Case Mod - In Progress Corsair 600T GREEN (Updated 11th december)

introduction

Hi, i'm Jorrit, 35 years, and from the netherlands. I've been modding stuff since i was old enough to pick up a hammer and was into casemodding around 2003 and left again with a 7 year hiatus persueing other interests. Now i'm back into casemodding again, for the while being, though. I've been lurking around this forum for quite some time, and the quality of builds posted here just puts my skills to shame. But i finally gathered the courage to register, and posting my worklog of my latest build.

And the name of the project will be...



No fancy Photoshop skillz, just masking tape, xacto knifing away, some paint and pasting some logo's. Unlike the banner suggests, this will not be a ghetto mod, or a sponsored one.

The idea

I wanted a nice clean industrial/mill-spec styled PC, with black and green accents. At first i opted air cooling, but later on the decision was made to go all the way and watercool this baby!
It all started around april 2011, while planning to build a new pc. I was planning to re-use my trusty Lian-Li PC6077 that i have used for years now, and turn the old hardware into a souped up NAS system. While shopping for a case to put the NAS system in, i stumbled upon the Corsair 600T enclosure, and fell in love with the robust yet fluid lines of it. So in the end i have a wonderfull 8TB NAS in a Lian-Li enclosure running Freenas 8.0, and my new hardware in a loaned case. That shamefully looks like this:



Don't you just hate it when things turn out different than planned?



I did have the new hardware inside the new case for a short while, but unfortunatly after two weeks, the Seasonic PSU died on me. Because there would still be alot of work to be done on the Corsair case, i decided to transfer all the hardware to the loaner case for the time being and RMA the Power supply.

In wich it still resides...


Hardware specs

- Intel Core i7 2600K
- Asus Sabertooth P67
- Corsair Dominator 2x 4GB DDR3 Ram
- Asus HD6870 Direct CU (will be replaced for a GFX580, one card is enough oomph for me)
- Seasonic X-660 PSU
- Intel 510 - 120GB SSD
- Hitachi 5K3000 - 2TB HDD
- Intel X25 Postville - 160GB SSD (optional)
- Sony NEC optiarc DVD writer (call me old fashioned, but i still use it from time to time!)
- CPU and GPU blocks by EK
- Couplings by Bitspower
- Rads by Koolance/hardware labs
- Sleeving: MDPC-X
- Fancontroller - Mcubed T-Balancer

The start!

First of all i wanted the old HD-VU meter i had in my old case transfered to this one, and since the Sabertooth has a thermal shield, i got an idea...



Let's just hot glue 20 3mm blue leds behind the shield, and hook it up to the VU meter... The FDD cable that came with my old Asus P5Q Pro mobo was finally put to good use after sitting over 2 years in the box.



Also a connector was needed to hook up the VU meter, and i still had some LPT connectors from my previous projects, so that was used.



Not the most clean solution, but it won't be visible so i'm happy with it.



Blurry pic... Or would you like to see a video instead?

http://youtu.be/vCkfijQyzng



After stripping the case down, i also removed the top fan controller, USB 2.0 headers and USB 3.0 and firewire headers. The fancontroller is no longer needed due to the T-balancer i'm going to use, and i have a hate/hate relationship with front connectors. They accumilate dust, and send your precious USB gadgets flying when you trip over the wire. (seeing your iphone taking its first flying lesson is not funny)



I also did not like the on/off reset buttons on the case, so i wanted to place them in the middle. Time to mill some acrylic at work on the CNC. Here i milled a on/off button, reset button and a insert that comes where the fan controller used to be.



After cutting out the pieces with a exacto knife, we have a nice fitting insert...



Glued the insert and some uv-green acrylic pieces to close all the connector ports with some sort of JB weld. (not the same brand, but it's epoxy and extremely good)



After curing, its time to apply some epoxy filler, and lots of sanding...



Some spray filler, more sanding, more filler, more sanding, well you get the idea...



Almost perfect. Not there yet, but this should be easy enough to do prior to painting
the outer shell.



For color, i was thinking about the paint i used to paint this RC car body... It has a green/purple hue on it depending on how the light reflects, and is backed with black paint. Allthough lime green or just plain olive green would also look nice. Not sure yet on the color though, maybe a dark silver like my Logitech G11 keyboard and MX518 mouse also looks nice on this case.



Also i took the liberty of stealing erm loaning a idea from Kier's casebuild, but eventually after hours of work put into it decided to go a different way instead.



A bit of brainstorming on how the loop will run, and placement of some of the hardware...



And the first goodies are in from Highflow... Few rads, a bunch of Bitspower couplings, some Feser fluid, and Noctua Fans.

Either way, I have only been posting this project on tweakers.net and there's still lots more to post to get up to the most recent state of afairs. I will try to update as often as possible to get this new log up to date with the existing one.

Thanks for viewing, and happy modding!

 

At this time, the Seasonic PSU came back from RMA, and i had some time at work to mill a few pieces on the CNC.



The left and right insert will be placed in the holes for the mic and headphone, after i drill them, and the center piece is for the on/off button.



That just looks sweet!



And a little test fit to see how it looks... The headset connectors are left because these come in real handy sometimes while using teamspeak.



And houston, we have a problem... I went with 2 different black ice radiators, one black ice GT stealth, and one Xflow rad. The holes dont match up like i had envisioned...



Having a fitting sticking out in front of a fan is not accepable. (note to self: That's what you get when you don't make cad drawings!) Oh well, I have to think about this one, or order another radiator.



Next up on the chopping block is the case... We need to make some room for a front radiator.



I wanted the radiator as forward as possible, so mounting it directly against the chassis was not an option because there was so much space to be used between the front and the chassis.



And the 5,25" drive cage also has an appointment with the dremel.



These days having no optical drive is more common than having one, but i still use them from time to time, so at least one optical drive must be possible to place. A external drive could be an option, but i dont want a extra thing with more cables on my desk.



And rivetted back into place. I did not bother with repainting the cut edges, because all of this will be covered with acrylic.



To fit the front rad in, and mount it to a surface i had to rivet 2 aluminium U-profiles in the case 20x20x2mm size. Inittially i was going for 10x10x1 profiles, but overlooked the locking mechanism for the front dust cover so i had to move the radiator a bit more backward than planned.



Then it's time to cut some 3mm lexan sheet. I've ordered black acrylic sheet to do this, but the material was out of stock, so i had to wait. To still keep working i've got some clear lexan instead, and this will be painted black on the backside.



Next up was cutting the holes for the radiator, and was done with a jigsaw. I must admit that i really like working with plastic sheet material as a modding material, my last build used alot of 2mm aluminum sheet, and its much harder to cut with a jigsaw. (love working with aluminium at work though)



Here's the same panel, after a good coat of this stuff:



The left can is the same paint i used on the RC car body, the 2-tone color. The black can however will be used for the lexan panels. This paint is flexible and eats into the lexan so it's near impossible to get off again. If it still sticks to a lexan RC car body that crashes at over 50Km/h, its good enough for this build.



Panel, rad and fans in place...



And a poor attempt to plane strips of acrylic. A drill press is not really suited for this, especially a cheap one. But it got the strips straight, and the rough edges were easy enough to sand smooth.



Just a little brainstorming... Not going to happen in this form, but atleast it's giving me ideas.



And more modding goodies are slowly arriving... A pair of 120mm rads, more feser, a reservoir, more bitspower couplings, and the swiftech pump.

That's all for now, more to come ASAP!

 

This all looks great, I can't wait to see the paint job if you do choose the purple/green combo I should looks great, although a shame it wont live where the sun light gets to it

 

Thanks! If i paint it in the two-tone paint, it should get enough light. I'm planning on having the case on my desk, instead of underneath on the floor. The loaner case is sucking in quite alot of dust, and this case will have lots of gloss black internals so its a dust nightmare.



Update!

The top radiator was a bit of a dilemma... should i get another rad, or do something else? Then a few days later when i was at work, i had another idea... Why not run the tubing along the outside of the case?



It's going to be a very tight fit, but if i can pull it off it will mean less tubes visible inside the case.



Also a Koolance 120mm radiator is placed on the back of the case. It was a near perfect fit, and only 1 mm of material had to be shaved off the back plastic bezel to still remove it after the rad is bolted into blace.



Installed the couplings on the front rad...



Also it was time to invest in some tools... I wanted a step drill, but those things seem to cost a fortune. For half the price i got a stepless drill that makes holes up to 20mm. And i got a similar tool that can be used as a round file in de cordless drill.



I've gotten some 12mm copper tubing, and fortunatly was able to loan a bending tool from work, because these things are very expensive. This is a proffesional bending tool from Swagelock, and it makes perfect bends every time!

At work we use it to bend 316 stainless steel tubing, and being used to that, the copper tubing was very easy to work with.



Work in progress...



The small L-shaped tube gave me troubles though....



Usually you cut a piece of tubing to roughly the length you need, measure where the bend goes, and start bending... Wrong! The rollers of the bending tool need support, otherwise it will dent your tubing. The solution was to make the bend first on a longer piece of tubing, and then making it fit.



This tube was particuary hard to bend, and took a lot of correctioning to make it fit. Also the door handle of the side panel was in the way, explaining the weird bend while it's going to the front radiator.



And it's a very close fit....



And the copper tubing is almost done! Still one tube to go back into the case, the rest of the loop will be Tygon tubing, for ease of maintenance.



Also i recieved another package from Nils...



Still no black acrylic, so i will be forced to use lexan again. And for this part, it is the better choice, because there will be some bending involved placing it inside the case.



The lexan will be placed a bit offset compared to the motherboard tray, so that the PCB of the motherboard will be flush with the lexan sheet.



Test fit, and marking the location of the connections.



And figuring out some sort of layout...



Running the system in the loaner case, has not done it good. Allready there is dust buildup on the fans. Unfortunaly the case cannot he closed due to the huge Cooler Master V8 CPU block i have on there.



I've decided to place the harddrive in the front. I'm not planning to install a LCD or anything else in the front, i want to have it as clean as possible.



Time for more dremel work... I removed the motherboard tray to cut it a little bit shorter.



And after that rivetted a 10x10x1 U-profile against it to restore its structural strength.



Also the grill at the back had to go... No need for it and it hinders airflow.



Determined the placement of the pump, reservoir, and the holes for cables. The reservoir is partially recessed into the lexan sheet, this was done because i did not like the mounting clamps that came with the reservoir.



Also this gives me the option to stealth the temperature sensor, and alot of hosing that will run along this side of the panel.



Also needed some 4mm acrylic strips to offset the lexan sheet, so i had to cut them from my banner.



Also shopped for paint. The rattle can is for the lexan sheets, and the small tins will be used for the fans. I'll be painting them with my airbrush because i cannot dissasemble those noctua fans.



And after lots of cutting, fitting, swearing i finally got the top gril to fit! Its a very close fit, and took me quite some time modifiying the top grill.



Lots of 600T owners remove the plastic in the middle to fit the fans and improve airflow, but i decided to leave it there for structural strength. I only made room for the bitspower couplings, and had do drill 2 holes to make room for the dome shaped hex screws i'm using to fix the fans to the radiator.

Well, that's it for now... More to come shortly since this log is not up to date yet.

 

Update!

Still alot of construction to be done, but we're getting there eventually. I don't work on the case on a every day basis, so things aren't going in a murderous pace like some other modders tend to do. My goal is set to have it complete before christmas, and that should be easy enough if there are not too many setbacks.



Still no acrylic in sight, so i made the floor piece also out of lexan.



Here's a rough doodle on how the loop will run. The darker green lines will be in plain sight, and the lighter ones will be behind the panel.



And then, the neighbour was at my door with a package... Acrylic panels and a digital thermometer!



And a few days later some more tidbits from highflow... Somehow i've managed to order loads of stuff there, and still forget things. Must be my age...



A little failed attempt to put the T-balancer in the loop. Since the transistors output some heat, and the board is in a place with no ventilation, i wanted it cooled. Hoping that a 15mm copper tube could be tapped with 1/4" BSP threads was a wrong bet though, so this one was a classic case of back to the drawing board.



In the meanwhile i've painted the lexan panel black...



And changed the loop a bit to add a bleedpoint for the loop. (darn, adding all that bitspower is making this build quite expensive)



Also put those 6/32UNC dome head hex screws MDPC-X sent me to some good use, and i've painted the copper tubing matt black.



And slowly, but surely the drew their plans against us.... Erm, things come together...



Also had to pick a place for the SSD drive... Don't mind the grey color of the panels, they are black as night, but somehow the flash of my outdated digicam makes them gray.



Failed attempt at making a circuit to use the original power and reset buttons to switch lighting... I'm no good at this, so lets just leave it there.



Sorry, i just had to write that...



And the fans are undergoing a little makeover... I love these fans, but why for gods sake did Noctua decide to go with brown colors?



After painting the frames black, i masked one fan to paint the blades. Because these fans are impossible to dissasemble, it takes alot of effort to paint the blades. In the end the result was ok, but far from perfect.



Here's my airbrush setup. It is a 10 Liter 300bar/4500psi scuba tank, fillstation, 8cubic inch air tank used for paintball, paintball gun regulator, and airbrush. I had a regular air compressor, but it took up too much space, and i also have a scuba tank compressor at the local paintballfield, so this was more practical for me since my workshop is a little bit on the small size.



Painting some green on there, and after drying i added some neon yellow to soften the color a bit. And no, i don't read those newspapers.

And the result?



Well, that's pretty damn green if you ask me.

More to come, soon. Cya!

 

Let's just skip the banner for one time...

Update!

Please bear with me, and the enormous overload of pictures i'm posting in a short succession. We're getting close to the current state of the build, and yes i have been cutting a few corners to get this log up to speed.



While the fans are drying between paintjobs, it's about time to cut some UV Green acrylic. This piece will go around the reservoir.



After i add some industrial warning stripes that is. I applied some self adhesive vinyl and started cutting.



And the final result. I love the reflections the lexan panels give, hopefully this will give a very nice effect when the case is done.



After that, i've completed the loop on the rear end of the panel and...



And it was time for the leak test. (demi water for now) I still have to put the T-balancer and de GFX block in the loop, but atleast i can test the loop i've made sofar.



Well the first idea of cooling the T-Balancer came out as a dud, so i had to think of something else. My loop is all copper/nickel plated copper, so i got a piece of copper and milled it on the CNC at work.



The only things left to do are to drill and tap the mounting holes, a chore that is easy enough with the drill press at home.



And mounted with fittings. Now the controller does not output that much heat, and this block is wayyy overkill, but i like to be sure the components arent getting too hot. Curiously the standard fan controller that came with the 600T case does not have any heat sinks at all. And those components are getting really hot just running one fan.



And placed in the loop, and added the Feser fluid.



The reservoir was mounted to the lexan panel with a few dabs of hot glue. I wanted to fix it into place with double sided tape, but that just wasn't strong enough.



Also did a little acrylic bending... and messed it up... Oh well, i have plenty of black acrylic around, so i'll just make another piece.



Also the rear and underbelly of the DVD drive will be covered with acrylic.



And i did not like the matt black, so i had to repaint the frames in semi-gloss black. The mask was made from a few pieces of A4 paper and did it's job quite well... Almost no spray on the blades.



This is the reason for the repaint. note the paint on the rim of the right tin... it's too matte.



PSU cover attempt 2. This time i'm glueing a strip of UV green to it prior to bending. This is done with instant cement.

How it turned out? well, that's something for the next update.

Thanks for viewing, and happy modding y'all!

 

Lots of working going on with this one, now ive seen how to do the watercooling test loop Ill change how I do mine

keep it coming

 

Black and green my favorite combo. Ill be subbing this. Looks great so far.

 

watching with great interest

Some really nice ideas and work going on here.

 

not sure what you mean about the fans...mine pop apart quite easily tbh...just apply firm ( but even ) pressure and the fan blades just pop off so you can paint the frames

 

Thanks lads!

There are some video's about the subject on youtube. It has something to do with the bearing Noctua uses on these fans. Anyway, for the price i've paid for these babies i'm not taking any chances. (and i'm very good at breaking stuff unintendedly)



Update!

The PSU cover, continued.



Because it would be harder to do after the bend, i applied the vinyl striping before bending the piece. It turned out pretty well, the bend wasnt perfect but i didnt want to do the cover for a third time. After that it was time to mask off the surface again to do some more cutting.



It would be a real shame to cover up that power supply without anyone seeing what you have under the hood. So a window was a nice way to show this, and it gave me a good excuse to add some more green uv-acrylic.



Looks ok, but the instant cement left a nasty white fog on the window edges...



Oh well, nothing a strip of vinyl can't fix.



Also it's about time to start sleeving. I've started with the CPU power cable, and left out the neon green on purpose. The cable is connected to the top left of the motherboard, and i felt that bright colors in that corner would distract too much.



This is the choice of color for sleeving. All of it, offcourse MDPC-X sleeve.



And the cover in place... I've fixed it with a few thin strips of doublesided tape. Imagine the underside of the GPU block reflecting off it...



Also the Nexus mesh pci brackets needed a little bit of modification. The slot for the screw is a bit off, so i've used a round needle file in a cordless drill to correct them a little.



And all slots but the one for the GFX card are placed.



Even though this looks pretty awesome, (the blades look like they glow, even in daylight!) i've decided to do the remaining fans in all satin black.



I have two reasons: one is that just painting one fan with neon green blades was a real pain with masking, touching up, etc, and the other is that i didn't want neon green blades underneath the top grill of the case. With that said, it was alot easier to just paint them all boring black.



Oh, and a package arrived from slovenia...



Aren't they just lovely? Now i only need a GTX580 to sandwich between these parts... No sponsoring, so i will have to save up for it atm..

Well that's the end of this update. Next update: fan cable sleeving, more sleeving, and more acrylic and mesh panel work.

Thanks for viewing, and happy modding!

 

Nice, I have one of these cases under my bed. Good to see one being modded, I too hate the fan controller...I mean, come on, most folk use the mother board headers surely to control their fans? I also found the cooling performance useless. The interior is nice though. I moved onto a haf nvidia edition

 

Depends on how much air flow and cooling you want really dude.
Many mid range mobos dont support more than 3 fans plus a PWM (if youre lucky) for the CPU cooler, leaving you with a drive bay controller as the next best option.
I like my fan controller. Lets me balance noise to airflow, monitor temps at various points within my chassis whilst still retaining the ability to force people to say "wow, nice PC" when they come by, even though its a right POS

 

Black and green is the new blue and black but neither get old

 

I agree, this whole thing is awesome, wish I had the tenacity and the time and money to do something like this. Maybe in the future xD

 

Well, the idea of having a fan controller standard in a case is really not a bad idea. But imho corsair could have done better on this one. There's no option to controll fans separately, and the range of adjustment is pretty limited. It's PWM controlled, but the fans run at a max. of 10,5V-ish, and the range of adjustment is limited so even at the lowest setting the fans run like they are getting only 7 volts without PWM.

But before that, i did'nt like the huge dial in the first place, so that was one of the first things to go.

Agreed, and sometimes you cannot control the fans connected to your mobo with programs like speedfan. Last time i used it, speedfan also gave some really weird readings with my sabertooth mobo, i rather use the ASUS AI suite II that came with the board to readout temps, (and the board has a load of sensors!) but that doesn't have the option to regulate fans though.

I specifially did not want a drive bay controller... I don't want screens, bays, switches, disco balls, all that stuff. Clean and industrial is what i want, no constant adjusting of fans depending on workload, so the T-Balancer looked ideal for this task. But i do want some lighting, and the ability to switch it on and off.... Still have to think a solution to that one...

Color choice is something personal and sometimes a specific color fits better to the build... Been a blue & red led with white and silver cases guy for ages, and also built a green light/metallic grey server once.. My souped up NAS is also green colored.. At first i wanted to go with red only for a change, but that doesn't suit me. I'm going green, with a bit of short-circuit blue from the HD-VU meter.

There's quite some time and money involved, true, but is it the journey or the destination that counts? Sure you can order parts to build a computer, put it all together in a afternoon and be done with it, but building something unique is fun to do, and if you do it right, you can enjoy it for years to come. I've been building for a few months now, and the result will be more sathisfying than just a box with components that i screwed together in a afternoon.

How to define casemodding? Hmm... that's some stuff to think about....

Sorry, no update today... social things... Tomorrow will be a big maybe.... Maybe i can write a quick update before the friday night kegger.

 

Update!



After i stopped drooling over the waterblock EK sent me, it was time to sleeve some fans, and hook them up to the T-balancer. Then i had to hook the board up to my computer to adjust the configuration, because the old config was way different than this one. At boot, the board will spin up all the fans and the pump to 100%, and then lower the pump to 50%, the front fans to 30%, the rear fan also to 30% and the top fans will only spin up when the water temperature reaches 35 degrees C.



The top fans were sleeved with black sleeve, to make them less of an eyecatcher with the grill on top.



The front fans, and the pump got the neon green sleeve.



I've emailed Corsair about getting a second front dust filter, but unfortunatly they don't sell these separate. Kier wasn't using his on the build he's working on, so i sent him a PM asking if he wanted to sell. Well he sent me the panel, and i have some nice plans for it!



Time for more acrylic....



And warning stripes...



This is how i want to place the SSD. It looks nice, but i don't like the overall picture. The color of the SSD is off compared to the rest of the case, and the label is upside down. Maybe a cover will fix this....



And i had to make a few tiny brackets to mount the longer piece of acrylic... To give an idea about size, the big holes are 5mm. diameter.



After painting the brackets, i mounted the part into place. Yes, no fangrills so warning stripes seemed in order....



Next up on the operating table was the DVD drive. I did not like the standard green led...



So i replaced it with a clear 3mm green led.



Because the drive was open anyway, i've added a extra connection in the rear to open the drive. Not sure yet if i will use this, but at least it's allready there if i do.



After sleeving the ATX and fan cables, it became apparent that i would not have enough to sleeve the power cables... Well, time to order some more sleeve from MDPC-X...

Well, that's it for now... There's still more to come. Next update: more loop refinement and some CNC work.

 

Slapping another update in this topic!

If i make any weird wordchoice, please excuse me because i'm tipsy to say the least... Friday night kegger was cancelled, but i got a good load of the good stuff tonight while some of my mates visited. And tomorrow morning i'm early off to the paintball field to help out... Big turnout suspected, so i offered to help out. Even though i'm a bit done with all that paintball stuff, i offered some help. (silly me)



Another package arrived from Highflow.... What? more bitspower? Yes, i was not happy how the system was bleeded. Also ordered some switches, but i'm not sure if i'll use them in this build.



I've adapted the tapping point with a valve, and an easy bleeding point... The initial idea was just too messy and cumbersome.



Now i can bleed about 80% of the fluid out of the loop with little problem, so that's better than just unscrewing a plug and see what happens.



I did need to remove a bit of the left feet to accomodate the 90 degree coupling...



And a little bit out of the front to make things fit real nice...



Also tackeled the problem of the SSD not fitting in.. Right is the sketch, left the product off the CNC.



Milled out 10mm deep, to accomodate 9,5mm drives + adhesive tape.



Fits like a glove... and i googled the dimensions at work on my iphone, and programmed it in just a few hours between jobs...



And the drive... Yes, a intel 510 series 120GB drive will be sitting under the hood.



The weather was real nice this day, so i painted outside. It was one of those days that rarely come, ideal weather for spray painting outside... warm (for october) and no wind at all.



Also ordered some 1.0M SATA 3.0/SATA 600 cables for this build... Seems quite hard to get SATA 600 cables, and not all shops have them... Well i got them, and they will be sleeved.
The standard cables i have are just a tad bit too short...



Here's the drive cover painted... still needs a respray. but that has been done by now.

Till next time!

 

Shame you painted the SSD tray in black.
When it was bare metal, I was thinking "weighted companion SSD" LOL

 

I agree!

At first I thought "Black probably goes better with the theme" - But then I thought about it, and if you were to polish the heck out of the SSD tray, it would go great with the EK waterblock!

But all in all, it's a hell of a beautifull build!