Case Mod - In Progress My Project - The Rise Of The Triad.

Today's log. So I started out finding a 3D model of the pump and pump top so that I could get the measurements spot on.



Then I moved on to designing/making the LED holder. There are two LEDs that are fitted behind the res. They go into a plate that is 30mm wide and 80mm deep.



This then attaches to the back of the main holder behind the res. I used a trick here, and only put double sided foam tape behind the res brackets so that you can't see it. Then if you take a look at the back plate for the GPU you will see the "XCS Xtended Cooling System" plate. Well they actually sent me two of these by mistake, so what I did was attach brass mobo mounts to the back of the LED holder and then the plate goes over that to hold the LEDs in and deflect the light into the res. I will get pics of all of that tomorrow, but here it is lit up.



The Pastel coolant will obviously soften the light a little as they are a bit bright. Here is the fan side.



More pics tomorrow

Oh yeah, ignore that third LED that is just sitting there lit. That goes into the pump top

 

80%

 

OK here is what I did around the back. The plate was fitted, then some posts were melted into holes (to thread them) and then the plate attaches to the posts. This works in a few ways, but mainly it holds the LEDs in to stop them falling out, stops light being wasted out of the back and also acts as cable management.



Good eh? remember, when you are modding anything is fair game. Including household items and fittings

OK so this is probably the last time you will see the "clump" or where I have been working for about two weeks now.



All of the work, and all of the hours, have gone on that. The pump came so I wasted no time building up the top.



So now I am literally waiting for the doorbell to go off and the postman to hand me the final pieces of the puzzle.

You will also note I have removed one of the hose clamps to alter the direction of the hose. That was deliberate

 

Remove GPU, move sound card down, move fan controller down etc.



Fit GPU. I had planned to put it in this slot all the way through the build, regardless of whether the pump would clear or not. Good thing really, it wouldn't have



Fit hoses. This was after about an hour of sorting loads of stuff out at the back (wiring etc)





Fill.



Run for an hour from an external PSU.



Then connect it back to its own PSU and..



And then pray for every single second until that monitor switches on

Wonderful thing about having an RGB case is you can pretty much make any colours work.



Idle.



Still got a few things left to do. Clean off all fingerprints etc, fit a rad cover, make a cover decal for the rad (the white logo) and so on. Nothing major though. Will get some final pics later today

 

Need to make a new rad cover. Far too small. Other than that though it is done

 

Well, it doesn't seem to matter how many times you put that crack pipe (water cooling) down it always calls you back eventually. I am not happy with my GPU temps at all. If I load it up 100% with something like mining or a virus (deliberately to see what it was doing) my card reaches 88c. On water.. I should have taken heed of the review BT did with the same water block I have that used a double rad. Thing is, I can fit one too. It will just hang down further is all.

So that is the plan. Also ordered new fans (Akasa have taken over Enermax's fan division it seems) and gaskets etc. Oh, and a couple of AC goodies as well



The rad is exactly the same width, so it should all just bolt in without me having to change a single hose. We shall see lol.....

 

OK so I decided to do the strip out and drain before I leave. Apologies for the potato pics. There is no light at all today, so I had to use the dreaded flash.

The reason I spent nearly two weeks designing this system was to make it easy to service. And I was correct, it literally took ten minutes to complete. I taped a coffee filter into a jug and went to work.

Two molex discon, one hose and.



And part of the reason why the temps were not too good on a 120. Barely any coolant in the system even when it's full.



And then it was all put down in a safe place.



And put the coolant back. Not bad for oo, about six months?



Wish I hadn't ordered another one now but ho hum, what can you do?

 

Quick, easy, but it looks really gruesome with that red dye. Next to last pic looks like a ritualistic sacrifice to Grandma.

 

DC-LT! Love that little thing and will be used in one of the next projects I have in my head. Which 3D model did you grab for it because I'll be looking to make a custom pump top if I can, and none of the models I've been able to find have all the grooves, volute and whatnot in it.

 

TBH dude it was so long ago that I really can't remember lol. It was back in summer.. I have it somewhere I am sure. Probably on my 2008 which used to be my daily beater. The Alienware used to be so loud. Then I changed out the motherboard and let it control the fans and it was almost silent. Such a massive difference tbh. That's why I have gone with the PA. I will be home on Tues, will try and sort you out then. Yeah it's a great little pump at 7v, just don't run it at 12. It will burn out (apparently) and besides there is no point. I have one in my other rig too, though it was a sod to prime because it's on the back of a bay res. Gravity fed (like in this PC) it works brilliantly. Total cost, IIRC, was about £25 for the pump and top. So great value, too.

LMFAO that really made me laugh. Yeah, it seriously was like a ritual dude. Or a sacrifice lol. All of my bloody fingers were red too, like I'd be digging in deer guts. Thankfully just common soap (a bar of) got rid of it so I was happy about that. Didn't want my neighbours thinking I was Dexter lmao. It is funny you said that though, as I did design it in red to make it look like the heart of some sort of creature.

Ohhh, the penny has dropped. Yeah, that is my grandma dude. She's long gone, sadly. But she was the best, I love her so much. As I put the parts there I thought "Nana can watch over them whilst I am away" hehe so you were pretty much right

OK so under the orders of Gareth I have indeed ordered one of these.



Mostly because I don't like hot things. I also ordered a bunch of 3 pin extensions for the fans to the Poweradjust, as well as a nice black Molex extension.



I will be making some sort of board to mount them both on (the Poweradjust and Splitty).

 

Well I have been thinking and I realised that whenever you see a heavily modded rig you usually never hear of it again. I don't strip mine I use them and keep them up to date, so hey, even if it's boring and the pics are crap it's something

I got home today and more stuff had arrived. Xbone receiver was here as were the two GLI I bought to stop hum on both of my sound cards/amps.



Ignore the Akasa thing, that is for another rig lol.

They are awesome ! Still lots of stuff to arrive but I think some is coming Weds.. Any way I decided to pretty much do a full teardown.



It's pretty filthy tbh. Thing is I had it all apart about 7 months back and cleaned the front end then. Plus I do look after it and keep it clean as best I can without tearing it down.

I bought this thing for £11. Hoping it's even semi decent. Not under any illusions though, most of this will need to be done by hand with a paint brush.



And what I have removed..



Now you would think after nearly two years that the PSU would be absolutely atrocious?



It's actually not that bad. There is no filter either, so gawd knows. Maybe it's me being a bit of a clean freak in general with housework.

Ross. I will have a look for the 3d thing in a bit mate.

 

No rush, buddy!

 

It's no bother dude I have to jump on the TV rig later any way Well, I don't *have* to but I want to play some Fallout 4 and my main rig is out of action lol.

 

Inside was rotten, but not as bad as I thought it would be.



Gave the two halves a bloody good clean.



Then removed the warranty void sticker and put it all back together. Much better.

 

So I took apart the intake assembly a little while ago. I was going to remove the nose cone I spent days making because I glued it to the fan. However, I decided to very carefully remove it (because the fans I was using before were £20 each) and put it back to work. I'm sooo glad I did. The LEDs inside the fan all reflect off of the polished and lacquered surface and it looks saweeeeet.

 

Morning update.

Last night turned into a bit of a nightmare. First I noticed that the shroud was sitting odd so I pushed on it. *CRACK*. Uh oh..... Took it out and sure enough I had cracked the cathode in two. However amazingly it still worked. Took it off and wrapped selotape around it and it's fine. Thankfully I didn't crack the actual cathode.

So I fitted it back together and the nose cone was dead FFS. So out it all came again. Realised the 12v-3v board I had used had gotten rather hot making the wires brittle. All four had snapped off. So I had to crack out the soldering iron at 1am (bear in mind I had been working since about 11am) and fix that.

So now it's mostly back together inside I figure I will drop in my Quadro and just use the rig until the water goes back in. Then I realised I had lost the M.2 screw. So I grabbed a NVME - PCIE sled I bought. Screw wouldn't fit the MSI spacer thing. I also dropped it, because it didn't fit, and lost it. So I grabbed a M.2 - SATA 2.5" chassis. Dropped that screw too, though did find it. It seems MSI use a different screw size to every one else. It is less than 1mm. In the end out of sheer desperation I remembered that I had a 1080Ti cooler. None of those would fit either, but I did finally have a stroke of luck. When I removed the spacer from the board I realised that one of the GPU screws fitted the back part of the hole. So I removed the spacer from the M.2 enclosure, put the screw through the drive and then the spacer, then taped it on with masking tape. Finally after about two hours it worked. I forgot there was no way for me to boot the rig without it fitted.

Then I started the rig and it was saying no OS found and shutting down after a few seconds. Turns out I needed to go into bios, dig deep in the menus and find the M.2.

IIRC it was 2 AM before I finally just walked into the bedroom and collapsed.

I am waiting for supplies now and deliveries. So won't be doing much of anything today. Plus my back is killing me from leaning over the rig for 13 hours.

Photos of cheevos. Gotta say, it looks like it's new.





Also, thank god for 100 ISO. Finally my pics don't look as drab as the day surrounding them.

 

Rad cleaned, flushed, dried and assembled.



Like the proverbial glove.

 

Right so pull fan on the bottom of the rad didn't fit.

Cut the bracket so it fits.



Then de-label the fan, cut a flat black one, fit that and then make a "horrid visible wire" cover later (oh and a gasket, too)



And it now looks how I originally intended it to.

 

OK so it was time to start thinking about the mirrored back plate for the sound card.

If you remember how I did Dianoga (a build I did a couple of years back now) you will remember how I created a proper back plate for the GTX 950. What I mean by proper is perfectly fitted, covering everything. IE - not just cutting out a rectangle of plastic and putting it on the back of the card.

So first I needed to scan the sound card in. You will see why shortly.



And I need to create templates to send to the plotter. So first we have a full cover plate.



Which is perfect in size. OK, this is where it gets a little more complicated. What we then do is take that perfect template and lay it over the sound card (or GPU). Then change the colour to green (very bright) and blend the layer to 50% opacity so you can see through it. Then you basically remove any offending material to clear screws, solder points and so on and you end up with this, basically.



I then cut both as templates, lay them on some acrylic sheet and cut. As it happens the cutting is all finished and I am just letting the frame dry (believe me it is fragile. Even touch it wrong and it will snap it is .5mm in places !) and then I will sandwich it to the mirrored top.

 

OK so here is the almost finished fan/pump etc controller. I've made a host board and shortened the connector cable from 70cm down to 4cm.



Work continues on the back plate today