Scratch Build – In Progress Project: UFO 8/8 Hardware Install

Hey there guys, I've been working on this case for a while now, started around Febuary, but then took a few months off due to school/sports, but now I'm back in full swing, and things are looking up.

I'm sure a lot of you, like myself, love the UFO cases, but just have not gotten around to buying one, or its too expensive. I found myself with this predicament as well. So I decided to build one !

I made my first case over the summer, shown here:

While its not great, it opened me up to the world of modding.

I'm planning on replacing my current loop, minus my gpu block. Here's a list of the hardware I'm going to pick up.

1x Aluminum Sheet 18 x 18x 0.125
14x Aluminum L-profiles 18 x 18 x 0.125
1x Lian Li Replacement Removable Motherboard Tray
1x A.C. Ryan Constructx™ BayColumn510 UV Green
4x A.C. Ryan AcrylPanel™ 3mm Black
2x Startech 2.54mm Standard Jumper Caps
1x Digital Thermometer with Blue LED Back Light
1x Lian Li Dual PSU Bracket
4x Startech 2mm SCSI Drive Jumper Caps

Water Cooling - Petra'sTech
1x Gell Stuff
1x PT Nuke
10x Masterkleer 7/16
1x Pentosin
1x Swiftech MCR-320
1x D-Tek Fusion
4x Ek Barbs
1x Computer Screw Kit

I have not ordered the wc stuff yet, paypal transfer will clear the 15th, so I'll order that night. So if you have any suggestions, they're more than welcome.

I started construction today, so here are some pics so far.

.125=3.175mm- thick

Same with the alu sheet




looks good!

Temporary screws to hold everything in place before I get shorter ones. Wing nuts don't hold everything together tight enough, so I'll those will just some regular nuts. The new bolts will also be countersunk, with the nuts on the inside, for a more cosmetically pleasing look.



Here's some accessory pics:








Here's just a basic overview of what the inside will look like, minus the outside plexi, radiator, fan grills, psu... etc. Just an idea.



Here's an idea of what the black plexi will look like:


Update: Ordered wc parts, should be here saturday or monday. No pics for the moment, still working out spacing for psu and wc stuff behind the mobo tray.




I can't seem to find a place for the pump, but I was thinking something like this.


I would move it over to the right side far enough to give to tubing some slack not to kink as well, as the radiator will be upfront, on the left side. I just thinking about putting it on the back wall because that should dampen most vibrations, 3.175mm thick alu + ptech gel stuff.

Any suggestions?

Little update: Hooked up the mobo tray. Over the weekend Ill get out the dremel and chop me a psu hole.





Most likely where the psu bracket will go.

And look, room for a fan!


Well, I decided to post a few pictures before I go off to work for the day. Enjoy!




So tiny!


Inside courtesy of petrastechshop.com











15ft.


And an idea of what the cd drive holder looks like.


Update: I hit a few bumps. The dremel discs I had were the skinny fiber ones, that broke off in a few minutes. It took 7 to do a line a few inches long.
So it took me some time to get to home depot, but I finally got there today and got some work done. I picked up these cutting discs for metal, and they things work great, I haven't even used half of one up yet.
Thing is, I forgot the attachment for them, so I've been using the attachment for regular cutting discs, so there must not be enough leverage, because my dremel starts smoking after a while.. Back to home depot I guess..

My rad finally came from performance-pcs today, swiftech mcr-320, and it's damn sexy. It is in every way possible better than the BIPIII.

Here are some pics:

Me trying to use the little fiber discs.


New discs


Not done yet, as you can see, but you get the idea of what I'm doing.






Man its been a while since I've posted. Sorry for the delay guys.

Unfortunately my dremel broke last night, so ill replace that within the next few days, I just won't be able to finish cutting out the stencil for my mobo tray, or the acrylic.. Things seem to break when I need them most... story of my life.

Anyway, here are some pics of the progress.








Once again its been a while since I've posted... baseball is now capitalizing my time, leaving me little, if any, time to myself.

I did get some work done yesterday !! This dremel was like a job and a half though... took me forever.






Got some more stuff done today!

Cut the front plexi sheet to the appropriate size, made a template for my rad out of paper... which suprisingly worked... and drilled the holes for my rad, which will hold 6 fans.





Sidenote: that cardboard looking sheet you see my fan grills screwed to is the semi-transparent black plexi. It just has a think covering over it that can be used to draw on, etc to prep for cutting.

My case is starting to take shape !

Well, found some time last night to get some stuff done.

P.S. I did the fan holes by hand using a dremel. It wasn't as hard as I expected, but would I do it again? H**L NO! Takes forever!

Anyway, enjoy the pics.






Leak testing now :woot:







My temp setup:


Added a nice blue hue from some pentosin.



Got more done today! I'm on a roll!

Before I show the pics, I just want to say that this gel stuff from petras tech works amazingly well, my pump vibrates no more, and its a D5!

Installed the fillport

Another shot

Here are the holes I cut by hand with my dremel



Stayed up all night.. finished transferring all the components into my case, besides cable management and adding come cathodes, putting some flooring, and cleaning up the cd drive cut-out, the inside is done!

And it booted up!

Initial test show temps dropped 10c @ idle to idle at 18-19c, load temp dropped 15-23c to load at 37c!

P.S. The temp readout on the front of the case is reading inside case temp.











Will post more pics tonight, for now, I need sleep!

Well thanks to Lurid, I now have wheels to use with my case.



They have breaks as well!

- I also ordered a few things, like a new chipset heatsink.











And a new thumb drive.


And some Arctic Cooling MX-1 is on the way from axiontech, should be here within a few days, then I will put these new parts to the test.

~Vice

Baseball season ends tomorrow (varsity jacket on the way!), so I'll have more time to do some more things with my case.

 

Here's a little preview of things to come:




Going to try out this Cold-Heat soldering iron. Heart mixed reviews so I'm going to be keeping the receipt just in case







Some nice sleeving, along with some heatshrink will be coming towards the end of the week.



And some nice new ddr2-1000 ram !



I will be ordering everything on Wednesday, so I should be getting everything by Friday or Monday, but I should start painting this week. We have a 5-day break coming up (Fri-Tues) so I should get a lot finished.

I'll just have this, work, and school for a while so hopefully I can get more done.

With the help of a friend with a similar project, I learned how to do this:








Combined the two fans to one molex-gave me the ability to lose the other four molex connectors to give it a cleaner look-freed up a lot of space. Heatshrink and spiral wrap will follow , these were just test fans.

A hint of wire management to come.

Did the priming this morning- came out great. I'm going to let it dry for 24hrs, so I'll start painting in the morning.

Today I plan on working on the fans since my sleeving and stuff should come this afternoon.





And my setup outta the case:


First coat is done, its hard to show on the camera, but the color is flat black.







Got a lot done today, so much so, I actually feel "completed" for the day.

I made a new cd drive mount, hd mount will come tomorrow. I also redid the front panel for my case. I started one yesterday, but it came out crappy and my measurements were off.. it was fixable, but I've worked too hard for this case to come out sh*tty, so I completely redid it. The cut for the cd drives is much cleaner now. I will head over to home depot tomorrow to grab a hole saw for the fans, the wood is too thick to use my dremel with any sense of accuracy. Wiring should come Wednesday, and another switch and some zip ties by weeks end.

Pics:








The metal brackets will be painted black tomorrow.. silver and neon-green don't go too well



Those longs bolts will be replace with shorter ones, just using them to hold the brackets in place for now.



First go at front panel:

As you can see, the cut is not very neat.



Embarrassing..



Redid it, took about 3hrs.









Cut is much better, wouldn't you say?

More to come tomorrow.

P.S. New ram comes tomorrow, woot!

*Thanks

Ram came today, and let me tell you, these sticks are great.


























Voltage @ 2.24 up from 2.2, hardly oc'd at all, these sticks are capable of much more.

Got the cd mount up today, the wire also came in. The front panel should be done soon, just need to go to home depot to get an arbor for the hole saw I picked up on tuesday, and make a template.









Cut the rad holes today!

4.5in(114mm) hole saw- what a beast!









I used a blue rag to cover the cd drives so I would not get saw dust in them.









The remnants of my template:




Sorry the pictures came out a little blurry :cry

Made the bottom to my case today- primed it as well, and will paint probably tomorrow.










Bottom is made out of pretty thick wood:








Blurry pics again! Agh!

Started painting the black today- need to go to home depot tomorrow for some screws and more paint.

Some better pictures:












Some more pics- cut two new holes over the weekend, one for the fan to hd mount, the other for a fan out the back. Also got my mcw30 and new delrin fillport in the mail today. A little paint touch up is in order, but all that is left to do is make the hd mount, in reinstall everything!































Started to put everything back into my case again. Put all waterblocks except for nb on to get an idea of the tubing setup.













HD-Rack










And some gfx card pr0n







And here's where my day goes down hill.... I went into the garage with my case, hd-rack, and pump to do some adjustment, and as I was drilling the bracket of my hd-rack, this bee lands right on me (I'm deadly allergic) , so I jump up, and the hd-rack falls of the work bench! I was about this close *holds fingers close together* from killing something.. and crying. Here are some pics of the damage.










So I'm just going to order a hd-rack, probably from mountain-mods.

H*ll, my room didn't survive the day either:



Or my desk:




So I had to switch back to.. dare I say it, air cooling!












It feels very noobish to go from water back to air, and I hope I don't have to keep it that way for long.

I need to come up with a way to mount my radiator to the frame of my case, the whole screw through front panel, fans, and radiator, is not going so well.

I think I'll pick up a 6-32 tap.. see where that takes me.

Few things came in the mail today:

Old screws:


New screws:


:up:

 

Then I started to mod my fan cables. I spent around 4hrs soldering and sleeving 2 fans, being this was my first time doing it, it was a learn-as-you-go process. But it came out pretty good, here's a few pics before I reattached the 3pin connector:





I put some heatshrink on the joint for added support. This was on fan 1. On fan 2, I have the joints all even, and used one piece of heatshrink on all three of them- looked much better. Like I said, learn-as-you-go.




Now here, once again, is where my day goes downhill. After finished fan #2, I hooked 'em up to my fan controller, and to my dismay, they did not work. So I furiously tried to figure out what the problem was, and narrowed it down to the wire. As it turns out, the wire I ordered online does not work, and when I reattached the fans with spare wire, they worked. So now I have to go and redo both fans... VERY frustrating.

It's as if the big guy upstairs doesn't want this project getting done...

Other various things came today- project should be wrapping up soon!

Metal barbs for my MCR-320:






Filter I will use before the final wc loop hookup:






And my new hd-rack and thumbscrews:



Ok, figured out what the problem was. The place where I soldered the original fan wire to the extension wire, what I call a "joint", was making contact with all the other joints, thus causing the electricity to get mixed up between the wires, thus causing the fans not work.
The situation didn't get better when I tried some bare copper wire (this was before I knew what the problem was).
So I went to Lowes, got some insulated wire, soldered everything back together, and to prevent the joints from making contact with each other, I put a piece of tape around each one of them. While this may sound ghetto, it worked

Got a two fans done, will work on the rest tonight.

Also picked up a tap set.. you'll see why in the coming days.


Joints


Heatshrinked joints to add stability


Did this to all six of them




The bare copper wire I was talking about


New, insulated wire


Taped joint



Got some pics!

All the fans are working - I stood back and laughed at how long I made my first fan - it's at least 3ft! LOL !!!

Anyway, here you guys go, took me about 8hrs.

I forgot to add heatshrink on a few of the wires - realized after I had everything soldered but hey.. it was my first time















Got some more pics for you guys- in the middle of setting up my WC. And to top it off, my pump died, so I will have to suffer thorough air cooling 'till early next week.













New HD rack from mountain-mods.com - Pretty sexi imo. Came with brushed aluminum, so I am in the middle of painting it.





Few more pics of what I've been up to tonight:













Forgive the long screws holding in the hd rack - they are all I have right now.

My 6-32 tap actually broke tonight, I was a little surprised, but then again, tapping a hole in .125" thick aluminum isn't a walk in the park either. Thankfully, it has a lifetime warranty.

I'm currently waiting on my new pump, so in the mean time, I created (got the idea from AndyM) a new fan controller - I convinced myself that tucking 8 fan wires under my mobo tray wouldn't look so great, so I plan on mounting this on the back of the mobo tray, making it hidden from view from the right side.

Soldering everything together




Connected



Has enough connectors for 8 fans



Test setup



Is it a work of art? No
Does it work for the function in which it was produced? Chyeah baby !

I'm working on placing the UV cathodes in my case - trying to stealth them, while providing optimum light.

More to come.

Some custom length screws I made - TT backplate ready



I feel I must voice my aggravations here.

As with some mods I have done, I am not content some parts of them, and with this one, that would be the front panel of my case. I believe it will make my whole case look better if I get some sheet metal for the front - Lowes probably has some @ a reasonable price.

I'm also thinking on a color change... only time will tell if I will go through with it or not though.

~Vice

I will be making a new front panel, as well as a side panel.. I'm not liking the whole plexi side as much as I used to.

Ok, so I decided on a color theme change. Stocked up on paint to save me a few trips to the store. From left to right we have: 2x Auto Primer(Grey), 2x White Gloss, 2x Black Gloss, Krylon Orange, Clear Coat, and some silicone filler.





Some nice sanding paper... It was really hard to find actually, neither Lowes nor Sears had a good selection.




I bought 2x 24x36 metal sheets.. a surprising $6.93 ea. along with a 24x48" acrylic sheet.



New Pump arrived today.



Some assorted zip-ties and a switch




Finally, a company that cares!


More to come.

~Vice

Started leak testing - before everyone asks, yes, I have a duck soap dispenser, and yes, that giant blue thing is a filter

So here's a few pics:























Well, here it is, the new fan mod I promised:






Got the first side done @ 2am this morning- took me about an hour or so - Gives me a much cleaner setup, and these wires will be hidden from view.

What do you think?

~Vice

Got some more done today:

CAD drawing mounted on my aluminum sheet.





CD drive hole cut.




Started to work on the fans - This would be a lot easier w/ a drill press! - My drill is weak, and these holes take forever.


That's what I got done today.. time for my lunch break

More to come.

~Vice

** I am now in the process of making the side panels, as well as creating a design for them. A whole new color theme is still to come, as well as a change in fan color.

 

This is how it came out, with first coat of primer drying with my ghetto mock up.

 

Very nice so far!

Any reason why you chose to make the front panel out of wood when the rest of the case is aluminum? Are the side panels going to be wood too?

 

Looking good, but go over all the cuts you made with a file and sandpaper to smooth them before you paint.. As for the wooden front and bottom, there are primers especially made for that too..
Repeat the sanding for the acrylic too. It looks very rough..

Oh, just a sidenote, when soldering wires, you have to add a piece of heatshrink to each individual wire as opposed to what you do now. Getting plus wires and ground (-) mixed inside heatshrink is a bad thing. So for every cable you make it's solder each wire -> add heatshrink -> bundle together with more heatshrink -> sleeve job. Remarkably your PSU didn't die from that.

 

Originally, I was going for wood with the front panel, but now I'm remaking it out of alu.

Wood front is being replaced with alu, and the acrylic is being replaced as well. I will be making side panels, with custom designs.

Yes, I've learned from my mistakes, and now cover up each soldered joint. Like I said, it was my first time doing a fan mod

 

Nice work! i love how you redid the front panel 3 times lol

 

looking good!!!!

 

Nice work!

Btw, Are you happy about that Black and Decker?

 

Nice project, but unfortunately, it's now a widely known non-flying object...


H.B.

 

i heard this before...

but i picture speaks a thousand words

so you have spoken 252,000 words(only in pictures, not including anything else) lol 252(251?) pictures! man thats impressive

 

Not really. If you have the cash, go for a higher-end rotary too, preferably from dremel.

 

I'm always impressed when someone like yourself takes the time to catalog everything on a particular project.
Great Job

 

WOWOWOWOW man this is great work !!!! damm this is rock work.. man you did good job there

Well done I want to seeeeeee more

 

Just wanted to keep you guys updated.

Been a little crazy @ work, haven't gotten around to work on the case a lot.

I got another side panel done, sanded it down, and put the first coat of primer on. Lookin' really good, the texture is coming out just how I want it.

Also, through a newly acquired contact, I'm ordering another sheet of metal for the front panel, 19x19x.1196. Getting it dirt cheap. I realized that with the weight that needs to be supported by the front panel, the thickness of the sheet I have now just wasn't going to cut it.

More to come.

~Vice

 

Awesome work!

You should get rid of that cold heat soldering iron and get a regular one, MUCH easier to work with!

 

Very nice. But do us a favor. The rules say no more than 20 pics per post. That way we don't get so many photos per page. It takes FOREVER for this page to load just to get to the one added comment at the bottom.

But, keep it up! I can't wait to see what you do next!

 

WOOT!!! another baseball playing modder! i play on the highschool freshman team. what team u play on (what school)?
wow, varsity too! Nice!

love teh mod, btw and the watercooling. sorry bought the pump and teh hdd cage!

 

So I realize I haven't updated in a while, just wanted to tell you guys whats going on.

1) I'm working 60hrs weeks, which is why I haven't updated in a little bit.

2) I painted my Dtek Fuzion mount black (took several, several coats to get the color right), will have some pics up tomorrow morning.

3) I decided against ordering a new front panel, I tested the one I have now, and it works great.

4) I'm going to re-sand my case frame, and re-prime it tomorrow. Not sure if I will get to painting it, it'll depend on how many coats are needed to get a nice texture.

5) I also hope to cut the case windows tomorrow. I bought a scroll saw and was planning to cut an image out of the side panel, but the scroll saw didn't work like I had hoped, and wound up just being a PITA, so I returned it. I may just order a custom laser cut side panel in the future.

6) Got a great UV dye to go with my new color theme, its going to look so bad ass!

7) Ordered some U-Channel and 2 switches from mnpctech.com , after I get the front panel painted and the holes for the switches drilled, I'll post some pics up.

For now, this is how I'm running my comp:





Please excuse the mess

More to come.

~Vice