Case Mod - In Progress Project "Lightning" + Transforming racing SIM Desk

Couple of my planning pictures, old school style: paint & paper. MS Paint

 

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Ive managed to do some planning and measuring and planning and more measuring and more moving and..... you get the idea but i think ive managed to get a good 1st draft of the next project after 5 stages, Ill know more when the next parcels arrive from china

Have some tasters

 

I am planning to sandwich an 8mm central piece (the routing) between 2 4mm sheets which would contain the g1/4 ports, Ive been looking at quotes of laser cutting the central piece and hand making the 4mm sheets as im just not sure i can route out that much material cleanly with the tools i have.
However, Today i found an arthouse that i can join and use their laser cutter myself. At around the same price as getting the piece made. So im pretty sure Ill be going down that route.
This also means any further work will be very cheap £12.50 per hour. So think ill get all 3 pieces done with the laser cutter and maybe some etching while im at it. Time to go learn Adobe Illustrator.....

 

After a LONG wait another parcel of parts have arrived from china. So its about time to let you all know what i have been up to. I got another pump which as i understand is a Apple G5 pump and requires some modding, but is essentially an 18w laing pump in a custom housing

Heres the donor...



It has a custom plug and a "volume compensator" which is essentially a diaphragm that takes the place of a traditional reservoir
You can see the extra block on the bottom



Opened up you can see the springs that push the diaphragm back up, this will not be needed



Further broken down there is a small home that allows the water from the pump side, down through and under the pump to allow the extra head pressure to be directed into the volume compensator. This needs to be sealed so i used some JB Weld to seal this up. as you can see in the centre of the pump



The wires will need to be rewired into a fan header as its a pwm pump and the pinouts can be found online, this hasnt been done yet.

I will need to replace the original casing so i have 2 blue barrow heatsinks on order from china



Yes 2, why you may ask have i ordered 2, did i get greedy?

No, i went dual

Without delay heres the next order thats just arrived



Yay, dual pump

Im still going single loop but because of the manifold thats in the planning for the rear panel and the number of 90 degree bends that it will introduce I decided i should improve the head pressure, also a bit of redundancy certainly wont harm.

This will also allow me to add more radiators to the rear of the case which i already have but am still in the planning process, these may/may not get used, but the build will allow for these to be removed out of the loop quite easily so i will need to do some testing at a later stage with these.

This also arrived with a couple of other parts



Im going full plexi

I have also got a couple of other parts:

An exhaust:




Also a flow meter that i have modded and added silver to the rear for better visibility



I have also made a IO cover for the rear which still needs finnishing


Im also halfway through getting the hardline fittings and hopefully some other changes which im looking forward to

So yeah, busy times Its now turning into a rather lengthy to do list

 

Having a few little problems with the BigNG, It has a passive heatsink that gets rather warm. I don't think mounting it over the cpu rear retention plate is helping much as it gets rather warm. Aida64 show the motherboard temp as 50 degrees which i wouldn't be at all surprised if that reading is taken from near the socket, I have been pondering about trying to cool the rear plate using an old southbridge waterblock but struggling to work out how to mount the block to it.
Yesterday I found an old X shaped retention bracket so i am going to use liquid metal to glue the waterblock to that, then use thermal pads to join both the original and new brackets back to back while using the existing screws to pull it tight. and therefore watercool the back of the cpu too.
This will mean the BigNG wont fit, so i plan to move that so the top 2 screws mount to the bottom of the BigNG effectively moving it up 3 inch out of the way.
I have no idea if it will help but i cant see it hindering. Results will be posted, wish me luck

 

Built the frankenstein waterblock, still to redrill mounting holes as the X bracket is 775

Ingredients: 1x EK NB/SB Block from the 2000's, 1x Socket 775 CPU Retention Plate, Left over thermal pads


Gently layer the base of the block




Carefully position the top layer


Apply pressure and coat with icing (liquid metal) around the edges DONT EAT ICING


Leave to bake overnight

 

While baking prepare the tin



Nommm

 

The last of the china parts arrived finally, so i get make a decent start on neasuring up for the back manifold and planning the routing. Sadly i ordered the wrong plexi triple bridge so back to the planning with that.







Id like to try and mount the dual pumps before I redo the loop so i can compare the performance difference, im not expecting much at all but it will be the only time ill be able to before the major switch and then there wont be a direct comparison.

The BIG news has gained some momentum and my announcement is getting closer... Cant wait!!

 

It looks like the BIG news is confirmed due a text from dhl advising of a shipment from the Netherlands. But I'll not disclose what's in it until Friday. Needless to say I'm a bit excited to be working with these guys

 

Quick update, test fitted the dual pump housing. Really happy with it


And made a start on the the rear water panel. Not much so far, just a template to do some planning, now i can start laying out the components and get a better feel for the looks


My BIG news is hours away, im a little bit excited. I mean really exited

 

Other builds now in my sig

 

Sponsorship

Well, the day has come that I can finally reveal the the BIG news, It may not be big for some on here but it means a lot to me. After years of following build logs and being amazed by their hard work and receiving sponsorship.

​

The day has come that Corsair believe in this project enough to sponsor it. Im so stoked to have such a top sponsor on board and I just want to say a huge thank you to Jon who has been a fantastic help, not in just arranging this, but also for hunting down some important data that i simply couldn't have done without him... Thank Jon

Now comes a LOT of work to do, i can count at least 2 full loop drains before i finish the tower.
Time to make a new to do list to tick off

• Rear water manifold
• Hardline switch
• Custom Original GPU power
• Remake the lower shroud to make space for ?????
• GPU Backplate redesign
• Full RGB Leds
• Convert 3.5" Bay res to from g1/8 > g1/4
• Fan Mod & Lighting
• Triple Monitor Stand with debezeled screens
• PSU Shroud
• Dual Pump Upgrade

Heres a couple of planning pics of the manifold and GPU power




And least but not last a couple of teaser pictures taken on a potato for now of one of the care packages from Corsair .... And a curious cat called Oxi

 

Open the boxes you teasing devil.

 

Aww, go on then

The first of 3 deliveries....

Thank You Corsair for your support!, now lets see what these badboys do

A staple diet of High Performance SP120's to replace the Thermaltakes & A Corsair Link Commander to control all the fans & Lighting. This will also use the Digital link to interface with another component that is shipping direct from china giving me full digital control over the system. The BigNG did similar but after a quick test over the weekend, the Corsair Link is MUCH friendlier to use, doesn't require cooling and runs an extra 2 channels as i had maxxed out all of the channels and amperage on the BigNG once I added a second pump.



I am planning to try switch out the ring for a clear one and LED lighting it, I was hoping i could fabricate a replacement ring from acrylic but the ring is too shaped & moulded to do this to a good finnish with a strip of acrylic so its back to the drawing board. I have an idea but im not sure if it will work by making a silicone mold and making replacement resin rings

In the meantime, The blue shade, while nice, dosen't fit with my colour scheme so ive given them a blast of silver while I get the rest of the jobs done.


And a quick test fit

Stay Classy Corsair

I also tried to dye the Vibration mountings blue, but as i suspected, the fabric Dye did not take to the rubber so Ill have to rethink this.


PERFORMANCE
Tonight I will test the temps of the system against the Thermaltake which I noted over the weekend before the switch.
I have already seen that at max RPM my idle cpu temps have dropped by 3-5 degrees 32>27 at full speed, I know that during a gaming session over the weekend the gpus at max speed were at 56 degrees so it should be interesting to see if the same drops continue to the gpus due to the extra RPM the SP120s offer.

Because I will be losing the rear exhaust fan, The airflow of the case has now changed considerably. Once I have done a side-by-side comparison and know the readings for the SP120 in this configuration, I will flip the air fan direction and test this way.

And yet again, A huge thank you to Corsair for providing the fans & controller for Project Lightning. Really looking forward to the other deliveries from Taiwan & China, More on that later . Cheers guys




Gonna have a good play with this beauty next day or so, but from first looks, I like it a lot, Very simple, but also really powerful, my only gripe so far and its not really a gripe as its designed like that is that it would have been better for my specific setup if there were 2 lighting channels so i could have one main colour lighting, and a separate one for the thermal changing. BUT, thats what the Link Lighting modules for. So still 10/10. And the fact it has 6 fan channels overrides this minor gripe

 

pics not working dude

 

Thanks

Fixed, i hope

 

Made some progress on the laser files. Tried with 45 degree turns but it looks scruffy I think
So I tried 90 degrees

No competition I don't think.

Need to get the tubing and fittings before I can get the final positions but I think this will be the layout I'm going for.

I'm going to try making a silicone mold for the sp120 rings and making new with clear resin. No idea if its going to work or be too brittle
And finally, the performance of the sp120s. They knocked off about 2 degrees while being 1 fan down. That was 1650 vs 2100 rpm though, so maybe not much in it, they do seem quieter at sub 1000rpm. I think I will need more bench's before I can make a definitive ruling, but on first impressions they seem better

 

Preliminary routing planning

 

or single gpu