NZXT H630 mod, Doppler effect, by DeKa (completed March 11, 2015) Hello everyone, This is my first post in this forum, a friend recommended me to publish my work here and I will do the best I can as my English is a little limited. I used google translator and it is not always the best option but I hope it’s enough for you to understand. I am Argentine and I live in a town near Barcelona, Spain. For some time I have been working on various advertising and design projects, but for the last couple of years I'm focused mostly on the PC Modding. I am hoping that my latest productions will catch the attention it deserves, hope you like it as much as I liked doing it. I used a chassis that I personally really like the NZXT H630 and modding Doppler effect. A very minimal, rough and dull looking but extremely quiet. It is also robust and has very discreet lines, with a little work and creativity, looks like a great chassis. One goal of this mod was to work and keep it simple, subtle with minimal lines, using colors typical to that of Asus Republic of Gamers but with a touch more white (not wanting to repeat both reds). I also wanted to create a computer where silence predominated, and for this I used a liquid-cooled high-end custom and distribution of ventilation chord. A minimal, powerful, extremely quiet design and the highest quality components! Below I detailed a worklog ... The Worklog... But first, a look at the finished mod Materials / Index Chassis NZXT H630 Black Paint Dust filters Hardware Asus Maximus Extreme VI Intel 4770K 4x4Gby TridentX GSkill RAM 2400MHz SLI Nvidia Gforce 770 Asus DirectCU II OC Corsair AX1200 PSU Corsair Wiring sleeve Samsung SSD 840 EVO 256Gby Samsung SSD 830 256Gby Asus Republic of Gamers Front Panel Liquid cooling components: Radiator EK CoolStream XTX (360) 3x12cms 11FPI 2x14cms 30FPI Koolance Radiator CPU Block EK Supremacy - Nikel block X4 Monarch Memories EK EK-FC770 GTX x2 DCII - Nickel EK-FC680 GTX x2 DCII Backplate x2 EK-FC Terminal - Plexi EKWB D5 Pump Storage with nano coating + TOP Aquacomputer Aqualis Corsairs AF 140 fans x3 x3 SP 120 fans methacrylate rigid pipes Fittings Primochill Revolver temperature sensors and other ... Lighting, wiring and sleeve. Lighting and Wiring Lighting blocks General lighting Sleeve The chassis, modifications and details This ultra tower NZXT is very quiet, versatile (although very large) and robust ... it doesn't come with a window but is internally buffered by acoustic panels so it was something less to worry about. The window mount had to keep up sound damping, and the side door was completely replaced by 6mm methacrylate, much thicker than normal (almost the total thickness of the cover) methacrylate but I gave both the structural robustness as soundproofing needed. As the window would represents most of mod tower’s personality I thought it would be a great idea to continue the front / top of the chassis in it with panels of red methacrylate and black aluminum also would bond everything together... Even had been thought over the idea of illuminating only the red methacrylate structural lines but it was impossible to reach the left side, although it would have been really good, I abandoned the idea. I completely removed a huge rack of hard disks compartments, as I had no intention of using it, no mechanical hard disk here (shhhhh) and I could take advantage of the extra space for a low 3x12cms radiator fin density (FPI), family of noiseless coolers. The remaining gap had to be covered up, and I did so using the same material I used in most of this mod, 1mm thick aluminium that had been painted the same black as the rest of the case. Other smaller the holes were plugged with a double sided film the same colour as the chassis, there was no sense to use a any other material and I kept it like that to preserve the possibility to easily remove it in the future if needed. Painting, matte finish: For teh whole mod project, I used Vallejos Premium water-based paints, specially created to apply airbrush paintings, even though it is very easy to apply and cover a lot with one hand, it lacked the expected resistance the I experienced in other paintings of the same type, perhaps it was because it was a fine pigment (for airbrush) layer ends up being too fine and even more so in areas where I sanded, clean surfaces, with a pre-coating and subsequent matt varnished, it was easily scratched. To combat this effect as best I could, I doubled the manufacturer's recommended application, both the color and the matte varnish. It paid off, I ended up with a though, perfect finish. The absolute black colour box was rough - too black, so had to try break the monotony, I decided to paint some parts like the H440 model, but matte metallic red. The red metallic color is not your typical striking red, but rather a more discreet and applied it along the edges and in the front side USB panel, I tried to paint white grids but it started to sway from the line I wanted. I painted black, red and imitation aluminum ledges which I applied in specific areas which you will see further down. Dust filters: The tower comes with lower, upper and front filters, but in reversing the airflow due to loudness issues, the rear fan instead of sucking, it will be exclusively dedicated to injecting airflow as this will be where the most dust would collect the filter had to be outside, to clean it regularly and comfortably without having to open the entire chassis, so I took the screws on the rear fan and with a little help of velcro, attach to the back just where I wanted it, a fine mesh of pvc sandwiched between two pieces thick light adhesive bonded together, fastened by wing nuts layered with recycled parts. The filter without being anything special, it does the job and is practical. Also place fixed filters in large parts of the chassis with passive ventilation. Hardware: The motherboard: The rear connectors on the motherboard are covered on the inside with a thin piece of bent acrylic adhesive lined anodized aluminum painted black imitation, fastened with Velcro to be easily removable if needed. I also subtly applied a metallic red RoG logo heatsink on the chipset to the mod, so it dits in the middle of SLI, then it gets illuminated by the light of the top graphics card. I made a black matte painted piece of 1mm folding aluminum, I placed hovering with screws on the lower connectors on the motherboard (hd-reset-hd led-USB front-AAFP, etc) used to lighlight the ledge where the PSU is placed, besides giving a brilliant aesthetic look it also hides many cables. RAM: The memories modules had to put in RL and this required removing the stock sinkhead and replace the monarch of EK, seemed like an easy task but it got nicely stuck in memory chips, so very carefully, and with a lot of patience I took art and skill not to damaging any components leaving them ready for the waterblock. Fixed some text
Reserved Asus SLI GTX 770 OC Direct CuII: The first option, regarding the graphics cards, was an ATI Radeon HD 7970 crossfire but it was very difficult to find a graphic card compatible with the EK water block I wanted to use. I had one of these cards before and they work very well, that model was one of the first out and was compatible with the block, I didn’t know much about the world of liquid cooling and this was one of the first problems I had with the mod, because I could not find any other suitable card. I tried many possible graphic cards until I found one that was compatible. I tried the 280x but only for more of the same issues, then finally I opted for the Asus GTX 770, with which I found to be one of the few brands that design first a turbine-like model and secondly a custom ventilation model that does not change in design, being very easy to make them compatible with liquid cooling solutions. As you may know or may not know, many manufacturer often change their graphics cards over time, releasing several versions of the same model including the PSB reference. This is reflected on the card close to the PCIe connector, PSB model and version of the manufacturer. Therefore, not all the graphics, of same brand and same model, are technically the same. For example, take the MSI ATI R9 they have the 280x 3Gby DDR5, V277-053, V277-057, V277-067, and others that I am unaware of, all of them are different and water blocks can’t be used on all of them. I found cases in which there was a higher than normal transistors, memories elsewhere in the PCB and even sometimes the PCB was different in size and block do not fit as they should, making it completely incompatible ... Still talking about models with improved ventilation, turbine models (a type heat sink drawer with only one fan at the end) on the other hand, are always the first versions of a brands referring to the model in question, and almost every time, if not always, are compatible with waterblocks. It's easy, manufacturers of waterblocks designs their products taking into account turbine models, if the manufacturer of the graphics decide to change things around, they are left without the possibility of using a water block. I only had to remove the stock coolers, to put on the water blocks, the backplates and then the LED lighting that will be detailed later (in the lighting section). I also changed the terminal block that came stock, I interchanged one black metal piece for one recently launched by EK plexi as the block. PSU: I had to cover the PSU (Power Supply, Power Supply Unit), its cables and the typical mid plate would not fit in, this tower is not really designed for this purpose, and I choose to box it in. I wanted to give individually and a touch of life to the case, I manufactured it with 1mm-thick folding aluminum strip and painted it black matte before handcrafting the logo mod, which would then be illuminated from inside with LED strips. To continue the original line of the chassis, I covered the side of the case with white methacrylate, the latter of which I then painted in a red translucent metallic shade (very similar to the outer red), diffusing light red and white illumination on the "flagship" of the mod. The case isolated with a black rubber band to avoid vibration and noise. The Doppler effect logo has a transparent methacrylate 1mm draft behind which I painted with fluorescent white, and when it is completely dark, you can subtly see the logo through the window of the case. The PSU is a Corsair 1200 veteran, not the "i" model which has red letters, this model is has them in a golden colour and the red model really suits best, so I covered the golden colour with red and the absence of the "i" makes it look like its successor. Hard Drives: This mod would have no mechanical hard drives, because I neither want any noise nor a lot of storage space, today we can do without noisy mechanical HD’s and replace with one or two good SSD’s units and whole depending on a NAS for the most of our storage needs, if you don’t have a NAS we can always use a USB 3.0 / eSATA external drive instead. SSDs in this rig are installed behind the motherboard tray which is good for keeping the cables tidy while providing clear access and visibility of the SSD’s in this mod. Asus Front Panel: I loved this Asus Front Panel from the very first the day it showed up and I was fixed in this for my mod, the chassis has a dual 5.25 slot and for that reason I did not hesitate. It gives an extraordinary presence and has more features than typical traditional rheobus as OC activate preconfigured profiles or on-screen temperatures Mobo and CPU speeds, all thanks to the unique RoG interface, only available in this range of Maximus Asus motherboards. Liquid Cooling The vast majority of components are of EKWB RL which does not have the upper radiator Koolance mark and the Aquacomputer Aqualis water reservoir. A front radiator 3x12 11 FPI prior to the deposit and the 2 GPUs and a low profile 2x14x30 30 FPI pre-processor and memories, all in a loop series. If we want a noiseless system good dissipation is required and if we want to implement the OC we will obtain a very efficient liquid cooling system. The airflow was inverted to improve the sound and aesthetics, ideal to optimize the air temperature that blows on the radiators with the fans between the radiator and chassis (positive air pressure), the air then exits from behind and below. In addition this could have put three SP120 more and make a Push / Pull flow in the front, being the only case that would have space for it, but this would played against the purpose of this mod, where our goal is absolute near as possible silence. Upon testing, the sonic differences were significant compared with the gain of 6th / 7th under load, ONLY with fans at high speeds, on low speeds there was little difference.. This chassis has a fairly narrow top and front entrance. Water blocks All the blocks are EKWB Clean Nickel CSQ wanted a mod with lighting in the blocks and these seemed to have good reviews and is a very well known make. The Monarch module and the CPU block has 3mm holes to place the LEDs, where graphical blocks do not, so I had to perform a work around to illuminate these blocks similarly. I tried placing a strip of LEDs on the rear edge of block, but the tone of light was not the same and so I decided to go for it and put LEDs in these blocks also. With the holes in the CSQ and LEDs in place and isolated which was narrow, because behind that as the PCIe slot was very close. Shielded cable and hub lights (see lighting) ... Rigid pipes and fittings Primochill I used rigid 12 / 10mm methacrylate pipes. This was my first attempt at using this rigid material and I was delighted with the results, aesthetics tubes are amazing and it is more resistant to stains / internal erosion, you can put a red liquid and the next year they will not notice them transparent brands. Bending it was a challenge, using a heat gun, water, soap, a bead of silicone to put in and a lot of patience, at first there are things that I was cautions about trying, but gradually I became more daring and applied different approaches to manipulate the material that came to mind. After making several, I realized that while the inner bead of silicone manage to avoid pinching the tube, the greatest challenge is to avoid the opposite, which is inflated by excessive heat or exposure to it. On the downside, needless to say I did not apply the same caution as with the tubing with compression fittings, but this is a personal opinion as they are known to be very reliable well mounted. Many fittings holding the rigid tube by means of one or two threaded gaskets, they are pressure pushed into place and stay there quite securely, while the case of fittings Primochill Revolver I used in this mod, O-rings helped to secure screws making it a tight fit, thus increasing resistance to loosen, making them safer and reusable. I bought them last year and at that time there were not many, today however, even EK make them so clearly this is a new trend.
Aquacomputer Aqualis water reservoir mod The deposit Aquacomputer Aqualis is the best I've seen, I love it, the tube is made of glass (6mm thick) which is much more scratch resistant than acrylic which is usually seen in other deposits, the look is stunning, it is 8cm in diameter (thicker than most), 450cl capacity and will attach a top for D5 pump specially designed for this deposit. Slight modification to the central tube of the reservoir adhesive vinyl lining it red and applying the Doppler logo in white vinyl cutting, these materials are waterproof and temperature resistant and perform as expected. The EK D5 water pump looks a little deteriorated on the outside and it was very noticeable underneath the Aqualis reservoir, so I covered with an adhesive foil anodized aluminum faux painted matte black like the rest of components. Due to the position where I wanted to mount the tank inside the chassis, and the structure of it, the support from the factory did not work as I had hoped and I had to make another one. This deposit weighs 1.5 kilograms, unfortunately, it wasn easy to leep it firm and upright. So I designed a super nice sopport! Made from 1mm thick aluminum, but was very unstable and had to redo it, this time I recycled materials from other computers, the outer sheet was made from damaged font case that I cut and folded into a skeleton, the support was salvaged and molded from an old 3.5” floppy disk driver holder which was much stronger than the first one designed chassis materials. Aesthetically it was not the same, but I disgusted it well by painting it the same color as the background and it is almost unnoticeable. I had trouble installing the Revolver Primochill fittings, the top has a gap in this part that prevents the O-ring G1 / 4 to tighten so I added a small 6.5mm extension that is barely visible. I tried to let the liquid fall above the reservoir, but the water flow is low the effect is lost and air accumulates in the radiator due to the specific position in this case, therefore I discarded the idea. EK water pump I installed a water pump as well, an external switch output that forces operating at 100% capacity, facilitating the removal of trapped air in the circuit and, if necessary, with the help of an external power supply, allowing us to make a water tightness test without draining power from the computer. Liquids used The current liquid is the Mayhems pastel ice white, mixed with Mayhems Ultra Pure H2O in a ratio of 2-1 with 1500 cls fluid in the loop circuit. This RL had several liquids and performed many tests with them, on one of the tests I put bi-distilled water with biocide to see the effect of transparency and it was really good, but I left it for a long time (although I never intended to) and I had a lot of problems with the nickel blocks. In theory any nickel block, although I did not read any of this in other makes (perhaps because in most nickel is hidden, and corrosion is not visible), has problems with the distilled water with or without biocide, it produces galvanic corrosion and now I know, as you can imagine, the result were disastrous. Within a question of weeks, the blocks turn dark and stained, initially thought the worst ... I contacted my provider, he very kindly contacted EK and soon had a PDF with laboratory tests that were performed EK which explained the reasons why this was happening and solutions for most cases. The funny thing was that you all that had to be done was to clean them! After trying to thoroughly clean them there was no way it would clean up as I expected, so referring to the lab report by EK I read that in worst case scenarios, a mild non-abrasive polish to polish the block affected once clean with relatively good results. So I bought polish, several mop accessories for the Dremel and polished it, after gently polishing I obtained better results, I managed to salvage the entire block without losing nickel and returning it to its original shine, spotless as it was new ... Stright to the point, if you have nickel blocks, I always recommend a premixed liquid with antioxidants . In the loop I mount a temperature sensor on the radiator outlet 3x12 prior to entering the tank / GPUs to control water temperature and measure DTs (Deltas, difference between room temperature and water in RL that indicates the dissipation efficiency of our cooling system). My loop has two points of heat exchange and other sensor at the output of another radiator would have been fine. So that it could bleed the RL more easily, I adapted the chassis at two points of the loop to have access to it from the outside, extracting the coolant on one and recovering air out the other, bleeding the system is now easier. Fans: The fans are AF 140 Corsair and a SP 120 which although not the most quiet and efficient for this RL, are 12 and 14cm version with the same design and quality / price and are very competitive. The mod requires those sized fans, so the options were limited if you wanted the same look for the two cases. The Corsairs at low revs behave well and aesthetics suite the arrow they have. The mod I prepared is very simple and quite original, I used an adhesive imitation anodised aluminum I painted it with the same red color as the chassis, and applied it covering the area of gray rubber, which dampen vibrations, but broke the hegemony of color mod. I covered the central logos with isotype of the mod is styled around, and it makes a curious effect of waves. I also placed black washers on the screws almost completely hiding the gray rubber antivibration.
Lighting To illuminate the interior of the chassis wanted to use the blocks and the water tank, so that the light was diffused and distributed by the components. The typical perimeter strip leds would be to strengthen visibility and / or decorate with some flickering effect. Each block has an amount of water leds / suitable to achieve the same intensity of light diodes in all cases. The LEDs had to be hidden from sight as much as possible, I did not want them to seen at all, while the inside the PC was off, since the intention was to present the mod off and then turn it on to achieve a greater impact. The NZXT chassis has 2 LEDs to illuminate the rear of the connectors, something I do not understand why, and with a switch on the side / front panel USB, they turn on. And that switch was what I used to switch the internal lighting on / off. I consulted with NZXT as to the maximum resistance load that could go through that switch, but they were not very forthcoming and just said that would burn, so don’t do it. The complete internal line would have a maximum consumption of 4W and require a maximum power of 1 amp, not exactly true, so I tried it anyway. Then I face the problem that the front panel output was 4 volts and the strip of LEDs for the case require 5V PSU, so I took a molex + 5V and use the negative of the front panel to switch the full power line. The strip of LEDs for the inner zone crate gets 5V PSU, but that voltage would be too high for the cables LEDs I prepared for the blocks, each 3mm white LED requires just 3.4v to give it optimal lighting without reducing its life. Therefore, I applied Ohm's law, so I calculated the needed resistance to get the correct voltage and mounted each line (cpu, memory, gpu1, etc) with LEDs in parallel, each with its calculated resistores. So I got the 3.4v for each LED, and being in a line connected in parallel, if one fails the other line would still work. I carried out all these tests with the help of a test breadboard, being able to test before installing anything and see the result easily. CPU and RAM Reservoir GPUs Distribution of lighting, rear hub for fans. Use the space at the rear hub of the chassis where the fans would normally to connected to instead I connect it all individually lines for the lights. I was really very happy with the result, if someday there is a problem with one of the lines, it can be disconnected and easily replaced without affecting the others. The red wire you see in the pictures comes from the front panel and the main feed line, all other black wires are individual lines (CPU block, block RAM, GPU1 block, block GPU2, light box and tank PSU water). The pinned is the same of molex fan, so if he needed to connect a fan here would have 5V (average power, great). Lighting Drawer PSU PSU drawer I lit up from the inside, I wanted to make the light to just shine through the the mod logo illuminating it, which is permeated aluminum, and the side parts where I have the white acrylic that I painted red with the NZXT inscription “Doppler” which I left blank without any paint. For this I used a strip of 5V 5050 LEDs fixed to a few small aluminum plates, somewhat inclined, to focus on the center of the case. General lighting interior, LED perimeter Moreover, I mounted a hidden line of white LEDs around the perimeter, these have their own independent 12v supply with a control on the PSU to concrol light intensity with the ability to switch between a number of different modes, even adjustable intermittent flashes.
Cabling All wiring mods are sleeved red and black, however I did not mount all of it. Corsair sells official sleeve sets of cables for their power supplies and decided to give the red a try. Actually I saved a lot of work, but I soon found out that they are very rigid, thin and very difficult to combed, technically they fulfill their purpose perfectly, but lack an nice aesthetic appearance. To keep the strip in place I bought a few pieces of 2mm thick (E22 mark) laser cut acrylic, I placed it inside the cable block with the already striped cables to help keep the shape and curve, however as these cables are so thin, I couldn’t achieve the whole desired effect. Outside the PSU cables are all custom-made, including the chassis front panel. I even had to lengthen wires from the Asus RoG Front Panel as the cable that comes with it are short. It is a composite cable 15 pin and shielded, with a little help of my soldering iron, I extended the line using old keyboard cables, by doing this I obtained the desired length. Using a tester, I checked the strip was good as I wanted to avoid unwanted crossover cables. I made various unimportant generally cables and I mummified them all in a red mesh PVC holster at the end points, using the typical method if heat shrink to keep them in place. Unfortunately I did not get the same shade of red as Corsair, there is a slight colour tone difference and this is another reason why I will avoid pre-mounted cables. Work completed !, Final appearance Extras For this project I add several new tools to my workshop, a small metal press that I had custom made, jig saw and the most important addition, a drawing and cutting plotter. The plotter will allow me to print on physical material any design done on the computer, whether in 2D as drawings or stickers (Adobe Illustrator, CorelDraw, etc) and 3D shaped planes (Solidworks, Autocad, etc) on various materials such as paper, adhesive vinyl of all kinds and any fine material that goes through its rollers. I can do even t-shirt printing! ... I am referring to a 60cms wide SummaCut, and I am very happy with it. During the month of March 2015, I attended the Gipuzkoa Encounter 09 (GE09) in Tolosa and I presented this mod to participate in the “casemod” competition. The result was unexpected and I won 1st place with my Doppler effect mod, and 3rd place in Eluney with the Pweye mod. Here you have the link to the Gipuzkoa Enconter (WEB) and the forum link with the competition results (Foro).
I'm working on a video, posting on youtube later, appearance and general characteristics of the complete mod. As soon as I have it ready I'll show you. Thanks for reading, I hope that you enjoy it. Goodbye !.
