Watercooled RC-1000 Cosmos Case

[BigDK]

Standard 80mm Akasa Amber fans mount in there with no problems.

It looks like there isn't enough room for standard thickness fans 'thats what I thought originally' but they go in with loads of room at the back.

Just hit a major snag as well, spray can fell off shelf onto the plastic front panel and cracked it at the top.




Managed to glue it together and sand it flat again, another spray of primer before the black, so thats set me back a fair bit as I can't now start the black until a lot later.



One good reason not work in an over crowded untidy area

[ultimeus]

come on , give a clean up to your garage and give us some updates

[Spawne32]

Standard 80mm Akasa Amber fans mount in there with no problems.

It looks like there isn't enough room for standard thickness fans 'thats what I thought originally' but they go in with loads of room at the back.

Just hit a major snag as well, spray can fell off shelf onto the plastic front panel and cracked it at the top.




Managed to glue it together and sand it flat again, another spray of primer before the black, so thats set me back a fair bit as I can't now start the black until a lot later.



One good reason not work in an over crowded untidy area

[BigDK]

Garage part tidy on the way, at least I'll be able to move around.

Ended up using plumber pipe weld to fix it 'does the job' and I've got a few tins knocking about.

Have now sprayed the black (1st coat) second will get done later on today.

Have started working on the door mod as well 'very early stages ATM'

Will post some pics of both in a couple of hours 'when my stomach is full'

[ultimeus]

'when my stomach is full'

Waiting for mine too

[TedShred]

wow, lookin' good BigDK!! Glad you recovered nicely from the crack.

I'm also planning to take remove the acrylic from the door, amd cutting out/ sticking back on that oddly-shaped little cooler master logo (or maybe put it somewhere in the interior). Very retro cool!

Can't wait to see the final result.

Edit: cutting out that CM logo on the brushed aluminum part of the VGA "tunnel" thing migh also make a nifty badge

Edit: just wondering about the HDD cooling (one of my bigger headaches in figuring out how to mod this thing), given that it appears you're retaining the stock HDD cage setup while putting fans up front. The 6 hdd's are stacked on top of each other in pairs, with air channels between the stacks. I think the original design was that the exhaust fans would draw air from the (surprisingly small imo) bottom vent under the cage up through the vent on the top, blowing by either side of the vertical hdds (that was the theory anyway). With the HDD on the top interior getting the added benefit of the stock intake blowing up beside the meshed steel part of the cage (maybe a bit of a added-draw benefit from the opening to the hdd right underneath.) So won't the airflow from the fans up front (intake I'm guessing?), run smack into the 2 HDDs closest to that end? No doubt cooling those down a lot, but I'm wondering it will benefit the other ones very much. I'm no expert at this by any means, but I thought I'd mention that thought.

[BigDK]

cutting out that CM logo on the brushed aluminum part of the VGA "tunnel" thing migh also make a nifty badge

Very nice idea, I've got two of those lying 'again in the loft beams' never saw any use for them before.


This shows the spare room between the front mounted fans and the drive bays (about another fan width approx)



At last the black paint is now applied to the repaired panel.

I again needed to do more work on it as after black was applied to crack I could see a faint line dent, so I ended up applying toy model filler to crack and sanding before yet more primer and then the black x 2.

I have done a bit of a tidy up but I really need to clear the bedroom furniture out of here asap.



This is my answer to those controller knobs, I need to finish the slot off with some very boring sanding work, but it should look pretty neat and will serve the purpose.



I then need to source a mesh for the bottom part of the door to allow the air through to the fans.

Will do some research tonight, all ideas welcome.
The distance between the inner door recesses where the perspex was removed is 160mm, ideally I will keep 20mm within that.

Ideas so far are to look for a domed grill either round/oval or (last choice)squared/rectangle.

I'll probably put the cut perspex back around the cut outs and the side strips will be orange.

[TedShred]

Love the door mod for the controller.

Did you see my second edit? After seeing the pic I'm thinking there may indeed be enough room around the cage that the fans will provide a nice overall benefit.

Man, I'm getting a lot of ideas here.

[BigDK]

I agree most of the cooling effect if not all will be on the 1st 2 HDDs , I run a couple of Raptors in Raid0 in those caddies, so keeping those cool is main priority.

I'll take a look at what I can do with the mount underneath, I've got 6 drives in my un-modded Cosmos so I'll rig some fans up tomorow and do some temp tests.

[xanvincent]

Sweet looking case!
+1 on the DFI LP DK X38-T2RS suggestion as well.

[biftek.]

Very nice door mod for the controller!

[BigDK]

Still no luck finding a meshed dome for the door 'that I like'

Been looking at car speaker grills, desk speakers etc... etc... but nothing jumps out yet.

Bingo something has just popped into my head whilst writing this, will look into it this morning and see where it goes.

Its pretty mad so I'll hold it from here unil I know if it will work!!

[ultimeus]

[BigDK]

After getting the first coat of orange on, the paint had a reaction in a small area, so deciding to be go down the easy route I bought and used a filler/primer coat 'supposedly good for all primer/paint/wood/metal/plastic’ Very wrong though.
This is the result after it reacted and started to eat into the area at the top, other areas had shrinking of the top layer causing wide cracks to appear.

After many hours messing about to correct this, I have finally got a good coat of orange on ‘although quite thin’ and will hopefully get this front panel finished off tomorrow.
Now looking far better, I’ll be gals when this part is behind me and finished.

[BigDK]

Nearly finished the 4 x Controller knobs.

Slowly Slowly, but get there in the end 'another task done'



Finished and ready for the controller in the morning. (1 already done before)



My brain wave for the door grill isn't going to work, so that will stay locked away in my head, it looks like standard mesh will just have to be cut and fitted instead, Just found my mate has a handy 1MTR+ length hidden away begging to be used, so a little can come my way.

[BigDK]

Just placed order for remaining waterblocks for the NB/SB/Mosfet on the X38DQ6.

I'll be sticking with the board for now, as I have my eye on a the new X58 chipset when it comes out at end of year.

Have now finished front panel painting and re-fitted the mesh, this is now back on the case and looks pretty good IMO.

Will post some more pics in a few days, as I'm off to hospital for an operation later today (12th) and will out of action for a few days so won't be posting until I get discharged.

Just 4 more caddy handles to paint and the rear case surround, then the RHS panel and the LH side panel when it turns up from pre-order.

[ultimeus]

X58 will be out only end of 2008 , rheobus looking good, any updates ??

[[XC] NetburstXE]

Can you post more pics of the door?

[BigDK]

Heres some more pics of the door cut out, now showing the knobs in finished coat.







Here the front panel is re-fitted to the case. (the drives fitted are just to fill the gaps - not what will be there at the end)



Work has come a near stand still since Sunday, as I was in hospital having an operation.

I can stagger about for a few mins at a time and prod and pull/take photos, but can't really start any major work again for a few days still in all probability.

I've now got all the waterblocks ordered and now shipped from EK direct, so they should be here pretty soon.

My windowed side panel is no longer being shipped, and it is cancelled 'nice one CoolerCases'

Will now send the side panel off to ChilledPC to get them to do it, I really can't be hassled with putting the window in even if I wasn't feeling like cr*p.

Hopefully by early next week things will be moving quickly again

[TedShred]

Good to have you back, BigDK. I'm lovin' how that door mod works with the controller.

[Goreg]

looks nice! you gunna paint the door too?

[BigDK]

Thanks TedShred

The door is going to be painted orange down the side strips and on the complete reverse. The centre panel will have a mesh added to the bottom section and then the original perspex black insert sheet will be re-worked and fitted back into that area.

I now have 2 drive bay handles completed, so need to get the next 4 done over the next couple of days. I will finally start work on the last surround panel to get that finished by the weekend.

[disruptfam]

looks nice i like the colour combo!

[BigDK]

The water-blocks have turned up direct from EK with no problems on the shipping side of things.

Here is the Mosfet Block; all blocks came with ½” barbs and all fitting screws/washers/etc...

I will clean up the copper base on the blocks, as they have the odd scratch on them.
This one is for the NB.

Here is the SB block


At least now when the case is ready, I now have the complete blocks to water-cool the CPU/Chipsets/Mosfets/GPU.

Anyone interested in what blocks EK do and what boards they fit may find this pdf useful to look at (it should be up to date)
http://www.ekwaterblocks.com/downloa...et_04-2008.pdf

[disruptfam]

nice blocks what barbs are you using?