Project "Wind Tunnel" - TJ07 internal ducting modification [lots of pics]

[theorie]

ok so here is an update:

the ducting is now no longer being used. if anyone has a TJ07 and wants it, PM me. it's up for grabs.

the reason it is up for grabs is because i just got the parts i need to flip the mobo tray, so the ducting won't fit anymore once i do that.

after that, i'm going to watercool, so new ducting wont be needed either.

i also just got about 100 feet of cable sleeving in various sizes...and heatshrink.

also traded my ocz ram cooler for a corsair ram cooler - in the process of creating a carbon fiber cover for it.

photos soon...

[roofsniper]

nice 100 feet of sleeving. that will last you forever i bought just 10 and i got around 8 feet left and all my cables are sleeved. i say u create ur own case purely out of carbon fibre.

[pcaddict]

awesome AWESOME very awesome! can't wait for updates :P

[roofsniper]

hey how are you kama bay's working? i was thinking about getting one for my case. you using the stock fan in them?

[mattlef]

Cant wait to see the progress

I'm personally a huge fan of the Kama Bay fans... I just wish they worked a bit better with all cases..... they don't seem to "fit" with everything. They function well, but form? not so much... IMO

[roofsniper]

yea i hope it encloses up perfectly in my case without having any visible cracks which will be hard. i also wish that it would come in glossy black to match the front of my case. i might get some but first i want to just put a fan at the front of my case to see if it does anything.

[theorie]

hey how are you kama bay's working? i was thinking about getting one for my case. you using the stock fan in them?

i loveeee kama bays. i actually swapped out the included 120mm scythe fan for a 120mm silverstone fan in both of the kama bays. wanted to be consistent with my fans in the case.

anyway, i've been away the past few days so i didn't get a chance to sleeve the cables yet. though, i did flip the mobo last week before i left to go out of town.

instead of just flipping the unmodified mobo tray like i did last time, i ordered a new back panel from murdermod. reason be, when simply flipping the unmodified mobo tray, the video cards sit very close to the top of the case, where as the murdermod bracket compensates for this, sitting the mobo as low to the subfloor as possible. here are some photos from the mobo tray modding - pretty straight forward. this will be painted later on...

by the way, i have flipped the top fans so they now exhaust. not having the back fans definitely messes up the current airflow configuration, but like i said, watercooling is coming soon.

added the bottom mobo tray rail to the cf subfloor


unmodified mobo tray


rear panel removed


stock vs murdermod


installed (thanks to the gf for holding the final product for a photo)


i'm really not going to rush the watercooling because i want to do it right, that and i'm thinking of upgrading to a 790i board before picking out the watercooling components. i'm also planning to custom fabricate a waterblock that will cool both the north-bridge and south-bridge, as any of the south-bridge blocks currently on the market will not fit with my 9800gx2 cards. updates on that as it comes along, but there next updates should be the cable sleeving...

[shoota]

looks cool. can't wait to see how it goes, keep us updated

[theorie]

sorry i've been slow with pics lately...when i was in the process of sleeving all of my cables, i realized that i didn't have enough supplies. i wanted to re-use the molex connectors from my current setup, but i have some red, some blue, some black - so i ordered a bunch of black molex connectors. they should be here by saturday hopefully. here is what i ordered:

1 x Connectx™ ATX 24-pin Female connector housing - Black
4 x Connectx™ 6-Pin PCI Express connector housing - Black
2 x Connectx™ PCI-Express 2.0 - 8-pin Female connector housing, Black
2 x Connectx™ ATX 8-pin Female connector housing, Black
4 x Connectx™ Female 3-Pin Fan Housing Black
2 x Connectx™ Male 3-Pin Fan Housing Black
1 x Connectx™ T-SATA Female (crimp-type) - Black (end cap)
1 x Connectx™ T-SATA Female (crimp-type) - Black (pass-through cap)

i am also going out to buy a spool of wire either tonight or tomorrow. i am going to make all of my cables from scratch, that way i they are the exact lengths i want. i tried hacking up one of the included 8-pin pci-e cables that came with my psu, but it didn't turn out as nice as i wanted it to...making the cables from scratch will be much easier and look better.

i also did a little modification to my corsair memory cooler...not done with it yet though. (see attachment). sleeved the cable, removed the blue-colored cover, and added some black fan grills. this might get a bit of carbon fiber in the near future...depends on how much carbon fiber sheet i have left...



anyway i have a bunch of goodies coming, so i should be able to work on everything this weekend, and then i'll have pics.

oh, here is something else i ordered:
Scythe "HIMURO"


in preparation for installing watercooling, i am moving all of my HDD's into a secondary computer which will be used as network storage. i will only have the DVD burner & the Raptor HDD installed in this case, and the raptor will be installed in the Scythe HIMURO box, which will be mounted right behind the top Scythe Kama Bay cooler.

cheers

[shoota]

very nice. you have some nice skills there. here's waiting to see the sleeving pics..

[Monkeywoman]

hey theorie, nice build. l like the detail.

BTW i scanned your avatar with my n95, that's pretty cool.

[fragmasterMax]

aluminum conducts electricity (not well but still) lexan is a type of plastic

rip apart any wire in a psu, and 9 times out of ten it will be aluminum.

It's definitely a nicely done mod, but i'm not sure the air has much force to travel all the way through the dryer vent tube.
IMO, it would probably work better, if it was just exhausted out the back, or if you put high speed (noisy) fans on both sides of the tube in a push pull config.

[Levish]

rip apart any wire in a psu, and 9 times out of ten it will be aluminum.

and what does it matter?

my suggestion was that Lexan or Polycarb would have been easier to work with for making ducting and nearly non-conductive (mind you i'm talking about the stuff he's got running around his drives and vga cards).

[theorie]

It's definitely a nicely done mod, but i'm not sure the air has much force to travel all the way through the dryer vent tube. IMO, it would probably work better, if it was just exhausted out the back, or if you put high speed (noisy) fans on both sides of the tube in a push pull config.

it does. it works fine. i used a dryer duct external vent thing in the window, which has a flapper in it that remains closed when the computer is off. the air coming through the dryer ducting has plenty of force to open (and keep open) the flapper. also, if you disconnect the dryer duct, you can feel very good (warm) airflow coming out the end...

[theorie]

parts came today!

earlier today i was checking out the scythe HDD box. really nice! only one problem, the rear cooling fins on the box were blocking me from using the pass-through sata power cables. i had to cut off part of the bottom fin (see pics) to make it work. no big deal!











later, after going out tonight with some friends i decided to but out the sleeving stuff and get to it...

ended up making the cables 100% from scratch. i bought a spool of black copper wire that seemed approximately the right size, nice and flexible too. there aren't very many options in the wiring department at the home depot here in manhattan.

i made pin diagrams based on the original cables before i started, and i also made a really ghetto device to check which wire is which (since they are all the same color now) using an old phone charger, some wire, electrical tape, and an LED.

i measured and cut the wire to the lengths i needed, added pins, sleeved everything up and finished it off with heatshrink. the first cables came out really good! they really look like they came that way and weren't homemade.

tonight i completed the two PCI-e 8-pin cables and the power cable for the single HDD and DVD burner. here are some work-pics.

mmm cheap beer






cutting the wire


pin diagram and ghetto-wire tester


one end complete


almost done


pci-e 8-pin cable number one complete!


side shot


cable number two complete!


close up


another angle


and another angle


back side (so far)


(notice the 1.8" HDD in the upper left corner...that will be my scratch drive. it's a 30gb drive in a usb 2.0 enclosure.)

routing




i still have to make the two PCI-e 6-pin cables, but i'm not sure if i have enough of the 1/8" sleeving. might have to order more...

oh while i was at it, i used up the last of my thermal-epoxy and added some old cooper (silver plated) ramsinks to the mofsets. two of them were covered by the heatsink mounting bracket, so i had to trim it a little bit.

(ignore the messy arctic silver...it will be cleaned up before the heatsink goes back on)


and also added a fanless heatsink to my SATA 2.0 RAID controller card (will be used in my new server setup...8 drivers in total, four mirrored RAID-1 arrays - 80gb (os), 750gb (server), 500gb (documents), 500gb (dvd-rip)

[theorie]

almost done with all the sleeving!

today i finished some more cables. check it outttt!



still not done with the fan power cables yet...


close up


also mounted a piece of carbon fiber to the middle video card to hide it.


i can't believe how long it took to make the PCI-e power cables. 30 connectors in total between all those power cables.

i should have taken some photos of the cables before i put them in the case...but i forgot.

finished sleeving pics soon, i hope.

[tiro_uspsss]

also mounted a piece of carbon fiber to the middle video card to hide it.

where'd u get the carbon fiber from - I like that idea!

[bradical]

I'm really enjoying your build. Especially like the sleeving and simplicity of the dominator fan

[theorie]

incase you've been wondering why i haven't updated this thread lately:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=210497

[noinimod]

wow.. quality work. Great photos too

[DragoonXX]

I personally would have gotten a shorter SATA cable so that you wouldn't have the need to loop it around to get it to where you needed, but other than that, it's looking nice

[shoota]

i'm liking the sleeving and all, but why in the world are there random purple wires in there?!?

[theorie]

i'm liking the sleeving and all, but why in the world are there random purple wires in there?!?

everything is going to be black. when i watercool, the fluid will be purple.

finally got around to cutting that window...





















still need to cut the lexan...but the hard part is over.

[rob1101]

very cool air mod, shame your getting rid of it after all of that hard work. Can I ask what was the temp difference between the cardboard and aluminum ducting. yes i am very cheap and my next case wont have a window.

[theorie]

made a new sticker design for the vid cards...



purpleeeeee!