NCASE M1: a crowdfunded Mini-ITX case (updates in first post)

[Neffy]

Do you happen to have a US nickel? I need to know if one will fit between the res and the PCI retaining tab:



A stack of two dimes will also work, or a quarter if it fits easily.

no room at all. Only way to get any more space in there would be to get FrozenQ to trim their res.

 

[Necere]

no room at all. Only way to get any more space in there would be to get FrozenQ to trim their res.

I think I may just leave it as-is, then. I don't want to make changes that create incompatibilities between different versions of the same hardware. Sorry Adamantium, this was your request, so it's ironic that the res you created ends up being the deciding factor against it.

 

[vero]

I think I may just leave it as-is, then. I don't want to make changes that create incompatibilities between different versions of the same hardware. Sorry Adamantium, this was your request, so it's ironic that the res you created ends up being the deciding factor against it.

Would it be possible to trim the PCI retaining tab? Just an idea.

 

[adamantium]

I think I may just leave it as-is, then. I don't want to make changes that create incompatibilities between different versions of the same hardware. Sorry Adamantium, this was your request, so it's ironic that the res you created ends up being the deciding factor against it.

Yea that's ironic for sure. The clearance on my reservoir fits two nickels and would allow the reservoir to move downward at least 5mm. The bottom of my reservoir doesn't reach the bottom of the motherboard IO panel with two quarter widths to spare. That is according to the design. The distance from the bottom of the reservoir to the edge of the plug is supposed to be the same as from the edge of the 45 degree angle cut to the plug. The cut was designed to start at 5mm from the bottom of the face place. Both are clearly not that way on the reservoir in the pictures.

If you made the back panel fan mounting holes rectangular (1 - 2mm longer downward) similar to what you did with the side fan bracket, those who 's reservoirs were manufactured to the specification will be able to adjust. For those reservoirs that weren't, they can be notched so that they do. The reservoir is solid polyoxymethylene to the right of the plug closest to the PCI retaining tab.

Hopefully you will reconsider for the benefit of your customers. That's the reason for the suggestions. Unlike NCASE, I have no customers, don't make a cent on the reservoirs, and all of my parts already fit nicely, including my Black ICE extreme II radiator and monsoon compression fittings. And if in the future I need to adjust, I will.

 

[Necere]

Yea that's ironic for sure. The clearance on my reservoir fits two nickels and would allow the reservoir to move downward at least 5mm. The bottom of my reservoir doesn't reach the bottom of the motherboard IO panel with two quarter widths to spare. That is according to the design. The distance from the bottom of the reservoir to the edge of the plug is supposed to be the same as from the edge of the 45 degree angle cut to the plug. The cut was designed to start at 5mm from the bottom of the face place. Both are clearly not that way on the reservoir in the pictures.

So they changed the design? That's interesting... I wonder if they had cracking during milling and had to thicken up the sidewall...

I may just do what Vero suggested - take down the PCI retaining tab, as well as the cover plate to the right of it. Slotted mounting holes are an idea too, I guess, though the ports on the res might limit the range of installation. And then the obvious: why not both? Edit: Actually now that I look, the problem with slots is the 80mm fan holes are too close to the 92mm holes.

 

[aznever]

I would recommend staying away from FrozenQ. After 28 days of waiting for an M1 Ncase res, I found that it was cracked in many locations. Its quiet disappointing for a 92$ res, I should have gone with an EK RES X3.

 

[adamantium]

So they changed the design? That's interesting... I wonder if they had cracking during milling and had to thicken up the sidewall...

I may just do what Vero suggested - take down the PCI retaining tab, as well as the cover plate to the right of it. Slotted mounting holes are an idea too, I guess, though the ports on the res might limit the range of installation. And then the obvious: why not both? Edit: Actually now that I look, the problem with slots is the 80mm fan holes are too close to the 92mm holes.

I would recommend staying away from FrozenQ. After 28 days of waiting for an M1 Ncase res, I found that it was cracked in many locations. Its quiet disappointing for a 92$ res, I should have gone with an EK RES X3.

Both of the above are unfortunate. I really doubt the side wall thickness was an issue. It looks to me like they just didn't concern themselves with the details. Given all the problems they had, they were probably just trying to get product out the door before everyone demanded refunds. The surfacing quality of the reservoir is higher on the model I have. The face plate screws are also different. It looks like they changed the end mill used for the inside from a 1/4in to 1/2in as well, which appears to change the clearance for the hole under the baffle. I suspect that he lost his equipment in the fire and had to redesign everything. As I mentioned originally, they changed the design of the baffle, the gasket seal, and the face plate as well to accommodate their CAD and machining tools.

However I am grateful to have the reservoir given the alternatives. If anyone knows of another manufacture that we might consider, we can send them the design and see what they would charge. We could also consider funding a Tormach 1100 personal CNC milling machine or a good 3D printer maybe. Both would be unjustifiably expensive in my opinion given how few appear to have chosen water cooling. Alternative reservoirs are always an option.

 

[Siba]

I had similar quality issues with my res and only got it all cleared up middle of last month. Probably a good 3 or almost 4 months from placing the order to getting the final product.


Try emailing them and creating an rma, that's what I did to get replacement face plate and non stripped face plate screw threading on the main body. They had to drill the holes bigger and put in additional metal inserts like those 4 on the back for mounting.

 

[blood]

The clearance on my reservoir fits two nickels and would allow the reservoir to move downward at least 5mm. The bottom of my reservoir doesn't reach the bottom of the motherboard IO panel with two quarter widths to spare. That is according to the design.

Might be dependent on how the reservoir is mounted? I am not home right now to measure, but if I remember correctly, the mounting holes for the fan was larger than the screws for the reservoir, so I could move the reservoir up and down slightly before securing it.

That being said, I am not sure how moving the fan mounts down would help with compression fitting clearance....

 

[WiSK]

I would recommend staying away from FrozenQ. After 28 days of waiting for an M1 Ncase res, I found that it was cracked in many locations. Its quiet disappointing for a 92$ res, I should have gone with an EK RES X3.

I had similar cracks in the acrylic of my res. Time and cost to RMA from Europe prohibitive hassle, so I am planning to use IPS Acrylic Weld-On #3. Have seen it used on a recent build by B-Negative. He says it has the viscosity of water, so it flows into the cracks and chemically reflows the acrylic.

Another option is super-glue, which is liquic acrylic. This is much more viscose, so won't flow into cracks, but will be good for strengthening large chips, like the triangular chip in your first and third photos.

 

[adamantium]

The idea is that by moving the tubing holes and the fan down a millimeter or two we will provide that much more distance between the fittings and the radiator mounted inside on the fan bracket. Do you think the problem is more severe than that? If so let us know, it doesn't make sense to make this adjustment to the design if you see that it won't solve the problem.

 

[adamantium]

Both good ideas. The first sounds great for repairing cracks in place without taking it apart, kind of like a windshield rock chip repair. Sounds like it might improve the appearance of the crack as well. Do you know if that is true? This or some other acrylic cement might also be a solution for those who want to build their own custom reservoir out of acrylic.

 

[pndc]

I could not find it anywhere in the thread, and considering that the product is completely new, I thought I'd just post it anyway.

There is a new Accelero Hybrid II - with a backplate as vrm cooling instead of the air. Do you think it will fit with the radiator in the M1, and in that case what about CPU cooling?

Here is a link to the installation manual
http://www.arctic.ac/de_en/download...hybrid_ii_120_installation_manual_english.pdf

Thanks in advance

 

[Siba]

Last Page item #17 makes it seem as if the mounting solution requires 5 pci slots worth of space, so probably not

However, you could probably just cut off 2 slots worth of that bracket and just use 3 to secure everything, if you didn't care too much about the stability

 

[oldbigisugly]

i used to not get why people would buy this instead of a laptop, now i say this looks pretty cool

 

[WiSK]

Both good ideas. The first sounds great for repairing cracks in place without taking it apart, kind of like a windshield rock chip repair. Sounds like it might improve the appearance of the crack as well. Do you know if that is true? This or some other acrylic cement might also be a solution for those who want to build their own custom reservoir out of acrylic.

I found the build, it was StarLoc Five Star PolyWeld Thin he used. Because IHS Weld-On #3 isn't available in the UK. It's a sponsored build, on a competing forum, so I won't link his build log. But if you're curious to see pictures of his custom reservoir, search for "clos3 impact".

 

[aceman]

Does H2O-X20 Elite Series Fit to NCase M1 ? or H220 only?

Anyone had experience with H2O-X20 Elite?

 

[WiSK]

Does H2O-X20 Elite Series Fit to NCase M1 ? or H220 only?

Anyone had experience with H2O-X20 Elite?

No experience with that kit, but the Apogee Drive 2 is in a couple of my rigs.

Sure it will fit in the M1, but you should check the spreadsheet for compatibility of your motherboard with the AD2.

 

[aceman]

delete

 

[aceman]

No experience with that kit, but the Apogee Drive 2 is in a couple of my rigs.

Sure it will fit in the M1, but you should check the spreadsheet for compatibility of your motherboard with the AD2.

Thanks for your reply
my motherboard is Asus Maximus VI Impact
does it fit with AD2?

The Radiator of H2O-X20 Elite is little long & thickness than h220
i worry it not fit in the Ncase M1

Tks

 

[milkcow]

The Radiator of H2O-X20 Elite is little long & thickness than h220
i worry it not fit in the Ncase M1
Tks

I highly doubt, that that radiator/reservoir combo will fit in the M1

 

[WiSK]

I highly doubt, that that radiator/reservoir combo will fit in the M1

Indeed, my mistake, I thought it was the same size as the H220 radiator.

 

[kosmom1]

Hi all,

I just finished my M1 (Billy Goat) over the weekend. And thought you may like to see it. It's not an over-the-top build, but a hackintosh with the following components;

Gigabyte GA-H77N-WIFI
i7 3770 3.4GHz
Corsair Vengeance LP 16GB DDR3-1600
Samsung 840 Pro Series 256GB
Samsung 840 Pro Series 128GB
Crucial V4 256GB (already owned)
Western Digital BLACK SERIES 500GB 2.5" (already owned)
EVGA GTX 580 Hydro Copper 2 (already owned)
Swiftech H220 (reconfigured to cool both the cpu and gpu)
Silverstone Strider Gold 450W 80+ Gold
Broadcomm DW 1510 AGN - WiFi mini PCIe (original WIFI card does not work under Mac OS, so I replaced it, lost bluetooth but gained WIFI)

The case I used was a Silver version, #814. I have it set up primarily for use with the Adobe Master Suite, VectorWorks and SketchUp Pro. Programs I used daily for my job. Hence why I have 4 hard drives, so there are no bottle necks with applications, cache and working drives. My Geekbench results for multi-core 64bit was just over 14000, which I thought was pretty good.

So here are some photos... sorry taken by my iPhone...

You'll see the only non-SSD is in the front panel, so I can swap that out easy when I want to...

The 3 SSD drives are two on the floor, and one on the other side of the front.

The top view show how tight it is, but it's all clear of each other and it keeps nice and cool in there. So far all my temps for cores, cpu, gpu and harddrives are in the low to mid 30's.

Close to final setup...

I hope it was cool to put this here.

 

[GnomeCop]

Great job! That build looks clean!

 

[Neffy]

Hi all,

I just finished my M1 (Billy Goat) over the weekend. And thought you may like to see it. It's not an over-the-top build, but a hackintosh

That is pretty sweet, hackintosh at that!

Guess I should show off mine. Been up for about 3 weeks now. Its also my first attempt at watercooling.
http://youtu.be/ioGHo_yM7SY

Really the only thing I'm left wanting is to be able to install an exhaust top fan to help get move the heated air. When gaming, can really feel it above it but temps stay good (screenshot in the vid towards the end).

 

[WiSK]

I hope it was cool to put this here.

Very cool. Love to see what everyone is doing with their builds

 

[iNewbcake]

#155 arrived today! Thanks!
Got it from the spare M1 sale, now I'm waiting for new SFX PSU to release.

 

[Zef Pomp]

In my M1, I have two 120mm fans on the bottom and a GTX 780 ACX. Sometimes the far end fan on the GPU towards the front of the case touches the 120mm fan I have on the bottom. Is there anyway to support the GPU more? (I do have a back plate) Any ideas would be great

Thanks!

 

[cennis]

Hi all,

I just finished my M1 (Billy Goat) over the weekend. And thought you may like to see it. It's not an over-the-top build, but a hackintosh with the following components;

Gigabyte GA-H77N-WIFI
i7 3770 3.4GHz
Corsair Vengeance LP 16GB DDR3-1600
Samsung 840 Pro Series 256GB
Samsung 840 Pro Series 128GB
Crucial V4 256GB (already owned)
Western Digital BLACK SERIES 500GB 2.5" (already owned)
EVGA GTX 580 Hydro Copper 2 (already owned)
Swiftech H220 (reconfigured to cool both the cpu and gpu)
Silverstone Strider Gold 450W 80+ Gold
Broadcomm DW 1510 AGN - WiFi mini PCIe (original WIFI card does not work under Mac OS, so I replaced it, lost bluetooth but gained WIFI)

The case I used was a Silver version, #814. I have it set up primarily for use with the Adobe Master Suite, VectorWorks and SketchUp Pro. Programs I used daily for my job. Hence why I have 4 hard drives, so there are no bottle necks with applications, cache and working drives. My Geekbench results for multi-core 64bit was just over 14000, which I thought was pretty good.

So here are some photos... sorry taken by my iPhone...

You'll see the only non-SSD is in the front panel, so I can swap that out easy when I want to...

The 3 SSD drives are two on the floor, and one on the other side of the front.

The top view show how tight it is, but it's all clear of each other and it keeps nice and cool in there. So far all my temps for cores, cpu, gpu and harddrives are in the low to mid 30's.

Close to final setup...

I hope it was cool to put this here.

Looking great really like the color scheme matching

 

[Hanakuso]

It's actually not that hard to "fix" the length of the PSU cable, the only skills needed are being patient and be able to solder. The wires are very easy to shorten.

Does anyone know how to shorten the power supply cable and sleeve it like his?

 

[WiSK]

Does anyone know how to shorten the power supply cable and sleeve it like his?

Just cut both ends off. Solder in three lengths of 18 AWG and sleeve. Only tricky bit is that you have to put the sleeve and heatshrink on before soldering one of the connectors.

 

[Phuncz]

I only cut one end off, the outer mantle just pulls off easily. It's like this:

I first measured the length I'd be needing, add a little if you are new at this to correct mistakes. I severed the end that goes to the back of the case (leave about 3cm or an inch of wire to solder back onto later) and removed the heatshrink on the plug. This is a good time to note how the wires are connected to what terminal on the plug. I then removed the outer mantle by cutting (gently !) it in 10 cm pieces, deep enough so that bending it seperates it. You can then easily remove the mantle by just sliding it off.

You then need to strip the wires, about 1cm or 1/2in of bare wire is enough, so you can solder them back later onto the severed plug. Don't forget to put some heatshrink on each wire (don't shrink it yet) so you can protect the open copper strands after you've finished soldering later ! This is the time to put on the sleeving, measure and cut to length, mind the bend or you'll end up like I did with the shorter gray wire... Put the heatshrink for the sleeving over (don't shrink it yet) the sleeved wires, you need two pieces, front and back !

So let's recap: you got your wires stripped with heatshrink ready to shrunk, you've got sleeving at the correct lengths and heatshrink for the bundle ready to be shrunk. I recommend using a small plastic clamp to keep the sleeving to the back so you can solder the connector without issue.

Now it's time to solder. If you have left some wire on the severed end, you need to strip it now. Remember to solder the correct wire to terminal, you don't want to short circuit 110V/230V AC. When you've finished, you can shrink the individual wire's heatshrink to cover the bare copper. Then you can release the Kraken, errr. sleeving and heatshrink it. I choose to have a little over the plug at the back of the case but that isn't really necesary.

I do advise, that if you don't have much or any experience with sleeving and soldering, try this out on random ATX power cables (you must have plenty laying around) first before you go bother Necere and Wahaha360 for spares on this cable

 

[WiSK]

I only cut one end off

Smarter

I'm stuck in my ways: always replacing wires with ones that have the same colour as my sleeving. So that I don't see any colour bleed through, e.g. yellow/green wires under white sleeve looks terrible.

 

[Phuncz]

Yeah everyone has their own way, which has their merits ofcourse. I can follow your train of thought but the sleeving I use from MDPC is very dense, so it's very hard to see through.

 

[WiSK]

Yeah everyone has their own way, which has their merits ofcourse. I can follow your train of thought but the sleeving I use from MDPC is very dense, so it's very hard to see through.

Yes but I think as well as density it depends which colours you are using. With MDPC black and grey and even grand bleu, it's easy to stretch it enough to cover most colours of wire. With the light sleeving (white, yellow, aqua, vanilla) you get a very different look depending on what colour wire is underneath. Maybe it's because the dye Nils uses for the light colours is less dense or something. I don't know.

I had a photo somewhere comparing various combinations, but seem to have mislaid it

 

[Hanakuso]

Thanks for the info. I'm a little afraid to do the soldering myself so I might try to find someone that can do that for me.

Btw I just changed my CPU cooler from the Corsair H105 to the NH-C14. Temps are still great and there's a lot more room inside the case now.

 

[imode]

Did anyone who ordered spare clips from Lian Li receive them yet? Ordered mine some time ago, and no word of it since. Just wondering if I should expect the slow boat on this as well.

 

[salasq]

Btw I just changed my CPU cooler from the Corsair H105 to the NH-C14. Temps are still great and there's a lot more room inside the case now.

Did you perchance take any pics of the H105 inside the case?

 

[wahaha360]

Did anyone who ordered spare clips from Lian Li receive them yet? Ordered mine some time ago, and no word of it since. Just wondering if I should expect the slow boat on this as well.

The ones ordered from NCASE were all delivered.

 

[Hanakuso]

Did you perchance take any pics of the H105 inside the case?

Sorry I forgot. I was planning on taking pics before installing the NH-C14 but I guess I was too excited.

It basically looks slightly more thicker then the H220 setups. With the stock Lian Li filters, its a very tight fit. I installed the rad with the tubes on both left and right side, both didn't have any kinks in the tubing. I had the fans in pull and the radiator itself was sitting on the panel side if that makes sense.

Btw, with two 2.5" drives, it touches the rad in the front with my H105. That gave me an excuse to buy a M.2 SSD