Case Mod - In Progress Project: Shrink - Night photos added!

Right, I got a rough idea, well a pretty defintie idea on where I'm going to route the w/c tubes.

I also started more sleeving..but I ran out, so more's ordered. But here's some pictues showing it's current state:



And some outside shots









Hopefully I should purchaaayse my motherboard mid-week and get that plugged in.

Hope y'all like it so far.

 

Its going to be a shame when you slide a psu in there and cover up all that loop goodness

Awesome though i want moar!

 

Yeah, that what I'm not looking forward to, my beautiful loop being covered up by a PSU...

But it needs to be done. One thing I was worried about was the tube size looking too thick, but I think it looks just right in there

 

SUBBED!

 

those white tubes are sexy as hell !

 

Like the modding idea, and love the case, been keeping an eye on it for a while.

Can you get a a Mini-ITX board in there with the PSU mounted about the board (mobo width + psu height (170mm + 85mm)) According to the dimensions i should be able to and still ahve a fair bit of clearance, but im fairly skeptical.

Keep up the good work.

 

Thanks man, I was going to go with some clear tubing, but I put the white it, in just looked too damn good.

I'm not sure how you mean mate? There's not a hope in hell you'll fit a PSU above the board, unless you go for one of the PSUs found in old Shuttle PC's.. The long thin ones. If you mean rotating the PSU 90* so it's the same as a normal PSU, you may be able to, but what you've got to take into consideration is the fact that pretty much whatever mobo you place in there will protrude above the I/O sheild hieght.

 

Sorry, should have clarified a bit better (down sides of posting at work).

If you move the motherboard down so it covers the 2 expansions slots (therefore restricting yourself to a single slot config) would you have enough room above to mount a PSU (largest surface facing up or down)

According to the Dimensions the case has a height of 272mm
The height (shortest side) of a Seasonic S12 Modular PSU has a height of 86mm
Combined with the dimensions of a mini-itx board 170mmx170mm (170mm height)
You should have 16mm clearance)

I personally cant see it from the pics, but im curious if you could squeeze it in above.

 

Unfortunately, while your math is correct, it simply won't work.

Just thought about it myself. You need to take into account the curved edges of the case, which take about 2cm off what you have already, plus for some reason it just looks like it pysically wouldn't fit.

If you wanted to use a DVD drive as well, you're in for a hole load of ballache.

Here's a pic to try and show you how it would either, A) Not work or, B) Be VERY close..



Looks like my leg is bending at a really weird angle...

 

I did think whilst looking at the pictures (yours and lian-li's) i was worried that whilst my math was correct, the images didnt fill me with much confidence.

I would mount the PSU in the same way it is in the new Sugo to help with the depth and also for cable management.

Optical drive isnt an issue as i dont use one, and if i did i would slimline it.

My plan was:
Mount PSU sideways on shortest edge at top rear of the case.
Move mobo down (restrict to 1 slot config)
Replace 140mm fan with 180/200/220mm fan
Mount second duplicate fan on other side of hdd (reduce speed, reduce noise, up cfm)
Mod drive bays to remove fullsize optical drive and use short slimline.
Use Full height CPUHSF for ample amount of cooling.

System would be used for Fileserver/HTPC

Its a very nice case, and a lot better at utilising the volume of the case compared to the v300 and all the revisions that followed.

 

I have had a thought though. The Lian Li A05NB has the PSU mounted at the front. You could, with a bit of modding mout the PSU vertically, with the fan intaking air from the front and exhausting it out the bottom. You could then use a full height cooler and a dual slot graphics card.

 

Well yes that was the other way of mounting it, but i was worried about fan placement clashing with the PSU.

Can you fit the PSU in underneath the HDDs if you take out the detachable bottom 2?

I have the Commel LV-678 which has 6 sata slots. To be fair i dont see any Mini-Itx beating that, so all i need is room for 5 HDDs and an optical drive. I would put sketchup stuff up but whenever i seem to try and make a plan/log it all goes to **** thanks to something cropping up in the real world *shakes fist angrily*.

Ive never been a massive fan of psus mounted parallel to the motherboard as its a nightmare for easy tweaking.

The other option on top of this is opting for a shuttle psu, which i think will be underpowered, or a Silverstone MATX PSU (ST45SF) which i still think might be underpowered with the 5 HDDs.

 

Just remove the fan. It comes out seriously easy!

Possibly, I'm going to go for a no though, would requite some modding of the 5 1/4" drive bay to remove the SSD mount.

Yeah, I tried Sketchup once.. I then uninstalled it.

I don't know man, you could power that with said PSU. Would be pushing it if you went for a high end rig, but it could work as a media centre?

 

Im thinking its one of those ones where sketchup wont work and i might as well splash out on one and have a toy around. That said i dont want to buy off overclockers because i dont like them. Hoping scan will have it soon *hugs bit-tech/hard[OCP]/AVForumss free postage*

Did think that was going to be a squeeze, but i would probably be moving the drives up a bit further and hack the standard optical drive to make more room, and get rid of things that arent being put to use.

IMO, stay with it, just give it longer. Its dead easy to pickup (though i had worked with other 3d tools before)

It wouldnt be a high end rig, that said i might be using the same chassis for my gaming rig and move all the drive bays and mount one big ass rad on the front with a Antec Big boy pushing the air. That said, im also toying with that idea with the Sugo 07 and mounting a radiator to the top to utilise its massive fan. ... too many ideas, not enough money

 

That's essentially what I did, I had a rough idea of what I wanted, and came across this, and couldn't find any other mods to get ideas from, so I bought one.

I got mine from SpecialTech, was the cheapest I found it. as for the Sugo 07, I wasn't overly keen on it tbh, preffered the 05 and would have gone for that if it could fit 10" GPU's in.

As for the 3D modelling programs, I used 3DsMax at college and got pretty nifty with it. But it costs a bomb

 

I dont think you can, scratch build was my original option as all other cases required far too much modding that it was easier to build from scratch.

Shall give em a gander, havent been there in ages.

Im sure there use to be something a lot like max which was free. Had a gander on google but cant find the tool >_<

 

If you used a Dual Slim DVD bay such as this: http://www.kustompcs.co.uk/acatalog/info_5482.html, would it allow you to mount your HD's under a slim DVD and then remove the HD cradle - gives you more room?

 

Nice find Fingers, but it doesnt look like it can have a HDD Under the slim line. That said, i rarely use an optical drive, so 2 would be overkill

 

I was wondering if you could mount the bay adapter upside down - it doesn't seem to have any design on it or anything.

Then mount a slim DVD drive in the top slot, blank off the bottom slot and attach the existing HD bracket to the bay adapter somehow?

 

Nice build, very similar to something I'm doing for Custom PC magazine in fact! Exactly the same case and general idea, but I'm trying to squeeze in a 140mm front rad, a 120mm top rad, a bay res and both CPU and GPU blocks.

Have you found the PSU fouls the drive cages?