Tribal-Li V1000B - Update - 03-12-04 - Finished Reservior

Well after a long year at uni I now have some free time to do one of my favourite past times . I bought a Lian-Li V1000B a few months back because I needed another computer so I could play games and do work on seperate from my servers.

The specs for this System are.
Gigabyte GA-7N400-Pro2
AMD AthlonXP 3200+
Leadtek WinFast A400 GT TDH (nVidia 6800GT)
1Gb Kingmax DDR500
Creative Audigy2 ZS
WD 36Gb SATA 10,000rpm HDD

I've decided to go for a Tribal theme to match in sort of with my Lian-Li PC70 file server which was modded a while back. Also due to the fact I think case windows have been done a bit to often I've decided not to make a side window so I came up with the following design.Organized all my tools which consisted of a Drill, Micro-belt Sander, Pencil Jigsaw and various files. And printed out a template and traced the design onto both side panels. Drilled a few holes at every sharp point in the design so cutting with the Pencil Jigsaw would be easier. The set about with the (what I though would be) a long and tedious process of cutting out the design due to the small and fiddly nature of the design but ended up taking me less than an hour to cut out the complete design from one panel (I'll do the other one later tomorrow). Did a little bit of filing which I'll also finish off later.


One fully cut panel looks pretty good so far.


Due to my need to actually use the system I'm creating to design the case and internal watercooling layout it's currently housed in this great looking beige tower with the water cooling hanging out the side. For some reason it's running at around 50C at idle with a room temp of 30 odd degree's which I have no idea why but my athlon64 (The Lian-Li Sitting next to the beige monstrousity) is running at 37 degrees at idle which with the power cutting function of the athlon64 is awfully warm so maybe it's just the ambient temperature that's causing those temps. There's also a quick sketch layout of the water cooling setup for the case.


Things I'm Still planning.
- The side panel cutouts are going to be backed with a silver diamond mesh
which I think will go quite nicely with the black case.
- Anodise the Side panels - Due to the cutting there are a few scratches on
the side panels so I want to clean them up and also clean up the cut
edges
- Create a CD-ROM bay reservior similar to the ones by innavotek - This is
due to the fact I can't find anyone in australia who sells any of theis
products or anything similar so I'm going to machine up something.

Also does any one know of any good anodising tutorials on the net cause I'm looking for one but can't seem to find a simple and easy to follow one.

Please feel free to add any comments or idea's and I've also added some finished pictures of my HTPC from before.

 

Sweet case panel! Looking good, so keep it up!

 

Good tribal design, did it your selve

 

Your another PC looks great, and this one 2.

 

awesome job on the side panel mate

 

Minor Update 25/11/2004

Well I've been busy for the last few day's with other projects such as learning PHP and mysql to build a website for work so I haven't managed to get much done.
So far I've removed one of the HDD rack (Without damaging it, I'm sure it'll be useful somewhere else) and positioned all the water cooling elements to get an idea of what fittings I'll be needing and if it will all fit which it does.

I'm going to mount the radiator and fan in the same position probably using the same bracket as the original 120mm fan which will save me some work hopefully. And all that work is making My work area a bit of a mess. Probably should clean up a bit one day.


I've also designed how my reservior is going to look. The light blue/green see through area's will be made from perspex and the black is the case material itself and the grey pins will be socket head bolts.


Well I'm going to go to town and get a few fittings and then I'm going to sand and paint the radiator black and also the pump. I've also decided that cause the pump heats up a bit and has a nice flat rear face I might polish it up and mount a heatsink on it to aid in cooling and hopefully extend the life of the unit.

 

wow very nice job on the side panel.

 

Great window design dude, you drew that yourself?

 

Yes I did design it my self I did have a look around on the net for a while but din't find many that I could use so I ended up borrowing bits from other designs and made up that one.

 

I really like how you're planning to do the res there. Definately awesome work with the side panel there - I wish my skills were that good!

 

Update Time - 29/11/2004 - Resevior

Well I've done a bit of work so time for an update. Some of the photo's are a bit blurry. For some reason the camera had problems trying to focus on what I was trying to take a picture of.

Well I started with sanding and polishing the radiator and pump housing and painted them with a black automotive paint and they came out quite nice. They are very similar black to the case just glossier due to the gloss paint but that's not really a problems. I decided not to paint the radiator fins as I though ay more paint will hinder the efficiency of the radiator and you won't see it with the fan on one side and the dust grill on the other.


I started work on the reservior and machined a hole in one end of a cyllindrical reservior I had then I machined up a end cap out of a piece of 5mm perspex I had spare (took a few attempts cause I shattered the first one)


Then using one of the old housings from the musketeers I used in my HTPC mod and a piece of aluminium plate I made up a bracket to hold the reservior in the CD-ROM bay's. It's not finished yet as I still have to file it into shape, sand and paint it and finish it but it looks good so far.

One with the reservior in place.


And thats about it for now. Also I've decided to cheat with the second side panel and get it laser cut it took to long to cut and file the first panel. And i've also decide to sandblast all the edges of the cutouts to get a nice smooth round edge then i'll get them anodised somewhere so they are black again.

 

Update 03-12-04 - Finished Reservior

Well here we go.

I removed the tape from the side panel I've completed it looks pretty sweet (cept for the shakyness of the photo I don't like this camera much of my brothers but it's all I got for now). Finished painting the reservior mounting bracket it looks very black in this photo. (bit glossy but I'll see if I like it when it's finished)


Also mounted the radiator and pump in position and bolted them in place. The bracket that was originally holding the fan in the front of the case wasn't quite right to accomadate the radiator so I had to modify it and lower it down so the radiator wasn't jammed against the top (it still touches now but only just). And also done a bit of cable sleaving to clean up the cables that are in the case already.


I found a roll of green felt contact in my cupboard so I decided to aid in noise retardation to use a bit on the base of the pump before bolting it down. Also I tested the reservior mounting in the case and it fits very nicely in positionstill a little glossy but we'll see when the reservior in bolted on.


I then put the reservior together (bit of silicone grease between all the faces to stop leaks) and put it in the case. It looks good the glossyness actually helps feature the unit so I think I'll leave it glossy.


Well that's it for this update. I'm still looking for hose fittings so I can complete the water cooling circuit and put the hardware in place but it's actually proving hard to find the right fittings and not just plain barbed fittings and clamps (which work fine but don't look that good). I'm also getting a AerocoolGatewatch LCD Unit from PC Case Gear to monitor everything including the water temp, radiator fan speeds, Graphics card temp, CPU temp, etc.

Well until next time.

 

nice work, i love all these v1000 modded cases. what kind of res is that? a BIX? and what kind of pump?

 

looking sweet mate, but the cuts on the side panel look a lil sharp if you know what i mean, did you get the grinding bit to em after to soften the edges a lil.

might just be the photo tho.

very sweet looking case tho

 

Wow coming off nicely... good work

 

Thankyou.
No I haven't softened the edges yet but I plan to sandblast them when i finishe both side so that will smooth them out a bit.
The res is made up by me using some generic perspex res that I also got from PC Case Gear and the Pump is a Swiftec pump Similar to this one It actually has a proper impelar opposed to the usual star shaped fan most pond pums have that I've seen.
Any way I'm off to perth to drop someone off at the airport today and while I'm up there I'll hunt down some hse fitting so I can put the water cooling together.

Cheers
Alex

 

what exactly did you do to get the rad to fit as i am going to be doing the same thing as you very soon and would like to know exactly what mods u did to make it fit!

Phil

 

Nothing major just removed the Bracket and changed the thumbscrews to actual nuts and bolts and lowered the holes so it had clearance aboe the radiator other that that it fitted fine

 

Well I spoke to my mother today and she's taken the side panels to the laser cutter for cutting so hopefully by the time I get back to WA (I'm in melbourne, VIC at the moment which is a 4 hour flight away for those who don't know) the panels will be finished so I can put the mesh behind them and finish them. I was also speaking the the guy whose doing the laser cutting and apparently he can get fairly detailed images on his laser cutter so I'm thinking about engraving a piece of perspex to fit on the top of the case with an image of some sort. I'm not sure what design I'll do yet but if anyone has any idea's or suggestion I'll take good consideration of them.

Cheers
Alex Ynema

 

get that engraved, that'd be SICK
btw, good mod, subscribing ^^