Project: Sithco Systems .... Done! (kind of)

After much sweating and swearing I have this....(there are still droplets of water on it from washing it down)



It's either the top or the bottom of the shroud, doesn't matter which. Now I need to make another one the same and the walls too. Admitedly the straightness of the cuts isn't *world class* but I'm planning to use filler on the constructed peice, sand it and then spray it, so it doesn't matter too much at this stage.

In other news, here's a torch shining upwards through one of the top fans to symbolise a white LED. How does it look?

 

When the White LED's are in, it'll look fantastic. The beginning of that shroud looks good aswell. When you paint the shroud once it's done, is it still going to be black to match the theme?

Brillient Work

 

Yeah, the finished shoud will be a gloss black. It's almost done now actually...the pieces have been cut and epoxied together and the whole thing has been gone over with car filler to cover the joins. It looks pretty hideous now but once it's all dried and hardened, a good sand should leave it looking like a single piece, ready for painting. I'll get some before and after pics next time I get a chance to do some work on it

 

Rightio, I've nearly finished the shroud now. The pieces have been assembled, filler has been applied and then sanded down in a half hearted fashion, and now I've just put on a base coat of silver as i found a can in the shed. The finished article will be black.





As you can probably see it doesn't have the smoothest finish, but once it's in the case you won't really be able to see any of it anyway. From a functional point of view it's just the right size and absolutely rock solid so it should do its job well. I'll think I'll give it another sand down anyhow and then a couple of coats of black and I think then it'll be basically sorted.

 

Small update...fitting the rad at last! (or at least test fitting it)

A slightly poor shot of the fitted angled shroud with neoprene gasget fitted to the bottom for a snug fit with the radiator.

I'm not quite sure what the white fleckiness is about in the picture, it isn't there in reality!

Some scrap aluminium 'rad rests' bolted into position to see if the theory is sound.

Will they work?

They seem to.


View from the top, everything needing a clean again too


View from underneath (I sprayed the rad barbs black since the last update)

Only thing I don't like is the way that rad rest just seems to jut out of nowhere, it looks a bit clumsy. i'm thinking of a way to cover that up if i decide to have a window.

And finally from the front. I'm glad I measured twice and cut once. There were literally mm's between it all fitting fine and not at all!

 

Wow, its starting to move on now and the Rad mounting looks great!!!! I've learnt that when I handle a brand new case or any metallic objects etc, I use rubber gloves so it reduces fingerprints to the minimum.

Can't wait till next update!!!!

EDIT: Looking at the Rad - it fits in with your theme, maybe Darth Vader in using the Force to keep it up - LOL

 

Lol! Yes, that's what I'll tell people if they ask

Cut a little hole in the rear of the case body this evening to route the PSU cables around the back of the case...


And here, with the PSU in place.

It's an Enermax 600W. I nabbed it on ebay for a good price, it seemed a crime not to I can't decide whether I'll paint the PSU or not as it's only the rear of it you'll actually be able to see at all. On the one hand, I feel I ought to for the sake of completeness, but on the other it's the sort of thing that has a good resale value providing it hasn't been messed with...still thinking it over.

And from the top, it all fits....huzzah!

Sleeving all those cables is not something I'm particularly looking forward to

 

Looken good dude. I like the custom angle adapter for the fan and rad. But does the psu fit?

 

It most certainly does!

I spent quite a lot of time sketching the dimensions of everything and test fitting to make sure it would. I didn't have very much space to work with and if I hadn't angled the shroud it would have stuck out of the back. Thankfully it all fits together in a jigsaw fashion

Next step is drill mounting holes in the rad rests to attach the rad to (it's just resting on top of them at the moment)

 

I kinda want to do watercooling but then again its rather expensive my way. Still lookin good. I want computer.

 

Still waiting on the e6600, but i installed the rest of the components to keep myself amused. Everything else is still being used in my currently operating rig.

To recap:
Gigabyte LGA 775 DS3
2GB GSkill hz pc6400
X1800XT





It's quite a garish colour combination in there really isn't it? The picture does make it seem like the rad barbs might be interfering with the memory but there is a good 15mm of clearance.
I'm thinking of making an angled duct for the rear fan opening which will draw air in from the back and blow it over the nb and memory. Only thing is I don't want it just pulling the hot air from the PSU and graphics card back into the case...

That aside, next big step is to install the water cooling. I have some 1/2" ID steel reinforced tubing already, but although it doesn't kink, it's a complete nightmare to use, so I think I may go for 7/16" instead

Once that's all sorted out, there's a bit of wiring work to be done with sleeving, switches and leds, before everything is stripped, cleaned and polished and finally re-assembled.

 

what sort of blocks will you be using ??

 

I have a TDX which i'll be ordering a brass 775 top for. I'm not sure whether the card will be on water yet or not, but it probably will in the fulness of time. I'm also considering whether a NB block would be worthwhile. Up until now I would have said no as it's a restriction to the flow and usually brings little gain but there seems to be a lot of talk with the Conroe overclocking going on so far about the north bridges getting very hot indeed at high fsb. I'm thinking in this case perhaps watercooling it might be worth it since that's what I'll be aiming for. If I went down that route I'd probably get the Dangerden maze 4 chipset block and a brass top to the match the TDX (assuming they will fit the board, I haven't checked that yet!)

 

So I only had it pre-ordered for about six weeks although it seemed like much longer! But it was at last waiting for me on my return from work.









If things go to smoothly, I might not ever need to see how good that stock heatsink is.

There are a few fiddly things to do with the case, but providing my order for some more tubing and a new top for my TDX turn up tomorrow or friday, I should be able to finally put it all together and boot it up Friday or Saturday. The remaining elements of the project after that will be non structural so can be done while the system is in a usable state

 

Which one did you pick up? Read the front page of bittech they did a shoot out for conroe coolers. I thought the results where interesting.

 

It's a 6600. I'm bringing across my watercooling loop from my previous rig with a few adjustments so I haven't really been keeping up to date on what else there is out there

Biggest headache at the moment is cleaning out the inside of the TDX block. Extended use has left it with a darkened coating which I think originates from the heatercore I was using. Now it's just a case of knowing what to use to get it off. I've had some limited success with brass polish and now I'm trying vinegar, but so far I'm not wowed by the amazing results I have to admit

 

Great spec!! Are you going to make a MB Cover out of acrilyic to cover it up or some other method! I'm sure that with lighting the colours will be less noticable.
Show us some overclocking and gaming info when this project is finished as i'm think of going conroe instead of AMD for my project!!

Loving it as always!!!
OldY

 

hey
to clean your heatsink id reccommend vinegar, PURE (i mean the freshly squeezed kind!) lime juice, soak it in each of them for 5mins, then soak it in some nail polish remover for 10mins, wash thoroughly and repeat if necessary! or just find some acid from somehwhere u can use, but remember to wash after with some sort of alcohol!

thats one helluva spec by the looks of it! could ya give us a full run down?!

 

We're getting somewhere now, after 36 hours of leak testing (I'm not normally this cautious but I've spent a hideous amount on all these new components, so i'm not taking any chances!)


The pink in the tubes is caused by the mixture of coolant additive and UV dye. To be honest I'm not really bothered what colour it is as long as it does its job.


Closer up, doesn't it look fun in there? It just needs the hard drives and DVD rewriter adding now and then functionally at least it's ready to use. I doubt that'll happen today though as I still need to back everything up before I format and reinstall windows on the new system.


The front res....it didn't really work out quite how I'd expected. The idea was to have glowing UV orange/red water, but with the combination of the smoked plexi front, daylight, and the camera flash you can't see in at all. I think it may have to be a night time feature - although the plexi does seem to filter out most colour the water going through the res does pulse with a dark purple glow, which admitedly looks quite nice. i could take the smoked plexi piece off to increase visibility, but I quite like it as i think it ties the res into the rest of the case.

Here's a parts list off the top of my head for the build so far:

Lian Li PC 61
e6600 Conroe
Connect3D X1800XT
Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3
2GB Gskill DDR2 HZ PC2-6400
Samsung SATA 160GB
Samsung PATA 120GB
Enermax Noisetaker 600W

Laing d5 Vario 12v pump
Dangerden TDX with brass LGA775 top
Thermochill PA 120.2 with fan grill
Slot-in res with modded smoked front

2x 120mm Akasa Ambers
4x castors
+ various nuts, bolts, and wasted hours

Looking at it it is hard to believe it's taken me such a long time to get to this point and it still isn't even finished really

Next question, and I need opinions...to window or not to window? If yes, then what shape and size? I'm not totally convinced either way, although at the minute I'm swaying towards no as it means I have to take less effort making the internals tidy

 

It's always good to show off the watercooling and a bit of lighting makes a computer really stand out but if you would rather not have one thats fine because in the end, it is your computer after all!!!

But if you do have a window, you could just show the motherboard area and leave it at that. You could use smoked plexi again which would reduce the amount of light it shows. Wires won't be much of a problem if you plan and get a sleeved PSU (if the PSU isn't already).

Hope this helps
OldY