Case Mod - In Progress the blue line - Team Sky Pro Cycling - NZXT Switch 810 - TWO UPDATES (Sept 11th 2013)

Thanks guys for all the positive comments!

@Maki role - Nice to see that someone picked up on the photo sizing! It takes quite a while to resize and logo each shot on each update, but being a noob I was just following the Project Log Forum FAQ which said no bigger than 800x600....

Cheers
Adi

 

Hi mate,

I work for Sky, if I could arrange it, would you mind being featured on our corporate intranet? I think its something they would really dig.

Parge

 

Sure, as long as their "legal eagles" don't start chasing after me for using their logo, etc!

The build is purely a private project and has no commercial connections at all.

 

Absolutely awesome build this!! Subbed!!

 

Ohhhhh yeah. Zipp wheels, mmmm.

So you're a proper time trialer?

I really like this mod, the style, the lines, and the nice mix is all really cool.

Good luck with the rest, I'll be watching.

Hmmm, maybe sky could sponsor it...?

 

Update #8 - June 11th, 2013 - Case feet and reassembly

As promised, things have quickened up a bit on the build and it's time for another update.

Last time I left it with a new back panel completed and all of the various case panels touched up with white paint and wrapped on their exposed edges with dinoc. However, I didn't really want to put it all back together until I had the case feet done as otherwise the case would just be rolling about on the rivets on the bottom panel, which was going to scratch things.

So, the case feet started out like this... (upside down as they're a bit top heavy!)

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I removed the black grill piece on both of them. Just needed pliers to bend the tabs and pull it out. With this being a bike-themed build I really wanted a chain in there somewhere and this was the best place I thought.

The chain:

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After a bit of testing it became obvious that chains have quite a lot of flexibility (side-to-side) in them and just fixing them at each end still meant that it moved about and sagged quite a lot. So in come the handy hex screws that I've used throughout the build to hold the chain in place. First job was to break up the chain with a chain tool into smaller sections that wouldn't move or sag and that could be connected together with the screws.

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Then with a scrap piece of aluminium I drilled the necessary 3mm holes and tried a test fit of the sectioned chain with the screws. You can see all the constituent parts for the other case foot in the photo as well.

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Once that proved successful I jigsawed out two aluminium strips to fit the gaps in the side of the feet and drilled the holes for the screws.

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I wrapped the strips and push fitted them in to the gaps in the feet. Then secured the chain to the strips (and the feet themselves) with washers and nuts.

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The finished look.....

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Magic! Just how I'd imagined them to look.

So with a pair of case feet ready, I dinoc'd the motherboard tray and then I could finally reassemble the case. I gave the 2 x 140mm front intake fans the same Sky logo decal treatment. I used the same white rivets as previously in an attempt to keep the majority of the internals of the case white, with only the hardware adding the colour. So much so I went round all of the exposed rivet ends and black screw heads and touched them up with my secret weapon, Tippex!

I'll leave you for this update with some final shots of how it looks right now all fixed together. For the eagle-eyed amongst you, yes, one SSD is missing as it's in my current build!

I bought a i7-3770K processor this week, so I now have all the hardware I need to finish the build (hopefully)!

Next time, with a bit of luck there'll be some water involved at last!

Cheers
Adi

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Awesome build you got there man!

 

Great idea for a build, and very well executed! Now, attach some wheels to this thing and go for a ride!

 

Update #9 - June 16th, 2013 - Pump test and radiators

So after starving you guys of updates in the past couple of months, suddenly two come along at once! This is a double update after a busy few days on the build so I'll cut (most) of the waffle and let the pictures tell most of it!

After spending so many weeks on the case mods, it started to dawn on me that some of the 1 year warranties on some of the hardware for the build might be running out shortly so I decided to test one or two bits I'd bought but hadn't actually used yet, just in case there was a problem.

I rigged up the pump and reservoir with tubing between the two in a loop so that I could test them both out with just distilled water. Then using an ATX bridge on the PSU, powered them up and finally the build saw some water involved!

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All went well, so feeling a little braver about water I set to on the radiators.

The rads I've bought are XSPC EX240 and EX360. Not the biggest or best, but enough for this build and budget.

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I gave them both a flush out with distilled water and vinegar, and after a couple of hours of filling, shaking and emptying all the rubbish was out and they were ready to go in.

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For fans, I used the 3x BitFenix PWMs in white for the ones that were going to be visible internally, and the rest are basic XSPC 1650rpm black fans. All got the matching logo decal treatment.

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I also managed to get hex screws long enough to replace the XSPC-supplied rad fan screws, so that the build theme was maintained.

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I wrapped the 360 rad in white dinoc as that was going to be visible in the white interior, and fitted the necessary Monsoon compression fittings. The final four photos show the radiators installed in the build.

Don't go away though, there's another update hot on the heels of this one!

Cheers
Adi

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Update #10 - June 16th, 2013 - Front cover

So update #2 today....

With PC and build parts lying all over my office floor, it was time to have a clear up and I stumbled (literally!) upon the front cover taking up a big space, so decided that was next for the treatment. Not all of the planning in this build is logical!

Having spent ages trying to imagine and design the outside style of the case, I finalised on an idea and set to work.

This is how the front cover started out.

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It comes in 2 main parts, the big front cover structure and a lower-half panel which clicks in and out of place so that the dust grills can be cleaned. That bottom panel was removed and I started work on that. The front of it has NZXT indented near the top and I was concerned that when I came to wrap it in dinoc, the indents would show through and ruin the look (sorry NZXT, nothing against you personally!).

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So I covered the panel in a thin layer of card and stuck it with double-sided tape. Then on the reverse side I unscrewed and removed the dust grill.

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Then with the bottom panel prepped I got busy, with the top half.

The main front cover structure consists of 3 parts. The large white frame, a middle rubber surround and a smaller front white panel which curves over the front of the top panel. Having disassembled it, it looked like this.

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The white outer frame I wrapped in white dinoc to match the other edges of the outside of the case, making sure to get those flippin' carbon weave pattern directions to match up with what was already wrapped!! Then the middle rubber section just pushed on top.

The main area to work on was the small front panel that houses the fascias for the 5.25" bays (something that will come in a future update....). The big problem with this panel was that it had a cutout in the top where the power button (located on the top panel) fitted. Now I'm not going to use the standard power button, so that cutout was going to look ugly with nothing filling it!

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I removed the power button from the top cover and dremelled (sp?) off the prongs and filed the underside flat.

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With some highly technical cardboard and double-sided tape I put the power button in the space provided!

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Then I gave the front of the panel the same cardboard cover treatment as used earlier, to cover up the indents either side of the 5.25" bays and the power button on the top.

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With both panels prepped and ready I got busy with the dinoc and decals again to give them the finished look. Then after screwing it all back together, I fitted it on to the case. It's a relatively simple mod in comparison to some of the other stuff in the build, but one that's given me some of the most pleasure in seeing the build come together, as it's now starting to look great and just how I wanted/imagined.

Anyway, the final shots..... if you're wondering what the smaller text reads, check back to the very first post of the log. See, I did plan some bits!

Cheers
Adi

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Very nice!

 

Wow, now that is one clean looking vinyl job! Awesome work

 

Update #11 - June 18th, 2013 - Top cover

Well this is just getting ridiculous, 3 updates in 3 days! This build will be over before you know it..... what will I do then?! Use it I guess!

While I was on a roll with the front cover, I decided to carry on next day and do the top cover as it was a fairly similar mod.

This is how the top cover started out life:

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With the pop-out grill removed:

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And the grill itself:

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Setting to work with the screwdriver it was all dismantled. Outer frame, rubber moulded top, and the grill:

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I wrapped the exterior edges of the outer frame with the white dinoc, matching up the carbon weave of course to the rest of the case!

On the rubber moulded top, there was a hole where I'd removed the power switch from for the front cover mod, and also a small hook that the front cover is supposed to slide in to.

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I removed the hook with the Dremel as it was no longer needed, and then wrapped a cut section of card in black dinoc and attached it with double-sided tape to cover the hole.

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The main part of this mod was the grill itself. The grill has a handle in it so you can pull the vents shut or push them open, but I wasn't going to use that so with some pulling and levering the vent piece was out and gone.

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That still left the slots in the top cover and the hole where the pull handle was, and I wanted those gone as well, so I marked out some cutting lines with masking tape and got the Dremel back on the job. I was a bit nervous with this one, as it's not like cutting a sheet of aluminium that can be replaced. If I went too fast and started melting the plastic, or made a mess of it, there was no replacing the case lid!

Half an hour later, with one eyeball hit by flying melting plastic (even with safety glasses on! ouch!), it was done. I used a barrel sander attachment on the Dremel to smooth down the worst of the rough edges then clamped the whole panel in the workbench and finished off the edges to a finish with a big file.

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I wanted this top cover to match the grill I'd made for the lower 240 radiator, so I used a section of the same hole-perforated black sheet, and bent it to shape at either side, just enough so that it would fit between the rails on the underside of the cover that previously housed the mechanism for the push/pull vent.

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Having done a test fit, I then wrapped the plastic in the black dinoc and re-fitted the mesh. As luck would have it (or I'd like to think, by careful planning ), I was able to attach the mesh to the cover using some small screws, nuts and washers through the guide rails left from the push/pull vent mechanism.

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The last thing to do was add the Adidas 3-stripe pattern to the top of the mesh with white card and double-sided tape, just as with the 240 rad grill.

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Very pleased with how this turned out again. Was a bit worried I might bodge the plastic but it looks the part now. I'll leave you with a couple of shots of the new top cover fitted to the case.

Cheers
Adi

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Update #12 - September 2nd, 2013 - 5.25" bay covers

Firstly I have to say a big "Thank You" to everyone who's taken the time to visit this log over the last few months. I cannot believe it's reached over 50000 hits for my little attempt at modding!

Apologies again for the sporadic updates on the log; a series of family birthdays and the 6-week school summer holidays has meant no time for anything else really...

Anyway, this update is about the 5.25" bays and in particular the "stealthing" of the front covers.

I started with the optical drive, an LG DVD writer/Blu-Ray reader I had from my old machine. I know these are a bit old school now but I still get asked to make photo CDs by family, etc. I unclipped the front bezel and the tray front cover.

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The bezel had a raised border of plastic on the front so I sanded that down with the Dremel to make the entire bezel one smooth surface.

I wanted all of the 5.25" bay covers to look uniform and as I'm using an Aquaero in the build, I really liked the small bolts in each corner of the bezel so I drilled bolt holes through the DVD bezel.

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Using a bit of the aluminium sheet I then made a new cover to go over the front of the bezel and another for the front of the tray.

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For the small bolts on all of the bezels I bought a pack of M3 6mm hex bolts to maintain the build theme.

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Finally I wrapped the front covers with the black carbon vinyl and used some M3 nuts to secure the front cover to the bezel. (Apologies for the exposure on this photo - it is definitely black wrap and not maroon!).

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You'll see the finished version a bit later.....

Next was the Aquaero 5 PRO itself. I'll be using this to control/power all of the fans and to monitor pump speed, flow, etc. Firstly, a few shots of how it arrives out of the box.

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You can see from the front shot how the bezel is attached by the hex bolts, which inspired the rest of the front panel design for the build, but I did replace the standard bolts with my own M3 versions. The front bezel got the carbon wrap treatment and the 3 silver buttons were coloured using a black CD writer pen so they didn't stand out so much.

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The NZXT Switch 810 comes with a built-in 5.25" bay containing various USB sockets and an SD card reader. This too was to get the stealth treatment.

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With all of these bays ready, that left 1 double-height bay space in which to fit 2 HDDs and a power switch. I got some standard HDD mounting brackets for the 2 x 1TB Samsung HDDs from my old build.

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I drilled the necessary holes in the case for them to be fitted in.

From this photo you'll now also see the blue stripe which I added to each of the bezels to continue the one started on the front cover. This was done by printing out the stripe on vinyl decal paper and then fixing it to the carbon wrap. Sadly the adhesive on the decal wasn't strong enough to hold firm against the smooth surface of the wrap, so I ended up using super glue to get the edges to stay put!

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The HDD brackets allowed me to position the HDDs towards the back of the bays so that I could fit a power switch in front of them. I bought a Lamptron vandal resistant switch with a pale blue light ring to fit the theme and a cable to connect it to the motherboard.

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The switch itself was quite small and I wanted it to stand out a bit more on the front of the case, so borrowing from the bike theme on the back panel, I bought a 13 tooth Sturmey Archer sprocket to frame the switch.

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With another piece of 1mm aluminium sheet I made a double-height bezel and a set of 4 brackets to bolt on to it to allow it to be fixed to the case. I drilled a hole in the centre to fit the switch (19mm diameter) and made a small circular aluminium spacer to go around the switch to project the sprocket off the front to give it a bit more prominence. Then it all got the wrapping and blue stripe effect added. The sprocket was attached to the spacer using 3M mounting tape and the spacer held in place by the tightening of the switch lock ring.

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As always, I'll leave you with a few shots of how the build looks right now.

Cheers
Adi

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Update #13 - September 11th, 2013 - Graphics Cards

Despite all the challenges and hiccups along the way in this build, nothing has been as much of a pain in the ar*e as the graphics cards!

I started off with the two XFX 7870 2GB Core Edition graphics card I had in my old build which were using stock air coolers and running Crossfire. I bought one about 18 months ago and the second about 6 months after that.

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The plan was to reuse them in this build and water cool them, so I bought two EK 7870 water blocks when I started the build as they're not in stock often so grabbed them while I could. The EK Cooling Configurator website listed them as being compatible with the XFX 7870 Core Edition so all was good..... or so I thought.

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I also got an EK 3-slot Parallel Bridge to join them together.

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Months later and bringing this up to date, I stripped the XFX cards of their air coolers and compared PCBs.

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It soon became obvious that the PCBs were different revisions of the same model card. The earlier card that I bought was reference PCB design, which was compatible with the EK water block. The later card was a XFX PCB design and meant that the EK block wouldn't fit on it.

Ok, no biggy I thought, I'll just order another XFX 7870 Core Edition and get 2 with matching reference PCBs. When it arrived, unbelievably it came with a THIRD different PCB design, again not compatible with the EK blocks. So back that went to the supplier.

So I checked back with the EK website that said the Core Edition cards were compatible, and it also listed the XFX 7870 Dual Fan Edition as ok. I ordered one of them, and yet again it came with another bespoke XFX non-reference PCB that the block wouldn't fit on, so back went that one too!

Enough was enough. It was becoming quite clear that XFX were no longer producing reference PCB design cards after the initial run, of which I happened to buy one early on. I sucked it up and decided to sell them both on ebay, and re-invest the money in a pair of reference 7870 cards, as it was way too late for me to return the 7870 blocks and change for a different card altogether.

So back to the EK Cooling Configurator website which listed HiS 7870 2GB IceQ Turbo cards as fit to work with their blocks that I had. I ordered 2 cards after researching in several places that all HiS cards are reference PCB designs and so would work with the blocks. They arrived....

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And were stripped of their humungous air coolers!!

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On first glance all looked good. They certainly looked like the reference PCB layout so I went ahead with the thermal pads to fit the water blocks. Put the first block on one of the cards and crunch! It doesn't fit!!! One tiny capacitor is non-reference and the block hits it!

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By now I'd had enough of it all and was ready to chuck the whole thing out the window!

As the blocks were well past returning for a refund I took the Dremel to them and carved out the portion of plexi that was blocking the capacitor. Then I had to file down a small area of the nickel plating on the outer edge (nowhere near the water part!) so that it would fit on the card. Repeated with the other card and finally, finally......

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After all the expense of buying and returning several cards, and the repeated false information on the EK website, there was no way I was paying any more to get the EK back covers to fit the 7870s so I made my own.

I started off with 2 pieces of acrylic sheet cut to size. Then I measured and drilled the holes to fit them to the cards and used some of the hex bolts, rubber washers and nuts to secure them.

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At the same time, I made small Sky logos to cover the silver EK logos on all of the blocks. My aim is to try and keep the whole build so that no manufacturer logos are visible, so that it looks like it's just Sky-related.

Rant over! Graphics cards done.

Some final shots....

Cheers
Adi

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Update #14 - September 11th, 2013 - Motherboard, CPU and Memory

So after the pain of the GPUs comes the ease of the Mobo, CPU and memory!

As a quick reminder, the motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H and started out life looking like this:

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After a bit of work with the black carbon vinyl wrap, it became mainly two-tone blue and black, hiding the white/grey SATA and mSATA connections, red power button and the big silver areas like the CMOS battery, heatsinks, I/O connections and the Gigabyte logo.

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The memory is four 4GB sticks of the blue and black Corsair Vengeance DDR3 ram.

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The CPU is an Intel 3770K, again this was bought a little while ago, so not the latest 4770K but enough for what I need.

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And to water cool the CPU, an EK Supremacy nickel plexi block.

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I used Arctic MX-4 thermal paste between CPU and block.

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So the CPU ended up looking like this:

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And that's it for this time, just a quick update, but as always I'll leave you with a few shots of how it looks right now. Next is to focus on the plumbing and electrics!

Cheers
Adi

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