Scratch Build – In Progress Project: Shattered Horizon. Update: 1/12/09 MOTM Nominee?! Ah! Must post pictures!

That is one sexy looking Heatkiller .

 

amen to that

 

Coming along beautifully - thanks for the update
Also, how much does the nickel plating cost, approximately?

 

Actually the nickel plating was pretty cheap. It cost me AU$15, but I did all the surface prep, though that was pretty basic. Simply sanded up to 1200 grit.

I did have to call around a lot of places to get it done though. One of them wanted to charge me $110 dollars as their minimum charge... I suppose that it would have been worth it if I had say, 10 heatkiller tops...

 

Yeah, that's the same trouble I had with powdercoaters - they all have minimum quantities
Glad you got a good deal on it

 

$15AUD? That makes it soooo worth it, for $100 I would have just said GTFO and hung up the fone lol.

 

Gyah! I hate snags.

Upon test-fitting the hardware, I found a great little problem. My motherboard mountings are slightly misaligned with the backplate. As this picture shows (hint: look at the PCI cards area...)

After spending some time thinking about the best way to fix it, I just bit the bullet and decided to build a new MB tray. I was picking up some more plexi anyway, so I simply added another piece to my order.

Grrr... I need to be more precise with my measurements and cuts...

And yes boy 4rm oz, I was pretty happy with the pricings. Want one done?

 

That sucks about the mobo tray mate.

Hmmm, perhaps I could gt one done but I found a nice block today that took my fancy .
http://www.techpowerup.com/105563/Swiftech_Rolls_Out_Apogee_XT_CPU_Water_Block.html
I would still like to get a Heatkiller for my next project but if all else fails this will do nicely.

 

Why dont you just buy a lian li mobo tray and grab the back plate? Much easier.

 

Such a nice and clean design and pulling it off nicely, you gave me an inspiration to keep on planning my own aluminum project(s) Keep up the good work.

 

I keep asking myself that same thing....

Laz

 

PCCG have the Lian Li trays, look under their "Modding Supplies" or "Spare Parts" categories.

 

Just a quick what I am doing update:
Remade the Motherboard tray... It looks a lot like the old one... Surprise Surprise...
Bent a peice for the front panel. Looks ok, but needs trimming.
Got a switch, am contemplating integrating it into the case. I need a 9V source from somewhere and I need to do some soldering onto a network card if I do though. Could be more work than it is worth. Will see.
Need to grab some bolts to complete the pump mount...

Real update will come later.

 

A Thursday happened… Thursday is my modding day. Given the picture I am about to show you, I may seem productive, but it is a lie, I have actually just been lazy with updates.

Anyways:


I got some distilled so that I could finally flush the radiator. Once it was flushed, I got around to mounting it, which allowed me to put on the top struts and the front piece, which I bent last week. It still needs a lot of cuts in it, for both air vents and DVD drive.

In addition, I got the motherboard tray remade and now everything fits nicely.


Also, a few little updates on what is happening off the case.
Mounted the waterblock on the graphics card. Here is it naked (guard your children’s eyes):


Also, sleeving continued…


I have done a bunch of other things, but my camera was being finiky so I am missing a lot of pictures. Will supply them soon I hope.

 

Soldering by exercise ball ey? That could get interesting lol.

The entire build is looking really good mate, keep up the great work .

 

I return, with pictures from yesterday, and because my assignments were finished faster than I thought they would be, some more work.

Firstly, a visitor arrived this morning. He watched me (or slept… you can never be sure)


Anyways, under his (or her) watchful gaze, I continued. I made up a quick and simple little DVD drive mount and glued it into place.

With DVD drive in place:


Then, using that as a template, I cut a hole in the front panel for the tray to eject into and made a stealthing piece. Good fit I think…


Now, pictures from yesterday.
I drilled some holes for the pump mount, and threw some foam rubber (henceforth, fubber) underneath. Hopefully the fubber will reduce any vibrations from the pump.


While I had the case upside down, I also measured and mounted some feet. Yey feet!


Then, as you saw yesterday, I mounted the radiator using the same bolts.

They are simple bolts, but not the most attractive. Oh well, they are unseen.
The barbs will be a close fit…

I can still fit a fan in there… Ah… The wonders of bendable tubing…

To rectify yesterday’s nakedness, here is a picture of the graphics card all dressed up (but sadly… she has nowhere to go… yet)


Now, something which I have not yet mentioned. Since I have two computer systems inside this box, both of which require a network connection and I only have one network port near my desk, I needed a switch to allow both computers access. I picked up a little 5-port Gigabit switch a while back for this purpose, and simply planned to have it sitting on the desk. However, the more I considered it, the less happy I was with this solution. So naturally, the switch had to be made internal.

Easy to say, plenty of room to do it, should be simple right? No no no… Turns out I will need to cut an extra RJ45 plug into the rear of the computer, cables have to run back inside, ew.

So, the new plan…
Use a PCI network card and solder a Cat5e cable to the pins of the card, allowing me to bypass the socket and run the cable internally.
Make a PCB to attach to a PCI bracket with 3 network (RJ45) ports on it, each of which connect to an unoccupied port on the switch.
Some how make this PCB blue.
Mount the switch internally and run all cables internally.

Should be easy…

As a test of the first requirement, I got an old known-working network card (I am using it in my current comp since after some rigorous over-volting, my on-board network port decided to stop working… Fun story…).

Then soldered on a network cable…

I checked the continuity with a multi-meter and got a whole heap of apparent short circuits. Then I realised that twisted pairs have 0 ohms of resistance with each other… Doh!

So… Test success!


Now all I need to do it repeat it with a nice shiny new blue gigabit card… and make the blue PCB pass through board for the rear panel… and buy more blue network cables… I think my mind can’t comprehend with putting anything other than blue items in this case right now.

Oh! Anyone got any ideas for making a PCB blue? I know I could get it made as a prototype board with a blue solder mask, but that is expensive. Does Vinyl Dye work on fibreglass boards?

After Gammods ran out of the sleeving I wanted (was it my fault? Probably not…), I was forced to go to the manufacturer, who were nice enough to send my 20m of the stuff rather than their normal 1000 ft roll. So, this bunch and I have a date…

 

Love the PCI card mod, great idea .

 

Just a quick update, I have had university glaring at me and demanding assignments recently, so I haven't had time to do much work.

I has slowly continued work on sleeving the PSU, and only have 3 individual molex cables still to do. Should be a 15/20 minute job tonight. But, the PSU in its mostly sleeved form:


Strangely enough, because I have been progressively sleeving the PSU for so long, I forget where I put the screws for it... Good thing that they are common countersunk M3s...

I also grabbed the parts I needed for the pump relay. As the relay was pretty tiny, I grabbed the smallest bulkhead box I could find and started building, likewise with the terminal blocks. This may have been a mistake, as there were so many wires to run around (since it also acts as an AC passthrough for the NAS system) fitting them all was an issue.

Fortunately, some careful prodding and squeezing got it closed and it ended up like this:


It sits between the back AC socket and the pump and outputs to the AC-DC transformer that runs the ITX Pico-PSU. Molex goes into it and flicks the 12VDC 240VAC 5A Relay. There is also a switch for bypassing the relay. Crossed fingers I got everything in with no shorts. I will check it before I put it on the 240V line... I promise.

Laz

 

Congrats on the MOTM nomination!

john

 

Really nice build here mate,

As for the fittings being close, would it be worth protecting the rad solder joints with some damp cloth and gently heating and bending the copper tube that goes into the rad? would make it alot easier to tube and look a bit neater

and my god that heatkiller looks gorgeous.

mod on