Case Mod - In Progress Project: Wet Rarity - 16th MAY 2013 - Revisited, Revamped, Retubed, still unfinished.

Pinkie Pie > Derpy > Futtershy > every other pony > Rarity


But that's just my opinion

 

And you're perfectly entitled to hold a wrong opinion on that.

 

Fighting not really my thing, I'm more into Fashion.. BUT I'LL RIP YOU TO PIECES if you turn this into a 'best pony' debate.


however, feedback on the build would be just darling.


hardly any feedback makes a wet pony sad

 

Well we all know a best pony debate never ends well...



Fluttershy is just awesome!

As for the build I like the shade of purple you are using, it stands out more on the larger areas. Good progress so far, keep it up!



YEAH!

 

All of my Bits.

This mod update was sponsored by Wing Zero's Bank account. converting hard work and family bribes into toys and stuff since 1984. In this case, a large order from Special Tech, and a smaller one from Scan
(BTW, i really didn't feel comfortable asking these suppliers for sponsorship, since i am a relative newcomer to the scene. maybe they're out there watching and might take notice of my work from logs like this to consider it in the future.)


first purchase was some Silent Eagle SE fans. reason being, these are 4pin PWM fans. using the Akasa PWM splitter cables, I'm going to connect all the fans (bar the 200mm roof fan) up to work of the CPU socket's PWM signal, thus every fan should speed up or slow down in relation to the CPU temperature. in other words, completely automatic fan control relative to CPU load.
Black Silverstone aeroslots are slowly turning this Antec into a Fractal Design. Debating on if i'll be repainting those in the Purple seen elsewhere on the case. the small PCB on one of the brackets, is the control board for the NXZT white LED lighting strip. 3 modes of brightness with an on/off button that can be accessed from outside the case. Most excellent. It may have to move to one of the top slots if I plan to leave space to add another 560ti in SLI. Only fault it has, the power cable is about 3 inches long and ends in a molex passthrough connector. I shall have to rewire this with longer wires and route it up towards the rear fans.


Wet Rarity now has a 'stablemate' next to her, as work on 'Nerf Vortex' PC is almost parallel with Wet Rarity. It's easier to do jobs like Watercooling tubing on both machines at the same time. a Project log of Vortex will be coming real soon.


Speaking of Watercooling. Most of my money went on buying up some fittings, 45 degree elbows, snake fittings and straight extensions and anti-twist fittings. No pictures here of them combined into some funny looking scorpion or man here (could have done a snake, but.. nah, that's dumb)
Also got some rubber C strip, for edging out the existing cable routing holes in the case, and also on the 240 rad. while it would have been nice to have some strip on the top and bottom of the rad, there isn't any metal there to slip it over.


Another addition to the Specialtech order, was this, a Swiftech MCP35X PWM DDC 18W pump. The power of a Laing DDC Ultra 18W pump, with PWM control. it's so much bliss to have this pump throttle down to a slow, quiet speed when not needed. This is also my first attempt at cable braiding, using some scrap braid material from an old PSU cable and some heatshrink. I know it's not some premium dense weave, but it does the job of bundling those loose cables together. Aside from the braided fan cables, it will be the only braided cables in the case, i have plans for all the other cables.

Here is a picture of the pump being tested with the tube reservoir. While it was great to see the pump in action and note how quiet the pump is when throttled down slow, I do wish i had plumbed the pump output into one of the side openings in the reservoir, and not the top. the air gap made a lovely splashing sound that had me running to the bathroom later.
You may notice the clear reservoir mounting clip attached, I won't be using that in the final version, with good reason

Both decided to break apart. should have guessed that clear plastic wouldn't like being flexed over a reservoir tube for too long. a slight knock on the mount was all it took for it to fracture on one of them, and the other decided to break just as i managed to flex it onto the reservoir body. so, new order has just gone out for new clips, ones that hinge over the whole tube, rather than flex around part of it.


Enough of the parts gallery, let's talk case modification. started off with the fillport. you may question it's placement here, that required part of the top bezel being filed away. there's good reason for this.
With my old watercooling loop, i used a 5.25" bay reservoir. rather than pull out my reservoir every time i needed to refill it (which was impossible due to short tubing lengths) i decided to drill a large hole in the metal roof of the 1200, that was over the bay reservoir's screw cap. this worked well, only requiring me to remove the top roof panel. however, with the roof fan connected to this as well, i couldn't completely remove the roof panel, so this time, i wanted to install an external access fillport.

This is a shot underneath, showing the hole cut in the metal roof of the case. all i need do now is attach the fittings (until I received new fittings, I used these barbs as placeholders) and tubing from fillport to reservoir.

Speaking of fittings, you may have noticed these compression fittings are smaller than the ones seen in other pictures. this is intentional. I queried about mixing tubing sizes in a single loop, and got the response of negligible difference in performance. so saving me a lot of money and space, decided to reuse my old WC loop fittings, which are for 3/8" tubing.
Anything that is in the visible area of the case window, will be tubed with 1/2" fittings and tubes. the hidden sections will be tubed with 3/8" fittings.


Thinking about the front panel, I needed to ensure there was some venting so the radiator behind would get air, but I didn't want the whole front clad with mesh panels. This was an initial idea, using the single blanking plate to secure the reservoir to it, and installing a radiator grill on the outside of the case, to cover both openings. But without a rad grill to try this out (and not being able to decide on what style of grill to use) i decided to add more panels in to block out the lower opening

This did achieve the smoother look i was going for, but i felt the opening was too small. so with a bit of re jigging of the spacer fittings, I settled on a final look of 2 plates in the top, an opening 3 plates big, where the tube reservoir will be situated in the centre, with a curved mesh backing wall along with false floor and roof pieces. then 3 blanking plates, I/O panel then HDD panel.

But what about the optical drive? I did think really long and hard about if i needed one, and if so, where to put it. I almost decided not to include one, but I realise i need one for work purposes (burning music CD's to listen to while working) so i decided to try and include the drive, but where could it go...


I placed the drive on top of the case, to move it out of the way, when it hit me. there was room to recess it in the top panel. so out with the marker pen and dremel, and before long, a large opening was cut out of the roof. the remaining front ridge was also removed while i had the dremel out and a new floor piece will be made to fill over the resulting gap.


The next debate was , which way to mount the drive. I had thought about mounting it facing forward, like normal. but considering i was going to be making a cover that curves in front of it, i would have to cut out a wedge, then attach it to the front of the drive tray. then hope that it would open and close without revealing large gaps, or jamming up. not only that, but it would also cover over the fillport, and I have a special idea in mind for a fillport cover, which the drive tray would interfere with.

Instead, i decided the tray would eject out the rear, over the rear fan grill. this also places the power and data connections at the front of the case, which there is a recess that the cables happily fit underneath. a single sata power cable and a long data cable will be all that's needed in this area bar the wiring needed for 2 anti vandal switches. (black ringed, blue LED inner rings. a bit of white here and there and I think I can recreate Rarity's eyes with them. [cue morbid comments about poking Rarity in the eye to turn her on])

Finally, devil is in the details.

These are the studs that hold the windows to the side panel, they were black, but with a hit of that purple nail polish from before, they're a better match, along with the mesh panel which was sprayed purple to match.

And while it may be hidden away, the 560ti waterblock got a layer of white vinyl. the screw holes were cut out for access, and the engraved EK logo was picked out in purple.

That's it for now, i'm off to have a break, then think about getting another project log written up...

 

quick-ish update. pulled an all nighter and cut out the majority of the parts for the false flooring

the floor is made from foamcore board, a paper/polystyrene laminate that is light, yet reasonably strong. I chose this material due to having an abundance of offcuts and stock available and mainly because of its ease of cutting. glue it together with some hotglue and it's pretty good.


This is the floor in the drivebays, that the pump will sit on. while the pump is heavy, it will be held in place by the front panels, but also supported underneath by the I/O panel. (it's currently wedged in with pressure alone, sat on the inner lip of the front blanking plate, resting on top of a blanking plate put in the rear and finally, resting on rails on the drive bay's walls). Also, by being made of foam and not permanently fixed in place, it should help absorb the vibrations from the pump


View from the front to the back. the numerous joins and cuts in the foamcore will be covered over with white vinyl, hiding the rough edges and producing a smooth look.


Has spare edging strip, so covered the roof fan's opening with it. it will help improve the air seal between fan and radiator

 

looks good so far!! not normally a fan of the white interior but this gets my vote. keep up the good work!!

 

Liking this, and really quite tempted to steal it, but instead painting it and then sanding it down so leave paint in the logo recess.

 

Not really my theme, but this is coming along nicely keep up the good work

 

Id advise using more filler on that top I/O on the case just head down to your local car auto parts store and pick up some filler and smooth the whole panel apart from that mate looks good =)

 

Thank you kindly. while most of it is white, there is enough black and purple breaking up the insides to stop it being a complete whiteout

The vinyl was pushed into the engraved logo, then the groove was filled with nail polish. if you're just doing the logo, then there's no need for the sanding step. just use nail polish (comes in many colours) and wipe the top clean with acetone/nail polish remover.

Thank you kindly. Much like the reaction to Project Fluttershy, i know there's not that big an audience here on Bit-tech that are interested in this sort of thing. But if you think of it this way, so far, there's nothing that's MLP specific, it's just been a white/purple clean build. the details that will make this a MLP themed case will come at a later stage

the top ex-I/O panel will be covered over with styrene sheeting soon enough. the whole top is being rebuilt and sculpted to blend in things like the new optical drive placement, a new rear grill for the 200mm fan and also to attempt to represent the look of Rarity's unique hairstyle.

 

Now with added Pony.

another 'quick' update. excuse the poor pictures, they're from a smartphone. my SD card reader's out of action and i can't get pics of my digital camera without it.

Let's fix that shall we.

This is going to be the fan grill for the 200mm fan in the roof panel. Finding a logo for 'Carousel Boutique' in one of my pony picture folders, it looked like it could be modified into a fan grill. so after some photoshop, it was printed out, stuck to some styrene sheet, and attacked with a dremel, files and sandpaper till it was done.



I originally wanted to use some diamond shaped meshing for this opening, however it seems you can only get Hex or hole shaped mesh. in the end however, i found this garden plastic meshing for free, and it looks good. just need to fix it in place properly.



Finally, been busy working on the Power supply. first off, whoever invented the ATX pin, may you be loved and tolerated.... so much frustration trying to use pin extraction tools to free the cables. (it seems Antec stock plugs are so small, it's a bother trying to get the tool to go around the pin, and then it takes some herculean force to push the tool in far enough to get the pin to release)

As you can see, that's not cable braiding. in fact, i wanted the sleek look of wire, but without the task of replacing every wire with purple. so there's 25m worth of purple heatshrink on those wires.... and i ran out. (i asked for 2, 25m reels when i ordered, got only one. joy)

however, next time, i'm just going to stick with braided extensions, or pay someone else willing to do this.

 

Project: Wet Rarity - 9TH MAY - Thrills, bills and coolant spills!

You'll have to excuse the sudden jump in progress here, a lack of the good camera at times and parts of the mod where I got on with it, but forgot to take pictures. I'll attempt to fill in the gaps here and there


After getting the majority of the PSU sleeved before i ran out of the heat shrink. i decided that it was OK to put the hardware back into the case. I also needed to find out if i could get the tube to bend in the places I wanted it to bend, without kinking up.


My goal here was to keep the tubing as straight as possible. fortunately, most of the inlets and outlets lined up reasonably well, so most of the tubing would lie straight.


It was fortunate that the graphics card block openings lined up with the CPU block outlet as well.


Nice and straight. future plans are to SLI a pair of 560 TI's and where the current outlet fitting is, that will be replaced with a SLI connector to connect to the other card in series, and the outlet fill be turned 180 and fixed to the top opening of the bottom card. parallel cooling is not going to be possible, due to clearance issues.


speaking of clearance... the outlet tube drops down from the graphics card, into the vertical section of the false floor.


The original idea was to squeeze the tube through this gap between floor and radiator. and while the tube does fit, it can not make the severe bend upwards to meet with the reservoir.


so the tube bends under the floor, via a hole.


Leak testing begins. fortunately, no leaks detected, so the loop was drained (with great difficulty with no drain fitting) and filled with Aurora.


The fan grill on the big boy fan. was hoping the lighting would have looked better, but it didn't. Since the top of the case is being rebuilt, I think I'm going to change that fan to something else.

I tested the PC for a few days with Aurora. looking at the fluid in action, it didn't flow very fast, and it looks like the pearl was separating from the fluid in the pipe between the top radiator and the CPU block.

I originally set the Apogee XT's inlet plate to the outer edge, due to fitting 1/2" fittings, but also to remove the dead space pocket that's there in the block, in order to prevent the pearl from dropping out (Aurora does not like dead space and pockets of low flow)

Turns out the block itself was a mighty good sieve, separating the pearl at the inlet of the block, restricting the flow of the fluid itself. a new CPU block had to be purchased, so a EK Supreme HF was ordered.

The Mayhems website has an Wiki about Aurora with a list of parts tested for use. the Apogee XT was not on the list, so i took a gamble and used it. it did not pay off, so i had to replace it (and notify Mayhems it doesn't work) fortunately, the Aurora fluid I had left retained most of it's pearl. however, it has stuck a good lot of pearl on the tubing from top rad to CPU block.


I also encountered another problem with the change in CPU block, and while it was an easy fix, it did involve a lot of work. basically, the inlet and outlets on the EK supreme was the wrong way around there was 2 fixes, mount the CPU block the wrong way aroundm or reverse the flow of the coolant through the loop.


I decided that reversing the flow would be the better choice, even if it was the more difficult one. first things was to change the pump/reservoir inlet and outlet around. so now the radiators flow into the reservoir, and the pump outlet goes to the graphics card

the inlet was a simple affair, switching the pipe to in front of the fan, and linking to the reservoir inlet at the base


The pump outlet required some planning. using some S bends, I managed to get a 1/2" fitting directly in front of the tube access hole. while I had to remove the HDD cage to get my hand in to tighten the fitting, it all lined up with minimal fuss


But in the end, i got the result i wanted, fast flowing Aurora, with the cool swirly effect in the reservoir and the tubing. hopefully in time, the pearl that's stuck to the tubing may come off and rejoin the liquid. otherwise in a couple months time, i'll be replacing the tubing. Will i reuse Aurora again... who knows. the way Mayhems is revolutionising the fluid market, perhaps the next coolant will be something even more special than aurora.


Coming up, finishing the PSU sleeving. Modifying and installing the NZXT lighting kit, installing the false flooring, rebuilding the roof panel with a new fan and DVD drive

 

Wow this looks great, specially the purple heat sinks are awesome! you should get purple leds in that top fan. ( I think I saw some somewhere, not sure where or if they really were purple, might wanna look that up). Keep it up!

I've been looking, but I can't let it go:

The background in those pictures is epic. (not sure what kind of epic, but still pretty much so)

 

I like this one as well can't wait too see how this will look like.

 

Only purple I've ever come across has been UV. But i've now replaced the Antec Big Boy for a Bitfenix Spectre Pro, with White LEDs. gotta wire in a toggle switch for them, but it should work fine.

That's mostly my collection of Transformers figures, along with some other things, like Figma anime action figures, RC cars and assorted things. what you've not seen is the shelf of Gundams, the wall of Nerf guns, oh and the My Little Pony shelf

 

Wow,that fluid looks very cool and fits to the theme like a glove.

 

I was going to talk about things like modifying a NZXT LED lighting kit to have a longer power cable and then having to modify the sabertooth's thermal armor so it could actually fit....

But at the moment, the PC is in pieces and a hefty repair bill may be coming.

went and updated my graphics card drivers to the new nvidia 301.42 drivers to go along with my new Dell 24" monitor. but then my 560ti developed green artifacts, then would not load windows on rebooting (BSOD'ing with many things). tried uninstalling the 301 drivers and reinstalling the last 280 drivers that worked. still producing the same results.
went to replace my 560ti with another card, but the only thing to hand was my old gtx470. in the process of draining the loop, disconnecting the 560ti and reinstalling the 470. must have managed to turn loose one of the cpu block fittings. next thing i know on power, fluid's leaking out over the graphics card and into the motherboard.

a quick clean up, drying out period, and a mad scramble to refit air coolers. got the motherboard up and running again. tried the 560ti on the stock air cooler and still the same result. purchased a brand new 550ti and still the same fault. tried the 560ti on a friends PC. same symptoms (the 550ti works fine on his, and he's kept that now)
borrowed his old card, a radeon 4650 but that does not even display an output.

right now, i'm running on the 560ti, but with no graphics drivers installed (card is disabled in device manager) and i face a horrible future...

1: motherboard is damaged - will have to find a new p67 sabertooth motherboard and transfer over the modded shield and heatsinks. can't RMA as modded

2: 560ti is toast. have to find invoices and see if RMA can be honoured, either by scan (supplier) or EVGA (manufacturer) may be difficult as card was watercooled

3: motherboard AND 560ti are dead. much expense neccessary. may have to get cheaper parts which will not fit waterblocks or match theme of mod.



what a lovely birthday it's been

 

Bury the parts in a bowl of rice for 24 hours. It should dry out anything left. Afterwards, douse with alcohol to purge any pearl from the board, and let sit for a few hours (alcohol evaporates rather fast.) If, after that, you have issues, then you have a dead board/card.

 

Everything was looking so darn awesome too! happy birthday sorry it wasn't a very good one.