Case Mod - In Progress Project: Dominator (Lian Li A05-B) updated 10/20/08

My rad consists of 8 (yes 8) 90 degree elbows. That is why I originally though serial would be a good idea - to increase the head. Currently only have 2 blocks (CPU & NB) but may go with GPU in future.

 

Im not really building a passive system as I too like the overclock. What I am after is a system that can ramp up as the heat increases. I am also working on a design to integrate a second rad (but only if necessary)

 

Another point worth mentioning on the pumps - I plan on integrating a mcubed T-Balancer to run the pumps at lower RPM

 

You interested me in those radiators but from what I've been reading, they're supposed to be mounted vertically.

 

thats true, as the rad will heat air and hot air rises, which would follow across the whole surface of the rad.

however, if a fan is placed to blow air along the rads, then it would solve the problem.

 

I love that case (i am also a fellow A05B'er)!!!! The rad looks amazing from the front, keep up the amazing work!

 

Correctomundo. And by my logic the fans would not even have to move much air to get the desired result. Said a different way - the fans do not need to cool the heatpipes, they simply need to move the hot air away from the surrounding area.

Thanks for the kind words and encouragement. Wait until you see what I have been working on for the front of the rad

 

Some slight modifications to the pump stand

After some thinking I decided to make some modifications to the pump mounting bracket:

Originally the bottom acrylic plate looked like this:



I decided to make the middle 2 holes larger to allow me to mount all the screws and nuts to attach the actual pumps to the top plate in the same direction (previous design had tow of the screws upside down). Look at this photo for an explanation - the two screws between the 2 pumps are upside down:



So I made the middle holes larger in the acrylic and also decided to add one more attachment between the two plates for added stability (see the hole in the middle below the 2 large holes):



I also decided to rise the pumps some more with these (in process of being painted):



And new final product from different angles:



Note the 5th standoff in the middle



Note how the bigger holes in the middle allows me to mount all 4 screws for the pumps in the same direction






Unrelated shot of my new toy - have needed this for a loooong time!

 

Radiator Housing Complete!!!!

I have been working over the last 3 weekends on finishing the radiator housing and eventually (11p Sunday night) completed it. This will chronicle the 3 weekends worth of work and went like this: Weekend 1 - create front plate, weekend 2 - sanding and painting, weekend 3 - painting and sanding!. It was really frustrating work but I love the outcome. As I can only work on it on weekends, the painting took very long. But enough yapping - here it is!

So to finish the radiator housing I needed to make a front face plate and attach all the individual pieces of the housing together.

I started the face plate from a flat piece of thick aluminum bar:



And marked up for drilling and cutting - don't worry I know what all the lines I drew on it means:



Then I clamped it in the drill press and drilled 12 holes with a 5/8" drill bit. This part sucked as it was very tough to control the crappy drill press (between you and me - I completely messed my first attempt up and had to start over Don't tell anybody! - it will be our secret )

I forgot to take a photo after drilling, but here is one of where I started cutting out the pieces between the holes:





Finished all the rough cuts - starting to get the picture?



From the above photo it took me about a day of hard work to get to this. The challenge was that I wanted the holes to look like it was machine cut, so the filing/sanding had to be done very carefully so as not to lose the sharp edges while still making all the holes symmetrical and properly rounded at top and bottom and straight in the middle.
Here are a few shots to give different perspectives:



This photo was at about the half way mark:


More of the final shots




And then the test fit:







I really like the silver look and was tempted to just polish it to a semi mirror finish. But better judgment told me to stick to black for the case front.

And that was the end of weekend 1...

Weekend 2:
Mesh showed up in time from MNPCTech - thanks!



After looking at the photos I took. I decided it needed more sanding. So I spent another 2 hours sanding the plate. I also cut the mesh to size and cleaned it up:






Rest of weekend 2/3 was spent on priming, wetsanding and painting and more wetsanding. Some photos to prove that I am not pulling your leg (I really did paint it)




While waiting for the paint to dry I finished the other piece of work needed - attaching the original 2 pieces of the rad housing:

2 small bars to attach the 2 pieces of the rad:



Bend it with the brake:



Apply glue and play the waiting game (never EVER the crying game - just the waiting game)






OK - so eventually I reached Sunday of weekend 3 and could fit it all together. A quick shot before gluing it all together. Oh - I forgot to mention I painted the mesh too.




Then wait for the glue to cure. No photos of gluing (it's glue and clamps what did you expect to see )

Final product - unfortunately this was 11pm Sunday and bad lighting. I wasn't going to set up lighting at that point. I will take some better shots sometime in the future.













What do you think? It really was a LOT of work but personally I think worth it.

 

Nice project!!!!! most beatifull grill!

 

beautiful grill, loved how it turned out.hey man, ur lucky to have a drill press, i gotta use a cordless 9 volt drill for all my drilling. And for cutting, all ive got is a hacksaw and dremel!

 

Beautiful grill!! (I think this forum need some soft furniture, curtains and carpets.. cause it definitely does echo in here)

Have you tried with unpainted mesh as well?

 

Nice mods on the pump stand. The rad enclosure looks beautiful, very nice work on the plate.

 

Because you do not leave the singings of the hollows of the grid in color metal, or polished?

 

very very nice...

 

Thanks!

I got one of those multi-step drill bits this past week. Definitely much easier to drill with. I think it would have been much easier with one of those bits (even when used with a hand drill as long as you get the pilot holes in the right place). After using that bit for some test holes and the 2 new holes I made in the pump bracket, I would say get yourself one of those bits before worrying about a drill press

Yeah - but right now I am liking the echo!

No I didn't even think about it - don't start to confuse me - it is what it is now!

Thanks!

Say again??

Thanks!

The photos do not do it justice. This coming weekend I wont be home (diving in the Keys - jippeee!! ) but as soon as I'm back home I will take some photos in better light.

 

Update time!!

First off - I got a sponsor



I was trying to find the great Nanoxia fans in the US. And in my search I got in direct contact with the fine folks at Xen.micro. Long story short - I am now the proud owner of some Nanoxia fans for my project. The color fits nicely with my project and as a bonus the fans are excellent coolers. Go check out their products:

Nanoxia

The goodies they sent me:











On to some of the work I did over the weekend (and some odds and ends I did before but have not posted yet):

Fixin' up the case

There are a few holes in the case that needs to be filled. First off are the original case feet holes (the big hole in the picture):



Filled with JB Weld and left to dry:



From the other side - I use a piece of paper and acrylic to stop the JB Weld from falling through the hole:



After sanding:







Next up is to replace some of the rivets with screws. This case uses a lot of counter sunk flat head rivets. After some trial and error I found a screw size that sort of fits the counter sunk holes for the rivets. So for the next few hours I drilled out rivets, slightly increased the diameter of the counter sunk holes and installed clinch nuts. I did this for:

• Motherboard tray
• HDD bracket
• ODD bracket

Rear fan mesh guard

I wanted to replace the standard fan mesh guard for the rear 120mm fan. I decided to use hex mesh as I will use some hex mesh in the case windows. But I could not quite put a picture in my head of how I wanted to install the mesh - I did not want it sandwiched between the fan and case. So I came up with an idea to "fuse" it into the case so that it would seem after painting as if it is part of the same piece of metal. I was worried that it would not be strong enough, but decided to try it anyway - no guts no glory and all that crap eh?

First off I took a piece of hex mesh (from mnpctech of course)



I clamped it down and then cut it as needed. The approach was to cut some of the "legs" of the mesh to be longer than the fan hole and the rest just barely shorter than the fan opening. See below for picture to make up for my lack of linguistic ability:



See how some "legs" extend over the opening? I then used a felt pen to mark the legs on the case.
Also see some of my screw ups where I cut the shorter "legs" too short - this will bite me in the ass later...

Next up I removed the mesh and cut grooves in the case where I marked the "legs". Sorry for the out of focus pic:



Then mix up some JB Weld



And then fill the grooves with the weld:



From here I had to speed up my work before the JB Weld got too sticky/hard so I do not have photos, but here is what I did:

1. Insert the mesh into the grooves & glue
2. Cover the "legs" in the grooves with more glue
3. Clamp a piece of acrylic to the case underneath the mesh
4. Use micro surgery techniques to build "bridges" between the case and shorter "legs" **
5. Place a piece of scrap paper over the mesh and clamp down with another piece od acrylic from above the mesh

**The idea was that the legs should "flow" into the case - there should not be any gaps




Wait 4 hours

Remove all acrylic and do some rough sanding to remove excess JB Weld:



See how it appears as if all the legs of the mesh touch the case. EXCEPT for my one screw up on the right. The JB Weld did not stick to this wide gap as I cut the mesh too short. To be honest I expected this to happen in a few cases and was prepared for a second round of "welding"

At this point the JB Weld was set but not very hard yet. By design I only waited 4 hours so that it would be easier to cut the excess gunk away before it is too hard.
So I started more micro surgery - with a craft knife I trimmed all the excess away. I was very careful to reconstruct the original hex design - With the long "legs" this was easy as I could just cut along the metal edges. But with the short "legs" I basically had to cut the gap between the leg and case to look like the leg extended to the case.

Action shot - the holes to the right of my hand is trimmed but the rest is not:



All holes cut out. Not to shabby except for the one short leg and a couple of holes at the bottom left and right that I decided are too small to cut and will be completely filled in. They both have small divots that need to be filled:



And a shot from the side. The light plays tricks but it is completely flat:




So last night I did the second round of JB Weld and that is where I ran out of time - waiting for the weld to dry. Next weekend I will sand it down until it is completely smooth and even. I will take the mandatory glory shots of the final product after it is sanded smooth!

 

Awesome attention to detail, I gotta get myself some of that mesh

Those fans are hot

 

Nice job. And congrats on getting a hold of those elusive fans here in the States! I've been wanting to find some of those bloody things here. They're apparently really nice units. I mean, they have a MTBF of 150,000 hrs! And a 10-year warranty. Sheesh!

 

Congratz on the new sponsor mate. I have have been waiting to see if anyone would use those Nanoxia fans. Let us know how they perform, they would have been perfect for my mod but I can't find any in Australia.