UPDATE:

Well, I think I'm just about wrapped up with this one. Still have a few things to do. First, some of the latest pictures.

Starting my sleeving. I went a little overboard with the sleeving...I pretty much uni-sleeved everything. There are some great threads here explaining how to do this, so I won't waste your time with a ton of pictures of the process. It was my first time sleeving, and it was fun...for a while. Then it started to feel like..."when am I going to be finished?" My fingers were dry and raw from tightening up all the sleeve.





And some of the results...





Here's some SATA cables. I actually went back later and put on longer pieces of heat shrink (about 30mm). It covers almost all of the exposed connector and a good bit on the sleeve too.






If you remember, these fans come with a thermistor to control the speed. I simply cut it, off shortened the leads,soldered and shrunk. I also cut the fan cables to length and soldered the leads together into one cable. The fan speed signal only comes from one fan. I was right about these fans too - using them with a controller drops the voltage to the fan motor and the LEDs, so the LEDS get dim when at low speed.




I just realized I didn't take any pictures of leak testing! Oh well...
I leak tested using an old 350W power supply so I could just run the pumps. And fans... And LEDs... All I did was jumper pin 16 of the main ATX connector to ground to get power.

I told you in an earlier post about the leak I discovered due to a clearance issue with the BP compression fitting and the EK water block. Here's some pictures to show what I meant:

The culprit on the left:




Here you can see where the fitting is catching on the PCB and not making a good seal with the o-ring and block.




My fix: BitsPower shining Silver mini spacer. The spacers EK provides were a little too thick and didn't leave me with enough thread on the compression fitting to secure it to the block.




All better..




Remember how I cut that hole in the case bottom so my GTX 240 rad would drop down and fit in the bottom compartment? Well, the radiator prevents the dust filter from fully seating in it's slot. Had to do some surgery....




It fits really well, and there's only about a 1x3 inch area of the perforated case floor that doesn't get covered by the filter.

Ok. Assembled and working. I was really disappointed with the quality of these pictures. I thought I had more than enough light: 4x100W and 2x75W, but I guess not. I told you I wasn't good at photography.




I was thinking I need to get something to group the tube going from the pump to the CPU inlet with the other two tubes. I had it zip tied just snug enough to hold all three together, but it looked kinda cheesy.




And some closeups....












The back side. Yes, the side panel fits. It looks a lot worse in this picture than it does in person. Obviously it could be better, but... This is about the time I realized that uni-sleeving everything may have been a bad idea. This is also something I will do differently next time (see end of post).




Between all the lights and me yelling and cursing because my photos weren't coming out the way I liked, ole Stinker Belle decided she should come investigate.




And some shots of the lighting. I still am undecided if I will put in the UV cathodes...










So, I think I'm just about done.

There's still a few things I need to do:
  1. Mod one of my old Lian-Li DVD bezels to fit and cover the LG Blu-Ray drive.
  2. Sleeve and install the UV cold cathodes.
  3. Build and powder coat a little caddy to elevate the case off the floor a little more and be able to wheel it around. It's heavy!
  4. Crap. I forget. I'm sure I'll remember what 4 was...
  5. Build some custom white LED modules to provide some accent lighting and light the chrome a little.


Some things I'll do differently next time:
  1. First and foremost, I will chose fans on function, not for flashy looks or lights. These things are loud. I mean, jet engine loud. In my next build or maybe even if rework this one, I'll use some Scythe GTs or S-Flex's and simply cold cathode or stand alone LEDs for accent lighting.
  2. Less uni-sleeving. I should have used the large sleeve Nils provided and only uni-sleeved the visible parts. This was A LOT of work and added a lot of bulk to the cable. Still, it looks freakin awesome and I'm hooked and will probably do it from now on!
  3. Will probably switch up the airflow so the fans are mounted at the top of the case, pulling cool air in and pushing it through the radiator. Also, would rotate the rear case fan so it's exhausting air rather than pulling in. I would have done this right away except I would have had to drain the CPU/mobo loop. Placing the fans up top and lowering the radiator would put too severe a bend radius in the line going from the rad to the res. I would have to rotate the radiator so the fittings are at the rear of the case as well. Maybe later...
  4. Move away from the bay-mount reservoir. Wish I had gone with cylinder res. just for looks.
  5. As happy as I am with the 800D and the way this build came out, I wish I had bought a Mountain Mods CYO. Oh well, there's always another build...


So, there we have it. I'll update the pics after I finish the last of the outstanding items and actually take some decent photos of the thing. Even though I'm really tired and glad I'm pretty much done, I know the bug has severely latched on to me. I'm already looking at what I can do next. My HTPC? My old system, just for the hell of it? My server?

Also, I think I might be crazy because I keeping seeing this MCR 220 and MCP655 laying here and it makes me want to stuff them in there and put the GPU's on the GTX360 rad with the 655, buy a cylinder res, throw the CPU on the GTX240 and the mobo on the MCR220... AHHHH!