Project :: Moondust :: Update 16/09/05

Due to a lot of picture downtime I’ve moved the pictures to a reliable server (thanks cheebs!) I’ve also added a bit more detail in some areas of the log. Enjoy…

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Well, I’ve been floating round the forums for a while now, commenting on people's work and ideas, time to receive some feedback on my own. After many months of planning and saving for bits it's finally coming together; welcome to my project With so many influential modders such as Nexxo, coolmiester, G-gnome, Pug and many others, inspiration hasn't been hard to find.

My plan is to customise a Chieftec case to hold a big bore water cooling system, incorporating many people's ideas aswell as my own. After many hours of searching the web and forums I decided a Chieftec mid-tower would be perfect for holding all the gear. With the existing mods done to the Dragon series, I decided to go for the Matrix series to produce something a little more individual. I managed to get one of the last mid-tower models from Germany, it turned out to be quite a bit more expensive than the full tower but I was prepared to pay the difference for the non-blowholed side panel and overall smaller size.

Anyway enough banter, first of all I need to get the case ready to host my water cooling gear.



My Christmas present that arrived from Tekheads, let’s open it up



Here’s the stock case, it’s a Chieftec Matrix MX-01WD in beige.



A shot with the front bezel open.



The side panel. I ended up paying more for it being non-blowholed but it’ll pay off when it gets cut.



The side panel removed, nice and spacious case for a mid-tower.



The HDD cages, pity these will have to be removed, means I’ll have to get an adaptor for my HDD to mount it in the large cage.



The HDD cage holders, these are held in by 3 pop rivets each, 5 minute job with a drill and small drill bit.



HDD cage holders removed, lots of space there now



Here’s a test fit with the XSPC R-120D, now you begin to see how the Chieftec mid-towers are made for water cooling.



Next task was to drill the holes for the radiator, I used a template and the shroud to accurately mark them out. Once that was done, I decided to cut out a basic outline of the shroud for the radiator fans to freely pull air in from outside the case; this turned out to be a total pain as the panel already had holes drilled in for the 80mm intake fans.

After triple checking my marking I was happy it would work. Next day I took the naked case to the school workshops and made the cuts with a jigsaw.



Considering it was my first time with a jigsaw, I think I did ok The cut needed tidying up with a hacksaw and a file before it was ready for some blowhole trim.



I also gave the rear blowholes a little treatment of my own to allow for better airflow, I cut the pre-drilled grills with metal tin-snips, they also needed a file down to tidy them up.



Here’s a test fit of the radiator installed from the front.



From the inside.

I’m pleased at how things have turned out; the cuts should provide the radiator fans with enough airflow to do their stuff.

 

Nice fans. Are you going to respray the case?

 

Thanks, i'm going for a mirror silver finish

 

nice leeum are you going to cut the area that is masked off on the backplate?
maybe you should place some silver fan grills behind those fans, to hide the four supports for the blade (sorry dont know how to say it more accurately).

looking forward to see the progress of this case, mate. you know I'll be watching

 

a better idea would be to spray the fan backs very carefully to avoid paint in workings

 

Looking good, let us know how the Rad performs

(also, link to where you got the fans? if possible) thanks

 

Kustom PC's sell the fans, i actually got these ones second hand (thanks ouija) I might end up buying some grills or spraying the back of the fans, stay tuned

 

solid start m8ey

any ideas on making a shroud for the 120's - ie lift them away from the the grill a tad ?

might be an idea to outline the mod plan in the first post
ie inspiration etc and what you are planning to do - and credit to stuff you are lifting from others mods (ie pug's mesh idea etc )

good luck and keep up the good werk m8

 

Here are some pictures of the water cooling equipment that will be used in the project. Each of them will be modification of some degree to make it fit the theme and colour of the case.



All the water cooling gear



Here's the reservoir I’ll be using, it's an Aqua Computer Aquatube in silver.



Two of the threads have been tapped to ¼” BSP and fitted with ¼” BSP to ½” barbs for use in a big bore loop.



It also has a lighting module fitted, it fits a 5mm LED to light up the inside



Here's the radiator, it's an XSPC R120-D. These radiators are fairly new to the market but from the reviews I’ve seen, it should perform well.



One thing I really like is the chrome shroud, the reflection is demonstrated by an orange (nearest thing I could find lol)



Here's the GPU block, it’s a Danger Den Maze4.



Here's the CPU block, also a Maze4.



The pump, a Hydor L30.



The front section is only used when the pump runs in submerged mode.



I decided to go for some aluminium fans to match the radiator shroud. These are Titan 120mm fans, they push 79.14 CFM each but air fairly noisy, I’ll be using a fan controller with them.

 

Nice!

what hardware are you going to run in this beast?

 

A Innovatek HPPS 12V I owned a Hydor Setz L20 and I can say it's a big step in the right direction using Eheim based pumps

Nice setup boy, keep modding!

 

The hardware i've got so far is ::

Abit NF7-S V2
Athlon 2600+ Thoroughbred 'B'
512MB DDR400
Radeon 9800 Pro - Flashed to XT

I managed 2200MHz on air cooling, hopefully water cooling will give me a little more leeway.
The Hydor L30 is rated similar to the Eheim 1250 for about £20 yes, couldn't refuse an offer like that
Thanks for all the comments guys

 

After seeing coolmiester’s LED mods to the Maze3 series blocks, I decided to give the same process a go with the Maze4. I took the block into school and did a 5mm hole rougly 5mm into the top with the drill press.



Here you can see a small cloud in the lucite at the top where it's been drilled in.



A close up of the hole.



Here's a test fit with a 5mm LED, there's no need to glue the LED inside, the hole tightly holds it in



Just to show the pleasing effect with the block I tried it with a lit blue LED, for a few minutes work with the drill it certainly paid off



I’ve decided to use a white LED for the block to match my silver/ white theme.

 

that is soooooo tight!!

do you have any sketches of the design of the case?

 

That maze4 mod is looking nice!
(think i might just do that to my tdx )

 

looks good so far i like the maze 4 mod..... i was wondering how big is that reservoir maybe its just the pic but that seems really small

 

Acid: I've got a few lying about that i'll get up tomorrow night

Shadowxf: Thanks mate I'd imagine it it'll work great for any Danger Den block that uses the lucite top, you only need one LED to the light the whole block aswell

MRKIKKOMAN5645: I was surprised myself how small it is, seeing stuff on a computer screen made me think it was much bigger. Does this help at all?

 

I like the LED in the water block, that is gonna be "Freakin' Swwet" (What TV show is that from...) Can't wait to see more. Make sure to keep us updated regularly!!!

 

looking sweet, like the sound of the colour scheme. Going to see where this one goes!

 

Thanks for the comments, next update will be quite soon, my birthday money i get on Monday will help the funding and the project should be finished in about a month and a bit
I'll get onto those design sketches tomorrow morning, they only show the internal arrangment, as for the panel designs i'm turning to the one and only Jordanis3r and his great tribal designs