Case Mod - In Progress Project Proteus

Midplate
Big fat update with a lot of images incoming! I worked on the midplate, hoping it will hide all the chaos that will be happening in the lower part of the case, as well as giving me a nice spot to mount the res. I started out by ordering a piece of acrylic glass that was cut to size and then bend into shape. The first thing I will focus on is where I'm going to place the pump. I want the liquid to go from the res, straight into the pump and next into the front rad. This is my 3rd watercooling build but by far the most extreme one. Also using brass tubing for the first time so it should get rather interesting.

Without further ado, here are some pictures! First, the acrylic glass. I measured where the pump should be and my first tube will go straight up, through the midplate, to the front rad.


Tried to measure as well as I could!



Tube going up, straight into the rad with a nice 90 degree bend.




And down under into the pump.


I also want a way to drain this loop straight from the pump. For that I needed to drill a hole in the bottom of the case.



Adding a little valve (it's called valve right?) to be able to open and close the loop for drainage.



And back to the midplate. The PSU is mounted below and I would like the cables for the GPU to go through the plate. This should also help to make the cables look nice and tidy. I needed some hole for that!


It fits! Will do all the cables at a later stage.


And now onto the resevoir. The loop might look overcomplicated but I want to keep the loop from rotating. There will be some weight pushing down on the other fitting. This is also the best way to go so that I can fit the tubes back into the pump underneath the midplate.

Marking where the res should go.



Drilled some holes and mounted the res into place.


Added a pass-through for the tubes coming from the res. This was a super tight fit but I'm really pleased with how it turned out!




And I will now show you how everything is going to fit underneath the midplate. There's not a lot of space but it all fits just right. Only thing I never thought about it accessibility for the hard drives. If I want or need to swap one, I need to take apart the entire mod, which kinda sucks so let's hope they don't die anytime soon!




That's it for now! I will now slowly start with the watercooling and take it from there. There's also a really exciting update coming up from be quiet! You've already seen some teasers about their products and I'm super happy with how they look! So stay tuned for that

As always, let me know what you think!

 

Good bend... It's nice and straight with no 'puckering' on the corners. You will have a heck of a time assembling under that.

 

The company I send it out to did a really awesome job! They're a company in the Netherlands and even though I live in Sweden, I keep coming back to them!

And I already had trouble getting everything lined up.. it's just going to be me measuring everything 200 times before cutting. But it should also get interesting to see how everything will turn out! I'll keep painting it black until the last moment, it's rather helpful that I can see through it

 

Awesome work, and cool design, the screen next the MB is a nice touch, and cant wait to see that front panel lit . Wonder if you could make the screen translucent by removing the reflector sheets and back light it somehow, seen a case on Linus tech tips like that, and it looks pretty sweet.

 

Thanks! I could make the screen translucent, I've seen it done before, but it would probably lose its rigidity, which is not something I've accounted for when mounting it. Plus, if it were translucent, you could just see the back of the case. It can be super cool though if you mount it on the window for example.

 

The first steps on water

Okido, time to start getting some watercooling loops into this build. After hours and hours of planning, I'm still not entirely sure how I want everything to go. But let us dive into it with the rough idea that I have in my mind and see where it turns out.

Just going to start with this CPU block. I think it's an awesome one that really fits the build but the blue colour? Can't have blue in this mod! Lets make it white (had the white laying around from another build).



Onto the motherboard with that sweet Intel i9 7920X behind it!



Starting with the first fittings.




And we can cut this one to length. It will go to the upper rad as you can see in a bit.


But wait! I want more shine in this build. Out with those fittings that I just did, in with the tubes. Much better, right?



And that's when I came to the conclusion that the tubes are different colours. The box is telling me they should be the same.. Maybe something went wrong? Anyways, Alphacool was so kind to send me new ones so we can fix that in the future! Thanks!



Some overall shots. We're getting somewhere!




And that's it for today! More watercooling to come, stay tuned! I'm trying to figure out how to go from the CPU to the GPU while keeping it nice, clean, and perhaps a bit different? We'll see!

Let me know what you think!

 

The flow must go on!

Alright, after making the first progress for the watercooling, it is now time to continue building the loop. It's a tough one, figuring this out with chrome tubing. I'm pretty much bound to using fittings and 90 degree bends, but we'll get there! I'm actually really pleased with what I came up with so let me show you. But first, look at this beauty! It will fit the build just perfect! Thanks so much to Alphacool for making this possible.



And here it is mounted into the case. The tube going from the card to the reservoir was pretty obvious in my opinion. But how do we go from the CPU to the GPU..?

I made a quick sketch to see which option I would like the most. I knew that I wanted to keep following the horizontal lines of the rad and reservoir, and also, they just line up perfectly at the 90 degree bend. Do I continue this, or make them shorter?


I'm going to make them the same length, which will cause some problems because it's going to get pretty heavy. I guess we'll have to come up with some solution for that. A piece of rope?


Haha definitely not rope. Let me make a template and see what we can do.




So that's the template. It's not very accurate so I drew it up in 3d and printed a test piece before sending it off to cut it out of acrylic glass. It fits rather well, everything seems to be straight.


I also did a quick photography test. How much one diffused light can do for your pictures!





I think that looks pretty awesome! Let me know what you think! In the next update we'll have a look at the cables and such.

 

Getting that parallel highlights some of the other things that are not, like the GPU sag and the connection to the reservoir. OCD is bad.
It may just be the last camera angle now that I scroll back through. My eyes are insisting the GPU is warped.
It does look sweet, though.

 

Oh yes, the sagging is horrible in that picture.. But don't worry, it should get a lot better once I connect the res to the other tube, that will rotate it and push everything up a little bit. I can't promise perfection but I'll do my best to get as close as possible!

 

A new workbench

So, a short break on the build to show you something rather excited! I haven't had a dedicated workbench/craft space for a couple of years now but I'm very happy to take you along while building myself (and my girlfriend) a nice desk. It's located right in the kitchen because that's the only space we have left in our apartment! The idea was to buy a copy of our dining table, cut it into 3 pieces and sort of assemble it back together. The wall we want to put it against is not a straight one so it took me some time to figure out the angles. I made a quick mockup in 3d to decide the exact measurements, searched Facebook marketplace and found myself another table (for cheap this time!). It's solid oak and luckily for my wallet in worse shape than the dining table. I'm still planning on sanding it and finishing it in the same finish of the dining table.

Here are the pictures! Excuse the quality, most of them were taken with minimal light and space.

First I cut the tabletop into 3 pieces.


I then layed out the legs.


I forgot to take pictures of sawing the backside of the tabletop on an angle but the result is visible on this picture. I also layed out the rest of the structure and screwed everything into place.


We then mounted the backside to the wall using 4 angle brackets.


Now that it's level and mounted to the wall, it's time to add some extra's to the space to make it an easier to use space. We picked up these nice and sturdy pegboards from IKEA (I mean, I live in Sweden, we only have IKEA).


And mounted those to the wall too! It's going to take some time as we develop the actual layout of things to our liking. You can see the dining table on the left.



It's not finished yet. I would like to keep adding to it but that will probably take some time. Hopefully I can utilize this space to make some more mods! Let me know what you think! Any ideas of what to add, etc?

 

That looks very nice. And I'm impressed your girlfriend allowed that in your main eating area!

 

...me too.



Nice pipes' color....or is it a light effect?
Did you think about a 180° radius instead of those 90° fittings?

 

Looking really good and great attention to details.

Also, great workshop location..

 

Oh it's not just for me, she's also going to use the space! But yes, she's the best!

The tubes actually have slightly different colours, even though they're supposed to be the same. I contacted Alphacool about this and they sent me new pipes. It should all be the same colour in the final result!

And yes I thought about that, but these pipes are pre-bend and I think that the chrome will crack if you bend these yourself. But bending my own chrome or copper pipes is definitely something that I would like to do in the future.

Thanks! I can now quickly turn around, eat, and go back to modding!

 

Lovely work.
I wish my tenants showed that much care and attention when adding to the rental.
-Fence pickets nailed to the wall
-framing nails to hang pictures
-painting fixtures with matte black spraypaint
-THE CEILING FAN ATTACHED TO ONLY THE DRYWALL

...Sorry, the PTSD is kicking in.

 

The key is making it her space as well.

Great work on the table, err bench..tabench? Benble? ...Workspace

 

Thanks! Maybe it's the benefit of renting from a big company? They told us we could drill and paint, we took the artistic freedom to turn that, into this! (plus 100 other holes that we somehow have to fix when leaving this apartment..)

Thank you! I keep telling people different things, bench, desk, table, whatever.. I suppose workspace will do!

 

My mother told me back in the day she and her friends would use toothpaste as it was the same colour as the paint and there wasn't the same ready access to building supplies as there is to day. Not sure if it was hard in general or if it was due to being a s young single lady? Never thought to ask....

Cheaps remember to breath, slow and deep breaths now.

 

My toothpaste is red... Going to be weird I suppose

I ordered new LED strips for this build. I noticed that it was very difficult to work with the 5pins RGBW strips that I'm using right now. I can't get them the proper colours, and just forget about some animated lighting. I went for the Alphacool digital RGB strips in combination with the Phanteks Digital Controller Hub. This should give me better lighting! I also ordered the last couple of bits to get this build to it's final stage.

There's only one thing missing, a side panel. I would like to use glass since plexi might look a bit cheaper but how does one go about getting a custom side panel made from glass, any idea's?

 

Toothpaste has mint oil in it that soaks into the plaster. It soaks through oil-based sealer too. You have to chip the whole spot out.
-So it makes more damage than leaving a hole.
Sorry to wander off-topic.
Glass: get a custom cut non-tempered panel, wet-cut diamond drill holes/mods. Wet sand edges, curse yourself for not using plexiglas, take finished panel back to glass place to get tempered.
Or order a custom beveled plate glass panel.