Geared Up

[grumblemarc]

I've been working on this case for the past few months. I have a continuing thread going in other forums but just thought I'd drop in here and share. I pretty much just copied the log over so time references will of course be off.

My subject is everyone's fav. The Lian Li PC V1000B. With the
likes of Black Narciscus and all the other Li's out there implementing
all the good ideas (just as I seem to think of them) I'm having a
hard time trying to come up with alternate ones. Heck, for some things I won't.

Here are the obligatory shots of the case stock (courtesy of Newegg).

I saw a bezel on a case mod at MNPCTech but they weren't then available for resale.
Getting frustrated and having no work area (living in an
apartment at the time) or tools, I needed a mod made
for me. Well. After working with Chris at Customwatercuts
I finally came up with a design for the side of my Lian Li PC-V10000B
case.

This

and this,

along with quite a few drawings containing necessary measurements,
is what I gave Chris to work with. I mocked these up using
Adobe Illustrator (didn't know about sketchup at the time. Anyone that
wants to do me a paid favor and mock these up?).

Chris kept in contact with me at all times. Even when we kind of
got sidetracked due to the holidays and my wife and I buying a
new house so progress was slow but Making many changes and
modifications we came up with the following.

Front^^^

Back angle^^^

Another angled view^^^

And the final CAD drawing he sent me.^^^

After getting a quote I received my aluminum rings. Didn't turn
out too bad. I'm pretty satisfied with the results. May try
laser cutting for a future project for comparison.

Anyways, here are some pics.

^^^
On the side panel which has yet to be cut to mount the rings and plexi.
The rings need to be polished up. Gotta buy a dremel with a polishing
wheel. Tried hand polishing and got fed up.

Angled view of the rings.^^^
You can see where the water/abrasive kind of "marred" the surface
on it's way out the other side while it was cutting. Polishing
should clean that right up.

120mm Evercool blue LED fan test fitted to the fan bezel.^^^
2 of these will be mountd on top of a piece of plexi to the top
of the case. Lighted BLOWHOLES!

My custom (made by me) 120mm & 92mm fan grills.^^^

Custom 80mm fan grill mounted in my Beantech enclosure. (.5tb!!)^^^

Closeup of the 120mm grill.^^^ The 92mm got mounted to my...

...XP90!^^^ How do you mount a 92mm Evercool blue LED fan to a
Thermalright XP90?
(Note the 120mm mounted to a Tweakmonster "fan holder".)

THIS is how.^^^ I took a 92mm fan I ripped from a dead PSU and
clipped the fan elements from the frame. I attached that to
the LED fan which made it possible to mount it to the XP90.

When I had some (rare) free time I decided to cut and mount
the case window after buying a dremel. Turned out alright
but my dremel skills need work. The rough (very rough)
opening needs filing to get even but overall not bad.

Side panel masked off, holes marked off and drilling commenced.^^^

Window/fan bezel ready for test fit.^^^

Hole cut and bezels mounted to case.^^^

Close-up. Note the rough cut of the hole.^^^
Couldn't wait a day for the hole cutter attachment
that I could've used. I didn't plan it but the
rings in the center seem suspended in mid air.

Even closer-up close up. Rings need polishing BAD!^^^

Wide shot (can you tell I used to work in video?).^^^
I plan on using the "dials" from a Coolermaster Musketeer
to mount to the case panel when I get more free time. The
opposite panel will get rings of it's own but will be installed totally
different. The problem with this case is that the side where
you would see the window on a mormal case is now just dead
space. Not on MY case. Possibly I can get this done later
this weekend if I budget my time correctly. Dual 120mm blowholes
get installed in the top when I can make sure the holes can get cut
perfectly. Add black mirrored plexi and it should be bangin'.

Bolted the other set of rings to the other panel. :dremel: (Pardon my
lack of pics this go round but my camera just ate all the batteries.)
I left it a little elevated (will have pics soon ) for the other part of the mod-GLO-WIRE!
I planned to illuminate the entire ring with blue EL wire but the
light the wire threw off was so pitiful that you couldn't even see it
in an unlit room. I thought it should of been much brighter than it was.
Boy was I disgusted. :eyebrow: :waah: :wallbash: I guess I have to break out the pack of LEDs I
bought some time ago. I was even thinking of using an 8" Luminglass
as it was my original plan. I found out that they might require a bit more
mounting depth (5") than I have. I may get one anyways just to tear it apart.

Camera's back in action.

This is what the glo-wire looks like in broad daylight.^^^
Pitiful. :duh: :sigh:

You would think in a pitch black room it would get better. :eyebrow: ^^^
It doesn't. I should of known since I never see anyone use this stuff
in any of their mods.

And with some camera trickery this is the effect I'm trying to get. :clap:^^^

Oh well. 8" Luminglas on the way!

Well I found this...

..while unpacking a minute ago. I forgot I had these. It's the
perfect size for what I have in mind. Problem. I'm about to
splice a molex onto the end as it was suppose to be installed
in a car. Since it's 12V should I have anything to worry about?
I'm totally clueless past red=power, black=ground. It has its own
inverter. If I installed this in the ride all I would have to do would
be to plug it up. I'm assuming the same would hold true for another
12V source.

It works!!!!!

Fitted the neon ring to the gears and it fit like a glove.
I had to remove the outside plastic cover to slide one ring
into place. Spliced a molex connector in place on the end of it,
plugged it up to the Noise Isolator, crossed my fingers and BAM!
The effect was exactly what I was looking for.

Judge for yourself.

The problem is that the neon is actually purple but
seems to want to show up blue in the pics. Just waiting
the blue rings to show up now.

Okay. Got the left side panel mounted with the neon ring
temporarily. Fits like a glove.

Here's what it looks like with no power.^^^
(Pardon the dead HDD on top).

Here's in a dimly lit room.^^^

Another angle.^^^

To get the panel back on the case I had to deal with...

the rat's nest that is my cable management fiasco.^^^
I love the floating hard drive but since I have almost every single
wire routed through this area I cannot get the panel back on.

Mainly because of this ledge.^^^
It has to go.

Masked the area off.^^^

And with the aid of my trusty Dremel, no more ledge.^^^
Please forgive the lack of quality images at this point.
I'm operating on very little sleep right now.

I drilled holes in the panel to route the neon ring's power cables
and stuffed the extra wire and it's inverter in the unused hard
drive section. Even with the ledge gone it was still hard to remount the
panel. The ATX power cable is just too thick. I'll solve
this problem with the interior mods that deal with cable management.
If I can get my hands on another SATA drive I can be rid of the
thick rounded cable as well. The other 2 drives in the system are already
SATA. I may mount the other SATA drive on the other side like it's
flaoting counterpart and relocate the primary PATA drive in a 5.25" bay.

^^^And here is the unmodded front of the case with the top
masked off in prep for the blowholes that may get cut this weekend.
I can't do too much more until more parts get here but I thought
I'd fill you guys in. There's a lot of mirrored black plexi that is planned
for this mod I just haven't even gotten to that stage of it yet.

Got the 6" mulitcolor luminglas in yesterday and immediately ripped it apart.
This is what it's supposed to llok like all lit up.

And After I ripped it to shreds.

There are 2 main components.

The Luminglas itself...^^^

...and the component that feeds it power.

I snipped the wire that connected the 2 and plan on extending them
so that I can place the electronics inside the case. The glass will be held
to the perforated mesh by the 4 mounting screws/holes in the back plate of the glass.

My plan was to cut the top blowholes tonight after the wife went to work
but I may deviate from that plan to finish planning how to route all the wires.

My big question is this: The Luminglas came with a 12v AC adapter. If I
spliced a molex onto it would I be able to power the glass from the PSU?
The info off the adapter reads as follows.

Input: 120v AC 60hz 6.4w
Output: 12v AC 500mA
(class 2 power supply).

Any help in the electronics department will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks to all that are keeping up with the project as it keeps me going as well.

Had these snapped off last night but was dead tired.
I had to reshoot them becasue I didn't notice my Crystalfontz
display wasn't actually displaying. :wallbash: I didn't take any
step-by-step pictures because it's a couple of blowholes.
And how many different ways does one need to see a blowholw
cut? :sigh: So here are pics of the dual 120mm blowholes
in all their glory.

Front view with new additions on top^^^
The blue fan controller will be swapped out with a black one.

Side shot showing how purple the neon ring actually is.^^^
Don't worry. Just waiting for the blue ones to show up so I
can swap it out and mount the Luminglas at the same time.

Closeup.^^^
For some reason the rear fan lights up brighter than the
front one. I'm hoping it's because I have it running right
off the PSU and haven't connected it to the fan controller.

And another closeup.^^^

And another.^^^

And another.^^^

And yet another!^^^

I have some small gears on the way to accent the empty
areas of the panel and a bunch of black mirrored plexi to
cut and install to finish off the top and the sides. Then I'll
move on to the front and finally the interior-not necessarily
in that order.

I have a plan to use the black mirrored plexi
(or maybe just plain black plexi) to "clad" the side
panels with. Still waiting for the blue neon rings
to get here to finish off the Lumin-mod.

Here's a design I Photoshopped that both I and
the spouse agree upon.

I plan on possibly even getting this laser cut (if
anyone knows a good place here in the states)
and backlit to illuminate the logo.

Well. Still waiting for the parts to get here to complete the Luminglas and neon ring mods. So while I was waiting I thought I'd do a little housekeeping and rearranging of stuffs. Pardon for the lack of in-progress pictures but this was a pain in the neck and highly chaotic ordeal.

First and easiest was...

...the installation of the vandal switch and the new HDD LED.^^^
Pretty straight forward. Nothing you haven't seen a million times.

The next thing was to install the top mounted 3.5" Noise Isolator
fan controller.

One view.^^^

and another.^^^

And a couple more.^^^

And and overall shot.^^^
You can see where I tried to tidy up the wiring mess I had
going on.

If you look closely you can see I removed one of the HDD cages.^^^
Why I didn't remove both of them I'm still trying to figure out.
Especially since I relocated the 3 HDD's to...

...this location.^^^

I took a drive cage out of an old Antec/Cheiftec/Chenming Dragon
case and shoved the drives in it. It's a real cramped fit where
they live now. I have to find a way to keep them cool in this
location. No airflow there.

And here she is back on her desk.^^^

 

[grumblemarc]

Well I'm STILL waiting on the neon rings to get here.
So in the mad dash to try to keep this project on the front
page I decided to get to other things. I'm really getting
anxious about the neon rings getting here so in the
meantime I went ahead and ordered a couple of these.

Radio neon accent lighting tubes.^^^

Here's what it looks like installed in your car.^^^
No I don't have any installed in mine.

Ripping it out of the package and promptly cutting
wire to pieces you get this.^^^

I chucked the cigarette lighter and spliced a molex
connector onto the end of it (which of course you don't
see because I'm always in too much of a rush to take
more pics). I opened up the casing for the electronics
to see if maybe the sound activated components and the
inverter might be seperate but no such luck. I left the
thing in the "FULL" and the "MAX" positions and the whole
thing gets stuffed into the bottom of the case for now.^^^

Here's where I installed it.^^^
These are cool because, they run on 12V, install with
double sided tape so no cutting into the case is necessary,
they're covered with smoke tinted acrylic so the lighting
effect isn't so bright and the wire was the PERFECT size
to route through one of the tiny holes in the case front.

Now I said I bought 2 of these. The other one?

Is DEAD!!! Thank GOD it only cost a few bucks. So I ordered
a couple more. The 2nd one was/is going to go in the spot just
above the front USB ports and the case badge. That's it for now.
Going to do some cardboard mock-ups of the inner cases
acrylic pieces I plan on installing.

Well I just got an email stating that my Luminglas was
on backorder and will ship out later next week. :wallbash:
It's really starting to get annoying.

Meanwhile my neons finally got here and I got them all
wired up and mounted.

It finally balances out the front's top and bottom.^^^
I think I'll keep them there for now.

So what do I do until the 'glas gets here?
I have to plan a way to mount this...

...in this location.

It's a 4" LCD (formally optional now standard equipment)
that I got off a member of another forum I frequent.
I powered it up, hooked it up to the S-video out on my 9800
and it works excellent (pics later). The resolution is very
low on it but for what I have mind it's perfect.

The problem with the mounting is going to be the depth
of the LCD. With the PCB attached it's nearly 1 1/4"
(apx. 30mm) deep. Half that with the 2 seperated which
may give me the option of remote mounting the PCB in
another location IF I dare to extend the wires in the
ribbon cable. I may even swap locations with the
Crystalfontz LCD since it's mounting depth is much less.
I would LOVE to have a graphical LCD instead but the
Crystalfontz has to stay if I want to keep the wife
speaking to me.

I'll have more pics of the LCD up later. I'm shopping for
a Nikon D70/D100 so I can take better pics. I'm stuck with
the wifes 2.3 megapixel Canon for now. I use the D100
at work and it's a must have item. If I can wait a few
months that could be my NEW birthday present.

As I look out on the horizon I see no Luminglas in sight.

SO. What to do until I have to turn my attention to the
interior of the case?

I nixed the idea of trying to integrate another LCD into the
project at the last second. I have an old Antec case I'll save
it for.

I did however come up with a preliminary design for the
case front plexiglass treatment (nothing new there).

I've not decided whether or not to mount it using bolts or
plain old double sided tape. The thing being that I don't want
to to take a chance and destroying any part of the case that
isn't easily replacable or readily visible.

In this design I'll eliminate the CD stealth bezel as it dosen't
lend itself to integration into anyone's mod scheme of this make
of case at all. It's pretty close to where I want it to be but
I'll probably round out the corners to match the rounded
corners of the case.

Also in this initial design I've tried to integrate the gear
theme into it. I won a bunch of smaller gears off of an eBay
auction for cheap in the hopes that I might be able to use
one or more of them in the desgin as maybe a "sculpture" of
sorts but it did not pan out.

Hopefully time and the wife will permit me to attempt to cut this
out of some black plexi. The black mirrored stuff I decided not
to use as when the back mirrored stuff was scratched even
minutely it would be VERY evident on the front of the piece. It
sucks to work on something so long and find out it's totally
un-useable.

If the missing 'glas doesn't turn up I'll then turn my attention
to the polishing of the large gear rings since they are the
centerpiece of this project.

After that it'll be the side panel cladding and the exterior is done.
I had a devil of a time finding aluminum panels to exactly match
the Lian Li's. The next best thing? Use spare panels from the
same make of case! I couldn't find them anywhere so I emailed the
good people here in the states at Performance PCs.
I shop a lot with them and they didn't have any listed on the website
but put some up for sale right away simply because they had some
lying around! I love these guys!

Well. After almost month of waiting for the 'glas to get here it arrives on my doorstep totally unannounced. I rip it out of the packaging only to find out IT'S GREEN! Good thing I've got the multicolor one to fall back on as it has SOME blue in it. Hopefully this weekend I can get it mounted.

Okay. Having a dilemma to work through with the 'glas I decided to
concentrate my energies elsewhere. Thus I turn my attention
to the inside of the case. I came up with this.

It's my wiring solution. Instead of trying to hide all the wires
I'll have them in plain sight.

This piece was cut from a piece of black mirrored acrylic. The
hardware was purchased for FrozenCPU.

I still have to make my own set of molex extensions,
sleeve thmn black, and route the wires to the other end
of the tubing and cap them off with another molex connector.
This one will go on the slanted area inside the case after
some holes are drilled to accomodate it. I am working on
other pieces of acrylic to help accent the interior of this mod.

Any questions let me know.

Had a small setback this weekend. Didn't do any of the
interior mods I had planned to as I caught a nasty bug.
As such I only have a small update.

I finally got around to swapping out the purple neon ring
for a blue one. I had hoped to get the Luminglas mounted
at the same time to save a lot of work (unscrewing all those
bolts and acorn nuts.

Here's what it looks like now.

See? No big deal.

But speaking of setbacks. I got home Friday night to find out
that my generic 19" LCD's backlight had given up the ghost.
I was so disgusted because I was back down to the old 17" LCD
I was also running right beside it. I leave a message with the wife
who was still at work. Well Saturday morning when the wife gets
home I have waiting for me one of these.

Not only that it came with a twin! So I have 2 brand new 19"
monitors to run on the 6600GT that I got earlier im the week.

Here they are on my junked up computer table.

Not too bad.

Okey dokey. I finally (I think) got all the stuff I need to put together the WC portion of this mod.

This is pretty much everything.^^^^

First up. AC's Aquatube with installed Aquajet mounted to an Aquabay.
When I first got his I just sat and looked at it for about an hour.
The craftsmanship of this stuff is incredible. The sucky thing about it
is that when I ordered the Aquabay it didn't have an option for
faceplate color choice so I had to order the black faceplate
seperately. It was kind of a pain to mount the faceplate too as the
screws are so small. Lot's of harsh language during the install.

I ordered this 12v Innovatek version of the 1048 not realizing
it was going to be a bit too big to fit on the Aquabay. I mean
it will fit BUT just barely. I'll be mounting this to the floor of the
case instead.

Not the Innovatek rad I thought I ordered. When I placed the order
FrozenCPU was out of stock and substituted this Dangerden one. The
only reason I know that is because I received a voice mail on my cell
about it the day AFTER I actually got it. The voice mail was obviously
left by the guys at FCPU when they got my order but my cell service
sucks and I got it late. The compression fittings are the same size as
the Innovatek one and the message, and what I've read, states it has
the same specs.

Ordered this for the 6800 ultra that I don't own (yet). Got it from
HighspeedPC as a bargain bin item that was lightly used. When I got it
I swear that it looked brand new to me. Plus I got it at a huge discount.
I was going to get the AC unit but I couldn't pass up the so-low price
tag this one had on it. I don't know whay no one snatched it up before
I saw it.

Now THIS caused my jaw to almost hit the
floor when I opened the box. It is NIIIIICE. You see here that I've
refitted it with 8x1mm compression fittings to keep the theme. I've held
this thing in my hands for 2 days just staring at it. It is a substantial piece
of work. NOW I undertand what the fuss is all about for this
Aquacomputer stuff. Even my wife was impressed.

Side by side are the Innovatek and Aquacomputer 8x1mm fittings.
Looks like there will be some restriction after all. Maybe later I'll have
the AC ones bored out to match the Innovatek ones.

Here are the homeless victims of the AC invasion. I ordered these just
days before I learned that Sharka restocked the A64 mounts for my
new Cuplex XT block. These are the chromed 3/8" versions of Polarflo's
blocks. I was hoping to use the compression fittings on them but I removed
th barbs and they seem to be some "custom" fittings almost 1/2" wide.
Maybe Modsquad can confirm this as I believe he was going to use that
block on BN once upon a time.

I plan on assembling and leak tsting the system tonight. After which I have
to tear my rig apart and mount them. The Crystalfontz LCD goes bye-bye. Hello
Aquabay.

Anyone know where I can lay my hands on an Aquadrive in the states?

 

[grumblemarc]

Well I'd like to report a sucessful leak test! During the week I'll rip the
rig down and install this and the rest of the mods I have been putting off.

Here is it just after I disconnected it from my BIGREDMONSTER mod I also have going.

Here's the BIGREDMONSTER.

It's the case I was using before I bought this slick Lian Li I have
now. It's going to be my wife's video editing machine but I'll be
using it as my backup rig once I teardown Geared Up.

I must say that the HPPS pump is extremely quiet. I had to keep touching it to make sure
it was still running. Even then I had to stare into the Aquatube to make sure
water was still flowing. Have a lot of bulkhead holes I have to plan out
and drill.

Now let's back up to this.

I couldn't get get the sleeved wires through the tubing so I'll have to
dye the wires black instead. Hopefully this portion of the mod will
be completed by next week after I remove the PSU divider plate and
the last drive cage.

36 hours of heavy rearranging of components and installing of the WC gear.

Here is what I have.

Aside from the Aquabay it doesn't look too different does it? Let's have a look at the innards.

This is the new bulkhead floor. I have almost all the wiring and all the tubing routed through here. That's black mirrored acrylic installed there.

Shots of the underside of the bulkhead floor (would that make it the ceiling then?).
I decided not to dye the wires all black at the last minute. No particular reason.
All the wiring through the new acrylic floor was made from scratch. I hate crimping molex pins. I alwats think that I'm going to wire them up backwards.

Here's everything mounted up in their current locations. Just trying out the rad where it is now. It may get mounted in one of the fan locations up top. I had to mount the Aquabat where it is instead of just putting it where the LCD used to be. There are some tabs in the drive bays that prevent the Aquabay from occupying that particular location. I could of just dremeled it but not any time soon. There were springs that came with the Cuplex XT block but damned if I could get them on. The pressure required just was a deterrent for me although I have seen others mount them with no problem. I don't see why their needed anyhow as I seated it just fine without them.

This is how the hard drives are mounted. 2 thumbscrews on the inside of the drive cage are all that's holding them in place.

Here's how the wiring stands now.

It's really tight where the backend of the pump sits and I hadn't counted on that. I can hear people shouting out right now "Sleeve the wires!". Nah! This won't be the final PSU for this project so it doesn't matter right now. I was going to use some heatshrink on the ends of the tube wiring but something said not to. As it turned out I needed that little extra flexibilty to manuever the wiring around in there.

I had to ditch the neon bars on the front of the case. Not that I didn't like them but because they caused a wiring nightmare inside the case that I couldn't overcome due to the switch unit that came with each of them. They took up too much space. I relocated the Noise Isolator because of the same reason. I don't like the blank plate at the top but I'm looking to get a black faceplate from Aquacomputer to match the Aquabay. No neon in the Aquabay yet. I ditched the Lian Li CD bezel since I won't be needing it. A custom acrylic bezel I have planned will be mounted to cover ALL the drive bays, the switches and part of the front of the case where the case badge is. I also removed the front connectors as I found that I was only using one USB connector on sporadic occasions. I have to figure out what to do with the empty spaces up front and I think I JUST came up with something.

So there it is currently.

Mind you this is my first foray into watercooling. I haven't seen ANY real change in temps over my XP90 aside from a few degrees celcius but I'm guessing I need to reapply the arctic silver as I didn't even think about it earlier.

A parting shot of the workspace I demolished putting this beast back together.

I have 2 "side" drives actually. A Maxtor and a Western Digital. The Maxtor runs hot at about 41 degrees celcius and the WD at 35 degrees celcius. The Maxtor is getting moved out of the case into an external enclosure sometime in the near future. The main drive is currently being cooled by an Ultimate Hard drive Cooler and maintains it's temps around 30 degrees celcius. The UHDC will be replaced by one of these.

Ordered it from the Shark last week. It would've been here yesterday but I missed the UPS man. I originally ordered one of the Innovatek units from FrozenCPU but even though they say (still) they have them in stock on their website they in fact do not. I had to wait 3 days for them to contact me and refund my money. It would've gone in with the tear down and build up last weekend so now I have to add it to the loop=hassle. I notice that with any "exotic" type of order they seem to be doing that. I ordered an Innovatek rad from them and they substituted a different (but same) type of rad.

Ordered some more plexi/acrylic.

Debating whether or not to go ahead and have those rings chromed or go through the hassle of polishing up each and every one by hand.

Good and bad news.

Got a hold of a 6800GT that my Cool-Matic was just waiting to meet.

Problem was that once mounted to the vid card the block wouldn't allow the card to work and the rig would not boot. I spent the better part of a day and a half monkeying around with the setup and also managed to fry a stick of RAM when I sprung a small leak that I didn't get to in time. :wallbash: :wallbash: :wallbash: No big deal there since I just got a wad of cash for a spare box I wasn't using (talk about timing). I think I'll go for 2 1 gig sticks. Photoshop CS2 is a RAM hog. As for the GPU block I don't know what I'm doing wrong but I'll figure it out...later.

The good news was that while I was disassembling and reassembling things I managed to drop the CPU temps by 10 degrees celcuis. I think that I reseated it about 20 times. So that seems to have done the trick.

I did get the Aquadrive LT installed but I haven't added it to the loop as of yet. It helped load for the noisy drive and the temps but I got tired of handling distilled water treated with Innovatek Protect. It has the consistency of antifreeze so the HDD blocks remain dry.

I have plans for a lot of plexi for the interior as seems to be the norm for case mods nowadays. I found a place that does lasercutting for a pretty cheap price. After which I'll try my hand at polishing up those aluminum rings. I'd say I'm about 75% complete with this build.

Anyways. I finally got off my duff and started polishing those
aluminum gears. It was NOT fun let me tell you. I polished the
first of them by hand until my fingers almost fell off. THEN I got
smart and wrapped my polishing cloth around a sanding block
and just leaned into it. It cut the work down to 20 minutes
per gear from 45.

The before pic.

And After. Check it out.

Looks pretty good if I do say so myself. And I do say so.
I didn't go for the ultra mirror finish like Coolermeister did with
his case but I came pretty close.

There'll be more pics since I still have 8 more gear rings to
polish up. When I get to those I'll try to get more in progress
pics since you guys seem to thrive on those.

AND....

Not that I'm into all the "Oooh! Look what I bought!" stuff but
since I'm slacking with the lack of pics I think I need to make up for
it somehow.

First off is the Hiper PSU I picked up (newly available in the US!). It's NIIIIIIICE! Shiny black and all. The whole things modular with
the exception of the motherboard connection. I won't load up a
bunch of pics here since this thing has been reviewed on other
sites more than enough.

Second is the Deck keyboard I've been typing this post on. I must
say that it is something else. It is much smaller than I thought it
would be but I've got no complaints. It frees up a lot of space.
The feel of the keys cannot be described. VERY responsive.
Overall a very rugged unit. Now when they come out with the
10-key pad I'm snatching up one of those as well. *And as of this
writing they are! Ask ye shall receive.

Lastly I'm on my backup Gigabyte board since I fried the first 2 RAM
sockets due to my spillage last month. It will be the last 754
board I buy. And to put in it I got 2x1gig sticks of Mushkin to
replace the ones I ruined. No pics since thet're in the rig
running. Maybe next time.

Decided to move to the other side of the case and finish the polishing job on the rings on that side.

This time I have a better step-by-step of the process.

Let's start with the obligatory "Before" shot.

This is pretty much raw aluminum. It's pretty soft relatively speaking so It doesn't take as much effort to polish as I thought.

The tools and materials I used are as follows;
Orbital palm sander
Sandpaper-400 grit, 220 grit, 120 grit.
Sanding block
Maas polishing cream
Polishing cloths
Large file

Starting with 120 grit on the sander we end up with...

this at the halfway point.
I used this grit as the metal is lightly gouged up and this knocks the "edge" off. I moved on to the 220 grit and wound up with...

Not a good pic I must admit but maybe you can see the transistion as the paper transitions to a finer grade.

Here is the whole ring done after 220 grit.
I couldn't find any sandpaper to fit on the sander in a finer grade so I have to move on to this.

Sanding block and 400 grit paper.

The ring after a bit of elbow grease was applied to it.

At this stage it is very smooth but you can stil see the swirl marks all throught the piece. On the previous rings I moved on to 600 then 800 grit paper at this point but I was extra thorough this time so I felt the extra grit wasn't necessary. My arms and shoulders were in agreement with me so it was on to the polishing.

Here I simply took a polishing cloth and wrapped it right around the sanding block I was just using.

I applied the polishing cream to the ring thusly.

And after just one go of the sanding block wrapped in polishing cloth we can already see the reflectivity of the new surface of the metal.

A note that while I was polishing I could feel the surface getting smoother as the Maas was doing it's thing. You couldn't see it because of all the black mess but you knew. After a while the black mess went away and you could start to see things in the surface of the metal.

I went about 4 rounds with the polishing before I was satisfied with the results.

Not quite the mirror finish it could be but I'm more than happy with it.

Finishing up I took the rings back to the empty space that they now call home.

I have the rings mounted to the panel with some 6/32 socket head screws and acorn nuts. The mesh is sandwiched between the 2 rings

Here it is mounted back on the side panel. Whaddya think?

Before they were mounted I took a large file to the edges of the rings to smooth things out.

Well that's that. I TILL have the 6 gears to do on the top of the case. When I I do I'll take a bunch of "money" shots. Chris over at Custom Watercuts has been waiting for these to get finished for quite some time. He says that he's gonna feature the case on his site as soon as I get pics to him.

 

[stryder2720]

SICK as in badass..
I <3 you

 

[blindbug]

absolutely INCREDIBLE job on this case!

 

[obake]

Very nice!

 

[Waffles730]

This has to be one of my favorite mods I have seen here. It's complex, but done beautifully. Great job dude!

 

[KrakenGuy]

Hot. Thats just hot.

You might see an even better increase in temps if you lap that CPU block, I hear they are a little concave.

 

[shoney]

holy moley that looks amazing!

 

[Top Nurse]

Hot. Thats just hot.

You might see an even better increase in temps if you lap that CPU block, I hear they are a little concave.

Now where might have you heard that? Yes the two XT's I got (one copper and one silver) were concave and others have reported similar issues. You won't be sorry if you lap it. Very nice work! Props to you.

I am doing something similar with my wiring but mine is not going to be clear, but shiny black to match the other black tubing I have been using.

 

[Ice_Frog]

I can´t find any desirable words ...

just ... uaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahaaaaaaa

 

[Top Nurse]

Now THIS caused my jaw to almost hit the
floor when I opened the box. It is NIIIIICE. You see here that I've
refitted it with 8x1mm compression fittings to keep the theme. I've held
this thing in my hands for 2 days just staring at it. It is a substantial piece
of work. NOW I undertand what the fuss is all about for this
Aquacomputer stuff. Even my wife was impressed.

Side by side are the Innovatek and Aquacomputer 8x1mm fittings.
Looks like there will be some restriction after all. Maybe later I'll have
the AC ones bored out to match the Innovatek ones.

The web pics of the Cuplex XT just don't do it justice does it?

Did the same thing as you when I got my first one back in April.

If you think about it you might want to either drill or bore them out to 6mm as they are about .215 ID in the front and interestingly enough about .225 in the back. It will also help if you minimize the blunt disruption at the transition from the tube to the fitting. I think I would try to create a knife edge at that transition point with perhaps a multi-flute deburring tool.

 

[grumblemarc]

Lapping is soon to happen. In the next teardown as a matter of fact. Gotta reference some lapping tutes before I do though. I don't see too much over 40 degrees celcius under load so interested in seeing what that might do.

As sson as I get the proper tools I probably will bore those out BUT with my luck putting a knife edge on them will probably see me losing a finger-or at the very least a pint of blood.

 

[ralfyboy]

awesome concept man. great work.

 

[Asian Dub Foundation]

dude... im floored.. thats is one of the most detailed and better looking workblog i've seen...

GOOD JOB BUDDY! very professional looking mod..

 

[DarkenReaper57]

Wow, you did a kickass job. Keep it coming!

I need to use some good polish on aluminum for work of my own...do you recommend the MAAS polish? Where did you get it and how much does it run for?

 

[grumblemarc]

I guess I recommend MAAS as I haven't really used anything else to compare it to. If I remember it cost a little less than $5 per tube. You can pick it up at any Walmart. I think that's where I had the missus retreive it from.

Thanks for all the positive compliments on the project.

If all goes well this weekend I'll have one of the side panels cut to start the "cladding". I modified the design a bit so if he jigsaw holds up it'll be done next evening.

 

[roachm]

Saw this at Bit-Tech. Very nice ;D

 

[MaMMa]

this is the most beautiful case i've seen in over 15 years. WOW

 

[grumblemarc]

Okay. Not had a lot of time to do much work on this case. But I will share what little I have done so far.

Knowing that I needed more lighting inside the case but not wanting those hard to place cathode tubes I came across this handy little 120mm dual cathode fan from Logisys .

Since the clear fan didn't fit the scheme of the case so far I simply simply transplanted the dual cathodes to my 120mm aluminum framed Evercool fan mounted in the door already.

Side.

Interior.

And night shots.

See? Nothing spectacular but I must say it throws light evenly throughout the interior of the case.

I've also started work on this phase of the case...

The cladding of the case doors.

To that end I purchased 2 spare door panels from Performance-PCs,

Stripped the hardware off of them,

masked off the panel and jigsawed out the shape. My assistant inspects the final product.

Pardon for the lack of in progress pics.

You'll notice that I haven't cut out the logo on the panel. That's because my plans have deviated just a bit. The design now calls for more watercutting parts to be added. I'll fill you in on that a little later as time permits.

 

[GeForceX]

Admirable job there, skipper.

-J.

 

[Shmuckety]

Your project has produced some unexpected activity in my pants. This is some spectacular work. WOW!

 

[Techx]

wow very impressive and really cool design

 

[T0ddyH0oddy]

Pawnage. Absolute pawnage. One of the best mods in recent history.

I'm glad you nixed the neon up front, it looked a little too "busy" for me.

Great job.

 

[TotalEclipse]

The case is looking beautiful. I am curious to see how nice those gears would look like polished to more of a mirror finish though.

 

[daedal]

Holy crap.. those gears are mind-blowing.
This is totally something I would do if I had access to good machinery. Awesome. I'm speachless.

 

[lozaning]

looking good

 

[aldy402]

very innovative, best i've seen in years
can't wait to see the lcd mod

 

[grumblemarc]

Sorry. I ditched the LCD idea BUT may find a way to integrate it into the case somewhere. ONLY if it doesn't verge on overkill. Same with the Luminglas mod. The large neon ring on the side may be enough so I may save that mod for another case. The Crystalfontz LCD needs a new home as well come to think of it.

 

[grumblemarc]

Just ordered one of these.

It's Innovatek's version of the Aquadrive. The HDM-L Pro HD Dampening/H2O Box. Been waiting on these to become available. It should arrive today as a matter of fact from HighspeedPC.

They don't have a dual drive version (that I can tell) and it a helluva lot cheaper than the AC version.

I'll let you know what I think when it gets here.

They should of called it the "Innovadrive".

 

[grumblemarc]

Just got the "Innovadrive" in and initially I have to say that I'm slightly disappointed. All the areas you see that are black are actually just hard plastic. Even the front faceplate is plastic and it's the flimsiest part of thje whole unit. I know the interior WC "mechanism" is what's doing all the work but I expected something a little more substantial from Innovatek. When this is installed I hope it does better than the Aquadrive LT i have on the HDD now. IT doesn't even have water connected to it and it knocks my temps down to mid 35 degrees celcius. I may try to plumb this into the 2nd loop I had planned but that's still up in the air right now.

I'll try to get pics up soon but my schedule is all rearranged this week and I may not get the time to snap any off.

 

[bored-sarcasm]

thats a bad ass looking case. well done.

 

[Top Nurse]

Just got the "Innovadrive" in and initially I have to say that I'm slightly disappointed. All the areas you see that are black are actually just hard plastic. Even the front faceplate is plastic and it's the flimsiest part of thje whole unit. I know the interior WC "mechanism" is what's doing all the work but I expected something a little more substantial from Innovatek.

How much cheaper? And was it worth the plastic or not?

 

[grumblemarc]

Well since I couldn't get my hands on an Aquadrive here in the states I got quoted an overseas shipment at about close to $200 because of the weight involved. I couldn't see spending that kinda cash just to look pretty but now I have second thoughts.

As for the plastic, I can live with almost all of it ECXEPT the weak plastic faceplate. I'm now on the lookout for an Aquadrive faceplate to swap onto it or most likely fabbing my own since it's just a simple shape to cut out. With my luck just as I do that Innovatek will come out with an aluminum faceplate right after I do all of that. Have not been able to compare performance with the AC LT since it's not doing anything but serving as a giant heatsink at the moment.

Hey TN. You seem to have the AC "hookup". Any chance of getting the "Sahrk" to order a few of these?

 

[Top Nurse]

Well since I couldn't get my hands on an Aquadrive here in the states I got quoted an overseas shipment at about close to $200 because of the weight involved. I couldn't see spending that kinda cash just to look pretty but now I have second thoughts.

Hey TN. You seem to have the AC "hookup". Any chance of getting the "Sahrk" to order a few of these?

Well I have been trying for 4 months to get Sharka to order those, but they think they aren't sellable at the price they would have to sell them for. They don't seem to listen to me about this as people are spending a lot more for the Aquaero's. Maybe if we get another AC dealer here in the states they might be inclined to stock them. I do know that Sharka will special order one for you if you e-mail them. They just got in another order last week so they aren't planning on ordering again till next month as about 35% of their order never made it out of the factory.

 

[grumblemarc]

Not that I have $$$ to throw around right now but I would MUCH rather get my hands on an Aquadrive right now. If only they weren't blue.

And I have to post a retraction about the "Innovadrive". It seems not ALL of the black parts of the casing are plastic. I "ripped it apart" and I'm relieved that only the front, rear and bottom are actually plastic. Mind you I'm not happy about that either but I am relieved that not ALL of it was. It looks similar to those project boxes that MNPCTech had before they sold them out. Just different dimensions. I may be machining some quick replacements for the plastic pieces soon.

 

[Top Nurse]

Not that I have $$$ to throw around right now but I would MUCH rather get my hands on an Aquadrive right now. If only they weren't blue.

And I have to post a retraction about the "Innovadrive". It seems not ALL of the black parts of the casing are plastic. I "ripped it apart" and I'm relieved that only the front, rear and bottom are actually plastic. Mind you I'm not happy about that either but I am relieved that not ALL of it was. It looks similar to those project boxes that MNPCTech had before they sold them out. Just different dimensions. I may be machining some quick replacements for the plastic pieces soon.

I think about as much as the German blue as you do. However, Dykem makes some nice little paint pens that will do wonders over an anodized surface.

 

[grumblemarc]

I think about as much as the German blue as you do. However, Dykem makes some nice little paint pens that will do wonders over an anodized surface.

Thanks for the link. I'll look into those.

 

[Top Nurse]

You *might* be able to talk Modsquad out of the Aquadrives he has that are grey?

 

[grumblemarc]

I've never seen ANYbody talk Modsquad out of anything.