Case Mod - In Progress Project: Warp Core - offline indefinitely...

Bad_cancer
Bullitdodger
Akkatha
Azayles

Thanks for the kind words!

I'm not worthy! I'm not worthy! Thanks Alexis - Hey you're the paint man, what colour do you think would look best on the outside?

 

I've been thinking about that actually! Going to search for kits that do it - don't trust my electronics skills that much although solding should be okay. They'd need to be very bright though - the ones in the set I got from Aqua-tuning are much brighter than normal LEDs.

Thanks Martin! That's high praise coming from you

I did install one but the downside it when you eject the core, the coolant soaks the inside of the PC. This kills everything. Even life support fails

 

Going through some cable tidying. God it take ages! And when I got about half way through I found these I may get some of the UV blue ones, haven't decided yet as it will mean undoing some of my work.





The SATA cables were easy but the molex cables were a bit of a nightmare. Had to strip the connections on three lengths of this one cable remembering where each one went. Was a nervous few moments when I put it back together and powered the system on - was half expecting a hard drive to explode!







Hopefully going to get some sponsorship soon and once I've confirmed the bits I can start adding some more acrylic to various places. Still a Loooooong way to go and modding a PC which can't be down for more than a day is quite tricky. Stay tuned!

 

Quick Video of the warp core in action

 

I'm back! Not much has happened apart from the odd bit of cable tidying. I've had a chat with Mr AnG3L about painting - he's got some amazing ideas, not sure I'll be able to afford more than a can of spray paint so I may give that a go first. Thanks for the help though Alexis

Was also looking at some old projects of mine recently for some inspiration and thought I'd share a few as I probably won't upload them as projects in their own right as I don't have enough pics. Mainly from my crazy days of building scores of water-cooled PCs every year and then selling them!

This first one used a Sunbeam acrylic case with a Cape Cora passive rad mounted on the side. Probably the quietest build I've done although the rad was so heavy the case did warp a little. Lol! Still it looked pretty cool.



These are of a water cooled SFF using an Apevia X-QPack case I made for a friend. I used a dual 92mm rad with combined res/pump and there was still enough room for a then awesome 7800GT which was also water cooled.

















Finally, these are of a Sunbeam acrylic cube I built for another friend. I was really impressed by the quality of the case, even if it did take a while to build. As I was using 10/8mm push fittings, I found they didn't allow the air in the system to be expelled when filling and the suction prevented me from draining it. The answer was two fillports and an EK multioption res - the extra opening released the suction. Haven't had this issue with 3/8 or 1/2 ID.

 

Finally got a sponsor! And for water cooling stuff who else really. The site has everything you can possibly need - big thanks to Pascal too


Look what I got!









More LEDs, some modding stuff (mainly pre-braided cables by Phobya, very handy, I was getting board of brainding!).

Two Phobya dual 120mm rads. They even have bleedports! Woohoo! FPI seems to be about 11 so should be pretty good with low rpm fans. Me no like noise. They'll be going where the XSPC RX 360 is now and it will move down to replace the thermochill so I'll end up with 2x dual 120mm rads and a single triple 120mm.







Now this is an interesting bit of kit. It's a Phobya CPU Waterblock S.775. I saw it in the wild in 2008 and what reviews there are of it are a bit sketchy but it's meant to be pretty good although from the looks of things, quite restrictive. We shall see.



Also worthy of note are the 120mm Phobya fans. Feel fairly well made and have fins on the edges like airliners - presumably to reduce drag. What really impressed me though is that they're extremely quiet but seemed to shift a lot of air too. No testing done here, only a side by side mark one eyeball, hand and ear assessment between them, a Sythe GT 1,450rpm and a Xilence redwing 1,400rpm. Will definitely be looking at these the next time we look at fans on bit-tech.

Now to open up that block...





The base isn't as smooth as one might like but I've seen a lot worse. If temps are worse than the D-tek Fusion v2 it's replacing I may consider lapping it but looking deeper inside I don't think I need to worry!



The base plate has one of the smallest micro pin arrays I've ever seen, probably on par with the Apogee GTZ.

That's not half of it though...





This thing is little bigger than a postage stamp. It's the insert nozzle which has no less than 65 injection nozzles. The detail is insane. Can't wait to see how it performs.

 

I think I may wait to paint it for a few months now. It's too cold here at the moment and most of my money is going on the car this month. Damn insurance is expensive!! Got the MOT too and need to save in case anything needs some attention Hopefully it won't!

Did some work on it over the weekend though fitting one of the new rads.

Had to drill some rivets to remove a bracket at the front of the case so I could move the RX360 rad to where the 120.2 thermochill was and also have the two dual 120mm Phobyas at the back one behind the other. Will hopefully do a SketchUp at some point of what I mean!

Removing the bracket gave an extra inch and didn't have a negative on the integrity of the case.









Here's the rad in place. I removed the USB panel too. I may cut out a section here and add some mesh - I didn't use it anyway as it's too low although I may relocate it in a space drive bay if I can't decide on a fan controller.







Lots more room!



To fit the RX360 in place of the smaller 120.2, I had to move the PSU too. Even then it was a VERY tight squeeze!!!







Hopefully I'll sort this mess out later. I'm also going to make a custom PSU panel as one of the rads will stick out the end. This was intentional - as the Phobya rads have ports on the end as well as the front, I'm going to use them as draining ports.



Here's Boddaker's mod on the panel where he switched the PSU into a different position in Neptune's Trident. I won't be going quite that far, just making a new mount out of acrylic with neat holes for the rad.

 

I've been water cooling my main PC since about 2003 and I've never had a pump fail on me. However it seems I finally ran out of luck with my old DDC which to be honest, did have a fairly high failure rate and had been running ever since they appeared on the UK scene several years ago.

PC shut off due to high CPU temp and on further investigation I noticed a faint smell of electrical burning near the pump. Unfortunately it meant that time I was going to spend making progress were instead spent on waiting for new parts!

Thankfully I had a spare Laing D5 Vario and I decided to get the EK top for it so I could use compression fittings. So I spent the weekend stripping the system down completely, fitting the third radiator and installing the new pump!



Here's the Laing DDC that failed. Sticky stuff is just residue from an adhesive pad. No signs of scorching though that I've seen elsewhere when these pumps die.









First impressions of the top are good!!! Great quality and very easy to fit, typical EK hardware really.













Seems I have a never ending amount of tidying up to do!





AC Ryan 120mm filters - decided to install these in the absence of anything better for the time being!



The space you get in the bottom of a 'stripped out' V2000 is amazing. Has to be the best tower case for water cooling.



Now this I couldn't believe - the Phobya rad slotted in perfectly between the PSU and case mid-section. Was expecting a bit of hassle here but the fit was spot on! the rear of the rad has additional ports which I'll use as drain ports after I've cut a custom acrylic plate to go over them.



Two dual rads at the back - again the fit here was perfect. Would have used a quad rad but seeing as Aqua-tuning sponsored these two I'm not complaining! That's it for now! Will hopefully have it all tidied up for next time with some more lighting too


Now one thing I do have to ask is what do you guys think about this for a cover for the res? Possibly one either side to look more like a warp core?