Scratch Build – In Progress Temporary name: Bloo Balls --6-29-'11 Bloo 2.0 refit COMPLETED page 47

Re-read. You iz rocks.

 

Thanks acey. I have a few rocks in my head.

 

Hey man, congrats for the Mod of The Year nomination, you've got my vote!
P.S. : Merry Xmas

 

Thanks an Merry Christmas to you too.
Merry Christmas to everyone! Thanks again for putting me in the MOTY running!

 

You MUST be in the MOTY , I love your mod, and the quality of your work is stunning!

 

Bloo 2.0

Bloo 2.0 Start

Yup. The P4 motherboard got a horrible case of leaking caps, so I'm doing a marathon rebuild.
Part of this was leaked in my current project, GwassGween. I finally broke down and bumped Bloo's thread to avoid making that project any more confusing. (It's already pretty bad.)

The plan:

-New hardware. Duh. -Although I'm keeping the floppy drive for now. I have no clue what to do with the hole.

-New waterblocks. The P4 maze brick has to be re-done.

-Bigger radiator. This also means a major overhaul to the top of the case.

-Improved tube routing. I'm fixing the copper tubes so I don't have to re-solder them every time I upgrade. I'm also moving them out of the way of the hardware.

-New reservoir. I'm not sure what I'm doing can be called an improvement, but bleeding/filling/cleaning should be better. It also will be moved out of the way of the hardware. The old one ate a lot of space and took forever to bleed.

-Removable back panel/motherboard tray. This was one of my biggest mistakes. I tried to shave a few dollars off the cost, and ended up with a real PITA to work with.

-Fixed wire routing. I hate cable wrap, and I finally found a solution that should look good.

-Custom pump top. The hoses will be routed out the top this time. I'm also moving the pump as close to the PSU as possible.


-First, I had to make a cut in the I/O plate to glue a motherboard tray to. Getting the back panel clamped down was tricky. I had to prop the panel up higher than the batman fins. I resorted to using electrical tape to hold it down.

-I cut out a motherboard tray and CNCd out some access holes. (CNC? -refer to the gwassgween thread...I bought some stuff.)

-Clamped in place for gluing...

-For the future re-wiring, I dyed reels of 18AWG and 22AWG speaker wire blue. The UV red stuff was a mistake. It screamed, 'look at my cable, baby!'

-I had to order some more plastic. This is another reason Delvie's rocks. One of the sheets is 1.25" longer than what I ordered. The other shops would have cut undersize and charged you for it.

-Here's the res parts. This mess will sit on top of the hardrive cage...somehow.

-This is the chop to fit a 140x2 radiator. I haven't figured out if it's enough yet. I hope it is -It's all I room for. Even this is colliding with the new reservoir.

-Wheee. I'm de-soldering the tubes for the third time. I'm hoping this will be the LAST time, though. I've moved all the plumbing behind the hardrive area.

-Here's the current state of the reservoir. -Pretty freaky, isn't it? I integrated the pressure regulator this time.

So...
Hardware-done No pics yet.
Radiator-done
Motherboard tray-done

...Oh and a little thanks for Bloo's sponsor.

 

lol thats pretty mental

 

That is one crazy res.

 

Thanks. Working on the plumbing and software today...

 

-OK...Somewhere in this mess is a working system: MSI 870A-gs4 with a Athlon2x2@3 ghz, 4gigs of ddr3, and a 1.5tb drive~ish. GPU is a HD5770.
-With that out of the way, I need to get everything on water...

-This is the leak test on the new tubing. I use my garden sprayer for everything but spraying the garden.

-I'm in the process of beefing up my waterblock-FU. I picked up a few new tools for that. The current problem is I have to roll everything into the garage to cut metal, and it's like...90F in there.

-Here I have the old block and what will become the new block. I will not be using the maze brick for the new setup, but I need it's copper. If you dislike gore, do not scroll further down.
.
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-This would be another reason to leave a little gap between the copper and the plastic when using a gasket sealant. I could barely get a blade between the two to pry them apart. You will notice the copper has eroded away near the edges of the seal.

-Here's the future GPU block top. I screwed up designing it and made the inner wall to hold the O-ring too thin. -Hey! It looked huge on the computer. I had to make the little blue rings you see here.

-A successful 24hour leak test tells me I can go ahead with cutting the ports out.

I only hope the mounting holes are right. I guessed on them.

Thanks again to DangerDen for sponsoring this monstrosity.

 

I use that one all the time. Works wonders for the lady modders

 

The new block is looking good cheaps, I can't wait to see it in action.

 

Whoops, double post.

 

Thanks.
I had a long spare floppy cable stuffed in the bottom ...under the PSU. It had a habit of popping out to say 'hi' when you opened the side of the case. -Spent a lot of time re-adjusting my floppy cable.

@boy4 - I can't wait to see if the block fits the card!

 

-A ported ATI block and oldschool gasket measuring here.

-AM3 block, part one. When I'm done, it should be just as massive as the P4 block.

-I got a Corsair psu. -Nice cable collection (octopus) here. Too bad I'm going to chop it all out.

-I voided the warranty... They put a black PCB on the power supply too? That's 3 out of 3 for this build.

-***. Some ATX pins are easy, some are from hell. It took me an hour to get this one pin out. You can see I messed up the first pair of new wires while getting it out too. To get these pins free, I had to push with the pin remover tool with enough force to bend the plug. I doubt the tool will survive for the entire swap. It's pretty tattered after doing the 24 pin plug.

-Aw, Cr*p. I was on a roll that day. I slipped up in the dxf exports, and part of the cutting was wrong. I didn't notice until it was too late because I cut the crooked stuff first.
You can see the start of a new ddc top here too.

-This will be the 2nd half of the AM3 waterblock. I have the springs countersunk here. It should look pretty slick if I can find long enough screws.

Thanks again to DangerDen for helping this project out.

 

-Whoever wires up the Corsair PSUs, they are an real artist. The lines were not tangled at all. When I got done, it was a real mess. I learned later that you can't get the top back on if the wires aren't as clean as the original job. They packed in the maximum amount of wire possible.

-FYI: You will need at least 100ft of wire to re string one of these buggers. I left out several lines and made some shorter. I still used almost 60ft of wire.

-This is one of those victory pics. I had to remove all the wire ties I added to stuff everything in. After a fight like that, you have to stop and take a picture of your conquest. (-2nd geekiest thing I have ever said...)

-Slipping the cover on was easier. All I had to do there was cut a hole for the wires, and reposition the fan screw holes.

-I have everything slapped back into bloo and running. Getting the new wires under the motherboard was another battle. There's less than 3/8" under the board now because of the new mobo tray...

-Included in that cramped space are a lot of sharp pointy bits on the motherboard's belly. I put some mylar sheet between the wires and board for now. Later, I will use one of these plastic folders to make a cleaner barrier.

-Did I mention I F U'd the res lately? I managed to cloud the inside, it crazed really badly, and part of it looks like it didn't seal too. This was part of all that bad day I had earlier. I might have to mill the face off and do it again. This sheet of clear has been crazing easily anyway. I think it might be old or something.

That's all for now. Go bump my GG thread again.
Thanks again DD

 

This is looking really nice, I've always loved acrylic cases, can't wait to see more.

 

I wouldn't go round bragging to the ladies that you got a floppy that keeps popping out, especially if it's only a 3,1/2 inch

 

what did you use for the res, cause there are some liquids that f*ck up plexi.. cause it needs to "breath"

 

Nice work there cheaps.. that psu cable fits well with the rest of the case. Btw have you tried cutting some copper with that slitting saw yet? Im in the process of buying a couple of those aswell and quite curious about how hard it is to make some nice thin copper fins.