Case Mod - In Progress Project Arc - Finally! Watercooling installed 29-07-2015

Thanks Razbit, my current thinking is to do these kinds of splits on the PSU side to keep the Mobo side as clean as possible...But I'll have to see how I fare...

Anyway, did a small bit of prepping again to see what kind of pattern I would make color wise

Some examples:











They are not very original I know, but they seem to work! My favorite at the moment is nr 2...but that might change over night

 

You're welcome!

About the wires been twisted round each other: if it's only one pair of all the wires, I'd say it might be the same thing as for TP networking cables (a some sort of anti-ripple/interference system). It depends on which wires they are.

my psu (Silverstone strider gold) had huge ferrite "donuts"around each cable with 2200uf caps (pcie atleast).

I'd leave them twisted if it's okay with your sleeving, or take them off. Go with nbr 2, that's the best


Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

 

i agree with you here ! NR. 2 is my favorite too

 

Love your work. Subbed

 

How about something like this, G for grey, R for red:

G|G|G|G|G|G|G|G|R|G|R|G

Hope you can understand that.

 

Actually liking the asymmetry....have to think about that one Thanks!

 

good to see it works, just an idea in my head

 

Excellent job so far Azariel. Keep it up

 

Thanks again for the idea, liking it a lot, so will actually use it!

Thanks man!

And a few steps taken again!

Someone asked before how wire routing would be done, so here are the first steps for that! Completely forgot to take images, so only the end result will be shown

One hole near the PSU will serve to route all power wires to the back. Next to that a hole has been added for the 24 pin which should be at the same height as the connector on the board to get a nice horizontal connection





These holes will in the end not be visible as the PSU hole will be covered with a larger element (not made yet) and the 24 pin will be hidden behind a curved piece of Alu (painted black) to get a bit of the round curves from the outside back into the case







A similar construction will (most likely) be used for the SATA cables. Not sure yet how I will route the PCI-e wires....will have to think about that a bit more...

Anyway, next to this I also started with the sleeving of the 24pin, so just a small update of that!



Nice and snug into the connector!



And finally, as some of the wires in the 24 pin were double wires I was thinking about how to solve it on the PSU side. I initially planned to split the sleeving half way into two seperate wires again, but in the end decided against that plan as it would become even messier behind the mobo.
My current solution is just sleeve it almost all the way up to the connector and just use a heatshrink to end the sleeving. That gives enough space to put the wires in their connectors and still gives a nice and clean finish (my opinion atleast)



Thanks for watching, and any comments, remarks or ideas are more than welcome!

 

Didn't really expect to have it done today, but here is the fruit of todays labor! (and burnt fingertips)

 

Looking good dude, I look forward to seeing it routed through the build. I'm guessing you're going for a nice neat management solution instad of leaving it twisted like spaghetti ?

 

^this^

 

I like spagetti!

But yeah, will try to make a neat and tidy solution at the back. Most likely will create some brackets to use as guides but also to keep em somewhat flat and organized

Nasty thing is though that Corsair didn't really make a logical choice (atleast from my point of view) in the distribution of the wires between the two connectors on PSU side. I mean it would make sense that for example the first 12 wires would go to the first connector and the other 12 to the second or something which would mean a nice split. However, this is not the case and all wires run rather crisscross to the both connectors. Will have to see if I can make some sense out of it as for now I just plugged and unplugged the wires for sleeving

 

Cable sleeve/braid looks awesome, I'm still a slave to ugly heat shrink... love the DIY alu bending tool... again awesome!!

 

The printed mobo photo made me chuckle for some reason

 

Hehe, I can imagine! Does work wonders though to get an idea of scale and connector positions etc

Maybe I should also make a cardboard GPU to go with it!

Still don't know what GPU to go for though so hard to make the right size! Would like to go for a GTX760 card but some of my preferred manufacturers do not use reference PCB's and as a result no standard waterblock yet from (for example) EKWB!

The horror! The drama! *sighs*

If anybody from EKWB is reading this, would love to know if they have plans to make any other waterblocks for non-reference PCB GTX760's...

 

Log 12

And here's another small update!

Didn't quite like my initial solution using the bent pieces of aluminium to cover the hole leading to the back of the MoBo. Yes the curve matches the front of the case, but it just seemed a bit random and making the inside look more cluttered.

So, while browsing today I stumbled upon the IceBlue project which uses a plexi panel to cover the area where all the cables would come from the back of the MoBo. I thought this was quite a good idea, as the benefits are quite clear. You get one solution to cover all connectors (24pin, SATA, PCI-e, USB3.0 etc) it stays in line with the already present panels and does not add another geometry to the inside.

Anyway, I decided to just give it a go to see how it would look So out came the plexi, hacksaw and files and this is the end-result!

Mind that the protecting sticker is still on the back of the part, so thats the white stuff you see around the edge







It will of course still need some refinement (as all parts do) including a nice layer of paint, but overall I'm more happy with it than the previous solution!

Happy to hear your thoughts!

 

Bah, just got a response from EKWB that they will not make new full cover blocks for the GTX760 so only blocks they already had for the 6xx series which happen to fit will be an option...

Sorry mr ASUS & MSI....will have to look for a different GPU...

 

Should be good

 

Log 13

So, as shown in the previous update, I decided on a new 'cover' for the motherboard connectors. Next to the cover itself, however, this required a bit of extra work!

Overall shot of the work.
1. Increase the size of the hole to allow for connectors
2. Create brackets to serve as stand-offs for the cover
3. Add the necessary mounting holes etc to the cover.



So first the brackets! I initially made 2 small stand-offs using a 10x10mm plexi rod (so 1 for the top and one on the bottom). However, as the connectors might put some force on the cover these would serve as a hinge which would either result in a warped cover or a broken connection between cover and rods. So I decided to 'design' a few brackets for it!

After cutting and filing the trusty bending brake did a very nice job at bending these for me



Next was creating mounting holes, countersinking them to get a nice and flush finish.



Now you might think one of the brackets is facing the wrong way, but it was intended this way I considered the viewing angles and decided that it would be least visible using this orientation.



And finally a (crappy) shot of the cover mounted (just couldn't get the right light setting *sigh*). It appears as if the brackets are visible through the cover...and they actually are However, after painting this should no longer be the case. Of course the brackets itself will also be in the same matte-black as all other components.



Just to round up, also a bit more sleeving work was done on the (shortened) CPU 8pin cable.



As always, thanks for watching, reading and commenting!!