Project: FrozenFire (OMG Update Jan 12 06, Aquaero VFD!)

Because I can actually stand to read Project Logs rather than going through 40 pages of comments, I can actually look at and comment on things .

Gotta say, this is one of the sleekest mods I've seen in awhile. Rather than lots of lights, lots of shiny, lots of gizmos, you've kept this lean and mean. Only what's necessary, not done much to the outside. However, the little things like the carbon fiber, the way you've routed the water lines, and the Aquatube really make this one shine. Keep up the good work

 

Thanks a lot for the kind words The rest (last??) of my AC goods for this project should be coming in tomorrow. Of course my 18th bday gets to consist of waking up early for a before-school meeting, a lovely full day, and then being home for about twenty minutes before I get to head off for work for another six hours. Oh well, I have every other day off from school this semester, so there will be more time to mod. I really should get around to doing the carbon fiber on the other parts I was going to. I keep messing around with the internals so I keep changing my mind on what I would do anyways.

In slightly more fun news than a less-than-fun-packed birthday, I got a set of z5500's. OMG the power! The control pod is about as big as my old sub... and the new sub - unbelievably huge - could fit probably two full sets of my old speakers inside it, and each satellite (62w corners, 69w center) has as much power as the entire set I was using including the sub.

 

Good idea, perhaps I will. Best of luck in the ACRyan contest..

 

On an off-topic note, happy birthday Firehed

 

Sep 27, 2005

Well, Sharka parts came in yesterday. And I recieved a very hefty set of speakers for my 18th birthday - the Logitech z5500's. More on those puppies in a sec, I'll get some pics for you first.



Fittings and tubing. I may not need the L fittings. The T's are for drain points. The screw-in elbows are for a bunch of things. If you can't figure out the Aquajet and tubing, please leave now




A pair of APE120 grills. Pricy but very good quality. Considering how much stuff I got, you think it would have cost less than some 130-odd dollars. Oh well. My vague fan mounting idea is now revealed, to a degree. I've never seen one of the APE120 grills put in that front area, you can see how I used some scotch tape to mark off where I want it. The other will go in the top-rear area, behind the aquatube mount.


z-5500 Sub and control pod. The thing's F'ing big!


You can see how big the control pod is; not small by any means. Very high quality - the blue power light isn't intrusive and the display has an excellent viewing angle and isn't overly bright or dim.


Yeah, it's that big. My old subwoofer had a 4" driver. These satellites are about 2.5". Each satellite, 62w corners (69w center), has more power than my entire old system.



The grills on or off. I like the off look better, but have a feeling I'll damage them somehow if I leave them off.


Where I've stuck stuff for now. Do ignore the mess on the desk; it had to go somewhere when it came off the floor!


Old sub, new rear right speaker, old dell craptastic speaker. Ignore the notebook... I needed something for a speaker stand for the moment until I can wall-mount them (just rotate the feet!).

A word on the power of these things: Damn! Reference loudness: old speakers at ~3/4 volume was about as loud being in the room as these at 1/2 volume from the floor below. I can clearly hear them in the basement at half volume, and my room is on the second floor. At that half volume, it's at least twice as loud as my dad's Civic's stereo at about 3/4 volume, but without the massive treble distortion. 10-15% volume is plenty for everyday listening and even a bit on the loud side for gaming. These could easily have the power for an auditorium or something that could need a ton of volume. Not to mention, seven different inputs (digital opt., digital coax, 6-ch OR 3x 2ch, 2ch line-in for an iPod or wahtever) and a nice wireless remote, with quality probably rivalling low-end Hi-fi (as I haven't compared it with an expensive hi-fi set, can't say, but for under $300, they're better than perfect). Do get a set!

Anyways, modding to occur this afternoon and the rest of the week I think. No idea how long it'll take but there should be another update with things installed by the weekend.

 

Hey happy birthday When you get older you don't want to talk about it anymore.

Those metal fittings really add up don't they?

 

Thanks a lot for the bday greetings guys and girls

Yeah, those metal fittings are PRICY!

But, it's all for a good cause, so no major harm done.

Anyways last night I did a bit of modding, nowhere near done for this stuff. Mounted the pumps in their "final" location, but I'm in economics class right now using a keyboard that really sucks so I can't take any pics right now. Hopefully I'll get one or both of the APE120 grills mounted tonight or tomorrow (no classes tomorrow).

Also, I got in touch with C-systems, so I'll get the mag sent back today for repair. Need to steal the 750 from that silver media center box in the meantime, which is a mess; oh well. These things are all coming together though, which is also nice.

 

Sep 29, 2005

Ok, a farking lot of work, so a farking lot of pics! 38 in this one
Sorry Photobucket!
(I've chewed through about three gigs of their bandwidth in two days or so)


Anyways, parts came, work got done. Having tomorrow off from school will result in even more fun. Plus I have my Eagle Scout Board of Review tomorrow; wish me luck!


"Final" resting place of the pumps. Note how the right-angle is now on the OUTLET, rather than the INLET. Should be less stressful on the pump.


Lots of metal on the Aquatube. The bottom stuff are the inlets and go to dual aquajets, the side things are the downtubes to the pumps. I've relocated the LED cap to bottom center. I'd like to add in a couple G1/4 or G1/8 holes on the bottom for the downtubes instead, but the site where I was going to get my taps is probably underwater or something, and I'm not sure where else I can get those taps at a reasonable price.


Tubing going to the pump's inlet. There will be two. One pump, the CSP-MAG, is back on it's way to Canada for repair/relacement. The second 750, which I started the project with, is in the computer I'm using at the minute, and I can't be bothered to take it apart yet.


Where the front rad will be and how. Sort of.


Back restrictions. EVIL!


Where the top fan grill will go, more or less. Pardon the crap on the floor, it was clean till my stuff came in. Curse you Sharka for messing up my room!


Dual Aquajettage! Note the bored-out one. I'm not sure if I'll do the other, or perhaps replace the first one with a stock one. Depends on what flow looks like and what the effect is.


More of the top.


Uhh, yeah, another rad shot. I just upload everything new on my camera (after using MS's nifty mass-resize powertoy) and tend to forget what I've taken a pic of alredy.


On the workbench. Oh gee, it's been so long since the case has been that empty. Brings back memories. Unfortunately those memories contain anodized mucus as I hadn't bought my respirator yet. I suggest everyone gets one!


And the front. No secret where the grill will go now.


Stock-ish place. Where it'll all be.


Another pump shot...? I need to pay more attention.


A vague idea of how the fan will end up. Very vague, as that mount won't be there.


Moderately less vague, except it would be intake.


Hmm... I think this illustrates "dead spot" quite clearly. Now I see why people loves shrouds so much.


More restriction. Bad. Goodbye!


What your hand looks like after lots of dremeling. Thanks to Mr. Respirator, I didn't inhale any of that!


Cutting commenced.


It even goes all the way through. Makes getting out what I'm trying to get out that much easier

OMG, two post-er due to pix overload. Not my first either, a scary thought.

 

Sep 29, 2005 Cont'd
Well, I guess the other was Sep 28 and this is a midnight-even post. Oh well. Get over it.


I just really noticed how frickin' big this case is when I laid it down on it's side desktop style. Yeah, really frickin' big.


Airflow restriction begone!


Yep, it's definately not there anymore.


Random, but I picked that kit up for about $20 a while back. Worth considerably more, considering the ten reinforced cutoff disks it has are about $12 on their own. Plus a hole cutter, très useful.


Makeshift, but that's where to cut.


And cut I did! I really should have taken that fan out first. Oh well.


Full frontal shot Yep, blue tape is the condom of modding - it prevents unwanted side-effects.


That's how it'll be. Just kinda sitting there right now.


Sitting there with a bit less glare this time.


Fan sorta bolted in. Yes, it sits slightly behind the aluminum. No, gaps aren't good for rad fans. Yes, I have a fix for that.


But first I decided I should screw the grill into place after drilling the mounting holes. It was a good idea.


Yes, it's still screwed in. I just took two pictures!


And the fan/rad setup kinda sitting there. Room to get a nut in for the screw, as I can't find M3x40 or so buttonheads, was nonexistant. Almost drove me nuts till I remembered a tool not often used for modding: needlenose pliers.


Yes, that old shroud! The 1/4" acrylic one! Yes, it's back! That's how I filled the gap. Time to subtly plug www.cuttingedgecasemods.com again, as they most kindly provided the acrylic free of charge.


It's in! YES!


And mounted, backside.


One of those damned nuts that was so hard to get on the screw. Having to use an allen wrench instead of a screwdriver doesn't make it any easier.

I realized I totally forgot a full frontal shot with the grill mounted, but you get the idea for now. I have another to mount, and cutting through solid alumin(i)um this time instead of the perforated stuff will be even more fun.

Hope you all enjoyed the update more than I enjoyed typing it. This keyboard *really* sucks. I mean, it's pre-PS/2. I need a wrist massage now...

Props to Top Nurse also, who, aside from seeming to smooth the process of getting AC gear in the states again, came up with a good idea for some molding on the PSU mount for noise reduction. And the Cuplex XT that I got a good price on, not that it was at all related to this update. I'll probably give that a try. And to modsquad, for providing inspiration to so many parts of this project. And really everyone else at Bit, for all their ideas. And my cell phone, which doubling as a calculator helped me remember my PIN# so I could pick up some stuff at bestbuy today with my new debit card that I have no use for until I get stuff up and running again. I won't do too many props yet, though, I'm not done!

Till next time (maybe as early as tomorrow, probably the weekend),
Firehed

 

New update Sep 29, 2005. Lots of dremel work... back to some "real" modding, not just replumbing my watercooling. Tons of new pics and even more to come shortly. Sneak-peek in first post, or just download some 30MB of images so you can get to the bottom of the second page of the piclog thread.

 

Nice work, do you have any plans on adding another fan to the back of the radiator? The push, pull config should minimise the dead spot

 

nice workon the rad...I knew that plexi shroud would be back someday

 

I certainly wouldn't mind, but the AC rads are only tapped on one side so adding a second fan wouldn't be easy. Not to mention considering it took a good twenty minutes just to get a few screws in because it was so tight, I'm not really in the mood to take it off again just to come up with a method that may not work at all.

I was really just taking that pic to show why people use shrouds anways, not that I was annoyed at it. The thing with AC multi-pass type rads are that dead spots aren't as harmful as a single/double-pass rad (black ice, heatercore, etc) and they're designed to be effective in a passive setup as well.

 

Wow, that front grill looks great. I wasn't sure if you'd pull it off, but it does look really good.
Keep it up!

 

hmm.. looking through the project logs, i noticed that I had somehow gained 5-stars and there were a distinct lack of other deserving 5-star projects... so I had to go and add 5-stars to your project log Firehed as I feel it is probably much more deserved than mine!

Keep the updates coming!

 

Well, thanks guys, I appreciate the kind words. Didn't end up doing any work today as I overslept by about four hours ( ) then had my Eagle Scout board of review tonight... I passed!

Anyways, I'll probably be mounting the other grill tomorrow or sometime this weekend, depends by how much my time management skills fail me. From there, that should be about the last of the dremel-work, unless the lighting works out differently than I expect (and I have NO idea what my final lighting plans are as of now). It might just end up being something nice and simple like a couple CCFLs.

 

massive update..
Still reading and looking...I like what I see.

 

Heh, and hopefully I'll have another today.

 

So how did you like that Mazzer tubing?

 

Well, I haven't actually plumbed anything yet so I can't say for sure. But it does seem to have a slightly better bend radius than whatever the other black stuff was, but the curve of just putting it in the box seems to have pinched it a bit (not so that it's at all kinked, but slightly oval-ish which I'd think would reduce capacity and flowrates a tad).

I am about ready to put up another update as well. It took me too long, but I worked on more than just a fan grill. Stole my second CSP750-II back from my media center box which is just aircooled at the minute (more than enough, and with auto speed control not a whole lot louder because the northbridge fan is annoying as ever) so I have both pumps in place. I FINALLY did some more Carbon Fibre work, did the top blowhole over the card area and neatened up the wiring a bit (not that much is in there right now...), so you should see some decent progress once I get unlazy with picture-taking.