I've been lurking about here for a while, and figured I would share with ya'll something I've been working on. Not really a true mod in the creative sense, but I think its pretty cool. Figured out how to mount a GTS 360 rad in the front of my chasis while still maintaining space for the rest of my components. I am waiting on the res, southbridge block, coolant, and tubing which should be here today. I'm going to mount my res to the side panel to the right of the window and use a hole saw and grommets to plumb the lines through into the chassis. Let me know what yall think, more pictures to follow. Some basic fitting and testing before yanking all the hardware out of my case. I really like the Antec 1200 its a damn fine chassis. The fan assemblies off of the front of the drive cages as I began to tear everything apart. Another shot of the chassis partially disassembled. mmmmm teflon tape on the barbs for the radiator, and further tear down of the fan assemblies. My mainboard after pulling off the hsf, heatpipe assembly, and hsf compound. I tried out arctic silver's hsf removal liquid kit, and it seemed to work very well. No more struggling with scrubbing off the hsf compound. Definitely worth 5$... Miscellaneous removed hardware... Beginning to install the DD northbridge block. Northbridge block installed. Acrylic back plate for the cpu block installed. CPU block installed. A shot of the board with the blocks installed, still waiting on the southbridge block from EK. On to the radiator installation...I did a lot of looking and test fitting. I don't particularly care for the rad box and mounting the rad to the back of the box, to me it looks sloppy and lacks a certain finish that I like to have on my machines. The more I studied the chassis the more it became apparent I could probably shoe-horn the radiator into the front with a bit 'o modding. Which is exactly what I did...hehe... After much wrangling, measuring, re-measuring, cursing, and trying not to scratch any paint: Test fitting the rest of the honeycomb drive covers to verify fittament. If you look close I also managed to bring the fan speed controllers around the rad and re-mount them in their semi-original positions. More on the fan speed controllers, I am not in my chassis too much so I did not want to leave these inside. Upon closer inspection the bracket they were in was plastic, and now they would be touching the metal rad and the metal drive bay cover. Well with exposed leads that will never do. I like to keep things the same color, and viola! Protected leads. Pardon the mess, but with everything screwed in she is beginning to look the way she should. A shot from the inside, with cable managed fans. A shot with the flash, I know I know the screws will be painted, I just wanted to see what it would look like all put together. A shot with no flash, you almost can't tell that the rad is in there. Damn those silver screws are ugly, they'll get painted tonight. Let me know what ya'll think, there will be more pics and an update tomorrow once I finish this off tonight.
update As promised more work got done on this last night, and it led up to a leak test. When I got home from work yesterday, there was a package containing: Yay, tubing, a res, southbridge block, and coolant! After digging through the box, I realized that I had forgotten to purchase hose clamps. So out to the local autoparts store it was. Last waterblock configured and installed. Masked off the side panel to drill the holes for the reservoir. Sorry for the lack of drilling pictures/deburr/mounting, but it was getting late and the drilling frustrated the hell out of me. No more using a hole saw for me, I was not impressed with the cut I made with it. Maybe I need more practice. As you can see I had to hole-saw drill 2 more holes in the side of the drive cage, protected with grommets. Also got the system plumbed after much trepidation. I really like the color of the fesser tubing I bought, the pictures dont do it justice at all. Another shot of the plumbing. Got the res mounted, although as you can see in the picture the holesaw did not make the cleanest of cuts, I have since sanded down around the holes and sprayed it with some flat black. Was just doing fittament there. Also the holes were de-burred, and filed so as not to damage the tubing. A little bit different angle After much trouble, I finally got the system filled and started a leak test. A little better picture from a different angle showing off the different colors this tubing is.
I ended up having to re-arrange the way things were ordered. It went: Drive cage > plastic fan holder > fan > honeycomb grill Now it goes: Drive cage (slid farther back and new holes drilled the same diameter as the old mounting holes) > fan > rad > honeycomb grill Its very sturdy and my drives still get proper cooling. All I really need to do is figure out how to implement the screens for my fans. That way my rad doesn't get all dusty.
yay for updates, no leaks last night when I got home from work. Went to put the hardware back in and upon trying to shoehorn my 1st GTX 260 into the case I realised that the line into the radiator had been cut too short and the system would have to be drained the hose removed and a longer tube put in place. All this after it not leaking and with hardware in the case...grrr...oh well, took care of that with the longer hose in place everything went as planned. All hardware installed, I began the daunting task of rerouting my psu cables out the back of the motherboard tray for some cable management goodness. Once it was all done the payoff rocked though... some images: Ambient temp 72F, cpu nb sb temp idle 74F, load 88F...very pleased with the turnout, not time for overclocking last night; but, hopefully tonight I'll get to some OC goodness. Let me know what yall think.
May I reccomend going over the bare bits of metal by the cuts with a Sharpie or the like? It doesn't get rid of the marks, but it will blend the panel nicely
Hole saw on a Milwaukee drill, the guide bit broke on the second hole (to the left) even though I as drilling with the panel clamped down to about 6" of wood. When the guide bit did that it skipped over the surface and fubared my side panel. I can't decide the best way to fix the marred area though. Any recommendations?
since its a relatively small area, you could probably use some modeling epoxy from Hobbytown or the like to mend it. Of course, you would have to also sand down the surrounding area, and if you want a uniform look you ultimately might have to sand the whole panel and repaint it. People have had success with bondo, but it might be too much material for your problem. could always save the leftover for later though. And nice mod
Thats awesome, I was wondering what the side panel would look like painted. Looks clean, I was thinking bondo for the scratches, but it doesn't have any flex. Would the modeling compound have flexibility for like when I take the side panel on and off?
Has anyone used this fan before? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835220015 Thinking about getting 5 of them, due to a couple of my chassis stock fans dying...but I dont want to pay 19$ a fan if they are not worth it.
