JR404's Cube project

[Leeghoofd]

You are welcome Solarfall, Thx Patriote a full 6kg already, luckily for me seems more interested in the Tv then the PC so daddy can play some more on the latter

[Leeghoofd]

K not being happy with my temps at 3600mhz at 1.42 volts ( load 58°C coretemp) I took out the NB cooler to test and replace the whole stuff with the stock heatpipe combo again...

I think my bad temps were to blame on the bad tubing connection I had between the NB and GPU... so I decided to make a new shroud with not 2 but 3 fans...

I ordered a new powerfull fan to blow cool air over the NB position and the soon to be in position Swiftech MCX159CU...

New shroud looks like this ( soz for the pic it's a bit off angle ...)



I opted for UV reactive Acryl again to lighten up the inside and give my dull Cube a little extra bling...



It's a tight fit with the stock heatpipe combo ,about 8mm off the large PWM heatsinks and 4mm off the NB heatsink... if the NB sensor is the one that Probe reads out as Mobo temp , this one dropped 2°C also around 29°C (Ambient temps now aroudn 25°C in Belgium damn sunny for the time of year)...



Well I 'm pretty happy with the results as temps dropped 5-7°C on the cores... it idles now when I run at 3000Mhz (24/7 setting) at around 31°C (coretemp) , at least beating my Thermalright Ultra 120 scores now ...

Next up the Galaxy PSU, to be continued...

[AussieJester]

Loving the new shroud its very cool (no pun intended) I have been thinking of similar for my ramz and northbridge myself after seeing your initial effort (until i watercool them that is hehe)

Only thing I am not keen on is the pump sitting on the hard drive caddy...sorta looks like its been an "after thought" <--for lack of better explanation...yes it works well there just hrmmm...Just IMO <--for what its worth LoL just "doesn't look right" to me... It wouldn't come outta the factory like it you know what i mean? Maybe sit him next to the caddy on rubber and see if you think it looks better? I realize you have already fitted it all and cut tube etc now though...so prolly not possible now...maybe next waterchange/clean ;-)

Your work is inspiring though mate not far off now your should be VERY proud of what you have accomplished thus far :-)

OH...hows the 'new addition' to the family getting on? Keeping you up at night ... ah joyz of babies LoL...

Look forward to next update mate bloody supeeerb ;-)

[Leeghoofd]

well i'm gonna cover up the pump and right side compartment so they should no longer be visible. Some lexan covered with carbon film would be fab

Installed the Galaxy , damn there's no way I'm gonna get all those cables tucked away neatly... thinking of making a box and stuffing them all in... at the piccie all the cables coming directly from the PSU, no extra cables hooked up ...jeez Enermax is this modular ?



Made the PSU rear plate too, gonna hook it up tonite and remodel the rear black acryl then...



The cube still has to reflect my level of intelligence Jester lol

[AussieJester]

mmmm carbon film...32 bucks a roll on eBay was --><--- that close to covering the inside of my cube with it :-)

Would LOVE that psu DAMN! they are expensive here in OZ though :-( I have been thinking about making up a PSU myself from 2x550watt antec psu using a custom acrylic case and watercooling it, couple fellas on OCAU have recently done watercooled psu and they look schweeeet...Again excellent work buddy :-)

[Leeghoofd]

well I found some carbon film at a local hoppy shop and it was 12 dollars per square meter so that's doable , I already spend 190 dollars on the cube ( not including the paintwork) so this might top it off plus saving me loads of soldering and warranty voiding...there's no way I'm gonna get rid of these thick long cables man...

and I need my 620 watt anyway in my second Pc as PSU.. hopefully my P5W will come back soon from RMA...

[GAM]

Nice work Leeghoofd. I like the motherboard fans and shroud too. Very neat and functional.

Damn that Galaxy is big, and quite impressive . Cables are messy though. You can help out those cables a lot by customising their lengths and connector locations--see here for details.

[Leeghoofd]

Well I did that GAM on my Liberty cables, now the Galaxy has 3 S-ata , 3 molex connectors and laods of mobo connections fixed to the PSU itself, so not modular... which to me is dissapointing as I had a plan to tidy up all those cables and stuff, with this PSU it' s no longer possible without voiding warranty.
Second problem is to fix the PSU , the Liberty's have a sort of L shaped housing so you can fit it to the bottom plate aswell, the new Galaxy models (DXX ones) don't have that no longer so I can't solely rely on the acryl back plate... will need to make some sort of housing or stuff to keep it neat , tidy and in place...

Damn even more work lol

[GAM]

Sorry for the misunderstanding. That's bummer mate re the Galaxy's perculiarities.

[Leeghoofd]

yeah but I have to live with it no worries Cube is fine for me I don't care too much about details I just want performance/cooling/maintainability which is perfect for me...I'm not entering any modding contest with htis lol

[Leeghoofd]

This worklog is done, a friend wants to have the cube in it's current state (no sidepanels ) to use as a benching rig, he likes the idea of having loads of space to work with plus the watercooling setup of his is the same as mine so all will fit well...it will be a tight fit to use the 8800GTX in this case plus the rad in front of it but we will see how it works out in the long run... time for some dremel action !!

I am planning on doing another cube one, but this time will use 2 antec SLK6500 bolted together via a frame with the the rad in front of the case and use the other side for wiring and stuff... I hope to shorten the tubing and increase performance a slight bit but we will see how it will work out....

[skylinepower]

make a new logg for thet modd!
make a big fan in front and put a radiator bihind it

[P§I]

Awesome , Curious how much in materials did it cost? I am seriously thinking about making my own case. Casue I really cant find a case that I want.
If you don't mind me asking a few questions
Did you make any type of plans before hand? Or is there case mod sites that have some plans available to download?
Can you get that smoke acrylic like at Home depot or Lowes? Or better to buy online some where?
Good case building/mod sites?
I thought about making a thread about a custom case, I don't want to ask to many question and get your thread off track.

Thx

[Leeghoofd]

Due to it was my first Cube I made some errors and had to correct hem later on. Main error was not to have a plan, I had thought it over and made soem modifications when building it, leaving me with a few holes too much , but I4m not enterign a moddign contest with this one , neither does my friend, jut a practical setup , with loads of room to spare...

For the frame I used 1 meter 25mm x 25mm Alu L profiles costing about 4-5 euro's a piece. I used 9 in total for the frame. Mounting them with 4mm countersunk screws and fasten them with 4 mm locknuts. Screws were 12 euro's for a 1000 piece box and the nuts around 15 euro's for 100 nuts...

Most expensive parts were the Acryl panels, I tried some of our local hobby markets but they broke too easily and most were transparent anyway...
So I ordered them from AC Ryan, I opted for 5mm panles at starters , but this was unnecessary 3mm was strong enough for all the sides and top... just be carefull with Acryl , tape it in , and use slow spinning drills and cutters. Cost per panel around 14 euro's for the 5mm black ones and 8 euro's for the 3mm ones.

To fasten the optical drive and floppy I ordered the bayconstructx set as it would look fab and would be easy to mount etc....

Last thing was the painting I really messed up there as I got initially a deal at around 40 euro's for spraypainting. But I went too harsh on the abrasive paper and the Painter had to redo it 4-5 times raising up the cost drastically...

With this mod ( as I screwed up some things myself due to haste and inexperience) overal cost was around 150 euro's but it can be done with much less money if you have some old cases around and you can strip them for drive bays etc,...

This is the case with my new projects as I recovered a damaged case to get the mobo tray and support , drive bays, HDD bay,...

I hope my new project has as many replies as the current one and I hope to get some good input by you lads as I gonan built the old cube into a smaller version with a different layout to shorten hose tubing as much as possible...

Cya next time

[Vice]

Very nice job man.

I look forward to the day where I can do some of the things you can.

Looking forward to your next mod.

[Leeghoofd]

Thx guys for the nice comments, new build will only start once I get the kitchen done at home, m girlie insists this one has priority ( damn women lol )

But keep you guys posted once it starts...

[Okda]

any news about the kitchen :P

[Leeghoofd]

Pretty messy Safran80 and too much dust, hope the floor and co wil be done end of this month... then I have some time on my hand to start for the new build...

[xoplrak]

o[owq9r9
erwr9-r

[Leeghoofd]

o[owq9r9
erwr9-r

Is that some sort of code ? does it mean you fancy my cube or is the 4th world war imminent ?

[Liquid3D]

I have to admit I really appreciate the work your puitting into this. It's just right. You have a pump with enough pressure, a great triple fan heat-exchanger, great blocvks and the NB cooler is going make a hugh difference. In fact at this point anyone running P965 or P35 systems should have their NB watercooled even if it's the only thing they watercool!


All in all it's the best system I've seen in a long time. Well thought out, well executed and it appears your experiened in thermodynamics and I really respect that.

A true DIY project

[tylerdustin2008]

Amazing . Man i would love to be able to build my own case. Maybe i will soon. Cubes are east to build someone build a circle!!!!! LOL Cute baby, get use to him being young. Once they get older, they will get into everything......

[Leeghoofd]

Thx guys for the nice replies, kitchen is in a final stage (for me that is), it's out of my hands now, will start casemodding again ( yep another CUBE) soon... parts are already ordered