Case Mod - In Progress Project Dianoga Redux

Well the penultimate order is in. I had ear marked some green coolant a while ago. I like the look of it. So I ordered that last night. I will pick up some distilled water from the car spares shop next week, might need a tiny bit to top up with.



Overclockers of course I also needed two fittings, because I am adding in another rad (that has been sent today by UPS and should be here Monday, and the USB cable extension should be here there too !) but the postage on certain other sites meant it would have cost me an extra tenner, even for fittings costing 99p. So in the end I found these on OCUK (one left of each) for £1.99 and added them to my order with free shipping



One in white, one in chrome (was all they had left at that price)



Now I have two options here. Either I can remove the fitting from the top and put them up there and then use the two chrome Thermochill fittings for the back rad, or I can paint the outer bars black on both. One will still be white inside, but I don't think you would see that any way.

Oh yeah, I have ordered some very small model painting brushes today, as there are a couple of small jobs left to do.

 

If the inside barb colour does annoy you, you could always cover the last ~1" of the tube with black heatshrink, right? AFAIK that wouldn't interfere with the function of the barb.

 

It would make it harder to get the tubing on - although warming it in hot water may solve that. It would probably reduce the efficacy of the barb by making it smoother and hence easier to pull the tubing over it...but the compression ring ought to prevent that. Can always put a scrap bit of hose on and give it a pull test. Just don't have the fitting screwed into anything fragile when you do - don't want to shred an acrylic thread!

You do realise that you're gonna have to put some UV lighting in there now, right!

 

It would probably get ripped to bits tbh. I will see how it looks. White inside green hose *should* turn green, as should the chrome. I bought these earlier also.



Basically for anything that doesn't look right.

 

Good afternoon every one after a pretty hard day yesterday I have decided to take the weekend off. It wasn't really through choice, I am stuck waiting for some parts before I can continue (the last rad, fittings, liquid, duct tape etc).

Any way, this morning the feet (well, hood spacers) came.



They tend to look at lot bigger in the pics, but to give you guys an idea of scale here is one of my battered hands.



So they make absolutely perfect feet. You can also see I've ordered four green M6 nylon nuts to hold them on. Even though it's my day off I may go cut down the bolts in a little while

If not then I will see you all again on Monday, for some vinegar and pressure testing shenanigans

 

My days off are usually short, but I beat the record here. I lasted for exactly four minutes after posting.

Before.



After. I cut the bolts down.



And up on its new shoes.



Win.

 

Thought I may have to do something like that for my machine to let some air into the PSU. New case has it floor-mounted and with the vent facing down through a filter. The PSU fan is really noisy but only spins up when necessary - so never so far. Thought with the carpet close to the vent it may get toasty. So far it's ok but if it does, I may have to get some of those myself. </ramble>

 

It should make working on it a bit easier. The only thing now is the want for LEDs under there. I would have to fit them to a switch though which would be annoying and time consuming....

We'll see. I got bugger all on tomorrow so I may look into it. I still have a 12mm latching switch too.

I'm still trying to come up with ideas of where I can fit that temp gauge I bought. It would fit on the main shroud but there's a chance I could destroy the graphics (no, just, no).

 

Pretty much anywhere you can fit it - and I appreciate space is tight. The loop temp will equalise so where you read the temp makes little difference. Although, as I type this, it occurs to me that you might mean the display in which case: set into the mesh near the top so you don't see much of the body (unless you're lying on the floor!)? Or, is there enough space to mount it where the second pump would go?

 

At last..

Last week I was poking around on the bay and found a temp gauge. I nearly ordered it, then realised it was useless to me - phew. In the end I realised I needed a G 1/4 thermometer and gauge. I tried to find a green one but they were upward of £18. I almost settled on a white one, then thought "I wonder if OCUK have them".

Sure enough they did.



£5.99. I was thrilled. I even managed to wangle free shipping somehow so an enormous thanks to OCUK.

OK, so I had nowhere to mount it. I knew as soon as I hit the order button that placement was going to be an issue. Had I known about it at the beginning I could have planned and cut it into the shroud somewhere (though real estate is tight back there). So for the past few days I've had a few ideas going backward and forward in my brain. In the end I settled for a octagon.



And top and bottom.



And two sides.



So I cut it and polished the edges and then made up the back box/cover part.



Then marked where it was going and covered the leftover surface with tape. I did this to stop the plastic weld peeing out everywhere and destroying it.



Weld.



Please note there are going to be smudges and dirty finger prints on it in the next few pics. They're not damage/scratches etc. I cut a graphic out of chrome.



Fit.



Peel.



Test it so that it goes up the right way.



Fit.



Test.



And all done.



I'm not quite sure where I am going to fit it yet, but the idea was to make it out of the same colours as the res. I'm pretty sure I can basically fit it wherever I like, now that it has a housing.

 

So I decided to fit it.



Sadly it's too dark to get a decent pic of it now but it's all connected up to the res etc

 

For a build where you are cobbling the pieces together it is looking pretty cohesive so far. Great work.

 

Thanks man

 

I took this pic late last night.



You can see I have the LED strip behind the l radiator firing now

Today the second rad, liquid and fittings are coming. Not sure what will come with the postie but hoping on the duct tape (I started managing cables last night but it ran out). Sadly my lady forgot to order the vinegar, but DPD aren't coming until later so I will probably nip down to the local mini mart place and see if they have any in.

Should hopefully have a nice update coming later

 

I've started the cable management. This includes sticking down all of the molex connectors with 3m foam tape and duct taping down the wires.



It was never going to look nice tbh. Sadly I ran out of tape, so had to stop about half way through. That should come tomorrow hopefully, then I can sort it all out. I managed to snap a molex pin though so that will need replacing.

 

Its surely designed to make it look nice from the side you can see stuff from. You could spend hours days making the wiring look obsessively tidy...and then put the solid side panel on and never see it again.

 

The rad for the back came.



Sadly it does not work with any of my fittings, as it needs extensions. I decided to remove one from a fitting on the res and that was where the fun began. For three hours I was desperately trying to track down a leak. In the end I traced it to a bad Oring, replaced it and all was good in the world again but I managed to get absolutely nothing else done apart from a bit of a touch up on the rad. Maybe later tonight I will flush it.

I did buy this though.

 

Another £15 (rad and fittings). Four hours of pretty much stripping the entire loop down yesterday because I had to remove a extender I had used and had a leak. One hour of stinking like the fish and chip shop. One hour of asst painting (touching up etc). Then the fan hit the fittings so I had to mod that (another 30 mins).

Was it worth it?



/Cartman - Totally.



The duct tape arrived this morning. I will get onto the cable work later

 

Couple of scars as the paint wasn't quite set.



And.



And I should be able to get that into the rig tomorrow.