POLARity

[oliverw92]

Looking good. Can't wait for more updates. I normally follow your guides on ocn but it makes it way easier here.

Thanks!

Care to explain the flow in your GPUs? aestetically it looks great, but the logic in my said "whoa back TF up, that isnt right!"

Still looking great

I'll explain below

I believe it's called parallel flow, and it works fine.

Yup

Ok I understand it now. I was confused as well, right up until I looked at it again. Each card has an A & B port. For the sack of simplicity A is on the left B on the right. I'm going to assume the pumps are in the bottom and so the water comes into A on the bottom card. Some of the water flows through the card and out B. The rest of the flows out the top of A and into the A on the top card and through to B. The water from the bottom card flow through B on the top card rejoining with the other water and continues through the loop.

Now hopefully that made sense and I didn't confuse you anymore than you were.

Yeah you are pretty much right. It is called parallel flow. It means both cards get 'fresh' water from the radiator rather than card A getting the 'cold' water and card B getting 'warm' water from the first card. This ONLY works if both blocks are the same i.e. the same graphics card with the same blocks. What happens is the water is split evenly because the pressure and flow is the same throughout - the two routes the water can take are both the same length and 'volume'. This pic might help:

Update #25 - 16/08/2010

I needed some monies for this project so I have been doing a sleeving job for someone. Should pay for one and a half of my 4 hard drives that i need to buy! This is a Corsair HX1000 sleeved with red and black MDPC sleeving. PSU is modded quite a bit - cut off the non-modular 6+2pin cables and made them modular. Replaced all the plugs and pins with MDPC ones instead of the silly corsair ones. It isn't done yet but should be finished soon.

Here is a load of stuff that arrived.

This is an audio DAC that i ordered from Taiwan. I will be making a small white acrylic cube to house it in.

I ordered this because i was getting major interference from my 5850's when they were stressing out whilst gaming - they were causing loads of noise on my audio from the PC. Optical out should eliminate this.

3 parts to it - transformer, power board, and the DAC itself.

I also got a load of electronics stuff from Rapid. These are some resistors i ordered, they are huuuge! Reason they are so large is because they are high power ones - take up to 2 watts. These are for my LEDs.

Also got some black connectors for my new sleeving idea.

I wasn't happy with my GPU connector solution - as a few people said, it looked very bulky. People said i should get some Bitspower Crystal links, but i don't like the idea that they aren't entirely 'secure'.

My solution was to buy these tiny matt black compressions with clear tubing - these are 10mm OD, 8mm ID!

On the left is a 3/4" OD, 1/2" ID fitting with matching white tubing.

These are some 3mm white LEDs

This is what they will look like in the drive bay covers. I will hook them up to the FC5 to control the brightness.

Something to look forward to - another package arrived from MDPC-X with this awesome drawing from Nils

 

[aberchonbie]

wow, i like your work. subscribed.. love worklogs

 

[oliverw92]

Update #25 - 16/08/2010

Just a small update, these pics are a bit old since most of the stuff is at either the powdercoaters or anodisers!

Case stripped down to bare parts

These parts are for white

The insane 1-piece shell

Parts for anodising, these have since gone down to only the mobo i/o backplate and PSU backplate for anodising.

Any guesses as to what i am doing?

Maybe this will give you a clue

 

[pbcustom98]

that is a sick setup. cant wait to see the finished product!

 

[Rooble91]

Wow, I just looked through your entire worklog and damn you do some nice work. Amazing detail and cleanliness. Keep up the good work.

 

[oliverw92]

Thanks guys


Update #27 - 18/09/2010

Here is some nylon/polyester dye. I could not find replacement connectors for my Enermax Revo, so I used an idea from a friend called Kai on another forum and dyed them.

You simply put some dye and water in a small saucepan then simmer it for about 15-30 minutes.

Then rinse it under the tap

Here is a comparison - old on the left, dyed on the right. Even the cables go black!

All three together.

This needs some explaining! I could not get the red connectors off the PSU itself. I tried unsoldering, but i don't have a hot enough soldering iron. I tried heatshrinking the connectors to see if it would look good enough, but no matter what i did the red always showed through. Last resort? Dye the whole thing black then wash off the excess! I took the PSU apart then stuck the end of the modular board in the saucepan.

As you can see, it worked

Jump forwards now. No this is not a render, the case is actually powdercoated!

I also bought my 4x Samsung F3 Spinpoint 1TBs.

Redid the 24pin in all black.

Eventually the motherboard backplate will have snap caps on the screws, just like the PSU plate.

I've started doing a little cable management. Going well so far.

Here is the 24pin

The completed power supply. I am VERY happy with it!

I decided to dry fit all the components. Everything is fine, thrown up one problem - my crossfire bridge hits the backplates on the GPUs. Should be able to sand down the connectors on the bridge to fit though. Also the bridge looks really really dodgy. Need to try and remedy that!

I leave you with this

 

[BoogerBomb]

Great looking for so far. It takes a bit of time but when you want to do it right it always does.

 

[vengence]

Seriously, that looks insanely awesome.

 

[indokyne]

i know this has been discussed at length in the WC forums but I still do not see the effectiveness of this configuration - especially to the bottom card.

 

[jebo_4jc]

Seriously, that looks insanely awesome.

what he said

 

[formula409]

what he said

and again..what they said

 

[fochkoph]

Man you are truly insane with that PSU dye job.

Eagerly waiting the finished product!

 

[oliverw92]

Great looking for so far. It takes a bit of time but when you want to do it right it always does.

Thanks man

Seriously, that looks insanely awesome.

i know this has been discussed at length in the WC forums but I still do not see the effectiveness of this configuration - especially to the bottom card.

- Both cards get the same temperature water (i know after a while it will make perhaps 1c of difference however at first it will make a rather dramatic difference)
- It looks more attractive

what he said

and again..what they said

Man you are truly insane with that PSU dye job.

Eagerly waiting the finished product!

Thankyou!

 

[oliverw92]

Update #28 - 22/09/2010

Update is pretty self explanatory

Excuse fingerprints!

SATA cables getting installed.

They sweep down under the top GPU cable.

The excess then loops round behind my bay covers.

 

[Jesse B]

Absolutely stunning.

 

[shawnoen]

Where did you get the round 90 degree sata cables from? Are they sata 3?

 

[Grebuloner]

Incredible work! Excellent attention to detail you have going.

/subbed

 

[Loafdogg420]

Stunning!

 

[shadowlord]

simply awesome !

 

[3far4shot]

Very epic rig.... and that's a huge understatement.

Sucks that my crappy internet connections takes forever to load the awesome pics.

 

[tylerdvorak]

This case looks awesome...seriously seriously awesome.

 

[phiberoptik]

wow amazing work man, i should of paid more attention in wood/metal shop

 

[oliverw92]

Hey guys,

I have really bad news. POLARity is now on hold until Christmas 2010. This morning i was perfectly on track to finish by tomorrow. However my FC5 has managed to postpone that deadline by several months. Why, you ask? It decided to explode -.- First off the main 12v track on it exploded. So i soldered it back together, then another track further down the line exploded. Then channel 1 stopped working all together. Now only 1 channel works I am going to uni on Tuesday so I don't have time to get another FC5 in before then. I don't have room to mod at uni, so I can't finish POLARity until I come back at Christmas.

Sorry for the delay, but I will be back!

 

[jebo_4jc]

SAD!

Good luck, and be sure to post back in this thread once you get going again

 

[phiberoptik]

damn!! gorgeous machine!

 

[Mustin]

I never really liked white cases, but damn. If only I would have know about the nylon dye. Might have to break down my system and start dying, lol.

 

[djBon2112]

This has to be one of the best looking case mods I've ever seen!

Keep up the good work man!

 

[oliverw92]

Hey guys. More bad news I'm afraid! The snow we have had in the UK meant that my mum couldn't get out of Devon in the car to come pick me up from Uni up north. I had to book a TNT collection to take my bass amp, PC and screen back, and then i jumped on a train back home. Even that didn't go according to plan - should have taken 3.5 hours on the train, ended up taking almost 7 hours and 4 trains! You may be saying 'your pc is on the way, what's the issue?'. I had half my modding equipment at uni with me in a plastic box. I unfortunately had no way to pack those materials, and I cannot finish POLARity without them. So therefore this project is now on hold even further - most likely until Easter. Sorry to disappoint guys, but i promise it will be worth it

 

[Rossi~]

Hey guys. More bad news I'm afraid! The snow we have had in the UK meant that my mum couldn't get out of Devon in the car to come pick me up from Uni up north. I had to book a TNT collection to take my bass amp, PC and screen back, and then i jumped on a train back home. Even that didn't go according to plan - should have taken 3.5 hours on the train, ended up taking almost 7 hours and 4 trains! You may be saying 'your pc is on the way, what's the issue?'. I had half my modding equipment at uni with me in a plastic box. I unfortunately had no way to pack those materials, and I cannot finish POLARity without them. So therefore this project is now on hold even further - most likely until Easter. Sorry to disappoint guys, but i promise it will be worth it

Dude unlucky!
It's been ok over here in Hertfordshire, until Saturday.... now we're as screwed as the rest of the country.
I know what the trains and roads are like at the moment, you've come off pretty well i think compared to a lot of people travelling to/from the north.

Hope to see it progress when you get back after Christmas.

 

[Gshady]

This build is INCREDIBLE! Sorry to hear the bad news but i think it will be worth the wait, for all of us watching anyways.

 

[TeeJay88]

Update me please!!!

 

[Negative Decibel]

epic wow!! Looks awesome!!

 

[mannyman]

Words do not express... Don't worry guys i'm sure he will update soon.

 

[oliverw92]

Update #29 - 18/06/2011

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No it's just me

Q&A Time!

Q: Where the hell have you been??!!
A: Exploring the universe with my towe- wait that's a book. I've just been really really busy getting sorted at university and getting used to things. Not much of an excuse really (especially to leave it this long) but it will have to do!

Q: So you are actually going to finish now?
A: Yes! But it won't be finished as I want it. I need to get it finished for this coming Friday. I most likely won't have the case lighting done by then and some cable management might not be 100% complete. However towards the end of summer I will probably break it down and finish off the bits i missed.

Q: You promised you would finish it at Christmas, and Easter! You are totally lying
A: This time, unless something actually goes horrifically wrong, I have to get it finished by friday


And on to some pictures! This is just a basic summary of where I am currently at with the project:

My workbench at uni is the top of my chest of draws

Something I have never shown anyone - the new acrylic disk cover for the PSU fan

Bay cover with LEDs in.

 

[oliverw92]

Update #30 - 23/06/2011

Finished! Sort of...

There are a few things not right yet:
- No fans on the top rad (they were too tall against the motherboard)
- LEDs are not wired up in the drive bays (I destroyed half them somehow)
- Crossfire bridge is still brown and fugly
- My front panel custom usb cable doesn't work (i may have plugged it in upside down...)
- The lights on the switches for the rad fan lights are inverted
- I glued the CD slot cover on wonky (derp)
- Need more support for the bay cover at the bottom

So these aren't final photos. Mainly because it isn't completely finished, but also because I'm at uni with no tripod and no studio or anything to take decent photos. Either way, enjoy!

 

[keybladejon]

This is very, very pretty sir. I am glad to see it finally complete!
Projects like this always make me want to start my own project.

 

[webmastir]

It's pretty nice. Not a huge fan of the design, but I can see why you/everyone else likes it. Keep up the great work

 

[runudownquick]

Oh. My. Goodness.
Immaculate work, but then I have a soft spot watercooled white themed cases
And by soft spot I mean a hard on, I really should try some modding.
Now if only boutique vendors did something like this...

 

[Mosher]

Wonderful... Great Job!

 

[Freezebyte]

It's been a long time since a case mod has actually impressed me but that shit is just fucking beautiful! Thats fucking art in geek form. Plus, im a sucker for blue light/white/silver themes