Welcome one and all, this hereby is the official start to what will be a slow build. Let em start by explaining the name. Project, its a project. 11D's, its being built in an O11D. Walnuts, I'll be using some walnut wood. Anything else you get out of that title is on you. So I have a few vague ideas that include warming up the case and while keeping a clean aesthetic, bring a bit of a natural touch. Blah blah.. Ok Pics or it didn't happen. Well I don't have any pics, just a few renders to give you an idea of the direction I want to go. I lied, I have one photo for you peel people.
LOL the peel ! i did like 8 of them on mine last week Render looks nice it's going to be very clean looking build
Well thanks but keep in mind I have little to no experience with this kind of work so it could be a disaster. Either way, everyone gets to watch and make fun of how I use too much thermal paste... Oh wait... I'm not using any. Liquid metal or go home.
I have made some great progress! Pics coming soon! I think you will all be impressed with the progress!
Nah, I'm just kidding. I'm still collecting hardware and fighting with some of the new Fusion 360 limitations.
Sorry, progress has been slow. I have been fighting with ADD and depression. Anyway, I got the CNC back in order and am just getting it dialed in. I have some oak so I made the CPU block insert out of that as it should be similar to walnut. I have made a few changes including going from the three inserts for cable passthrough to one big one as I think it will be cleaner. I am also making a side mount reservoir/distro plate with white HDPE for a backing that will nicely diffuse some LEDs. This will sit forward from the mount plate to allow room for the slim radiator and fans to breath. The last big change will be the vertical GPU mount. This will be a bit tricky as I will also be mounting a 10 fibre network card behind it at some point. Anyway, without further delay, here is something to wet your appetite. I may remake the black retention part but need to come up with a more interesting idea.
Ok, I've had some time to work on the distro plate. Here are a CAD render and a mockup to test fit and verify alignment. So a few things here, ignore the craptacular GPU and cooler and the finished distro plate will sit much further forward as there will be a 360 radiator and fans in the back side whatever area of the case. I did scrap the idea of a white back and am toying with the idea of a walnut back for the distro plate. Cut oversized, fill with epoxy, recut to final size. Seems like a messy PITA. Also no walnut fan case. The more I looked at it, the more tacky it got. I amy still do a face plate for the fans top and bottom but ehh. On that subject, I need to get some wood and get started with some of the inserts, feet, and top.
While this is true, I'm using a CNC router. I'll still get some tear out as I have up cut bits but that's going to be cleaned up with the chamfer bit that has a straight cut. From there a little 800 grit cleans it up nicely. I'm still trying to figure out how to finish the walnut. Oil, wax, I don't know. I want a natural luster so I'm leaning towards beeswax.
Ok, I want to give everyone a better idea of the loop config. distro plate pump > GPU > distro plate > CPU > distro plate > side slim radiator > distro plate > top radiator > dristro plate pump And to help visualize this, more renders... Don't worry, I'll use fittings in the final build I don't think I have seen this done in an o11d so I'm a bit excited to try something original. I am a bit concerned about having enough room between the side radiator and the distro plate. I'm using Bitspower enhanced multi link fittings and while they are low profile, I may decide to go with a set of rotary extenders and hard mount... If my alignment is good enough. Please note, I did NOT model the radiators, that was done by Josh Hess https://grabcad.com/library/ek-coolstream-classic-pe-360-radiator-1
I'd go with tung oil on walnut. Looks good and it dries. I don't know a better way to explain it, but stuff like cutting board oil never dries/will stay oily, tung dries to the touch. So in a dusty environment, you don't have something that dust will stick to. On my walnut case, I went even further and used satin General Finishes Arm-R-Seal Urethane. I heard a lot of people talk about liking the look of it, plus it gives it a nice protective coating. Also, it doesn't go on super thick so you still get a really natural look.
Awesome news, Lian Li now has a public model of the O11D on the website! Updated render. I had to tweak a number of things and have more to tweak but I'm getting closer to cutting the final distro plate. Work will be slow though. I am starting a new position and have a lot of work there as well as family health issues. I'll keep you all posted as I make progress.
