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Case Mod - In Progress Fitting a 480mm Radiator in a CM HAF X

Discussion in 'Project Logs' started by DBRichard, 13 Apr 2014.

  1. DBRichard

    DBRichard What's a Dremel?

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    Recently I started buying the parts for a Custom watercooling loop to be fitted in my Coolermaster HAF X case

    At this moment I have:
    EKWB Supremacy Nickel/Plexi (Polished)
    Mayhems X1 Blood Red Coolant
    2x Aquatube reservoir (Not sure yet if I will use them in this loop)
    HardwareLabs Black Ice Sr-1 480mm radiator (which should fit nicely in a HAF X)

    In this Buildlog I will show what I'm doing to my HAF X case to fit the 480mm Black Ice Sr-1 Radiator (normally it only supports 120 or 240mm rads without modding) also I will do my best to keep as much of the outside looks the same


    I started by measuring the room between the front and back of the HAF X's frame which was about 519mm, the front and back panels are both 1mm thick so I have room for a 517mm radiator (which is perfect because the HWL Black Ice Sr-1 is exactly 517mm in length)

    I ordered the radiator :D
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    This shows how an HAF X frame looks from above before modding (not my picture)
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    Before I started cutting I wanted to know if I could keep my Front I/O, sadly the answer was no (kind of expected it) :( so I removed it (need to think about what I will do with it)
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    Even the plastic fins at the back had to go
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    Temporary GhettoBench for my setup
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    First cuts are made, cut out the two radiator brackets and immediately cut out a section at the back too
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    Also made a start with cutting out the front
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    Lets start with smoothing the rough edges on these cuts
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    As I said it should fit ;)
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    Also making surte the front and back are perfectly smooth so I don't scratch my radiator (...too much)
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    THE universal modding tool :D
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    Well time to see if it fits and yeah it's a perfect example of "If it fits, it sits" measurements where spot on :cooldude:
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    Cutting away the fins was not enough so a quick freestyle cut was needed to get it to fit at the back
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    Shot of the empty front I/O (at this moment I got an idea what I'll do with it) and the radiator's in and out
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    Now I need to make some brackets to keep the radiator 18mm higher than the old mounts (I need the maximum height to get the motherboard clear) higher than that would mean I also needed to get rid of my Power, Reset and Fan LED switches

    I'm going to use the old 240 mount brackets to make some new ones :)
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    Got them nice and round
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    Cut the brackets in half, scraped the paint of the bending points (and some metal) to make them bendable by hand

    The result :D
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    Putted the brackets on the Radiator to see if they are bend well enough to get the 18mm rise, this is how it will hang in there :)
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    Looks good from above
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    The clip in which the power, reset and fan LED switches are mounted rests exactly on top of the radiator so it's a perfect fit :D
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    By now it's time to get the drill and drill the holes which will be used to fasten the brackets, sadly my little brother broke the drill a few weeks before I started this so I need to get a new drill
     
    Last edited: 14 Apr 2014
  2. TheMadDutchDude

    TheMadDutchDude The Flying Dutchman

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    Looks like we need to sign up to that forum to view the images. :(
     
  3. DBRichard

    DBRichard What's a Dremel?

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    A damn that's a bummer, anybody know if I could just upload images right on the forum instead of using links ?

    Will Upload some new images, hope those will show up and otherwise I'll post a direct link to the photo's on my Flickr account
     
    Last edited by a moderator: 14 Apr 2014
  4. GeorgeK

    GeorgeK Swinging the banhammer Super Moderator

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    Personally I find it easiest using something like flickr or imgur and then using the tags (with the url in the middle obviously :thumb:)

    Welcome to the forum btw!

    Edit: Also - try to use the edit button rather than double posting in the future :)
     
  5. DBRichard

    DBRichard What's a Dremel?

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    It worked, my apologies for the inconvenience, I have zero experience with this forum
     
  6. GeorgeK

    GeorgeK Swinging the banhammer Super Moderator

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    No problem bud :D Awesome project by the way cramming such a huge rad in that case!
     
  7. DBRichard

    DBRichard What's a Dremel?

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    Thanks for the Welcome :) sorry for the double posting, I couldn't see my own posts yet so couldn't edit them, will edit them in the future


    It's time for a new update

    I got a new drill to drill the mounting holes for the brackets
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    Everything is here for assembly :D
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    Bolted everything down and tightened it as much as possible to make the brackets somewhat Semi-Permanent so I can easily mount a different 480mm radiator if I wanted to
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    Still need to get the other ends of the brackets a little shorter and grind the to the same round shape as the other end
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    As I said I wanted to change as little as possible to the looks so I even bolted them upside down so only the nice bolt head would be visible (if you look very good)
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    Ordering the fans pretty soon, will use this nice 8-Way PWM Splitter from Swiftech to control them with the onboard Fan Xpert 2 software on my VI Formula board :) saves me a fan controller
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    So three days went by and I got the fans in :)

    4x Corsair SP120 High Pressure PWM edition fans :D
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    I need to say Corsair does make some nice fans, I need to get rid of those blue rings and put on the red ones
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    Changed the rings and mounted the fans on the radiator
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    Mounted the radiator to the brackets, it seems like I still have some room to get the 8 and 4 pin CPU power cables in there when the board is installed :)
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    Now I needed to find a place for the 8-Way PWM Splitter, found a perfect spot on the backside of the motherboard tray which has room for the headers and no cables crossing that spot :D
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    Now I need to drill some holes, clean everything including the radiator, bolt everything back on there and wire everything etc.

    Till next time (which will be soon I guess)
     
  8. GeorgeK

    GeorgeK Swinging the banhammer Super Moderator

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    Ah yes - forgot about that - your posts still need moderating at the minute :)
     
  9. montymole

    montymole Rigid Tubist

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    Lot of Rad in such a tight space well done like this i do
     
  10. Hukkel

    Hukkel James' minion

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    wow that is a tight fit lol
     
  11. DBRichard

    DBRichard What's a Dremel?

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    Thanks :)

    Yeah it's a very tight fit but I'm glad it worked out perfectly

    Update:

    I ordered the rest of the parts a few days ago but not everything was in stock, estimate is that it will be here in about a week and then i'll update the buildlog (did not order all fittings or acrylic tubes yet)

    Also my H100i died a little bit too soon :(
    So I'll be mounting everything ASAP
     
  12. DBRichard

    DBRichard What's a Dremel?

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    I forgot to throw the last two updates on this forum but here they are this is PART 1!!

    Got some nice stuff in

    GPU Block for the ASUS GTX780 DCII OC
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    Pump Top for the MCP655
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    The Pump itself (Laing / Swiftech D5-MCP655)
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    The third Aquatube that I own Love these reservoirs
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    The supernice looking backplate for the GTX780 DCII OC
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    Three stop fittings, one for the reservoir and two for the GPU SINGLE link I'll get in soon
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    Got two fittings to see how they look, the rest will be ordered with the remaining parts, I honeslty love these (just needs a black or red O ring to match the build (at least for the visible ones)
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    The Phobya 20 LED's MODboard/station
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    Two 5mm LED plugs for the reservoir
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    Some extra EK badges because I damaged the one on the CPU block
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    So that was the unboxing lets get to the stuff where I work on them...POLISHING ALL THE BLOCKS!!!

    Pump top before
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    Pump without the default bracket and top
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    How it looks on the pump before polishing
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    Polishing time!!!

    How it looked like after polishing and mounted to the pump (little preview of the GPU block on the right)
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    The GPU plexy before
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    After polishing it twice I finally got it totally clear (the little bit of fog is some polish residue that I cleaned of afterwards)
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    Now the whole family in one picture
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    Now it's time to also mount the GPU Block to the GTX780

    Normal
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    Cooler came off nice (too much paste ASUS)
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    Nice and clean
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    Adding the Thermal pads
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    Mounted the block and the backplate
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    Also here is the CPU Block which I did a month or so ago

    Before
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    After
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    With the Mayhems X1 Blood Red coolant which I'm going to use
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    Next order is already placed, in the meanwhile I need to make some brackets for the Pump and the Reservoir, how about some acrylic
     
  13. DBRichard

    DBRichard What's a Dremel?

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    It has been a long time since the last update, been really busy and never had the time to update the forum

    BUT HERE IT IS!!!! A FREAKISHLY BIG UPDATE!!!

    Putting the block on there with the Direct Die cooling kit from EKWB
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    Had an idea how to mount the reservoir in the HDD Cage
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    One tube done
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    When I noticed that I would need a lot more tubing than I had anticipated I got a nice deal with E22 (Nate George) and my good friend Fred, they sent me this
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    Got several meters of tubing and a bending cord, in return I will make a 3D model for one of Fred's his upcoming mods
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    Also the last fittings, a 1L fill bottle and some Bitfenix sleeved cables arrived, FINALLY!!!!
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    The cables (didn't have time to sleeve them myself this time)
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    The new fittings with 2x Fillport fitting, 2x mini male to male G1/4 connections, 2x 90* degree G1/4 fitting, 1x 90 degree enhance fitting, 1x 500mm extension for the actual filling port and I bought a nice logo badge from Bitspower not sure what to do with it yet xD
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    Tried to collect all the fittings together for a nice group photo, sadly I forgot about 4 of them
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    Drilled two big holes at the top of the HDD cage and fitted the reservoir by mounting it hanging on two fillports with two male to male fittings never seen this before and I thought it looked pretty sick
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    The PSU cover/midplate will not be here anytime soon and I wanted to use my rig so I made a quick decision to mount the pump on the floor temporary (with a thich piece of rubber in between the block and floor)
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    The hardest tube of the complete rig went right at the first try xD looks good
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    It's a perfect fit, just need to put a plastic sheet between it to keep it from scratching when I need to take it out (which still happened a few days after xD)
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    I also have to wait for the LED's but still wanted to see the effect on the pump top so I got a little RGB led and it looked pretty cool (will be two 5mm white LED's)
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    I assembled the hardware again and I finally got all the tubes right
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    I did change some things after making these photo's, I did change the tube on the top of the reservoir from the back to the front for 10x easier air bleeding
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    Filled it up with Mayhems Pure H2O to clean the tubes a bit, used the rig for a couple of days seems like the temps where way too high on the CPU so I knew I had not used enough of Liquid Ultra (I was out of the stuff) I will apply some Arctic Silver 5 when I change the liquid

    It looks awesome but it will look even better with the X1 Blood Red coolant from Mayhems
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    At this point it should be clean so it was time to take it apart, clean all the tubes, change the Liquid Ultra to AS5, put all the tubes back and fill it up with Blood...Red coolant
    *These photo's are made right after filling it so the liquid still has a lot of air in it and isn't clear yet
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    Still need to remove the clear piece of plastic that I putted on this little round window, the scratches will be gone then
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    Bleeding out the air in the radiator by tilting it back 45 degrees xD
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    Some Semi-Proffesional photo's of the result after bleeding out the air
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    I've started editing these pics a little bit and these are the result of that
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    This will be all until the PSU cover/Midplate, LED's and some other small things come in

    Hope you guys and gals like it
     

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