Case Mod - In Progress HEX GEAR R40 Engineering Station

Whats up guys!

Time to start a new log!

So, as many of you know, I started my own company a year ago with A buddy, which we named HEX GEAR. Since I do all of the 3D work on these cases, I naturally need a quite powerfull workstation, and I of course wanted that workstation to be in one of our R40 cases.

The system will be very compact, and powered by the following components:

• HEX GEAR R40 case with custom frosted red accent pack
• Gigabyte Gaming 5m x99 micro atx motherboard
• Intel Core i7-5960x Extreme
• 32 gb corsair dominator platinum 2666 MHZ DDR4 ram
• 2 x Geforce GTX 980 TI
• 6 tb Western Digital Red nas drive
• 240 gb Corsair Neutron GTX (subject to change)
• Corsair HX1000i

All cables will be custom made with teleios sleeving from E22 so that they are just the length they need to be.

Watercooling parts will be from EK and Bitspower, and will be shown soon!

A big thanks goes out to Corsair, Bitspower, EK water blocks and Nvidia for helping me with components for this build! As this build will be my primary workstation, I wanted some of the absolute best components you could get. Nothing worse than waiting for minesweeper to load



The case is a standard R40 with a special frosted red accent pack. I am still tinkering with what to do with this build, other than make it a super clean workstation build. I will most likely need to swap out components now and again, so no crazy complicated interconnect block like I normally do (SORRY!)





CORES! All them cores As I will do a LOT of cpu heavy stuff on this build, there really was no other choice than the 5960x. I simply NEED the raw power of this thing.





Main OS ssd, and storage drive. I will most likely swap the ssd out for a bigger one, or maybe two bigger for raid. 240 is a bit small for me.



I swapped out the normal rubber feets on our hard feet kit with some mnpctech delrin feets I had lying around.



Corsair was nice enough to send over some goodies for the build, including ram. I have maxed out 16 gb before, so I really need 32 gb for this.











They are lovely them platinums. I know some of you might think they are overused, but I really like the design!

















Nvidia was kind enough to also help me out on this project. Two 980 TI cards will power whatever gaming needs I should have for the next foreseeable future. They will also handle them self very well in most 3D programs, so I do not really have the need for a quadro card.



Now, since I like to make things clean, that means that I also enjoy making custom cables.



I cheated a bit, and already cut the cables to somewhat length, and crimped some of them. I made cables for two graphic cards, 8 pin EPS and the 24 pin cpu here. Still misses the sata cables.



The sleeving I will use for this build. Teleios fuzion red/black. I wanted to use this in a build ever since Nate sent me a sample of it a LOOOOOOOOOOONG time ago.



A simple trick when doing cables - precrimp your connectors. It makes it SO much easier to get them onto the actual cable.



Here you see the difference between a precrimped pin, and a stock one. The precrimping really helps hold on to the wire when doing the final crimp.



So no more cursing because the pins falls off your cable before you can get them onto the actual crimper!



Nice and easy, every time.



That was it for me for now. Next up is watercooling and more crimping / sleeving! And of course some more pictures of the case itself

Thank you for watching

 

Sneaky devil. The intro said Nate would do the sleeving.

 

Haha, naah man. I said that the parts where from E22 Real men do their own sleeving.

 

Looking good, that's gotta be the most powerful MATX build I've seen. What's the max tube res size you can fit to the mounting plate in the R40? I guess it depends alot on if you're using the tube res with a pump or not, so for my own reasons.. let's say you want to use a DDC pump/res like, say.. the EKWB X3 series.

J.

 

This build looks great already p0Pe!

 

Thanks man! I am sure there are more powerfull systems out there, but yes, this is going to be quite the performer

It all depends on the placement of the other parts. If you want a reservoir/pump combo, then both of the EK ones with a 140mm top on will fit.

Thanks Bill. The delrin feet fits in quite nicely I think

 

I did not know you had a build log on this, following eagerly

 

Subbed

 

Subbed, subbed and subbed!

BTW, thansk for pro-tip on the crimping, really want to do some cables for my Corsair AX and Seasonic Plat PSU's.

Thanks, look forward to the next installment!

 

I have for this, and the upcoming one So will have plenty of logs to keep updated over the next few months

Welcome to the party

I can only say go for it. It takes a bit of time to get the technique, but it is worth it in the end. I am just waiting for my PSU so that I can get started on the actual length of the cables.

 

Aaaaand some watercooling parts!

I hope you are not boored with these products pictures, but I am still messing around in the new photo studio I build, and what better way to practice than on parts!



The main parts from EK



Still not sure if I will use the red pastel coolant. And I also still need to get some fans. I am quite sure I will go with the EK vardar fans again, as I am quite happy with the subtle design of those.



I will be going for the D5 xres combo again. One of my personal favorits. Lovely compact little thing with heaps of performance. The only thing that bugs me about this, is that you need to use the extender, as one of the ports are "sunk" into the top, and are not wide enough for a standard hardtube fitting -_-



Dual titan x blocks. These will fit the 980 TI´s, but it irritates me a bit that it still says titan x on the blocks... Its the small things, but hey, I think I will survive.



The 3 blocks that will go into the system. I will not cool the RAM this time. It would look cool, but is not really needed, and as said before, parts will be flying in and out of this thing.



Big fan of the dedicated block for the X99 platform. Makes it just a tad cleaner.



Aaaaand backplates! Since the 980 TI´s does not come with any form of stock backplates (I really liked the backplate on the 980´s ) I will be putting two of these on.

More stuff is on the way! Just need to get clear of those pesky danish custom services -___-

 

I'll have to follow along on this one!

-Jeffinslaw

 

Great Pics of my favorite make blocks

 

WORD

 

Thanks Jeff! Welcome to the party!

Haha yeah, they do make some good looking stuff. Lots of interesting brands on the watercooling scene nowadays. I personally like the combo of EK and bitspower a lot.

Thanks Hukkel!

Time for another small update while I mess around with the 3D files for whats to come!

I am still trying to learn how to take better pictures with the black background. Getting there! Light is key. Taking pictures on a white background is super easy compared to this -_-



Got some fans in for the project. I really like the clean looks of these fans. It was either those, or the noctua industrialppc ones.



Used these in a previous rig, and they are super easy to sleeve, as you can get heatshrink all the way into the motor.



Also got myself an aquaero 5 lt to control the fans, and lighting. I will connect all 5 fans to the pvm controller on the board, so that all fans will spin at the same RPM.



Dat ass!



Also got my carepackage from Bitspower! Lots of lots of fittings! Still tinkering with exactly how to do the loop, but its minor things I need to figure out. I might actually try and see if it would look better to bend the tubing instead of using 90 degree fittings.



IMO the best fittings for hard tubing out there.



Looking mighty fine on the x99 supremacy block



The side no one will see when mounted.



And on a cellphone because... erm... yeah..





The current plan is to use quite a few of these. But we will see if I go ahead and change my mind.



Oh, and remember me saying that I did not want to do anything stupidly complicated because this would be my workstation build, and so on? Yeah.. that did not last long.

 

Finally getting a bit more done on this one!

Will be machining a little something something this weekend, but until then, I am working on the cable plate that will connect all the cables together.

Already mounted the 24 pin cable in it, and took a few makro shots of it. I will get working on passing the rest of the cables trough over the next few days, but as I have to sleeve them as well, it takes a fair bit of time.











More coming soon! This has to be ready for the biggest lan event in Denmark in 20 days

 

I did. I was going to call you out on that, but now I'm just enjoying the ride.

 

You better hang on, it is going to get bumpy!

Finally got around to taking the case apart, and actually mounting this part.

This was made easy since I had a version 1 that was slightly wrong cut I could use as a template.



The V1 that I used as template for the drilling.



Look at that fit It litterally snaps in place!



Tools I will be using.



used a drill to mark up where the holes needed to be.



after that, I used this thing to punch a small hole in the plate.



This does so that the drill does not fly off to one of the sides when drilling.



Making a mess is something I am very good at.



All mounted, and all cables put in to see if the length was somewhat correct.



Starting to really like this one



The cables still needs to be adjusted to sit completely perfect, but I am getting there.



The 8 pin also needs a bit of work still.



Rear side. I will most likely end up getting a second 6 tb drive and a bigger SSD.



I do not think I need to use the cable cover plate for this build

Next up, milling a huge block of acrylic!

 

Something's coming!

SOMETHING'S COMING!!!

 

Wow, the work on that cable plate alone is just superb. Inspiring.