythe Gentile Typhoon AP-15's @_@)
Jab-tech.com - $400 (Radiators and pumps)
Newegg.com - $600 (GTX680 SC+)
Microcenter - $300 (Intel 3770K)
Frys - $200 (Ram and PSU)

Yeeehaw.

Now if I could only settle on a pump/tubing layout that satisfies my endless need for symmetry/balance/clean lines. Hrm.

Whelp, I spent about 5 hours last night tearing down my old system to clear out the case so that I can start tinkering with it. I'm putting my current system into a tiny Lian-Li case that I had as a spare for the meantime, and going with air cooling due to the size constraints. Lots of pictures of the 'reverse watercooling' to follow tonight!

I also spent a good amount of time playing with options for the pump/reservoir placement. I have two that I am considering now, but still thinking of other options. I haven't played much with the idea of keeping the pumps and reservoir separate yet... but I forgot to order the EK-RES Multioption link in my giant order last night >.< ... so maybe I'll try a few to see what I come up with before I go order it. I did notice that the EK-DDC dual top block I ordered comes with some 5 1/4 bay mounting equipment, which is awesome, but I do not think I will have room in my bays for the reservoir, all my drives, etc.

Has anyone tried mounting the reservoir (EK-RES 250 multioption) on it's side? I've seen some pictures here and there, but I am wondering what the impact on performance is (if any), and if it makes bleeding / getting air out of the lines significantly more annoying (I am guessing so...) Might look fancy though, if done right...

As promised, here's a bunch of pictures of my efforts to de-watercool my system in preparation for cleaning up and modding the case. I had a great time doing this... destroying can be just as fun as creating! :P

I also played around with my camera settings quite a bit... I thought it would be fun / funny to take a bunch of those 'dramatic angle shots' that people always take of their sick mods, except it would be ironic because my current rig is gross and pretty much garbage at this point. :D

Without further adieu, I present to you: Watercooling a rig. In reverse. :P

A few dramatic parting shots of the old rig:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-b...2/IMG_1245.JPG
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-f...2/IMG_1246.JPG
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-c...2/IMG_1247.JPG
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-5...0/IMG_1249.JPG
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-R...2/IMG_1251.JPG
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-o...2/IMG_1252.JPG
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-W...2/IMG_1253.JPG

My Etasis850 has been great to me and all... but man. It was a gigantic squid, and half the reason my case looked like such a mess. The cables weren't even sleeved originally, I had to sleeve every one of them myself! THAT was a learning experience in patience.
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-H...2/IMG_1257.JPG

The other reason for my ugly cables... Lian Li has great case style... but dear god their case cabling is awful. These will have to go, and I'll need to find some kind of replacement for the front ports while I'm at it:
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-q...2/IMG_1263.JPG
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-s...2/IMG_1265.JPG

Eww. I just cleaned this like... 6 months ago. Just goes to show you what having two dogs and a cat will do.
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-k...2/IMG_1260.JPG

Without all those cables, the system is actually looking fairly respectable (albeit rather dusty):
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-r...2/IMG_1267.JPG

Not the most elegant tubing path, probably could have cut out about half of the tubing I used by optimizing a bit more. That will be fixed in v3:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Y...2/IMG_1268.JPG

Time to empty out the lines! The one saving grace of my excessive use of tubing... I can invert the case and move the reservoir way below the rest of my blocks, making it a heck of a lot easier to empty the lines. Into the trusty Home Depot bucket! :P
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-v...2/IMG_1271.JPG
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-T...0/IMG_1273.JPG
(As a side note... the water smelled TERRIBLE. Not sure what the deal was, but there didn't appear to be any algae or anything... just a thin white film, which I assume is the tubing breaking down after 5 years of use.)

Now that everything was drained... time to take apart my radiator core. This is a unit that I didn't bother to break into during the entire life of my system... so I was naturally a little scared of what was lurking inside. Peeling off one corner of some of the electrical tape I used to make the radbox air tight took this delightful creature out with it :eek:
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-Z...2/IMG_1275.JPG

And what is this... a bale of straw? A toupee?
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-5...2/IMG_1280.JPG

NOPE, just the surface of my radiator. You cannot even see LIGHT through parts of it! :eek:
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-X...2/IMG_1281.JPG
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-p...2/IMG_1283.JPG
(Trust me, I'll be taking apart my rig at least once a year now and going over it with a toothbrush. Horrifying!)

Here's a few shots of my Radguard and fan setup. Probably the only respectable portion of this rig:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-m...2/IMG_1284.JPG
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-x...2/IMG_1286.JPG

Ok... well... sort of respectable. Those are pretty rough cuts:
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-R...2/IMG_1287.JPG
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-s...2/IMG_1289.JPG
OK NEVER MIND. That's awful. Was I 12 when I did this? Sheesh. :P

Oh, and what's this??
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-A...2/IMG_1278.JPG
PLASTIC barbs? Sheesh. How embarrassing. :( At least I used teflon tape, like a good plumber. :rolleyes:

Time to pull apart all the lines!
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-9...2/IMG_1291.JPG

Of all the 'dramatic' shots I took, I think I like these the best:
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-T...2/IMG_1293.JPG
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-D...2/IMG_1295.JPG
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-H...0/IMG_1296.JPG

A little digging around in the garage produced all the stock coolers for my hardware... they could use a good lapping... but I'm not that worried about it. Not trying to win any benchmark records here. :P
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-6...2/IMG_1303.JPG

Next, time to un-mod the video card!
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-J...2/IMG_1300.JPG
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-n...2/IMG_1305.JPG

Not a bad distribution of paste. Little heavy at the top, but not toooo bad:
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-X...2/IMG_1304.JPG

But what's this? Must have had a poor seal here, or something... looks like the paste is dried up or burned or something:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-k...2/IMG_1308.JPG
That would explain why I could overclock my GPU's processor well above the average others were hitting, but couldn't keep my memory OC stable to save my life.

All cleaned up, time to put the stock cooler back on, with some good 'ol AS5. Didn't feel the need to go with any kind of super expensive thermal paste, as this will just be the stock cooler, and will only be temporarily in use:
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-9...2/IMG_1310.JPG

So uh... the screws that were holding the EK block on definitely do not fit in the stock cooler... D'OH.
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-X...2/IMG_1312.JPG

I KNOW I kept a baggie of screws around somehwere... after a half hour of scouring the garage, SUCCESS! A funky looking bag of screws with little springs around em...
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-c...2/IMG_1313.JPG

Dramatic shots of stock card, just for yucks:
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-F...2/IMG_1314.JPG
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-c...2/IMG_1315.JPG
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-6...2/IMG_1316.JPG
Brings back memories. I remember the first day I opened the retail box with this beast in it. It was easily TWICE the size of any other graphics card I had ever seen. I want to say this was the first card that required two sockets worth of space?

On to the rest of the blocks!
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-3...2/IMG_1301.JPG
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-y...2/IMG_1302.JPG

Eww... bit too zealous with the paste on the CPU. The middle looks good, and it all got squished out the sides... so at least I know I had good pressure on the block! :P
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-V...2/IMG_1317.JPG
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-0...2/IMG_1318.JPG

The NB cooler looks about normal:
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-e...2/IMG_1319.JPG

But what happened to the SB? Ewwww. Looks like somebody smeared spinach and artichoke dip on the block. I vaguely recall having some difficulty mounting this block, so it must have slid around a bit during mounting, exposing a bunch of it to air:
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-T...2/IMG_1320.JPG

All better! Nice and clean. Family photos!
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-V...2/IMG_1322.JPG
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-M...2/IMG_1323.JPG
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-C...2/IMG_1324.JPG
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-3...2/IMG_1325.JPG
I SEE you! :) Not a bad finish for a 6 year old dusty block.

Putting the old blocks on was a snap. Literally. Just push them against the board till they snapped in.
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-v...2/IMG_1327.JPG

Dramatic macro shot of a super un-interesting fan/block!
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-c...2/IMG_1329.JPG

Finally... time to put all this stock hardware into a temporary home so that I have a computer to game/work on while I delve into mod mania. This process was boring, so I didn't document it, but here's the shoddy end result:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-q...2/IMG_1330.JPG

Theres 'the squid', with its entrails hanging out of the tiny case, because there's no room for them.
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-8...2/IMG_1331.JPG

It actually doesn't even fit in the case... there are a bunch of giant capacitors on the motherboard that keep it from slotting in without cleaving them off. *Sigh*, guess I'll just leave it sticking out an inch...
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/--...2/IMG_1335.JPG

Hmm... not enough hard drive bays for all 6 of my drives either. Guess I'll just stack the SSD's in a 5 1/4" bay. They won't mind.
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-A...2/IMG_1332.JPG

You want cable management? I'll give you cable management. Painters tape! ;)
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-R...2/IMG_1333.JPG
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-q...2/IMG_1334.JPG

Welp, that's all for this episode! Hope you had a lot of laughs, I certainly did. But this is where the ghetto ends, and things get serious. Time to start hacking up my case! ^_^

Sometimes, inspiration hits you like a truck. I was fiddling with my case last night thinking of what kind of creative thing I could do with my pump and reservoir placement to really make this case stand out. I wasn't coming up with anything, and my cat started attacking one of our leather chairs... so I put down the reservoir to go swat the cat, and when I came back, I noticed I had set the reservoir in the center of the open front of my case where all the drives and such usually reside. Then it hit me... that would be an awesome place to showcase the reservoir, which is one of the more 'artsy' parts of my loop right now.

I thought about it more last night, and how I could tweak it to really show it off well. I present to you, my 'mad microsoft paint skills' version of the Front-Reservoir concept:
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-H...2/FrontRes.jpg

So, some 'splainin is probably due. What I was thinking, was I could mount the reservoir standing up in the front of the case where all the 5 1/4" bays are. I would then put a piece of semi-translucent blue acrylic as an 'enclosure' of sorts around the reservoir, in a half cylinder, leaving maybe an inch of open air around the reservoir. I would use LED or cold cathodes to light the acrylic so it gives off a tron-like glow, then sandwich the acrylic in black aluminum that matches the rest of the case, leaving only the edges exposed for light to shine through. I was also thinking I could cut a small slit directly behind the reservoir, so that light shines through illuminating the reservoir (that dark blue line running through the reservoir.The right hand part of the image shows a 'close up' of what the aluminum-sandwiched-acrylic would look like.

I'm going to try and mock this up in sketchup tonight I think... or maybe just fabricate a cheap version to see if I like how it looks in real life, since I already have the case and reservoir. My one concern is the loss of a majority of my front bays... I need room for three or four hard drives (SSD for OS, two 2TB drives in RAID1 for storage), so I do need some kinda place to put my drives. With the drive racks at the bottom of the case gone, that leaves precious few options. I did buy a Lian-Li drive enclosure that turns three 5 1/4 bays into four hard drive rack slots, too... but I think my RES-200 might be too tall for that. I was considering ditching my optical drive for this build, since I cannot remember the last time I put a CD/DVD in it... I can always just hook up a USB3/eSATA optical drive in the rare case I need it...

Hmm... maybe if I cut through the midplate and put the reservoir down a few inches... I like where this is going. Lots of dremel dust and exploded cutting wheels in my future... :D

Quick update this morning:

1) My previously main computer died a less-than-spectacular death last night. Mid Diablo III, there was a satisfying pop... then morbid silence. The EVGA 680i that ran like a truck for 5+ years breathed it's last. It's like it knew it's days were numbered or something. Anyway, it gave me a chance to stretch that lifetime warranty on the A1 version I opted to pay for... so a new one is 'in the mail' and v2 should be up and running again in no time. Fortunately I still have my laptop, so updates should continue. :P

2) One of my day job customers is an aircraft part manufacturer, so I got a massive hookup of some aircraft-grade aluminum and steel. Pictures of that to come. They were even so kind as to mention they would be happy to bend/fold/pressure mold any custom aluminum pieces I want. Awesome! I guess that kinda makes them a sponsor. I'll see if they want me to post their banner... great little company, awesome people.

3) Parts finally started showing up! So far, I have the CPU, GPU, RAM, and Power supply. Fittings and misc stuff should be here either today or monday. I'll put together an unboxing for all that stuff too. :)

4) I'll be updating the front page a bit to better describe the project, post the most current info, etc. Easier for first time viewers, methinks. :)

Thanks everyone!

holy eff that was one dirty computer for a while there. I suggest you rig up some easy removable filters in your next setup. Magnetic maybe so you can clean them out every few days easily.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by lowfat

holy eff that was one dirty computer for a while there. I suggest you rig up some easy removable filters in your next setup. Magnetic maybe so you can clean them out every few days easily.

---

Haha yea, no kidding. Combination of dogs and laziness makes for a quick buildup of grossness.

I saw those magnetic fan filters over on performance-pcs.com and considered them... not a bad idea, especially given my situation.

The next build I am working on will take the 'easily cleanable' aspect into consideration greatly... I plan on having fan grills on the outside of the case that can be removed with a few hex screws perhaps, as well as making sure the entire radiator core can slide out either side of the case, or perhaps the back when the PSU plate is removed. The fact that I will be pushing air out instead of pulling it in (from the ground no less) should help greatly with not pulling in so much dust/dog hair. :)

So, as I posted a little while ago, I think I have a really creative idea going for the front of my case. I did some additional day-dreaming this weekend... and I think I just added another potential $500 in cost to my case. Who said dreaming doesn't cost you anything? :P

Anyway... I was wondering if anyone out there has experience with really GOOD LED controllers and light strips. Here's the requirements I am looking to meet:
1) A controller that can control multiple light strips... maybe as many as 10, and independently. I'm looking to display the same pattern in multiple locations, but potentially randomized a bit. May not be a requirement to be randomized though... I could just be looking for a way to multiplex one signal.
2) A controller that is programmable, or has many options pre-programmed for color and motion control of lights, patterns, etc.
3) A controller that is managable in size, or can be hidden away in some fashion, ideally within the case somewhere.
4) LED strips that are thin and flexible, able to be molded into various shapes
5) LED strips that have RGB at each point, so that I can vary the color displayed to any color I want.

Anyone have any experience with this stuff that can point me towards a product? I found one potential with a little googling, but I am not sure that it can control multiple strips independently... it looks like it wants them all ganged together: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTkiNIJkWrY. That, and dear god is it expensive. :)

I may end up going back to my programming roots and set up an Arduino if I cannot find what I am looking for. @_@ Thanks in advance for any advice!

Time for an update! Finally, a few consecutive hours to play around with stuff this past weekend, so I spent some time gathering parts, planning, and disassembling/cleaning my case. Most of the pictures I took just so I could remind myself what was riveted to what, and where... :P But, I figured you all would enjoy a few pictures anyway. Here you go!

First, here's a dramatic concept shot of what I want to do with my reservoir... looks a little better than it did in MS paint, and I think it will look a lot better when it's actually done up the way I want it:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-S...1340.JPG?gl=US

Now, for some parts!
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-u...1344.JPG?gl=US
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-i...1352.JPG?gl=US

Also spent a few hours at Home Depot, collecting up tools! >=) Before you ask, the compressor was something I had been meaning to get for a while, mostly for cleaning cases, inflating tires, and other misc stuff like nail guns and painting. Probably won't have a major role in this project, but whatev! :P
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-C...1359.JPG?gl=US

Now, for some random dis-assembly photos:
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-d...1365.JPG?gl=US
(cleaned up, but pretty badly scuffed/scratched. Definitely painting this midplate, and maybe replacing it outright. I don't like the holes, and don't have a good idea for plugging them quite yet that would end up looking nice. )

Rivet removal. SO MUCH rivet removal. I swear, this case had no less than 50 rivets I had to drill out before all was said and done:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-d...1371.JPG?gl=US

So many tiny pieces too... Not even sure what purpose this piece served, but I am sure it was there for a reason... :P
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-r...1373.JPG?gl=US

Finally breaking the Rubik's Cube that is this case. There are rivets hidden under other pieces of metal that are riveted to yet other pieces. Definitely going to be a puzzle to put back together:
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-T...1382.JPG?gl=US
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-f...1385.JPG?gl=US

Finally got it all apart and sorted!
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-a...1396.JPG?gl=US

Now that dis-assembly is done, time to practice some painting! This is the first time I've attempted painting any kind of metal, let alone aluminum (which I've heard is particularly picky - any pointers appreciated!) I spent a good amount of time reading guides online, and so far, I think the process looks like this:

-material preparation-

80 grit sanding / 200 grit / 350 grit (wet)
denatured alcohol/tack cloth

-priming-

SEM Self etching primer in short bands, north/south
wait an hour
450 grit sanding (wet)
SEM self etching primter in short bands, east/west
450 grit sanding (wet)

-color-

Initial color coat (light north/south)
wait a day
1000 grit sanding (wet) (north/south)
second color coat (light east/west)
wait a day
Evaluate finish, repeat last 3 steps if more needed, alternating directions, otherwise proceed

-finishing-

1000 grit sanding (wet) (north/south)
1500 grit sanding (wet) (north/south)
2000 grit sanding (wet) (north/south)
clean with soft cloth and water
clean with cloth and rubbing compound
polish with soft cloth using polishing paste
clearcoat?

Anyway, here's the first few prep steps I completed... mostly sanding and making a cheap/easy painting box using an old cardboard box I had laying around and a wire hanger. Cheap can be just as effective!
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-M...1341.JPG?gl=US
I got some aluminum strips from the previously mentioned aircraft manufacturing facility that fairly closely matched the finish and such of my case. I took a strip and sanded it down as per above:
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-C...1398.JPG?gl=US
Then sanded it again, with a finer grit:
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-i...1400.JPG?gl=US
Then into the box for priming!
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-4...1401.JPG?gl=US

Next time: The results of priming and initial coats of painting!

Also, lots of hardware showing up this week! Radiators, fittings, sleeving... exciting times!

Small update! With the anticipation of a long weekend coming up, and maybe a few days off, I loaded myself up with materials this week! I grabbed some spare acrylic, some various tools, some additional paint colors, and some cheap materials to build a simple photo booth! :)

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-S...2/IMG_1420.JPG

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-s...0/IMG_1407.JPG

(I took about 20 photos of my reservoir trying to get the light/color/sharpness right. This thing has so many options... still trying to get it right. I need a tripod, too... right now using combinations of boxes and books.
First, some blank Acrylic from the local Home Depot to play with. I've never touched the stuff before now, so this should be a fun learning experience.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-9...2/IMG_1402.JPG

But what to do with it? Hmm. I know! Something useful. Time to break out the sharpie and start measuring! :D

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-I...2/IMG_1403.JPG

Lines, lines, and more lines... any idea what I am building yet?

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-i...2/IMG_1404.JPG

I tried a number of different ways to cut the Acrylic. By far, the most effective was to clamp a metal ruler along where I wanted to cut, then get a tungsten tipped razor knife and score it heavily... then just give it a good quick bend... *snap*... Nice clean line. Well... sometimes. :p

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-8...2/IMG_1421.JPG


Only part of the way there... For the small corners, I ended up using a coping saw... proved way better than a dremmel... man, what a mess! It's ok... I'll fix it up with some liberal sanding.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-G...2/IMG_1423.JPG

More on that little side project later!

Finally, I played around in sketchup a little bit, and got most of the concept for my Front-mounted reservoir together:


https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/--...esConcept1.JPG

The concept is causing more problems than anything so far... Here's what I mean:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-n...roblemArea.JPG

... I have no idea what to do right there with the pump! :confused: I've been rotating it around, flipping it here and there... nothing seems to be granting me that 'AHA!' moment yet. Looking for a way to keep a lot of the tubing symmetrical and clean, keep the pump upright or on it's side, and connect it all in the order Res > Pump > Radiator. I know line order doesn't matter as far as termperature or flow restriction is concerned too much... but I've found it's a heck of a lot easier to fill the lines if the pump is immediately after the reservoir.

Hmmmmmmmmm.....

Mmmmm Like the build :)

I have a V600 at the moment that I am working on but I do have a BRAND NEW IN THE BOX V2000 in my garage for my next build :p

So I will be watching this to get some ideas ;)

Nice Work so far ;)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Farmerbrown

... but I do have a BRAND NEW IN THE BOX V2000 in my garage ...

---

Jealous! I was looking all over the internet for a backup v2000... you know... in case I botched cutting the case sides or something... :rolleyes:

Thanks for the compliment! Hopefully you'll get a lot of good ideas out of this one! :)

Quick update for the morning... All of my hardware is finally here! Also, Bitspower has decided to sponsor my build with a 'mystery package' that should be showing up on my doorstep soon! Can't wait to see what it is! :D

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-_.../s533/Logo.jpg

Also, I'll be spending most of today constructing a new workbench for this build... I cleaned out a corner of my garage, will be making a loft, then putting a bench and work area under it. I'll probably post some photos of it too! :p

Another quick update before a flood of photos! I spent pretty much my whole weekend building a loft for my garage to get a bunch of junk out of the way, then set up a nice workspace for myself for this build... on the actual computer front, I finally got all of my hardware delivered! Lots of pictures / unboxings to follow, but here's a few teaser photos:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-y...2/IMG_1442.JPG

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-9...2/IMG_1443.JPG

See you tomorrow!

So... I slacked on the last update... but a massive update is coming, i swear! :P

As a teaser for it:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/--...2/IMG_1614.JPG

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Z...2/IMG_1652.JPG

All right, finally that update I keep promising. First... I spent memorial day weekend building myself a workspace in the corner of my garage. Now I should have a much better workspace, as opposed to a couple of sad fold-up tables in the middle of my garage... :)

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-b...2/IMG_1436.JPG

Next... All my hardware finally showed up! I spent a fair amount of time playing with my camera and lighting, just collecting shots of unboxings:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-9...2/IMG_1440.JPG

First items out of the box... my XSPC RX480's and some Swiftech MCP35x's:
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-S...2/IMG_1446.JPG

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-R...2/IMG_1448.JPG


The Radiators had a great finish on them... no dings or blemishes, and only very minor fin damage, almost negligible.
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-1...2/IMG_1455.JPG

Next, The processor and ram:
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-m...2/IMG_1462.JPG

This ram is supposedly a monster overclocker... can't wait to heat em up and see what they can do. :D
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-b...2/IMG_1465.JPG

Now, the CPU and GPU water blocks... a Swiftech Apogee HD and a EK waterblock for the GTX680:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-O...2/IMG_1468.JPG

When I flipped the CPU block, I was horrified to find a QC sticker stuck to it... upon closer inspection, though, it was just stuck to a protective plastic sheet. :p
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-K...2/IMG_1473.JPG

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-V...2/IMG_1479.JPG

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-P...2/IMG_1482.JPG


And now, the most expensive part of my build thus far:
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-e...2/IMG_1491.JPG

It came with a bunch of stickers, a poster, and the usual manual junk:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-U...2/IMG_1492.JPG

It also came with a really nice looking metal/carbon fiber case badge. Shame it wont get used. :p
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-D...2/IMG_1497.JPG

The packing is even fancy... specialized compartments for each item, and an EVGA logo carved into the main section:
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-e...2/IMG_1499.JPG

The card is a monster:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-E...2/IMG_1500.JPG

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-P...2/IMG_1502.JPG

I got the SC+ version, so mine came with a fancy backplate, too. Nice, considering my motherboard is inverted on this case, so this is the side everyone will be looking at, mostly:
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-P...2/IMG_1506.JPG


And then, there's the Corsair AX850 PSU:
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-z...2/IMG_1508.JPG

I got this one for half off, due to it being open box... heck of a deal if you ask me... but it looks like i'm paying for it:
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-N...2/IMG_1512.JPG

Oh well, no matter. I was planning on painting it anyway. :p The sleeving and heatshrink is a nice thought, but it's kinda cheap... I'll be sleeving all of my case anyway, so I'll re-do these at the same time!
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-z...2/IMG_1515.JPG

Finally, all the fittings and miscellaneous stuff... starting with some VERY good looking Monsoon fittings. I saw these in a few cases, and just had to get some to try em out:
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-b...2/IMG_1524.JPG

I also got some Phobya Radgrills for the outside of my case... the finish is a bit ugly though, and the sticker/middle has to go... nothing a little dremeling won't fix. :D
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-E...2/IMG_1528.JPG

And then there's the EK DDC-Dual Top, to gang my two pumps together:
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-3...2/IMG_1537.JPG

It came with some hardware to mount it in a 5 1/4 bay, and some anti-vibration stuff. The machining on this piece is particularly high quality. Shame it's not visible. ;)
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-F...2/IMG_1542.JPG

What case build is complete without a massive pile of fans? Gentile Typhoon AP-15's in my case. :)
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-b...2/IMG_1546.JPG

And last, but certainly not least in the extras category, the many many Bitspower fittings that will bring it all together. The quality is excellent... well worth then chunk of change I plunked down for all of it:
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-E...2/IMG_1587.JPG

Finally, one of the best looking pieces of my pile of components... some sleeving and miscellaneous connectors/tools/fittings from MDPC! I cannot recommend Nils' sleeving enough. Just go buy some, and you'll understand.
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-O...2/IMG_1558.JPG

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-l...2/IMG_1567.JPG

I bought basically one of everything in his store! :D
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Q...2/IMG_1573.JPG

Performance-pcs.com... the place where I got most of this... also sent me a bunch of random desk toys... I guess as a reward for all the money I spent with them? :D
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-N...2/IMG_1580.JPG





Now that all of that is out of the way... time for some actual progress! I did some experimenting with painting, filling, and acrylic:

I started out with some blank strips of aluminum scrap that I had laying around... scuffed, marked, dented... time to fix em up, so I can use them to see what the paint looks like, and so I can get my painting techniques right:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-L...2/IMG_1589.JPG

I started by sanding the blank sheets down with some P400, to get rid of the marking, scratches, and such, and to give a good grip surface for the primer. The standard blank is on the left, and the sanded one is milky/solid, on the right. Ready for priming!
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-J...2/IMG_1592.JPG

I primed in light, even strokes from edge to edge, waiting two minutes between coats (as per the instructions on the can. I used Self Etching primer, as it provides better adhesion than standard primer when used on aluminum and other metals:
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-k...2/IMG_1595.JPG
(without fail, a hair landed on it right after I finished the final coat. :mad:)

I took a bunch of scrap wood laying around and threw together a quick drying rack for my pieces and parts, too. Crude, but effective! I'll probably use it to hang parts for priming and painting, too, so I can get all the sides on each coat, cutting down on the number of passes I have to make on each piece:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-g...2/IMG_1599.JPG

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-S...2/IMG_1598.JPG

After the primer dried for 15 minutes (per the can instructions), I moved on to wet sanding using P1000. I know, the grit was a little high (the can called for P450, but that seemed low). Just meant a little more elbow grease, but a smoother finish in the end:
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-D...2/IMG_1600.JPG

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-u...2/IMG_1602.JPG

Next, after letting the primer dry for a few hours, I broke out the paint. I grabbed a few random colors at the local hardware store... just to see which one I ended up liking more:
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/--...2/IMG_1614.JPG
(I was originally thinking of making my case Black/Blue... but now I am leaning towards Black/Black... so the blue paint is more for fun at this point. :p)

First coat, using a highly scientific method of propping the subjects up on spray paint caps on top of a cut up cardboard box. :cool:
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/--...2/IMG_1615.JPG

The finish came out pretty well, for a first coat. Just goes to show that a good coat is all in the preparation. Still a little splotchy, but I think additional coats will clean that up:
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-0...2/IMG_1623.JPG

I really like how uniform the matte black came out. Highly considering a black/matte black combo for my case right now:
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-A...2/IMG_1621.JPG

While waiting for the paint to dry, I decided to do some additional light reading on spray painting for various finishes. Many recommended warming the cans in hot water prior to using them. The difference in how easily the paint applied / how uniform it dried was astounding. Needless to say I'll be soaking all my paint going forward. :)
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-1...2/IMG_1636.JPG

I started the next coat by sanding it with P1500, getting a smooth finish and clearing off all the dust/hair/bugs:
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-I...2/IMG_1631.JPG

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-v...2/IMG_1635.JPG

Another few coats... looking pretty good so far:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Z...2/IMG_1629.JPG

Next step, clear coating! Still waiting for this coat of paint to dry though... so that'll be in the next update!

Moving along... I did some experimenting with patching up holes in aluminum. I have two fairly large holes in the midplate of my case that I would like to fill... but I've never tried anything like that before. I picked out a piece of my case that I didn't plan on using in the final design, and I decided to give some Bondo bumper repair a try, just because that's what the supply store happened to have handy:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-O...2/IMG_1605.JPG

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-S...2/IMG_1606.JPG

I started out thick... basically just trying to fill the holes. After a few botched attempts, I decided to use the screen stuff that came with the bondo, to see if that would help. Man, it worked wonders!
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-j...2/IMG_1607.JPG

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-E...2/IMG_1609.JPG

After waiting a few minutes, it just peeled right off leaving the holes roughly filled.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/--...2/IMG_1610.JPG

I gave the patches another quick coat of bondo to fill the holes and imperfections, then cleaned it up to get it as flat as I could, knowing what was coming next:
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-Y...2/IMG_1613.JPG

... Sanding!
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-h...2/IMG_1637.JPG

... and more sanding!
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-k...2/IMG_1639.JPG

Finally, after 30 minutes of assault with P80, I had all the excess removed:
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-E...2/IMG_1640.JPG

I then went over the whole deal with P150, to remove some of the excess scratches in the aluminum:
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-y...2/IMG_1641.JPG

Another painting tip I learned... prop stuff up standing up, rather than laying down. Helps cut down on the drips and splotches, as the rattle cans seem to like spraying forward instead of down:
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-K...2/IMG_1642.JPG

Primed, and ready to dry:
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-K...2/IMG_1645.JPG

Whew... what an update! Next time... more painting, and some Acrylic work!

It's finally here! The EVGA z77 FTW I've been waiting weeks for is finally here.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-6...2/IMG_1664.JPG

Tonight will be a long night, I have a feeling... ;)

Had a hell of a week last week... so while I did work on my system a bit, I didn't get a chance to come back and post until now... sorry for the delay! :P

Anyway, on to the update! First, I did a bit of work with my side project, that Acrylic thingy I was showing before. I've never worked with Acrylic before now, so I figured I should get some practice by building some practical stuff to learn the ins and outs of the material!

I started by trying to bend the acrylic with the heat gun I picked up in the previous post... talk about a job that requires patience! Maybe it was the type of Acrylic I grabbed off the shelf at Home Depot... or maybe it was that it was so thick... but it took probably 15 minutes of heating to get one edge warm enough to move at all. I took a few photos of the process... but they didn't come out, so I deleted them all. :P

Moving on, I went and picked up a drill and tap set at the local hardware store so that I could try tapping holes into the Acrylic. Not a bad little set for $10.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-n...0/IMG_1721.JPG

First, I pre-drilled the holes with a bit just slightly smaller than the tap I planned on using (for reference, this was a #36 bit for a 6-32 tap.) I marked a few lines on a piece of scrap wood so that I could use it to line up the bit, so I was directly perpendicular to the Acrylic:
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-J...0/IMG_1674.JPG

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-T...0/IMG_1679.JPG

Next, I put together the tap, lined it up with my guide, and slowly turned it... backing up a quarter turn when I felt the bit getting grabby, and slowly proceeding, checking periodically to ensure I was still perpendicular to the Acrylic:
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-3...0/IMG_1677.JPG

Nice, clean tap!
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-l...0/IMG_1681.JPG

Fits like a glove!
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-m...0/IMG_1682.JPG

Repeat that process 10 more times... and I had me a simple motherboard tray for my bench!
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-T...0/IMG_1684.JPG

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-m...0/IMG_1685.JPG

Granted, the tray is a little crude, and not SUPER useful... but it's great for temporarily mounting a motherboard on so that it's up off the surface of the table, and it makes sure there's room for the PCI-e boards and their faceplates to hang off the edge. Most of all, it was great practice for working with Acrylic a bit!

Next... I couldn't resist throwing the new rig together with all it's default cooling, just to give it a spin. Besides, I'll never know if it was DOA or if I broke it all by myself, if I jump strait into water cooling. :D
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-H...0/IMG_1687.JPG

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-3...0/IMG_1691.JPG

The heatsink that came with the 3770K is about as cheap as it comes... I am a little concerned that this thing will not provide any cooling at all. It's even thinner than the Core 2 Duo stock heatsink fan...
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-T...0/IMG_1692.JPG

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-M...0/IMG_1693.JPG

The thing was a pain to mount, too... cheap plastic fasteners. Every time I pressed one side down and gave it the quarter turn, the other side popped right back up. It was only through some creative finger-twister yoga that I managed to hold down and turn all four pegs simultaneously:
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-G...0/IMG_1694.JPG

Fortunately, seating in the GTX 680 SC+ was quite a bit easier. This thing is monolithic! It dwarfs the motherboard... seems more like the motherboard is seated into the graphics card, at this point. :P
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-K...0/IMG_1698.JPG

...and... first try, boot to bios! Huzzaw, no blue smoke!
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-U...0/IMG_1699.JPG

Finally, to round out this session... while waiting for windows to install and update, I decided to unbox the radiators and try putting the core together. I started with the radiator interlink / drain port. All Bitspower parts, looks great!
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-1...0/IMG_1706.JPG

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-h...0/IMG_1709.JPG


Next, I threw some of my Gentile Typhoon's on the radiators:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-k...0/IMG_1724.JPG

And now... for the first setback of the project! Actually, there were multiple setbacks rolled into one here... fortunately, they are all on one part, so maybe I can fix them all together. :p

Setback #1: I cranked up the fans just to make sure they all worked... and one of the leads in my fan power multiplexer is dead. Oh well, I was going to re-sleeve it anyway, I can fix it while I am in there.

Setback #2: While powered up, I put the two radiators in roughly the position they were organized on my Sketchup drafts earlier in this thread... and my god, the noise! They created some kind of vacuum against eachother, causing a really low vibration that made my head want to implode. I tried putting a fan baffle between the two rows of fans, and it did nothing to help. I also noticed the air throughput coming out the other side of each radiator was dramatically reduced compared to when I separated the radiators. Here's how close they would need to be to even come close to fitting:
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-w...0/IMG_1722.JPG

No good. :eek:

Setback #3: Either the Sketchup was not to scale, my measurements in sketchup weren't true to form, or the radiators were wider than anticipated... but yea... the whole business doesn't fit in the bottom of my case! :eek: It's off by about a quarter of an inch. No good.

So... I have some re-planning to do! Hmmm... :rolleyes:

Alas, it was a good weekend of playing around... as evidenced by the current state of my work area:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-E...0/IMG_1727.JPG

Next time... maybe some painting? :)
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-H...0/IMG_1717.JPG

I did a little playing around this afternoon with options for my radiator 'conundrum' ... here's option 1, 2, and 3 that I came up with. All three fit, and all three will require additional hardware, so it's pretty much a wash any way I end up going. My major considerations are noise and Delta-T for the radiators...

Option 1:
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-j...2/IMG_1729.JPG
In this option, I would be replacing the 90 degree compression fittings you see coming out of each radiator with TWO 90 degree angle pieces (non compression, g1/4, smaller profile). The one on the left would have one angled out of the radiator like the compression is now, and the other angled to connect to the end of my left hand port on the drain thingy... kinda forming a "Z" if you were to trace the flow of water with a pencil. The right hand radiator would have one angle fitting like the compression is now, and the other connecting to the right hand side of my drain thingy, forming more of a "]" shape. Both rows of fans would be pushing... or pulling... doesn't matter. Personally, I hate option 1. Its lack of bilateral symmetry makes me sad.

Next, option 2:
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/--...2/IMG_1731.JPG
Option 2 has fans on either side of the radiators, with a "C" shape of 90 degree angles coming out of the right radiator, and a "]" of 90 degree angles coming out of the right hand radiator. The fans on the left would be pushing, and the fans on the right would be pulling. I kinda like design 2... the big question is, how (if at all) do I attach the two radiators to each other? Or maybe I don't, and both are just situated close to each other and mounted independently with some anti-vibration neoprene between them or something. Above all, this puts the fans on the outside of the core, which are much nicer to look at (especially after I have painted them.)

Finally, option 3:
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-P...2/IMG_1733.JPG
This option looks a lot like the original design, with the difference being that the two rows of fans will be facing the same direction, and they are right against each other. With the ports situated this closely, I would have to drop the 5-way splitter in the other two options in favor of a "Q" style connector from BP, and change the compression fittings out for some standard barbs, because the compression dials are too big to fit. I'm a little concerned that this option will also create vibration if the fans are not spinning at exactly the same speed. I am also thinking that the double row of fans will not really give any benefit... it's not like they will move air faster or anything, right? Alas, I am just keeping my mind open.


There are other designs I came up with in addition to these three... but these made the 'most' sense. Others were variations of putting the radiators' ports at opposite ends lenghtwise, and doing some kind of tube routing between them or something... but I think it just adds clutter.

Thoughts? As I mentioned, I am leaning towards 2... but would love some input!

Looking great Noblesoft. The idea for the res is very nice.

I am inclined to agree that option 2 is preferable over the other two, however none of the three are all that appealing due to the stacking of the rads.

Keep up the good work.

Agreed... in a perfect world, I would have enough space to have both with their own independent air intake.

One option I thought about last night after posting these three was to have the fans on the outside of each radiator pulling air in from the outside, and pushing towards eachother, then have a baffle between the radiators so that the air gets pushed down the bottom of the case (which already has holes cut out and a grill in place). That option seems promising too, and I like the 'double fresh air intake' aspect of it as well.

I think this weekend I will be connecting the whole system up on a bench to see which option gives me the greatest Delta T, then report back. :yepp:

Nice to see some v2000 action, I love that case too!

As for your radiatorsandwich I would prefer the same with your 2 rx480's as I did once with my 2 PA120.3's (with fans on pushpull).

http://i40.tinypic.com/vhf4o1.jpg

Oh, very nice! The Bitspower "Q" and fittings are very similar to what I was considering for one of the options listed above. It's a little hard to tell what you did with the fans... it looks like a row of fans attached to just one of the two radiators (the right hand side in the image)?

I had a block of free time today (for once in a long while) so I got to make some good progress! ... well... it felt like a lot of progress... but now that I am looking over the images, if feels like I didn't get anything done at all. :p

First, I set up a bench in my garage using some of my old watercooling parts from my previous build, and hooked it all up to my new radiators so that I could do some comparisons of airflow to see which combination of fans and radiators gave me the best performance.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-m...2/IMG_1734.JPG

I took some scrap sheet metal and drilled a few holes to help with mounting my radiators, so that they would stay put during the test. I have a set of XSPC radiator stands to help them sit up on end, which screw onto these sheets.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-w...2/IMG_1735.JPG

Here we are, filled and running! I only have the processor in the loop, so there's very little flow resistance. I actually had to turn down my pump to it's lowest setting, and was still getting a pretty deep vortex. :eek:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-z...2/IMG_1737.JPG

It took a few minutes to bleed out all the bubbles and such... go figure, one of the brief minutes I took off the reservoir cap to fill more liquid, a June bug flew into my garage, banked off the back wall, and slam dunked into the water. /sigh. What are the odds? The opening is like 2 inches wide! :confused:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-m...2/IMG_1745.JPG

System ready!

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-E...2/IMG_1741.JPG

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-d...2/IMG_1742.JPG

Anyway, I booted up the system and ran prime95 on continuous for 24 hours, writing down the CPU, Air, and water temp every few hours or so. After I was satisfied with the data points for the first radiator config (which was Fan > Radiator |divider| Radiator < Fan ), I shut down the system and reversed the fans to try out Fan < Radiator |divider| Radiator > Fan .

Alas, my motherboard decided that it had enough:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-W...0/IMG_1768.JPG

(I think 4E means 'i'm tired')

Without a reliable way to generate heat for the loop, that ends testing for now. EVGA has another motherboard on the way! (Their support / warranty is the best. SO glad I stuck with them for the new motherboard.)

On to the next item, more prep and painting! I started with cleaning all the neoprene sticky gunk off the radiator area of my old case. What a pain! (That's the last time I stick anything directly to the case. Ugh.)


https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-t...2/IMG_1739.JPG

Nothing a little solvent won't solve! (and a LOT of elbow grease)

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-K...2/IMG_1740.JPG

With that out of the way, time for some painting! I propped the painting area up on a box this time to help cut down on some of the debris from the ground that kept getting blown onto the paint job last time. Seems to have helped a little, but still not great... here's a shot of applying the second round of priming to that piece I put the bumper repair epoxy on last time:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-N...0/IMG_1752.JPG

I also tacked and wet sanded each of the color strips I had to prepare them for clear coating. Looking pretty smooth!

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-7...2/IMG_1755.JPG

I couldn't find any clear coat in a spray paint can at any of the stores near me, but I DID find some in a regular paint can. I figured... why not? I bought those, and borrowed a spray gun from my dad that he just happened to have from painting an old car:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-L...0/IMG_1756.JPG

I have no idea what kind of paint he used... but it was ON there. I tried all the solvents I had, no getting that red off... so I figure it's probably safe to proceed with my clear coats in spite of the ugly looking red all over the sprayer. :rolleyes:

Hooray, a reason to use my new toy!

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-D...0/IMG_1751.JPG

I let the paint strips dry for an hour or so, then started giving them a final tack before the clearcoat, when I noticed something... If I kept scrubbing with the tack cloth, it took off a lot of the haze and left the finish really shiny looking! Weird. I wonder if it was just some of the material on the tack cloth 'buffing' the paint.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-d...2/IMG_1757.JPG

And here's the four strips after clear coat, sitting to dry. The left three got the 'clear' coat, while the right flat black one got the 'matte' coat. They looked pretty similar as a fresh coat, but we'll see how the matte coat comes out when its dry (in 48 hours...)

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-a...2/IMG_1760.JPG

I really like the shiny black and matte black... I am thinking currently that I'll use some combination of these two on the case... maybe shiny on the large parts, and matte on the small/detail parts. Hmm.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-U...2/IMG_1765.JPG

(Also, tons of orange peel at the moment... hoping some of that evens itself out, otherwise I have a lot of sanding coming... :p Anyone know if I did anything wrong?)

That's all for now! Once I get my RMA'd board back (this week) I should be back in business for more radiator testing. Till then! :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Noblesoft

Oh, very nice! The Bitspower "Q" and fittings are very similar to what I was considering for one of the options listed above. It's a little hard to tell what you did with the fans... it looks like a row of fans attached to just one of the two radiators (the right hand side in the image)?

---

Well, the connector you have wasn't avaiable back in 2010 in the Bitspower gamma. ;)

Just a quick update for those of you following... no, I haven't died! :rolleyes:

Got buried in side projects for work, house construction, and lots of other miscellaneous things... not to mention, the motherboard that I was using as my test bed for the radiators died unceremoniously shortly after testing... so I am waiting on an RMA for that board.

In the meantime I have been hammering out the details on what art/design I want for my case sides and other miscellaneous little things. No pictures to share quite yet, but you'll get some soon enough when I finish the design!

Till then!

Time for a small update! Well... it looks small... but in reality it took hours of internal debating and crumpled up balls of paper... :p ...but I think I have a (semi) final design for my case! Sorry about the crummy photo quality, my scanner is great at text and that's about it. This was also done with a lot of shading that is not evident in the scans... alas, it is the design that's important right now!

First, the case wall. The plan is to have this design on both sides of the case. The right side of the case (the one you can actually see the components in) is drawn here, and the left side of the case would be a mirror image of it.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-k...0/scan0016.jpg

Some notes about this design:
1) The "inner triangle" at the top right is a flush mounted window that you can look through to see the computer components. It will be edge lit by a RGB LED strip all the way around.
2) The "outer triangle" surrounding the window will be a 1/4 inch piece of acrylic on it's side, flush mounted with the wall of the case. It will be edge lit by a RGB LED strip along its length.
3) The lettering on the "inner triangle" will be etched from the inside, so that it will glow with the color that the window is currently lit with.
4) The radiator cutout at the bottom will have some kind of thin mesh covering the open parts... maybe modders mesh, maybe screen. I haven't decided. It needs to be rigid, have small enough holes to block any dog/cat hair, and removable for cleaning.
5) I am presently planning on painting the case wall black with a mirror finish. I am considering mounting the thin acrylic strips and outer triangle PRIOR to putting on the final gloss coat, so that the entire case surface is one flat clear panel.

That covers the left and right sides of the case. Now for the case front and top:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-y...0/scan0017.jpg

Some notes about this part of the design:

1) The case top will have similar design features to the case walls... there will be a small window in the top with the etched lettering on it, and flush mounted LED lit acrylic strips.
2) The case top will feature a small RGB-lit LCD negative display along with a few control buttons and a pair of USB 3.0 ports for easy access.
3) The prominent feature on the front of the case will be a centrally located tube reservoir. This reservoir will be suspended by it's top/bottom in a conclave half-cylinder. The cylinder will have a line cut through it lining up with the center of the tube reservoir, so that light shining through it will illuminate the reservoir, diffuse, and create a 'prismatic warping' effect.
4) The base of the front of the case currently has a physical case badge and front-mounted USB/Audio ports. These will be removed and a design similar to the sides and top will be put in its place.
5) The front of the case is mostly perforated mesh in the original design. I am considering backing it with a solid sheet of frosted acrylic that is edge lit so that the entire surface will glow, showing through the perforated mesh.


They linchpin of this design revolves around a central Arduino controller that will be mounted in the case. This Arduino will be able to control every individual led on every strip, producing just about any combination of lights and patterns I desire. The Arduino will also control the display at the top, displaying statistics like temperatures, fan speeds, and liquid flow rate, as well as letting me control fan speeds. The design intent is that I can generate just about any color or pattern I want, like chasing lights, pulsing, etc. One such planned color/pattern is to have the entire case slowly phase from blue to red depending on the temperature of the air, water, or CPU, like a giant thermometer. Other patterns include a slow randomized 'pulse' traveling along the thin acrylic lines, a case-wide heart beat pulse, and a slowly cycling rainbow of colors. I also plan on having a very complex initial animation when you press the power button.

As you can tell, this will be a very ambitious design with a lot of difficult-to-implement features along the way. A lot of the Arduino work is already underway, facilitated by a college friend of mine that I used to program with back in the day. I'm actually going over to his place today to check out the progress! I am also going to be testing the process of flush mounting and glazing the case/acrylic design next... just to make sure that's actually possible and it comes out looking right.

I have a long road ahead, but it should be a lot of fun! Here we go! :D

Well... either I have terrible luck, or someone at the EVGA warehouse is playing a cruel joke. I have now gone through three motherboards trying to get a replacement from them, all of which have been DOA. The latest victim was a 790i SLI FTW.

They're sending out yet ANOTHER board tomorrow... hopefully I will have this one in time for the weekend to get some testing done!

Sheesh! :mad:

good

No replacement this week. :( (Not entirely unexpected)

They are 'hand testing' the board I just sent back to make sure it is indeed dead, then will get back to me with options.

In the meantime, I spent a few hours last night playing with lighting effects on plexiglass, and designing the front reservoir area. This will be a rather complicated piece, as I am coming to find... but that's fine. More work = more tools = more fun.

Up until now, I have been using cheap plexi that I found at a local hardware store... this stuff seems brittle and is difficult to work with. It does not look like the typical acrylic people are working with that has that brown paper backing, either. Is there a 'generally accpeted as best' acrylic that I should be buying to work with at this stage? Any suggestions greatly appreciated.

I've also been looking for some kind of bonding agent for the acrylic... I've heard there is some kind of solvent out there that bonds acrylic together without leaving a seam of any kind... but the guys at the hardware store look at me like I am speaking greek when I ask for it.

I'll upload a bunch of pictures of my progress tonight when I get home. Until then!


Edit:

I may have answered my own questions through some additional research, but perhaps you all can confirm my findings... for the type of material, I am looking at using Cell Casted Acrylic rather than Polycarbonate, since Acrylic has better light distribution properties and is a bit softer to mold/work with. Cell casted because I guess it is more flexible/durable than the other extruded types. I'll probably use 1/4 inch thickness for most things. For the bonding agent, I am looking at IPS Weld-on #3 I believe. I'll probably also pick up some Novus polishing stuff to fix any scratches and such.

Any other ideas out there? :confused: Thanks!

While I can't really comment on how to bond two acrylic pieces, I can tell you that Novus works really well for polishing/cleaning acrylic.
For the edges, I usually wetsand with 1000 grit, then 1200 grit, and then 2000 grit followed by the Novus polish. This results in a nice smooth finish.

Also make sure that you use the correct drill bits when you drill acrylic as well, metal drill bits tend to cause chipping.

Awesome work so far :up:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by schoolslave

While I can't really comment on how to bond two acrylic pieces, I can tell you that Novus works really well for polishing/cleaning acrylic.
For the edges, I usually wetsand with 1000 grit, then 1200 grit, and then 2000 grit followed by the Novus polish. This results in a nice smooth finish.

Also make sure that you use the correct drill bits when you drill acrylic as well, metal drill bits tend to cause chipping.

Awesome work so far :up:

---

Thanks for the tips on edge polishing! And yes, I indeed need to find some specialty acrylic bits... all I have are wood/metal right now, and I can certainly vouch for the "chop job" they do on acrylic. :rolleyes:

So, in the bits of spare time I have had over the course of this week, I have been thinking about some of the functional intricacies of the focus of my case... lighting! One of the primary light features will be the front of the case, which will be backed by frosted acrylic that will be edge lit to give it a soft glowing effect. The light will be provided by some RGB light strip that I purchased a while ago, and controlled by an Arduino... but that is still 'in development'... so to test, I dissected one of those silly LED lit pens that they give away at trade shows. :p

The first test shows, as expected, that light is not diffused in Acrylic very well by default. The edges light up, but that's about it.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/--...2/IMG_1849.JPG

So, to help spread the light, I sanded each side of the piece with some 200 grit sandpaper. Enough to scuff it up pretty good. The change is dramatic.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-c...2/IMG_1847.JPG

But... still not enough. The color doesn't quite reach the edges, and is a lot brighter at the origination point than anywhere else. I read up a while ago that drilling an inlay hole to embed the light source in would help increase the light absorbed by the acrylic, so I gave that a shot:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-8...2/IMG_1848.JPG

Looking better! But still not quite there. What else can I do? Hmm... perhaps backing it with some material to help contain the light? Here's a shot with some simple printer paper held against the back:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-y...2/IMG_1851.JPG

Now we're getting somewhere. Just to try it out, I also put some scrap shiny aluminum behind it, to see what that did:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-s...2/IMG_1850.JPG

Eh, not that great. A step backward from white paper. I'm not sure that putting white paper behind my acrylic is the right answer either... but it's on the right track. Perhaps painting the back surface? Hmm.

Anyway, here's a rough preview of how the lit acrylic looks in the case:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-G...2/IMG_1852.JPG

And here's how it looks with the LED inlaid in the side of the acrylic:


https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-M...2/IMG_1853.JPG

Keep in mind this is with a singe LED, and it will be lit all the way around with a strip that has LED's every 2 inches. So it should be much brighter/fuller.

Anyway, on to the thin edge-lit strips that will be featured along the sides of the case! Here was the first shot with the LED embedded into the surface, and no backings:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-F...2/IMG_1855.JPG

Not very good.

Next, I set the thing on a piece of white paper:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-v...2/IMG_1856.JPG

A little better... but not much. Next, a sheet of paper on each side:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-q...2/IMG_1857.JPG

That made quite a difference! Just to try it out, I also backed one side with aluminum:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-B...2/IMG_1858.JPG

Meh. Not great. Not as good as double paper, but close.


So, right now it looks like paper (or at least a white surface) is the clear winner for getting light to diffuse. One other thing I am interested in trying is a mirrored surface... they make 1/8" acrylic mirror sheets, and i think that might significantly increase the amount of light reflected back into the acrylic. Worth picking up a sheet to find out, anyway!

Next time... some shots of fabricating the front reservoir housing! See you then! :)

This is looking nice. I'm waiting for next update... will follow this to the end....

Time for an update! :D

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-m...2/IMG_1878.JPG

First of all, as shown in my previous post... EVGA finally sent me a motherboard that works! Hooray! To get it working, I had to pick up a new processor... and while I was at it, I decided to pick up a PSU tester JUST to make sure it wasn't my PSU blowing things up.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-3...2/IMG_1881.JPG

Fortunately, the PSU for my bench tested out fine. :p I also grabbed that little tail LED so that I could do some more Acrylic/light testing.

Here's the bench, up and running on the first try!

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-X...2/IMG_1882.JPG

(I moved it into the living room... it's been 100F outside the past week or two, and the heat in the garage was getting unbearable. So the wife gets to deal with my workbench floating around the house with me. :lol:)

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-d...2/IMG_1883.JPG

There's that silly "stasis chamber" on the motherboard. As far as i can tell, it's just a useless chunk of plastic with a pulsing LED behind it. Other than that, the board looks great and performs admirably. It's been running at 100% CPU (torture testing with Prime95) for about a week now, and no crashes or problems yet! I haven't been wasting all that burn in time, of course... I've been testing! Stand back, I'm doing SCIENCE! :D

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-T...00/temps-1.JPG

Okay... so it's not super scientific... but it's sufficient for what I am trying to determine anyway! It helps that I moved my rig into the house... so the temperature is somewhat controlled (only varying 5-10 degrees F instead of 30-40!) I'm just measuring the air temperature compared to the water temperature over the course of a day or so, measuring at random intervals. I then subtract the air temp from the water temp to give me my Delta T (difference in temp between water and air), which gives me a fair idea of how efficient my radiator setup is performing. Assuming that my heat generation is consistent (which it should be, the CPU is 100% pegged using the same wattage the whole time), I should have a pretty good basis for comparison.

So far I have only tested two configurations... The first setup is rows of fans on the outside of each radiator pusing air into the center of the 'radiator core', and there is a gap between the radiators where air is vented up/down. So the orientation is basically Fans > Radiator |air baffle| Radiator < Fans. This orientation yielded a Delta T of around 1.875 degrees F. Pretty darn good! That means the radiators were able to keep the water temperature at nearly air temperature. Keep in mind that a Delta T of 0 should be nearly impossible to accomplish... so yea. Pretty good. :thumbsup:

The second setup I tested was similar to the first, but I just reversed the airflow. Now the fans are configured to pull air from the center of the radiator core, so the setup goes Fans < Radiator |air baffle| Radiator > Fans. As you can see from the second chart, I ended up with a Delta T of 3.88F. I knew that fans in 'pull' configuration weren't as good as fans in 'push' configuration... but I had no idea it would make THIS big of a difference! So it's clear that configuration 1 is superior, and that narrows down my options to only those that consider fans in push mode. Neat!

(Yes, I know, there are other variables at play here that could shift the balance in favor of one configuration over another... but for the highly un-scientific needs of this project, I will consider this level of testing to be sufficiently similar to the performance I will see in 'real world' scenarios, which is why I am doing it this way... because... well... my computer will need to operate in the 'real world' at some point. ;))

Anyway, while all this was going on in the background, I decided to play around with acrylic some more! Always fun to experiment. This time, I wanted to try out cutting Acrylic with a power saw, joining it with superglue, using a corner mold, etc... all tasks I will need to do in some capacity for the project. First of all, time to meet the power tool... a good old miter saw!

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-D...2/IMG_1884.JPG

The nice thing about using a miter saw is that it has the angles printed right on the base, making it very easy to get exact angled cuts for joining.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-e...2/IMG_1885.JPG

The blade on this saw wasn't designed for Acrylic specifically... but it has a pretty good teeth-per-inch rating on it, so it should be passable. We'll see though. :scared: Safety first! In the small experiences I've had with Acrylic so far, this stuff flakes off like crazy and gets extremely hot... enough to burn your hands should a stray piece land on you...

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-F...2/IMG_1890.JPG


First cut! :eek:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-2...2/IMG_1889.JPG

Pretty rough... but I rushed it a bit. Nothing a little liberal sanding cannot fix!

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-U...2/IMG_1892.JPG

Now to try an angled cut!

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-_...2/IMG_1894.JPG

Also a little ugly. The blade on the saw clearly isn't sharp enough or cut out for Acrylic, as it is melting the stuff rather than cutting/shaving it. :rolleyes: As it goes through the acrylic, it should be flaking off like snow... instead, I am getting cotton ball-like webs and piles here and there:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-D...2/IMG_1887.JPG

Fail. :rolleyes: Guess I'll be buying a new blade once I can find a good store that sells Acrylic tools. I need some Acrylic drill bits and glue anyway. :blush:

No matter, though! We can still fix the scrap pieces I am working with, and proceed onward. Time for some sanding! I used P250 grit for this work, as there was a significant amount of correcting that needed to be done.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-X...2/IMG_1897.JPG

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-h...2/IMG_1895.JPG

Looking better...

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-u...2/IMG_1896.JPG

Much better! I cut a second piece using the same process... now to try out joining them! I read somewhere that using IPS Weld-on #3 is about the best stuff you can get for 'highly visible' joints such as what I will be doing on the front of my case... however... I don't have any of that yet, and couldn't find it at the local hardware stores. I also read that super glue can be used in a pinch, though it usually ends up looking rather ugly by comparison. Fortunately, I have plenty of super glue... so let's see how it goes!

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-j...2/IMG_1898.JPG

I used a metal corner beam that I found at the local hardware stores as a 'mold' for my 90 degree angles. I put a line of superglue down the crease, then clamped it to the mold to let it dry for a few minutes.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-0...2/IMG_1901.JPG

And the result:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-T...2/IMG_1909.JPG

Not too bad! I only spent a minute or two sanding, so the edge was not perfectly matched. I also stopped at 250 Grit rather than using higher 1000 or some of that acrylic polish that helps get a perfect surface... so I can see this working very nicely once the joint is uniform. Even with a quick sanding job and cruddy old super glue, the weld ended up being almost invisible... here's a look at it from the front!

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-w...2/IMG_1907.JPG

Pretty slick! :nod: Looking forward to what I can do with a bit more time and care, on some higher quality Acrylic with appropriate tooling and adhesive!

Next... I went on a bit of a hardware shopping spree... xD I've only just started collecting real power tools and such... most of what I have done around the house could be accomplished with a table saw, hand saw, and simple wrenches/screw drivers/drills. Now that I am getting some serious detail work done, I thought it was time to get some accurate tools for finer work. First, I raided my fathers garage for any old tools he was no longer using... he gave me free reign so long as I 'treated them nicely.' He's seen what I am capable of, clearly. :lol:

First tool, a table router! This should come in very handy for some of the edging to get my Acrylic window mounted flush against the case wall. Should also be great for using a template to cut identical case windows on either side.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-R...0/IMG_1912.JPG

Next, a rotary sander! Beats the heck out of manual sanding for pieces that require a lot of correcting. Finer jobs are best left to manual sanding of course... but this will really speed things along for working with metal I think. Might be a bit much for Acrylic... but we'll see. I can also get a buffing wheel for this to polish my Acrylic and such.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-m...0/IMG_1911.JPG

Third... an old, dusty grinder! Should be great for evening up edges on metal cuts, and I can switch the wheels out for buffing and such too.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-V...2/IMG_1913.JPG


Finally, who can forget a the trusty old table saw?

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-J...2/IMG_1918.JPG

I also raided a multitude of routing bits and such... can never have too many tools. :D

There was still one tool I was planning on getting for this project though, and I finally decided to just go out and get it... a shiny new drill press!

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-m...0/IMG_1910.JPG


https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-H...0/IMG_1916.JPG


I also cleaned up some of the garage and put together a work area for all these great tools... now I have a pretty solid work area for all of these bits and pieces!

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-n...2/IMG_1919.JPG


Anyway, that concludes this update! All the tools are in place, save for a few bits and blades... I think it's time for me to go and order some Acrylic now... :D

Small update... I've been continuing to test various configurations of radiators and fans (which, by the way, results are coming back way different than I would have anticipated... leads me to believe I need to do a second round of tests of each to 'confirm' the previous round...) and in the meantime I have been figuring out all the dimensions for the various features of my case. I started on paper, but figured I might put it all in sketchup where I can manipulate it a bit better. Soo... here's a render of the progress so far!

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-g...WithWindow.JPG

The Grey outline triangle will be acrylic on it's side (1/4" thick) that will be backlit to give it a glow that I can manipulate into moving patterns and such... or solid... or pulsing... pretty much whatever I want. I couldn't find an easy way to do 'etching' in the window, but you can imagine a 'PRISM' text etched into the window. :D

The area at the bottom that you can see the radiator/fans through will be mesh most likely... not sure what kind yet. Could be as thin as speaker mesh / screen, or as thick as mesh you could find on a fan grill. Haven't decided.

I'll be adding the front and top case features next, when I get a bit of time. Busy weekend helping some relatives move, unfortunately! Anyway, let me know what you think!

This is going to be a busy weekend! :D I've piled up so much that I want to do over the past week, but I have been bombarded with work and other obligations... now I have two uninterrupted days in a row coming up... so it's time to get some work done! Anyway, here's my plans:

1) Continued radiator testing!

My first round of tests completed, and the results are:

Orientation 1: FANS > RADIATOR |BEVEL| RADIATOR < FANS ... Average Delta T: 1.875F "Winner!"
Orientation 2: FANS < RADIATOR |BEVEL| RADIATOR > FANS ... Average Delta T: 3.88F
Orientation 3: FANS > RADIATORRADIATOR > FANS ... Average Delta T: 2.05F

... I was actually very surprised. I thought that having the fans blow air into a small area in the center would reduce air flow so much that it would reduce the effectiveness of this setup. Anyway, I decided to proceed with fitting the winning orientation into my case for some measurements when I realized I made a critical mistake when setting up this test... In the tests, I had the two radiators separated by a sheet of aluminum that was suspended between them, allowing air to flow out in any direction... but that setup would not be possible once it's in the case! :o The bottom compartment that the radiators will be 'trapped' in would gradually heat up with the expelled air, as only one direction (down) is actually venting air out of the case. The other directions (sides and top) would just vent into that sealed space. What's more, heat rises (duh), so some of the heat expelled out of the case bottom would just be rising right back into the case. :rolleyes: To top that off, I made a slight mis-measurement on how much space I have to work with in the bottom of the case (forgot to consider the space that the screw heads take up, and the bracket holding the radiators up) and that reduced the space I have to work with to only 10mm. :rolleyes: Not much space for airflow.

Anyway, I have resolved to re-do my testing... this time, I'll be testing it "inside the case" to try and help identify any 'impossible configurations' for this round. Let's see if I get really different results.

To start off the round of testing, I fabricated a really crude bevel out of some scrap acrylic I had laying around. I'll add some pictures tonight, but it's nothing to write home about. :p I then slid the radiator core into the bottom of my partially reassembled case and booted it up for a second round of tests. We'll see what kind of temperatures get generated over this weekend.


2) Case side modifications! Now that I have my design all mocked up in Sketchup, and my tools all in place, it's time to get cutting! I plan on cutting out the two case wall sections and working on how I want to get it all to fit together in the end. The biggest hurdle to jump will be the fact that the triangle window area is 'floating' in the center... you'll notice (from previous pictures) that the design is completely separated from the rest of the case. I plan on using some acrylic (maybe opaque black or something) to bond the strip and window together and to the rest of the case, keeping the whole case wall together. It should be interesting.

3) Case effect planning! My 'partner in crime' that is programming the Arduino side of things for this case is coming over this weekend so that we can hammer out the details of the lighting effects for the case. The hope is that we come out of the planning sessions with a design for adhering the LED strips and mounting them into the acrylic, as well as cable routing for power and control.

This should be a very productive weekend. Looking forward to bombarding you all with photos as we progress! Wish me luck!

Photo time! I spent a little time today playing around with a new photo booth I constructed out of tissue paper and an old cardboard box I had lying around after being inspired by a similar construction over in the photography thread... crude, but effective! Anyway, here's some of my experimentation with the new booth... and some shots of my new toys I just picked up today! That... and a little present from Germany... :D

Initial shots with new booth:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-w...2/IMG_1922.JPG

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-7...2/IMG_1924.JPG

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-u...2/IMG_1925.JPG

Shortly into shooting... I realized I had a problem. It was night time, and dark everywhere except the booth. Turns out that attracts many friends.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-p...2/IMG_1926.JPG

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-R...2/IMG_1928.JPG

Anyway... from Germany! And no... I don't have an alternate personality named Logan... He's the guy doing my Lighting/Arduino work. He needed some molex connectors, so I piggy-backed off of his order. :p

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-c...2/IMG_1930.JPG

... for some of that snazzy Shade 19!

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-m...2/IMG_1931.JPG

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-t...2/IMG_1935.JPG

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-m...2/IMG_1937.JPG

It really is a sharp dark grey... for contrast, here it is against some of the standard black sleeving:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-x...2/IMG_1942.JPG

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-2...2/IMG_1945.JPG

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-o...2/IMG_1951.JPG


And now... for some toys!

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-T...2/IMG_1961.JPG


https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-s...0/IMG_1963.JPG

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-_...2/IMG_1970.JPG

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-s...2/IMG_1955.JPG

Finally... some shots of my new radiator test bed. It's in a room that has no lights right now (darn dogs chewed through the lamp cord...) so instead of quality pictures, you get dramatic grainy work lamp pictures... :rolleyes:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-u...2/IMG_1979.JPG

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-o...2/IMG_1983.JPG

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-3...2/IMG_1980.JPG

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-C...2/IMG_1982.JPG


Looking forward to putting that new Dremel through its paces tomorrow! :D

Whew! This weekend was very productive indeed! So productive that I have run out of time today, and will not be able to post all the work until tomorrow... ;)

But here's a teaser at least! :p


https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-v...2/IMG_2030.JPG

I'll post the full process and results tomorrow!

Allll righty! Time for some pictures! I'll spare you the dialog and jump right into it, commenting as I go and letting the pictures do most of the talking. :D

First of all, here was that picture I promised of the crude acrylic barrier I made for the radiator testing:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-a...2/IMG_2059.JPG

It also served to show just how ugly an acrylic weld with superglue can be! :D

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-f...2/IMG_2060.JPG


Anyway... on to the case cutting process!

Step 1. I took off the brackets and labeled the case walls, so I would remember which side is which... and not nearly cut the wrong pattern in the wrong side of the case like I almost did. :o

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-7...2/IMG_1984.JPG

Step 2. I isolated the first case wall that I wanted to cut in sketchup, turned it BACKWARD (reasoning explained later) and switched the face style to 'wireframe' so that I could see the cuts I wanted to make "through" the design, and turned the perspective off so that I would get strait lines. Then, I set the camera view to "RIGHT" for this particular view and printed the design out.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-v...lWireframe.JPG

Step 3. With the design printed out to scale, it of course spanned multiple pages... so I had to do a bit of "arts and crafts" and cut up all the pages / tape them together. As I went, I taped them to the inside part of the case wall. This would serve as my template, showing me where to cut.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-9...2/IMG_1986.JPG

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-G...2/IMG_1987.JPG

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-F...2/IMG_1988.JPG

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Y...2/IMG_1990.JPG

As I went along taping, I became acutely aware of a problem. The sketchup dimensions were not quite lining up with my case wall! :eek: This caused the design to fall behind the supporting braces, which I cannot interfere with...

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-s...2/IMG_1991.JPG

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-M...2/IMG_1993.JPG

A bit of re-measuring confirmed that indeed my sketchup file was not to scale which made me temporarily very sad. Then, I realized it was just a matter of calculating the difference in each dimension as a decimal, and scaling the dimensions of the sketchup to a factor of that calculated dimension. Not too bad!

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-2...hupScaling.JPG

I noticed that when I selected a grip to resize, I could just type the percentage of size I wanted for each scale, and it would just resize it automatically to that size. Handy! With the sketchup now 'to scale' I re-printed the case wall and went through taping it together again. I lined it up on the case and made some small marks, then cut the pieces out.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-x...2/IMG_1995.JPG

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-1...2/IMG_1996.JPG

Much better! Things actually... well... fit! :rolleyes:

Step 4. With the design all taped down, it was time to break out the Dremel and start some cutting! I used an old two post server rack I had to serve as a hanging mount for the Dremel and power... I have that nifty cable that extends the Dremel into a much smaller and workable hand tool, so this kept the actual Dremel motor suspended in air where it could stay cool and out of the way.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-m...0/IMG_1998.JPG

Much like painting with spray cans, Dremels work best in multiple thin passes. I started with a quick pass... just enough to cut the paper and score the surface, giving a small groove in the case wall to serve as a guide for future passes.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-D...2/IMG_1997.JPG

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-J...2/IMG_1999.JPG

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-E...2/IMG_2000.JPG

Step 5. All traced, paper removed. Now for some more serious cutting!

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-R...2/IMG_2001.JPG

My support team didn't particularly enjoy the sound of the Dremel... but they were happier out here with me than they were alone in the house, despite the fact that I was right on the other side of the door... so they got to sit in my garage and watch/listen.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-1...2/IMG_2004.JPG

First pass down... and I was out of disks. :D The kit only came with one 'regular' metal cutting disk, and all the store had at the time was 'thin cut' metal disks... which worked GREAT for cutting small clean lines as they were only half the thickness of a regular disk... but only lasted like 1/5 as long. I could SEE the disk getting smaller as I used it. I think part of the reason they got chewed up so fast was because my case walls are actually rather thick... about 3mm of solid aluminum. Much thicker than your standard steel case wall anyway.

The regular disk is the biggest one, the rest were thin cuts... anyway, I tried a different department store and picked up another pack of 5 thin cuts, as well as 5 regular cut disks.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-x...2/IMG_2005.JPG

Anyway... more cutting... and more cutting... finally! All cut out:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/--...2/IMG_2012.JPG

You'll notice I was cutting it over a large bin. That was to keep from damaging the surface I was working on... it also helped the case wall disperse heat a lot better, as it was getting rather hot with all the cutting I was doing. It also helped get the surface up higher, so that I could work while standing comfortably. Important, seeing as it took me like 6 hours of cutting to get this far. :p

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-R...2/IMG_2013.JPG

The cuts are obviously still a little rough, too. There is only so much accuracy you can achieve with a rotary tool screaming along at 30k RPM. :)

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-J...2/IMG_2014.JPG

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-J...2/IMG_2021.JPG

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-x...2/IMG_2023.JPG

On to tracing the bottom part, and starting all over! At least this part had only four intricate cuts (the curved lines) so it went quite a bit faster.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-r...2/IMG_2015.JPG

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-y...2/IMG_2017.JPG

A little wobbly, but not bad for a free-hand job! ;) I knew this corner part was going to be the most tricky, as it would be somewhat fragile. Also, because the design needed to be a mirror image to remain symmetric, it would be really easy to tell if it was off by even a millimeter.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-d...2/IMG_2020.JPG

First pass cutting a strait line free hand along the bottom section... looks actually rather clean from the 'front' side of the case, no? That's the whole reason behind reversing the image, and cutting from the back side. The front side will come out MUCH cleaner, and you will avoid having to repair all the nicks and cuts (not to mention if the Dremel gets caught or skips across the surface, as it often did.)

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-U...2/IMG_2025.JPG

Cutting and cutting and cutting... I opted to wear a breather shortly into the whole operation, as I figured inhaling all that aluminum probably wouldn't be a great plan. The goggles are obviously important too!

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-_...2/IMG_2027.JPG

There we go! All cut out! Rough cutting, complete! :)

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-o...2/IMG_2028.JPG

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-A...2/IMG_2029.JPG

Step 6. Time to remove all the masking, and see what kind of mess I made! :rolleyes:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-H...2/IMG_2032.JPG

Pretty wobbly... :rolleyes: Especially obvious since there are so many lines so close together. Note, there is a slight "fish eye" effect due to how close I had to get my camera to show the lines... couldn't find a setting to reduce that.

Hmm... how should I go about making it more strait? How about comparing it to something that is known for being strait? Metal ruler time!

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-L...2/IMG_2033.JPG

I found the 'lowest' point in the line, and aligned the ruler with those low points... this exposed the areas that needed a bit more work. Time to mark those areas with a trusty pencil.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-A...2/IMG_2035.JPG

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-N...2/IMG_2036.JPG

Step 7. There we are. Defects: exposed. Now time to grind it down with a trusty old hand file! So I started filing... and filing... and filing... man... I am going to gain some serious muscle mass over this much filing! Nerds aren't cut out for this kind of physical activity. :p Anyway, after a few minutes of filing, I ended up with this:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-9...2/IMG_2038.JPG

Much better! Only... a lot more to go. :foot: Filing... Filing... Filing... first small part: done!

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-p...2/IMG_2040.JPG

Looking much better! (minus the fish eye lens effect)

At this point... my spectators were very bored.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-W...2/IMG_2044.JPG

Finally! Done filing!

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-B...2/IMG_2045.JPG

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-T...2/IMG_2050.JPG

And here's how it looks (roughly) on the system. Note, I'll be putting mesh in the bottom area, and the thin lines will be filled with acrylic.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-3...2/IMG_2058.JPG


Hope you enjoyed the process! It was quite an adventure for my first time really digging into a case mod like this. I'm pretty happy with how the design came out, and I think it will look even better when I get the acrylic lines figured out and filled in. I did some work on that as well this weekend... but I think I'll save sharing it for when I have something more presentable.

Thanks all! And as always, feel free to comment on any ways I can improve the process or the results! I of course have the other case wall, and the front/top of the case still left to do! :p

Very nice. Love the pups also! :D

Hello Everyone! :)

I had hoped to do some more cutting on the other case wall this weekend... but it was waaayyy too hot outside... so I spent some time designing and planning the innards of my build this weekend instead! I spent a ton of time in sketchup... a good portion of which was spent rebuilding from scratch to get the system properly to scale (and fix some errors I made early on due to my relative inexperience with sketchup... :rolleyes:). I also spent some time putting pieces 'physically' together (like assembling my pump combo and drain system)... but I don't really have any pictures worth sharing of that quite yet. Finally, I finished the second (and more 'scientific') set of radiator tests, and came up with significantly different results!

This pass through, I used air and water temperature monitoring tools that were accurate to a tenth of a degree (instead of a lousy two degree resolution, with an error margin of 2 degrees... :rolleyes:) and took twice as many samples for a better average. Long story short, the FAN > RADIATOR-RADIATOR > FAN orientation ended up being the best of the three tested... so that's what I am going with! It's actually fortunate that this orientation won, as it gives me a bit more room to play with... having a bevel in the middle and trying to give more air space was very difficult for this size of case.

Anyway, here's where I am in sketchup now!

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-S...ore%2520v1.JPG

This first shot is an overview... lots of stuff going on here that is new. For starters, I redid the loop order to cut down on clutter somewhat. I think this is the most efficient way it can be done with the space that I have right now... but I'll keep thinking on it. I wanted to avoid tubes 'crossing' as much as possible, because it looks cleaner to me that way...

I also added some acrylic parts around the radiator... I am planning on making a "U" shaped bracket for both radiators to sit in, and the fan screws will go through the acrylic into the radiator, holding the whole business together. This will also give me a place where I can connect the pump to, as it works out that the pump is almost exactly as wide as these two radiators back-to-back.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-w...8pump%2529.JPG

I plan on putting some gaskets or something between the acrylic and the pump to help cut down on vibration. It's not very obvious from this shot... but the pumps are suspended over the radiators by about 10mm... that should give it a little airflow, as I understand these pumps can get fairly warm when running at full speed. I took a serious look at grabbing some of those koolance heatsink replacement pump bottoms, but determined I couldn't quite get them to fit in this area unfortunately... they look real nice...

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-S...drain%2529.JPG

I also rebuilt the drain system in sketchup, after finding that the 5-way block model I found online was not to scale either... :facepalm: I scaled the model to make it accurate, but couldn't figure out how to return the g1/4 ports to scale without seriously messing up the model... so that's why they look a little weird. Oh well. :p I opted to go with G1/4 extenders instead of tubing here, as the runs were pretty short. I also plan on using a "D Plug" for connecting the drain to the 5-way, so that I could easily remove the radiator from the case to clean it (after it's drained, of course.) One of the caps on top will probably be a thermal sensor, too.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-6...800/HexRad.JPG

I've also been toying with the idea of using a "half hexagon" shape to house the front reservoir, rather than the "half cylinder" shape I was using before. I think it plays a little better with the 'angular' features of my case, and it's a heck of a lot easier to fabricate, too. ;)

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-V...onnections.JPG

This area (the return from the radiators to the reservoir) is a little tight, too. I will have to buy a 30 and 60 degree angle fitting on each end, in addition to using a 90 degree and two compression fittings. I like the tubing in my system (I prefer it over long runs of extenders, anyway), so I think this is the way I will go... but I am not positive yet.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-S...eWithWalls.JPG

And here's a few shots of the case all put together as of tonight. Coming together! I still have to do the designs on the front of the case... but that's next!

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-d...eRightSide.JPG

Thanks everyone! :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RCG_Bex

Very nice. Love the pups also! :D

---

Thanks! :)

I see (from your signature) that you have a Lian-Li build of your own going on... and people told me that I had too much radiator in MY build! :D

Looks great though, I'm jealous! :p:

Short posting before I delve into what will hopefully be an eventful weekend! I've been doing some sketchup work on just how I would like to build housing for my LED strips so that I can attach them to the sides of the case. Anyway, the design is still a little rough in sketchup... I couldn't find a good way to 'bend' segments with an even gradient to fit into the curves of the case... but it should be easier to do 'physically' with a heat gun and some liberal pressure. Here's what it looks like so far...

First of all, here's the LED strip I will be using. It's pretty cool stuff... each LED is a tri-color individually addressable light compatible with PWM, meaning I can control the color and pattern of each individual light to make some pretty nuts patterns.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-T...2/IMG_2075.JPG

The other nice thing about this strip is that I can cut it every two LED's, so I can customize the length pretty easily to fit what I need.

I started on paper designing the housing to fit one segment, and quickly moved to sketchup. Here's the component I created from scratch to represent the LED strip and it's Acrylic housing:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-j...2/LEDstrip.JPG

Basically, I plan on using a strip of 'EndLighten' acrylic that is supposed to distribute light really well. That strip (shown transparent above) will be sandwiched by two opaque black pieces of acrylic to help 'keep the light in' so to speak. To the back of this stack, I will adhere the light strip using hot glue or something similar. That whole part will be encased by some thin 2mm acrylic, just to protect the back of the LED strip for the most part. I could end up dropping this and instead coating the backside in some of that non-conductive spraypaint stuff I've seen others using... just to save on acrylic costs and fabrication effort.

Anyway, I just duplicated the little segment a bunch, and fit it into my case slots:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-p...WithLights.JPG

(I won't have individual segments in the actual fabrication, of course... it will be long continuous segments that are bent with a heat gun to fit!)

Part of the reason I put this into sketchup was to validate that I would have enough room inside the case for all this business to fit. I was especially concerned about the left case wall, where it was relatively close to the back of the motherboard tray:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-9...WithLights.JPG

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-G...WithLights.JPG

*phew*! Just barely fits, with a few milimeters to spare. In case you can't tell from the picture, you're looking at an inside shot of the case, head on at the edge of the motherboard tray/motherboard connectors. On the left is the side of the case with the LED strips in place. You can see there is a small grey margin between that and the white motherboard tray.

Just for the heck of it, here's a zoomed out shot. My hope is that the individual LED lights and such will not be quite as visible as in the sketchup... but I may have to change the endlighten out for something frosted to properly mask the LED/circuitry.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-S...WithLights.JPG

And last, but not least, here's a rough-cut small version of the LED strip housing that Logan (the guy working on the Arduino part of this project) put together while I was cutting my case wall the other day.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-r...2/IMG_2078.JPG

That's all for now! I'm hoping I'll have enough time this weekend to complete cutting the other case wall. See you soon!

Mmmm liking what I am seeing.

I have also used LED Strips on the build I am working on at the moment, Really nice to work with and the lighting is really nice and clean.

I have just gone with the White LED Strips but next build I think I might look into the type your using.

Keep up the good work ;)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Farmerbrown

Mmmm liking what I am seeing.

---

Thanks Farmerbrown. :)

Well, Saturday was a bust as far as getting things done around the house... I waged a full on war with the local ant population as they attempted to claim my house for their own. :rolleyes: Fortunately, Sunday went much better. I decided to take on completing the left hand case wall and try and get that done this weekend. I was a little skeptical I would get it done in time, especially since I was planning on using a completely different method for cutting this case wall compared to the first one... but as it turns out, this method worked MUCH better/faster.

Instead of using a Dremel for the entire cut, this time I figured I would teach myself how to use my jigsaw on aluminum. I started out with a scrap piece, just to get a feel for it. I used a drill to punch a hole, sprayed some WD-40 for surface lubricant, and cut a short curved line, much like what I would be doing on my case. Went well enough:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-e...2/IMG_2081.JPG

The biggest boon was that the cut was accurate AND fast... as opposed to the Dremel, which was accurate... but dog slow. For the blade, I used a 30 tooth metal saw meant for finishing work:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-7...2/IMG_2082.JPG

I also propped the metal piece I was testing up on a scrap piece of plywood, and stood that up on some blocks so that there was an air gap underneath. I then clamped all that business together:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-i...2/IMG_2083.JPG

That worked pretty well... but I could feel the wood was really slowing the jigsaw down. The blade had too many teeth I think, it definitely wasn't meant for cutting wood. The only reason I had the wood there was because the test strip of metal was only 1mm thick, so it was flimsy and bounced around a lot without some backing. Fortunately, my case is made of 3mm thick aluminum which is much more rigid, so I gave it a go without the backing, using just the metal blocks as a stand.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-g...2/IMG_2084.JPG

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-K...2/IMG_2085.JPG

I started with a quick hole drilled in a corner, and started the jigsaw in that hole, cutting a gradual curved line until I met up with my intended cut line:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-I...2/IMG_2086.JPG

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-V...2/IMG_2087.JPG

Using the jigsaw was SO much faster and easier than the dremel. I made the first cut above in about 30 seconds... it would have taken me 15 minutes with the dremel, and probably would have killed most of a thin-cut disk in the process. The jigsaw went through this 3mm aluminum like butter.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-G...2/IMG_2089.JPG

The only drawback to the jigsaw vs a dremel was that the jig couldn't make sharp corners like a dremel could without making multiple passes from different angles. That, and the jigsaw had to have a pilot hole any time I wanted to start a cut. All things considered, not a very big drawback.

Radiator vent, done! Only took me like 30 minutes. And most importantly, no dremel disks were harmed in the process. :lol:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-c...2/IMG_2091.JPG

The best thing about the jig was that it DOMINATED when it came to strait lines. It was fast, and since the cut was already relatively strait, it really cut down on the filing time.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-N...2/IMG_2092.JPG

For the top part, I decided to try something a little different... I taped the pattern to the spot I wanted to cut like before, but then traced it with a razor knife and removed the paper. I found that the jig had a hard time tracing over paper, and tended to toss it all over the place... which made it rather hard to use it as a tracing template. :rolleyes:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-g...2/IMG_2096.JPG

That ended up working out rather well, actually. Once I traced it with the knife, I removed the masking on the areas I wanted to cut out, making it very easy to just have the jigsaw follow along the edge of the masking tape. Due to the curves and funny angles, cutting out the top took around two hours... but I didn't have the fire up the dremel even once!

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-6...2/IMG_2097.JPG

The workstpace is a mess, and blanketed in a snow of aluminum shards, but the cuts are done!

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-2...2/IMG_2099.JPG

I took all the masking off to see what kind of damage I did... not too bad! Better than the dremel looked right after finishing cutting:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-E...2/IMG_2100.JPG

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-R...2/IMG_2102.JPG

Still some wobbly lines... but these cuts took a few minutes instead of a few hours... so I consider this process a major improvement.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-D...2/IMG_2103.JPG


Oddly, the curved areas came out cleaner than the strait lines...

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-s...2/IMG_2105.JPG

But the corners... well... the corners look like a beaver cut them. :rolleyes: :D

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-u...2/IMG_2106.JPG

Anyway... two hours of filing later... done!

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-9...2/IMG_2108.JPG

Now you can see all the way through the case! Too bad the view won't stay that way, as the motherboard tray will block most of the left hand window:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-o...2/IMG_2141.JPG

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-6...2/IMG_2144.JPG

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-p...2/IMG_2147.JPG

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-5...2/IMG_2150.JPG


That's all for now!

Next time... the cut in the top of the case! And maybe the front, if I finish the design? ;)

Well... I think I may have increased my workload a bit. :D

I was putting finishing details on my bay reservoir and the various fittings required to get it to work... when I ran into some complications... then made some changes... long story short, I think I just went from using the reservoir I had on hand and crafting the casing to making my own custom fabricated reservoir and housing. :D

Most recently, this was the plan below. I had the top three bays consumed by a hard drive/fan bay that would hold my two 3.5" 2TB drives in a RAID1 for data, and a solid state or two for games and system. The bottom three bays would be consumed by a tube reservoir and a custom housing in a hexagon shape around it. Here's the image that most closely represents that plan:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-S...eWithWalls.JPG

The issue I ran into was that it would be very complicated and difficult to fill the system. I would need a fill port on the top of the reservoir... but the way the housing had to be put together, I did not have enough space between the top of the housing and the hard drive cage to fit the fill port. :rolleyes:

So... I started tinkering. Now, I ended up here...

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-f...40/TallRes.JPG

The changes I made were:

1) I ditched the half-hexagon reservoir housing in favor of an equilateral triangle. I think it fits better with the 'prism' moniker, requires less material, is less complicated to fabricate, and gives me more room behind the housing for other stuff... more on that later. ;) It will be crafted out of opaque black 8mm thick acrylic, which gives me a little more room to work with as opposed to the 5mm stuff.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-I...riangleRes.JPG

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-2...iangleRes2.JPG

2) I ditched the EK-250 Multioption Res in favor of crafting my own tube reservoir. I found that I can get cell cast tubes for relatively cheap online, and this way I can have a reservoir of any size, volume, and shape I want. I also increased the reservoir diameter from 50mm to 65mm for a little more room inside because...

3) I added a feature to the center of the reservoir! :idea: I wanted to find some way to bring my lighting plans into the front of the case elegantly, and I landed upon what will possibly be the most obvious, and yet most creative part of the build yet... I will put an actual prism inside of the reservoir center! Crazy, no? :p I plan on lighting it from the top and bottom using embedded multicolor LEDs so that I can shine light into the prism and hopefully get some interesting color effects. I am also thinking about embedding lights around the rim of the tube part of the reservoir, so I can light that acrylic as well. I needed something in the center of the reservoir anyway to prevent a water vortex and make sure I get a good flow of water throughout the tube, so this should do nicely I think.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-S...ResCloseup.JPG

4) I decided to drop the plans for any other case features in the front. I don't want there to be too much going on in the front that would clutter up the design or take away from the central feature. The only thing I might still do is back the front plate area (which is made out of aluminum and perforated with holes for ventilation) with some frosted acrylic that I can light, to give the whole face a feint glow, while blocking the inside of the case from external view and dust/pet hair.

5) I'll be adding a fill port to the top of the case, and incorporating it into the 'prism' design on the top somehow. Maybe center it on a small clear or frosted acrylic window. This will make it MUCH easier to fill and drain the case, and will bring the front together nicely I think.

6) I'll be replacing the standard front ports with a new USB 3.0 front, so I will most likely have to fill/sand/re-cut it to the correct shape. Glad I taught myself that technique with the bondo bumper repair... looks like it will come in handy. :D


So... I have some clean up on the design to finish up my ideas, and maybe I'll get to cutting the top part of the case tomorrow, since I have the day off! (Yay Labor Day weekend!)

Just for fun... here's the evolutionary process of my front-reservoir design so far:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-8...sEvolution.JPG

I was hoping to get some 'manual labor' done this weekend... but instead, I did a bunch of planning. :p I spent an awful lot of time figuring out the whole radiator thing, as well as yet another new feature I am going to try and incorporate into my design. :D Here's some shots of where I am at.

First of all, I finished re-designing the top window and finishing it up... so it is ready to print out and cut at this point!

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-T.../TopWindow.JPG


Now, you may have noticed the discrete little rectangle at the top front of the case...

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-y...12/TopDoor.JPG

What is that, you might ask? It's what took me 8+ hours to figure out, research, design, and sketchup... that's what it is. :p


Ta-Da!

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-O...opDoorOpen.JPG

Ok... so it's not as impressive as I made it out to be. :p But it took forever to figure out... mostly because of all the hardware/mechanical parts to it. Here's a shot of the inside of the case, where all the 'business' is:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-b...B-DoorBack.JPG

What you are seeing is the back side of the USB socket, a spring, and a push-push latch. The spring will be pushing against the top of the case, so that when the whole thing becomes unlatched the spring will pop the door open.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-e...orBackOpen.JPG

The push-push latch is one of those plastic little snap-lock things... when you push on it once, it locks the little 'strike plate' in place. When you push it again, it pops open and ejects the strike plate. The strike plate will be attached to the top of the case, and the push-push latch will be attached to the USB door. When the door is open all the way by the spring, it will catch on the front of the case by a small 'notch' sticking out of the front where the USB ports are.

Nifty, no? But that's not the best part....

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-o...oorTopOpen.JPG

The whole business also doubles as an access port for filling the reservoir! :D

By pushing lightly against the USB face to bend the 'notch' back far enough, the whole unit can pivot on it's hinges a full 90 degrees, revealing the top of the reservoir below it, which will be sealed by a standard G1/4 cap that is recessed into the top of the reservoir.

I still have some details to work out on the mechanics (like how the spring will be mounted, and if I need to do some fancy work with the push-push latch to get it to connect with the strike plate right), but I think the design is most of the way there. In the interest of proceeding with the case while I work out the details, I think I might just substitute in a simple window to cap the opening... just so I can keep moving forward. :)

As always, totally open to suggestions on how I could accomplish this easier. I'll be the first to say that I am 'mechanically challenged'... and usually cook up crazy ways to accomplish something using custom parts that otherwise already exist. :p I would love to be able to use some kind of 'self opening hinge' in place of the complicated latch and spring stuff... but the only one I could find was for a huge cabinet door...

Till next time!

Finally getting a chance to post this update here... It's from a week or two ago, but every time I checked to try and post, XS was down... :confused:

Anyway, after being stumped by the USB door / access panel stuff for a few days, I decided to set it aside and move forward with other portions of the mod. Hopefully a good idea will come to me through divine intervention. :D

I started the weekend off with cutting the last major part of the case... the top! As with the sides, I started by printing out a to-scale version of the design from sketchup:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-q...2/IMG_2151.JPG

Then, after covering the surface in masking tape to help protect it while cutting, I taped the design on top.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-2...2/IMG_2152.JPG

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-8...2/IMG_2153.JPG

After about an hour of trimming with the jigsaw, the design part was done:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-s...2/IMG_2154.JPG

For the top USB door 'square' I opted to use the dremel... The work was a bit too tight to use the jigsaw, and I wanted to try and preserve the 'scrap' piece to use it for the actual door if possible. Rough cut: done!

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-S...2/IMG_2156.JPG



I'm still impressed by how accurate the jigsaw is when working with this thick aluminum... to think that I was concerned it would be jumping all over the place making a massive mess... sure, the dremel could probably do a similar job with about 10 disks and 10x the time/effort. The accuracy shows even in the scraps, which are only 3-4mm thick but fully in-tact:


https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-w...2/IMG_2157.JPG


After a bit of cleanup with various shapes of metal files, looking pretty good:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-b...2/IMG_2158.JPG

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-i...2/IMG_2159.JPG

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-u...2/IMG_2167.JPG

The super confusing reflections from inside the case... it's like a house of mirrors! :D

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-u...2/IMG_2171.JPG

That's all for day 1. Now on to day 2! First, I spent the morning playing with the design for the radiator housing... getting it precise and such so that I had a template to work from:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-m...2%2520Bare.JPG

The plan is to have the two radiators simply sitting back to back in the housing... maybe with a bit of rubber or neoprene between them to dampen any vibration and give a good seal. The pump will be mounted on the two prongs sticking up from the top:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Z...2%2520Face.JPG

I'm also planning on using the gap in the platform to feed the cables from the fans through, to keep everything neat down there. I'll probably drill a small hole for each fan in the bottom/side area, and they will all hook up to some molex splitters down there.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-r...2520Bottom.JPG

The fans will be mounted on the outside, of course, and screws will run through their mounting holes, through the acrylic housing, and into the radiator, sandwiching it all together.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-B...ore%2520v2.JPG

Still haven't totally decided on the color of the acrylic... here's an option with clear / grey acrylic:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-w...%2520clear.JPG

And one in black...

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-S...%2520black.JPG

Hmmm :confused:

Anyway... now that the design was done, I ran down to the local hardware store and picked up some 1/2" MDF. Why MDF, you might ask?

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-L...2/IMG_2176.JPG

To make a template, of course! I've decided I will try my hand at using that fancy table router I borrowed a while back... and what better time to try, than when I have to produce (at least) two identical pieces?

(Jack doubts my process, as is clear by his inquisitive stare... but I'll show him 'I know what I'm doing.' :p)

So as usual, I printed out a template from Sketchup, and taped it to the MDF:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-r...2/IMG_2179.JPG

Using a technique I discovered while figuring out how best to trace the template onto the subject, I went over every line with a razor knife. This scores the surface with a bit more permanent design, so that I can toss the paper template that tends to curl up and move around while I am working on it.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-x...2/IMG_2181.JPG

Now, off to work with the jigsaw (and a wood cutting bit, of course):

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-O...2/IMG_2182.JPG

The MDF and jig were a delight to work with... nice smooth cuts, no jamming or anything. Considering how many awkward angles there were, there were no real mistakes to speak of. I got into the sharp conclave corners by first cutting in from both sides, then cutting a curved line from one end, through the middle, meeting up with the corner of the other end... then just went back over the cut to remove the curved area:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-y...2/IMG_2183.JPG

Inside area: done.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-5...2/IMG_2184.JPG

Pretty sharp angles, for a first pass and free hand!

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-F...2/IMG_2185.JPG

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-X...2/IMG_2187.JPG

Now, to clean up some of the 'wobbles' in the flat lines, I used some sandpaper wrapped around one of my metal files. I neglected to pick up any woodworking files while I was at the store buying wood... :rolleyes: But, this ended up working rather well. I did a fair amount of 'how to' research online before going through this process... and the one thing that all guides universally agreed upon, was to spend the extra time getting the template just right. So, elbow grease: liberally applied. :D

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-P...2/IMG_2186.JPG

And now a similar process to cut out the outside area. Template: done!

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-H...2/IMG_2191.JPG

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-8...2/IMG_2192.JPG

After that, a quick trace on the acrylic, so that I can cut it out into a more manageable size... using what else... my jigsaw! :p

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-7...2/IMG_2190.JPG

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-Z...2/IMG_2193.JPG

There we go... much more manageable. I used my unibit and drill press to drill a small starter hole for the inside area too, since my router bit doesn't have a 'starter' tip (being that it's a template bit and all.)

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-a...2/IMG_2194.JPG

The unibit does a really great job at clean holes... I ran it at about 600 RPM for this hole. Note, all the ragged stuff around the edge is the protective film. I decided to leave it on while machining it, to try and preserve the surface some.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-I...2/IMG_2195.JPG

I also used some double-sided sticky pads I found laying around to adhere the acrylic to my MDF template, that way it wouldn't move around and mess up the cut. I only put one every few inches or so... but I probably should have used more.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-S...2/IMG_2196.JPG

And right when I got to the point where I was ready to route... I got nervous ... :p So, to quell my nervousness (being that this was my 'virgin cut' using a router) I picked up some scrap MDF and acrylic... just to see how it handled.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-O...2/IMG_2188.JPG

Wowee... very clean, no melting... perfect cut. :)

Oh... and a total mess. After about 10 seconds. :rolleyes:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-3...2/IMG_2189.JPG

Anyway, fear: quelled. Off to the races!

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-x...2/IMG_2197.JPG

I had to stop about every 6 inches or so, just to vacuum up the gigantic pile of flakes generated from the router. It gave me a chance to review the progress, though.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-V...2/IMG_2199.JPG

Anyway... lots more of that, and here we are!

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-o...2/IMG_2202.JPG

Voila!

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-5...2/IMG_2201.JPG

Anyway, that was as far as I got.

Post analysis:

1) I still have a little work to do on my template. A few of the lines are still wavy looking (like the bottom right corner area there) and it is super obvious on acrylic. Even the smallest uneven surfaces on the template are greatly exaggerated by the router, so I will need to be SUPER accurate. Fortunately, I can still salvage this piece by sanding down the template a bit more and running this piece through again.

2) Routers are fun. And they make amazing messes.

3) I have a feeling I will be using the router a lot more. :D

Anyway, that's all for now! I did order (and receive) a bunch of latches for my USB door... so I am rapidly approaching a point where I will have to figure out what I want to do with it. :rolleyes: Thanks!

Imho it's a bit wrong decision to go for rad sandwich. You may have worsened rad subsystem cooling efficiency at low/silent rpms. Or you'll get almost same cooling from those two as what you'd get from single rad.

I did actually see that post (via a re-post on Martin's Liquid Lab), and the results were pretty interesting to say the least. To be fair, I didn't actually think to test just a single radiator on my system to see how it stacked up compared to two radiators in the various configurations. Probably should have... if for no reason other than curiosity. Perhaps if I have some time this weekend I will put the mess back together and try it out. Either way, the rad sandwich (FAN > RAD > RAD > FAN) ended up being the most effective configuration out of the various layouts I could accomplish in the bottom of my case... I did some somewhat extensive testing (Empirical, of course, but I'm not claiming my results are good for everyone, just my particular situation) which you may or may not have seen in earlier posts on this build log. I'm using mid-rpm fans (Scythe GT1850's at stock speed) so I have some pretty good air movement and would be surprised if airflow was an issue. His testing was with 800 and 1200, and the 1200 tests had within 1 degree of separation... so I'd wager the 1850 RPM fans will have an even smaller margin... likely within the margin of error.

Excuses aside... if I had some way to fit the two radiators completely separate in this case, I would do so in a heartbeat. Alas, despite it's size, I simply cannot get two 120x4 radiators in the system. As a result, I took the compromise solution and accepted a possible slight loss in performance (what's a degree or two, anyway?) for a large gain in aesthetics. :P If I were trying to win an extreme cooling award, I might reconsider... but this is a gaming rig and an everyday use computer. I factored in form as well as function during the design. :)

Thank you for bringing this up, regardless. If I hadn't seen it already, you might have ruined my afternoon. :D

Oh. I retract suggestion then. If you'll run 1850 GTs at max you'll definitely gain more cooling then from one rad even with sandwiched rads. Of course two separate rads will still win, but sandwiched with powerful fans will not loose that badly.
(sandwiched rads = behave like more densely finned high FPI rads, worse at slow/silent speeds due increased airflow resistance and cooling 2nd rad with preheated air by 1st, more effective due higher fin heat exchange area when more air pumped through).
P.S.
Options to separate rads probably are only by making wider extruded sides, or putting rads at some angle, or mounting one rad externally, or at top of case .. but yeah, all of these options are compromising other areas, like design, dimensions, work required.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by churchy

Oh. I retract suggestion then. If you'll run 1850 GTs at max you'll definitely gain more cooling then from one rad even with sandwiched rads. Of course two separate rads will still win, but sandwiched with powerful fans will not loose that badly.
(sandwiched rads = behave like more densely finned high FPI rads, worse at slow/silent speeds due increased airflow resistance and cooling 2nd rad with preheated air by 1st, more effective due higher fin heat exchange area when more air pumped through).
P.S.
Options to separate rads probably are only by making wider extruded sides, or putting rads at some angle, or mounting one rad externally, or at top of case .. but yeah, all of these options are compromising other areas, like design, dimensions, work required.

---

Glad you agree on the 1850's making the difference... that's what I was hoping, anyway, and my tests seem to back it up thus far. :) You're justification about the sandwiched rads behaving simply like a much thicker rad with more FPI is exactly what I had in mind. Unfortunately they don't seem to make 4x120 rads quite as thick as two rads stuck together. :p

Also... funny you should mention putting the rads at an angle... that was actually a very early beta design I had... putting them in a "V" formation of some sort, kinda like you would see for pistons on a V8 engine. The biggest complication that formation faced was finding some way to mold intake/exhaust shrouds so that I wasn't poisoning my intakes with hot air from the exhausts. I considered the fact that they would be trapped in the same bottom compartment together anyways, so the gain was probably negligible. Extruding the sides would have been a very cool idea, especially paired up with my original "V" formation idea, but yea... lots of work required to get that right... maybe if I am feeling bored down the road, and I want a Prism mk.2 :D

Thanks for the followup!

I was more thinking of not V but L placement (one on side, one on floor, exhaust from both to rad-less side).

Hello again!

I've been a little lazy about posting... mostly because I'm spending all my time either playing with my equipment, or playing ON my equipment... (WoW is a big time consumer right now with the recent expansion... :rolleyes:)

Anyway, as was mentioned before, I finally got the spare funds to buy all of my Acrylic needs, so that got ordered and delivered. Here's what I got:

Boxes!
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-e...0/IMG_2236.JPG

First of all... some plastic working tools! Polish, glue, applicators, bits... the works. I've never worked with acrylic before, so I figured I might as well get all the right tools. :D

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-S...0/IMG_2237.JPG

Also, the acrylic itself... it's all cell cast, so it's better for machining. It also has the nice paper masking, as opposed to that annoying plastic film. There's some opaque black 5mm, some opaque white 5mm, clear 5mm, some opaque black 1mm, and a custom cast acrylic tube (whose purpose should be obvious. :p)
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-r...0/IMG_2238.JPG


https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-e...0/IMG_2239.JPG


Next, I worked on cleaning up my template from before... now I'm down to laser sharp edges and true corners... it's about as good as it's going to get:
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-c...0/IMG_2217.JPG

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-M...0/IMG_2218.JPG+

Once cleaned up, I put the double sided tape on it again, re-attached the clear "demo" that I cut originally, and ran it through the router one more time.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-f...0/IMG_2240.JPG

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-R...0/IMG_2241.JPG

Once that was done, I moved on to trying to line up the holes that I would need to put in it so that I could put screws through the fans, then acrylic, and into the radiator.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-b...0/IMG_2242.JPG

I kinda eyeballed this time around, threw it into the drill press, and came back with something passable... but not super accurate. I put the housing back on the radiator, then traced around the edges that I would need to expand to get the hole completely centered:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-V...0/IMG_2244.JPG

One more pass through the drill press...

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-O...0/IMG_2246.JPG

... and now all the screws fit. Unfortunately... the screws I have are about 3mm too short to actually catch on the radiator threads with the acrylic and fans in place... so I am going to order some more from MDPC-X that will fit correctly (if I would just wake up in time to catch their hours...:D) Here's how it will look, anyway:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-5...0/IMG_2249.JPG




Anyway, I went on to repeat the whole process (skipping the photos this time, as I've already been there done that with the demo piece of acrylic... except...

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-V...0/IMG_2250.JPG

Whoops. :rolleyes: Two lessons learned from this mistake...

1) Don't get excited and feed the router too quickly. It will catch, and detonate your carefully crafted piece, only inches from being done. :rolleyes:

2) Always cut the most intricate/fragile pieces first, then go back and do the simple large cuts. In this case, I traced around the outside first and then went back and did the inside... that's when the thin little piece broke. The second time through, I did the inside first while there was still plenty of support from the extra material around the edges, then went back and did the outside a little more slowly. Strait passes seem much less likely to catch, so it was a bit cleaner that way, and less likely to explode.

Anyway, I went on to cut two more (successful) pieces like the one pictured above without any other issues. After that, I went on to try and think of a better way to cut out the screw holes so that I wouldn't be 'eyeballing it' anymore... which wouldn't be possible anyway, considering i'm making the actual housing out of opaque black acrylic.

I settled on re-printing out the piece from Sketchup and laying it on top of the actual radiator. taping it in place, then punching screws through to make sure the digital representation I made lined up perfectly with the physical one... and it did. :D After that, it was just a matter of putting the same paper template on top of the acrylic pieces that I needed to cut, and marked through the holes in the paper with a pen. Easy enough...

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-M...0/IMG_2252.JPG

Here's how the pieces all come together, before drilling and assembly:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-D...0/IMG_2253.JPG

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-2...0/IMG_2256.JPG

And here's the channel at the bottom that I was originally planning on making.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-W...0/IMG_2257.JPG
As I looked at it physically and thought about it, I changed my mind on how best to fabricate this... :D Instead of one 5mm sheet that the radiator sits on, and a second 5mm sheet that the housing bottom rests on the bottom of the case on, I changed it to buying some 1" thick clear acrylic "blocks" that I will set at the front, back, and center or something like that. I'll drill some channels through it so that the wires can pass through as well. This will allow me to accomplish a few things:

1) I was originally planning on just gluing all this together, but then I thought it might be a bit troublesome if I needed to remove the radiators from the housing for one reason or another. Then, I thought about tapping the acrylic and screwing it together... but it seems to me like the acrylic will eventually crack and the threading will give way. No good, it has to be more durable. So I landed on these little things called "Heatfit machine screw inserts" that you can force into a hole drilled in the acrylic with a soldering iron, then you can use machine screws for that clean "metal on metal" fastening. Putting the thick 1" acrylic blocks down there gives me plenty of room to drill and insert these fittings. Now I can use the blocks on the bottom to hold the two sides together using metal screws, and I can also secure the radiator housing to the bottom of the case, too.

2) It greatly reduces the complexity of the piece, lessening the chance that something will be crooked or wonky.

3) It will provide a better base for the whole unit, which is actually pretty heavy. I was a little concerned about the acrylic glue seams giving way down the road... but now it will be a non-issue.

Anyway, I ordered the 1" thick acrylic, and I am looking for the best place to order the fittings from...

Moving right along, I went on to drill the holes for the screws in the sides of the radiator housing using my drill press:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-D...0/IMG_2258.JPG

Not bad, actually pretty centered. I originally attempted the cuts with a 1/8" drill bit, which fit the screws perfectly... but I found the fit to be a little too 'snug', and I would have to be inhumanly accurate with the hole placement to get every one just right. With this many holes in a rigid piece of acrylic... yea... not going to happen. I decided to relax the hole size a little and go with a 5/32" bit. The hole will be completely obscured by the head of the screw and the fancy washer around it (love those brainwashers), and it makes screwing the whole thing together so much easier.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-8...0/IMG_2262.JPG

I did have one screw hole that was just a touch off, so I ended up using my trimming bit for my dremel in the drill press to shave a tiny bit away from the edge of the hole... it worked great, whereas the regular bit didn't want to trim away at an existing hole's edge. +1 for these bits when working with acrylic. You can see the difference in the flutes one on the right, how the cutting edge faces outward, as opposed to the strait bit on the left which is for cutting strait down.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-2...0/IMG_2263.JPG

Anyway, that's all for now... I've ordered the additional acrylic I need, and am actively searching for a good place to find the heatfit hardware... hopefully I'll find that tomorrow, with any luck from somewhere local so I can just go pick it up.

I also plan on working on the reservoir housing tomorrow... that should be fun! :D

Great how-to on the template and using a router. I just got one and I am keen to experiment. I am enjoying the build.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by WitchDr

Great how-to on the template and using a router. I just got one and I am keen to experiment. I am enjoying the build.

---

Nice, glad I helped someone out! The router is a great tool for this kinda stuff. Definitely use some practice pieces and try your cut once on scrap before you get to using production material, though... there is much to be learned by just 'trying it once' to get a feel for things like feed rate and angle and such. It also gives you a good picture of where the rough spots on your template are, which otherwise may not be very evident just by looking at it.

Good luck!

So, it's time for a big update! :)

First of all, I spent a whole $10 and bought myself a cruddy "already broken" tripod for my camera... but better than nothing! ;) Hopefully this will cut down on the blurry-cam photos and make it a bit easier to get those high ISO shots in low light. If it weren't already broken, it would be a pretty nice tripod... folds up to about 1 foot long, but the legs all telescope out to a full 4' length.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-6...2/IMG_2266.JPG


Anyway... I received the thick block of acrylic that I mentioned in another post, and I went down and picked up those 'press fit' screw fittings, so I figured I might as well go ahead and assemble the radiator housing! I started out by putting the radiators together loosely to get some measurements for the thick blocks they will be sitting on.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-d...2/IMG_2268.JPG

I measured the blocks out to be about 22mm thick in my case, so I just ran my block of 1" thick acrylic through the table saw a few times... or at least I tried to... but found my table saw had died on me. :rolleyes: To be fair, it was a table from the 1960's and it had served under my grandfather, and then my father (who backed into it with a truck... twice...), and a short while under me... so I do not blame it. Anyway, off to buy a new table saw!

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-4...2/IMG_2304.JPG

(Yes, it's already completely covered in acrylic dust. I couldn't wait to try it out, not even for a picture. :D)

Here's the result of that 2 hour and $300 trip to the local hardware store:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-Y...2/IMG_2270.JPG

Nice and crisp, exactly level. Well worth the investment. Hopefully this one will last as long as the last one. Keeping trucks away from it may help. :lol:

Anyway, I cut the remaining bars. Here's roughly how I plan on laying them out:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-H...2/IMG_2271.JPG

I plan on using the router to cut some notches along the middle of each of the bars, so that I can route cables along the bottom, but that will come later when I have the wiring all figured out. Here's what it will look like on the case, more or less. I have the bottom of the case upside-down laying on top of it... so you are looking at the bottom of the case right now:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-S...2/IMG_2273.JPG

I need to find a good way to fill those holes in, which were the holes for my prior system that had a 3x120 radiator in the bottom pulling air up through the radiator. I'm thinking I'll just need to find a local supplier of aluminum so that I can get a good sheet of similar thickness, then cut out inserts and 'weld' them in place with some of that weld-on metal putty I have... then just sand them down or something... but yea, that's an experiment for another day. :p

Now that I had the blocks cut out, it was time to drill the holes for the inserts on the ends of the block, so that I could fit these guys in there:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-a...2/IMG_2279.JPG

So very tiny, and yet so great! Here's the finished product:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-z...2/IMG_2308.JPG

And here we are, all put together (with some temporary screws, mind you... still waiting on the MDPC screws...)

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-s...2/IMG_2284.JPG

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-S...2/IMG_2285.JPG

And here it is in the bottom of the case:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-l...2/IMG_2283.JPG

With the pumps in their bracket:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-u...2/IMG_2287.JPG

Back in the case:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-C...2/IMG_2289.JPG

One thing I need to figure out is how to cleanly get the wires from the pumps down to the bottom of the radiator housing, where I will likely have a power distribution mechanism of some kind...

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-O...2/IMG_2290.JPG

And finally, here's some shots of the system with the midplate temporarily installed, to make sure it all fits as expected:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-M...2/IMG_2293.JPG

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-U...2/IMG_2294.JPG

Phew! Just barely. Less than 5mm to spare. :eek: Well... that's all for that part for now. Remaining tasks include sanding the edges to get a nice clean shine, and replacing the temporary screws with some nicer looking MDPC versions, then peeling off the protective backing to see what I ended up with. :)

That's all for the major stuff... but I'll leave you with a brief teaser for the next piece I am working on...

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-q...2/IMG_2296.JPG

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-x...2/IMG_2298.JPG

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-x...0/IMG_2303.JPG

Until next time! :D

Hello again!

I've been working on little bits and pieces over the past few days, but haven't found a good block of time to make some serious progress. Regardless, here's what I've been working on:

First of all, I started with cleaning up the edges of my radiator housing. Fresh out of the router, the edges are fairly smooth, but they still have ridges on them... which you can see here:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-i...0/IMG_2315.JPG

Maybe not that big of a deal... but if I'm going all the way on this, I might as well clean that up and make it perfect. I started out with some 400 grit sandpaper to take out the major imperfections and ridges. I wrapped a small piece around a small spare block of acrylic I had from the housing to make an improvised sanding block for small surfaces:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-P...0/IMG_2318.JPG

Worked well enough:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Z...0/IMG_2317.JPG

And here it is cleaned up with some water. Nice smooth surface, but not shiny and clean like the remainder of the housing:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-k...0/IMG_2321.JPG


Next, I broke out the Novus polish kit:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-R...0/IMG_2324.JPG

Starting with a liberal application of #3 and working my way down to #1, I ended up with this:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-4...0/IMG_2326.JPG

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-J...0/IMG_2327.JPG

MUCH better. You're seeing the sky reflected in the edge, in case you couldn't tell. :D

Now that all that was done and I had the edges looking polished, time to put it all together!

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Z...0/IMG_2329.JPG

I love the look of the MDPC screws and brainwashers. Just perfect and clean!

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-s...0/IMG_2333.JPG

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-9...0/IMG_2336.JPG

There's one half done. Now, to put the two pieces together I needed some unusual screw lengths... around 8MM long (enough to go through a piece of 5mm acrylic and into the supporting blocks) which I could find in your everyday regular screw, but I wanted to be consistent in my use of MDPC's screws... time for a custom screw length! I started with a longer 20mm screw and inserted it to figure out the exact length needed:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-N...0/IMG_2341.JPG

Ever wonder what those numbers on some of the higher end pliers and wire crimpers are?

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-w...0/IMG_2342.JPG

They're for breaking screws at precise lengths without damaging threads. So handy! Just screw the bolt in to the proper length, then squeeze the pliers, and bam:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-H...0/IMG_2343.JPG

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-_...0/IMG_2344.JPG

... custom length MDPC screws. :p

Much better:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-V...0/IMG_2348.JPG


That's that! Radiator housing is done for now. The next small piece will be drilling small holes in the bottom area for routing all the fan cables... but I need a little more time to plan that out. The next task I moved on to was repairing some of the mods I made in my previous watercooling setup on this case:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-R...0/IMG_1287.JPG

I had cut three fan holes in the bottom for the radiator that was facing down at the time, and now I will no longer be using those holes. They were ugly cuts anyway, and I wanted to seal up the surrounding perforations in the case as well to get a good seal in the bottom area. I looked for some similar metal online and in neighboring areas to try and fix the holes, but didn't have much luck. Fortunately, I am thrifty... and I ended up saving all my scraps from the windows I cut earlier in the project. I bet you can see where this is going. :D

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-s...0/IMG_2378.JPG

I arranged the scraps like puzzle pieces and drew out some lines for the shapes I would need to cut in order to fill the holes. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough scrap pieces for all three solid plates, so I had to improvise on two of them:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-D...0/IMG_2379.JPG

A little bit of jigsaw work, and we have our plates:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-K...0/IMG_2380.JPG

A little bit of filing, and they fit like a charm:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-7...0/IMG_2381.JPG

Next step... adventures with bondo! I'll finally be putting my bondo practice to work. Next time! :)

Back from my family vacation finally! Time to make some progress!

First off, I wanted to post a final pic of the rad mount with my last post... but I realized as I was assembling it that the Dual pump top used 8-32 screws instead of the lovely 6-32 MDPC screws... (grumble grumble)... so I had to find some alternate screws. I couldn't find any nice black ones like MDPC offered... so I have an alternative that I am going to try tonight... hopefully it works out!

Next, I have started playing with repairing the bottom of the case. I was going to use the bumper repair stuff, but I stumbled upon some metal repair product called 'Steelstik' that looked interesting, so I am going to give that a try and see how it works. Looks like a polymer filler, but you can mix it with your hands like play doh, and form it into gaps and what not. Seems perfect for fixing the holes in the bottom of the case... we'll see how it works.

I'll be making some progress this afternoon, so hopefully an update on how it goes tonight! =)

Well, I made a little progress on the Steelstik stuff and refined my process a bit. The stuff works incredibly well so far... albeit a little messy and smelly. :rolleyes: I did take a few pictures, but I don't think I have enough yet to warrant a big post, so I'll save them up when the process is completed and the bottom of the case is completely repaired.

Also, more delays on the final radiator housing pics... the screws that I thought were 8-32 were actually M4... So i've ordered some new ones online and I should hopefully get them today or tomorrow. Final pics then! :up:

Finally, an update! ;)

I'll start with a continuation of the efforts to repair the bottom of the case. This Steelstik stuff is neat... but I don't think I'll use it anymore. :rolleyes: It ended up being a gigantic pain to 'clean up', and I am not certain it's any better than the bondo I was using before. So... lesson learned! :D

It comes in a play-doh like bar, and you pinch off pieces of it, then mix it together to form a hard-setting polymer in a few minutes.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-M...2/IMG_2384.JPG

My process was to take a piece that I pinched off and roll it between my hands so I ended up with a long 'snake' of putty, then lay that along the seam I wanted to seal and press it in with my thumbs. I learned quickly that I needed to keep my hands wet at all times, or it seemed to have a preference to bond to my hands rather than the aluminum surface. :rolleyes: I did my best to press the stuff flat, so that I would have less cleanup work after it dried:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-U...2/IMG_2382.JPG

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-z...2/IMG_2383.JPG

I let that dry for 24 hours just to make sure it was completely set, then went at it with an old fashioned sanding block and some 100 grit sandpaper. After 15 minutes of desperately sanding it, I realized I wasn't getting anywhere and opted for something with a little more power... my dremel and a sanding flap wheel that came with it. That worked a little better, but it still took me about two hours to get it to this point:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Y...2/IMG_2385.JPG

... and it still has some distance to go before its ready. I'm planning on filling the remaining holes on the bottom so that I end up with a smooth surface, and I'll most likely go back to bondo for that. Much easier to work with, same result. :nod:

Anyway, on to something more 'pretty'... I put the final touches on my radiator housing! First, I found some black screws that actually fit the M4 holes pre-tapped into the pump top. The screws were not quite up to par with the MDPC screws I had been using thus far, though... so I went looking for a solution, and found these little numbers:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-3...2/IMG_2391.JPG

They're sort of like the MDPC brainwashers, but they also sport a cap, for a completely enclosed look. Found 'em at my local hardware store, of all places! Nifty! :D

Here's the framework for the housing with the pump installed now (don't mind the mess in the background, the wife had me pulling down christmas ornaments... :p):

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-x...2/IMG_2392.JPG

And for the final piece... when I was planning and fabricating the radiator housing, I intentionally left a small 2mm gap between the radiators. I did this because I quickly realized while working with them that they weren't "perfectly true"... each had a slight lean like they were twisted or something, and it made it so the bottom of the radiators met when they were next to eachother, but the top corners did not. They're skewed by about 1mm, maybe less. Normally you'd never notice, but normally you aren't sitting these guys back to back... so yea. :lol:

To fix the gap, I searched around and eventually found some stock neoprene rubber. I went to work tracing it over the radiators and cut it out to get this:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-W...2/IMG_2394.JPG

And applied to the inside of the radiators:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-t...2/IMG_2395.JPG

Voila!

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-2...2/IMG_2397.JPG

Now there's a nice air-tight anti-vibration seal between the two radiators. Couldn't have worked out better! Glad the radiators had that distortion... if they didn't I probably would have just put them directly against each other, then thought of this down the road and wished I had done it. :D

And at last... here are some pictures of the radiator housing completely assembled!

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-0...2/IMG_2404.JPG

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-Q...2/IMG_2405.JPG

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-I...2/IMG_2407.JPG

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-9...2/IMG_2416.JPG

Phew! Finally a large portion of this mod is done, and arguably the most complicated piece. The completed radiator housing, along with the completed case wall and top designs, puts me at probably 25% done with this mod. Finally getting somewhere! :D

Next up, continuing to fix up the case... then maybe the reservoir!

Thanks for following!

Guess what showed up?

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-5...2/IMG_2420.JPG

Well, if the big logo on the box wasn't enough of a clue...

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-e...2/IMG_2421.JPG

Hooray, a pile of fittings! Bitspower was generous enough to sponsor me with all these nice fittings, completing all of my plumbing work... Which means...

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-5...2/IMG_2439.JPG

Finally, all assembled! What a load off that it all actually fit together like I planned. :D

What you are looking at is the link between the two radiators, along with a thermal sensor (the plug on the top right) and at the bottom a D-Plug type quick disconnect leading down through the bottom of the case. For now, I stuck a piece of acrylic down there to simulate the bottom of the case.

Here's the whole kit, slotted in the bottom of the case approximately where it will go in the final setup:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-W...2/IMG_2448.JPG

Now, for the part I am most concerned about... the drain meets the case right where there is a seam/flap to hold it together:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-3...2/IMG_2452.JPG

I'm thinking I can just cut a circular section out of the tab and underlying slot that the tab comes through so that the area is flat. If that doesn't work out, I can always just remove the tab and fill the slot, sealing the seam permanently together. I'm not exactly sure why the seam is there anyway... probably just made manufacturing easier or something.

See you next time!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Noblesoft

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-9...2/IMG_2416.JPG

---

Pure. Sex.

That's the money shot right there.

So freaking awesome.

-PB

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by paulbagz

Pure. Sex.

That's the money shot right there.

So freaking awesome.

-PB

---

Hahaha, you pretty much summed up my sentiments right there. Thanks! :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HofoK_QQxGc

This comes to mind: "Gentlemen, we can rebuild him." In this case, your old PC.

Hehe, thanks! Hopefully it doesn't take me 6 million dollars to get there, though. :D

And if it does?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by UrbanSmooth

And if it does?

---

Well, I'll either need one heck of a sponsor, or my 'completed by' date may need to be pushed back a few centuries. ;)

Can you imagine all of the crazy gear centuries from now?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by UrbanSmooth

Can you imagine all of the crazy gear centuries from now?

---

I'd say yes, but I'd be completely wrong. Heck, we can't even properly imagine what will be available 10 years from now. Just compare what we had in 2000 to what we had now... nothing, that's what. :p

Anyway... Sorry for the delay in getting this post together! I meant to put it up this weekend, but my weekend ended up being a bit of a bust modding-wise. I spent all of Saturday putting up a fence in the rain for my dad, and Sunday shopping for xmas presents with the wife. Fortunately, I carved some time out this evening and still made some reasonable progress!

So, as I had indicated, I was in the process of repairing the bottom of the case from the large radiator holes cut out for the last cooling system this case housed. After testing out a few products, I landed on using some scrap aluminum to fit in the larger holes, then I used some Bondo bumper repair to put the whole thing together. This stuff is so incredibly versatile! Cheap, just flexible enough to avoid breaking under stress, tough enough to be drilled/tooled, sandable, etc etc. Has really been a pleasure to work with!

I started out with a fairly thick layer to fill holes and gaps. I decided to fill in all the air holes in the bottom of the case, along with the other miscellaneous holes that were originally for holding up the drive cages, partitions, etc.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-m...2/IMG_2457.JPG

I let that dry for a few minutes on top of a sheet of aluminum foil (which oddly it doesn't bond to, even though it bonds to my aluminum case just great... :confused:)

Then, a second coat of it to fill in the smaller gaps and imperfections in the first coat, giving a nice 'slurry seal' and leveling everything off:


https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-B...2/IMG_2459.JPG

I let that dry over night... then pulled off the foil and inspected the bottom side.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-G...2/IMG_2461.JPG

Just a little bit of seepage through the holes, not too bad though. Should be easy to sand off. I then went through and filled in any holes that didn't quite get filled from the back side, along with sealing any cracks around the aluminum plates and such:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-o...2/IMG_2462.JPG

Then, I let that dry for another 24 hours. You can probably see why this took so long. :rolleyes:

Next day, I started sanding... oh... SO much sanding. This was an hour or so worth:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-W...2/IMG_2465.JPG

Turns out this stuff eats sandpaper alive. I went through all the sheets of 80 grit I had, then had to break and go to the store for more. :D

After finishing the first round of sanding to satisfaction, I went for a final 'top coat' of Bondo to seal in any pits and such.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-s...2/IMG_2471.JPG

24 more hours later... and a few hours of sanding with 120 grit...

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-d...2/IMG_2473.JPG

And finally, the last pass of sanding with some 400 grit to remove the deeper grooves:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-V...2/IMG_2477.JPG

Man, what a production! But now the whole surface is baby's butt smooth, and should cover fairly nicely when I primer it.

And now, on to the next task, and the whole reason I repaired the bottom the way I did... so that I can mount my radiator housing on it!

I started with a little planning and measuring. I decided I wanted to use the four 'spacer blocks' that keep the housing held together as the mounting points on the bottom of the case. Since the press-fit screw fittings worked out pretty well, why not use them again!

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-W...2/IMG_2478.JPG

I taped off the bottom of the case... not so much to protect it, as to give myself a good drawing surface so that I could measure out all the points where I wanted to drill:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-i...2/IMG_2479.JPG

I tilted the thing up on it's side to press the tape on securely, and one of the little wing tabs that keeps the case together fell off... doh... :rolleyes: Oh well, one more reason to use bondo! :lol: It has good holding strength, but there's not a lot of surface area to work with here, so I am not so sure it will work. I may have to do an actual weld...

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-L...2/IMG_2481.JPG

Anyway, I got the locations of the cross bars with respect to the bottom of the case all mapped out on the masking tape:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-A...2/IMG_2482.JPG

Then used the trusty drill press to punch the screw holes in the case...

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-0...2/IMG_2483.JPG

There we go!

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-V...2/IMG_2484.JPG

Maybe it's because it was getting late... or perhaps it was the epoxy fumes... but a little while after shooting the above photo... I realized that the plates and holes formed ridiculous faces. I couldn't stop looking at them every time I looked at the case...

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-C.../s912/Derp.jpg

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-R...s912/Howdy.jpg

:p
Anyway...

Now that I had the holes measured and drilled, I simply set the case on top of the radiator while upside down, and used a pencil to mark the hole placement on the acrylic blocks. A quick hit with the drill press, and a few taps of the hammer later:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-W...2/IMG_2488.JPG

And with some custom-cut MDPC screws/brainwashers:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-X...2/IMG_2489.JPG

Voila!

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-B...12/stooges.jpg

And now, for the final challenge, and the part I was most dreading... the fill port / drain port:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-b...2/IMG_2493.JPG

If the measurements end up just a tiny bit off, or something doesn't fit together quite right... I'm in for some major headaches down the road. I started off by setting it just like in the picture above, screwing the whole system to the case so that I was positive it was sitting exactly where it would be going in the final build, then traced an outline with a pencil. Then, I set to work with the trusty Dremel and my up-spiral routing bit:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-z...2/IMG_2494.JPG

So far so good... now for the other part of the case that slips into the slot you can see through the tape above. I assembled the case, then traced the complete circle again over the tab that was covering up a portion of the hole I cut out. A bit more Dremeling, and a sizable amount of filing later...

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-z...2/IMG_2495.JPG

Bam! Perfect fit!

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-T...2/IMG_2498.JPG

Phew! What a relief! Now I can sleep at night! :D

Until next time... ;)

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-I...2/IMG_2504.JPG

Sometimes you must take a few steps backward in order to make a step forward. At least... that's what I keep telling myself after my latest disaster. /sigh

As anyone reading this log is well aware at this point, I was somewhat enamored with bondo for doing the small repairs on my aluminum case. Was. As it turns out, this stuff ended up not working so hot when I started preparing it for painting. More details below. :(

Anyway... I started out by fixing that little tab that fell of with some of my remaining steelstik:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-I...2/IMG_2507.JPG

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-0...2/IMG_2508.JPG

I gave that a good few days to dry, as it's been cold and this stuff takes forever to dry cold.

This weekend, I finally had some time to myself, and determined that I would get started with preparing and priming the case for painting! Exciting! Except... during the wet sanding:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-i...2/IMG_2515.JPG

Doh! :mad: I wasn't even being that rough... letting the P400 wet sandpaper just glide over it as the whole surface was pretty much finely sanded already. And yet... as I continued to sand, more and more of it bubbled up and peeled off:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-5...2/IMG_2516.JPG

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-R...2/IMG_2520.JPG

So much for this stuff working on 'any surface.' Looks like it doesn't bond to aluminum so well.

Anyway, I could tell at this point that the bondo was going to have to come off. And the more of it I removed, the weaker the bonds holding the plates got. I finally threw in the towel and punched the plates out, determined to find another way to repair the bottom of the case:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Y...2/IMG_2521.JPG

Back to square one... (maybe square -1, as now I have a mess to clean up too... :rolleyes:).

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-j...2/IMG_2522.JPG

Shut up, you! Even my case-face grew an authoritative mustache just so that he could mock me with his superior knowledge of case repair.

Anyway, now I am looking at potential options for a more solid and permanent repair:

1) Find a local aluminum welding shop and see what it costs to get this repair done properly. I'm anticipating it will be too expensive, but who knows?

2) Try some other materials. I found some stuff called "Alumiweld" online that claims it can weld aluminum using just a blow-torch. Reviews online are mixed. The stuff is cheap, however.

3) Find a replacement Lian-Li PC-V2000 online. "Short supply" wouldn't even begin to describe the chances of finding one at this point... as they are very popular, and very old.

Anyway, I won't give up just because of this setback! It just might take me a little while to find a proper solution... stay tuned!

Hello Everyone!

So, I moved forward with the plans to replace the bottom of my case with a new plate... but I decided to take it one step further and make a feature out of it! Sometimes missteps turn into opportunities! :D

First of all, I managed to grab a piece of 2mm thick aluminum scrap from a friend. After playing with a few ideas, I decided I would bolt the piece to the bottom of the case, along with a 5mm thick piece of clear acrylic as a 'spacer'. I threw together a little 'proof of concept' piece out of some scraps I had first, as I didn't want to waste my clean aluminum piece on experimentation. There are a lot of things going on along the bottom of the case... I have wheels to attach, a drain port that comes through the front of the case, and several screws to hold the radiators to the case. After several iterations, I decided I liked this layout the best:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-r...2/IMG_2539.JPG

With that all worked out, I sized up a clear piece of acrylic for the bottom of the case, and drew a line where the edge of the acrylic would be. I would have liked to keep the whole ledge out to the depth shown in the picture below, but the case won't reassemble with that ledge sticking over the perforated area:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-p...2/IMG_2540.JPG

Next, I lined up and trimmed the aluminum piece to match the planned edge of the acrylic:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-X...2/IMG_2542.JPG

After some fiddling, I decided it would likely work out best if I created a template out of MDF for the front area. The drain port will be surrounded by a thin rim of acrylic, which will be a bit too fragile to do by hand...

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-e...2/IMG_2546.JPG

A quick pass on the router later:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-p...2/IMG_2548.JPG

After that, I used my unibit and the drill press to punch a hole for the drain port in it, and tested the assembly:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-v...2/IMG_2551.JPG

So far so good! Next, I carved a hole in the aluminum plate to match the outer diameter of the acrylic rim around the drain port using my jigsaw and a metal file:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-M...2/IMG_2552.JPG

Okay... but not quite right. I consulted with a few friends that were over at the time, and ended up with this design:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-i...2/IMG_2554.JPG

Much better! More fluid and appealing. (Yes, I know the acrylic isn't quite centered in this pic... I'm going to make some final adjustments during wet sanding!)

After that, I took a brief brake from that piece to quickly cut out a 'prism' for the center of my reservoir:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-U...0/IMG_2558.JPG

I had hoped that I could make a hollow version to put some lights in the center of, but there ended up not being enough space... so I'll be playing around with my options here, as I would like to really illuminate that prism.

After that, I played with the LED light / Arduino side of things. I mentioned quite a while back, but I have a friend developing a custom LED controller out of an Arduino uno, and he's made some good progress.

What I was thinking of doing was using one or two strips placed inlaid between the aluminum plate and the acrylic plate to light up the edges, giving a neat glowing effect between the two (eventually black) plates. Here's a very early preview of that, just for fun. ;)

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-T...2/IMG_2559.JPG

The shot is dark (intentionally), but what you are looking at is the aluminum plate on the bottom, the acrylic on top of that, and the bottom of the case on top, with the radiator block sitting on top of that. I simply smooshed the LED strip between the acrylic and the bottom of the case for now, but ill be carving an inlay soon that hopefully will give off better light on the edges.

Also, here's a quick video to give a better idea of what it looks like: http://youtu.be/gmVg79SDWlE

Until next time! :)

Hope everyone had a nice Christmas / New Year holiday! I spent a lot of time with family over the last two weeks... so I only had bits and pieces of time to work on Prism. None the less... I made some progress! Here's what's been going on in the workshop over the past few weeks:

After the spectacular failures with bondo, I opted to address the holes in the bottom of the case with a plate and some acrylic as shown in my last post... but what I didn't address was the sad little rivet tab that broke off while messing with the case.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-h...2/IMG_2526.JPG

Yes... what to do about him. Bondo clearly isn't working, and I've tried some of the other similar products like SteelStik and such, but they just don't have the holding strength for a piece that needs to withstand riveting. The case will be very heavy when all is said and done, too, and the last thing I need is for this to snap and fall apart post-assembly. One option left...

Welding. :D


https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-D...2/IMG_2561.JPG

Unfortunately... I don't quite have the budget for a MIG or nicer TIG welder... and no friends that have one nearby (yet)... so I looked around for some solutions. What I landed on was this stuff called "Alumiweld" that you can supposedly use at lower temperatures (730F) to weld aluminum together. It also just so happened that my local hardware had a package of the stuff for only $15... so what the heck? Worth a try. :rolleyes:

Since this was a 2-handed operation, I didn't really take any pictures of the process... but here are the first attempts on some 'scrap' metal:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-W...2/IMG_2563.JPG

... Kinda ugly. :rolleyes: That's why you practice with scrap! Unfortunately... I gave it a quick tug, and it came right apart! :mad: The guides weren't kidding when they said welding aluminum was tricky. The first problem... my propane torch takes like 15 minutes of direct heat to warm the aluminum up to the point where the Alumiweld actually starts melting. The second problem... it talks about an "abrading tool"... but I have no idea what that is, and couldn't find anything similar at the hardware store. Some online guides pointed to using the alumiweld rod as the abrading tool by pressing it through the surface of the other molten alumiweld... but every time i did that, more alumiweld on the rod would just melt off, making a bigger and bigger pool.

Anyway, I broke that weld... but no time to complain, time to try again! :)

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-0...2/IMG_2566.JPG

Looks better... but...

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-9...2/IMG_2569.JPG

Either I have herculean strength, or this stuff isn't holding at all. I have a feeling that I am not heating up the base aluminum enough. The smaller piece that I am welding on is getting so hot it is practically molten... but the base doesn't seem to be melting enough to mix with the alumiweld at all. I tried a few times after this without much success either... not sure what I am doing wrong.

One thing I did notice is that I was clamping down these two pieces so that they would stay in place using some steel bench clamps. These clamps were getting very hot... I think they might have been drawing heat away from the aluminum pieces. As soon as I took them off, the pieces would heat up much faster... but they were way harder to work with then, as the small pieces would just scoot around any time I tried to prod them with the Alumiweld.

Oh well... for $15, it was worth a try! :rolleyes:

One last resort $5 attempt with another cold-weld adhesive that seems to have good reviews:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-A...2/IMG_2570.JPG

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-R...2/IMG_2571.JPG

And...

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-6...2/IMG_2586.JPG

Fail! :rolleyes: Welp, I've tried everything that is within my price range to complete this little task myself... time to outsource to a local professional! ;)

I found a nice little mom & pop welding shop nearby, showed them my work so far and what needed to be done, and they were happy to do a one-time small job for me at a very affordable price (only $35!):

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-o...2/IMG_2587.JPG


Much better... that little tab isn't going ANYWHERE now. Considering how thin the aluminum is, and the fact that its a weird angle... they did a very good job I think. Definitely be heading back there for any other small needs. The guy did a remarkably good job lining the tab up with where it needed to be, also... only a tiny bit off of perfect:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-2...2/IMG_2588.JPG

Nothing a little Dremel work can't solve. :D

So... that's that for the case repairs (hopefully!) Now I can focus on other things... like the reservoir!

I bought a kit online a while ago to let me tap my own G1/4 ports for building the reservoir... but never really got to mess with it until now. As always, I don't trust myself with new tools, so I set out to practice a bit on some scraps. I started by putting the drill bit into my drill press for making the initial holes in some 5mm thick acrylic.

First problem... the drill bit I got seems to like to 'explode' acrylic... it's clearly not really meant for it like my acrylic bits are. It's a general purpose bit, so I think it is more for wood and metal. I got it to work eventually without shattering the acrylic by slowing the press down to about 800 rpm, and using a liberal amount of spray lubricant between 3-4 second pulses of the drill press.

Next problem... I realized I don't have any kind of tool for the actual tap... because it's huge! I have plenty of tap kits for smaller bits, but nothing would fit this monster. I thought for a while, and looked around online for a good tool, but ended up with a fairly cheap solution:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-1...2/IMG_2575.JPG

:D:p

The obvious problem with this approach was getting strait taps. This will be especially important since it needs to seal perfectly... it will be on the bottom of my reservoir! A few shots at eyeballing it revealed this was a hopeless endeavor. I needed a tool... but what? Then an idea hit me... why not make a guide that is sure to work?

First, I cut a chunk out of a scrap 2x4 piece of wood I had laying around that was about the size of the G1/4 tap bit:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-8...2/IMG_2576.JPG

Next, I took a spare 1" thick piece of acrylic I had left over from the bottom of the radiator housing and drilled a hole in it:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-S...2/IMG_2577.JPG


I set up the contraption like so:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-P...2/IMG_2579.JPG

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-A...2/IMG_2580.JPG

... and then tapped the full 1" piece of acrylic. The wooden guide helped make sure I was more or less strait, and as I put the tap through the entire piece of acrylic, it gradually straitened itself out to be perfectly strait, due to the drill press drilling a perfectly strait hole. When the tap went all the way through the block, it had about 5mm sticking out the back side of it:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-y...2/IMG_2582.JPG

There we go. Now I have a guide tool! Now, when I want to tap a perfectly strait G1/4 tap, all I have to do is set this guide piece on top of the hole I want to tap, run the tap all the way through the guide piece, and the little bottom piece sticking out in the picture above will start to tap the actual piece of acrylic that I want to tap. Easy peasy, no tool necessary!

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-3...2/IMG_2583.JPG

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/--...2/IMG_2585.JPG

See you next time! I plan on doing a bit more work on the reservoir, maybe a little detail work on the radiator housing... and maybe if I have enough time I can get to priming my case. :cool: Thanks for reading!

Sub'd!

LOL, I find the images of the silly faces quite hilarious. They were unexpected. AND THIS, THIS IS WHAT I ENJOY IN A BUILD LOG!!!!!!!!

Hello!

Lots of good things happening right now, and I finally feel like I'm hitting a stride as far as making progress towards completion. It's all starting to come together! :D

First of all, I decided I wanted to start on the repairs of my midplate. The plate came stock with a few large gaps for passing cables between the lower section (where the power supply and hard drives are supposed to be located) and the upper section (where the motherboard, etc. is located.) These holes are in a very front-and-center location though, and I think it ruins the aesthetic of the display window since they will literally be right in front of it. Also, from the previous very simple mod, I had cut two holes up towards the front for my tubing to pass through. So... I laid it out to try and figure out how I wanted to fix it:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-a...2/IMG_2596.JPG

I played with the idea of using JBWeld... but I was concerned I would just get burned again like I did with the Bondo. After all, I used a JB Weld product (the steelstick) too, and that didn't hold up either. I also considered using some of that low temperature welding stuff... but considering how well that went, I just decided to take it to the local welding shop for a consult. $100 bucks later, I decided it was well worth letting them figure it out. :p I got a cut rate on the work (and there's a lot to be done - aluminum isn't easy), and in exchange they would work on it over the course of a week instead of making it a priority. Deal! :yesss: Hopefully, it should be done this coming weekend!

Once that piece comes back, I can finally build my painting booth and get started on painting! Maybe as early as this weekend? :)

Anyway, in the meantime, I went on to another task: putting together the reservoir. Being that I am always cautious about firsts... I decided it was probably a good idea to try out my plan before I jumped right in. I started out with a little toy I made a while back while testing cutting and gluing acrylic:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-V...2/IMG_2589.JPG

I didn't prepare the piece especially well when I glued it together, and spent only about 30 seconds measuring it before cutting it... so things were a little rough for the purpose of holding water. I laid out a piece of 400 grit sandpaper on my work surface, clamped it down, and went to work sanding it flat. Sanding it this way made sure the surface was completely flat for gluing it later.

Next, I took a little scrap piece left over from the radiator housing and glued the sanded triangle to it. You can kinda see the glue seams when viewing it from the inside. To get the glue placed exactly in what was a relatively small area, I used one of these:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Q...2/IMG_2592.JPG

Terrifyingly huge, no? :eek: Worked way better than the little squeeze bottle I had before, though. The glue is so thin, it would fall right out of the needle when turned upside down, which made it impossible to control. With this plunger applicator, the suction kept the glue in place. Much cleaner!

I also made an 'extended cut' version for putting glue down into the reservoir after it was partially assembled:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-V...2/IMG_2595.JPG


Anyway, I put the whole thing together, and used that black acrylic that I tapped in my previous post as the lid. I filled it with water, threw on a g1/4 plug, set it on some paper towels, and let it sit for a few days to see if any serious leaks developed:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-h...2/IMG_2603.JPG

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-d...2/IMG_2605.JPG

After a day or so, I scoped it out and noticed only a very tiny bead of water in one of the corners. Not too bad considering the little prep work I did on this. I'd say experiment passed! Time for the real thing! :D

First, I had to cut my acrylic tube to the right length. I measured it all out (about six times... I was really nervous as this tube was actually fairly expensive to obtain... :D) marked it, then lined the mark with some painters tape to make the cutting line extra clear. No room for mistakes!

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-P...0/IMG_2606.JPG

Next, I broke out the miter saw with my finishing blade, and very slowly trimmed through layers of the tube at a time. I would make a 1" cut, turn the tube, make another, turn again, etc etc. Each time the cut would be a little deeper.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-x...2/IMG_2607.JPG

This helped make sure that I didn't heat the acrylic up so much that it melted and deformed. It also made sure the cut was that much more strait! After a few minutes of tiny cuts:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-y...2/IMG_2609.JPG

Now, I applied the same treatment with sandpaper to the bottom and top of the tube. I placed the sandpaper on a spare aluminum sheet this time, too, just to make sure the surface was perfectly flat:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-_...2/IMG_2610.JPG

Looks good!

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-t...2/IMG_2615.JPG

Done with that... phew! I was nervous the whole time. It must be what it feels like to perform surgery. No room for mistakes! :p

Now, I moved on to cutting and preparing the top and bottom of the reservoir. I covered the pieces in masking tape, marked up the areas with pencil, and bathed it in cutting oil to make sure I had a good clean cut:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Q...2/IMG_2617.JPG

After cutting, I tapped them using my handy tapping tool I created in my previous postings. Now I was ready to start putting the thing together when I realized... I'm obviously going to need to take the masking tape with all my measurements off before I can glue it. :rolleyes: But how do I make sure that the tube is glued in exactly the right place? Hmmm... :confused: If only I had some kind of guide... or template...


Wait. I can totally make a template. :D

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-x...2/IMG_2620.JPG

So, I broke out the MDF board I used to make my router template for my radiator housing earlier, and traced up a quick template.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-k...2/IMG_2621.JPG

A little handy work with the jigsaw and drum sander later:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-P...2/IMG_2623.JPG

Perfect fit! Now I can simply line the template up with the base triangle of acrylic, and the tube should be in exactly the right place for both the top and bottom triangles! :)

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Z...2/IMG_2625.JPG


In my design, I thought it would be really cool to put an illuminated 'prism' of acrylic in the center of the reservoir. All I had to do was cut it out of some stock acrylic, glue it to the top and bottom just like the tube, and then drill into the ends. Simple, no? So I cut out the prism from some 1" thick clear acrylic I had left over. That's when I noticed a problem:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-C...2/IMG_2627.JPG

The prism isn't strait! But why... how? :confused:

Some research online showed an interesting property of cast acrylic that I was not aware of, called outgassing. Once exposed to air for a little while, the surfaces of the acryilc will start to vent a bit and actually shrink a tiny amount. It's not noticeable on small pieces or heavy flat pieces, but on long thin bars like this it becomes painfully apparent. That, mixed with internal stresses that are released after cutting cast acrylic, and you end up with a retarded prism. :D The only way that people mentioned to fix this is through annealing... but I don't have the equipment for that.

Anyway, I figured the bend was minor enough that I could just correct it by gluing it dead-on strait to both ends of the reservoir... which would force it to 'stand up strait'. Boy was I wrong... but we'll get to that. :rolleyes:

I proceeded to make a template much like the one for my tube, this time for the smaller inner prism.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-F...2/IMG_2628.JPG

I lined it up just to make sure things looked right... also to double check the process and order for gluing. Looks good so far...

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-X...2/IMG_2629.JPG

I then went on to use my flat-sanding process to prepare the prism. I ran all three sides across it for a good long while until all the imperfections were removed, giving me a nice frosted appearance which should diffuse light pretty well:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-Y...2/IMG_2630.JPG

So, I clamped my template and bottom piece down and glued the prism into place. I just shot some glue where the prism needed to go (just a few drops into the center of the template), then pushed the prism in on top of it:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-V...2/IMG_2632.JPG

I thought I was good here... but the fluid dynamics I was counting on to spread the glue out evenly (capillary action) turned against me. The nearby MDF proved to be tempting enough to pull some of the glue out of the prism and under itself. I learned two things here:

1) Science never does you any favors. :rolleyes:

2) Apparently MDF can weld to acrylic just like another piece of acrylic. :eek:

Long story short, the bottom was pretty badly marred by this. After a bit of careful scraping to remove the MDF bonded to the surface, I ended up with this:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-N...2/IMG_2634.JPG

Ouch. But all is not lost... for I now have a chance to practice my acrylic repair using all of that Novus stuff I bought a while back. It actually came out pretty well... barely noticeable now. Fortunately this is the underside of the top of the reservoir anyway, so you'll never be able to see it. It bothers me slightly, but not enough to warrant starting over! :rolleyes:

Anyway, I went on to use my template again to glue the tube in place around the prism:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-o...2/IMG_2635.JPG

The mess on the surface next to the prism is actually just polish that I failed to clean up completely. It wasn't visible at first, but as it dried it turned white. It was a pain in the but to clean (considering it was down in the middle of a giant tube) but I managed with a dowel, some paper towels, and some patience. ;)

Now, for another slight miscalculation, which was going to turn into a really neat feature, but which ultimately ended in complete defeat. :p

The template worked great for lining up the first piece... but now, how am I supposed to use it to line up the other side of the prism now that the tube is in the way? I obviously couldn't have lined it up first, as then I would be unable to put the tube on. I designed something that ended up being impossible to build. Go figure. :D

No matter! Where there is a will, there is a way, they say. And I came up with a neat idea... what if I cut out some circles that acted as a spacer between the inside of the tube and the outside of the prism? I could then put these spacers inside the reservoir at the top and bottom. This would not only ensure the prism was perfectly aligned since all the spacers would be identical, but I could use it to hide the attachment points of the prism, which weren't as perfect as I wanted. Double win, right?

I cut out a circular template from MDF, much like the other pieces. I then used it, with my router, to make a few identical acrylic circles. I then carved out a triangle in the center which the prism would fit onto.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-n...2/IMG_2642.JPG

My plan was then to cut 5mm half circle edges off of the perimeter of the circle, so that water could flow through... but... as I was fitting the first circle onto the prism (which was glued into the reservoir if you will recall)...

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-0...2/IMG_2641.JPG

Off it came! :eek: Only the slightest bend to make the prism stand up strait, and the bottom of the prism broke off of the bottom of the reservoir. :rolleyes: Well... so much for that idea. I sat around and thought about it for a bit, and then decided to scrap the whole 'prism inside the reservoir' thing. It was ended up a lot more work than I had hoped, and I wasn't even completely convinced that I would be able to generate the effect I wanted.

Besides... I already had a better idea. :D

But first, I wanted to complete the reservoir "sans-prism". That was a quick task... just a shot of glue here and there... dry overnight... fill with water for testing... done!

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-w...2/IMG_2637.JPG

But what's this?

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/--...2/IMG_2639.JPG

A tiny, stubborn leak. There's always one! No matter, I'll just drain it and give another shot of glue in that spot... that should do it!


Anyway... back to the better idea about the prism thing I mentioned earlier... I got to thinking: Why bother with putting the prism inside of the reservoir, when I could just as easily make it look like it was inside? The neat thing about bending light... is that it makes it really hard to tell what's going on behind the scenes. My ultimate goal was to fill the reservoir with light, so that it would illuminate the whole piece and allow me to display patterns and such. So... I simply laid the prism on top of the LED strip like so...

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-J...2/IMG_2643.JPG

And with the reservoir in front of it...

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-B...2/IMG_2648.JPG

Not good enough yet. You can clearly see dots, which isn't what I want. I tried sanding the prism a bit more, to get a coarser grain on the faces:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-O...2/IMG_2644.JPG

Hey, not half bad! It's not glued in, mind you, so it's a little off kilter right now. That, and the effect isn't quite there yet. It's too focused... too banded. I wanted a smooth effect. But how... :confused:

I played with various combinations of frosted, white, and prism shaped pieces of acrylic to try and achieve the effect. Here's one with a translucent piece of white acrylic that is supposed to be good at dispersing light. Getting closer... but now it's pretty dim. The acrylic almost blocks too much light.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-M...2/IMG_2645.JPG

After monkeying around, I got pretty close to what I wanted as far as appearance goes (again, it's not strait since the housing is in the way of the prism right now):

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-P...2/IMG_2646.JPG

Almost a solid column of light! But... it takes quite a bit of material, and I'm not even sure it will fit in there correctly. I achieved this effect by putting the LED strip behind a 1" thick block of acrylic, and then putting a very thin strip of the diffusing acrylic on top, like so:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-s...2/IMG_2647.JPG

With this profile view, you can see why... see those angled beams of light coming out of each LED node? The dispersing white acrylic is far enough away from them (due to the 1" acrylic buffer) that those cones of light overlap. Now I just need to find a way to better disperse that light without requiring a full 1" gap.

So today, I went and picked up a few more different shapes of acrylic... hopefully they arrive soon, so I can keep testing! I can feel the answer is close... I'm excited! xD

Until next time!

Hello!

Small update this time... well... small in content, but not small in effort nor small in 'size'! ;)

I only had bits and pieces of time due to a hefty workload with my day job... but I managed to put together my painting booth finally! It looks like something 'Dexter' would put together... :p

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-m...0/IMG_2649.JPG

Now I don't have to worry about getting paint (or blood...) everywhere, and hopefully all that dust/hair/bug nonsense won't mess up my finish! :D

I also added some cutouts for ventilation, with air filters, so that I get some fresh air in there and cut down on the dust at the same time.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-Q...2/IMG_2651.JPG

Inside, I have a simple 'bench' that I can hang pieces from, or set up as a shelf for small parts:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-x...2/IMG_2654.JPG

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-c...2/IMG_2655.JPG

Anyway, now I just need some time to prepare all my parts and I can get to painting!

Also, I finally got my midplate back from the welding shop...

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-0...2/IMG_2657.JPG

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-8...2/IMG_2663.JPG

At first glance, it looks pretty good. The top was ground down pretty flat. The underside has some large ugly welds, but I think I can clean up those with a little elbow grease:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-J...2/IMG_2658.JPG

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-O...2/IMG_2665.JPG

However... I started to notice a pretty significant problem:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-C...2/IMG_2659.JPG

The piece is warped. BAD. :mad:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-i...2/IMG_2660.JPG

I'm worried I won't be able to use this piece after all. It was expensive to have welded too... and I was too much of a nice guy to not pay them, since they are a small shop. :rolleyes:

So... with nothing left to lose, I decided I would do what I could to try and 'flatten' it:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-A...2/IMG_2666.JPG

I didn't have a lot of luck with the rubber mallet. After beating the heck out of it for about a half hour, I had only made very minor progress. It was pretty evident this would never get the job done. :(

I also tried 'crushing' the bent areas in a vise:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-7...2/IMG_2667.JPG

That worked a little better. At this point the piece is 'relatively' flat. I'm still thinking I am going to have to recreate the piece from scratch... but I'm going to go with it for now until it proves too warped to use. If I can see that it is warped after assembling the case, I'll redo it. No compromise, eh? :D

Speaking of reassembling the case, I wanted to put everything that has been made together briefly, just so I could get a feel for how things are looking. I quickly put it together using some painters tape just to hold pieces in the right places:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-l...2/IMG_2669.JPG

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-I...0/IMG_2673.JPG

Considering the relatively small window size, you don't actually get a very good look at the mid-plate... even when looking right in the window:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-O...2/IMG_2670.JPG

Here's a shot from the "IO shield" area... also not too bad looking.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-N...2/IMG_2671.JPG
Can't really tell that it is only slightly warped at all. I'll go with it... for now... :rolleyes:

So, I set to work cleaning up some of the smaller imperfections. There are many rivet holes in the piece that will no longer be used as a result of the modifications I made to the case (such as removing the hard drive cages) which I needed to fill. To fill it, I'm using some JB Weld, which hopefully will work much better than the Bondo. After the first coat...

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-E...2/IMG_2674.JPG

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-t...2/IMG_2675.JPG

And then a second coat to smooth out the remaining dimples:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Q...2/IMG_2676.JPG

I'll likely do one more coat tonight on the underside if necessary, then sand it flat for painting.

Anyway, I hope to have a bunch of free time this weekend as the wife is working all Saturday and Sunday... leaving me with nothing to do... but paint! :D

So... I didn't do nearly as much this weekend as I wanted to. :rolleyes: I really wanted to get started with priming and painting, but the temperature outside was far too cold... so it would have messed up the finish I think. Life has a way of making other plans for you, I guess. :p I did still do a few things that are worth sharing!

First of all, I continued work on the reservoir a bit. I received some various bits and pieces of acrylic to try different shapes and sizes and see what I could do to diffuse light better. Unfortunately, none had the effect I was looking for. I tried rods, half-rods, spheres, semi-spheres, cutting long grooves into the back side of the prism... not much seemed to make a difference in how diffused the light was. Here are some experiments I did, with descriptions of what you are looking at attached to each video:

Test 1
Test 2
Test 3
Test 4

I did many other tests, but most of them proved to be a detriment (they actually focused the beam, or scattered the light into a rainbow) rather than help. I think when it comes down to it, the LED lights on my strip are too far apart, and the acrylic I am trying to light is too thin, to accomplish the look I want. Naturally, I started poking around online for a solution... and come to find the same company that manufactured my current LED strip made a Version 2 recently that is double density! I snapped up a couple of meters, and we'll see how it looks! :D

Anyway, in the meantime, since I still needed something to do this weekend, I went ahead and prepared the prism housing with the anticipation that the double-density strips will absolve the problems with light distribution I am having. First, I cut a channel into the bottom of one of my prisms approximately the width and depth of the LED strip:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-t...2/IMG_2680.JPG

Next, I laid the strip in the channel to make sure it fit. There is a slight overlap at either end with this kind of strip that I am hoping I won't have with version 2, but there's a distinct possibility it will. Also, there are contacts at either end of the strip that I will likely want to wire up so that I can chain this on to another location instead of running another lead from my Arduino... so I need some way to reach those contacts. I trimmed the prism with the channel slightly, so that when the top prism sits on top of it, there is a slight gap on either side, like so:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-U...2/IMG_2684.JPG

When laid into the housing, it still overhangs slightly, and there's still the matter of what to do with the wiring. When I glue the tube reservoir into the housing, the bottom area shown here will be completely sealed and set against the bottom of the midplate.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-Y...2/IMG_2685.JPG

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-N...2/IMG_2686.JPG

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-a...2/IMG_2687.JPG

A simple solution came to mind... cut a port in the back of the housing like so:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-r...2/IMG_2688.JPG

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-j...2/IMG_2689.JPG

Now, I can glue the bottom in place and the wires won't be in the way. Additionally, this port will be completely invisible as the prism will be covering it from the front, and I'll have 'other stuff' obscuring the back of the housing (more on that much later... ;))


https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-3...2/IMG_2691.JPG

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-H...2/IMG_2692.JPG

Just for the heck of it, I lit up the current light strip with the unit all built. It's not glued together yet, since I will be replacing the Version 1 strip with a new Version 2 soon... but I couldn't let all of my work go without immediate reward! :D

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-S...2/IMG_2693.JPG

Also, a brief video, so that I can compare it to what version 2 will look like when I get it!

Anyway, enough of that for now... on to something else! I did a little shopping at the local hardware store in preparation for painting, even though it wasn't shaping up like I would be able to paint this weekend:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-_...2/IMG_2703.JPG

I also started figuring out what I wanted to do with cable routing from my power supply. As you can see from this shot, my space is very limited in this case:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-b...2/IMG_2710.JPG

I'll need to make cuts in the midplate somewhere in order to pass the ATX cables from below the midplate up to the motherboard and peripherals... but I'd like to do it in a very 'stealthy' way. Also... there's the little matter of ventilation for the power supply. There's only a few millimeters above and below the power supply. In the current installed configuration, the fan is butting up against the midplate. I'm not sure if that's enough room for ventilation... but then again, this power supply only activates its fan when it is hot... and it's rarely on if ever... so... :confused:

I played with the idea of cutting a hole in the midplate about like so:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-C...2/IMG_2713.JPG

I don't think I like it though... so I am tempted just to see how it goes with limited ventilation.

I also played the location for CPU power cables to come up through the midplate... and I think what I will actually do is cut out a section of the motherboard tray and feed the cables under the motherboard. It's a little hard to explain, but here's where I am thinking of routing the cables (I just stuck a spare cable I had under there to make sure it fit, and to illustrate my idea. The final cables will obviously be sleeved:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Y...2/IMG_2714.JPG

To fit the cable there, I'll cut a section out of the back side of the midplate, as well as a bit of the motherboard tray just above the markings shown here:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-X...2/IMG_2716.JPG

I plan on doing something similar with the ATX power, and the PCI-E power cables too. I'll cut a similar section like above, route the cables along the back of the motherboard tray, through an opening that will be hidden behind the motherboard, out from under the motherboard, and into the power ports. Clear as mud? :p

Anyway, next time I'll keep going with the cable routing preparation. I also hope to get the new LED strips this week. See you next time! :)

Hello! :)

Been a little while since a full update, but I've certainly been busy! Lots of little things here and there, but bit by bit I'm getting closer to putting everything together!

First, I worked out how I want to handle my cable routing. You'll recall that I pluged all the cable pass-throughs on my midplate, leaving no place for cables to reach the motherboard... One of my personal goals is to keep the cabling completely hidden wherever possible. This includes fan wires, motherboard power, sata cables, etc etc. To do so with the Lian Li PC-v2000 is a tricky thing... this case was made back before case windows were a big thing... and people didn't care about cable placement. None of those fancy cable management systems here... so, time to make some! :D

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-X...2/IMG_2716.JPG

There's a very small gap behind my motherboard plate and the left hand case wall... no more than 10mm. That should be enough to accomplish what I am thinking, though! I marked off a few areas that I'll be passing cables from the bottom compartment (you can see the PSU there) along the back of the motherboard plate and up to the top compartment. An hour or two with the Dremel, a little bit of sanding, and...

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-T...2/IMG_2725.JPG

... there we go! Cable pass through ports along with built in cable retention arms! :D

Next, I cut out a few matching holes in the motherboard tray, along with a few passthrough ports that will be hidden behind the motherboard when it's mounted on the tray:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/--...2/IMG_2724.JPG

Put the two together, and...



https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-L...2/IMG_2730.JPG

There we go! Now, when the motherboard is mounted on the tray, these passthrough ports will be completely invisible.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-t...2/IMG_2728.JPG

The back area will be hidden as well, as this area is out of sight of the window on this side of the case. I'll route the CPU power cables and fan RPM monitor cables up through the left port, which will come out underneath the bottom of the motherboard. The cables will make a sharp u-turn and plug into the motherboard. With some careful cable stitching and placement, it should end up looking very clean. The ATX power and GPU power cables will go through the right port, be tacked flat along the back of the motherboard plate, pass through the large oval, come out under the motherboard, make a sharp U-turn and plug into the motherboard power ports etc (which are conveniently turned 90 degrees on the EVGA z77 FTW motherboard).

Anyway, back to something more... colorful! :p I picked up some higher-density LED strips from the same manufacturer as my old strip, Adafruit. Lots of good improvements here... no black CPU chip (it's actually that microscopic black dot on each LED now!), the strip is a much more unobtrusive white instead of copper, and of course there are now 60 LED's per meter instead of 32.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-N...2/IMG_2731.JPG

As such, I pretty much started over at square one with all of my LED/Acrylic testing. Here's a few shots of various layouts I tried. All of them still show banding or individual LED's, which I am trying to avoid... the goal is a smooth transition of color where the individual lights are indistinguishable.

Trial 1, with the LED facing up into the prism:
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-E...2/IMG_2733.JPG

Trial 2, with a sanded groove and extra piece of acrylic between the LED strip and the prism:
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-q...2/IMG_2737.JPG

A little closer on that second one, but not quite there.

Trial 3, LED strip upside down, facing into a second prism underneath the top one (so an acrylic diamond with the LED strip in the middle):

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-G...2/IMG_2739.JPG

The light is much better in this one... almost perfect, but as you can see in these dark shots, the LED strip is visible through the prism as a black bar... which kinda ruins the effect.

Trial 4, I also tried putting the LED strip sideways shining into the bottom of the acrylic 'diamond', hoping that the light would reflect a bit and hide the source... but you can still faintly make out the individual lights:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Y...2/IMG_2741.JPG

Putting other materials, hot glue, paper, and other materials also had no effect on dispersing the light any better:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-v...2/IMG_2744.JPG

So, I slept on it a bit. The problem I was having was that the light coming out of the LED's was still to focused... they formed small cones of light that hadn't completely merged by the time they exited the prism, no matter which way I faced them. What I needed was for the light to travel a greater distance, allowing it to scatter more. The downward facing strip worked pretty close, but it was a bit too dim and you could see the strip. What combination of materials and shapes will increase the travel distance of the light, face the strip downward, AND keep the strip hidden? Smoke and mirrors! Or more specifically, cloudy acrylic and mirrors!

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/--...2/IMG_2751.JPG

First, I made a "V" shape out of some 2mm clear mirrored acrylic. This will act as a 'basin' to face the LED strip into, reflecting all of that light back up. I glued that V into the bottom of my reservoir housing:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-3...2/IMG_2752.JPG

I then glued the LED strip to a trapezoid of acrylic that I passed through my drum sander a few times, clouding up all the edges to obscure the LED strip.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-F...2/IMG_2753.JPG

I glued the LED strip face down into the mirrored V...

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-7...2/IMG_2755.JPG

Powered it up, and voila! :cool:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-_...2/IMG_2756.JPG

And with the lights off and the tube reservoir in place (albeit empty...)

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-e...0/IMG_2758.JPG

Perfect! :D

Sooo good to have this piece finally done. It's been bothering me forever! Now on to the next task... finishing up some of the repairs on my mid-plate. Until next time!

Hello! :) Just wanted to post a quick update on what I've been working on! It's been a busy few days, unfortunately not all of it modding... but I did finally have a nice enough day outside to get started on painting this past weekend!

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-M...0/IMG_2763.JPG

The dogs agree! :D

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-z...0/IMG_2762.JPG

First, I prepared some of my parts with wet sanding to get rid of all the oxidization, giving a nice clean surface for the primer to bond to. Some pieces were worse off than others... my bottom plate was made out of scrap aluminum that seems like it had been sitting in the desert for a few years... but after a bit of elbow grease (and P400 wet sandpaper) it was looking good as new (you can see the cleaned half on the left, the unclean on the right):

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-X...0/IMG_2761.JPG

I also continued preparation on my mid-plate. If you'll recall, I set about to clean up some of the welding spots on the bottom. I tried grinding it down with a Dremel stone, but that proved only to coat my stone in aluminum... not so much grinding action happened there. :p I then went and picked up some Bondo body repair aluminum bonding filler. That stuff was scary! The warnings and such on the side basically said to go to the hospital no matter what. Touches your skin? Go to the hospital. Breathe it in? Hospital trip. :eek: Needless to say I was extremely careful... fortunately, I got the welds covered and didn't make any trips to the hospital as a result :p:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-Q...0/IMG_2732.JPG

I'll spare you the in-depth process I went through after that to get it ready for painting... trust me, it took forever and was not very exciting/pretty to look at. Instead, I'll summarize: After letting that stuff dry for a few days, I went at it with my new mouse sander and ground it smooth. After that, I used some regular bondo to fill in the smaller crevices and such, and sanded it once more. After that, I wet-sanded it to get a nice smooth surface using some P400, washed it off with some water, washed it again with some denatured alcohol to remove any oil, and I was finally ready to primer it!

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-p...0/IMG_2765.JPG

Here you can see it all propped up on some quick 'painting feet' I cut out of a spare 2x4, sitting in my painting booth, ready to roll. The results after the first coat, just lightly dusting horizontally, making sure to continue spraying all the way off the edge before stopping:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-q...0/IMG_2766.JPG

Two minutes later, the second coat, same process but vertical passes this time:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-N...0/IMG_2767.JPG

And finally the third coat, all primed up. I let this one dry for about 30 minutes before taking it out to wet sand it:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-8...0/IMG_2768.JPG

I wet sanded with P1500 using a sanding block, tap water, and just a dab of dish soap to break any surface tension in the water. I'd say I made about 10 passes over every location, letting the block glide and not pushing down hardly at all... enough to get rid of some of the overspray and 'noise' but not so much as to clear primer off back to the base layer. Now they're hanging in my super expensive drying rack in my garage. Also known as a nail with a piece of coat hanger wrapped around it. :D

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-a...0/IMG_2769.JPG

In the meantime, I followed the procedure with other pieces:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-z...0/IMG_2770.JPG

Here's the bottom half of the case all primed and ready. For comparison you can see the top half next to it that is about to be primed as well:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-0...0/IMG_2771.JPG

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-g...0/IMG_2772.JPG

I actually managed to get everything all primed and wet sanded in one day! It was a lot of slow deliberate work... 7 pieces in all, coated three times, wet sanded and curing. It took about 4 cans of primer, which I don't think was too bad considering how much surface area I had to cover. :p

While those pieces were on the rack drying, I moved on to some other preparation work. I filled all of the extra holes in my motherboard tray with some bondo, then sanded it down using the mouse sander. This way, when painted, it should be nice and clean. I know no one will be able to see most of it... but I'll know it's there. ;)

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-H...0/IMG_2773.JPG

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-7...0/IMG_2774.JPG

I also set about to sand down the backside of the motherboard tray. While the hole fillings were drying, the bondo actually formed small stalactites (or are they stalagmites? :confused:) because of excess bondo running through the holes and meeting a sheet of aluminum foil I had as a preparation surface. I wanted to clean that up since this area might actually be visible through the left hand window of my case. Almost by accident, I discovered that if I gave the mouse sander a little pressure, I could actually sand the threadings that were poking out the back of the motherboard tray completely flat! :eek: I'll call it a happy accident in this case, since I intended to make them disappear anyway... so now it should be a really nice clean surface to look at! :) You can see the sanded-down threads on the right, and some threads with bondo sticking out of them still on the left. I went through and sanded every one of them flat:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-6...0/IMG_2777.JPG

I wet-sanded and cleaned this piece, and primed it as well. After that, I did one last thing with my day, and that was to take apart my radiator core and prepare the radiators for painting!

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-K...0/IMG_2780.JPG

I carefully put masking tape on the fins to protect them from damage and paint, and I also cut out some covers for the threads to keep any debris from getting inside the radiators. You may have seen in some of the other photos, but the paint on these was really cheap, or really poorly done... it scraped and chipped off with barely any effort. I figured it would be a piece of cake to remove it if that were the case, no? I could not be more wrong. :rolleyes:

The picture below is after an hour or two of effort. The left one was sanded down using my mouse sander and about 3 P120 grit sanding pads (which aren't cheap, by the way!). The one on the right was done using some mineral spirits and a scraping knife. Both took a ton of effort and are nowhere near done. I have a feeling I went about this all wrong... so I went down to the local hardware store and picked up some paint remover meant specifically for aluminum, along with some brushes and scrapers. I haven't tackled this again yet, but I have a feeling it will work much better this time...

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-J...2/IMG_2782.JPG

Anyway, that's all for now! I'm still in the midst of painting and such, and will post some pictures when I get something presentable! See you then! :)

Awesome project log! I'm really interested in the Arduino coding / timing LED stuff. Either way, keep up the awesome work!

Hello!

Painting... takes a long time! At least the way I'm doing it (which is very obsessive compulsive...) :D

Anyway, I thought I should update on my progress since it's been a while, even if I'm not done yet. I've been doing quite a bit these past few weekends, but due to the nature of the painting process I'm developing, work is rather slow and has to be spread out over several days. Fortunately, I had lots of other little side projects that I could fit in between coats of paint and such.

As mentioned previously, I was working on taking the paint off of my XSPC radiators... my first few attempts proved to be far too much effort for what should seemingly be pretty simple. After checking with some paint experts at the local hardware store, they recommended this stuff to me:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-F...2/IMG_2793.JPG

It is the weirdest material ever... kinda thick and goopy, like slime almost. According to the can, you lay it on thick and just wait... let the remover do all the work, then just come back later and lightly scrape it off:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-t...2/IMG_2794.JPG

The painting people were right, though... this stuff is magic! :eek:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-R...2/IMG_2796.JPG

The remover and scraper got most if it... and I took care of the rest with some regular old thinner and an old toothbrush:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-3...2/IMG_2798.JPG

Voila!

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-l...2/IMG_2805.JPG


https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-H...2/IMG_2804.JPG

So pretty... almost a shame I'm just going to paint them black again!

Back in the painting booth, I set up the two case walls, the bottom plate, and the PSU plate for their first coats of paint.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-y...2/IMG_2812.JPG

Using some tips I've seen around here and there, I soaked the paint in hot water... it's supposed to help the paint apply more evenly. My tests agree.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-M...2/IMG_2813.JPG

As mentioned, I used a pretty lengthy process for painting. I'll post my process from beginning to end after everything is through and it comes out well, but I am essentially laying down a north/south coat, waiting 15 minutes, then an east/west coat, waiting 15 minutes, another north/south, 15 minutes, and a final east/west, followed by drying for at least 24 hours. Once dried, I took the pieces out of the booth, wet sanded them down with P1500 sandpaper, let them dry, tacked them clean, and repeated the whole process one more time. Yea... it took a while. :rolleyes:

Here's a sneak peek of the first coat drying in the booth:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-A...2/IMG_2820.JPG

Between coats of these four pieces, I continued to work on other small things. One thing that bothered me was how the front of the case came out after priming. I was hoping the primer layers would do a better job of hiding the front ports and the old area where the Lian-Li badge was... but it didn't. So, I went about sanding the face down with my mouse sander to get rid of the layers of primer:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-v...2/IMG_2810.JPG

Next, I filled the area with a coat of JB Weld (which has been working decidedly better than any of the other materials like Steelstick and Bondo) and let it dry for 24 hours:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-1...2/IMG_2814.JPG

The next day, I sanded it smooth with my mouse sander again:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-b...2/IMG_2815.JPG

Much more flat. Should be nice and smooth this time! :)

The following weekend (after letting the four parts dry in the booth for an entire week... not so much out of necessity, more because I just don't have time during the week to mod...) I laid out the four pieces from the previous weekend and prepared to give them the wet sanding with P1500 I mentioned above:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-d...2/IMG_2821.JPG

You can see the slight irregularities with overspray and such that make some areas look shinier or whiter than surrounding areas:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-T...2/IMG_2822.JPG

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-i...2/IMG_2823.JPG


https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-a...2/IMG_2824.JPG

All in all, not bad for a first coat though. I went through and sanded all of it (maybe about 5-10 strokes over every surface... just enough to get rid of some of the 'noise' in the paint), then hung it up to dry off for an hour:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-e...2/IMG_2825.JPG

The paint is looking smoother already:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-I...2/IMG_2826.JPG

That's all for now... I still have to lay down my second coat of paint on these pieces, re-primer the front of the case as well as the radiators, and I haven't even gotten started on painting the internals for the case yet! Man... so much painting! :p

See you next time!

Point of etiquette, is it too early to butt in and post demanding more progress? I keep coming back hoping to see an update and and keep getting disappointed.

Also, hi there California buddy. :cool:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lord Brand

... is it too early to butt in and post demanding more progress?

---

Check back in about 8 hours... :cool:

So I got a little distracted with my other project (Gemini, the HTPC build), but I finally have some progress to post! :D

First of all, my workshop had fallen into a bit of disrepair since I started the other project... too many home projects like installing new lights in my house and replacing my water heater... gotta clean it up, so I can focus on my work! :p

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-i...o/IMG_2920.JPG


With that out of the way, time to recap where I left off! Last time, I had finished putting a coat or two of paint on the case walls and PSU/bottom plates. I went over the finish with some 2000 grit sandpaper (wet, of course) one more time to clean off some of the dust that had accumulated and re-evaluate the paint job. I found a few spots that I wasn't quite satisfied with yet, so I put them back in the booth and gave them one more coat. 24 hours of drying in the booth later...

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-g...o/IMG_2921.JPG


Some of the pieces came out looking great, like the PSU plate:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-F...o/IMG_2922.JPG

Others look a bit 'blotchy' around the edges, which I am not quite sure how fix just yet... perhaps more aggressive sanding? :confused:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-2...o/IMG_2924.JPG

Anyway, I put those aside for now to keep working on all the other pieces... back to the workbench! :p

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-J...o/IMG_2925.JPG


As for the other pieces, I put some coats of primer on my radiators, the case housing, and the motherboard tray (really packing the paint booth to make some headway! :D):

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-P...o/IMG_2929.JPG


Afterward, I wet sanded the pieces with P1500, flushed them with clean water, toweled them off, and hung them out to dry:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-L...o/IMG_2928.JPG

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-l...o/IMG_2927.JPG

One thing I forgot to do before priming the midplate was cut the holes for the reservoir and pass-through ports from the motherboard to the lower chamber where the radiators/pump will be. I started off by using the bottom piece of my reservoir to measure out where the holes would be :

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/--...o/IMG_2931.JPG

As you may notice... the bottom of the reservoir is no longer attached to the reservoir. In fact, the reservoir got completely disassembled thanks to my clumsiness. :rolleyes: I accidentally bumped it off the counter after cleaning and testing it, and somehow it landed just right and both the top and bottom popped off, surprisingly enough. The fact that it came off from just a 3 foot drop means it probably wasn't very well adhered anyway... so I'm going to have to reconsider my gluing methods, or try another adhesive. Many sources online said IPS weld-on #3 was the way to go, but I'm second guessing it now. It seemed solid, but I guess I'd rather it come off now than after fully assembled!

Anyway, back to the midplate... I made some crude markings to get a rough location, then drew a more exact box around it to give myself some slack.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-n...o/IMG_2933.JPG

My thought is that I am going to fit the reservoir in place, then screw the fittings into it from the bottom of the midplate, so they will essentially hang through the midplate without actually screwing on to it. This greatly simplifies the design I was originally considering, which I'm all for. :cool:

The box ended up being 25mm, which was almost exactly right for using a quarter to round off the edges... so that's what I did. :D

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-T...o/IMG_2935.JPG

A little bit of work with the Dremmel later, and I had my rough cut:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-5...o/IMG_2941.JPG

Now, I just need to work on it a bit with the files to clean it up... but I'll save that for another day.

Next, I took some measurements on the midplate for the PSU, cabling, and through ports, and marked off the area where I would drill the ports. In case it isn't clear, these ports will allow the water to flow from the bottom chamber with the radiators and pumps up to the top chamber where the motherboard and blocks will be, and then back down into the reservoir:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-E...o/IMG_2936.JPG

To make these cuts, I decided to go with my drill press and the handy Unibit. I also got a hold of some new cutting oil that is technically for cutting threads, but also supposedly works well for machine bits.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-w...o/IMG_2939.JPG

I expected this stuff to be pretty much like WD-40... but eww... it's weird. It's like a slug made of foam! :eek:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-H...o/IMG_2940.JPG

The fortunate part of this weird lubricant foam was that it stuck to the sides of the bit perfectly, making it super easy to apply without over-applying (like the last time I used cutting oil to cut the holes in my reservoir... :rolleyes: ). A few presses later:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-e...o/IMG_2938.JPG


Now this piece is ready to clean, re-prime, and paint I think!

Speaking of paint...

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-c...o/IMG_2942.JPG

I put the first few coats on the case shell, and it's drying for 24 hours now. I still have to do the 'inside' of each piece, wet sand it, put down a second set of coats, wet sand it, and see if it needs a third or not. Painting takes a long time! :p


Anyway, that's all for now! Good to be back!

Progress report time! :D

I spent a day or two this past week focused on painting, and was able to make some nice headway! I started by cleaning up the holes that I cut in the midplate from last time, which will allow the reservoir and pass-through fittings to go between the top area of the case and the bottom area. I just used some fine metal files, followed by some 600 grit sandpaper to smooth the edges:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-e...0/IMG_2947.JPG

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-1...0/IMG_2949.JPG

Next, I wet-sanded down the midplate to clear up some of the cutting oil residue and whatnot, in preparation for giving it a re-coat of primer:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-t...0/IMG_2951.JPG

Double checked the cuts with the fittings to make sure they lined up the way I intended (you're looking at the underside of the midplate at the moment):

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-u...0/IMG_2958.JPG

... and back in the booth for some more priming! :)

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-m...0/IMG_2961.JPG

While waiting for that coat of primer to dry, I went on to re-evaluate the coat on my case walls. There are some strange effects going on that are hard to capture... I think part of it is that the brushed aluminum pattern from the case wall is showing through the primer and paint, giving it a striped appearance that you can kind of see in the center of the picture here:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-G...0/IMG_2965.JPG

I re-sanded the pieces to try and get rid of some of the blotchy-ness from the first few coats that I think was ultimately due to being too stingy with the top coat, and I will be laying down another few layers of paint on these pieces to try and clean that up.

In the meantime, the primer coats on the internal pieces completed drying, and I moved on to painting them as well. These pieces are what I refer to as "internal" parts, in that they are not visible from the outside of the case (for the most part) when it is completely assembled. For these pieces, I decided to paint them with a "flat black" paint from Duplicolor that ends up drying to look just barely not black... almost a really dark grey. Darker grey than MDPC Shade 19. The look is subtle, and I probably won't have the photography skills to capture the difference adequately... but it looks nice. :p

Here's the radiators in the booth, getting their top coats:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-i...0/IMG_2968.JPG

The process I followed was to first put down a light dusting... just enough to cover the primer, but you can still see the primer through it. After 10-15 minutes, I would put down another coat moving in the opposite direction (so up/down if the last coat was left/right), this time with a bit more paint. Finally, I would lay down a third coat, this time with much more paint ensuring full coverage, but not so much that it pooled or ran or anything... just overlapping about 50% of the previous line to get a nice continuous coat. After the top coat dried (I gave these pieces over an hour, which is all the directions on the can recommended) I looked over the coats to make sure there weren't any defects, lightly clean off any dust that settled with a tack cloth, the put it back in the booth for the clear coat.

To clear coat, instead of using spray cans, I ended up using a compressor and a spray gun. The primary reason being, I wanted to use a matte clear coat for these pieces to keep the matte appearance, and I couldn't find any good matte spray cans for Duplicolor paints. Fortunately, my dad had both a spray gun and a compressor to borrow... but the gun is old school, and I'm considering getting my own:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-F...0/IMG_2969.JPG

I also have my own compressor, but it's smaller and has a hard time keeping up with extended spray sessions, so I borrowed his (which is massive.) Only issue with this one is that the lowest pressure setting is 40 PSI, which is the maximum rated for the clear coat I'm using.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-G...0/IMG_2970.JPG

For putting on the clear coat, I used 3 passes, much like the paint; the first coat was light, the second medium, and the third heavier with a 50% overlap.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-e...0/IMG_2973.JPG

I noticed a little ways into laying down the first coat that for some reason, I was getting a lot of little white specks on the clear coat... it looked like residue from the gun or something. I cleaned the gun out well with water and dried it / ran it empty before putting in clear coat... my only thought was that maybe the pressure given by the compressor was too high:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-R...0/IMG_2974.JPG

I went ahead and switched it out for my compressor, but it didn't seem to make a lot of difference:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-o...0/IMG_2976.JPG

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-4...0/IMG_2979.JPG

I wonder what's wrong? :confused:

The only way I found to counter it really was to lightly rub it down with a tack cloth after waiting 10 minutes for each coat to dry... which got rid of most of the white dots, but a few still remained. I'm probably going to have to lightly wet-sand these coats to try and get rid of the dots, and see where I am from there. If I need to put another coat on, I will probably get my own HVLP air guns and try again. If it ends up looking good after a light wet-sanding though, I may just call it good.

Anyway, some of the pieces came out actually looking pretty good... others (like the motherboard tray and midplate) have a lot of white dots and will need to be redone I think. I took some pictures, regardless. :rolleyes:

Here's the midplate... you can see a few of the white specks. Granted, a motherboard will be obscuring the entire plate from corner to corner... so you wouldn't see it... but I'll probably still redo this one. I'm obsessive like that. :D

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-I...0/IMG_2982.JPG

Here's the hard drive holders... which really aren't hard drive holders anymore, as the whole area will be taken up by the reservoir. They're more of "structural integrity" pieces now. I managed to clean up the white dots on them pretty well, so I think these are keepers.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-j...0/IMG_2988.JPG

The radiators came out fairly nicely as well, so fortunately I won't have to redo them. They also will be mostly obscured by the radiator housing I built earlier on... all but the top edge, that shows "XSPC". Why did I go to all the trouble of painting them? Because! :D

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-C...0/IMG_2997.JPG

And finally, the midplate... which is too large for my ghetto little photo booth... so it gets a 'kitchen counter' picture instead. :p

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-J...0/IMG_3007.JPG


Next up... cleaning up the white speck issue somehow on these pieces, a few additional coats on the "exterior" pieces of the case, clear coats for them, and re-assembly! Until next time! :)

Hello Hello! :)

It's been far too long since my last post... unfortunately work has gotten crazy the last month or two, and it's leaving very little time for hobby fun. Alas, sometimes you must do what you have to in order to do what you want to... which is modding! :D Fortunately, my overbearing work schedule hasn't completely prevented me from making some progress! So much painting to do... it feels like it never ends! :eek:


So, when we last left off, I had put down some matte clear coat on my matte black "inside pieces", and I had a weird issue with white specks being embedded in the surface. After some searching around online, I ultimately concluded that it had everything to do with my cleaning process... which was to follow some very poor advice online and just spray thinner through the gun and call it a day. :rolleyes: Needless to say, that wasn't sufficient... but at that time, I was a spray gun novice, and didn't know any better. Proper research showed that if you will be setting the gun down for any more than a few hours, it's best to completely tear it down and clean each individual piece with paint thinner, then leave it disassembled to dry. I put this to good practice with my new toy:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-u...o/IMG_3012.JPG

It's not an overly expensive setup, but it's better than the old unknown spraygun that my grandfather originally purchased to spray his farm equipment with. :rolleyes:

The spray gun kit came with two such guns... one small HVLP version for doing finishing work and small stuff, and one large HVLP version for doing higher volume stuff. It also came with many "nice to have" items like a cleaning kit, some disposable paint cups, and multiple nozzle sizes from 1.2 up to 1.8. It was a real steal at the local hardware store, too. I researched the gun a bit online first, and it appears to be a very popular one commonly referred to as "the purple gun" which is cheap and medium-low quality by default... but with a bit of customization and TLC ends up being a great gun! :cool:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-T...o/IMG_3013.JPG

Most of the modifications included replacing the plastic washers (or in many cases, non-existent washers) with some nice new nitrile washers, and replacing a lot of the spray-on thread goop with some nice quality teflon tape. $5 in spare parts with a little labor to turn a chump into a champ? Absolutely! :p

The other piece I bought for this outfit was a pressure regulator and air filter / water remover kit... which greatly improves the quality of the job by tightly regulating air flow and removing any contaminants and moisture in the air supply.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-e...o/IMG_3014.JPG

This stuff probably cost me no more than $20 at the local hardware store, too. Well worth it! Anyway, more on this gun later.


The other issue I was having last post was that I could see some 'patterns' in the shiny black pieces that gave the finish an odd effect... one that certainly wouldn't work out well for the mirror finish I wanted to achieve on my case exterior! I ultimately determined that the issue with these patterns showing up was that I was a bit too stingy on the amount of paint I was using. Everyone says to put only multiple light coats on... but I think perhaps my version of "light" was closer to "transparent". :rolleyes: Anyway, I upped the quantity of paint laid on by slowing down the spray cans as I passed from left to right, and moved the cans in closer to 6-8 inches instead of 8-10 as I was using before. The result was immediately and obviously apparent:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-C...o/IMG_3010.JPG

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-B...o/IMG_3011.JPG

Almost no more lines, and a much healthier "shiny-er" black. This was just the first pass, and I did two more passes of similar weight switching from up/down to left/right each time. I let that business dry in the paint booth for about 30 minutes before moving on to the next step... clear coat! :D

Here's the first couple coats of gloss clear drying on the case doors:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-b...o/IMG_3016.JPG

Of course, a few specks of dust settled on the surface despite my booth and all the precautions I took... but these easily came off with a wipe of a rag after I let the parts dry for 24 hours, so no big deal. I let the parts dry for about an hour or so in the booth until they were no longer tacky, then lightly took them out and set them on the bench to dry for a day or two.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-H...o/IMG_3022.JPG

My camera skills don't really reveal, but the spray gun so far has done an excellent job of laying down a nice smooth finish. There is orange peel, of course, but I've come to understand that orange peel is just a reality of painting.

I went on to lay down paint and clear on the remaining pieces, and stood them up around my garage wherever I had room:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Z...o/IMG_3023.JPG

Things were going so well... but of course, the very last piece had an issue. I saw it happen in slow motion... spraying a sweep of clear over the last (and of course, most important/visible) part of the case, a lonely strand of hair floated between the piece and the spray gun, and it was adhered to the surface deep under a layer of clear. I couldn't leave it there, or it would dry between the clear and color coat... giving very little chance of rescuing the finish. I didn't want to have to re-do the whole piece, so I did my best to pull the hair out of the clear... but unfortunately, it messed up the color coat anyway:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-B...o/IMG_3019.JPG

It's always the last piece! :mad: Oh well, no saving it now. I let the piece dry as is for a day, then set to work sanding it back down to prepare for another few coats of color.

Of course, I spent the time breaking down and properly cleaning my gun in preparation for another long day to come!

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-J...o/IMG_3024.JPG


The next day, I sanded the affected area down to flat using some P600 wet sand paper, trying to avoid going all the way back to bare metal, which would require me to start over with the primer coat again.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-W...o/IMG_3028.JPG

I then went on to lay down another triple-set of color coat, followed by a set of clear coat. Fortunately, it completed safely this time without any stray hairs. In addition to this marred piece, I decided to redo my midplate as it had too much of that white speckled stuff to save. I sanded it back down to bare metal and re-primed it.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-G...o/IMG_3041.JPG


I briefly checked on the other pieces to see how they were drying... partly to remind myself that the extra effort makes it worth it. Drying nicely... :)

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-v...o/IMG_3031.JPG


The following weekend, I decided to work on sanding down the orange peel in preparation for that long sought-after mirror finish. I set up my sanding table and blocks for what I hoped to be a short day:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-Y...o/IMG_3037.JPG

I started out with some 2000 grit sandpaper, water, and a dab of soap for 15-20 passes lightly... barely any pressure, more letting the block slide than anything:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-K...o/IMG_3033.JPG

Only enough to scratch the surface. :( All the shiny spots are pits that need to be sanded down. And this is only one small piece of the case. I have a looooong day ahead of me. :rolleyes: The sanding with 2000 was taking too long, so I decided to back down to 1500 to get some more cutting action and save myself a few sheets of sandpaper (not to mention some time and a lot of effort). Here we are with 15 minutes of effort or so at 1500:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-W...o/IMG_3034.JPG

Some spots are there... but still tons of tiny speckles. After a lot more careful sanding at 1500 to get rid of all the pits, I switched to 2000 and changed directions as well:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-v...o/IMG_3039.JPG

Note, I left the orange peel along the edges for now. In this shot, I was just focusing on the center and making sure my process was going to work right. You can see that the right side that has been done by 2000 grit is starting to get a little shiny, where the left that was done by 1500 only is just hazy. I sanded a bunch more with 2000 grit until I could no longer see the horizontal lines from the 1500, then went to work with a microfiber cloth and some polishing compound meant for cars:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-G...o/IMG_3044.JPG

Getting there! :) The left is after a hardy polishing, the right is just from the 2000 grit. We're approaching that mirror finish... but this took a LOT of polishing compound and effort. I'm thinking I need some "buffing compound" first that is a higher grit to remove more of the cuts... and once that is done, I follow it up with the polishing compound. I'll see what I can find at the auto shop.


Needless to say, I have a lot of sanding and polishing to do. Until next time! :D

A little off topic... but Bitspower notified me that they are releasing a new DDC top that's clear/frosted acrylic with a tube reservoir built into the top. Check it out here. I got notified early via my sponsorship, so I figured I would share the news. :)

http://www.bitspower.com.tw/thumb/BP...L--600X400.jpg

I've always thought about picking up something like this for a HTPC project or smaller case, where there really isn't much room to be putting in a reservoir or something. I take something like this, mount it to a desk or more visible surface, and run tubes back to the case (which rarely moves anyway) where it would hook into some quick-disconnect thru-ports or something...

I really should stop thinking about more mod projects while I still have so much left to do on this one... :p