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

So did you get the Aquaero for $101?

 

Nope, that was someone else. I wouldn't have paid that much for a used old-gen one that wasn't even in the color I want. I see he's listed another and I may and try getting in on that one, but I'm more interested in the evo360.

I really need to get around to posting that update.. I actually did a pretty good amount of stuff this time around. I'll get there eventually I suppose.

 

I kind of feel sorry for whoever shelled out that kind of money when they find out what they really got and how much it is going to cost to get it fixed right. I bid on the new one, but what I bid is my top price so it either wins or it doesn't. I wonder if all those people who got screwed by SNT Systems are getting paid back now as he sure seems to have a lot of AC stuff for sale. Just so you know the last Evo 240 or 360? sold for pretty close to retail IIRC so don't look for any real deals.

 

I thought I'd just look into it. I don't have a huge need right now, but it would be cheaper than a reserator, and I'd sort of like that or something similar for a media center (including a passive 360). I wouldn't pay more than it would cost me to get a quiet air cooler for the thing's CPU and GPU though.

 

Oct 18, 2005

Well, many a post later it's time for another update. Lots of fun this time around. I finally did that damned interior carbon fibre vinyl! But more on that in a second. 32 pix0rz for your viewing pleasure.


Full frontal shot.


Interior I started with.


Taped off the fittings so metal shavings didn't get in the line.


Well, not back there. I did even out those fans before you ask.


Top blowhole. Purdy.


It's still there. We all know how dremel work is done by now, so it went from solid to mounted in the pics. Wasn't that simple firsthand unfortunately. 2mm thick solid Al isn't particularly fun to dremel out (at least the front was that perforated stuff)


Mounted in a Vantec Stealth 120mm. May do something about that label and wires, not sure what though.


That thing provides two functions - fingerproofing the fan and directing the airflow away from the wall, thus reducing noise. Not that it matters with my new z5500 sub pounding away and giving me a massage from the bass.


SilenX rear fans. Very quiet. Not too pretty. If nothing else, I'll never see them back there.


YES! I finally did it. Left that rightmost "fold" un-vinyled, I think it keeps it from becoming a bit too much, even monotonous. And it would have been a pain to get drives in and out with the vinyl folding back in.


Cut out some screw holes. Still not sure if I'll leave it as-is or cut all of them out. In any case, I like the look, much better than scratched up fingerprinted aluminum. Wait, don't look on the right yet...


Yep, did the mobo tray too, to an extent. Just enough to go under the motherboard a bit, no sense in wasting the vinyl as it's not too cheap. I thought this up a while ago but never posted the idea, but when modsquad suggested it as well that confirmed it as being a good idea. I like it MUCH more than the acrylic.


Snagged this idea from Top Nurse. A bit of vibration-reduction, and breaks up the too-much-aluminum look as well. Fitting it was a bit tricky, it doesn't like 90* bends.


SATA data cables. And the front rad. Anyways, zpitied in place for organization. I don't really mind the red (though they look positively pink in the picture), again it keeps it from being too dark. However I need them neat, and they are pretty organized. Naturally they're a bit better when all three drives are in place.


Random interior shot. Not a whole lot in there... don't ask about the CD bezel, I have no idea.


The res fittings. Dual aquajets included. The right-angles on the side are downtubes, the bottom ones are the dual inlets. LED cap in the middle for best lighting. Chances are if I ever get a BSPP tap I'll add two more holes in the bottom and use some straight fittings there for downtubes instead, though flow rates seem fine using a test PSU.


Yeah, I need LEDs for that thing.


Tubing to the pump. Sort of. That's the general idea anyways.


Mmmm... mobo goodness. Looks a lot nicer. That copper IDE cable looks better in the pic, it's kinda hazy in real life. I plan to get a pair of nicer ones with clearer sheathing, but it matches that Twinplex nicely. Yes that top wiring is a bit messy but it's fairly organized.


The vitals. I still wanna get that 2GB kit. But I just ordered a 2005FPW 20" Widescreen Dell LCD at an AWESOME sale price ($396 shipped, from $699 plus S/H). I think the offer is good till this coming Thursday if anyone's interested. Can't go wrong with something like 45% off. Anyways, that put off the ram for a while. 12 hours a week at minimum wage doesn't go too far unfortunately.


The upper area, void of sound card for some reason. It's normally the Chaintech AV710, though I'm hoping to pick up one of the X-Mystique cards as it does on-the-fly Dolby Digital encoding (a la Soundstorm). Again, a cash issue. Don't ask about the pink sleeving, I got it used and it came that way.


See? Neat SATA cabling. Just barely visiable at a "normal" angle. The IDE cable isn't bad either; again with the contrasting bit.


Card reader stuck in place, sort of. I moved it to the top later.


Hmm... well it's an unseen area anyways. Unfortunately without custom-length SATA cables I can't get it too much better, and that odd worm-scrunch effect was the best way to get the lengths right at the mobo/drive side where I actually WOULD see the cables.

More on next post, too many pics I guess.

 

Oct 18, 2005 Cont'd


PSU cables put back in place. Except for that white ziptie (I can't find my black ones... go figure) it's not very obtrusive [Mr Burns]Excellent...[/Mr Burns]


Redid the bulkhead plate. Only needed four with the new layout.


Tubing starting to go in. The Mazzer stuff that Sharka sells is a bit harder to push into the fittings IMO, though has a better bend radius. I had to use a nerve-wracking amount of pressure on the Chipset one; luckily silicon does NOT crack easily in my experience. Upon second thought I should have taken the block or at least acrylic top off first, but oh well. I'll see if it survived.


<insert Mario-type completion noise here> Plumbing complete! A bit crazy but it's probably the safest way to do it.


Bottom section. THAT's how the pumps are plumbed in. Now a straight inlet and right-angle outlet instead of the reverse I had before. Should put a bit less stress on the pumps. Both of which are CSP-750's again, as my MAG is somewhere in Canada for repair.


And the top. CPU has it's own loop, the chipset follows the 6800GT. I'd like to upgrade to a 7800GT, but I'll see how FEAR and Q4 treat me first before I worry. I need to unload some stuff on eBay first anyways, for the cash and space (anyone need my other 6800GT? back fresh from an RMA, new in box)


Overall.


Oooh, pretty. As one aquajet is bored out and the other isn't, it's a lobsided effect. The unbored one has higher pressure from the small outlet but the opened-up one probably has slightly higher flow. I'll probably end up with two stock ones again; it seems a bit wierd as-is. A flash shot (or any picture vs video) doesn't show it at all.

That's all for now. Lots of text, feel free to ignore, which you'd have done by now already.

 

New update, as I FINALLY did that carbon fibre work! And a bit more too. Discuss away if you please.

 

Looks great! Can't say much more than that cos its true.
Love what you, Top Nurse and Modsquad have done to these, true brilliance

 

You can get BSPP taps from McMaster-Carr and I think they are about $25 IIRC. Not too bad a price for a big tap like that.

That molding on the PSU plate is difficult to go around the bend. Maybe I forgot to mention that I used superglue to hold it down. I put it on the plate first and then I started at one side and did it a little bit at a time so that it looked like it should.

BTW, I must have missed that front panel grill. Absolutely great

 

So what effect did you get by boring out the Aquajet? How much increased flow?

 

For the PSU molding, I actually cut out a tiny bit on the underside so it could make it around the corner. Similar to how that white anti-sharp-edge trim stuff that LL lines a few holes with is.

Boring out the Aquajet... hard to say TBH. Not having a flow meter I really have no way to even make a decent guess, maybe 20%? The way it's designed I lost a lot of pressure that's generated so the spray doesn't seem as powerful.

Thanks for the grill praise. I'm really happy with how it turned out, and it just happened to JUST clear the HDD light which I was somewhat afraid I might lose. Actually it went in surprisingly easy; the hardest part was deciding which holes needed to be "bored out"; it was just lining it up from there. Much easier than the top one, because I neither had the "perforated" material to cut through (hot knife through butter compared to the solid top) or those holes to help line up the cut. It seems like the top one ended up about half a millimeter off-center... not so much that it shows up in pictures but just enough that I can notice it. Oh well... right now that area is under my keyboard tray, as I reorganized my room a bit (again!) since my new 2005FPW came in. The initial hugeness shock went away somewhat till I stuck my old 15" LCD next to it... that thing just looks pathetic now. And I happened to find a site that's well-stocked in 1680x1050 wallpapers (what the 20" WS uses) and have them rotating at 15-minute intervals. Only annoying thing is that I don't own an actual DVD player and my software always seems to hate me... shame as it has four inputs and one of them is S-video (perhaps I can find an RGB/component adaptor somewhere... even better)

 

I have been hesitate to post.. Very clean cut for the front-mount Aqua-Computer 120mm radiator grill...BUt, I am not sure I like the look..There is no question the LL v-series case is a "take off" on Apples PowerMac G5.. the case is smooth-understated-perforated-perfectly..

The APE 120mm grill radically changes the "look". IMO the AC APE 120 grill would look better painted a satin-black. That or go with more stainless steel throughout the 5.25" bay-area to "tie" it together..

 

That was actually sometihng I was going for - the mesh everywhere just seemed like too much to me. The way it's done now gives the mesh around the 5.25" bays and continues those "side strips" along the sides of the grill. Before, it was just mesh-mesh-everywhere. With just seeing the front it does indeed seem a tad out of place (though it matches the vandal-resistant switch very nicely imo), but considering the stainless steel buttonheads around the handle, then the top-back blowhole and aquatube mount, it matches nicely and stands out a bit from the black.

I suppose I see it as a subtle flashiness of sorts. Not in-your-face blinking lights that I used to love when I first started modding, but still something that attracts your eyes without causing blindness or triggering seizures.

Maybe it's because it's the first part of the case that really seemed to come out perfectly the first time around, but it just seems natural there. Probably even more likely because my bottom three drive bays don't have blank bezels, so my seating position lets me stare at that aluminum seperator plate.

I'm thinking I will add in more SS somewhere along the front. I'm not sure where or how, probably not something big like the grill. Right now I've got the bottom three drive bays to kill. For half a second just now I thought about making an arrangement of m3 buttonheads to put an AC logo or something, but that definately would be too... I'll say gaudy but it's not quite the word I want. Just three plain filler plates would indeed look strange just above that. I don't have any intentions of painting it or someting like that.

MAYBE I can convince the guys at AC to sell me one of the Aquabay CF drive bay things sans display (as I have a display) - it seems like it would serve the purpose of adding some oh-so-lovely stainless steel to balance things in the front a bit (and maybe an Aquaero in the top bay and not getting a black faceplate... never even considered that till now) and the bonus of more info. Maybe the Crystalfontz doing hardware temps and the Aquareo handling case and water temps and fan stuff.

And OF COURSE, Aqua Computer goes and makes a mosfet cooler for my motherboard... I'll probably have to add that to "the list". And to think I was about done buying AC gear for Frozenfire. Oh well.

 

If that was what you where going for..You got it. IT POPS..It is IN YOUR FACE..
I would still "tone it down". I would airbrush the grill black then add the "perforated" pattern on that AC APE120 grill, that would look cool..
Aqua-Computer does sell the CF 5.25" SS front panels..In fact I have a few on order with the Shark..BUT they are becoming the new SNT..Two months and not a word (the only difference--a big--one.. I have not paid for the stuff )..Bottom line: 5-6 months ago the Shark was just that..Today the Shark is a guppy and It's still all but imposible to get what you what in the way of AC gear in the States...BUT, perhaps that is the allure of AC..It's human nature to want what you can't have..

 

Yep the Aquabay CF is the ticket. The plate fits on the standard Aquabay. Didn't you hear that Dan just bought an interest in Sharka. So what do you have on backorder?

I just got tired of all the BS and ordered direct from IT-Trade. He takes Western Union, PayPal, and bank transfers so there are plenty of ways to pay. Has no problems ordering non-stock stuff and knows the product line unlike other distributors.

I have a Multiswitch LT, 4 Tubemeters, 3 TwinPlex Pro's, 2 TwinPlex Pro SLI Typ 1's, a Ramplex, and some miscellaneous stuff shipping out of Austria Monday morning. Some it is for R1ckCain as well. It is also slow with Franz, but he is usually able to ship within 7 days for stuff he doesn't have in stock. Also if you tell him you are a [H]ardForum member he will give you an additional 5% off the product pricing for orders over $300 USD.

 

Yeah, delays, delays! What's the deal?? I really can't understand this; and it's something I need to as I'm still hoping to open a business around it. But two companies that have followed exactly the same pattern definately is not a good sign, especially seeing that one already had a lot of experience with international importing and whatnot.

Anyways, I emailed Franz about the Aquabay CF, it's definately not a standard thing alone as it usually includes the display, but he said it's possible. And that accursed mosfet cooler that they had to make before I order anything... something else to buy The slightly better news is I've got prospective buyers for a few items I've got for sale, so if those go through some costs should be covered. At some point I'll probably get around to ebaying stuff I don't need anymore, but laziness keeps kicking in

 

IT-Trade doesn't have the same problems Sharka does. SNT and Sharka have similar problems. Now is the time to start an AC biz if your going to do it. The conditions couldn't be better now and I can help you make it happen. I figure you could get your feet wet for $5-7K in initial inventory and have another $5K in cash reserves to meet any unforseen costs. Your communication skills have to be better than Sharka's.

 

Your poster is on it's way from Austria today. Congrats for becoming an Eagle Scout and belated B-Day present. I had it come here first as the shipping was outrageous for such a little package. So expect it before Thanksgiving break.

 

Thanks a ton

With some luck I can sell off some of my old stuff I'm no longer using and pick up some more stainless steel goodies... the more I look at it, the more necessary they seem.

Now I'm sure yourself or modsquad would probably know this, but can I control lighting with an Aquaero, or really just fans (unless I wired the lighting stuff to a 12v fan header)? I definately see it as a "cool gadget" which will definately add some visual flair, and it sounds very multipurpose, but $170 or so for fan control and temperature monitoring is a bit pricy. Can I test out the Aquasuite software without having an AqE attached, just to get an idea of what it's capable of?

I'm glad to hear what is becoming a more reasonable (to me) outlook on what startup costs could be. I had originally figured in the $15-20k range, more thinking brought that to $30k+. I think what would primarily be the problem at this point is that I don't have the slightest clue what sales are looking like for various items, and how it would pan-out in the long run (something my dad in particular is quite concerned about).

 

At the current PayPal exchange rate of .80808 the Multiswitch ran $63.91 USD from Franz. A VFD Aquaero would run about $163 and the OLE version would be about $147. These are retail prices. In contrast Sharka charges $279 for a VFD Aquaero.

The reason I said the 5-7K for inventory is that will get your feet wet. As your sales ramp up you just keep plowing the money back in to the business and your inventory will grow up to the 10-20K range in less than a year. The reason SNT went belly up was because they didn't put the money back into the business and spent the profits before they completed the sale IMHO. Plan on working for free for the first year and get yourself a part-time job while your biz grows.

Long term viability is as fickle as the market. However, AC makes a very wide range of products that no one else makes so I don't see them losing market share any time soon. Just buy smart and sell smart and you will do better than Sharka.

I would say that current sales in the USA is about 5-10K a month. This accounts for all the AC coming to the USA from a variety of sources. Your job would be to convince all the people to buy from you that are currently buying off-shore and take some or all of Sharka's biz at the same time. I think you can do it as some of us have thought the same thing, but are too occupied with our own endeavours to do a start-up.

Forgot to mention to go get Quick Books.