Project ameizingHello! welcome to my project! It has been a while since last time I did a mod and now that Ryzen has came up, I feel like I have to change my PC ASAP First of all I would like to give a HUGE thanks to coldzero for making this project possible! ^^ The project... If you are an overwatch fan, then you landed to the right place! This project has been inspired by Overwatch and my favourite character called Mei. Overwatch is an online first-person shooter where two teams of 6 battle over objectives, take down the other team and achieve the victory. I like playing Mei a lot and somehow I also like the philosophy behind this character. She thinks that "our world is worth figthing for" and that is true, climate change is real and that is why in this project I will try to "recycle" as many components as possible (e.g. fans, pumps, radiators, sleeving cables...) as I accumulated too many components from old projects. On the other hand, Mei is a character that uses a "gun" that is connected to a big reservoir and somehow this reminded me to a watercooling system! so watercooling will be one of the main components of the project The name of the project is given by a Mei in-game voice line, where she says "a-mei-zing" doing the joke of combining "amazing" and her name (Mei). I hope you will like the project as much as I enjoy doing it! do not hesitate to comment/criticize on the project (as long as it is constructive ) and if you are an Overwatch fan, I hope you enjoy this project as much as I enjoy playing the game ^^.
Computer case: Thermaltake The Case 900 Hardware: CPU: AMD Ryzen 1700x GPU: NVIDIA GTX 1080 MB: Asus Crosshair VI Hero RAM: 16 GB DDR4 3600MHz SSD: 1TB M.2 PSU: Corsair RM1000i Watercooling: EK-FB ASUS C6H RGB Monoblock (CPU + MB) EK-FC1080 waterblock (GPU) Aquaero 5 LT + x2 Power Adjust 2 + Aquaero waterblock x2 D5 + top EK Dual D5 White (Dual pump) Black Ice SR1 480 (Radiator) Phobya G-Changer 480 (Radiator) Cylindrical reservoir (250) x8 Corsair SP120 fans Acrylic tubing - 12mm OD / 8mm ID Fancy extras: Custom 20x4 LCD PSU sleeving cables RGB leds (case ilumination)
Update 01 | Project inspiration and decals In this first update, I want to show you in more detail what inspired me to do this project and some initial designs/renders I have done. I started planning, designing and validating the project ideas since January of this year. A lot of things have changed, for example, my first project approach was to use the Thermaltake Core P5 but now I switched to the (monster) Thermaltake The Tower 900 case. Inside the Overwatch game, each character has sprays that can be put in any part of the map and for the project I will use part of Mei's sprays. These will be made using vinyl and in order to achieve the best result, I will draw them using CAD software. I also been playing with custom parts designs, for example I will use Overwatch inspired custom fan grills: On the other hand, Blizzard has really detailed design guidelines of the characters (thanks Blizzard <3): In this image you will see some of the details that will be present in this project. One example is the pants pattern, which I have already drawn in CAD: This pattern will be present in a lot of the project parts and it will be made using vinyl. As I am still trying to find the correct vinyl color tonality for the project parts, I decided to "play" a little bit with the leftover vinyl from other projects and test the designs I already have in CAD: Thank you for following the project and see you in the next update
Can't wait to see what you do with the water cooling. Considered it for my Mei project, but I didn't want to shoehorn it into my little 303. You might try this for the light blue vinyl, I think it matches your renders and looked like a good match for Mei's gloves and coat. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NQNDUNW/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Also a good matching paint is Creatix Laguna blue.
Oh man, thank you for the link! But I live in Spain so it is a little bit far from my home hahaha. I found some physical vinyl stores in Barcelona today, so I will visit them in order to find the best matching vinyl colors (ty for the color names ). Also, I wanted to check your modding projects from your signature but looks like the links are broken (maybe due the forum change). ying
Yeah, the forum change mucked all that up, I'll have to go back and change them. It was time to update anyways.
Update 02 | Case unboxing and custom decal works It has been a while since last update, sorry! I have been busy with my job but now I am having some free time First of all, I have received the case for the project, it is a Thermaltake The Tower 900. As a case, it is a monster and offers a lot of posibilities to the modders. What I like the most is how easy is to disassemble everything in order to have an easy access and to customize the different case parts. The case box that protects the case is huge! And there are a lot of warning outside the box regarding the weight and the fragility of the case: Once we remove the outside box, the case looks really huge: In order to have an idea of how huge it is, lets use a pachimari as scale As mentioned before, this case is really modular in the sense that you can easily disassemble and assemble the case without any issue. In my case, I disassembled all the inner parts in less than 30 minutes: I have purchased some black, yellow, white and blue vinyl in order to start doing the custom decals. In this update, I played with the D5 pumps cover. The covers follows Mei's pants pattern and covers the entire body of the pump: After doing the first pump I realized that due the extra thickness of the pump with the vinyl, the EK Dual D5 top does not fit anymore, so I will have moddify the top, but that will be part of the next update . And last but not least, my favorite in-game spray of Mei is this one: I like it that much that I decided to bring it to the real life and stick it to one of the case windows :3 Thank you for following the project and see you in the next update ^^.
Update 03 | Dual D5 setup modifications Hello everyone! Today's update will be focused on the watercooling pumps that I am going to use, which are D5 model. As mentioned in the previous update, after applying the vinyl on the pump, the EK Dual D5 top was not fitting anymore. This is due the extra thickness of the pump body with the vinyl., so the first step was to grab the dremel and lightly sand the edge of the top: After the modifications, the EK dual D5 top fits perfect with our modified D5 pumps: The place where I decided to put the dual D5 pump setup is in the right side of the case. The main reason is because it is a visible place and I want the pumps to be easily seen. The main issue with this location is the little space available for routing the tubes if the pumps are put horizontally. In my case, I decided to use pass-through connectors to connect the pumps with the case. The connectors I decided to use are from TFC (The Feser Company), too bad that they are no longer in the market because some of their products were good, however I bought these ones because they were really cheap in aquatuning Modding time! First of all, I have measured the holes distance between the in and out from the dual top and then also the height of the holes if the pump is mounted with silentblocks: For this task, precision was very important so I did several iterations of the holes placement in order to ensure that everything outcomes as expected: After checking that everything is fine, It is time to drill the firsts holes in my brand new case >.< : In order to minimize the vibration of the pumps, I bought 8 silentblocks of size 10mm x 10mm with M4 thread: At this point I realized that the big black plate could be avoided and as the case is white, adding black is not a good idea, so I endup putting only 4 silentblocks without the black plate: And this is how the top looks when it is installed in the case: And that is all for this update! Thank you for following the project and see you in the next update! :3
Update 04 | Hardware and watercooling unboxing Hello everyone! In today's update, I will show you all the hardware and watercooling parts I have just received for the project CPU: Ryzen 1700X Motherboard + Waterblock: Asus Crosshair VI Hero + EK-FB ASUS C6H Monoblock RAM: HOF D4-3600 16GB(8G*2) GPU + Waterblock: EVGA GTX1080 SC + EK-FC GeForce GTX FE PSU: Corsair RM1000i Watercooling monitoring: Aquaero LT 5 + PowerAdjust 2 Ultra + Flow sensor And that's all! In the next update will be focused in the modifications I have done to the case in order to accomodate the watercooling system. Thank you very much for following the project and see you in the next update! ^^
Update 05 | Acrylic tubes, watercooling loop and vinyl details Hello everyone! I spent my last 3 days thinking about how the watercooling system will be and the order of the waterblocks in the loop. The main constraint was that some of the custom designed parts are not here yet, so the watercooling system could not route through that parts. As Mei carries a big cylindric reservoir in her back, for this project I decided to use an EK-RES X3 250 cylindric reservoir! At first, I wanted to use the X4 which diameter is bigger (and more similar to Mei's reservoir) however it was so expensive in comparison to the X3 that I decided to go with that one. Instead of putting the reservoir in a vertical position, I decided to put it in horizontal in order give more importance to that watercooling part. To do so I cut a small white acrylic plate in order to hide the HDD bays. To put in context everything, in this same case part, in the right side, we drilled the holes for the pass-through fittings for the pumps (as seen in previous updates). This time, I did the same but in the left side in order to connect the inlet and outlet of the reservoir. And this reservoir position is perfect as there is one inlet port that faces up that will be used as fillport. Also, as now the HDD bays are covered, I purchased a 3.5 inch HDD bracket and HDD tool-free installation, so the HDD can be easily replaced. In the previous update, I showed the hardware plus the watercooling blocks. In this update, I am going to show you some "customizations" I have done to that waterblocks So basically I made Overwatch custom badges: On the other side, the EK-FC GeForce GTX FE waterblock features a terminal cover (a piece of plastic that covers the waterblock inlet/outlet ports) that shows the GPU brand. In my case, I decided to make a custom cover inspired by Mei's home, Ecopoint: Antarctica, which is an available map inside the game. As mentioned at the beginning of this update, one of the main constraints when designing the actual water flow of the loop was not having the custom parts yet, so in order to not delay the project until then, I decided to drill 4 new holes in the roof of the case in order to connect the two parts of the case. From inside the case, the result is really clean and the finish fits really well with the project. In this case, I decided to use a rotatory fitting from bitspower in order to simplify the connection of the tubes. And from outside, as the case has a plastic piece that covers the roof, the connections will not be visible From the first moment, I wanted to connect the GPU and the Monoblock in parallel in order to achieve the best performance. I know the potential issues that this kind of configurations implies, but I decided to risk anyway. Because the Monoblock and the GPU use jet plates to accelerate the cooling liquid, I could not reverse the flow direction of the waterblocks and as result, I could not connect the waterblocks with straight tubes, however I managed to bend the tubes and connect the waterblocks such in a way that it looks clean and the waterblock flow direction is not reversed. The next update will be focused on the custom designed parts. Thank you very much for following the project and see you in the next update :3
Thank you :3 Your RED CORE project is also awesome :O Definately not the typical core P5 build, I love it! *_* Ying
Update 06 | Custom parts Hello everyone Today I am really excited to show you what I have been doing in the last weeks but first of all, I would like to give HUGE thanks to ColdZero. Without their work, this update will not be possible! When I decide to design a custom part, I always start from scratch. My favorite tool for that is Autocad! For this project, I designed 4 custom parts. My methodology is to first measure the distances of the available space, draw it in Autocad and then print it in a 1:1 scale and check if everything fits well. This is done several times (iterations) until everything fits 100% and the holes are correctly placed which means that the design has been validated. Once the design is validated, I send the CAD files to ColdZero, who uses laser machines to cut the acrylic parts and who imprints in the acrylic all the custom details in a very accurate way. For the motherboard tray, I designed two parts, the first one is designed to hide all the cables that are connected to the motherboard (like the SATA cables): The other one is a plate that goes just below the previous one. This plate has a lot of holes but these are for the sleeved cables. The idea is to pass each cable through each hole and get a nice effect. The third custom part is a custom grill for a 140mm fan. This grill has been made from scratch, inspired by the typical honeycomb grill but a bit different plus Mei's logo in the middle: Inside the case, there is one 140mm intake fan and this grill will be for that fan. For this project, I am going to use an LCD that lets me customize the text that is shown. The custom part is a simple cover that will be used in order to hide the not used holes and to attach the screen to the case. In order to do the hole for the screen, I used a Dremel and the result can be seen in the following photo: Also, I decided that I am going to reuse my old SSD in RAID0 config from my old build. The place where they are going to be is really visible so I decided to take off the original stickers and make a custom decal to cover the SSD's. And this is how it looks like when everything is installed in the case: And at first I was not totally sure about doing the cable holes on the plate but looking the final result, I really love the final outcome <3. And that's all for this update. In the next update, we will be filling the loop and testing that everything is working. For the impatience ones, I am leaving a little spoiler of the next update Thank you for following the project! and see you in the next update ^^.
OMG! Blizzard has just released the new Overwatch cinematic and it is about Mei! Check it out if you want to know a little bit more about the character! Even if you do not play overwatch, still a really good cinematic :3 Ying
Update 07 | Filling the liquid cooling loop Hi! I have been busy these last days but I have found some time to finish the project and to shot some nice pictures :3 As you can see in the previous update, the color of the liquid I am going to use is blue pastel from mayhems. In total, I used 2 liters but the loop is really really big so this is something I was expecting. As shown in the previous pictures, I am going to use an aquacomputer flow meter. The place where I decided to put it is on the roof of the case, between the waterblocks and the radiators. For the fans configuration, I am using two different fans, the NB Eloop B12-PS which will go with the Black Ice SR1 480 radiator (as it is optimized for low RPM) and the Corsair SP120, which will go with the Phobya G-Changer 480 (which has more fins per inch). For the Corsair fans, I did 4 custom decals inspired by Mei that will replace the stock Corsair stickers. When I was designing the liquid loop, one of my main constraints it was that the GPU waterblock should visible from the side and that was a wise decision. The EK GPU waterblock with the mayhems pastel liquid looks awesome! On the other hand, the customizable LCD plus the custom Coldzero plate looks incredible! Since I purchased an Aquaero in the past, I have always been in love with that piece of hardware. In this build, I am controlling both D5 pumps, the 8 radiator fans and the case fans. At the same time, I am monitoring the loop flow, CPU, GPU, Motherboard, PSU and liquid temperatures . Here is a screenshot of my aquasuite page configuration: And more pictures of the final build: And this is my desktop! The case is not really visible but it is on the right side of the desktop: I am using a G.Skill KM780 mechanical keyboard with Cherry MX Brown switches. The mouse is a Logitech G502 and my screen is an LG 25UM58-P ultra wide of 25". As part of the sound gear, I am using the schiit modi 2 uber DAC plus the schiit vali 2 tube AMP and as the AMP has a preamp output, the Logitech speakers (Z333) are connected to that output. I really enjoyed doing this project! I am a computer engineer and I always been an Intel fan, but I have to admit that the new Ryzen architecture is a big leap forward for AMD and I am really happy to have chosen a Ryzen CPU for my build. I would like to thank everyone who has followed the project, I hope you enjoyed the project as much as me . I am not a professional modder and I do not earn money for doing this, but I really enjoy spending time on this kind of projects so that is more than enough for me :3. And last but not least, I would like to give BIG thanks to Ricardo from Coldzero! What Coldzero do is awesome and each of the custom parts they sell are truly pieces of art! Without their support, this project will not be what it is as their custom parts were crucial for the build. ying
