Scratch Build – In Progress Hypno-Toad Rebuild--April 2012 quick repair and refit.

Good news! I think Danger Den has picked up the 'Toad for sponsorship!
Thank you Danger Den for your continued support!

 

Woohoo! Congratulations, Cheapskate! The old 'Toad is gonna get a major revamp now!

 

Congrats! I'm looking forward to MOAR TOAD.

 

Thanks Scirocco and 500mph. I'm limited with what I can do because of the amount of green plexi I have left, but I'm planning to:
-Make a custom pump top from 1 1/4" plexi
-re-vamp the faceplate
-mount the aluminum tube reservoir from the other thread
-do the cables right this time
-Possibly make a custom bracket for the Danger Den TDX block
-something super crazy and secret. (because it may not work)

It's pretty much official at this point. Thanks Danger Den!

 

-OK...I got the PSU lowered. Now I have exaust issues. I added a fangrill to that gaping hole in the back too. I can resolve a lot of this with the plexi I'm getting Monday. I plan to remove most of the aluminum brackets in the case and make it all one slab of plastic. I need clever ideas for the rivet holes in the front!

-I have an unused 80mm fan hole in the back panel I need to fill. How about if I use the reject duct from BB? (Oh, HELL no!)

-I think I'll put this in there. It's a 120v AC fan. I can put an on switch on the underside of the case near the front. Now...How do I wire it up? Should I run a separate power cord, or run it through the PSU?

-I had another problem with the new PSU layout. The front is a big intake mesh. The way it's running now, half of the PSU exaust will circulate back into the case. I decided I needed to duct the front out the bottom. (More ducks?) This is the rig I had hoped to use to cut it.

-It MIGHT have worked, but the clear material in this case is polyprophelene. It melts faster than extruded plexi. I totally forgot for some reason.

-I had to go back to this monster. Even then I had to oil the blade to keep the plastic from melting to it.

-I used my stainless steel angle as a file guide.

-I was needing a way to raise the case up, and decided on using these drawer handles...for feet.

-I have a classic fitting issue. This can wait for when the plexi gets here.

-Part of the hardware store raid was to find something to cover the front fan hole with. How about if I did something like this, but with plexi?

-I messed up my shoulder, so I have been working forever on getting the front panel beveled. I forgot to work around the side panel overlaps, so Those will be getting shorter.

Now's a good time for intermission. There's popcorn and drinks in the lobby, or you can take this time to visit our sponsor: Danger Den!

 

Speaking of DangerDen...

-A package came today! In that box was styrofoam peanuts...and a shirt-in-a-bag. This handy little extra will make a nice backdrop. Much better than the quilted beadspread.

-There was other stuff too! Many mysterious boxes and bags...

-The obvious one contained two bottles of Clear UV Feser One Coolant. The reservoir I'm building should hold most of one bottle, so I needed more.

-A sweet Laing DDC pump was in one of the boxes. I have evil plans for this.

-One of the (hard to open and well padded) boxes contained a TDX waterblock with a shiny brass top. The plexi that's coming was for making a coverplate. That will be tougher than I originally thought.

-Another shot trying to not get so much glare from the shiny bits...

-The other similar box contained a Maze5 GPU block, and a LOT of mounting hardware. I'm going to need it. I realized the other day the block was worth more than my hokey video card. I'm looking into what I can upgrade to at the moment.

-Another shot showing the work Danger Den put into the delrin top.

-A pic of the underbelly reaveals...tape? I need to read up on this, Is there thermal paste under the protective tape?

-The last box had a cool blue Black Ice Pro radiator with DD barbs. The blue is a metallic candy, and the brass gives it a slight green tinge at some angles. It's perfect for the case it's going in. I'm glad I went with the blue.

-Here's everything together.

-Here's part of my evil plans. I put this bit of plexi aside so I could make a custom pump top with it some day. (Even though DD now sells plexi tops...) Before I got it in my head to make my own no one in the US had plexi tops in stock.

-The first thing I did was check my layout. The radiator clears the motherboard tray! I'm putting the pump in the unused HD bays. The lines to the reservoir run up either side of the rack.

-I swapped fans again. I needed to work out the length for the mounting screws. Yes, I'm using the log as a notepad.

Thanks again DangerDen!

 

Huh! I forgot some stuff.

-I had one of those crazy thoughts in my head. (I think I can thank L'carrotte d oro for this one.) I chopped up a working 92mm fan.

-I cut out some new fan blades for it out of pvc. Here you can see I made one, and used it as a template for the rest.

-The jig I made to glue this together was made of hot glue. It kept falling apart as I worked.

-The result is a wobbly failure. I need to cut off the blades and try again. The gluing jig was the problem. At least it turns, (at about 200 rpm.)

Thanks Danger Den! and Dan! Everyone go buy DD stuffs!

 

Woo, you've got some great components for your rebuild there. That TDX block looks particularly impressive.

The one thing I love about the 'Toad is the color of the plexi. I think it lends itself well to the handle pulls you've added as feet for the case. Just the arrangement you made for a possible fan grill looks pretty cool. Interested to see what you come up with for that.

Congrats on a great sponsor, Cheapskate!

 

The tape on the Maze4 is just to protect the finish, once you take it off it you'll see how perfect it is
Or at least thats how it was back in the old days when I last used one!

Looking good btw, and congrats on the sponsorship!

 

Thanks!
@Scirocco - It's going to be hard to make anything on the front look good. The handles looked good to me when I planned to keep all the extra aluminum, but now they are sticking out. I'm playing with the idea of painting the reservoir and feet to match the radiator.
@Shadowed fury - I was thinking that too, but there's a hint of a raised square under the tape. I'm thinking they 'Idiot-proofed' the blocks by adding some thermal compound.

 

Need some wiring advice...

I peeked under the tape. It's just a raised area, and dang! is it shiny.


-I need to clean up the plexi scraps before I can use them. Here's a good example of what this stuff looked like when I liberated it.

-I have some extra gear from Danger Den's sponsorship of Bloo. The problem is, I screwed up and dyed all of the hose clamps. I dropped some in some whitener dye to see if I can get them less neon pink.

-I HAD to use Bic pen spacers again. How could I not? I needed to add a little more space to the mounting solution. It was either do that or grind 1/16" off the screws, so I added some foam.

-I have more foam for the radiator. The wires are to hold the gasket in place while mounting.

-Oh D*mn! That's a close fit! The fan is about 1mm from the rad.

-I whipped up a high-tech replica of my motherboard so I could start working out wiring lengths. The first thing I noticed is that I have WAY too much wire on the main plug.
Here's where I need some advice...

OK. I need a 24 pin jack if I plan to update my hardware any. I've been running with only this 20 pin PSU, and I decided to change it to a 24 pin unit. I've seen Hotton do this, but I need to know if I'm going to screw anything up. I got a 24 pin plug from my wire box and went at it. Here you see the before pic: a separate 4-pin ATX plug, a 20-pin ATX plug, and a 6 pin plug.

-First I shortened the 4-pin plug on the donor plug. You can see this unit was partly daisy chained off the 20-pin. I copied that layout.

-Next I started splicing the wires of the new plug to the PSU. I was originally was going to mark everything, but doing one wire at a time was much easier.

-I used the wires from the 6 and 4-pin plugs to finish out the 24 pin. I ended up with 2 spare grounds and one extra 12V wire.

-I figure I can use the extra 12V and ground for LEDs, so I spliced a spare floppy plug to them.
So, will I have any problems with this? I plan to take it to a friend soon. They have a PSU tester I can hook it to.

Thanks again DangerDen!

 

Cheaps,
I looked inside a couple of my PSUs and the yellow and black wires that are on the separate P4 plug come from the same place as the 20 pin internally. It seems all the yellows come from one spot and the blacks from 2 or 3 ground locations. Should work as you did it. I was going to suggest the black and yellow from an unused IDE - your way is shorter and should sleeve up nicely.
John

 

That's what I was thinking, but I'd like to have more than one person say it's not going to blow up my board before I plug it in to a working system. I'm not used to how little feedback this log is getting yet. -and why can't I get it move to the project logs? I could royally screw up and no one would be here to warn me.
I need to break down and get an ATX molex pin remover. Using 2 needles is a pain in the butt.
After this soldering session my sink looked like someone snuck crayons into the bulemia ward.

 

I've been shopping again. It seems like I get spendy in April.

 

Me too! I got a birthday present yesterday from President Bush. He sent me MONEY !
John

 

The raised square on the gpu block is just the bit that makes contact with the core. They're pro's, they know no one wants pre-applied paste! And the case is looking fantastic, keep it up!

RwD

 

What did you do with those Dell server parts? OMG, I need a server (for an unnamed MMO project I shouldn't be doing) and those parts, while proprietary, in the right case, with some water....

 

Cheaps,
This is one of my carputer power supplies:


The green board is the dc-dc part and you can see they way they wired for the floppie(?) and a 4 pin molex. They left out some of the motherboard pins - probably extra grounds and voltages the mini-itx didn't need. Unless your April shopping was for PSU, I still think your original idea will work.
John

 

Thanks RinSewand. I know about the block now, I peeked. I was looking to see what I was up against if I bought a newer video card.
@KayinBlack - Sorry, That stuff is mostly gone and in a million pieces. It was in bad shape to begin with too. I was parting it out for someone who needed the spare power supplies and a few bits they forgot to pull. -besides, the parts were VERY proprietary. The board mount and I/O area were non-standard, The control module was a mess... And the flimsy sheet metal! We had 10 of them. Those were the reject bits.
@John - Technically, that was also from me. Happy Birthday! Enjoy Your TrickyDick Funbucks. That plug goes against everything I've ever seen in a PSU. Obviously the mini boards route power a little differently.

 

Oh well, however, the progress is great!