Project Bulletproof Eclipse -Phoenix from the ashes:Project Resumed-

Shiney

 

Let me just say great work, it's really coming together well and will end up being a first class mod...subscribed!

I used the exact same case as you for my last mod, and understand some of your radiator mounting issues. Where you have it looks great, but I would suggest removing the stamped grill at the back. Once I did that the sound dropped significantly due to a reduction in turbulence.

I went with the top for mounting the radiator using the BIX3 in an aluminium box. If you went for the same look you would need to use stand-offs to give you enough clearance to route the tubing.





I worked some lighting into the rad box:



Since I was going to use a bay res I ran into routing problems with the tubing (nothing that coolsleeves could not fix though). Coolsleeves allow for super tight radius bends on tubing.





I have not hijacked your mod, I just wanted to help if possible. We even used the same hex bolts on the windows and have gone for the same lighting colour.

Keep up the great work

 

Hey, thanks for all youre advice! I really appreciate youre post! Can I also say that youre mod looks excellent. I cant believe that we used the same bolts and lighting as well as the same case . Thats just cool . I may move the radiator in the future, and will definately remove those grills now that youve told me they create turbulence. Thnaks again for youre input, and keep watching the eclipse mod take shape, as there are a lot more cool shiney things to come, not to mention some modding

 

I know there havent been any updates on this for a while, but I will Update it soon. I have no digital camera down here at university, and so cannot take pictures of my progress! Work is continuing though... And it's all going pretty well. I am waiting for some small miscelaneous parts coming by courrier this week, and will probably update with pictures etc this weekend when I go home.

 

Phoenix from the flames!

Well it has been a long time people, and believe it or not the eclipse is still not finished There are, however, many good reasons for this. It turns out that university kind of takes over your life once you go, and more so the element of being away from home and mad amounts of general partying Anyway you dont want to hear all about that im sure, what you want to hear is this: I have been running the eclipses core components in a fairly standard, unmodded case for the past 6 months or so, and have just gotten back into the mod, for a reason that I will explain in a moment. I have been off university since the end of May, and have been basically working and gaming that whole time . I have been working in an engineering firm this summer, which specialises in high volume precision turning of metal parts, so I have picked up on a few nice new tricks and tips there in the past 4 months or so.

The mod has taken a completely different direction since I last worked on it. Thats mainly because it's heading for a different destination, and that destination is Newbury, south of London in England. Let me explain. Three times a year, Multiplay UK host the UK's largest LAN gaming event: the iSeries. Im not going to go into how the whole event takes place and all the different games that are played, but lets just say that for a Counter Strike Source competitive gamer like me, it is the biggest date on the UK gaming calendar if you are serious about gaming.

This November, the CSS clan that I am a deputy in make their first appearance at the iSeries, which is the 32nd in the events history (hence the name i32). As well as helping to run the Genuine Killers Clan, I run a multi gaming community which I started around 9 months ago which is called Genuine Gaming (yes, the two are in association with each other ) and the 5 man CSS team will also be representing that community.

Now, at the moment, I have a perfectly good high performance PC. Actually I have a couple, but admittedly, the most recent is a little tame looking because I havent had time in the past year to do much modding or bespoke design like my other rigs. I would be happy to bring my PC to newbury and play on it for the 5 days... It does its job and is reliable etc... but it wouldnt be the same as turning up with what the bulletproof eclipse design has evolved into in the past 6 months and having peoples mouths drop open at the sight of it. The bulletproof eclipse project has changed, and is now the Genuine Gaming UK Advertising rig. Its what is going to that LAN tournament to represent the community along with us 5 players, and because it is representing such an entity as a whole gaming community, it has to be PERFECT, and believe me... it will be!

Heres a quick run through of the biggest changes that have been made to the design, I am not going into massive detail here as I am taking a photo of absolutely everything before and after anything is done to it so the photos will explain themselves:


-The case is the same eclipse as it was a year ago, but apparently I was afraid to take a dremel to it then, probably because I paid a hefty enough £150 for it and the windowed panel back then. As you will see, that fear is gone, and theres a LOTTA modding going on!
-The water loop has been modified. Lots of people didnt like that dual radiator on the back of the case, and after looking at it for 6 months, i didnt either. The loop has been fully redesigned, and a second one added to cool the RAM. The radiators are different, the hoses are different, the coolant is different... The only things that are the same are really the swiftech pump, waterblocks and that sleek repack cooling reservoir.
-A year is a long time in PC hardware terms, and lots of great hardware has come and gone in that time, as well as a few industry standards. The new machine uses a dual core a64 X2 6000+ which should run at around 7Ghz effective (after of course a little tweaking ). There are going to be 2x HD 1Gb Sapphire 2900XT's running in crossfire, and to top that lot off there will be 4Gb of DDR3 RAM. The motherboard choice isnt final yet, so I wont go into that... and there are other components that have changed but again I wont go into all of that at the moment.

So hopefully that gives you a good idea of what is going to be happening over the next 2 months (i32 is on the 11th of Nov this year so yes, this time I have a deadline!) and indeed what has been happening for the past month or so, as I already started and have just been too busy to log it Kepp a close watch for literally hundreds of massively detailled pictures and posts about the many changes that the eclipse has been and will be undergoing, along with my workshop!

 

Whoa sounds like a big plan and VERY nice Hardware ( won in lottery or sth. like that? ).
Im looking forward to your hundred of pics.

 

0.o nice specs, lucky you guys have a LAN event that large, we don't have anything but garages and maybe a rec center.

 

Hehe no not the lottery, ive been working A LOT. I have 3 jobs really, the engineering place, an off licnese and here at home building pc's in the workshop. From may until the end of july I was racking up 72 hours per week over the three jobs... and some of that was overtime, which pays more. Its took too much out of me though, I was tired all the time and at one point I think it was affecting my health, so I cut back on the overtime a little to give myself a break I have nothing much else to pay for/ spend the money on at the moment, seeing as my student loan is taking care of uni fees and this PC is basically my main focus for the next couple of months. I bought a new laptop in august (acer ferrari 1005) and have now have my dell axim x51v pda for work and going into the summer those were the only real expensive things that I was after so quite a bit of my income is going into the GG rig now

Yeah we are very lucky to have the iSeries, and multiplay do a fantastic job organising and running it every year, along with the other tourneys like stratlan that they host. There are also rounds of the CGS (championship gaming series) here in the UK during the year, so as far as lanning is concerned we are pretty well looked after!

We are having guests for tea tonight so I may not get anything uploaded until tomorrow after work, however I will do my best to make a start... I made something so shiny and cool in work today for the mod so I am itching to get pics of that uploaded

 

I know this still hasnt been updated, but I assure you that work is still going on! Theres only 3 days until I leave for the event, and the rig is looking very nice at the moment! At this point can I thank specialtech.co.uk, coolercases.co.uk, watercoolingshop.com, advancetec.co.uk, frozencpu.com and any that I may have missed out there for their great customer service and speedy deliveries of the many, many parts that are going into this thing!(especially frozencpu.com, with emergency 3 day delivery from new york to UK for my coolant and 2900xt retention clips, totally unbeatable guys)

Anyway I have to get back to the workshop now, ive lost the 2 retention screws for the chipset block and havent seen them in months I know theyre down there somewhere though. Watch this space starting Wednesday 14th for the finale of this log, which will be after the event and hopefully after I have gotten some sleep again!

Update (21:23) Thank *&^* for that!! Found them in the safest place in my normally quite untidy workshop, probably too safe which is why it took me so long to find them! Phew anyway