Fortress FT02 & Raven RV02 Liquid Cooled Club

[Kenjiwing]

I'll have to admit.. some of these ft02's look nice.

[veblen]

So glad to have this club here! I keep seeing statements about how the FT02 and RV02 are lackluster in the watercooling department. True, they're not the best but more than adequate!

Just finished putting my GTX 470s under water and here are some so-so pictures:

[mingbogo]

Very nice veblen! Yeah I am getting ready to slap on an EK 470 block on a 465 card, I hope it will fit okay. I believe that this is a good place to show off our unconventional cases and I am pleased to see more than a few people joining us. Mine still has a way to go before matching up with some of the good looking builds here but I am working on it. Cheers!

[century child]

So glad to have this club here! I keep seeing statements about how the FT02 and RV02 are lackluster in the watercooling department. True, they're not the best but more than adequate!

Where these cases really shine in my opinion is for people who want a mixture of air and water cooling. For example, the reason I bought it is so that I can cool my CPU under water and still have great airflow to keep the GPU's and chipset cool without having to put them under water as well. I used to cool my GPU's under water too but I got sick of tearing down and rebuilding my loop every time I wanted new video cards as well as the complexity of the loops when cooling everything with water requiring the use of rotary fittings all over the place which, at least in my experience, have not been very reliable.

[Church]

Imho in hybrid cooling builds gpus are prime candidates to LC even more so then cpu, as with top air coolers you can get effective cpu cooling with sensible noise level, yet most top gpu cooling under 3d load is the loudest thing in whole case. Afterall, they dissipate heat as much as o/c-ed & overvolted cpu, yet have to live by with smaller heatsinks and smaller fans for cooling system to be of reasonable size.
To ease often performed upgrades of gpu liquid cooling i suggest using universal gpu waterblocks to not get broke with spending lots on full cover blocks and quick disconnect fittings to ease working on gpu loop portion without draining whole loop.

[century child]

I have to disagree with you. When fed enough fresh air, as in with this case, my GPU's do not get loud at all. With a few exceptions, the GPU will be the most often changed component in most people's boxes and even if you use universal GPU blocks it's still a serious PITA to tear down the loop and change coolers if you upgrade often. And with the CPU, yeah, I can get excellent air cooling but I always have to hang these MASSIVE, heavy, ugly-looking, mainboard warping monstrosities from my CPU socket in order to get anywhere near decent water cooling performance.

[SonDa5]

These cases look great for air cooling and water cooling.

Nice builds in this club.

[H2lium]

sup guys, here's a pic of my WC setup in fortress FT02.

Was wondering if someone could tell me if I could fit a 120mm rad Hardware Labs Black Ice SR-1 up top ? (i currently have a XSPC RS 120 but want something more thick).

I'm concerned because width of the SR1 is 133mm, and RS120 is only 121mm (it's 1.2 cm more...).

Anyone can help? thanks !

[Church]

H2lium: i suggest you to cut hole in side of HDD enclosure, otherwise airflow above 1st rad fan seems greatly restricted, if not by horizontally mounted HDD, then by roof of that inclosure. If you don't use all of the 5.25 bays, i suggest to put that 2nd (or both) drive up there, and remove HDD enclosure completely.

[HanMies]

sup guys, here's a pic of my WC setup in fortress FT02.

Was wondering if someone could tell me if I could fit a 120mm rad Hardware Labs Black Ice SR-1 up top ? (i currently have a XSPC RS 120 but want something more thick).

I'm concerned because width of the SR1 is 133mm, and RS120 is only 121mm (it's 1.2 cm more...).

Anyone can help? thanks !

Very neat build, congratulations!

We tried to put an SR1 up top, and found that the only way to fit it is to use the fan in pull and use a shroud. i.e. the fan attached to the case, a shroud "hanging" from the fan and the rad "hanging" from the shroud. Might be difficult for your tubing, though.

Agree with churchy on the HDD blocking the first fan.

[CSingh]

Some nice rigs here guys! Here's my contribution......

[H2lium]

H2lium: i suggest you to cut hole in side of HDD enclosure, otherwise airflow above 1st rad fan seems greatly restricted, if not by horizontally mounted HDD, then by roof of that inclosure. If you don't use all of the 5.25 bays, i suggest to put that 2nd (or both) drive up there, and remove HDD enclosure completely.

Very neat build, congratulations!

We tried to put an SR1 up top, and found that the only way to fit it is to use the fan in pull and use a shroud. i.e. the fan attached to the case, a shroud "hanging" from the fan and the rad "hanging" from the shroud. Might be difficult for your tubing, though.

Agree with churchy on the HDD blocking the first fan.

Thanks for the advice guys.

My idea is to "cut" a part of the HDD enclosure. I thought of using a Dremel.

Can someone point me out as to how to do this without removing everything inside the case? there is no way in hell i'm removing everything, especially not the 480 rad, it took me forever to mount this build

thank you all

[Cory]

Thanks for the advice guys.

My idea is to "cut" a part of the HDD enclosure. I thought of using a Dremel.

Can someone point me out as to how to do this without removing everything inside the case? there is no way in hell i'm removing everything, especially not the 480 rad, it took me forever to mount this build

thank you all

Actually, you don't have to cut anything at all. You just need to remove a few rivets and the HDD bay will be detached from the case. I used a 7/64" size drill bit to remove them. When you take off the frame, you'll have access to all of the rivets.

[kpablo]

This is mine... already posted on LC Case Gallery... i did not see this thread until now...

[Xtrafresh]

Kpablo, massive thumbs up for execution there!

[khemist]

I don't have this FT02 anymore i've moved to the FT03 but will soon be moving to RV02-EW since i can't find a windowed version of the silver FT02 in the uk.

[mingbogo]

It has been a while since I logged into this forum but was happy to see more FT02 LC cases posted.

H2lium: yours looks awesome!

[H2lium]

Thanks a lot !!!

Many improvements were done on my build since the last time I posted here :

- Removed HDD bay cage for better airflow
- New mobo GA Z68X UD7
- New tubes : Tygon R3603 9.5 /15.9 mm (3/8" ID 5/8" OD)
- Tubes re-routing
- Jigsawed the upper lid to add a 2nd fan in pull above the 120 rad
- Manufacturing of a custom aluminium cover to hide the wires coming out of the power supply in the lower right part of the case

Here is what it looks like now, hope you rike it :

[aerial]

If you already removed hdd cage, didn't you think about replacing that 480 radiator with 560mm SR1? It fits there perfectly.

[H2lium]

honestly i'm too lazy to change that radiator, my T° are good and I already changed too much stuff

next update will be in a new build ^^

[aerial]

Gallery is missing this build:

source: http://www.overclockzone.com/forums/...e-Club/page168

[Cory]

Awesome job on the sleeving, but what's with the goofy airflow setup?

[aerial]

I bet it doesn't make a difference, at least not enough to care for 24/7 daily use. Main goal here was to show fans, if you hide them under radiator effect is ruined, and if you flip them (to pull) they also look worse. That seems to be main thing author of that rig wanted to achieve (looks).

[PaRn ssR]

FT02 is very nice.

[stansfield]

Glad I found this thread. I have been trying to draw up different specs for WC with the FT02 for a new build (don't have case yet). You guys have saved me some time and money deciding on what will work.

I was tossing around an idea of mounting a radiator on the back/bottom outside the case. I was trying to find dimensions of the PSU fan vent for size comparison. What do you guys think could mount back there? A 140mm single? Was thinking about doing that with a push pull. Leave a gap for the push fan with some spacers or washers.

I only want to cool the cpu for OC (Sandy Bridge).

I'm new to watercooling btw. :P