PROJECT: MM Pinnacle 300 (previously Ugly Duckling)

[Kibbler]

Congratulations on a job well done Kibbs!

Really nice work M8.

Looking forward to your next project.

Thanks Charles for your kind words!

Nice work mate, good to see it finally finished!

Thanks Tom, believe me I should be the happiest to finally see it finished!

It was a long journey but well wirth it Kibb. Hope you've have enjoyed and learned from it Because that's what's this whole community is all about

Think you hit the nail on the head there, it was definitely an enjoyable learning experience.

awesome job bro. and i'll surely take note of your pro-tip (running bare-sided). haha. thanks!
looking forward to the next project.

Lol, thanks bro. Another protip just for you: Singapore is a dusty/noisy place. Use good filters, DIY if you must, and any fan you buy take 15db off the rating. That's how it'll sound here.

Definitely the nicest Pinnacle I've seen. Congrats on a great project, Kibbler.

Waiting for the start of the new one - I see you are keeping us in suspense on the case

Thanks Shazza, you've been very supportive throughout this project and I appreciate that. Personally I think evil98 was the first with a clean Pinnacle, and there are a few more in progress that I'm sure will outshine mine in scope and quality.

New case? Oh it's no mystery , actually I mentioned it on the previous page. LiLi P50 with, to paraphrase justin.kerr, "menstrual red" anodized internals.


*not my photo obvi

I was miffed about the AMD logo on the window but since it'll probably have 5870-inside then that's no biggie. More to come once I've made enough progress for the new worklog.

[quattro_]

just amazing man ....
and good luck with your next build .

[aol000xw]

Oh, I love the front panel

[shazza]

Ahh... missed the case mention before. That looks like a fun case to work with.

And ... no disrespect intended to the other Pinnacle builds, just that I really like what you did with the front panel, and the orange and blue is something we don't see every day

[SNiiPE_DoGG]

Love it kibbler, and as you can tell from my post count in this log I have loved your work all along its a tough case to work with because its so open, but I bet you could look at that thing with X-ray vision and it would still be perfect

one thing I would adjust is just drop the PCIE power behind that orange tube, but obviously that's a matter of opinion.

[CptDreadFlint]

Came out fantastic, Kibbs! Been an admirer of your work.
From your mounting res design to your sick drain setup, it all came out amazing at the end. I'm looking out for your next build!

[Kibbler]

just amazing man ....
and good luck with your next build .

Thanks quattro

Oh, I love the front panel

Thanks, I'm quite happy with how that turned out. There was some drama involved in the USB ports...namely I damaged the one I had on hand, then I went out and bought a spare...turns out the dimensions are different! (screws too close together for the holes I drilled)...angry...more work than I expected but anyway looks ok in the end.

Ahh... missed the case mention before. That looks like a fun case to work with.

And ... no disrespect intended to the other Pinnacle builds, just that I really like what you did with the front panel, and the orange and blue is something we don't see every day

First impressions of that case (this belongs in the new worklog but whatever), the ALU is thinner than I expected, and since this is the first time I'm working on a LiLi I don't know if it's the same across their product line. The fit and finish is awesome (seriously awesome like whoa) but after working with MM the panel thickness was slightly disappointing.

Love it kibbler, and as you can tell from my post count in this log I have loved your work all along its a tough case to work with because its so open, but I bet you could look at that thing with X-ray vision and it would still be perfect

one thing I would adjust is just drop the PCIE power behind that orange tube, but obviously that's a matter of opinion.

Thanks SD, very much appreciate your support. The openess is good and bad. Bad you already mentioned, good in that it forces you to pay extra attention to details: Cable tidyness, heatshrink and sleeving, etc because nothing can be hidden. For the PCIE cable I agree, it would look nicer if it didn't overshadow the tubing arrangement like that. But that's following the natural curve of the cable and the only alternative would be to crimp a 4~5ft cable to go behind then back out from the motherboard tray.

Came out fantastic, Kibbs! Been an admirer of your work.
From your mounting res design to your sick drain setup, it all came out amazing at the end. I'm looking out for your next build!

Thanks for your kind words, but all eyes including mine are on you and your MM now!!!

===

One of the pumps will be coming out this weekend and going into the new build so before I do that I'll have a chance to take a few more photos.

[ridney]

nice work man! i love the front panel

[Kibbler]

nice work man! i love the front panel

Thanks ridney

***

I took a few more photos before undertaking the 60min double bypass operation (convert double to single serial loop).





This last one's for the benefit of those who asked about the front panel, and any other MM owners out there who might be interested. You can just barely see the original drive bay piece which is mounted to the inside of the case. Like I mentioned previously, the holes on that piece were widened to fit around the threaded inserts, then all 3 "layers" (stealth plate + front panel + original drive bay piece) are sandwiched together with socket screws, washers, and nuts.

[emir]

Looks great...

I wonder it's appearance in a night shot...

[Xion X2]

Nice, clean build Kibbler. The orange and blue is nice.

[eXa]

You truly have skills Kibbler.

i just noticed 1 small thing. i dont know if it makes much of a difference, but as far as i can see the 3 fans on the front rad is pulling air into the case. And the 3 fans on the top rad is exhausting air. So is the psu and the top rear fan... AND the bottom rear fan.
Wouldnt it might be better to turn around the bottom rear fan so it blows air into the case instead? then you have 4 inntake fans and 4+psu exhaust fans, seemes more balanced to me, might get som fresh air on the MB too....

[kgtiger]

Finally I have gotten to the end of 16 pages, however it was well worth it.

Congratulation Kibbler on an outstanding build, you have pushed the quality of this case to new hights.

Favorite parts would be the drainage system and also how you routed your tubing with the help of that bracket that you made to fit to the bottom of the top rad.
It helped to make the perfict line and lenght for your tubing.

Over all your wire management was second to none, very clean and professional.

Looking forward to watching your next build as it unrolls.

Well done.

[Kibbler]

Looks great...

I wonder it's appearance in a night shot...

Thanks emir, here's a night shot...

j/k but seriously, the only thing lit up on the outside is the DVD eject button, so that's basically what it would look like. The next build will have a fair bit more lighting, though.

Nice, clean build Kibbler. The orange and blue is nice.

Thanks Xion, I agree I much prefer the orange and blue to the original orange and green. Looking forward to more metalworking updates in your build!

You truly have skills Kibbler.

i just noticed 1 small thing. i dont know if it makes much of a difference, but as far as i can see the 3 fans on the front rad is pulling air into the case. And the 3 fans on the top rad is exhausting air. So is the psu and the top rear fan... AND the bottom rear fan.
Wouldnt it might be better to turn around the bottom rear fan so it blows air into the case instead? then you have 4 inntake fans and 4+psu exhaust fans, seemes more balanced to me, might get som fresh air on the MB too....

Thanks eXa, you make a good point. I'm not concerned about balancing the airflow because 1) some negative pressure helps the front intake, and 2) I absolutely hate dust. Seriously. Right now I have a (new) fine-mesh laundry net stretched across the intake like a surgeon's mask as a dust filter, no you probably wouldn't want to see it because it's ugly as butt. A freakishly ugly butt at that. It's easy to do that with just one intake area. Oh and there's no fan behind the PSU, only 3 HDDs on that fan mount.

Finally I have gotten to the end of 16 pages, however it was well worth it.

Congratulation Kibbler on an outstanding build, you have pushed the quality of this case to new hights.

Favorite parts would be the drainage system and also how you routed your tubing with the help of that bracket that you made to fit to the bottom of the top rad.
It helped to make the perfict line and lenght for your tubing.

Over all your wire management was second to none, very clean and professional.

Looking forward to watching your next build as it unrolls.

Well done.

Thanks kgtiger, appreciate your kind words.

I've collected some parts for the next build already. Case is here, rads are here, block is here, res is here. One thing that's holding me back is I'm still setting up a white infinity-sweep background and the lighting required to take batter photos. I hope to have it ready to go soon enough.

[kgtiger]

Wow, batter photos, are they crispy on the outside, if so I will take the family portrait size.

Any idea as to when you will start this next build

[Kibbler]

Wow, batter photos, are they crispy on the outside, if so I will take the family portrait size.

Any idea as to when you will start this next build

end of this month probably.

[charles_h]

Love the clean, simple elegance of the night shot. Understated yet penetrating...

[TadZilla]

Wow... just wow... (puts dremel and various computer parts in storage forever)

I just finished reading through the whole work log. The cable routing is clean, sleeving is amazing, cooling system is routed very well. The front panel... oh man that front panel... I think I just lost the will to mod...

All comments of self-pity aside, I'm now seriously thinking about getting an MM case to replace my PC-V1000Z. I think your case should be used for advertising on their site.

Very nice job!

-TadZilla

[Liderc]

Understated yet penetrating...

That's what she said.

[Red-5]

Excellent looking project. The blue and orange tubing go great together. Fantastic photos as well.
There are a lot of fantastic looking projects on this forum but it always amazes me how none of the photos show any dust, animal hair etc. My PC is just full of dust which reminds me I will have to get the hoover out LOL.

[Kibbler]

Excellent looking project. The blue and orange tubing go great together. Fantastic photos as well.
There are a lot of fantastic looking projects on this forum but it always amazes me how none of the photos show any dust, animal hair etc. My PC is just full of dust which reminds me I will have to get the hoover out LOL.

Combination of hand blower (alright alright innuendos aside...) and strategic lighting. My cat is black and white and if you don't know what that means...it means the white part of her coat shows up on black things, and vice versa. And she is a furry little mess.

For me, glamour shots are exactly that and nothing more. The whole thing is cleaned up, wiped down, and dusted etc. for the cleanest possible photos. In operation, believe me that black box is sealed up tight and filtered. Like I said the front inlets are filtered and looks like my computer is wearing a surgeon's mask, if a surgeon had a...big...black aluminum...um, box(?)...for a head?

Whoa ok self step away from the drugs please.

Side note: I inspected the loops a while back and found that the tubing and some of the fittings had collected a very thin milky-white coating on the coolant side, most notably on the inside of the stop fittings at the end of the drains. This was after about 3 months of daily use. Might be plasticizer? Or I didn't flush the rads thoroughly enough? The next time I take apart the loops (probably to scavenge any connectors for the next build as necessary), I'll inspect the blocks and see if there's anything funky inside.

[shazza]

If the coating is not just on the tubing, and is around the fittings, etc., I'd bet it's radiator flux. Probably just took it a while to work it's way out and into the loop. If so, you probably have some build up in your blocks as well - but maybe not enough to impact flow if your temps are still okay.

[Kibbler]

That's good to know and if so I'm not terribly worried about it, should be water-soluble now and forever yeah? I'm not planning to re-use these blocks immediately anyway, and since the new build will use 3/8-5/8 the comp fittings will eventually be retired as well. Biggest change in temps so far was going from 2x to 1x loops, and even then I only saw 1~2c increase in coolant temps.

[Anemic]

An absolute beaty of a build. Great work man!

[kgtiger]

That's good to know and if so I'm not terribly worried about it, should be water-soluble now and forever yeah? I'm not planning to re-use these blocks immediately anyway, and since the new build will use 3/8-5/8 the comp fittings will eventually be retired as well. Biggest change in temps so far was going from 2x to 1x loops, and even then I only saw 1~2c increase in coolant temps.

As this is a slightly long work log, did I miss something?
When did you change from 2 loops to 1?

Or have I just lost the plot, again, still?