A V1000 Project - Final Build Pics -17/11/08

[[XC] NetburstXE]

Looks good. You've put a lot of effort into this project so far. I can't wait to see how it turns out.

[Aldy402]

damn that rad is bad ass!

[joecop120]

that is hot! I wonder how much time it would take me to polish my black PA120 and strip the paint...

[FallenCow]

Do the Swiftech ramsinks fit underneath the adapter and the fitting?

[64dragon]

way to save some money on the diy chroming job. cant wait for the next update

[LockBreaker]

That radiator kicks ass!

Love-, love-, lovely.

[LogAn'sRun]

Well Well Well.

I have to admit, I feel very guilty that I haven't been updating this as regulary as I should. I could make all sorts of excuses as to why, but I'll just sort it out with "life". Doesn't life always seem to get in the way of things that we want to do?

Anyhoo, I commented in another thread here on XS, how we haven't had any snow this year in Stockholm, or at least any to really talk about. And what happens?




Happy Easter!!

Somebody obviously thought it would be funny to dump some snow on us this late in the season. BTW, that's a frozen lake you're looking at, not a field of snow.


Been having some complications in the modding world. Mostly because a)fear of failure (very philisophical here as the closer I get to the end, the more the outcome will be undeniable and proven whether or not it's a success); and b) seeing so many insane mods around that I see an idea and think, man I need to incorporate that into my mod. But alas, I think all of B has a lot to do with A. So I need to get myself in gear and just finish the damn thing.


If it hasn't been said before, this is my first time modding, and my second computer build. So everything that I've done, or am doing, is trial by error and asking amny many mannnnyy questions. One important axiom that I've learned is "measure twice, cut once". In my case, I need to start doing this. because honestly, I've just kind of winged it, and eyeballed all my measurements.


But let's get on with some modding!!!

I wanted to put some lighting in the case, and I bought one set of the short CCFL's, but I may or may not use them. But in the meantime, I thought I'd try and wire up some LED's. Go look at one of those earlier posts, and you'll see some resistors in there

Having never done LED's before, I spent like an hour grilling the poor sap behind the counter at ELFA as to the best way to do it, and what size resistors I would need. To be honest, he may have been right in what he said, but man, there has to be an easier way to do it!




He explained that I needed to run them in parallel, and that I would need basically 2 wires running off of every leg of the LED into the next LED. 2 wires + 2 wires + 2 legs X 4 LED's was a lot of wiring and made my head hurt. Add to that mess that I've never ever in my life soldered something besides carving my intials into my grandpa's work bench when I was like 6, that meant one huge headache. This strand took my hours. So many hours, I don't even want to talk about it.





You can see how the positive/negative wires run from every leg and sure, it may look all right, but it was one royal pain in da ass. If anyone can give me better advice, including pictures!!, I'm all ears.

To continue, the ELFA assitant explained that I would need power to the strings, and did I want them on all the time, or some of the time? Damn good question. Considering that I wanted a little bling, and not 24/7 in your face pimp, I said correctly 'some of the time!'. He said I would need to wire them into a rocker switch, and not a momentary. I was like 'huh'? Seeing that there was a massive line of customers that has now backed up behind me, he gave me a simplified explanation and diagram of the difference between the two. Plus, when I told him about the CCFL's, and how I wanted one switch to rule them allllll (sorry, couldn't help myself), he explained I would need a relay to trigger one when I turned on the other. We'll see if I do this right later when I get closer to deciding where I'm going to be drilling poor 18mm holes in my case for the rocker.

But here's the molex:



That ugly white molex has got to go. This next pic may explain a little of the wires coming out of that molex:





I know it's a little blurry, but what I did was solder a smaller wire onto the male pin of the molex which I'll be bringing back to the rocker later on.


After a week of rest from this trial, and some bottles of amnesia (hyuck hyuck), I decided that wiring LED's wasn't so bad and perhaps I should do some more. When I drove down to the guys who sold me some Acrylic (and dammit if I haven't forgotten the name, but when I remember it, I'll post it here) I got some really nice 4mm clear scraps for 20kr which is like nothing. I also bought a nice piece for my window, which we'll see later. The smoked window piece was pretty cheap as well, at least as far as other prices I've heard. I picked up a 4mm 50cm*52cm for 200kr. Not bad eh?

Anyway, with the scrap pieces I made this:







Not bad for a little dremel and file work? I can see why people recommend a scroll saw for this, but meh, don't have one.

Now that was done, I needed to set about getting some more LED's. I began the slow work of soldering and putting on the resistors.




I thought I would try and do something a little different, and instead of having a mess of wires like in the other string, I thought I would solder together 2 strings of 2 led's in series. But in parallel if you follow what I'm saying. Of course, I wanted to sleeve them, so it looks a little like this. . .



A little cleaner.

Now I needed to get the acrylic piece wired, which meant that I needed to to drill 4mm holes into the case and the acrylic cover, and shove the LED's in there, and then put a little hot glue to protect and keep them in place.





I did that 4 times, ran the wires behind the mobo, and into the other string just for fun. It all worked!!!!


Here's the money shot





When I get a better camera other than my Point 'n Shoot, I'll post some cleaner night shots. Otherwise, squint your eyes a little, and immaagginne the bliing.

Lastly, having bought the super Bitspower fittings, I needed to shelf my fuzion (may be a mistake, but oh well), nozzle kit and pro mount. Which meant I needed to find a low restrictive cpu block that would fit the BP's. I really had my eye on the EK, but given the restrictive nature of it, I had to look elsewhere. Which meant. . .





Thanks to Martin's testing, looks like I won't need that AC top either. I got me some nice packages in the mail from the UK. And those little packages had these:



Pretty Sweet!



BP's fit!!




The only complaint that I have, is that the base isn't a mirror finish as seen in some other posts. Given that it's flat, I may just try and polish it and see what difference that makes. But take a look at this pic, should I be worried about these microscratches, or is this standard?





What do you guys think?


That's it for now. I have some other minor stuff to do before I start assembling, but it feels like it's getting closer to the end, or maybe I'm just delusional. . .


Now I need to decide between an Aquaero or a mCubed, and if I really need one

[LogAn'sRun]

Do the Swiftech ramsinks fit underneath the adapter and the fitting?

Sorry I haven't gotten to this, but I suspect that they may not. . .

When I mock up soon, I'll post a pic with the result. Is that cool?

[Polizei]

Don't polish it. Metal polish has oils in it that fill in the micro grooves in the surface of the metal, preventing the TIM from getting in there and doing its job.

TIM is supposed to get into those cracks to fill them.

[LogAn'sRun]

Here's my Acyrlic guys that I promised earlier. Talk to Choke ferm, super friendly.

[kinghong1970]

Bro... you make me wanna buy another LianLi case!!!

wait, so you did not chrome it? just removed paint and DIY'd it?
amazing results...

couldn't you have asked TC to sell you a non-painted one?

also, now that you've removed all paint and such, no need of any oxidation or adverse effects of it being nekkid?

thanks!

amazing build bro!

[Blundie]

So you're about to sell your Fuzion later on?

Very nice build you got there to, I'd like to try WC my P182B but I'd rather buy a V1000 or V2000. Especially after seeing this build.
Unfortunately I'm still doing the school bench so I think I'll stay with my Antec, at least for now

And what from what store did you order your UK-stuff?

[LogAn'sRun]

@kinghong1970 Thanks man! Those are some good questions, and to be honest, I haven't thought about the adverse effects paint removal will have on the rad. Yes, I should have asked for a non-painted one, but I originally thought I would have an all black case, so I wanted a black rad. Judging by how easy the paint came off, I don't know how much it protected the rad to begin with. Should I worry about oxidation?

@Blundie Läget? Always nice to see a little more Norden flavor here.

To answer your question would be unfair to all the indespensible help I've recieved.

CPU+Gpu Blocks, fans, fittings, misc - Top three Vendors I've dealt with. Could easily have bought everything from them, if they had it. Same day answers to almost every email.

Sleeving, cabling, molex, vandals + more - Awesome selection of almost everything. Hank always answered my emails within 2 days. Don't know why ppl complain about their service.

GPU Block, rad grill + more - Another vendor that takes it personal. Tom is very helpful and got back to me in the same timeframe as Hank. Plus he hooked me up on shipping several times.

GPU, CPU, hard drives -was in the states on vacation and got a bunch of stuff cheap. no int shipping sorry.

Got my Prelude from these guys - but their whole customer service section left a sour taste in my mouth and I can't really recommend them. I just hope there's nothing wrong with the card as I haven't had a chance to test it. Others think they're good. No int shipping.

PA120.2 - good service, lot's of personal advice from Marci himself.

Bitspower Fittings -straight from HK baby! Lot's of personal service from the man himself, Vincent.

Looking at Aquaero -trying to get an Aquaero from these guys, have been pretty fast with responses, and are very reasonable with shipping.

I've bought a bunch of small misc things from the big dealers in Sweden, komplett, datorbutiken osv, I think I got my chassi from db's. Service fast and efficient. Pricing is a little high considering moms, but hemmaplan eh?

That about covers everything. Oh, almost forgot, got my Tygon from Mcmasters, super cheap in comparison to here, but they dont ship int anymore. Change in policy. Sucks.

I may have dealt with some other websites, but the ones listed are the majors.

[Blundie]

jodå det funkar! Nordic all the way! (exept WC-gear of course)

About that Fuzion, if you do want to sell it later just send me a PM and we can probably work something out.

[LogAn'sRun]

haha, sorry m8, I'll behanging on to that block for a while. May not go in this project, but doesn't mean it won't go in the next one.

I have a brand new in the box Scythe Kama Meter that I won't be using . . .

[sobih25]

polished thermochill looks nice, gj!

[Blundie]

Well I'm in a need for a fan controller so why not? I'm just wondering if it is possible running 3 fans in one channel by soldering?
I was looking into the KAZE MASTER which is enable to deliver 1A or 12W per channel. This would be able to handle 3 Yates if I'm not mistaken.

And how much would this deal cost me?

[LogAn'sRun]

PM sent

[disruptfam]

hey mate any updates? how are those transfer fittings working out?

and where did you get all the led/resistors etc?

cheers

[LogAn'sRun]

Usch, sorry everyone for the lack of updates, the project isn't dead.

I've spent 2 modding days trying to make an acylic cover for the DVD drive so I could stealth that in the front - to no success. I'll tell ya, I have new found respect for everyone that mods in acrylic, I found getting the piece to fit perfect was near impossible for me to do with a hand drill, dremel and a big file.

I'm leaving on a business trip to Asia next week, so I'm trying to get some more stuff done before I go. I'll post pics and text as to what I've been up to.

@disruptfam the LED's and resistors I picked up from a local electronic store called ELFA, which is where I've been getting most of my el supplies. However, with the dollar so low, I just ordered a mass quantity of LED's from frozencpu and shipping be damned!

[teko]

Damn you swedish people for having snow, cheap cars and apparently to much spare time :p Looking good, I really like the plexi plate under the rad grill (and the mirror rad)

[kinghong1970]

Damn you swedish people for having snow, cheap cars and apparently to much spare time :p Looking good, I really like the plexi plate under the rad grill (and the mirror rad)

not only that, i hear they have state provided medicals and such...

seems like a nice place to live...

[teko]

So do we, we just pay more for it :p And yes, scandinavia isn't to bad, it's just expensive.. But sweden got the girls as well, we haven't got that many..

[LogAn'sRun]

Hej Hej!

I had been hoping to get more done then the little that I did, but with the pressure at work and the ongaing trials of a 14mo old son who has not only learned to walk, but walk fast. Everything in the house needed to be moved above 53cm that was loose or any way fragile. This month has been lot's of 'Aj Aj Logan!' (kind of like saying 'no no' in english I guess).

Anyway, I'll start you off easy. I, once again did a mock up of the system (and I really should get around to taking pics when I do it), and decided that I perhaps had more room than I thought. Or more room to get myself in trouble

So I called up the good folks at thermochill, and spoke to the main man Steve, and asked if they could send me an unpainted 120.1 as I seemed to have found room in my case for one more rad.

He sent this:




Kind of plain. But I knew what it would look like later. This time around, I took some pics of the different sanding stages so that you could see the work involved.

Stage 1 - a little 320 grit





AS you can see, not a lot happening.

Stage 2 - 400 grit




Getting a little better.

Stage 3 and 4 : went up to 600, then 800




Stage 5 and 6: 1000 grit and then 1200 wet




Stage 7,8,9 (I combined all these last stages because the differences were minor and it's more dramtic to see end result) : Used Dremel Buff tool, then 2000 wet and then my metal polish of which you've seen the pics earlier of -

Ain't she a beáuty??





The sides never polish to perfection, and I don't know if it's me, or the metal, but this is the best I can get it:




Remember 90% of this is done by hand.


Moving on, and I know that I'm rushing this bit (sorry, my plane leaves in 1,5hrs and the taxi will be here soon, damn business trip) and it feels like all action and no foreplay, but here goes.

The mailman came:




Left a shiny can in my box. I said what the hell is that? Gotta get me a can opener. . .




I began to pry open that baby like a nice juicy clam, and when it was open, the pearl came tumbling out!








Like Public Enemy, 'How about some BASE in yo FACE!?





Now that's flat.


And of course the million dollar question. . .





ANSWERED. Thanks to AnFi for such a rad looking block. It will look very nice in my system. .


Finally, I leave you with the shape of things to come. . . (if you get the reference, I'll send you godis, first person only )

[NoobCake]

looks great!

are those compression barbs 1/2" or 3/8"?