Case Mod - In Progress The Powerful Pretty Pink Processor (aka, "The PPPP")

Yes and pretty easy as well.

 

Fitting shots are almost obligatory these days.....so here goes....





Probably a good time to thank EK again for being such a fantastic supporter of this build. Blocks, rads, pumps, pumptops, tubing, fittings, backplates......EK has been a great partner. Thanks!





Crazy kitty.....





I fell in love with these EK fittings back when PCModderMike used these in his last build. I just think they are fantastic looking fittings...and a refreshing change from the usual.....





B-Neg's latest photo set inspired me to see if I could put a little color of my own in the fittings. On my first couple of attempts (the 45 degree fittings) I was using an exacto knife to scrape paint remants off the fitting. You can see the scratches this left. My last attempt was the 90 degree fitting shown below....and it was virtually scratch free. For this one, I just painted a glob of paint into the recessed logo....and then used a straight block of wood to scrape across the top of the fittings....leaving a pool of the paint inside the fittings. I let this dry and then q-tipped the paint that was left on the face of the fitting with some acetone.

I think I could do the remainder of them, if I choose, with this method and no scratches.











What do you guys think? Make the logos pink? Or leave them black? Or randomly do just some of them for a touch of pink....

 

Or randomly do just some of them for a touch of pink.

 

I think the pink works really well.

 

You still alive? LOL

 

Why do I ALWAYS join the best logs so late?

Spent 3 hours reading this. Now, I need MORE! MORE! MOOOORE!

 

Well, either he died and its unfinished, which means youre not too late for the end. Or he finished and forgot to update us in which case youre late and we all lose.

 

Excitement... building...

 

Hard to know exactly where to jump back in here. I'm out of practice. I was greatly amused at the rumors of my possible incapacitation. And even more amused as some theorized that I must be busy doing taxes. Truth be told....there have been no accidents or illness that has sidelined me. Yes, work is busy....but no more so than for most of you. I am a CPA, but I don't do public accounting anymore, so it has nothing to do with year-end or tax season. What it really comes down to....is that I took a break. I never intended it to be this long....but it's easy to sink into different routines, habits and hobbies....and hard to change once you are there.

The break started when I had hit a sort of wall. Most of you will remember the supremely cool 3-d printing that I had gotten my hooks into. I have a friend that is in a 3-d print club, which gave me access to this groovy technology. I had quickly learned Google SketchUp and designed a pump stand for my dual pumps, and had even morphed it into a reservoir holder also. It was fun...and I loved the creativity that this new arena allowed. Well during the test fitting of my version 2 of the pump stand, it became clear that I had not allowed for enough space for the fittings that need to come out of the pump tops. The fittings hit the case window on the left side of the case. The pumpstand had to move from the position I had designed it for to allow room for the fittings....and this made it so that the reservoir was no longer centered in the front window of the case. Unacceptable! I started with design tweaks and intended to have a 3rd version of the pump stand printed....but encountered issues with getting it printed timely. My print takes between 30 and 45 hours to print...depending on the fill % used. Since I'm not an actual member of this club....I have to wait for periods of time when none of the members have prints running. That delayed me....and then the 3d printer itself was out of commission for awhile while a new extruder head was ordered. Anyway....I let this down time unfocus my efforts on this build.

But I'm back and ready to get this finished up. 3d printer is available once again. I was close to being done before my break......so my hope is this won't take long. I really only have to finish the plumbing, lighting, and window etching. Everything was running already....and the wiring/cabling was 95% done. This will be my first time bending acrylic tubing, but that will just make it more interesting for me.

I've already sent my latest model of the pump stand to the queue for the 3d printer, and it has been started. So I hope to have it back in a day or two. So.....to start this build thread going again....tonight I'll post some of images of version 3 of the pump stand. If you compare it with the pics of version 2...you'll easily see that the pumps themselves have had to shift back (to the right) so that more room is available between the left window and the pump tops.





Those little plates that say "The PPPP" are not attached to the pump stand at all. There was some extra room within the print envelope, so I thought....what the heck. I may use them to label a radiator....or harddrive....or something like that. We'll see.....





The notch in the base in the picture below is to hold and secure the GPU cabling that goes back down through the midplate.





In the picture below you'll see I had to counter sink the holes for the reservoir mount screws, since they reside right to the side of the pump tops now.




I also expanded the legs in front just a bit....to make sure there was room for the cold cathode inverter(s) that will sit right in front of the pump stand.





I should have the finished pump stand back soon....and I'll have pictures of it up quickly after that. While I wait....I'm going to finish painting the EK logo on those beautiful fittings. I had played around with doing that before....but now I need to finish them. Pictures of that tomorrow!

 

Niiiice welcome back (missed the updates of the pink panther)
Eagerly following

 

Welcome back amongst the active cpachris, you have been missed .

 

Thanks gents! I'm dodging tornados and modding away.....

 

Ok. I've got my helper, my paint, and my fittings. It's time to finish these up.





For those of you who haven't played with these EK fittings, they have a recessed EK logo on the circle portion. It's recessed enough so that you can get some paint down in there, and still have it all below the surface so that it doesn't get nicked up easily. It's almost like EK is begging me to put some pink in there! I'll oblige.





In my prevoius attempt, I was successful, but scraped up the face of the fittings way too much using an exacto knife to clean up the paint around the logo. I've experimented with a few approaches, and have one that works pretty well. I'm using a heavy body paint from Liquitex. Liquitex is awesome because they offer their full range of colors in all sorts of paints. I can use this same color in a soft body, medium body, heavy body, ink, spray paint, etc. For what I'm doing here today, the heavy body paint works best.

Get a little brush, and put a nice glob of paint all over the logo. Use the brush to ensure you've pushed paint down into the entire logo.....





Just a nice thick blob of paint over the logo. That's what you're after here....





Then, while it's still wet.....use a straightblade with a napkin or paper towel pulled tight around it....and scrape the blade over the top of the fitting. I'm using a ruler here....with a napkin pulled tight around it.





Since the logo is recessed, the ruler will wipe the paint off the fitting....while leaving a pool of it down inside the logo. It will look messy, but that is fine for now. You'll be tempted to try and wipe the blade back over the fitting again to get even more paint off. Don't. Every single time I tried this it would then start grabbing at some of the paint in the logo. Wipe it once....and set it down.





Let the paint dry completely like this.....





Here is my entire batch.....





Once the paint has dried completely....you'll notice that it has contracted just a little and pulled away from the logo edge and down inside the recessed portion. This is perfect.....





Now....get you some Q-tips and a bowl of Paint Thinner and a bowl of water.





Go to work by rubbing the Q-tips dipped in paint thinner around the face of the fitting. Just takes a little effort and you'll have removed all of the remaining paint of the face of the fitting......





Viola!





And the whole batch is done. Didn't take that long.....





Now....time for some fun up in the faux studio.....





It's an easy and fun mod to do with these EK fittings. Perfect way to add your accent color to your build if you are using these fittings.

















I've got the 3d printed pump stand back from the printer! I'll show that off next......

 

looks like a million...and fits perfect into the PPPP build im sure cant wait to see that new and improved pump stand.

 

3D printed pump stand pictures!

Printing time was 36 hours for this version. The outside face is rougher than it was in the last two versions....but the bottom is absolutely flat this time with no warping. It was printed at 100% fill.....so this is one solid piece of plastic. It was printed in PLA....not ABS. Quite heavy. Here are some pictures from different angles...











In this closeup, you can see how the face of the pump stand looks. I may spend some time sanding some of the rougher edges....after I see what still shows once the pumps/tops/reservoir are mounted.





Now...to attach everything to the stand, I'll need some screws. The approach I've taken with my last few projects is to cut down my screws to size. It was hard for me to find the black socket head screws that I love so much....in every size that I might need. So instead, I bought about a thousand of these 30mm M4 Black Socket Head screws....and I just cut them down to whatever size is needed when I'm using them....





I just clamp then down in this little vise at the appropriate distance.....





...and then use the edge of the vise as a guide for the Dremmel to run across. Only takes about 10 seconds for a screw. Those little puppies sure do get hot in 10 seconds though....





Here are a couple of the freshly cut screws next to an original size screw, so you can see how much I was trimming to make these the perfect size for my recessed holes for the reservoir attachment. The edges usually are pretty rough....




....but they are smooth after running them along a file a few times. Those little rubber washers are what I'm going to add to help decouple the pumps and reservoir even further....





Here are a couple of shots of how the EK reservoir clamps fit onto the 3d printed pump stand. You can see that I designed recessed holes in the back of the pump stand for the nuts...because the pump tops would interfere if they stuck out at all....





Nice and flush.....





I decided to go ahead and test fit the entire thing.....so I cut some more screws, and mounted the pumps and reservoir to the 3d printed stand. Everything fit great! Here are some pictures from all angles.....





It is shockingly beautiful in person....the pump tops just look like huge chunks of glass. Everything fits together perfectly with no wasted space. There is a cutout that will allow for the cold cathode inverter, as well as a cutout for the GPU cables that was necessary to allow the stand to be snugged up closer to the motherboard.





The EK X3 reservoir is super high quality....





I brushed some pink paint on "The PPPP" raised lettering I designed in the pump stand....













It really came out as good as I was hoping. It's tight, compact, and beautiful. And it situates the pump tops at the perfect viewing angle for the left side window....and positions the reservoir at the perfect spot to be centered in the front window. I couldn't have done this with any pre-made stand. It really needed to be custom designed to pull this off. I love 3d printing.





I also brushed some paint on those badges that I had 3d printed. These could be used anyhwere....but I'm picturing them on the SSD's and/or radiators.




Next step is to drill some holes in the case midplate and bolt this baby in. Pictures soon!

 

What a lovely stand hope this time it fits better cant wait to see it bolted in.

 

^^ this!
show us the "money" shot!

 

Looking good!

Out of interest why did you print the stand at 100% infill? I find anything over 15-20% is overkill for structural components.