Cable braiding is a skill that can take some practice to acquire. Never mind, if at first you don't succeed, mod, mod again! BTW, the painted barbs look nice, but will the paint stay put when you force tubing over it, or will it flake off? Stick with nickel plated brass (or stainless steel, if you can acquire it --McMasters-Carr is a good source) if you can.
Latest update I'm trying to figure out the best configuration for my pumps in relationship to the radiators, and that leads to fan issues...is it more effeceint to pull cool air into the radiators or push hot air out!!!! :shock: :? Do I set it up as Pump-radiator-blocks-reservoir.......Or Pump-blocks-radiator-resivoir??? THis whole ordeal has forced me to think/learn a bunch of stuff I would have NEVER EVER given a thought to! I went to Directron last weekend, and I could have gotten a larger case...cheap! LOL! But I couldn't bring myself to do it! WHat's the challenge there???? As it stands, I've scrapped the radiator in the bottom front panel, and placing it at the top of the case just above the first 5 1/4 bay. The other rad is staying where it is. I'm thinking I'll mount the two reservoirs at the top, and adding a third output hole to the one supplying the HD's, GPU, and chipset. I've cut two 120mm fan holes in the plastic face of the case and cut the whole skeleton in front "out" from where it had the two 80mms and one 120. BONDO TIME BABY!!!!!!!!!!
I saw these Ford F-150 tail light covers at Wal-Mart while buying some seat covers for my jeep and thought they'd make a really cool addition to the bottom half of my front cover! (Sadly, everything I see now is in some way related to "how can I mod that" ) So I taped them together to make one, cuz they are like, lobsided as a single piece, and I'm going to cut them (dremel time....hehe) and BONDO them together to make one.....
hehe! How I got the name Tank Girl.....When I was in grad school, one of my girlfriend's was married to a guy who worked for the New Mexico State Film Commission, so he got to fly around in choppers with film crews as they scoped out filming locations, and made sure they were happpy and taken care of while making movies. I was at her house one weekend for a party, and he walked up to me and said, "Tank Girl"....he'd just home from White Sands, where they were filming the movie. So the name stuck! It's perfect for playing BF too!
Okay, remember I had the powersupply problem, then I cut out the square in the back??? Refresher pic.... Well, as my Yorkshireman husband soon pointed out...as he apparently loves to do... now I had no way of attaching the "bloody" power supply to the case. So he came up with the idea to make a back panel out of a piece of acrylic, cut it to fit the holes, and inlets of the power supply and use this to secure the power supply to the case. I knew I married him for a reason!!
BONDO for NOOBS! Okay, bondo, not for the faint of heart. After diligently reading the forums and looking at the photos of front panel mods incorporating those really neat looking 120mm fan intakes, I felt that was the look I wanted and bought my first can of bondo. I read the directions on the can, it said 4 tablespoons of grey stuff to 1 quarter hardener. On the forums somewhere I read "use a gloved finger" so I put on gloves and it stuck to the gloves, then it stuck to everywhere I touched, so basically there was bondo everywhere. Then I must've added too much hardener and it dried in like, 7 minutes So I have the following tips for anyone looking to utilize Bondo who has never used it before. First, dig out only 1 tablespoon of grey stuff, then add just a smidge of red hardener stuff and mix it up with something you will never ever want to use again (not a piece of silverware your mother gave you for a wedding present). Make sure you have clay tools or something like them Next, use the tools to add a SMALL amount of bondo at a time, making sure it's smooth before dry, with small amounts, it dries quickly, so if you have to build on top of it you don't have to wait so long and sand it down to make it smooth. So, after HOURS of sanding, I shot the damn thing with primer and then shot it with grey stone paint. I'm glad the paint was textured because if I'd gone for a smooth reflective finish I'd have still been bondoing and sanding and I'm sure I would have now taken my own life.
Uh - yep - just upside down. Sorry. It looks nice now though!!! And great job on the intakes - they look nice.
AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH! It was NOT UPSIDE DOWN! STOP SAYING THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IT WAS NOT UPSIDE DOWN IT WAS NOT UPSIDE DOWN!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Of course not - sorry for even suggesting such a thing. Continue modding. There will be NO MORE suggestions that your power supply might have been upside down and that you could have done this case without a really really cool plexiglass power supply mount.
I like what you've done so far, especially the mounting plate for the power supply. my generic case mounts the power supply "upside down" which sucks, so I'm a fan of the adapter plate approach that some mfg's have taken. I think the correct response to the power supply mounting comments would be something along the lines of *sticks fingers in ears* LALALALALA, I'M NOT LISTENING. hehe. and yeah, some of the guys here make what they do look real easy. but it really takes practice to get results like that. keep up the good work. and to answer your fan question, I believe that fans are more effective sucking air through a radiator than blowing air through it.
Nice going so far! In answer to your query: the best sequence for watercooling is: Pump --> rad --> blocks (in any order, really, don't believe EVERYTHING you read; just make the circuit as short as possible) --> reservoir --> pump. And as Zogg states: radiators work best with the fan sucking the air through. As you are now finding, modding is 90% research and 10% cutting things up with a Dremel. Be sure to do your homework and plan ahead, in great detail, or you'll be confronted by unpleasant surprises later on. Once installed in the case, test your fans at the nearest opportunity to get a sense of the noise they'll make. You want to be able to hear yourself think when the thing is on... It was upside down.