Case Mod - In Progress Project: Nutman (update: August 22nd 2011 - FINISHED!)

Thanks for the kind words, guys.

Next update is somewhat delayed. Actually waiting for new hardware to arrive before I can continue - this situation has NEVER happened before in this build.

I got to see if I can't find at least some small things to upgrade/fix...

 

I admire your consistency through all modding changes. Your work is great and inspiring for me to take my (not)dremel and cut my antec case into pieces. Put some water cooling in and UV lights aswell.
Keep up the great work and you must have the best girlfriend ever.

 

I DO have the best girlfriend, but it's not like she lets me spend every penny and every minute I wanted to on this build. If that was the case, I would have no money and probably no relationship, so I actually thank her for harnessing me.

But yes, start modding, man! But please make a plan first, to avoid spending the next 3 years on a single build, haha!

 

In the previous update I promised that I would show you how I made the lights for the case.

Do you remember this one?




Yeah, back in the day I had sleeved some CCFLs - with success. All you have to do is to remove the CCFL from the plastic tube (with violence and side-cutting nippers), put regular tape on the CCFL and then sleeve it.

Well, I now needed something similar to put some UV light into the case.

But I found the UV light to be too powerful. I wanted to hide the purple glare, but maintain the UV effect, so I needed some other light to blend in with the UV light.

So, what should one do?

Hell, easy. You just sleeve parts of the CCFL using the colour of choice:





In that way I am able to mix a bit of blue into the UV light:



I sleeved the last couple of cables.

First, the SATA power cable:



Yes, not complete yet, but that's because I still have some measuring to do (see why later in this update).

And the very last cable (I hope so!) was completed and sleeved. It's the power cable for one of the CCFL inverters:



Oh, I gotta mention that I shrunk the heatshrink on these last 2 cables using a lighter, as my trusty blow dryer had given up shortly before that.
It's kind of sad, because it had been with me all the way throughout this project and died shortly before the deadline - boohooo:



I had long been thinking about where to put the window frame from my old case:



I realised that it would look best on the door - which by now also looked a bit boring compared to the rest of the case.

So I went to the basement, drilled some holes and did some tapping:



Attached the window frame:




Yeah, the countersunk holes are not that precisely drilled, so some of the bolts stick out a bit:



But it's not really something you notice, unless you look really hard.

All in all I think it came out quite well:



Oh, and because this guy...



...said this...



...I had to replace these bolts...



...with these...



And... well, what can I say? Bill Owen was right.




And, finally... my new kids!







That's all for this time - next time I hope to be able to show you some tubing work.

 

Haha, gone are the IKEA screws

 

That's some very nice work, where the hell are the kids?

 

Thanks.

Search this page for "my new kids", and you'll see.

 

I would imagine your two new kids will be in RAID 0?

I've never even heard of sleeving CCFLs.

 

Absolutely. They have to work hard for me - I'm a tough dad.

Well, consider it one of my first unique contributions to the modding scene. Hopefully, many more playful (and useful) "inventions" are yet to come from me, hehe.

 

Nice fans !

 

How did you remove the CCFL from the "glass" bit?

 

There you go - just for you

 

That's awesome, thanks! Oh, and nice light saber

 

Nopes, no tubing work this time.

I'm struggling a bit to put together some videos I made from the 1st start-up attempt. Until then, here's a historic update.

When I say "historic", it's because I'm happy to report that the machine is up and running at the time I'm writing these lines. There have been some initial problems and other small things exist that need to be fixed, but that doesn't mean you'll have to miss out on this pretty delayed update - so, here it is.

I finished the power cable for the SSDs:



And then I got a package from Highflow.nl- hopefully the last package for this build:



Among other items, it contained this EK Waterblocks backplate for my 6870:



And the last couple of Bitspower fittings, in order to be able to make the plumbing look nice and clean:



I has grown really tired of having to look at those half-white no-vibes rubber frames for the 120 mm. fans on the bottom radiator, so I got these instead:



Also got a new black backplate for the PSU, to replace the aluminium-coloured one:



And then there was some black tubing from XSPC in there aswell - 11,1 mm. ID and 15,9 mm. OD. Just like MasterKleer, but this is all black and doesn't respond to UV light at all:





Apparently, Highflow.nl also send some goodies along, just like eg. Coolerkit.dk do:



And, finally, some important tools for putting all the stuff into the case. Priceless if you want to avoid putting fingerprints on all your hardware. Yeah, I know - I should have got these earlier, but better late than never, hehe:



After having received some constructive criticism concerning the lighting in my photo, so I got some powerful lights to bounce light off walls, ceilings, etc. It's an acceptable solution until I build myself a light tent - and I think you can already see some improvement on the photos in this update:



Mounted the backplate on the 6870 - also super quality, like all other stuff I got from EK Waterblocks:





Some component legs were a bit too long on the 6870, so I feared them shorting out on the backplate.
Even though the backplate is made from aluminium, for some reason EK Waterblocks have chosen to paint it instead of anodizing it - anodized aluminium tend to remove the surface's electrical conductivity, but as it was "only" painted (at least that's what EK Waterblocks say on the product's homepage), I wouldn't want to risk anything - so I cut off the long legs using cutting nippers. And then there was enough space between the legs and the backplate:



And then I replaced the semi-white no-vibes rubber frames with the black ones on the bottom radiator:



I am currently producing a hopefully semi-entertaining video showing the first boot attempt.

After posting that video (later today, I hope) I will probably post one last regular update showing the remaining works, before posting the final result, ie. final shots and my conclusion to this project.

 

I really do love those EK backplates. Not only do they look good but with the help of some thermal pad it will help cool as well .

 

I don't think mine will cool anything at all - it's not near any hot components (I don't recall any memory chips or VRMs sitting on the nack of the 6870), so can you elaborate a bit?

 

Nice
And also nice instruction video though I found a much easier way to do that without any need for force Did it totally on accident. Was going to move a CCFL light while it was still on and the glue had somehow melted from the heat of the CCFL and the tube just slided out of the plastic cylinder. Tried doing it with heat gun too and it worked. Sure there will be some residue smeared the end part of the tube but it was easy to just dry of carefully before it had hardened again. That was some time ago don't know if they still use the same type of glue so you can still do that though.

 

Some cards do have the RAM and VRMs situated on the back of the card. Have you ever felt the back of a graphics card when its running? behind the core can get quite hot, the same thing happens with RAM and VRMs.

Those EK backplates were originally released for added cooling for some cards, they then released them as a dress piece, really depends on what card you have I guess.

 

Ok, the first boot attempt video is now up.

Laugh at me while watching me suffer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrtaDcdgifw

 

Awesome work Nutman , also very unique and very effective design on sleeving the CCFL's