Scratch Build – In Progress WaterCube *Update 19/04/10*

I can't wait till the project looks like it's namesake.

 

I wish...the proper thing is a true work of art...

But this reminds me, I still need to come up with a better name for this project...

10/10 to Throbbi's wife for effort

 

Update 16

Alright, I’m back with promised update.

Lots of bits and pieces to show and tell…

Firstly, I’ve been doing a *lot* of work with cables…sleeving, modding, soldering etc etc. Most of it I did a while back so I apologise for the lack of pictures of work in progress, but I’m sure most of you know the deal anyway…the long hours sitting in the darkened room, cutting out lengths of sleeving and heatshrink…

Ok, my weapons of choice…



From left, Crimper, molex tool, wire cutter, needles (for those atx pins), heat gun, wire stripper. Btw, I heavily recommend the heat gun, it sprays out a nice jet of flame, far easier to direct for heatshrinking than a ligher. Cost a fiver at Maplin…great buy

And my various bits and pieces…



And my victim…



For the following picture, I don’t know how much painstaking effort it took to braid every single one of those 24 cables…but let me assure you, it was a lot…results aren’t bad though, pity there’s that bit where I burnt the heatshrink.



8 pin CPU power cable…

 

Gfx power…they look a bit shoddy here, but I’m sure they’ll be fine once I get them in the actual case…



Here’s a close-up…I didn't do single wire sleeving, partly because its so time consuming, but also because it takes up so much space, and space is something in pretty short supply in my case… you need a proper TJ07 to do the stuff that murdermods do…



And then there’s my hard drives…

The cage is done – the spare space is where my SSD would be (still waiting )



And now my custom cable. I’ve used the raptor there just to demonstrate how the cabling works…and the I’ve put the PSU where it would actually be in the case in relation to the HDDs





(The bit at the bottom is for my DVD drive)

 

That's right, there’s more…

I’ve got some shots of the case itself. I did the front drive bays. I’ve got a couple of Lian Li meshed bay cover with dust filters. DUST IS MY ENEMY. (almost as much as stripped threads…) Then theres obviously the fan cont and the DVD.



The stuff you can see on the left is just a bit of water, cos I’d just wiped it with a damp cloth…nothing dodgy

 

I also daisy-chained those new fans of mine. They have a really cool construction where the actual fan (ie motor and blades) is not actually rigidly fastened to the bit that's screwed onto the case. That means theres a really good sound dampening effect. Win.

Stripped down to the bare essentials, and those very very annoyingly thin wires stripped ready for soldering…



Ya’ll remember this thing?



Well, I got it from America, and stupidly forgot that it didn't take 240V, so it worked for 5 minutes, then I think something blew… I opened it up to see if I could fix it but didn't find anything…

So guess what? I sawed it in two…



I now use the bit on the right as a stand for my new soldering iron…



However, this useless little thing is only a measly 12W and so it takes years to melt the solder…

Anyway, I got there in the end…





Et voila…



There’s that unsightly bulge, but you won’t be able to see it anyway, and at least it works…I hope I couldn't be bothered to test it today…

One last thing…I did a bit of painting…

My second hand rad needed a lick of paint…



So Halfords to the rescue…



After 2 coats of primer…I will get on to sanding/painting tomorrow…

]

That's it for now guys, should keep you satisfied for a bit

Off to bed now…

 

A nice update, you have made some real progress, especially on the sleeving .

 

Update 17

I've got a little to report...I didn't spend as much time today on the project seeing as I've been neglecting my GCSE revision timetable a little over the past few days But seeing as my first exam is on the 14th of May, I thought it would probably be wise to do a little today...

But I got the rad painted. Not bad eh?



At least a far cry from the state of it before...



My new ek supreme mounting plate arrived today. *thank you WCUK* When I bought my ek supreme i7 hadnt even come out yet, so my old 775 mounting plate won't work anymore



I thought I'd give it a lick of paint...



While I was painting, I thought I might as well do the pci plate things (have no idea what they're called...) The ones off my GTX260 were very hard to get off, and I actually managed to break one of the tabs on one of them Dont think it should affect anything though...

After some primer...



I think I might go pick up some gloss white paint from Halfords sometime tomorrow and get them done. The whole black thing is getting a little monotonous...

 

And finally, I made the cable for the vandal switch. This thing was a nightmare. I decided to solder it to the ASUS Q-connector thing.



Problem was, I needed it to be able to fit through the mounting hole on the front of the case for the switch, otherwise I would'nt be able to put it into and remove it from the case. So I had to cut down the Q-connector and remove all the bits I wasnt going to use. The one on the left is the cut down one, with only the power switch and power led pins, for comparison, a normal one on the right.

After a lot of soldering and resoldering, I ended up with this



My modded Qconnector is probably the ugliest plug I've ever seen/made...I had to use a whole load of glue from a glue gun to make sure the soldered bits didnt come off/short circuit and that the pins didn't break...



Oh, and I thought I'd show you the heat gun in action...its like a proper heat gun, except half the size, and the fuel it uses is just a lighter. Shove one of those ordinary plastic lighters in it, and it turns it into a jet of flame...



Thats it for today, hopefully will have some more stuff tomorrow as well...

 

The radiator turned out very well, it looks a lot better then it did before lol.

 

great work

Looking really good, you are really making progress now, get on this I want to see how this is going to turn out!

 

Update 18

Been away for a couple of days, but got a decent update for you guys

FIrst off, I got my hands on some carbon fibre effect vinyl, and I went to town on those fans...





fan guards...



and I also decided to carbon fibre up the sb heatsink on the mobo...looks pretty good with thye white LEDs



Also, noticed this on my mobo...



Foxconn logo on an ASUS mobo?? whats up with that. lol

 

Uhh Foxconn pretty much make everything >.<

 

Now, for some watercooling...

Painted white for some CPU block prettiness...

 

Laing D5 (paintwork a little chipped, but won't be seen anyway, so whoulb b ok...)



I got the WC loop up and running, with a little help from my mum hehe. I've bleeded it and I think I have got rid of 99% of the air bubbles (quite a feat considering the opaque tubing. lol), and I'm happy with that...

 

Update 19

Ok, more stuff to show and tell...pics should speak for themselves mostly