pics from last wc mod

[Devilpup]

since my new project is on hold and i finally got some web hosting, here are some pics of my last mod. my goal was to build a large tower where i would have a lot of room for wc and drives. turned out pretty cool and was good learning experience, but the thing is a little too big me thinks. went with a black/silver theme. here we go:

here is what i started with, two chieftec full tower cases-

since this was to be a watercooled tower, and i use a 110v pump, i had to figure a way to get power to the pump without it looking ghetto. this is what i came up with -

basically it just wires an extension to the plug on the psu, so i only need 1 cord to power everything. the good- the pump is ALWAYS on whenever there is power to the pc, so no danger of powering up without the pump plugged in. the bad- doesn't really work in europe.

here is a shot of the psu after it was installed -

the thing i did here was take some mirror polished aluminum panels and installed them along the bottom of both sides in order to conceal the wires and make the overall system look cleaner.

here is a shot of the front after i fused the top and bottom panels (jb weld) together. i kept the original front panels since i was lazy and did not think of a good replacement -

no doors in this pic, i decided to leave the doors off this mod since it looked better overall.

here is a shot of the rear panel after modding -

again, i used some more mirror aluminum plate (mirror side in) to make the whole thing more modular. biggest mod here was in moving the psu from the top of the case to the bottom, where it cleaned up the wires quite a bit. and yeah, those are 120mm fans + 92mm fans. went with all aluminum fans for this build because it fit the color scheme and they are quieter when undervolted than panaflos.

here is a shot after everything was installed -

used uv dye and uv reactive ide cables for this mess. looks neat but a little too busy i think.

here is a shot of how i wired power to my hdds -

this is why you might see me bitching about sata power connectors. i <3 right angle molex

here is a clear shot of the wc stuff -

heatercore, dd maze 4, dd gpu block, 1/2 tubing. can barely see the tupperware res at the top, can't see the eheim 1048 pump. man i miss being water cooled *sniff* (note: i've been deployed overseas so i've been using a shuttle for a while)

in summary, this was my largest and most time-consuming build. it had windows in both sides and the top, water, lights, wheels, the works. here's the roster:

10 x 120mm fans
3 x 92mm fans (2 rear, 1 psu)
1 x 80mm fan (psu)
6 x 40mm fans (hdd coolers)
6 x hdds (in hdd coolers)

asus p4p800 mobo
2.4ghz p4 @ 2.7ghz
sb audigy card
ati 9700pro
1gb corsair xms 3000
floppy
2 x dvd/cdrw
lcd display
front usb (4 port)
2 x sunbeam fan controller
4 x uv ccfl

all running off a 430w enermax psu with no stability problems

 

[YeaAboutMalmrose]

wow....wow

 

[MONST3R]

^what he said

 

[Fezdog192]

Thats an amazing case dude. You = [H]ard.

 

[mpcamer1220]

holy cow

 

[Devilpup]

when i did this case i shoulda called it "project evolution" because it's kind of an evolution of my modding skillz and experiments. started with:

Generation 1 -

stock steel antec mid-tower. basically all i did was cut out the fan grills and paint the inside white. did a little wire management but nothing special. this was the first case i tweaked (notice the parallel port is being used, this is old crap).

Generation 2 -

same tower, only now i cut the rear fan holes to install dual 92mm fans, did dual 80mm fans up front with a 92mm in the drive cage, painted the psu (same one as above!), went all black with smooth black paint and used rounded cables.

Generation 3 -

here is where i finally step off the baby blocks and do some real modding. went with a black/blue color scheme which i liked a lot. i built the lower chamber from parts and basically used it like a radbox. the air comes through a hole in the bottom, through a filter, through the rad, and up into the main chamber via 3 x 120mm panaflos. again the front and rear fans were modded to 92mm, added 2 x 120mm fans to the top, and added the zalman to the gpu fan. i basically got tired of noise, but the 120mm fans didn't help the noise much. here's a shot of the water stuff:

*edit: oh yeah, i had some lights in the lower chamber it looked friggin sweet but i never used it for very long, the routing of the plumbing was too difficult.

Generation 4 -

again i worked with the same style of towers, only this time i went and fused two of them together to make a small cube case. it turned out pretty sturdy and held some hefty wc components (1.5 gallon res). used most of the same parts from the previous mod. modded the rear fans to 92mm again, modded the front to dual 120mm, plus 2 x 120mm in the rear (6 x 120mm total). went black/red this time but i didn't like it a lot, it was too dark. it was a lot cleaner when i used the 90* molex connectors but it was still a little messy.


so basically that's how i worked up to doing this mod. i was pretty happy with it except that it still only held 6 x hdds, though there was a ton of room to add more bays if i wanted. also when i did my gen 5 mod i used screws to hold the entire case together, so there are no rivets at all in it. makes it very easy to break down and ship or store.

 

[Rupes]

u own my life

 

[MONST3R]

im not a big fan of the whole gold fan grills but yours is definetly awesome so once again, HOLY SHIT!!!!

 

[maxxo]

nice mods, definantly getting better each time .