Project "Impossible Modding"

[RigoRMorteM]

Other idea :

I don't like this placing , but this allow me to have the reservoir and the pump without talking the most important fact : the radiator is really near! I hope to place finally everything here, but I need to modify the reservoir!

 

[RigoRMorteM]

But the most important thing is the hardware placing, to be sure to have some free space , here a pics of the motherboard tray :

Talking about the screw to fix the mb in place, I've chose to use this screws :

They are bigger than usual, but I love this!

This is the critical point, but it fits well! And now I can begin the hardware mounting!

 

[RigoRMorteM]

The fans that I've oredered a lots of time ago are arrived! I've choosen the Enermax UC-8AEBS , really interesting, magnetic motion, easy detaching of the fan blade and trimmer to regolate the speed...

Tnx to all the people at www.officinainformatica.it to found there delicious fans!
After a few works, here is the result :

As you can see, I've used other led grommets as anti vibration between the fans and the rad :-]
More upload have to come, I'm always too late in translation works...

 

[RigoRMorteM]

Now it's the time for the usb port :-]

Take out the cover and working to the fixing method, I've used this spacer, they are threaded M3 , so for the Cabe side they are ok:

But fot the screw side are too small, so I've decided to tapping one side to M4 :

Only one side, remember...

 

[RigoRMorteM]

Here are the ready spacer :

Searching for something to cover the cable mess I've found this :

A bit expensive, 12.40 euros, but it fits well...

Marked the holes, then drilled with a 4.2mm bit.

 

[RigoRMorteM]

Here is the first fitting :

Now I need to find something to cover the sides...

The grill will be ok for the testing pourpose, let's bend :-]

Fot the bottom I've used some alu bars to help me to obtain the correct bend...

 

[RigoRMorteM]

Slowly it comes up....

I need to work more with this piece, but this is only a test piece...
SLeeving the cables :

I've used this, it's a MicroDip tube from Gardena, you csn find it in near every gardening store, the pirce is really low, 6 euros for 15 meters, ID 4mm and OD 6 mm.

The final 5 cm are without tube to allow me to do a lot of test and bending.

 

[RigoRMorteM]

Now all the cables are sleeved, it's time to cure the side of the grill with the irrigation tubing :

For the first try it's not too bad, mounting in place :

Side view :

I like it, but now it's time to stop joking , it's time to made the final release!

 

[RigoRMorteM]

I was searching for a piece of smoked plexy, and I came across this :

The cover of an old Corsair Hydrocool :-]

Marking the cut and cutting with the diamond cutter from Dremel, it's not cheaper, but cut the plexy like an hot knife in the butter!

First piece ready.

 

[RigoRMorteM]

Second piece is held in place with a strip of double sided tape :

Comments? Questions?

 

[snefan]

very sexy!

 

[RigoRMorteM]

LOL!
In few days I'll post more img!

 

[RigoRMorteM]

Now that the mb is near ready, the rads are ok and the usb cover is ok, test fitting!
If anything goes ok, I'm the first in the world to reach this result...

WOW! It Fit perfectly!

Rad, B3 and video card... And now, more USB madness!

 

[RigoRMorteM]

My idea was to place a cheapo pci 4 port usb card, but I have only free space for a single pci card...
I must choose between 4 usb or my lovely Pinnacle PCTVSAT... I've choosen Pinnacle...
But I need more USB plug, so , moddin a cheap usb hub :

Here is the hub, without his original plastic skin, I've mapped all the joints to do, then I've begun to dissasemble all the plug, except the mini one :

All without ports... As you can see , it's possible to power up this little boy with an external +5v source, lovely!
Now I need more space to play with :

I've used some strip pin (right term?) , they cost near 1.50 euro for 20 piece.
Don't blame me for the cords color, at home I have only this :-]

 

[RigoRMorteM]

The sacrifical victim :

An old DIN keyboard "vampire" to hook up an old webcam... But the necessary plug si present, I need this :

Here is the necessary cable, a male white molex with all the pins, and a new uv green molex tha I want to use:

With this tool (I don't know the name in english, can someone help me?) I've secured the cable to the molex then I used a lot of heat shrink tubing to insulate all...
Now I need to build the box for the hub.

 

[RigoRMorteM]

The only free space that I have is the floppy drive bay, here are the necessary items :

I use only he bare chassis of the floppy to have an idea of the whole space, then I used an old memory card reader :

Ok, it fit, now the 4 port...

My idea is to place the usb port here, at 45° degrees. Strange, I know, but keep in mind that on the top I have the psu, at the same degrees, and even the motherboard is slanted in the same way...
Not that I have some measure, let's build all in alu!
Stay tuned!

 

[BIGJ]

WOW, I viewed this thread the first night you posted it, and I have to say, I thought you couldn't do it!

Great Work, you are doing an AWSOME job! Props to you!

BTW: I think your english is better than mine, and I have been in 12 english courses through out the years!

 

[mitcity22]

wow, this is great.......I am very impressed.

 

[RigoRMorteM]

Tnx a lot guy!
I try to do my best with the translation , and with the mod!

 

[LogitechFreak]

keep it up man loving this

 

[RigoRMorteM]

Firt, I must say a big tnx to Redemptor, owner of the Project Stardust, that made this big transaltion for me...

Now that the motherboard, the radiators and the usb port cover are ready, has come the time to see if my measures were right. If something has gone wrong I’ve just lost moneys, a bet with a friend and more than all I’ve made a bad figure with you all.

Oh yeaaaaahhh!! Everything fits in correctly!!!

Closeup of the radiator, B3 and the videocard.
And now let’s spend some other time on the usb port.

 

[RigoRMorteM]

Now that the volume tests have been done it’s time to make everything in aluminium.

After some cuts and biadesive ribbon, here’s the box where will go the 4 usb ports and the memories reader.
Yes, biadesive ribbon…
I use it a lot for my projects when I’m in testing phase. I think that it’s really useful to hold in place all the pieces to be drilled, to take measures and evaluate spaces without the needing of glues that take a lot of time to solidify, and more than all it can be removed in really few time.
Usually I use the classic biadesive for moquettes, the roll that I’ve is of 50 meters and costs about 4 euros, and in four years that I’ve been using it I still havent’ reached its half length.
But let’s proceed talking about its shape. How you’ve seen it’s longer than a normal floppy reader, and has a final part with an L shape. This has been made to simplify the exit of the cables and more than all to don’t hide the bottom of the case that is mirrored and really beautiful to be seen…

Here is how it should look after some cuts and sanding, it starts taking shape and now it’s time to cut the cover….

The cut has been made obviously with the Dremel, and the cover frames with all the other L profiles in the base… Everything fits millimetrically…

 

[zero_vertical]

With this tool (I don't know the name in english, can someone help me?) I've secured the cable to the molex then I used a lot of heat shrink tubing to insulate all...
Now I need to build the box for the hub.

Wire Stripper.

This mod is awesome!

 

[RigoRMorteM]

Tnx a lot, zero vertical!

First fitting test:

There are still a lot of things to do, but this is what i had in mind…
First modify: the usb ports support must be cutted to permict the memory reader’s cable pass through:

The cable seems to be straight, but it’s an illusion! Here’s the trick:

On the cable there’s the anti-disturb ferrite cylinder, so I hide it under the L profile of the usb ports, and it fits in nicely…

 

[RigoRMorteM]

Now it’s time for polishing, i already know that i won’t obtain a perfect result but never surrender:

How you can see there’s difference of reflection, on the left there’s the steel piece of the Cabe, on the right there’s my polished aluminium piece, not that orrible but not comparable to the original piece of the Cabe. I will decide if to leave it as it is, or cover it with some mirror DC-Fix vinyl.

After cutting the leaning out pieces of the usb ports’ bracket, I’ve mounted all and it’s like I wished it!

Comments?

 

[RAA-Kr1cH]

looks awesome!

But I don't get how you're going to be able to plug anything into those usb ports once it's installed???

 

[Darkmp40]

Looking good man, keep up the good work! Curious, i don't know if you posted already i was curious of the specs. Also, i like the medicard reader and the back usb hub the way your doing it its pretty cool

 

[Darkmp40]

Sorry was double post accident

 

[blairellis]

looks awesome!

But I don't get how you're going to be able to plug anything into those usb ports once it's installed???

Im also trying to understand that, but I THINK by looking at the picture, that the plate he has it mounted on slides out from the computer?

 

[WarMace]

That is a beautiful case, and a gorgeous job mounting the Rad's. Too bad it comes out to over 200$ US

 

[RigoRMorteM]

Here are some reply to all...

@RAA-Kr1cH and blairellis : It's really difficult to use the usb port... I know... But, have you considered the new Windows Vista "ReadyBoost" technology? Two ports will have two usb pendrive (4 gb I hope) for readtboost, and the other 2 will have 2 more pendrive (even 4 gb) for the backup of some documents... So, I'm not planning to have access to this ports often...

@Darkmp40 : the specs of the system are the specs of a poor-man pc : Amd 3500, 2 gb of ram, 2 hd for a total of 300 gb, pinnacle pctvsat and X550 video card... Now I'm searching for a sponsor for a decent vid card, but nobody is interested, here in Italy :-[

@warmace : ok , 200$ is not the cheaper price, but how do you pay a Lian-Li case? And the cabe is made in stainless steel, not in alu...

Let’s give a look to a nice thing that Roby has given to me to be tested…

Leds…
High Intensity…
3mm Height…
White…
Osram Brand…
On biadesive ribbon 3M…
COOOOL!!!

I’d say that their effect is marvellous…

Here’s where I’d like to place them, but there are still a couple of things to be revisited…
These are the white light model, 5 leds every 10 cm, but alimented at 24v.
There are also the ones with more space from led to led, till the model that has 1 led every 10 cm, they’re divisible in strips with the only use of a scissor, but there’s something cooler…
There are also models alimented at 12v, and there’s also the RGB version, that can change colour by choosing from an infinite palette, and this model can be piloted through USB, so my USB port that actually is not in use should be used for that aim.
Actually I still dunno the right price, but I should know something soon.
Any comments?

 

[Darkmp40]

Ic, PCI -E or AGP? if its pci -e when i get my new video card i might give u my ati x1600 but its dual expansion slot.. so it will take up two of your four expansion bays....

but heck i only had a amd 3200 for along time they aren't bad.

 

[Exanimis]

Amazing with the LED strips, I'd love to see a company do RGBUV on those with like 1 cm spacing like this


R G B UV 1 cm R G B UV 1cm R G B UV.

So you could have a full spectrum of color choices through a simple software dial in your OS. Wow


I'd buy it for like $100 for 6 feet.

 

[RigoRMorteM]

Mmm, interesting items...

Here’s another add to my project:

A K5 Keops to liquid cool also the mobo chipset… Obviously it’s Italian! But copper in this project doesn’t seems to fit well, so I’ll take it into pieces:

The staff that you can see is made of stainless steel, but the screw holes are for screw at maximum M3, so I will have to modify them…
And now obviously to the chrome workshop!

Oh yeah, now I like it, and more than all I like the fact that it has been made for free!

 

[RigoRMorteM]

The fittings are still missing!

For the moment I’ll place the 90° ones also there… Another picture:

The base hasn’t been sand finished before chroming, and luckily there’s no sign of the production machinery. Great!

Here’s how it should be placed, but now I’ll take apart the mobo and mount the waterblock on it, so I could finally cut the pipe to make the first tests!

 

[RigoRMorteM]

Before everything i want to make some test to take confidence with the compression fittings, the corner ones and the straight ones just arrived thanks to Picio:

For the corner fittings there has been no problem, instead the straight ones are just a bit harder to be inserted, and I want to see if they sign the pipe:

As I could imagine they signed the pipe! After some meditation, like preparing some plexy washer to obtain a certain thickness, I opted to use some O-rings that luckily I had in big quantity…

I hope you can see it… Now the pipe won’t be signed and let’s see if there will be some liquid loss…

 

[RigoRMorteM]

Now i want to spend again some time on the air-trap that needs to be shortened up a bit. I still dunno where I will place it, but I know for sure that I don’t like the holders on the side.

Diamond cutting disk and here we cut…

Now let’s polish it with 1200 sandpaper with water and soap on the sides to smooth them…

It’s obvious that it need some more polishing, or not? Big quantity of Iosso, old shorts made of sponge and a lot of sweat…

 

[RigoRMorteM]

After 15 minutes here’s the result:

Quite good, and now let’s see some possible position tests:

Here it should be nice, also if I have to think if and where to place a tap for the draining of the tubing…

 

[RigoRMorteM]

Finally i've decided where i'm gonna place the pump and reservoir:

And here i'm testing to see if the pump works well:

Great, it works!

To fix the pump to the mobo tray i'm gonna use this material that is kinda of velcro but with better holding qualities. It also reduces vibrations and a simplier removal of the pump in case of manutention.

 

[RigoRMorteM]

Let's go back to the usb ports...
It's time to prepare some cables that will carry the signal from the motherboard usb to the box i'm gonna make...

This is an old rack connector that has been sleeved, this is my wiring idea:

Obviously i havent straight pin strip, but i will buy them today... Here's how i think to hold the cables of the 4 usb ports that go from the mobo to the box:

Nothing else than O-rings and pipes... Obviously black as all the other plastic components of the Cabe... And then will come the boring part... mapping all the cables...