Build log - Pelican

This is mainly a build log, since the project is all but done, and I didn't stop to take pictures of the boring old "look I drilled some holes!"

My main gaming rig was still rockin' an H67 mobo with a 2500K and milking a 480GTX overclocked on watercooling.

I was ready for a new set of gaming stuff!

I knew I didn't want to give up the portability of my Gunnar case with sliding Radiators, but a rolling case would offer a bit easier transport.

So, after some planning:




http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v160/Dgephri/pelican pc/Pelican-01.mp4

I knew that my CPU and GPU were cooled more than adequately by my dual 140mm Radiators...Keeping them.

I knew my 2500K had never been overclocked due to the limitations on H67 ITX motherboards. If I got a Z77 ITX I could get some more headroom out of that...Keeping that.

I knew my Corsair 2X8Gig RAM would have headroom to go in the Z77 and not hold back on a decent overclock...Keeping that as well.

The remainder? Old, cut, bent, dusty, tired...maybe clean it up and turn that into a backup Gaming rig for my GF.



What new stuff you ask?

Z77 Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z77N-WIFI - while limited by voltage options in OC, it still reaches 4GHz and features full audio and dual NICs plus Wifi/BT and other stuff. ITX package with ATX features IMO.

I have several DD blocks laying around that can cool this effectively.

Titan - 6Gb, fast, fast, and some fast. I didn't want to give up interior space to a 13"+ GPU, and multiGPUs tend to have issues with mATX and ITX boards in my experience. At 10.5" the Titan is the same

size as my aging 480GTx and a huge increase in capability. My 3D planning revealed a clearance issue with any GPU block that had Barbs up on the top ready for SLI. I had to find something with barbs only

coming out the Die side of the GPU, nothing over the top. Turns out, EK had a CSQ block for the Titan in the works: http://www.ekwb.com/shop/ek-fc-titan-nickel-original-csq.html

Stuff was ordered, waited, other stuff had to be manufactured, then ordered, blah blah, blah-bitty blah (Giggitty) and so on.

I made Carbon Fiber sheets:

and I cut them into shapes.

So, as of Friday, I fit, I formed, I drilled, I filed, I taped over marks, I used a drill press, a band saw, a scroll saw and my trusty rotary motor with cutting bits. I used 8/32 taps, a countersink bit,

bought a bunch of black socket head bolts, nylon lock nuts, rubber washers, and even some 1/2"X1" L-aluminum.

I then started running power lines, backplane cables, PCIe cords, SATA, and the like. After many hours of mind-numbing layout trials I am ready to show the process of assembly as it occured after deciding

what had failed in design and what needed to work before I could fill up the watercooling.

Here goes:

Here is most everything I could fit into view for the first major structur and electronics that needed mounting first.


The aluminum bar (t-Slot by Lubic) is mounted, sitting on rubber washers and tightened with Black Nylong Lock nuts. The Counter suck screws sit flush underneath and I just tighten them with my giant hex

wrench.


followed by the motherboard stand off screws in a similary Countersunk up to nylon lock nut arrangement. Instead of putting screws DOWN through the motherboard, I have bolts sticking up and I put a NUT on

to hold the motherboard in place.


but before I place the mobo, I put the PSU bracket and brace down since so many things need to sit under that. Easier to place the brackets before I have a handful of cords in my way.


Setting the PSU in place before the mobo is another crucial element of getting everything to go in and avoid tangles...just wait a bit and you will see.


Ahhh...see? The backplane of the motherboard is entirely trapped inside the case! Everything I want to run out has to be plugged in and accounted for before I can even put the watercooling in. Fun right?

That bundle includes the audio for my 5.1 headset, two LAN cables, and soon, the DVI. You can also see the watercooling tray "bottom up" after I made room on the table.


The Titan sporting an EK CSQ in Nickel finish. You might notice I had to tuck a 90degree DVI cable onto it. That cable also snakes under the PSU before I can install the Watercooling tray.


A bit fuzzy, but that cable and black box is a USB 3.0 drive bay device that will come back into some Modding later. I just needed it plugged in so I can connect external devices.

With the Titan installed it's finally time for some GPU love shots:




It starts to show how tightly packed it all is...I had to shave the back of the DVI cable, remove the mounting bolts (like it can move now) and then cut the stress boots on all my Audio cables so they could

lay flatter. I also had to hunt up two DIFFERENT 90degree LAN cables since two 90 degrees would have pressed on each other and created a potential problem later on.



That brings up to late last night. I am nearly ready to set the watercooling tray in place, bolt it down, and finish tubing with zip tie back ups. I don't really have room for Compression fittings since

nearly everything is close fit with just barbs and tubing diameters!

More photos as that occurs in the next two days. I plan to be filling the waterlines and leak testing tonight.

oh, and I forgot!

Why is this called "Pelican?"

Because it's all going into one of these:

After seeing how badly Photobucket changed their linking method (it has been a while since I use the Thumbnail method) I reverted to full image code.

Sorry to those whose were kind enough to suffer through all the windows opening with Photobucket garbage



Last night I finished my tubing, and got my zip ties on.






After that I stuck my drives onto the bottom deck, and tested that it all still fit in the Pelican:



WOOOOT!

Then I got my fluid and started filling in a slow process of "pump on, whoosh, pump off" repeat. A small convoluted loop like this takes a LONG time to get the fluid around.

I can see at my clear T-line that I still have good flow but as of this morning I finally hit about half the bottle of fluid and the pump is just now starting to quiet down like it should.

I like it! The portability and the overall power of it are impressive.

thx! I finally got my bubbles settled out of the pump, drug my monitor, KB, Mouse, and external Optical out to install OS.

Temps stable, looking at desktop usage core temps around 85-90F and GPU at 77F.

I will start installing games and Steam shortly and watch temps as I run games and play with detail settings.

So far so good, no alarms or buzzers going off yet!

I want to see if I can build an ATX suitcase setup in the same vein.

except for multi-GPU options there isn't much I need off a full sized ATX, so I wanted something small

Well, I have an ATX setup with a low-budget. haha

testing some games and the only thing NOT working right is WEI: it crashes about halfway through. I will get around to Steam games and running Tomb Raider and some newer games to see if I can stress the Titan or my PSU enough to replicate the WEI crash.

Otherwise, all is good so far.

How heavy is the whole rig?

I haven't put it all "together" with the pelican except to be sure it fit...trying to get the power issue resolved: something caused it to blackout a couple times during GuildGame Night much like WEI was crashing.

I put my Kill-a-watt on it and at 400W +/- load in WEI it trips off. Not sure if the PSU mod tweaked power levels or if the PSU was bad out of the box. Hopefully I can figure that last bit out this weekend then move on to installation and the Pelican LCD/Lid work.

What??? Pelican LCD?? So I'm guessing this means you're gonna remove waterproof capability? Or do you have a waterproof LCD?

The LCD won't be INTEGRATED so much as ATTTACHABLE when in use.

I am going to bond another CF/Kevlar sheet to the interior of the lid and bolt a double-joing LCD arm to it with a Quick-Release VESA plate on it.

Step 1: roll into LAN
Step 2: open lid
Step 3: extend LCD arm
Step 4: latch LCD onto LCD arm
Step 5: LAN

In between each step there are various cables and plugs, but that is pretty much how it will go.

There will be more to show...but now that I have cleared up my PSU/shutdown issue I can await a replacement and then move forward with other work.

got my replacement PSU from the kind folks at Thermaltake.

Instead of the EVOBLUE 2.0 they sent a Grand Platinum 700W!

Upside: 93% efficiency at my expected load
Downside: White!

PSU task list:
1. paint shell either black or candy apple red to tie in with CF/Kevlar
2. cut off all white sleeving
3. decided if I need any sleeving at all - I have to fish wires into some pretty cramped spaces and 3-4 cables without sleeves are quite a bit easier to feed than the same all sleeved and bulked up.
4. reinstall and tidy up so I can progress onto the CF/Kevlar top deck layout and cutting.

Pelican task list:
1. layout CF/Kevlar top deck opening for radiator airways, PSU airways, and cable bundle. I have a plan for a clever USB plate to mount on the LCD as well.
2. devise mounting method
3. layout CF/Kevlar lining for the lid to hold the LCD swing arm


The system itself is running nicely on my OLD PSU and passes Furmark and gaming tests with only about 8C temp climb in Furmark at 99% load.

got the new ThermalTake Toughpower Grand Platinum 700W installed for a trial run!

It's white and I'm not sure I want to paint it.

It's a bit bigger than the EVOBlue 2.0 was, but my placement still have enough to accomodate that.

The fan doesn't spin! At least, not until it hits 40% load or so. Alarming at first, but a nice feature to know it's designed that way on purpose.

Some more stresstesting to do, and then put it into the Pelican to start on my CF/Kevlar decks but quite happy and grateful to Thermaltake for the support.

mind explaining your process for making carbon fiber as good looking as yours? nice job btw

Thanks for the compliment, I am lucky and glad it went well!

I had never done Fiberglass or CF work before, but I have a chum who does Aerospace stuff and manufacturing and he helped direct me a little.

A.) all CF layers is way more expensive than Fiber for thickness and CF for rigidity and looks
B.) use a good quality resin not just anything you can get your hands on (he recommended West systems)
C.) don't over do the resin volume since more isn't really better unless you want that deep varnish/poly coat - I like the "Waffle" look of the CF I got.

My layers are built up thusly:
1.) bottom sheet of thin woven Roving, lightweight stuff, mixed up a couple ounces of resin and made sure it was saturated before #2...
2.) next sheet is a thicker bulk mat impregnated with MicroBalloons for Strength and rigidity on mulitple axis (CoreMat is the brand my store had). Since the CoreMat tends to soak up a lot, I work the resin quite a while. I get this time by using the slower cure stuff (206 from West IIRC). Those handheld squeegee spreaders allow some down pressure but flex to stop distorting the fabric too much if you are patient. This usually left me with some areas in the CoreMat that didn't quite get enough resin.
3.) When the CoreMat looks/feels like it's taken in nearly enough resin I put another layer of thin woven Roving on top of it. I mix up a small batch and spread it around.
4.) I used a folding plastic table covered in adhesive backed floor protector film like they use to cover carpet when painting inside homes. This became my pressure plate and I set 4 folding metal chairs on it for weight. 50-60lbs of weight isn't as good as proper vacuum work, but it turned out decent IMO.

The result was a 3 layer fiber panel that was about as stiff as thin aluminum plate.

5.) after a good full day curing I could then mix another batch of resin and lay down my CF/Kevlar fabric. I intentially UNDERMIXED this in volume a couple ounces at a time. I wanted it a little dry to keep the "waffle" and I would work the resin out to the edges a little at a time. This usually took 2-3 small batches of resin. The CF struck me as very sensitive to distortion so this was a really slow squeegee process using very light drag pressure: maybe 30-45 minutes and then another night curing with the table and chairs keeping it flat.

I ended up with two large CF/Kevlar panels 24"W X 36"L with some dry edges I had to trim off. I knew my target Deck size was 22X11 so I potentially have enough to make two more sets of my needed size.

Using a small drill press, small band saw, and my scroll saw I can mark out and cut almost any shape much like using Acrylic sheets. I think this stuff is stiffer then 1/4" acrylic, and stronger than 3/8" acrylic, probably a good deal lighter as well. Someone with a lot of experience in Carbon Fiber can do much better, but I hadn't ever used the material before so wanted to have a go at it.

over the weekend I hunkered down and worked towards getting the final top deck done:

1. Cardboard test layout -


2. then layout on my tape with sharpie using t-square


3. some scroll saw work


4. and on to cutting the intake airway


I have quite a bit of smoothing and straightening to do...the scroll saw tends to wander due to lack of expertise, and the CF/Kevlar weave seems to cut differently depending on which axis I am cutting on.

I haven't yet decided if I want to cover the fan opening with some fine Stainless Steel mesh, or some dense hex, or what.

I first thought of painting the PSU red, but not so sure about that right now.

Filing, sanding, smooth, micrometer to check for edge alignment, and then I get to work on the panel to go in the lid and hold the LCD mount arm!