Scratch Build – In Progress NAKED NUC - (Intel) FINAL PHOTOS

Hello everyone to a short buildlog of my entree in the Intel NUC contest 2016.

I was honoured to be invited to this challenge.
5 modders total were able to compete this year.

We were given a very nice Intel NUC with an i7 CPU in it.
Intel also provided a 120GB SATA based M.2 drive.
G Skill provided us with some very nice memory for the system.

And from there on forward, we were on our own

I don't want to explain what kind of idea I had for it right away.

I just knew 2 things:

1. It was going to be watercooled
2. It was not going to be a big end product. I specifically wanted it to still have a somewhat small footprint. No Caselabs NUC project lol.

Since we have the rule here to show some modding in the first post I want to share a few photos of a "mockup" I created. I had an idea and I needed to make I could fit certain things in it. So I lasered 5 pieces and glued them together to get a feel for the size and shape.











More explaining in a next update.

I do want to thank Marian from Watercooled.ch for the invitation for the challenge. Thank you very much.

 

Time to show off the goodies.

This is the Intel NUC we received to use in this mod.



















I am not really busy looking at these mini pc systems because I enjoy putting hardware together and modding a system etc. But I was kinda wow-ed with this system. The body is just 1 piece of metal. Really nicely done. Felt sturdy and classy. Only the plastic top scratches super easy but otherwise

Then we have the M.2 Intel SSD







And last but not least Gskill provided us all with their great So-DIMM memory for the NUC.









Thank you Gskill for coming to the rescue after another not-to-be-named brand pulled out at the last second of the competition.



Putting this together for a testrun makes it look like this.





More to come in the next update.

 

Since the NUC is silver and I want to use silver fittings I painted the fan and radiator silver as well.

 

ooh! Another NUC contest.

 

You like your small form factor projects don't you?

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To give an idea of what I want to do, here are some photos of plexiglas plates that will form the body of the mod.
In the final photo you can I am welding the acrylic.

 

I wanted to use 2 very small pumps that I knew Alphacool made. Through Watercool.ch Aquatuning decided to provide me these for the compertition. Thank you very much Aquatuning for doing so.



Here are the pumps and the tops that you need to run them. They are very small, fit in the palm of your hand and can almost be called "cute".









Of course the nowadays obligatory banana for size comparison

 

Lovely work as usual , great to see that Intel are running a NUC competition again this year.
Interesting to see it's a select invitation comp this time.

More NUC action is always welcome in my book!

 

Thanks

 

Here are the photos after I glued the plexiglass panels together.

The box is 20cm*20cm*20cm. Still a not so big case.

 

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

I think your banana is past it, though.

 

Nice look. Indeed i prefer small form factor, it challenge the skills even more D:

 

NUC porn?

 

Thank you sir

And naaaahhhh it served my peanutbutter banana sandwich well

Thank you very much.

haha dare I say "I hope so"?

 

Here is the central structure for the NUC inside the cube.

On one side ot stands on the rigid tubing and on the other side on the transparent folded plexiglass edge. Hoping this will make it seem like it "floats" or stands on the 2 tubes only once the coolant runs through.

 

I designed a waterblock for the NUC together with my buddy Django.
To see is completely top to bottom I created one completely from plexiglass so you can see how it looks from all sides.

 

Started filling this baby up

 

Cool!

 

Thanks

 

Here are the finished photos of the system in the sunlight.















































Please let me know what you think.

 

i would love to see this build in person
the pictures, good as they are, just doesn't do the build justice

i love the overkill factor of every bit of the build;
two pumps, a big radiator, a custom block, a custom reservoir case...

well done!
love the result