Case Mod - In Progress Purple Rain / CustomPC 'Readers Drives' - Issue 81 / Apr '10

More braiding of tubing, have moved on to 2nd loop for the OCZ Flex memory ;



Had some fan grills cut by ChilledPC (www.chilledpc.co.uk.)

The inner ones here are backed with standard/small hole MeshX, so the back of the radiator is not visable;



All the other fans will be grilled, but will be backed with white Hex, or honeycombed, mesh to allow airlow and not to obscure the fans.

A couple of semi-darks;





Nice tidy work area

Thanks for looking, back soon

 

Looking good.
-But that last pic looks like there's a bloody dog staring at me. It creeps me the heck out!

 

ITS NOT A DOG.

ITS BAGPUSS

 

Awesome!

 

Looking great, I really like those fan grills. I like the braided tubing on the RAM but personally I still don't like it on the rest of the hose, just my opinion though.

 

very nice so far

 

Update time

Back from my break, and after looking at the current state of the build, i didn't like what i saw.

It was getting far too dark inside, with all the matching braid, and lighting didn't do enough to convince me to keep the braided tubing.

Another reason was getting the ends tidy, using heatshrink still left small gaps at the compression fitting ends.

I haven't given up on the idea of braided tubing, and from what i've learnt here, i'll know exactly the size tube and fittings to use to get a perfect fit next time ( always a next build ! ).

So, as i'd kept the original white tubing pieces, it was back to the original plan




Some of the smaller internal lighting;

The CPU block:



The LED ' tree' for the 2 bay reservoirs ( 3x5mm LEDs for the Dual bay and 2x5mm LEDs for the single bay):

 

Will be using smoked acrylic to replace the clear windows on the original case.

Had it supplied cut to size as it was the same price as a sheet, and saved me some work.

All i had to do was use the originals as templates and drill the mounting holes;





Then wrapped up to try and keep the dust off ( near impossible to do with acrylic ! )



A rough idea of the effect ;

 

I will be using braid for the RAM loop however.

I've deliberately used smaller braid so that it stretches when over the tubing. This will hopefully show the purple water through the braid to create somthing abit different.




These are the fan grills i will be using throughout the case, they will all be backed with mesh that has been sprayed white.

This is the internal radiator shroud ( the main airflow fans will have a slightly different mesh ).




All things being well, should have it up and running next week ( Thats usually the kiss of death ! )

Cheers for looking in

Mark

 

fingers crossed for you for switch on... ... this is a excellent case

 

I like the change of colors man - white maskes it more clean and bright inside. Braiding ram tubing is a good idea, its still small and delicate accent

 

Agreed, the white sleeving is a very nice improvement.

 

The white looks tons better, although the black was still cool.

Very nice build, mate.

 

I like the white over the black/purple.

I'm usually not a big fan of asymmetry, but those fan grills are sweet. Is that mesh going to allow enough air through? Are you pushing air through the radiator or pulling air from the radiator with the fans?

 

Thanks for the positive comments above, keeps me keen to finish it

The mesh in the photo above is for the internal shroud only ( more to hide the radiator behind it, than for performance ).

The radiators will be 'pushed' air from the outside.

The mesh for the intake fans is a different size, to allow better airflow, it has roughly 2.5mm holes and better spacing.

This stuff, but will be sprayed white :



Cheers.

 

Ohhh I see. Now it all makes sense =^)

Cool, keep it up!

 

That's simply a beauty
The white tubing/sleeving looks a lot better.

 

Man that looks cool. The tubing looks much better white IMO and the white braid on the RAM hose looks really cool.

 

Thanks all

More work completed

The mesh for the fan grills arrived on Friday, so i had most of the weekend to crack on with buliding.

Last time i tried to drill mesh i managed to snag it on the drill bit, so instead of drilling the mounting holes i cut the corners off the mesh squares.



De burred and ready for spraying ( 5 down, 4 to go ).



Into the high tech spraying workshop ( Well, bathroom and 3 tins of Mushy Peas and a tin of Baked Beans !)

 

Front fan grills completed and mounted.





Mounting the pump for the RAM loop, hidden behind the radiator shroud.



Both finished;