Case Mod - In Progress Bitfenix Prodigy Custom 1 COMPLETED

***FINAL PHOTOS ON P4***

I am pretty sure you are all familiar with Bitfenix Prodigy, but in case someone missed it here it is



My plans for the prodigy was to make this my first ever Water cooled pc. The plan was to check out the scene find a project that gave me the right gut feeling then adjust that design to whatever would fit my build. I found some inspiration on various Projects, so please bear with me if some parts of this has been seen before somewhere else. The modding i have performed myself.

First off let me list the intended Hardware:

Intel I5 - 4690K Devils Canyon
Asus ROG Maximus VII Impact
Corsair Vengeance Pro (RED) DDR3-2400 2x8gb
Asus Geforce GTX 970 Strix 4gb
Silverstone SST-ST65F-G 650W fully modular psu
Samsung SSD 850 Pro 256gb x2

Bitspower VG-NGTX970ADIIS Acrylic Top With Stainless Panel (Black)
Bitspower AIZ97M7IITX Nickel Plated (Black)
Bitspower Carbon Black fittings

EK-DDC X-RES 140 CSQ reservoir
EK-DDC Heatsink Housing - Black
EK-DDC 3.2 PWM (12V PWM pump)

2x 240mm Alphacool NexXxoS ST30 radiator
2x UN mounts for the reservoir to be mounted on backside of one of the radiators.

Modding plans:
- I will be cutting up both side panels, making way to side custom side Windows.
- I will be cutting and removing both front panel and top panel on the Prodigy to make room for 2 radiators inside this small chassis.
- I will be mounting a vandal power switch on the backside of be Prodigy, as i will be removing the default power button on the side panel.
- I plan to learn how to make custom cables as the last part of the project.

Ok first thing first, i stripped the Prodigy and went mad with my saw , here was the first result of that.


i googled for software that i could use to Draw and design my new front panel and top panel.

here is what i came up with:

Inkscape Frontpanel Vektordrawing:


Inkscape Toppanel v1 Vectordrawing:


I have been moving on this project for some time now and will be posting my Progress within the NeXT few days, far from done yet, but also far from just started

After having checked the content of the drawings and the Measurement i sent them to get laser cut, the front panel was to be a 8mm thick smoked black acrylic and the top panel a 3mm matt black acrylic plate.

here is what i got back:

the frontpanel:


the toppanel:


Please keep in mind there is still protection film on the sheets here, so they look awful

 

Back to the the drawing board to get the Measurements for the sidepanels, they came out like this:





the blue area is the cutout area on the Prodigy side panel, yellow is the 3 mm clear acrylic sheet needed for the window.

 

As this is the first time im joining forces with a dremel , then im not as Sharp as other handymen out there, but i kinda liked the result of the side panels.





what do you Guys think...?

 

and some of the goodies from the build:

reservoir+pump heatsink+radiators:


Asus goodies:


Box of goodies from Bitspower:


Silverstone PSU arrived:

 

Nice work, I like the window design

 

Thx

 

Since my update from yesterday apparantly got thrown somewhere into hyperspace, ill try creating it Again this post will be some hardware porn, boxes arriving and looking at components

First off we have the reservoir, the pump heatsink, the un brackets almost not visible at top, and the 2 radiators:



Then we have some Asus goodies, mobo + gfx:



and a box of goodies from Bitspower, the gfx and mobo block + carbon Black fitting:



and here a Little more spread out



I really love the way the carbon Black fittings look and cant wait to start creating the Water loop.

Memory and CPU has also arrived:

 

And some testfitting of the hardware to see if it all fits in ...









I still have fitted the Water Blocks to gpu and mobo, but will do that in one of the NeXT updates.

 

Why do you use 2 different fans? Great choices for the water cooling though! Keep it up!

 

I fell instant in love with the White Noiseblocker E-loops i have in the front and had planned to use them on top as well, but they are useless in pull configuration. The red ones are sofar the best alternative i have found but i agree im still not super happy about them.

Suggestions for any like the eloops that i might have missed or others would be appreciated.

/Steen (aka Bygone)

 

Noctua fans are amazing, but very expensive.
Corsair SP fans are ok.
Gentle Typhoons are the good old proven and tested radiator fans, you can't go wrong with them I think.
Snef uses some nice looking bitfenix fans in his builds.

Having said that, the fans I would like to try for my next build are Cooler Master Silencio 120 fans.
They are really nice looking, optimized for radiators (originally sold with CM AIO coolers) and at a very good price I think.

 

One of the reasons i choose the 2 red ones are due to the color scheme of the build, noctua fans are amongst the best but they would look crap here in this build, id have to find one that besides being a superb fan also fits the builds look.

 

Time to Mount the Water block on gpu

enjoy this beauty of a block





and also the very slick backplate



One thing to notice here is the height of that GPU, im unsure whether this is normal for gtx 970 Cards or if this is the Asus Strix design, but this will prove to be a problem in one of the updates coming tomorrow from me.

 

Waterblock mounted on motherboard



and also time to get a new power on/off switch mounted

 

Silencio fans will fit the build nicely I think.

Good black like the beautiful waterblocks. (I became a big Bitspower fan lately...)

And the Bitfenix (same brand with your case) come in many color configurations




The red ones you have are fine though. Keep up the good work!

Oh the Strix design pcb is taller at the sli bridge, the one thing I don't like about them. Other gtx 970 are different.

 

Now Pictures from the first test mounting of the mods to Prodigy (what i hoped would be my final mods )

Front:



Top:



Side 1:



Side 2:



all look nice and clean until i test fit the Asus GTX 970 Strix and see that it fits but there isnt room for fittings...sigh

But i must say even though its pcb is higher than normal 970s i love the look of the Asus 970 strix, i also have been annoyed with the current acrylic top that was 3mm acrylic, wanted to change that to 1mm aluminium instead. So this was the higher gods talking to me that my top panel needed changing anyway as i now need to move the radiator/fan Mount a bit away from GPU unit, more on this later.

 

Here is a Picture of my problem with toppanel v1, can you spot the error? the cue is gpu and radiator are at same height...what wont fit then?

 

So after that small step back it was back to the drawing board.



this became my toppanel v2 moved the fan/radiator Mount 3 cm from center away from GPU, and to create somekind of gimmick i will create a window above GPU. The orange Square is 3 mm clear acrylic which will be the window.

 

Should be better. Will the fittings on the block fit there? Think of the tubing run also near the radiator and the GPU! Are you using 90 degree fittings for the GPU?

 

Fittings will fit fine even with air around them the Window wont be exactly above gpu, so there is clearance...as you will see below

first some Pictures from yesterday afternoon...









I still need to sand it on the edges but did a testfit this morning and it looks great.