Case Mod - Complete ⭐ Project: I.S.A.C - Thermaltake 2020 Case Mod Challenge Winner and MOTM July 2020

That's a trickshot Earl 'the pearl' Strickland would be proud of.
My contacts are silicon hydrogels that you put in and leave in, they don't take kindly to being taken in and out and they ain't cheap. Been fine so far, but got some proper goggles on the way now.

 

Gooood Moooorning Modding faaaaaaans!

These regular updates are becoming a terrible habit After the previous days eye drama I'd had to finish early, so there were bits that needed removing from the original motherboard tray to make room for the power cables. So, first thing was to mark them up and cut them out.


I started using my jigsaw, but the spaces were too tight, so I knew it was time to break the newest member of the Makin modding family, the new Dremel!
(Whoof whoof!)


No not you Dremel, the other Dremel, this one.

(Whimper) Don't be sad boy, I'll take you modding later.

With those sections cut out there'd be plenty of room for the aviator connectors. I'll probably need to have a couple more cut outs for front panel connections etc, but I'll wait till I've had a chance to play with the layout before making any decisions on those.


Need to cover up the rad section with the steel sheet too as although just stripping the paint off the original probably wouldn't have looked too bad, there were a few too many holes in it.


Got the sheet cut to size and then marked out all the hole positions to see what would need removing.


I removed the middle section where air would flow through and where the rad would be screwed into the rad, but the rad would still sit on the steel so you wouldn't see any gaps, plus a little window for a fitting to pass through from the rad to the rear chamber.


It fit great, but I had trouble with the lip around the large hole round the top stopping it fit flush. I had considered leaving that and trying to remove material from the steel sheet piece, but the easiest thing was to remove the lip.

(the action you saw in the short video clip)



It all fit together beautifully. I drilled out another 20mm hole for a pass-through, at the bottom right of the rad.


I'd had problems with the sheet sitting flush into the lip at the front of the case, so I'd also drilled a few holes through the sheet to line up with existing case holes. I could then screw to 2 together and keep it in place nice and tight.


With all the power and watercooling holes cut into it, I can get to work on the wiring and plumbing. That will probably be an evening job while I work on other little projects in the shed during the day . That's all for now Crapfans, but I'm sure to be back soon. Same Crap time, same Crap channel.

 

Maybe

I've probably got 7days left for modding, so still plenty of time to lose a digit or 2.

 

Thanks.I like how it needs to be finished in a week's time and you say nice start. Makes me realise there's still so much to do!

Thank you. It's fine now, left my contacts out for a few days just to be sure, but haven't had any problems.

 

Mate.

 

Ahoy hoy Mod fans!

A working week since the last update, quite a lot of that time has been spent on a rather large piece of work that I can't show just yet. 32 pieces measured and cut, 102 holes drilled, come to construct it and one of the 2 types of bolt I'm using was too short Just 2mm longer and would have been fine. But new bolts should be arriving in the next day or 2.

That's what I've been working on in the shed during the day, but in the evening I've been working on case internals, especially the wiring. Seems even my tools are Division themed


First off are the 36 motherboard cables for the front section, which are all going to be pretty darn short.


Then the GPU cables, which have a path even Lewis Hamilton would struggle with. You can also see the loop starting to take shape and 2 nifty little brass ball valves that will be being used.


There's also been lots of other little fabrication and case work been done. Knocked out these brackets, which you may tell from the treacherous proximity of the countersunk holes to the edge and hastily shortened bolts wasn't quite fully thought through.


But they work


And now you can see the reason for the deep scoring on that 2nd PSU mount cover. There will eventually be something a little more secure than just a thumbscrew to hold the cover in place


The pump/res is going to be mounted on top of a shoggy sandwich to kill vibrations and noise, but I can't just plank a fat wedge of foam under it and call it a day, so I made a housing for it and got it glued and clamped, but it's still in the shed curing. I might put some holes in the side as the orange and black of the foam fit the colour scheme and a few round holes will make the alu angle look a bit more structural.




As the THICC 360 rad will be going in the front chamber and fan in the rear, I needed to make a 30mm hole for it's drain-port and Thermaltake's brilliant rotating drain valve.


As well as that there have been a few minor modifications made to the case here and there. I cut out the last rung of the vertical rad support as it wasn't going to be used and was in the way of the pass-through section. A couple of cable tie points needed to be Dremeled off as they got in the way of things, few other holes for cable routing and such and I modded the GPU support bracket to cope with it's decreased living space, but forgot to take any pics. There will be plenty later don't worry

Also needed to put in a few more holes to the new motherboard tray, mostly along the bottom edge. 4 small holes for it to be screwed into the original tray and keep the lower edge steady, 4 larger holes for cable pass-throughs. There's also a couple of holes will sit behind the motherboard itself for a little sneaky sneaky cable management


That's all for this update folks. A lot of the work being done now with the cables and everything is just very fiddly and awkward and visually very unimpressive. Hopefully have something very soon for you that is. As it's now so far into crunch time that I've no teeth left, I might just pop in with the odd pic here and there. T-minus 7 days 7hours 7 minutes....... Until then Crap fans, stay tuned! Same Crap time, same Crap channel.

 

These are GX16's, but rated for 400v / 10amp so should be plenty. Oh I forgot to say in the update, I was very lucky as the 18AWG wire I got from Pexon is too thick to fit into these, but luckily I had that orange wire got just before the comp when I was planning something with my own rig. Had just enough to get all the front section wires, apart from 1 of the GPU wires, came up just 1 inch short so the 6 pin connectors will get 2 orange and 1 white and will hopefully be able to hide the thicker wire in between all the others.

Got all the wire's cut and crimped, today's job is sleeving and soldering. Joy.

 

Project ISAC is finished! It has been a hectic last couple of weeks to say the least, I've barely had time to eat or sleep, so for now you'll have to make do with the final competition video, but I'll be back with the final update log and plenty of pics in the next few days.

(see if you can spot @MLyons in the vid )

I'd really appreciate it if you'd vote for me in the competition, the link to which is below. Thank you to everyone who's stopped by, commented and offered support and guidance of the last few months. I'm off to raid the liquor cabinet
VOTE HERE
(note that once on the scan website competition page, you'll have to hit the 'vote now' button to take you to a gleam page that's rather large. you'll need to scroll down a fair bit to log in and then the actual voting bit is the 10th gleam entry down)