Scratch Build – In Progress Coca Coola

Hello everyone. I have just recently stumbled across this forum and very much enjoy all the insiration that I find here. A few months back I got the bright idea to build my very first computer. I have been stuck on Toshiba laptops for the past 4 years now, so I figured it was time to build that comp that Ive always wanted.

You maybe thinking, "Since the title of the build is Coca Coola, this is going to revolve around Coca Cola" The answer to that is yes. I have a nice collection of Coca Cola collectibles and have decided to build my comp around this theme. But only in the past week have I decided to do that. When I had first started to build it, it was only supposed to be a fast comp with a good graphics card and lots of memory. But after poking around the pages here, I have decided otherwise.

Now lets get to those pics. Now keep in mind that, like I said before, I built what you will see a few months ago. These are not super detailed pictures, but I will explain the best I can about my build process. So if you have any questions or comments feel free to give me what you got. I'm up for suggestions, ideas or what even insight you have to offer. So lets get started.....

This here is what the case looked like the day I bought it. I did not take the picture myself, I found it off the web so I take no credit for the pic. Only to show the stock bones of what I started with.


Now on to the internals.
Some of these parts I got from a friend of mine and am not 100% sure on the specs. So feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on something, your not gonna hurt my feelings. LOL

I did not get a pic of the processor but it is an AMD AM2+ Quad Core 2.66gh

Motherboard: Asus AMD AM2+




Graphics Card: NVIDIA GForce (not sure the model)



CPU Fan:


Well I guess that's about it for the internals, except for the power supply but it is just a basic 650 watt supply, no pics sorry.

So now for the case...

Here is the first mod I made to the case. I painted all the silver parts on the front of the case. The side rails were painted red, I couldn't tell you the name of the exact color as it is a custom color, and the power and reset buttons, the jacks housing and the emblem was painted gloss black.



Now for the fun pics. I had originally had no plans to paint the case itself, since it was already black I didn't see the need. But thanks to my 2 WONDERFUL kids, who decided while daddy was gone they wanted to help and spray painted the whole side of the case with clear coat. as you can imagine daddy wasn't happy. So since there was no real way to fix it with out ruining the powder coat, I decided to paint it.

Although before I painted, I got this idea....





More before paint pics...







Well, I guess that's going to be about it for a little while until I can get the rest of the pics uploaded from my external. I Have a feeling there might be more pics that I missed due to not being uploaded and if so ill be sure to add them to my next post.
I hope you have enjoyed this so fan and will be back with more soon. Cheers

 

OK I'm back again with the rest of the pics. I got to thinking after I made this thread, that I labeled it as a scratch build but so far have had all case mod stuff. Well let me assure you that this is a build as well as case mod. Major stuff will be coming soon.

Now remember when I said that I knew that I forgot about something? Well I did, I forgot about the 360 gig hard drive.

Any how on with the pics...

OK so here are 2 more pics from before painting.



Now don't get upset when I go straight to the after painting pictures. As I had no clue at the time that I would be posting a work log somewhere, I didn't take a lot of working pics. So just to give you some details on what took place.

As I said in the last post, I had no intentions on painting this case, but it just so happens that I had to. So.... the entire case was stripped. And when I say stripped i mean STRIPPED!! Every rivet on the case was drilled out and each piece of the case was painted so that it all had a nice uniform look with no runs or missed spots. In my eyes it came out beautifully.

So heres the after painting and assembled pics.....

The color I used is a satin black with bronze metallic, which you really cant tell in the pics but it is very nice in person.







Now the motherboard try, the hard drive bay and normal drive bay was then clear coated with Metallic clear effect to give it that really metal flake look. I was hoping that it would make everything pop when the light from the CPU fan and LED fans would come on but unfortunately it doesn't, but it still looks nice.

So heres a pic of the mother board tray....


Here are the pics of the 2 types of fans I used....
This is the red LED fan on the side of the case


This is a Thermalite fan used for exhaust on the back of the case, this thing really moves some air.



OK, now for the finished product as it stands right now. But don't let this full you, there will be more to come. Ive got the ideas running through my head that are really going set this baby off from the crowed.

Here goes.....









OK well that's it. Hope you enjoyed what Ive done here, and I look forward to getting some feed back from you guys here. In the next few days I will be posting some of my ideas, sketches and some 3D renders of what I'm hoping to accomplish with this build. Please feel free to give me any and all advice, good or bad, I'm open to all criticism. Thanks for stopping. Cheers

 

I like that white fan inside!

 

Yeah I think since Im going with the whole coca cola theme, Im going to try to stick to using white fans, Even if I have to paint them. LOL Cheers

 

Looking pretty good so far, keep it up


GO Wisconsin!!!!

 

Nice clean and tidy little build, well done. I love it when the kids help with modding. I've got a case sitting here with a Strawberry milk shake splatter down the side of it.lol.
And whats with the toes? Are they putting in a cameo appearance in the occasional shot like Alfred Hitchcock used to do in his films.

 

LOL Yeah the kids were a huge help that day, not sure exactly how they helped but they did I'm sure. As for the toes.... when its nice I hate to wear shoes and it seems to be that when I don't wear any my toes always find their way into the pictures I take. Its like I take the picture and BOOM there they are. LOL. Thanks for stopping by bulldogjeff. Cheers

 

So I was running some ideas through my head the past week or so and since Im planing on doing a water cooling system, I got to thinking about what to use as a res. Then it hit me. Why not use a coca cola bottle since that is going to be my theme. now heres the dilema.... do I use one of the plastic soda bottles or a glass one.

Here is the plastic bottle I was thinking of using. Was thinking of using 2 of these 12oz bottles.


And here is the glass bottle. I was also thinking of using 2 of these.


Now a friend of mine told me that it would be a bad idea to use either one. Now I am new to the whole water cooling thing, so Im looking to you guys here to give me a little insight on what my pros and cons to this would be.

Ive been told that the plastic would melt under heat and that the glass would cause the water blocks to clog up. Not sure what they would get clogged up with, but hey Im no expert in this area. I figure the best people to ask would be those that build systems all the time. Let me know what you think. Cheers

 

The problem you'll have is that the plastic one will be to weak and although possible with the glass, it,ll probably crack or shatter when you tighten a barb into it even with an O ring fitted. Now if you could get your hands on a plexi bottle you'd be making it all much more possible.

 

Ok that makes more sence to me now. So do you know of a place that makes custom things out of plexi like that?

 

Why would it melt? where you planning on shaping it in some way? or under the temp of your pc because i don't think it would get that hot

The glass bottle is defiantely the better choice but im not sure how well it would work you would obviously have to put one barb at the bottom or on the side at the bottom and spend time sealing it perfectly so you get no nasty leaks

If you took your time with a tap and lube it up reaaaaaaaaaaal nice then i think its possible just to do it

 

The glass bottle is DEFINATELY do-able, you need to use carbide coated drill bits to go through the stuff (Same stuff as you use with tiles) but then you need to tap the hole for the fitting to attach to.

your other option is to seal the fitting in place with some sort of *very* high strength epoxy.You'd have to do this to the top fitting aswell.

 

An alternative way of doing it could be to drill holes into the bottom of the bottle and cast polyester clear-cast resin into the bottom - could even add a bit of brown-black dye to color it like coke, stir up the resin during construction to have air bubbles to add to the coke effect, and , with a couple of 11.8mm (or thereabouts) rods of something soft like polystyrene or balsa wood poking into the two drilled holes in the bottom. Would work well if the water in the loop is clear or the same colour as the dyed resin. (You could use a stronger resin but they're not going to be clear so it might look like someone has been using the bottle for an IVF storage container...)

Once the resin is set you could then easily tap the holes for BSP1/4 (and get rid of the polystyrene/balsa) and through the resin to have a durable inlet and outlet. The polystyrene would avoid having to drill accurately into the bottle, as it might be tricky to clamp for vertical drilling.


After that's all done you could turn it upside down and do a similar thing for the top for a cap to have a fill-hole and bsp1/4 stopper.

With the res being so small a potential problem would be air bubbles getting sucked from the water surface into the water loop - you might need something like a slanted bit of acrylic over the reservoir outlet going to the pump as in the swiftech micro-res to avoid that.

 

I took some pics of my comp lit up. Figured Id post them up before some one asked me about it. LOL.










Here are my red cathods that Im going to use. I cant get a pic of them lit up right now as I need to buy a new converter for them.




Well thats all for now. Hopefully I can get some renders or some sketches posted up so you can see some of my plans and ideas so that I can get some feedback on them. Cheers

 

OK, so here are some renders of an idea that I had. I would like your opinions. But before I you look at the pics let me explain so that your not all scratching your heads saying, "What in the world is this guy trying to do?"

Well the first thing that your gonna notice is the top of the case. My idea is to have a rad at the top of the case (on the inside) and the fans on top of the case. For a shroud to hide the fans I was thinking of using a 2 liter coke bottle cut in half, with the bottom cut out to allow the heat to escape. I also turned the hard drive bay so the drives can be removed from the side rather than the back.

And please don't hate on my rendering abilities, as I never even knew about Google 3d until I came to this forum. I'm still learning how to use it. But for only using it for about a week now I'm doing pretty good.







Stay tuned in for more updates. Im working on some sketches right now for the RES and for a large fan cover in the shape of a coke bottle, I just need to get pictures taken of the accual sketches or get them into render form. So until next time...... Cheers

 

What no feedback?? Come on people, let me know what you think about this. LOL. Unless you comment, tell me what you really think, then Im not sure weather or not to kick myself in the ass now or wait until Ive put all my time into this and find out later it sucks. Come on dont be afraid, hurt my feelings if you have to, Im a big boy I CAN TAKE IT!! lol Cheers

 

Oh the top bit will be bottle shaped, I didn't notice till now, that's a sweet idea

 

Another option for your res: Aluminum bottle!





They are def thicker than the alu cans, so I guess its more feasible?
Not sure if they are available internationally though, only ever seen them in the states.
Good Luck!

 

Hey man thanks for the idea. I never even gave aluminum bottles a thought. Then again Ive never seen them other than online. I am from the states and Ive never seen them any where around my area. Ummm... Ill have to look around and see what I can do to get a few of those. Again thanks for the idea. Cheers

 

Wow, quick reply! Once again, good luck!