Ok so this mod is already finished but I'm going to edit all the pics and post the entire build log here. I have a large 2-piece Husky toolbox that obviously houses all of my tools. The bottom right drawer is a deep one (takes up two vertical spots) and is full of nothing but spare nuts and bolts. I took the two drawers out of the bottom right spot on the top box and put them in the bottom right part of the lower box and just ditched the large junk drawer. It's in this spot that I put the PC. A HUGE thank you goes out to Thermaltake who have graciously sponsored this build with a ton of their new watercooling gear. This includes the following: Pacific PT20 Reservoir/pump combo Pacific RL240 Radiator W2 CPU Block V-Tubler 3T Tubing Coolant 1000 Red 2x Pacific G 1/4 45º fitting 2x Pacific G 1/4 90º fitting 6x Pacific 3/8" x 5/8" Compression fitting 4x Riing 12 Red LED Fans Specs: Gigabyte F2A85XN-WiFi AMD A10 6800k WD Caviar Black 320GB 2.5" HDD Radeon HD7350 2GB 8GB Corsiar Vengeance LP 1600 220W 1U server PSU Cooling by Thermaltake Lamptron CW611 Controller Windows 10 64-bit Logitech MK100 wireless keyboard and mouse 17" Dell monitor
This drawer with the large BAJA sticker is the junk drawer. There's really no need for this to be here. It's full of junk and it's HEAVY. This spot had two drawers in it. This is where the PC is going. The two drawers that were here got moved to where the single junk drawer came from. As you can see there's a decent amount of room and it's almost perfectly rectangle in shape. Now that the slides are out of the way we can get a better look at what we've got to work with. Here I have the bottom black acrylic panel cut to nestle in around the drawer lock mechanism. This ITX setup is an old AMD and is just here for mockup. Here you can see I have the bottom, top and side panels roughly cut.
I had to partially disassemble the PSU to get it to fit nicely under the lip of the casing. I also had to sand down the top edge of the cooling fan a tad so the bottom acrylic panel would lie flush. I set the hardware up on the workbench and got Windows 10 Technical Preview installed and all the drivers installed. Next up I cut out holes and installed the power button which is actually a key switch, the reset button with HDD activity LED and two front USB 3.0 ports. Next up I cut an opening in the back for the power cable extension. A friend was kind enough to give me a back panel from a BitFenix Prodigy that he didn’t need so I could steal the i/o section from it. Here it is after I got done trimming the excess. And here’s where it will reside. Next up I marked and cut out the needed parts from the rear of the toolbox.
I painted the i/o part black and installed the i/o shield. With the motherboard mounted to the lower plate I marked and cut out slots for the wiring to pass through. Here I have the panel riveted into place. I also cut out the hole and mounts for the rear 120mm exhaust fan and added some rubber trim to help seal the fan against any kind of bugs that might like to get in. Here we have the fan installed with a filter on the outside – again to keep out the bugs. The motherboard is temporarily mounted here. My package from Thermaltake showed up! Lots of awesome goodies going into this build now!
I got the W2 CPU Block mounted and the LED connector plugged into the CPU fan header. Next up I worked on securing the acrylic to the toolbox. I decided to use M5 well nuts with some nice red anodized button head fasteners. Next I got the PT20 mounted to the left side panel. This combo is great I must say. Here is approximately where the radiator will go. It’s a lot thicker than I anticipated! Here’s the bottom and left side panels installed. I decided to use a Lamptron CW611 controller that I had sitting around for this build. It’ll fit perfectly here. I designed and 3D printed three corner brackets and a combo fan control shroud/corner bracket. These parts will tie all of the acrylic panels together with the steel toolbox body.
The fan control shroud is a perfect fit. I drilled the corner brackets like so so that the well nut will go through both the acrylic and steel while the bolt goes through just the bracket. Here’s the completed bracket setup. The four front-facing holes will accept well nuts and hold on the clear acrylic front panel. I drilled two mounting holes in the shroud and mounted the controller securely to it. I then added a single well nut and bolt to hold the bottom panel to the toolbox frame. Next up I mounted the HDD to the left side panel just behind the PT20 assembly and spaced it with some plastic spacers. I had an extra channel on the Lamptron controller so I added a small 40mm white LED fan behind the HDD to provide some cooling and lighting. Next I sleeved both the temp sensor and pump cables with some red/black paracord.
I decided to order a full set of silicone dust covers from Mod Cover seeing how this PC will be in a pretty rough environment. I got enough to fill out the back panel (minus the ports I’ll be using) as well as two more USB plugs for when the front USB 3’s aren’t in use and some SATA port and internal USB/audio port covers as well. Now The Swiftech version of this CPU block comes with a red color plate but the Thermaltake version swaps the red for an orange. This simply won’t do seeing how everything else is red. Luckily I had a spare red plate from a Swiftech block I purchased a while back. I laid out all of the acrylic parts on some plywood and hit them with a few coats of matte black spray paint. While the paint was drying I took to cutting gout the 240mm radiator hole in the side of the box. I did some measuring and used an old 240mm grill to mark the cutout then went to town with my air cutoff wheel. Here it is after some filing and sanding to make it even. Here I mounted the fans with the RL240 radiator with some red anodized button head bolts. Once it was mounted I installed the 240mm size Demci filter to filter the intake air. After everything was mounted it was time to run the tubing! Let me tell you – the Tt 3/8” x 5/8” tubing is SUPER TIGHT in the 3/8” x 5/8” compression fittings they make. You can see in the pic that I had to leave some marginally tightened and let the tubing flex before I fully tightened them.
Here I’ve got the loop filled and bled out. And a quick shot while I was wiring up the fan controller. Here it is all up and running. I was using a USB keyboard temporarily as I was out of AAA batteries for my wireless keyboard. I noticed that the Demci filter was being pulled in by the two fans and the filter was rubbing on the fan hubs. I solved that problem by loosening two bolts on each fan and running some stainless safety wire between them. This works perfectly for keeping the filter off of the fans. The final step was to position the front panel and mark for screw holes to line up with the well nuts I installed in the printed brackets. There we go. The final part is installed. Another mod in the books! Thank you again to Thermaltake for hooking me up with some of their new Pacific water cooling gear for this project!
I like it a lot! Out of the way, functional but still in view. An idea for a possible v.2; Use the guides for the drawers to be able to pull out the puter for maintenance
Awesome idea but I couldn't waste my draws like that! Too many tools!! Got me thinking though.....hummmmmmm
That's a great idea. The only problem is the liquid cooling. If it was all air is be super easy. I'll have to keep that in mind! I've got a ton of tools but they all have their place. That drawer was full of junk and was begging to go lol
Nice build! The neatness of the IO panels on the front looks great. Bonus points for originality and extra bonus points for building it to solve a practical problem!
