Project: Sho Stopper - a few hardware changes...

lovly rad. keep up the good work!!!

 

Your paint looks good Sho..Switched your color scheme from black/green to black/blue. Well why not, it a new case and a new start..Looking good..

 

absolutely top notch work! I love anything done with any kind of plexiglass, and you good sir, do good things with the stuff!

 

great job w/ the Rad, looks like the Swiftech blue in the pictures. did you strip your radiator first? or did you just paint over the black paint? i'm using some chemical to strip my rad and it does a pretty good job, but it's toxic.

 

Thanks everybody for the kind words!

@kaotic504 - I sanded the rad down first. Starting with 400, 600 and then 800 finishing with 1000 grit before I primed it. The final coat was sanded/smoothed with 2000 grit before the final coat. The Duplicolor Metalcast paint gives a very smooth finish. It looks wet and is very reflective in real life.


When re-doing the bottom tray cut out I got a chance to cut it out using a laser. It took me almost two hours to get it right. I had to enter everything into Adobe Illustrator and run a few practice cuts first. The finish is very clean. Again, much better than what I did by hand.





I would like to replace the stainless button head screws with black ones. I think it would look much cleaner with black screws. If you know where I can get some please post the info here.


I was a little concerned given the overall weight of the Thermochill w/ the 3 fans bending the bottom tray in the middle. As you can see with the next to pics there is no bend at all. The acrylic reinforces the overall stability of the bottom tray.





How do you fit two Aquastreams into a single Aquabay? Stay tuned...

 

Man that acrylic plate looks nice!

Boltdepot has some socket cap screws in black (steel grade 12.9, starts at M4 thread, not sure what size you need), you could also get some chrome button head socket caps which would contrast nicely I think although those are only in fairly large sizes. Maybe countersunk flat head socket-drive screws would look nice, either in black if you can find them or the more available stainless steel

 

Ummh... Just an noob-question. Why are you (and some other wathercooler) using two pumps instead of one high-quality one?
I haven't seen anyone using for excample Grundfos-pumps in here, doesn't it feel right they're usually changed to new ones every 20yrs or so?
I heard from friend of mine (using Grundfos) that the amount of flow is almost problem

 

The rad looks marvellous man! Wish I'd had done that to mine... too late now

 

What is your theory behind having the had mounted that way? With the way the fans are facing, its going to blow the warm air onto your compenants and suck warm air from the hdd bay onto the rad not cooling it much. But I must admit it looks pretty damn schmick.

 

The air will not be warm, possibly one degree higher when it's been through the rad so there shouldn't be any problems.


About the rad:

Why don't you make a custom shroud for it? You'd gain alot of peroformance through eliminating the deadspot on the fans. It would also run much quieter since there is less resistance for the fans. Also, the stainless steel screws looks very good together with the black. If you made the screws black too it would loose its touch IMO!

Oh, forgot to add that I would loose that 90 degree elbow on the pump if I was you. It seriously cripples flow and hurts performance. It serves no real use except for looking good. (I think curves looks much sexier then elbows. Just imagine if you'd have to choose. Perfect nice fit, but yet round ass/tits, or some sharp nasty elbows. Which would you prefer to look at/squeeze? EASY choise )

Very nice project, MOD ON!

 

Most people in europe prefer using low flow pumps such as Eheims because most of the blocks in europe doesn't need high flow to performe good. (Not saying they wouldn't perform better with more flow). The Eheim is a very high quality pump and will push enough water for most people with only moderate overclocks and silence as nr1 priority.


Many americans, and some europeans (including myself) use Iwakis because of their superior head/flow specs. American blocks and The Storm seies will perform exeptionally good with this increased flow, whereas the european ones wouldn't see the same increase.

You also have to consider the ammount of heat the pump dumps in the water too. Many people stay away from Iwakis because you need a thermochill 120.3/BIX3 or something similar to take full advantage of the pump.

 

Ok that explains a lot, thanks. I didn't even know there are Grundfosses in USA, thought it was scandinavian product or something....

End of offtopic, I want to see more pics!

 

sho, cypher from [h].. Lookin sweet. Do you plan on using colored acrylic to get a nice lighting effect. I think it would look good with the black. Excellent craftsmanship.

 

I wish I had access to laser cutting, would make my life a lot easier!

But nice and clean so far...

 

Grundfos Pumps are made in Clovis, CA which is right outside of Fresno.

 

Again, thank you all for the encouraging remarks.

@Protius-X - I agree with Noldor. In addition to that I am going to that I have a side panel design that will allow ambient air to be sucked into the case. I would expect things to run nice and cool.

@Mr. Firehed - glad to see you saved the day at the Jamboree and returned in one piece.

@Noldor - I wish there was a way to do away with the elbows without drilling any more holes. My goal is to maximize flow rates. Well, I hope to exceed 1.5 l/m anyway.

@Jipa - I'm not at all a familiar with the pump you mention. I am all for using any pump that is small, quite and powerful.

@Top Nurse - What do you know about the Grundfos pumps? Are they more like Iwaki than Aquastream?

@J-Pepper - I wish I had more access to the laser too. It was really a one time shot. If I want to use it in the future I would have to pay the setup fee and the $95/hr usage fee. My neighbor was returning a favor and I got to use it for free this time.

 

The elbow is on the is on the inlet side of the pump. I am using a Eheim 1046 with a elbow on the outlet and still get 0.9 l/m flow..
The AquaStream is a Eheim 1046 on steroids, and with a pair....
not-to-worry. This mod is really-looking good Sho....

 

That looks really really nice!

What do you use to make those 120mm holes?

 

See post # 125 and yes it does look nice

 

Thanks Bro! Good to see you over on this side of the fence. Yes, I do plan to use colored acrylic and some well-placed LED's to give a nice effect. I have a couple really cool ideas that I will be experimenting with this weekend. If it turns out half as nice as yours I will be happy.

In order for me to take full advantage of the rad I am going to need at least 1.1 l/m out of this setup. I am confident I will get it and a little bit more with the dual pump setup. Thanks to you for leading the way, and TN for the suggestion, I am going to use the item in the picture below to help with the flow rates. All I need are the pulses per liter for the Innovatek Flow Meter Rev. 2 and I will be good to go.


Remember this…


I got some sleeving to do [/Ricky Ricardo accent]