Hello Bit-Tech!! Long Story short, when I first received my Caselabs M8 I had a number of plans that just never happened due to time or financial conflicts. However a few months ago my Power Supply decided to die (EVGA 1500w #sigh#). Unfortunately I couldn't get the rig up and going instantly so after falling back to my back-up system I figured I finally had a chance to go back and do some of the things I wanted to do first time around. This is how it was looking prior to catastrophic PSU self-combustion. Original Build Log can Be found Here - Thunderhorse As you can see the original setup was a Lil bare and featured a very 'Cliche" red and black theme, So after months of looking at this thing and never really feeling I did this case ANY justice it's time to revisit the M8 and finally give her the makeover she deserves. First things first she needs a new name and color scheme! After diving through a lot of build logs around the place I decided I wasn't a big fan of the standard color config's. As much as I LOVE red and black builds they are very much the norm these days and I have done Blue and Green builds in the past. After pulling my hair out for days over colors (With the extra nightmare of resleeving all my previously sleeved Red/Black Cables) I decided maybe to go through my possible name list first in hopes that a good build name would inspire a matching color scheme. More days pass and inspiration finally arrived in the form of my wife. "What about a Gothic sorta Bat Theme? You are into that". From that one sentence it instantly fell into place. So Welcome to "Bat Country" !! Components: Case- Caselabs Magnum M8 and Pedestal Motherboard- eVGA Z77 Cheesecake CPU- Intel i7 3770K PSU- NZXT Hale V2 850w SSD- Samsung 840 120gb HDDs- 3x Western Digital 500gb Black Memory- Corsair Dominator GT 8gb Graphics- Recycling my 2x eVGA GTX460 SC's (Previously in Bloodlines) H20 Stuff/Cooling: Blocks- Ek Supreme HF Acrylic CPU Block (Old School design Pre-CSQ) Bitspower 4 dIMM Memory Block EK FC 460 Waterblocks EK FC 460 Back Plates AquaComputer Aquaero V Waterblock Loops- Loop 1 (CPU)- 2x Laing DDC Pumps FrozenQ Fusion V 250 Reservoir (Custom Ports) Alphacool NeXxos UT60 360 Radiator XSPC RS240 Radiator Loop 2 (GPU)- Danger Den "Monsoon" Dual Bay Reservoir Koolance PMP 450 Pump Aquacomputer Airplex XT 360 Loop 3 (Show Loop)- EK DCP 4.0 Pump Fans & Control- 120mm Swiftech Helix x8 AquaComputer Aquaero V XT Controller AquaComputer High Flow USB Sensor AquaComputer PowerAdust 2 Ultra Bitfenix Recon Fan Controller (Black) Stuff To Buy: Alphacool Cape Corp 50LT Swiftech MCP35X2-HS Heat Sink No Doubt more Fittings XSPC Acrylic Dual DDC Top Alphacool NeXxoS UT60 240 Radiator Mod My Toys 3 & 5 pwr Distro Boards Yate Loon Medium Speed 120mm Fans (White LED Fans) Caselabs120.3 Radiator Side Mount x2 Random bits and Pieces Maybe new CPU block Upgrade GPU's (One Day when I can stop buying H20 Gear "I loves it sooo much") Bitspower BP-XSLEDPH-WH X-Station LED Power Hub I have already got some random acrylic work underway for this build so I will post some updates very soon. I'll leave you with pics of my recent Pedestal unboxing I regret waiting to get this thing it is lovely and really makes the case look "Complete'. Unboxing Pedestal... .....and all built and fitted. More updates coming soon.
For a moment I thought your window said pornograhy. Probably says more about me Good luck with your build!
So onto a small update......Mr UPS Man paid me a visit and bought me some new hardware. First up I received my Swiftech Helix Fans. The fans deserve matching gaskets so grabbed some white ones from evilbay. Probably the biggest arrival is my new Power supply. I went with the NZXT Hale V2 850 because I have only heard and read great things about these units. IL post some more pics of this once it has been unboxed properly. From what I have seen from exterior looks the quality is Stunning. My purple DI-Noc also arrived but it is a LOT lighter than I expected so I am still unsure if this will be used or not. It was only for some highlighting so if worse comes to worse this can be painted instead after Christmas once I purchase my Airbrushing gear. Some Silver M3 screws to replace the copper once that come with the Alphacool rads. Finally tracked down a couple Aquabus cables I have been missing for nearly a year. Grabbed some wire for custom Led strips as well. This is just 4 core 18awg that I will strip down later. Im still going through the process of replacing a lot of my tools that got trashed in a minor flash flood. I went and bought a new set of blades and a set square, another small step to re-setting up my shed. No need to upgrade my CPU this kitten has it covered. Before you say anything I know all about static it’s a dead mobo I got bored yesterday so I hacked together a cutting guide for my Circular saw and Jigsaw. Its Pretty basic and I will probably remake them down the track but they will do for now. I should have some acrylic updates later today all going well.
LMFAO That is actually a new one I love IT !!! All jokes aside I fiinally got around to those acrylic updates I have been promising. One of the ideas I never got around to the first time thru was a PSU Shroud/Partition. Where I'm living acrylic costs an arm and a leg so my first attempts involved some 3mm MDF and a few bits of Angle Iron. This worked well but left a lot of visible joins and was pretty flimsy once I added the "Shelf" piece. So after a whole bunch of umming and ahhing and not really getting anywhere I ditched the MDF idea and went and bought some White Acrylic. This acrylic is 3mm thick and slightly opaque which gives me the option for masked back lighting down the track. After staring at the piece for a few days I finally laid down some cuts and then spent the rest of the week biting my nails about the best way to bend a sheet this size (500mm). Being the bending noob I am I started out with a few tests strips all with shocking results. The piece of acrylic I was working with was very old and would just melt, warp and bubble….Not good I really couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong so I decided to try a “Fresher” sheet thinking maybe the old stuff was just to sun and age damaged. Success a near perfect bend first try. Much better. So just a little tip if you want to bend acrylic use NEW stuff it bends a lot better. So Starting with the smaller bends I got to work on my rear I/O cover. This will cover the interior silver eyesore which for some reason every motherboard has. I got this idea from Asus’s latest mobo the rampage iv black edition x79 which features a cover and heatsink in one. I got the bends down fairly easily, so now I just have decide on what sort of finish I will do to complete the look. But that can wait for now. Moving on to the larger PSU shroud/partition bend my main issue was finding something with a large enough area to bend it on. More scouting round the house I found some old shelves which worked perfectly once flipped on its side. After a few touch and go moments and a whole bunch of hoping I got it done first try. Thank the modding gods as acrylic costs an absolute fortune where I am. And a small test fitting. With the PSU cover bent I can start working on the finer details of the piece. I have this idea of a “Water Column” in the front of the PSU side of the case. This is where the show loop comes into play. In short the plan is to have a large reservoir full of lovely Mayhems Aurora running from the top off the case to the floor. After a heap of messing round I managed to get everything marked out and cut. I only had a 54mm hole saw which will be perfect for the thinner 50mm reservoirs, but if I end up going for a thicker 60mm Res I may have to hack this out a bit more. (These cuts haven’t been cleaned up at all in these pics.) I am kind of holding off on doing to much more with this at this stage as I am holding out for the release of the Primochill CTR II Reservoirs. Well that’s it for now I will hopefully get some more bits and pieces up in the next week.
I could comment on the 2nd really bad pun from Nexxo I've read this week, but I was going to say something about your heatsink being clogged with WAY too much cat hair, so... Good call on trying with a newer sheet. The acrylic varies wildly over the batches made or manufacturer. It's more obvious in the colored sheet, where you can see the difference. Little things like where it was stored changes the quality drastically too. If you need to ream that hole out: I use a coiled broken sanding belt on holes like that. It works great for making the hole round and even.