Scratch Build – Complete PARVUM APIS by JR23 - (completed)

Hey guys! Yes i'm back with another build, but this one isn't for me, I have enough rigs for now, it's for my good friend TJ. He actually got me heavily into tech and PC's when we were growing up and has been enviously watching on my various exploits building insane watercooled rigs and working with Parvum. So now we are working together to build a completely new rig for him with some serious water cooling and pretty insane components for it's size.

I won't be photographing every baby step on this one, just giving a thorough overview of the progress and custom work taking place, as we want to get it completed quite swiftly when we both have the time to work on it.


Parvum Systems R1.0 360
Intel Haswell-E i7-5930K
EVGA X99 Micro
EVGA GTX 980 Classified x2
Corsair Dominator Platinum DDR4 4x4GB
Samsung 500GB 850 Evo

EK FC980 Classy Nickel/Acetal x2
EK Supremacy EVO Nickel/Acetal
EK D5 REVO Pump Top Acetal
EK RES X3 250 Black Acetal
EK CoolStream PE 360 (Triple)
EK HD Adapter 10/12mm Black Nickel x28
Corsair SP120 Performance Edition PWM x8


We spent a long time discussing the case, we established very early on that it had to be black and yellow which suited the neutral components very well. Everything had to be visible in an appropriate hierarchy making an inverted platform inevitable. The as of yet unreleased Parvum R1.0 seemed like a great starting point but despite only 3 existing in the world a more exclusive platform was demanded! Following a huge circle of deciding between an inverted S2.0 360 and an R1.0, the R1.0 360 was born.





As a nod to the L1.0's subtle side vents which break up the pedestal we chose to also and a fine strip of slats to both side panels which hopefully will discretely reveal the radiators and fans lurking beneath them.



GPU window of course, why else go to the trouble of an invert.







Cheeky rear power button, later in the build it will become apparent why it ended up here.



The relatively shallow height of the main chamber meant there wasn't room to take the conventional Parvum HDD bracket approach. Instead all of the drives will be mounted directly to the motherboard tray, not quite as modular but hopefully neater.



Finally what it's all about! It occurred to me a while ago that the S2.0 was the exact width of two radiators hence why the R1.0 was created, this takes that a little further by adding two 360mm radiators side-by-side. Quite unique for what is still a relatively compact mATX rig. I really love the wider aspect ratio it brings to the window leaving lots of room for pumps and reservoirs ahead of the graphics cards.





I'll be back very soon with the first test fitting then it's on to design the loop.

JR​

 

Time for hardware, lots and lots of X99 goodness condensed into mATX form with added Classified, for a 475x275x387mm baby rig it's rather serious.



Naturally Clean CSQ Supremacy EVO to match the GPU's.







And a nice subtle set of DDR4 Dominator Platinums.













With the board sitting neatly in the case it's time for the GPU's. For 980's these are WIIIIDE.









How to install GPU's in a Parvum like a pro, who forgot to buy more M3 nuts, but still making life easier with the screws from behind.



Now that is Classy, GG Edvard.





Better make sure that a PSU fits nicely while we are at this early stage, we will most likely look for something a little more powerful but just had this to hand.













All things together are looking great so far, the GPU's look surprisingly big in the case but none the less they are 'inside' the case and hence onwards to the water cooling parts!

Naturally a pair of 360's...





They fitted in perfectly not even leaving millimeters to spare.





We managed to scavenge an EK RES X3 400 and hence bought a 250 tube for it, this should be just the right height to fill out the main chamber now.







The first time i've seen a D5 REVO and it's actually quite a refreshing piece of design, not quite as clean as it's predecessor although certainly sophisticated and eye catching.





Things quickly found their natural place in the rig creating a nice hierarchy of parts.











A good full day of loop planning and CAD to do now and then some excellent CNC fun ^_^.

JR​

 

With the midplate design finalized and ready to go there was a little time for a cheeky render just to confirm it was going to pan out as expected visually.





Then today we got the pass through parts machined ready for assembly this weekend. Unfortunately with the CNC hunkered down in productivity mode there isn't too much visible acrylic decimation because of the foot which encompasses the tool. But without it Parvum HQ would slowly get buried in a sea of acrylic swarf.





You can just make out the tool drilling the screw holes to be tapped through the hole.















Tomorrow i'll be tapping all of the 1/4" BSP holes, making o-rings and sealing the part together then hopefully i'll get on to making some acrylic pipework. TJ will be around to help so hopefully it will be a productive weekend.

JR​

 

looks great so far excited to see it all the way through

 

It was turning in to an advertisement thread, but you turn it around, good job on all counts

 

You say that like it's bad. Embrace the swarf! It feels good between your toes.

Apologies. That's acetal swarf. If I could, I'd fill a pillow with it.

 

After spending the best part of our day working on APIS it's starting to really come together and the detailed and thorough planning seems to be paying off. Despite a few moments of tension an elegant solution was quickly found to most of the little issues that arose.

The first task was to tap the 1/4" BSP holes in the acrylic pass through components.



With that out of the way it was straight on to cutting and bonding o-rings from nitrile cord.





Then A LOT of screws.





After that I went on to bend some tubing...



...completing the pass-through assembly with all of the push in fittings as well as sleeving the D5 with a Corsair peripheral connector.



Now for one of the slightly more dramatic moments, unfortunately the reservoir was very slightly too tall for what we had planned. Easily rectified with a little lathe action.







It was only a subtle difference, facing ~2mm off the top and extending the counter-bore which encompasses the recessed stop plug.



But once in position it was perfect, perhaps even more elegant than if the res had been shorter. The sharp edge blending seamlessly into the case.





If that didn't give away how I chose to mount the reservoir then i'm sure this will. The top is inlaid into the accent of the case and the bottom sitting directly over a pair of push in fittings. The res simply drops through the roof and is trapped in position by the outer black layer of the roof.



I also bored out the recessed holes in the bottom part of the reservoir to accept normal fittings rather than EK's 8mm extenders.







We are extremely pleased with how the loop is taking shape and the contrast of materials and colours on show. Tomorrow we plan to fit the graphics cards, tube those, then assemble the pedestal section with radiators, fans, cables and tubing. The top of the case should simply drop over it and hopefully if there are no major problems we will see how this all looks with some coolant!

JR​

 

that's quite an aqueduct

 

Thanks, lots more excitement to come!

I turned a little bit of acetal in the last update, beautiful stuff to machine. Definitely fluffier underfoot than acrylic too.

Just a little bit unnecessary and overkill, because we can! And who doesn't enjoy tapping 70 something holes by hand

JR

 

What a delightfull snug fit and the routingplate is awesome.

 

Great ideas and technique in there!
Makes me want to start my just-finished project all over again

 

It is a lovely coming together of CNC and manual machine work, just to be hidden forever inside the roof The tolerance of the hole is really physically pleasing to assemble as well, it slides through freely but doesn't rattle or move in the hole at all. The pass through will be awesome when it's full of coolant and it's not escaping, fingers crossed, feeling very confident after MATE went so well.

Thank you, it's never too late or to soon to completely restart a project! I've had all the hardware in my main rig in 3 builds now, every time it moves forwards, much cheaper than getting entirely different ideas!

JR

 

That's some really solid work with every component working together harmoniously, great stuff.

 

I want to know more about that D5 Revo - What's the noise like? Design looks fantastic but they don't quote noise at all.

 

Just as good as any well isolated D5, not outrageous on full and pretty much as close to silent as it gets below #2. I'm sure it won't disappoint anyone, it's a very well thought out product that is simple to assemble and mount.

JR

 

Another epic day of progress has been made on APIS, picking up from Saturdary me and TJ worked in parallel to complete the loop and paint the Corsair fan rings. I started by making the two tubes for the graphics cards. As the midplate is so substantial the tubing could be used to support the GPU's, so to alleviate any sag I laid the case on it's back to measure up giving a unique view of the pass-through plate from it's polished side.





To help all of the tubing push together, and come apart I used a small amount of silicone grease to lubricate the o-rings. Being water resistant it also helps things to seal and won't float off around the loop.



Meanwhile TJ got to work priming the fan rings he had prepped on Saturday.



The first GPU was installed, supported perfectly by the tubing.



A few yellow coats on the fan rings.



Installing the top card with the lower one so rigidly was very challenging, the easiest way I found was to remove the terminal block so it could be pushed down and then re-united with the card itself.



The next and final pieces of tubing to be cut were for the lower radiators. After neatly wiring all the fans into a PWM splitter PCB, I offered up the radiators and fans all assembled on the floor panel.



Much clear coat later the fans were looking great.



So then we brought out progress together, very striking and a great match for the case! They were still a little tacky at this point but we managed to very carefully piece them together.





Following that we removed the stickers from the mechanical drives keeping the back side looking just as clean and visually balanced.



Lovely glimpse of EK radiator and coolant channel, and this is 'just' under the PSU.







Fans looking great, TJ did an awesome job.







Such presence.





Very pleasing repetition with the tubing runs. So many tiny and precise details on this which aren't even visible.









Prepare for coolant pics, much yellow, soon!



JR​

 

that last shot, really shows the tolerance clearance mentioned in an earlier post.
that res top really sits snug in there!

this build, with all visible and non visisble details is really nice

 

HORY SHEET!!! That is cracking! Great work dude.

 

Filling the loop was very easy and already it seems to have bled remarkably well, after a long 24 hours of running it really quietened down and bedded in. So I think i'm going to leave out attempting to write about this one and let the pictures talk!



























Time to order some sleeving supplies!

JR​

 

Now this is one neat loop! Amazing!