Update #4 - 20/03/2010 Grabbed a line jig and a tungsten carbide cutter to have a go at the top radiator cut. Marked out with a template. Fitted the line jig to the dremel. Started cutting, but then my Dremel died. Must be faulty, I've only had it 2 weeks! A replacement is being sorted at the moment. My wc'ing stuff from EK Waterblocks arrived! Massive thanks to Eddy, him and his company are absolutely incredible! Quad rad for the bottom - thing is huge! I've never owned a rad bigger than a single before. I'm starting to learn my softbox/lighting setup quite well now. CPU block - I really like the boxes, much nicer than the plain brown boxes you get with other watercooling stuff. Got the white acetal top to go on it to match the rest of the build. White acetal is my new favourite material! The hold down plate is finished in a textured black powdercoat. Perfect mirror finish base. Was surprised how perfect it was! Two Laing DDC 10W pumps. I personally don't like the high pitched noise from the 18W version (if you can't hear it, you are old!) so I got two 10W to make up for the power loss! However they look a little dull... So some more of my new favourite material to join them together! This is a dual DDC pump top. The construction is quite interesting - it is made of two sheets of acetal which are then bonded together - how i don't quite know, i imagine by some kind of electro-welding process. If you stick a light behind the block of acetal, you see there are actually o-rings embedded inside the acetal. Neat engineering! Fitted to the pumps. Inlet is in the top, outlet at the side. Will be interesting to see how much pressure this thing generates. Custom tops normally increase the flow rate and head a lot. The one thing the DDC lacks on behind the D5 is the flow rate, so I'm hoping that this top will help with that. Let me introduce the twins! Nickel plated fullcover 5850 waterblocks with white acetal tops. I actually just sat and stared at them for a couple of minutes when i first opened the box! White acetal is pretty dam hard to photograph. The red stickers you see on all the blocks are warranty stickers, so I won't be removing them yet. I may try and sneakily move them to somewhere that won't be seen. Like the CPU block, mirror finish on the base. Dunno what to say really! They talk for themselves. These are RAM backplates designed to help cool off the ram on the top side of the card. They also look ridiculously awesome! There were issues with the first version of this, they did not fit the 5850 properly. This has been fixed though. Om nom nom I need to finally decide on my fittings soon. After getting all this nickel goodness, it is tempting to go with silver shining bitspower instead of matt black. Decisions decisions... Nickel orgy! Fav picture of the lot! A massive thanks to EK! I would also like to introduce two new partners: MIPs Waterblocks are sending me one of their RAM Cooler 6 memory waterblocks. Enermax have been incredibly generous, and are sending me a Revolution85+ 850w PSU and a load of Enermax Cluster fans!
EK porn. I've been wondering if you can bond Delrin/delrin or delrin/plexi. -Gotta try it now. Also- Broke dremel= Welcome to the wonderful world of sub-standard parts. I had a replacement switch for a saw go out after about 10 cuts. That worked out to about $2.50 a cut.
Thanks Thanks subset, i can't stop looking at them EK porn Cheesecake You can't beat it! You can weld and bond delrin but only weld acetal. Delrin was developed to have the same properties as acetal yet not be as damn hard to attach together! I did a little research into the subject a while back when i was thinking about this project. Yeah tell me about it, any new tools i get at the moment seem to break/not be as solid as old stuff. Had a brand new drill bit break yesterday when drilling some aluminium. Went to my granddads old box of drill bits, found the right size, works like a dream!
Also- Broke dremel= Welcome to the wonderful world of sub-standard parts. I had a replacement switch for a saw go out after about 10 cuts. That worked out to about $2.50 a cut.[/QUOTE] Wonder if that switch came from China ?? Just remembering how cheezy Japanese stuff was when they first moved into world market. They had growing pains, hopefully China will mature as well, American companys are sure going to use them. Dremel somehow just reminds me of stuff from WalMart, buy anything there and you better keep your receipt !! Better off spending the extra money and buy contractor grade from a toolhouse. Then again my Dremel want-a-be from Harbor Freight is still going strong, bit loud but has seen a lot of abuse and held up. Go Figure. Opps, sorry for the thread hijack. Ahhh, all that nickel shiny stuff made me loose my mind, my story !!!
Wonder if that switch came from China ?? Just remembering how cheezy Japanese stuff was when they first moved into world market. They had growing pains, hopefully China will mature as well, American companys are sure going to use them. Dremel somehow just reminds me of stuff from WalMart, buy anything there and you better keep your receipt !! Better off spending the extra money and buy contractor grade from a toolhouse. Then again my Dremel want-a-be from Harbor Freight is still going strong, bit loud but has seen a lot of abuse and held up. Go Figure. Opps, sorry for the thread hijack. Ahhh, all that nickel shiny stuff made me loose my mind, my story !!![/QUOTE] Lol don't worry, as long as the hijack is educational, i don't mind. Everyone is learning!
Mmmmm...EK. even their packaging is tasty. I can't get over the brilliant lighting and photos. You're raising bar for the rest of us Oli.
Thanks Bill You guys might like to know, MiniMe has just been completed, and there will be final pics of that up in the thread soon: http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=173852
really epic start to a project, I love a good TJ7 mod and it looks like this one will be no different. Congratz on your sponsors and your awesome goodies .
Lovely work Oliver, and also kudos for your MiniMe build. I personally think the shininess will contrast nicely with the black fittings; but it's your call
Thanks Thankyou! YEah i think you are right on that one, the black fittings will go well. For those of you who don't know, MiniMe is now finished! http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=173852
Oli my friend as I stated before ;P the photography and modding skills you have are Godlike! Keep on modding buddy!
Will check them out Oli, btw your triple rad grill was shipped yesterday, AND cheapskate will be joining you and Ian from IandH on April 4th for the TMB Podcast
Thankyou Angel! YOu too bro, your painting skills are craaaaazy! Yays Can't wait to get the grill! I'll send you an email bout the podcast
Update #5 - 27/03/2010 Enermax Revolution PSU arrived! Nice fit inside the case, lines up perfectly with my cable management gap. I need to make a new PSU bracket to get rid of the horrible square holes and also flip the PSU. Radiator in place. This will be mounted on a quad rad stand. I've realised i now have space for push pull on the quad rad, which will be quite nice! This is how the pump will be mounted. This is all that will be in the bottom compartment - anything else will end up making it cluttered, which is what i want to avoid. There will be a tube going up from the top of the pump to the reservoir in and, one going to the rad from the pump then one from the rad up to the GPUs. I should be able to get some attractive loop designs into here. A load of Enermax Clusters! 9x 120mm, 2x 80mm. The silver rings will be powdercoated like i did for MiniMe. I am not sure whether to go for white or black for them, opinions? Don't have enough fans now, i need two more to do push pull on the quad rad. Here is the PSU box. It is pretty big! The texture of the casing is really nice. It is pretty resistant to impact too. There is also a big enough gap around the area where the permanent cables come out to get sleeving in, unlike alot of PSUs such as the Corsair ones. Nice simple design for the back. Hoping the LED isn't a silly colour! I may paint the red grill white. Will find out if that voids the warranty first though. Nice texture. And that's it for this update! Currently getting the mobo blocks sorted out. My RAM block is having a custom white top made for it which should be here soon too! Big thanks to Enermax:
1. Now THAT is a stack of fans. 2. I vote for black..... 3. THAT IS NOT ENOUGH FANS?!?!?! What is the world coming to? 4. I guess you know that from experience? 5. It could be purple...
1. Yup 2. I think you are right tbh. Lots of people have been saying that! Do you think gloss, satin, matt, or metallic? 3. Lmao, only 2 more mate! 4. Yeah paint jobs can vary so much! I don't know the exact painting method done on the PSU but it is excellent. 5. Purple would look ridonculous with this PSU!
I do like the typewriter paint. That's a nice touch on their part. You need more fans? I'm beginning to wonder if you have enough power supply too. Also, bad switch=Mexico. It replaced a 15-yr old switch from Malaysia. Don't knock Asia's electronics.
