Phinix Aurora

[phinix]

Aurora - (plural: aurorae or auroras) is a natural light display in the sky particularly in the high latitude (Arctic and Antarctic) regions, caused by the collision of energetic charged particles with atoms in the high altitude atmosphere (thermosphere). The charged particles originate in the magnetosphere and solar wind and, on Earth, are directed by the Earth's magnetic field into the atmosphere.


Hello everyone and welcome to my new project log!

This time I would like to show you something different. It won’t be a scratch build, like all my previous projects. This time I’m going to mod a case!

I hope you liked my Cube and Nano Tower and now I’m hoping you are going to like what I’m about to start. So let’s see what’s brewing shall we?

PHINIX AURORA​

It will be a case mod, based on Lian Li A04, a micro ATX case. Reason I picked this case is that it is one of the smallest mATX cases on market – it doesn’t have any particular feature that I was after. It is simple and easy to mod - this is why you can do basically anything with it

I haven’t done any case mods before, so it is going to be a challenge for me, but also a good fun.
I have some ideas what I’m going to do to this little case and would like to share them with you guys... again!


Main ideas:

• Color scheme: white and blue, pure aurora
• Shape and size: very close to the size of the case itself:
(W) 188mm x (H) 386mm x (D) 460mm
• White powder coating and painting
• Blue and white acrylic elements
• Customised side panels and front panel
• Watercooled CPU and GPU
• Internal “power chamber” including PSU and all wires and power junction
• Custom made drive cage
• Custom Interior lighting


Hardware (may change during the project):

• i5 2500K OCed to the limits
• mATX motherboard
• 8GB of RAM
• GTX580 graphics card
• modular PSU
• 2x SSD and 2.5” HDD for storage


Watercooling:

• CPU block/pump
• GPU block
• Double radiator
• Reservoir
• Blue tubing
• Compression fittings
• Temperature sensor + lcd display
• Blue coolant



First phase has started - I'm gathering all hardware and items. It will take a while, but couldn't keep this project hidden any much longer:blush:

So again... JOIN ME IN THIS NEW CRAZY MODDING RIDE !!! ::rock:



My Phinix Aurora Project is sponsored by:


MAYHEMS



Mayhems kindly supported me with the following items:

• Mayhems MHE240 LE Quad pass double radiator
• 2x X1 - UV Blue Coolant
• Blue 10ml Dye
• UV Clear/Blue 10ml Dye

COOLER MASTER



Cooler Master kindly supported me with the following items:

• Cooler Master Silent Pro M2 850W modular PSU
• CM Storm QuickFire Rapid Mechanical Keyboard

ENERMAX



Enermax kindly supported me with the following items:

• 3x 120mm Cluster fans
• 1x 80mm Cluster fan
• 3x 120mm Lepa Casino Blue fans

MNPCTECH

Well known to all of us, professional modder Bill from MNPCTECH kindly supported my project again, by sending me these items:

• Mnpctech Machined Aluminum "Diamond Knurl" PC Case Feet
• Mnpctech Machined Billet Aluminum Fan Grill Blow Hole Kit 120mm
• 16x Blue Anodized Case Thumbscrews
• 80mm Chrome Acrylic HC Fan Grill
• PC Mod Digital Thermometer

HINDLEYS



Hindleys is a huge design and technology supplies shop, where you can buy all the kind of materials, tools, electronics, hardware and consumables and all the craft and design products.
They kindly supported me with the following items:

• Aluminum sheet 2mm 1250mm x 625mm
• 1m long 20mm thick fluorecent blue round rod

GIGABYTE



GIGABYTE kindly supported my Aurora project with their Z77 mATX motherboard - GA-Z77M-D3H.

EKWB



EKWB kindly supported my project with their nickel/acetal water block for GTX670 with a nice backplate.



SCYTHE



Scythe kindly supported my project with their newly announced Scythe Kaze Station II fan controller!


MONSOON COOLING



Monsoon Cooling kindly supported my project with their compression fittings and adapters.

• 3 kits of white compression fittings
• 2 white 45 degree adapters
• 6 white 90 degree adapters

CHILLEDPC




Tom From ChilledPC is helping me out with his CNC cutting and powder coating services.
I've been using Tom's services since 2008 - always pleasure working with him.

 

[thesecond]

Super happy to see you working again. Can't wait!

 

[mannyman]

Super happy to see you working again. Can't wait!

Seconded.

 

[Jesse B]

Always loved your build logs, can't wait for this to get started!

 

[phinix]

Thanks guys!
Hopefully it will bring you all as much fun as Nano Tower and Cube!

Here are the first photos.

The victim....

Victim's insides...;P

Internal drive cages must go, I won't be using them at all.

Those tool-less screws are pretty handy...

These needed a bit help with screw driver...

..aaaand they are out!

This support bit is going out as well, but I will use those holes for mounting power chamber cover...

On this photo you can see how deep the radiator will go. 60mm thick one of course, will be mounted verticaly.

Here you can see how high those 120mm fans go. As you can see top dvd bay bracket will also have to go. Radiator will take up a bit of that space later on. Rest of that are will be reveiled later

Those top switches are mounted to the dvd bay so I left the bay inside, till I'll be ready to rip those buttons out....:naughty:

That is it for now.

 

[craigbru]

Woot! Another project! Good to see you back at it!

 

[Modder]

I love these little LIan Li builds.

 

[phinix]

Woot! Another project! Good to see you back at it!

Hi Craig! Thanks! Yeah, I'm glad I'm back!

 

[phinix]

A small update today, I did a small "incision" - as I mentioned before top optical drive had to go, so I took my trusty cordless drill and get rid of that cage.

Here are those switches that are mounted to the cage. I had to drill those rivets to separate switches from the cage.

...and here is the cage

...unwanted element partialy separated... You can see the shadow of "the instrument" I used

...and patient after procedure, fully recovered:thumb:

 

[phinix]

Now, I would like to present my first sponsor of this new project.

MAYHEMS kindly supported me with their products.

I received all their fantastic stuff:

2 bottles of their blue UV X1 coolant

2 bottles of UV Blue and UV Clear Dyes

...and this big guy - Mayhems MHE240 LE Quad pass double radiator:rock:

Before I drilled out the drive cage I tried out this big fella inside the case.
Look how big it is!

All these will be cooling my hardware inside Aurora. I can't wait to pour in this coolant to the loop, but before this, there is a LOT of work in front of me

So stay tuned fellow modders:dremel:

 

[xDezor]

I just bought this case last month, can't wait to see how your build goes! Love PC-A04's.

 

[icebug]

I am a fan of this case, might have to pick it up in the near future for my LAN rig... Definitely excited to see how this turns out!

 

[phinix]

Guys, today I would like to present my second sponsor - COOLER MASTER!

Last weekend I received a nice big box with these items inside:

Cooler Master Silent Pro M2 850W modular PSU

and CM Storm QuickFire Rapid Mechanical Keyboard!

I'm going to stick in this big PSU in the case and take advantage of its modular cables to mod them in project color scheme.

And this keyboard will nicely add a professional touch to the whole mod.
I started to plan how can I mod this keyboard:eyebrow:.......


Thank you again Cooler Master!:thumb:

 

[haunter]

will be watching this! so far so good!

 

[phinix]

Hi guys! I know, where have I been, right?
Sorry, I was "away" from my project for a few weeks, had to deal with some family problems.
However I was working on Aurora from time to time, so it wasn't entirely idle.

NOW...I'm very happy to introduce you three new sponsors - I added them before to the main list, but just wanted to quickly show few photos of those items they kindly agreed to help me out with.

ENERMAX - well known company from their PSUs and fans - sent me loads of fans - to match Aurora's color theme, I received white (Clusters, 120 and 80mm) and blue Lepa Casinos.

Next presents came from our very well known modding friend and guru - Bill from MNPCTECH!!!
Yep, after our previous adventure - Nano Tower - Bill generously supported my new project with his fantastic items:

Mnpctech Machined Aluminum "Diamond Knurl" PC Case Feet


Mnpctech Machined Billet Aluminum Fan Grill Blow Hole Kit 120mm


16x Blue Anodized Case Thumbscrews


80mm Chrome Acrylic HC Fan Grill


PC Mod Digital Thermometer


Bill's packages always put a smile on my face - look at these beauties!
I tried out this blowhole on the case - it is perfect fit! Case is only 4mm wider than this aluminum disc - it looks sooo cool on top of it:rock: But that I will show you guys later

Another package came from HINDLEYS - UK based, huge design and technology supplies shop. It is perfect for us modders - you can find every material you need to create scratch builds or case mods - all kinds of metals, plastics, timber, all kinds of tools, hardware and consumables. These guys kindly supported me with one of their huge 2mm thick aluminum sheet and this acrylic blue tinted round rod.

It looks amazing under light. I know - you starting to think - what is he going to do with this? Well, you are going to see below in me next update
Gimme few minutes, I'm preparing photos:thumb:

 

[phinix]

So.. UPDATE TIME !!!

OK, first sketchups.
As this is case mod, all ideas are a bit limited to the shape of the case.
Especially motherboard position or other main bits.
Aurora will keep the original mobo position. PSU is placed below the mobo, so it needs some custom made "power cage" or "power chamber", like I called it in Nano Tower.
I'm going to use front ventilation mesh to put my dual radiator in that position - vertically, with fans pulling air from the case outside.

Now, you see that power chamber there, so here is how those walls will be mounted.
I will cut out nice profiles from opal 10mm thick acrylic sheet. Also will use my old trusty brass inserts to mount those side walls.

Now, you may wonder, what is going to go between that cage and radiator - there is plenty of space.
As you already saw in first photos of the project, I took away all drive cages, optical and HDD cages. Because I love 2.5" dimensions of drives, SSDs and laptop drives, I'm going to use them also in this build.
I wanted to create new cages for them, so designed them in Sketchup... a bit new approach to the subject

As you can see I will also install reservoir on this "column".
What I'm going to do is I will use 20mm thick round blue rod I received from HINDLEYS and make a nice two piece "spine" for the drive cage.
Then using 10mm thick opal acrylic I will fabricate "shelves" for each drive.
I will squeeze in 3mm thick blue tinted acrylic rectangles between drives and opal shelves to add a nice touch.
THEN I'm going to light it all up with tons of LEDs!!:eeek:
Yep, I know what you all are thinking now.. "how is it going to look?!" I wonder too...
But I can tell you, it looks freekin' awesome in my mind!

Here are few sketchups of how it's going to look:

After those sketches it was time to start making those beauties!
So I got some opal acrylic sheet and printed out some support stickers for those opal shelves.

I put those stickers on opal acrylic sheet and cut them out, drilling those 20mm diameter holes too...

After good few hours of filing and sanding first piece was ready!
All done in hands using only small files and sand paper...

There are some bits of glue left on the surface of this piece... need to clean it up a bit more...
You can see some small bits on that photo below.
Anyone know how to easily clean glue that left after a sticker on acrylic sheet without scratching it?...:worried: It took me hours to get rid of it:wallbash:

One done! .... three to go....

Now, here is this nice blue tinted acrylic rod.. I had to try out that ready piece how it goes on that "spine"
To make it all steady and keep the shelf in place it will be screwed from behind :eeek:

Guys, this all for now, I hope you like the small progress and photos:thumb:
Next time I will cut some 3mm blue acrylic sheet for that shelves and need to finish up all three opal pieces left. Then it will be time for making those acrylic profiles for power cage.

See you next time! :rock:

 

[rastaban]

wow looks great! I built a Lili A04 just over 1 year ago. It is a brilliant little case for sure! Will definitely be following along

also, is it easy to model builds with sketchup? did you model the motherboard/radiator and parts yourself??

 

[H@RD5]

Subbed, for sure, I am excited to sere where this project goes!

 

[phinix]

wow looks great! I built a Lili A04 just over 1 year ago. It is a brilliant little case for sure! Will definitely be following along

also, is it easy to model builds with sketchup? did you model the motherboard/radiator and parts yourself??

Thanks!
It is pretty easy! I tried it first with simple shapes and experimented for few hours.
All options are easy to understand and you can easily play with it to see what they do.
Mobo, radiator and fans models I downloaded from Sketchup Warehouse.

 

[phinix]

Subbed, for sure, I am excited to sere where this project goes!

Cheers! happy to see you like it

 

[phinix]

Guys, sorry for a bit long absence. My mum visited us for a month so I made a vacation from most of my activities
She also bought me this and from the moment I installed it, it takes pretty much all my free time now

But now I'm back!:clap:
Of course the problem is that during a week I come back from work around 7pm when it's already dark, so cannot work outside. Only moment I can do some work are weekends.
Today I spent few hours on finishing SSD cage/brackets.
So here's a minor update.

I can only work outside now, no more cutting aluminium or acrylic at home
I'm saving some money for a new shed, which will be long and spacy. I will put all my tools there and will be able to do all my modding (read: make mess all over the shed)

Right now, this work bench is all I have:waah:

I was filing the edges of all SSD pads. Lot of work especially those small short edges inside.

Couple of hours and it was all done.
I also cut off two pieces of this blue acrylic rod, which will be a spine for the the whole drives/lcd/reservoir structure.
I took it all home and used 400 grid sand paper to polish all edges under water.
After 20 minutes it was ready to try out
I'm pushing those rods with my hand so those shelves won't drop down. Those holes are a bit bigger then 20mm rod dimiter - they will be drilled through and screwed in with M3 bolts. I will use small brass inserts to mount them, same as I used in Cube.

Here's a try out in the case. All fits in perfectly, those rods will be mounted in special aluminum frames at the bottom and top of the case. Simple alu pieces with 20mm holes screwed in the the case base and fabricates top frame. I'll show that later when will be closer to mounting it all in.

As you may noticed, at the beginning I wanted to do 4 shelves, but nowadays, when SSD prices dropped and bigger drives are much cheaper I don't think I will need 4 drives in the PC. I will go for 128GB, 256GB SSD and one HDD for storage. Enough I think...
Of course I kept forth piece in case I change my mind later on. Structure will be easy to dismantle in case I would like to throw in one more drive. Flexibility is also important in the project

Last photo - here are M3 brass inserts I mentioned before. These are perfect for quick and easy installation of acrylic parts. I will use a lot of them in this project.

OK, this is it, small progress, but wanted to share it with you guys, I hope you don't mind.
Next week will be cutting aluminum sheet to fabricate power cage!
See you next time!

 

[Afegan]

Lol, fucking amazing dude...

 

[phinix]

Lol, fucking amazing dude...

Cheers

 

[phinix]

UPDATE TIME !!!! )

Well, small update, weather in Scotland is not spoiling me, if you know what I mean. It rains all the time during weekends and that is the only time I can work on my project

So here it is, new update, all things I managed to do today before it started to rain again!

As I mentioned before I wanted to cover whole rear of motherboard side (actually right side of the case).
I cut out a big L shaped piece of 2mm aluminum and shaped it a bit to fit into the case.
I cut out some L shape supporters for a bottom of the wall.

To mount it I had to use the existing vertical bit that hold motherboard tray - didn't want to cut it out, it is good additional support for it. So to mount this big L shaped wall evenly to the existing part of mobo tray I had to fabricate small support bits. I drilled them and mounted to the mobo tray using rivets - right now they are black, temporary mounts, I have white ones for a final stage.
Here they are, bottom one (at the bottom of the mobo tray) and top one (on the right of the mobo)

Please don't worry about all the scratches and imperfections on the edges - they will all be covered with powder coat later and won't be seen.

Here is how it looks in the case.

Also drilled some holes for small long L shape support frames from photo #1.
They will be mounted with rivets to the bottom of the case.

Here is L shape wall mounted in the case. Now, don't worry about those support bits sticking out or difference in layers of those aluminum sheets - motherboard will cover it all when mounted, so it will all look flash.

Please ignore black screws - these are also temporary - all will be mounted with white rivets and screws at the end.

And here is a back of it. Those small l shaped support long bits are not screwed in yet.
Whole wall is very steady, I'm very happy with the result.

Now, these are 10mm thick opal acrylic bits I cut out before Christmas. I had to polish them and make perfectly even before I use them to mount power chamber walls to it.

Big one is for front bit, small one goes to rear of the case and will hold top wall of power chamber.

Because it rained at the end of the day, I had to stop working with my power tools, so didn't have a chance to cut out one more C shape bit that will go on right side, opposite to the one here on photo.

Small one is temporary mounted with double side tape.

Here is how it will be mounted. Side wall, front and top at the end. It's just a mock-up, so apologies for those gaps:blush:

That would be all for now. I hope you guys like this small update. I will get back to it next weekend, of course if it won't rain!:wallbash:
So, till next time!:thumb:

 

[HeavensCloud]

Updates!

 

[deadlift1]

+1 for sketch up. Takes a little patience to learn but once you get the hang of it it's awesome.

Nice work on those acrylic pieces. I'm curious to see how the "spine" turns out.

EDIT

I forgot to look at page 2 prior to posting. The spine looks sweet.

 

[phinix]

+1 for sketch up. Takes a little patience to learn but once you get the hang of it it's awesome.

Nice work on those acrylic pieces. I'm curious to see how the "spine" turns out.

EDIT

I forgot to look at page 2 prior to posting. The spine looks sweet.

Cheers!

 

[phinix]

Guys, couple of days ago I received a big package from GIGABYTE:thumb:
Yep, Gigabyte liked my Aurora project and kindly supported it with one of their fantastic mATX motherboards - GA-Z77M-D3H.
Very nice little board - it will keep my i5 OCed 24/7

 

[phinix]

Guys, I was so glad that new weekend started and planned more work on my case.
Guess what happened?!
It's like a bad spell! First, in Saturday morning it started to snow!
Then after few hours it rained!!!!:wallbash:
I was so pissed off, I couldn't believe in this, so dressed a bit warmer and still went out!:rock:
Unfortunately it started to rain even more, I soaked and couldn't work any longer. I didn;t want to damage my power tools on that rain, so packed it all up and went back home
All I did is I cut out, shaped, filed and polished second C shape 10mm thick opal acrylic support stand for power chamber.
S0 here it is: both stands together, new one next to old one (phone made photos). Both same, will be installed on the front of power chamber as showed on that sketchup picture.

I hope I will have more luck with weather next weekend!

 

[LooseNeutral]

Well well, Howdy phinix. Been a while. New project is looking great. Sub'd

 

[phinix]

Well well, Howdy phinix. Been a while. New project is looking great. Sub'd

Cheers Loose! Yep, new one, couldn't just sit and do nothing

 

[phinix]

A little add to the log.
Last weekend, well, it rained again.... So I did a little work on those support bits.

I'm going to mount them using my old technique - brass inserts in acrylic bits.
I marked spots for drilling on each of them. One little M3 brass insert on top

So I drilled the holes, 14 in total, then pushed all those inserts into the holes...

..and as you guys remember my technique from Phinix Cube project, I used soldering iron to push those inserts into the acrylic.

All done, looks nice, doesn't it?

Cool, they really feel nice in hands, smooth and shiny.

Now, personal moment: just wanted to show what I got for my Name Day from my ladies - nice pair of headphones. Really great, sound is awesome, especially in games - I can hear sounds I never heard before playing on speakers. It is time to re-play all old games now

 

[mnpctech]

oh, now I'm getting excited again!

 

[phinix]

oh, now I'm getting excited again!

Haha Thanks Bill!
Man, you are all over the place! You are on every forum

I hope next weekend will bring better weather so I could work on my Aurora and show you some good update
Let's keep our fingers crossed!!

 

[phinix]

Despite the horrible weather last weekend, something very nice happened to me
I picked up a nice package from post office - it came straight from Slovenia.
I'm pretty sure you guys know what company has their headquarters there!
Ljubljana - nice city, beautiful girls and best water blocks for all modders!
EKWB guys were so kind and sent me nickel/acetal GTX670 water block for my card + a nice backplate! That is not all! - this month in their production process there will be a nice little white acetal top pushed through and sent to me! Yep, soon I will get a nice white top to match my build!
Here's my new shiny block

 

[phinix]

Guys, I'm happy to show something new. New as brand new, like first on market new!
Well known from their air cooling solutions company - SCYTHE - kindly sent me their newly announced fan controller Kaze Station II !
That controller is so new, that is not yet even available in shops. I may be the first who got it!
Why I'm so happy to have this controller? Because it has everything that I was looking after - it's small - 3.5", so won't take up whole 5.25" slot, it has 2 USB 3.0 ports, headphones and microphone out sockets and two channels 1A each for controlling fans! That means I will be able to plug two fans to each channel!
My fans are 0.4A each, so I can easily control speeds of two radiator fans from one knob. Second one will be for top and rear fans.
Perfect solution - I was looking for something like that and couldn't find it - there is no other controller like this one on market - small size, USB3.0 and fan controller for 4 fans.
So, here it is:

 

[mnpctech]

I forgot to mention Mike, Scythe announced a couple months ago they were closing their doors. .....so maybe the controller was older model?

 

[phinix]

I forgot to mention Mike, Scythe announced a couple months ago they were closing their doors. .....so maybe the controller was older model?

This one is brand new, they announced it around end of January I think.
I think I read it somewhere on some IT sites that Scythe closed their US branch, but main one is still running.

 

[phinix]

OK, so today I had a good weather! Yep, sun was shining whole day, so I had to go out and do some work on my little Aurora.

I spent about 4-5 hours, my back hurts, my fingers are swollen, but it was totally worth it

All was set and ready to action right after a breakfast!

I finally got to finish power cage. Before I only showed you guys a mockup made of all cut out pieces of aluminum and few acrylic stands.
So today I took all those aluminum walls and filed and polished them. I had to trim them a bit too, to fit them evenly with those stands.
Previously I had two tall stands ready with those brass inserts pushed in. I needed to finish up that third one, smallest, which was going to go in the back of the cage.

So I drilled holes in it, pushed those inserts using same technique as before and screwed it to the case.

Using small M3 screws, (all I had left, few are missing on photos, but I'll buy some more later, no worries) I screwed it all together, so after an hour of adjusting the edges and trimming all walls, power cage was ready

Inside the cage, from the back

...little stand looks good and keeps the whole structure very steady.

..and here is cage without top panel, so you can see both tall stands...

Last weekend, when it was raining and I couldn't do anything, I took a trip to B&Q and bought myself a nice 1m long L shape profile aluminum.
I cut it up today to few pieces.
They are not ready yet, they need some more work to be finished, but that I will do next weekend.
Small pieces will be a support for rear motherboard wall and radiator cage.
Those two long ones will be corners for rad cage - between them I'll put a nice mesh. In this part I'm going to mount radiator with fans, so you can imagine how it is all spread around the interior.

I also cut out the front of original interior of the case.
It was necessary cause radiator will stick out a bit to the front later on, when I mount it.
It just a rough cut, so please don't mind those "almost straight" edges

last thing to show are few bits I cut out today too.
First, thin long one, is a fill-up piece for motherboard. What exactly it does? See, my mobo has 244x220mm so it isn't exactly default mATX size - so I made this bit to fill up the gap between mobo and end of the mobo tray. I'll think of later what I'm going to do with this.. maybe a nice logo, or some cut outs to make it look more interesting.. will see..

3 rectangles are aluminum plates that go under each acrylic drive shelf - two for SSDs and one for HDD. These will be mounted under the opal 10mm thick acrylic "beds" and will be a support for LEDs - that I will show later, I'm sure you guys gonna like it I can only say right now that they will be like a "lighting panels" for each drive.
Last piece, big rectangle - is a radiator stand. You can see on those photos some middle lines drew on it - those are the lines where I will bend it. It will simply be a L shape stand for radiator, which will be screwed in to bottom of the case. Other end will be covering a radiator up to the edge of first fan. I hope that makes sense. Well, you will see that next weekend.

Here is all drew up and ready to be cut up

...and here are all cut out pieces, still rough edges, need some more looovin' from my file

Cool. So that is it for now. I hope you guys enjoyed those few photos from today's update.
If weather let me, next weekend I will do some more work on those rough pieces left today.
BUT:eeek: - I also have something that will show you - a pretty big update on that drive cage, so STAY TUNED !!! :thumb:

 

[mnpctech]

Progress is coming along nice, look forward to next update!