Hey. My case is a Thermaltake Mozart Tx. Some of my goals: - the chassis will be painted matte black or powdercoated - the cpu and northbridge will be watercooled with one loop, and the graphics cards with another loop - for the second loop, i will build a low-depth reservoir that will fit behind one of the windows. - a radiator will be made to fit in the top of the case, for which I will make a black acrylic grill. - each loop will have a drainport at the bottom of the case, and one of the loops will have a fillport at the top - the power supply wires will be cut to exact lengths and individually sleeved. This is what my case looked like before. Here it is taken apart with the doors off. The doors are spray painted matte black. Various plans for the window reservoir. The barbs should be on a certain side of the reservoir, to make it easier to later open the door with the 1/2" tygon attached. Also some kind of separation of the barbs was necessary to allow air bubbles to rise to the top without being sucked back in to the loop Materials are ordered from Delvies Plastics: square foot pieces of 1/4" clear and black acrylic, as well as a 1/2" clear piece. The wall of the reservoir will fit exactly to the outline of the window. It is 1/2" deep and it will need to have curved walls. I experimented with bending thin acrylic with heat but I was not getting the results I wanted. The only option was to take thick acrylic and cut out the walls, then sand them to extremely high grit to make them clear again. Tracing the outline of the window on the 1/2" acrylic, then drawing an outer wall. Cutting it out with an old jigsaw. The sides are sanded, starting with 60 grit. I think i went up at 200 grit increments until 1000, wetsanding starting at 600. Then I went at 500 grit increments up to 3000. The inside is cut out. The last bit there is too small for the jigsaw to fit so I spent hours sanding it away with dremel sanding wheels. I inhaled so much acrylic dust. The wall is finished and ready to be cemented to the back surface. I got lazy with sanding the inner portion and only went up to 800 grit, then used some polishing compound. It doesn't look as clear with the compound but whatever, no one will see the sides anyway. The 1/4" clear back is cut to a rough shape of the wall, then the two are cemented together with some acrylic cement from TAP Plastics. The edges are carefully sanded with a dremel to match the wall. The outer surface will need to be re-sanded at low grit to create a single, flat surface since the outside of the wall was slightly convex. It is now that I realize I will need to redo all the outer polishing Meanwhile, some items from Performance-PCs. 50 feet of wire sleeve and two feet of heatshrink, coolant and a fillport, as well as some half inch barbs and plugs. I love these barbs because I find you do not need to use ugly clamps. The tygon tube first needs to be expanded in hot water to fit onto these. Back to the res, holes are drilled and threaded for the barbs. I worked my way up to a 29/64" drill bit. I couldn't find an 11.8mm bit, but this was close enough. The holes are tapped with a 1/4BSP 19tpi tap. A small 1/4" fill port is added at the top. It will be plugged with a uv led to make the reactive coolant glow. A while ago I cut the acrylic window out of 1/16" clear acrylic, but I don't have pics of the process. Finally, the res is cemented to the window. Once it dries I will test it for leaks. I ended up putting a barb on either side of the door handle, instead of having a baffle that would detract from the simplicity of the window.
Today I tested the res for leaks. Of course a tiny spot leaked so I applied more of the acrylic cement in that area. I'll test again once it sets in 48 hours. This is when it started leaking. Here are some pics of testing the watercooling components for loop 1. Pump and res. Recently I had the chassis powder coated matte black. Unfortunately they didn't sandblast the previous finish and some bubbling occurred, and some of the parts barely fit together. Once all cutting is done I will have it blasted to bare steel and re-powder coated. This is how the radiator grill will look for the loop 2 rad on top. I think it will be anodized aluminum. It will be beveled to fit seamlessly into the depression in the top piece of the chassis. I cut a rectangle with my crap jigsaw and filed the edges. The grill piece will fit on top, with the fans being attached underneath, and the radiator attached to that. Fillport hole is also cut.
That res is *sniff* beautiful... But watch your tube routing, it looks like you have managed to leave the case...
That is simply gorgeous! The res looks professional. You could easily start selling them for $500 or more! You, sir, are a true artisan.
Small update. The bottom of the Mini-ITX side of the case has this hole for mouse/keyboard cables to exit. This is where the drainports for both loops will go. I traced the hole onto a piece of half inch scrap acrylic. Then brought it to the rough shape with a sanding wheel and then polished it to 3000 grit. Tomorrow I will do the easy part: cement it to wider piece so I can fasten it to the case and thread holes for the barbs and plugs.
This is an impressive log, and very well written and documented! Thanks for showing us thus far. That's one huge case... I've never seen that one. HUGE with a lot of space for all sorts of things. I was impressed by your res design. As you drew it, I knew that evenly bending that by hand would be a semi-impossible task. I was thinking to myself that the only way would be to carve it out of layers, which would still be a PITA, and lo and behold... you did it, and pulled it off spectacularly! I was amazed that you sanded to such a high grit, and laughed out loud (having been there/done that) at the line about having to re-sand over... "that's when I realized..." Great plexi work, nice planning ideas and good photos... I feel confident giving this some stars and you some rep! Subbed for sure.
Thanks for the awesome comments guys! The drain ports are almost finished. I'm deciding whether to paint it black or light it with an led.
That res looks amazing, shame it leaked though. That drain port is a very good idea, I wish I made something like that for my rig, draining it hard and takes a while lol. I have that same Swiftech CPU block. Watch out for galvanic corrosion. Mine hasn't started to corrode get but I have it happen many times before. If possible see if you can get the copper replacement top for it or see if you can take it back for a Swiftech GTZ or a D-Tek FuZion V2. You can always do the easy way and spray the inside of the top with clear varnish/lacquer, that should help minimize the corrosion.
As has been mentioned before, LOVE THE RES, and a great design. I on the other hand has always liked this case, it stands out from the norm of regular cases. Excellent work on everything, I think this will be a super design.
'please sir, where do i find the really BIG cases?' 'right there, next to those beautiful fillports' 'aha, thank you' 'oh yeah, one more thing, where are the really inventive reservoirs?' 'right on the other side, but you should speak to mr Foz about that, he is the expert around here' wow man, no chance i could ever do something like that
Sorry for this minor bump but I thought it'd be worth it since this mod started out pretty saweet. Did you manage to get any further with this mod, because I'm pretty sure some people are waiting with their hopes up Cool mod so far, hoping you will update it anytime soon.
