Scratch Build – In Progress Hotmods.net - The Scratchbench - FINISHED 01-01-2016

I was wondering what happened to this one. Good to see it on the go again..

 

I thought it'd be necessary to clean/flush the loop, although all components were brand new. And boy, was I right! The water turned slightly blue/green-ish almost immediately.

Left it running for half an hour or so - will have to flush again, at least one more time:



Started to plan where the HDD/SSD's would sit - I wanted a very, very simple rack with as short SATA cables as possible, running straight up to the SATA ports on the motherboard above:







In the end I cut these brackets from aluminium leftovers:



After the bench has been painted, I'll show you how this is all supposed to be mounted.

Now, back to the Aquaero 5. It's unfortunately a well-known issue that SOME people with aluminium enclosures have experienced problems with false signals coming from the soft-touch buttons on the Aquaero 5 XT.

I've been reading quite a few threads on the subject, and it seems like it can mostly be related to bad grounding - so, to test this, I ran a wire from an unpainted spot inside the metal enclosure of my PSU to the mounting brackets of the Aquaero - and the problem went away.

So, I constructed a wire to be permanently mounted like that, always providing a good grounding for the Aquaero 5 XT.

This is where it'll sit inside the PSU enclosure:





I sleeved it:



Mounted it:



... and ran it up to the Aquaero:



And since I was playing with wires, I moved on to making the ATX-24 pin connection shorter.

During its life, it's seen quite some action in this area - mostly concerned with extending the connection, but now I have to make it considerably shorter (20 cm's shorter, in fact!), because I don't want any excess wires running inside the test bench - I need as much room as I can get.

So, to do it neat and clean, I would be best off cutting 20 cm's off of each wire, crimping a new pin on it and then shorten the sleeving. However, I don't possess a crimper, so I went with soldering new pins on the wires - it's just as good, if you ask me - but, of course, it takes longer to complete the job!

This is what the soldered pins look like:



Oh, and I also wanted to get rid of the heatshrink, so I melted the sleeving over the pins - looks much better, in my opinion:



Some time ago, I made a video on how to do sleeving jobs without having to use heatshrink. Check it out here:



Once I had made all wires 20 cm's shorter and popped them back into the 24-pins ATX plug, I checked the connection with a PSU Tester. That's ALWAYS a good idea!



Voltages were as expected - everything works 100% fine.

But the wires come out of the PSU in a somewhat random order (next time, I'll make sure to get a 100% modular PSU), so I labelled the wires and tried to move them around, removing the worst twists - basically, trying to make the wires run as nicely as possible in order to be able to, eventually, get a nice looking 24-pin connection to the motherboard:





Notice how little you can see of the 8-pin EPS connection, because I cut a passthrough for it under the motherboard:



This is what it looks like inside the test bench:



The connections are not in their final shape yet. I plan to purchase some cable combs from Lutro0, in order to make this task a little easier...

Then I took out all hardware and made some shots of the case for the painter to be able to give me a quote on the paintjob:







After getting and accepting the quote, I removed all protection from the aluminium parts, cleaned up all edges, sanded where sanding was necessary and delivered the bits to the painter:

 

Oi, bulldog!!!

Well, to quote something I wrote earlier in this worklog:

"My mods don't die. They just go to dust heaven and eventually return".

 

While I wait for the painter to do his bit, I had a look at the hardware going into this build.

I have hinted it here and there throughout this worklog, but I'm pretty sure you're not at all aware of the graphics card I will be using.

I started with an AMD Radeon 6870. Then I got an AMD Radeon 6970. And now, I got an AMD Radeon 7970. I'll stick to that for the remainder of the project (it runs Battlefield 4 just fine, which is basically what I need it for!).

Actually, I've had the card for a couple of years now - I just never posted any pics of it in here, that's all.

So, let's get down to unboxing some boxes I have been having lying around for 1,5 years or so...

First up, another box from the project sponsor, Coolerkit.dk





Take a look at the date on that invoice. Bad, bad me!



And take a look at the candy that had been inside that box for almost 2 years - it had started to dissolve:



As I mentioned earlier in this worklog, I'd been having a very hard time finding a non-CSQ design block from EK Waterblocks for the 7970, but eventually Michael Buje @ Coolerkit.dk sent me a copper version:





He also sent me a matching backplate:



And another Noiseblocker M12-S2 fan, so I now got 6 of those, 3 for each radiator:



Now... I wasn't interested in installing a copper block in this build, so (as I also mentioned earlier in this worklog) I had written to Eddy from EK, who told one of his employees (Peter Sajn) to look for a suiting block for me (Acetal/Nickel).

Well, they didn't find a block - but let's take a look at what they eventually ended up sending to me:



Again: Bad , BAD me!



Nickel parts to be able to put together an Acetal/Nickel block myself - YAY!



Mmmmhhh... this is gonna be good:



Removing the stand-offs:



Installing the O rings on the nickel parts:



Putting the nickel parts on:



And there we have it - Me SOOOO so happy!





Oh, and for some reason I found it necessary to purchase a "Quality Class 2" backplate for the 7970 (probably because I, at that time, didn't know whether or not Coolerkit.dk would be able to provide me with one - who knows by now, right?) - and, seriously: the plate is in excellent shape on the outside! Only got a small 2x2 cm stain of "something" on the bottom, which isn't going to be visible when installed anyway, so..... now I got 2!

One's up for sale - anyone?

 

Eat the candy,it will be coming into its best right now!

 

Mate, I'm dormant - not suicidal.

 

Damn it, B beat me to it! I was going to suggest eating it too, then doing a video about the gastrointestinal difficulties you had afterwards.

EDIT: nice video on the shrink-less sleeving BTW, I love seeing noob friendly videos like that! One thing though: that background music must go. Not just because it was awful, but the volume was much too loud and overpowered your voice a bit.

As a noob, I'd LOVE to see some videos on metal work! Even making a simple pump or reservoir bracket seems like magic to me, since I wasn't raised on tools (unfortunately). I haven't seen too many ultra-noob-friendly instructional videos regarding that stuff, especially info on what specific metal to buy, thickness, etc. Have you done videos like that before?

 

I agree with EVERYTHING you said about the video:

1. Music should be GONE! I will start this practice for up-coming instructional videos.
2. Keep it n00b-friendly. I'm not an expert (on pretty much anything) and I will never be. I always learn new stuff by reading articles online, watching other casemodders/craftsmen's videos and I try to relay that info (aswell as the results of my own experiences) to other n00bs (like me) in a n00b-friendly manner.
3. I need a better microphone.
4. I need to do more re-takes, if a certain shot didn't come out as good as possible - e.g. if I move the subject being handled out of the frame - or the camera loses its focus just as I am about to show something important.

All these things will increase the time it takes to create an instructional video - but it will enable me to produce much, much better videos.

It's not that I'm particularly good at metal work, nor do I own gold-crowned facilities/tools/abilities to do metal work like a BOSS (you've seen my workshop if you read all posts I posted in this worklog during the last couple of days), but I've made a notice of your request and will see what I can do.

 

Awesome! Your English is excellent BTW. Very much looking forward to more videos and more of this build log! Logs detailed like this are a serious inspiration to me as a modding noob. Maybe one of these days, I will get up the courage to mod my M8 (but I doubt it). Too expensive to Dremel that thing, especially since I don't know how to use my Dremel yet!

 

Good thing they didn't ship you any cheese. Mr. Neg is right. You should properly trip balls on that candy at this point.

 

Why, thank you for the nice comments.

More videos, you say? Well, we'll see about that. I have one, rather special, coming up. Currently waiting for supplies to show up at my front door and for my idea to actually work! Not giving away what I plan to do at this point, though.

Pretty sure I would have gone hunting for the source of that God awful stench had they shipped me cheese ("God awful" as in: When the cheese started to go bad. I like cheese that hasn't gone bad!).

 

2012 called, it wants its worklog back

 

Well, it can't have it anymore. I'm also going to complete THIS one.

New update tonight.

 

Ok, 1 day turned into 1 week, but better later than never.... right?

I gave the 8-pin EPS cable the same treatment as the 24-pin ATX cable - no more heatshrink:



And..... parts are back from the painter!

Enjoy:













So beautiful.

I began putting stuff together.

Again, so beautiful:



The mini billet aluminium case feet from MNPCTech REALLY look good now, once the bench has been painted:





Radiator brackets in place:



I put some black spacers from MDPC under the motherboard stand-offs, initially in order to protect the paintjob:



However, I ended up liking the way it looked, so I'll keep 'em like that:



Assembly of the pump/reservoir bracket:







Mmmh... I like.



I thought fingerscrews would look better for mounting the PSU, so there we are:





The enclosure for the Aquaero also came out really good:







Grounded cable mounted:



Then I polished the acrylic radiator grills that Nate from E22 had custom-made for me and put together the radiator assemblies:









Now, for mounting the SSD's in the hard disk rack, I bought some fresh M3 screws, but the heads were too large to fit inside the MDPC spacers, so I had to grind them down.

Ungrinded version in the front, on the left - you can see that the head won't fit inside the spacer:



Mounted - but it looks out-of-place, somehow...



Hm, let's heatshrink those suckers!



Looks muuuch better:



In order to dampen vibrations coming from the HDD rack, I made these rubber "thingies"! from an old 120 mm fan rubber gasket:



Mounted:





However, that didn't really work as planned, so I've thought of a (hopefully) better solution. More on that in the next post, I think....

So, let me just show you the assembled hard drive rack for now:



Got a package from Caseking:



Some bits I needed to continue working on the project - cooling fluid, tubing (PrimoChill Advanced LRT 16/11 mm), short SATA data cables, Silverstone filters, Prolimatech PK-3 thermal paste, 30 cm. cable ties (only needed one, but had to buy a package of ten... in the next post (hopefully) I'll show you what it's for) - and... candy!



I sleeved the fans - one colour for each pair (they will be connected to the Aquaero in pairs):









Fans and filters mounted on the radiators:











Both radiator assemblies mounted in the bench:



Figured out how to run the loop and mounted the fittings accordingly:







The PSU also got some Silverstone filter love:



Ok, no more pictures, but some information:

The painter generally did a good job, but missed a few spots here and there - unfortunately, a couple of those spots were really, really visible so I had to send the PCI cards bracket and the top plate back for a re-spray.
Should be back any day now.....

Stay tuned!

 

All that white clean metal is looked sleek. Can't wait to see it put together!

Am I correct in spying some melted sleeving near the connector?

 

SHUT UP!!!

I couldn't be bothered to change it, as it will hardly visible, OK?

 

sowwy



Show us more shiny white things to take my mind off it ok?

 

Great to see those grills finally in action!! That brings back some memories haha

 

Mads is Back!

 

I'll try to do it soon! It depends on my painter getting his act together and delivering the re-sprayed parts back to me.

Yeah, they look great and I hope they won't be too restrictive to the airflow.

Indeed, I am.