Case Mod - In Progress BabyShark (10. 10. 2012: It's FINISHED!)

Can´t wait to see this come together!

 

nutman? where is the updates ?

 

Mads is on vacation... got text on facebook from him yesterday, asking for updates from the community... He misses everyone here

 

I still can't work out if I love or hate the new EK design.

I think it looks great on the Supremacy CPU blocks, but not entirely sure with the GPU's, they look almost too plain with the entire block covered in the same pattern.

 

Thanks! Will definitely have to get myself a crimper and lots of .18 AWG wire for my future projects, but no time for that with this one, sadly.

Yah, me neither!

You missed the part with me saying I would be on vacation until mid september?

Indeed. I even got caught posting stuff to Facebook while in the toilet, so my wife texted Bill asking him to tell me to get out of the bathroom and be on VACATION!

It's no secret that I'm not a fan of CSQ. It might work for some mods/projects, but it's freaking EVERYTHING you get from EK now. Dammit, I want OPTIONS, not circles everywhere... so I've started looking at other manufacturers. Watercool does some pretty cool things!

And yeah, I guess you've all guessed it: I'm back, but at this point I'm going to be so busy with the project (deadline: October 1st) that I won't have time for many updates, if any. I'll try, but the updates will most likely be posted after the project has been completed and handed over to the customer.

Stay tuned.

 

Happy faces for new updates, but yea deadline comes closer rather make a nice mod than posting updates we have no problem waiting another 14 days

 

Thanks. I fully agree.

But I thought I would share just this one thing with you: my first ever go at airbrushing.

An acquaintance of mine made the stencils for me. The logo is actually a small bit of Shark Gaming's logo. I cut it from an .ai file of thelogo that I got from the guys over at Shark Gaming.



What do you think?

 

looks great and fits the theme just perfectly !

 

Thanks!

I just realised that the holes in those grills make the edges of the blue stripes look bigger here and there, but it's an optical illusion. The blue lines are following the edges of the templates 100%. So happy about my airbrush right now.

 

yea they look quite nice are you finish with the mod?? its on monday? stress stress, hurry hurry

 

Ok, project done and delivered.

So let's get back to some pictures, shall we?

Let's continue where we left off: airbrushing.

Here's a shot of the grills right after airbrushing:



Also did a big logo on the front:



Yeah, sorry about the quality of those last 2 shots. They were shot with a phone, because I didn't want to bring my DSLR for an airbrushing session. :S

Also didn't want to bring it down to my basement workshop as I was cutting the side panels, handfiling them and, finally, airbrushed the cuts (SO much nicer than using U-channel, in my opinion):







I like how those rounded corners came out. Not really tried doing some like that before, but with proper handfiles and quite some patience, anyone should be able to pull it off.

Here are some post-airbrushing pics of the cuts (shot with my DSLR, hehe):





And finally, a couple of shots of the sleeved cables.
Almost ALL cables for this build had to be shortened by me (only sleeved the ones where it made sense to do so), and I tell you, that takes a LOT of time!!!
And no, it wasn't an option using extensions instead. All cables are in plain sight when connected into the PSU, as the PSU sits kinda in the middle of everything, so all PSU-connected cables had to look stellar - and be only just as long as needed.





Next update tomorrow!

 

wow, nice made cant wait for more pictures

but i really like the sleeved cables.. and in the fact you almost connot see the heatskrink..
i know some pleaces it is almost impossible

 

Great work so far, will certainly be following the build

 

Haha, that's because I didn't use heatshrink for most of the cables.

Thanks!

Next update tonight.

 

Watching eagerly

 

As promised yesterday, here we go with another daily update.

Bill Owen from MNPCTech.com had sent me one of these temp gauges, when I ordered a set of his mini-billet feet for Project: The Scrapbench. Being backlit in blue, I thought it would fit the colour scheme of this build much better than that of Project: The Scrapbench, so I was going to use it in this one instead.



However, as I wanted the temp probe to sit inline in the water loop, I had to replace the stock probe for an inline model - and I just happened to have a spare Aqua Computer inline temp probe lying around, so I sponsored that for this build - have to put a little of yourself into your projects, right?



I really wasn't sure if this probe would work - the polarity was also a question. Turns out the probe worked just fine and the polarity was not a problem at all. It works no matter how you connect those wires - awesome!

Oh, the temps are correct, as I just tested it by blowing hot air through the inline probe. It's not like I work in an environment THAT hot!



Big package arrived with fittings, new BluRay drive (this one isn't broken!), PrimoChill 13/10 tubing and a fillport.



So let's install that fillport, shall we?

I'm a big fan of using whatever holes the manufacturer might already have made in cases, if it makes sense - and for the purpose of fitting the fillport to THIS particular case, those 2 pre-drilled holes for running water cooling tubing out of the case were simply perfect.

First, I removed the rubber grommet:



Then I removed all unnecessary rubber from it:



Installed the rubber grommet back in the case:



Screwed/pushed in the fillport:



There! A match made in heaven...



Inside view:



This is how I had planned the loop at first - the connection from the fillport down to the Bitspower Crystal T-piece was supposed to serve as a T-line, eliminating the need for a reservoir, but during testing I quickly realised that a T-line THAT small would not work. Well, in theory it could work if I had introduced it into the loop at another spot, but at this place it didn't work at all. The fluid wasn't sucked into the loop properly and it was impossible to get all air out of the loop.



So I got a small reservoir (MicroRes from Swiftech, which I was able to juuuust fit into the case at a very convenient spot - see more on that in a coming update.

Last thing I would like to show you today is a small modification of the fan controller.

It's a Vantec Nexus NXP-205 - 3.5 inches - which will fit perfectly, sitting beneath the BluRay drive in the Startech Slim Optical & 3.5in Hard Drive Mount that I mentioned earlier in this worklog.

However, the LEDs in that fan controller are blue - very, very blue. And I want white.

So, I took the fan controller apart:



... and replaced the LEDs. I only had 5 mm. LEDs and the original ones were 3 mm., but that didn't matter at all:



I know the light comes off as slightly blue on camera, but in reality it's very white, trust me.

Get some more tomorrow. See you then!

(oh, and seriously.... it's to be tooting my own horn, but how can this thread be rated at just 2 stars? I checked the rating system and 2 stars means "Bad". Is it really bad, fellas?)

 

Mads, i think that you should make an Y-split-cable, for the one that you have used blue heatshrink on i can show you an example

The two cable split chould be at the other ennd of the cable where it meets the psu , you will get it

 

Thanks, KoSoVaR^. I do get it, but I was baffled as to why Silverstone hadn't already done so from the beginning, so I thought it would have something to do with resistance, or maybe a tach signal - not an electronics wizard and didn't dare to tamper too much with the customer's PSU, being on a strict schedule, trying like crazy to meet the (impossible, really) deadline. Hope you understand.

OH, and thaaaaanks for the stars, whoever threw them at me. Really appreciate it, fellas!

 

No problem brother
Naah it doesnt matter at all, unleast you know it for next time!

I cant whait to see it finished, i wish i had more tide to work on my project....im bombed with sleevejobs

What did you mean with stars ? Rep if you appreciated the last comment you got one for the awsome uppdate!

 

Stars = thread rating (look at the very top of this page, where it says "Rate this thread")