Hiding wires and Painting I wanted to have a brushed aluminum look to the front panel. So I sanded the back side with 220 grit and painted it silver. I sanded the front to 800, starting at 80 and working my way up.Then I sprayed the front will clear coat. By doing this I was trying to achieve and deeper brushed look. There is not allot of room in this case to hide wires, so most of the wires need to go in before the system does so i can route them behind things. I used the original SATA connectors mounts for tide downs. Also drilled small holes to pass the wires through for the fans and re-attached the connectors back on. These shots are for you, if you want even closer, open then pic on a new window. Here is what the front Rad and mount look like after some paint.
water blocks Installing the water block time. Finally time to install the water blocks. I am using EK Supremacy clean CSQ nickel plexi blocks. I am really excited about water cooling the R9 290 which already overclocks really well for me. I used a two step cleaning and purifier from Arcti clean. After the blocks where installed I started installing the fittings and routing them for now. I am currently having some issues with the size of the RAM heat spreader. Not sure if I am going to cut the ram heat spreader or just use low profile RAM. Ordered 16 GBs of 2400 Mhz low profile RAM but the sticks come with yellow heat spreader.
So I have been working on trying to fix an issue with the Rad placed on the bottom and the RAM heat spreader. I had a couple of options including trimming the RAM heat spreader. In the end I found Team Group Vulcan 2400 Mhz 8 GB kit on sale for $70 so I went with that. I acutely picked up two, bringing the total to 16 GB of 2400 Mhz RAM. WOOP WOOP. If you are ever in a postion where you need high performance, low profile memory you will under stand there is not that many options. But the TEAM group memory looks great and performance great from what I have read so far. Can't wait to do a review of these bad boys. The organe heat spreader is starting to grow on me. Might not even paint them now. Some more sleeving. I feel like sleeving is like a drug. You just can't stop doing it when you get started. Its at least a great way tp waste an afternoon that is for sure. Or maybe I am just really slow at it. Lastly I had to trim the 5.25"drive to make room for the fan controller and switches. I also trimmed the top of one side of the tray to give more clearance for the rad and tubing above the tray. What do you guys think of the colour of the heat spreader?
So filling the system was interesting to say the least. I didn't have any leaks but I did have a aiming issue. Thank god the liquid I am using is non conductive. I used my HTPC to power the pump and the fan controller to test the system for leaks. With the UV light ON. With UV light OFF I also started working on a hard drive mount. My wife challenged me to finish the hard drive mount in 1 hour. After working on this project for the last year I gladly toke the challenge. I finish making the bracket in just over 50 mins. I already have a bracket to mount a 3.5" drive into a 5.25" drive. The bracket I made was so I can also mount my SSD to my hard drive and mount that whole thing into a 5.25" as one piece. Testing This is what my desk looks like for now. Still need to connect a few more wires inside the case, finish some trims pieces and then I think this just might be done. After working on this project for so long, I was expecting a fire work show when I booted up the system for the first time.
Thanks. I am hope the trim pieces I am making to cover up the hard drive bays will really stand out. Hey by the way, what do you think of the side with the small window? I was thinking of putting a green acrylic logo or air brushing a dark Apple logo.
Open Heart Surgery I finished the hard drive mount and mounted my new 3 tb hard drive and SSD together. I also installed my very old Maxtor hard drive in, to take some data off of it. I also managed to finish the hard drive covers but I have not mounted them just yet. Here is a really old SATA Maxtor hard drive that still works. I had to perform open heart surgery on the case also. Since the front RAD was moved 15 mm at the end of the project to make room for the front I/O, the side door would not stay on. I had to bend the acrylic shroud with out removing it from the case. Hence open heart surgery. I first covered anything I thought could melt from the heat gun with tin foil. Then I placed cutting boards on these pieces also. After that was done I heated the plastic and bent it so the side panel would stay on. Then placed the side panel on and let it cool to that shape. It was a bit of a crazy idea but saved me all lot of time taking apart the whole system just to get 5 mm more space for the side panel. Next up was the covers for the hard drive sleds. I cut 3 piece of acrylic and shaped them using files and sand paper. I then sanded the back of the acrylic and painted it. I wanted to recreate the brushed aluminum look from the front panel again. First coat Second Coat Third Coat
I woke up this morning to a nice surprise. So here are some shots for the voters. Its not done but this is what the project looks like in hi-res.
