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Project: White Water

CompMage

CompMage

Gawd
Joined
Sep 7, 2003
Messages
851
Well I've been planning this for over a month now and today the Dremel hit the plastic!

The base case is a Cooler Master RC-690, Nice case to work with, and with a little help of a cutting wheel, I think it can be made into an awesome case.

GOALS: To mod a RC-690 case to accept a GTX360 3x120 Radiator to liquid cool the majority of the components. I’ve not decided 100% on all the parts so we will play it by ear as I go along.

2. I’m going with a white paint job with black highlight. I decided on high gloss white since everyone has black computers; I wanted something a little different. Not unique, but defiantly different. And no color accents white better than black.

The case it’s self will be a high gloss white with as much shine as I can get in it with 1500 Grit sandpaper and automotive rubbing compounds. The “bumpers” as I call them will remain flat black. The grating will get a coat of white paint too. The chase will get a coating of high gloss white, but likely not as much shine as I’m putting into the panels. Wires will be all sleeved in black, and since I use a SilverStone modular PSU, I’m going to be making all my own cables so to be a perfect fit for running and hiding. I hate huge bundles of wires hidden behind motherboard trays.
Well, now time for the show!

I started with taking the case apart. I moved it to a spare case I had.

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Next I started on the top bezel for putting in the radiator

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After Some cutting
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Next came time to see if it fit
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I was happy to see it fit nicely... Remember measure twice, cut once.

Next was time to get some sanding done on the top of the case
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But someone wanted attention... so that got put off a little while.

Finally I figured I would mark of tonight with some tape the connection points. I had to think of how to do this for a while and came up with this. It's simple water base face paint.

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And it worked great.

Well that's all for tonight as I want to have a beer and eat something. More to come as I got pictures or progress. As always comments are very welcome.
 
Ok the cat is a mutiant. It has 6 toes on each foot. He's not figured out how to use it as an opposable thumb yet,... YET.
 
CompMage said:
Ok the cat is a mutiant. It has 6 toes on each foot. He's not figured out how to use it as an opposable thumb yet,... YET.
Click to expand...
whoah. today, helicopters fall on headphone wearing kids, tomorrow 6 fingered cats take over the world when they learn to use their opposable thumbs. seriously, i think cats are poised to take over mankind.

anyway, I look forward to this mod. very creative on the facepaint marking system.
 
Well another day of work..

First my paint choices. Nothing but the good stuff.
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Next I went to town with my dremel
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After that I needed to do some cleaning, what better to do that with than a high pressure water hose


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And this is after my first layer of primer. Not even sanded. I've decided to put some rubber molding around the edges to keep the sharp bits at bay and make for a better connection.
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Well, more primer, more sanding.... Not much else to post other than that. Just sanding down with 320grit. It will go threw the power washer again today to remove any sanding dust I did not get with just and quick rinse in the tub.

Sorry no pics. Not really much to see... it's gray primer.
 
Funny - you can actually see the other paws thumb in that pic right behind the foreleg.

Btw, your cat totally threadjacked you :)

Good looking project so far.
 
Well, My first attempt at mounting the radiator was a bit of a failure. Could not get things to line up so I have started on this idea
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This was my orginal plan to keep the radiator from being to high. Basically I am taking a sheet of metal and cutting it down to to fit under there, using a 105mm whole saw to make an opening for the fan intake, and drilling whole for the fan screws to mount threw.

To hold the whole thing up I am using post screws, some bolts and washer. It should look fairly good. Every thing will get painted white and black to match. Plate will be white, screw post will all be black. The fan finger/wire guards will be painted white as well. I'm going to have it dropped so the bottem of the 38mm thick fans are just above the motherboard to keep the radiator from sticking out of the case to much more than I have to.

Also another note if anyone cares. The thread and screw size for the Hardware Labs GTX 360 is M4 thread.
Enjoy!
 
Late thursday I pressed the power button on my computer got got nothing. After testing, I believe my motherboard, 1x of my 8800GTS, and harddrive is dead. possably my PSU too. And even with an RMA of the PSU everything else is out side of the warranty. So my complete budge it toste.

Do no dispair, I will continue to work on the case and post pictures of things up to the case being complete with that parts I have on hand. But I will only be able to get so far before I must say this is it till I can get things in.

So I am sorry, but all postings are going to be very far between.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Update : 5-29-2008
EVGA RULES!!!!!!! They are RMA both my cards and the mobo since they can't figure it out over the phone and are afraid they could have damaged the second card....
I repeat EVGA RULES!!!!!!

PSU is good to go, tested it on another system and everything seemed fine.
 
I'M BACK!!!

Ok, when last we left our hero his computer was half melted and he had run out of money. Well, eVGA replaced the mobo and one videocard. One the warranty was voided by the prior owner of the card due to a bios flash....

Well now back to the mod.

This picture shows the rest of the cutting I outlined in my last post. I say it came out rather good. I also have the support plate installed and suspended using bolts and washers and all that fun stuff.
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With the top bezel on. I need to carve out a small bit of the plastic to get it to sit flush. Something is touching the screws.
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Here is with the radiator sitting in there. Please note this is not the final height. I need to cut down the post bolts to shorten them to the correct length once I get my fans in.
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I'll take a better picture of it up top later. I know it came out bad.

And of course every hero has his side kick...
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His name is Tobey if anyone cares.
 
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I went shopping..

You can see in the picture the 3 different fan types I will be using. 2x 140mm AeroCool White-Lightning (White LED) for the side panel. 2x 120m Aero Cool White-Lightning (White LED) for the front. Last but defiantly not lest. 3x 120x38mm Scythe Ultra Kaze 3000. I was surprised that they were not as loud as I thought they were going to be. I'm still going to be using a simple fan speed controller.

I placed one on the radiator so people can get a better feel as to how BIG this fan is. It's THICK. I am glad I used the drop top design I came up with. I had to run to the hardware store and et some replacement post screws to hold the fan down. As you can see I am going to need to cut them down so that they are not sticking up to much.

Not seen is my KAMA bay I got. the fan in it got tossed right in the trash. WOW it sucked. But I expected that. Thus one of the 120mm AeroCool fans will end up in it. I also removed the dust guard. That just blocked to much airflow. I am going to paint the frame of it white, and leave the mish on it black I think. I'll figure that out as I go along.

The paint on the case is currently wet so once I'm done with that and have all them pictures ready I will post them.
 
CompMage said:
I'M BACK!!!

img_0866.jpg

His name is Tobey if anyone cares.
Click to expand...

I was wondering what happened to this thread, couldn't find it in my mess of subd threads. Glad to see it. Do you have any concepts of the finished product? I'd love to see some of those.

and Toby's already figured out how to use a dremel? fuck, were really in trouble...
 
Well, since I SUCK at drawwing as you can see in the horiable paint picture shown above. I don't have much of "concept" cart. I guess I can find a picture of the case when it was running and try and paint shop it.

Tobey was more of guarding that from me. He knows I'll something dumb with it like not spend time with him...

Anyways. this is my idea a little more complete as I've finally got stuff out lined on paper on my desk. I'll see what I can wip up. But warrning, I'm more of a hands on artist, And my scanner is dead so I can't show any of my drawings.
 
Well I think this may help out line what I plan to do with the case.

Everything you see with primer on it will be white once I'm done. The side panels are to be painted on both sides. The top panel mesh you see is being painted as is for now. It will be cut down to let the readiator fit threw once I am done.
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If you notice in the upper left and corner of the left panal I got a little close with the primer and now have to sand it down....

Also do to request, I will post all higher res images (2048x1536) once I am done buy editing the orginal post to be a complete log with all photos linked to higher res images.
 
I got some painting done today! I am going for lots of light coats of paint with light sanding with 600G between each coat to remove any dry spray flakes that you get using a rattle can paint. I am also allowing a full 24 hours of dry / cure time between coat. Since I'm using an oil base paint it takes forever to dry right. But I want this to not only look good but have an amount of scratch protection.

What I did not take shots of was between primer layers and sanding. But each of the metal peices got 3 coats of primer sanded down before it got the first coat of light paint you see here.

I'm really looking forward to getting the bulk of the painting done over the next few days.

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In this I showed the back of of the other panal to get a better refernce to the paint.
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And this guy walked accross the box while I taking shots so....
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WOW, I can't believe how nice this came out...

This is a glimps as to how this will look when I'm done.
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Now, I've still got a lot of work to do. And a lot of parts on order.

I've decided to make all the shown screws black thumb screws holding down all the cards, both panals and the PSU. I think this will make for a nice effect. I've got a plate I cut out and I'm placing on the side of the 5.25 drive bay area to hide all the stuff there to give it a much nicer look there. Cables are being sleeved in white sleeve with black heads. Since I use a SilverStone modular PSU, I'm going to try and make each cable to length as needed to get things out site without having a huge rats nest behind the motherboard try.

This will likely be my last pictured update for a while as I am moving. I should be able to continue work in a week or two.
 
Well.. I got bored and did a little more work on the case today... needed some relax time and well... WOW.. I can show you about what it's going to look like..

Now, I'm NOT done. I still need to give the panals some 1200P sandpaper and some rubbing compund to get a real shine out of them. And I need to cut a hole out of the top mesh for the radiator to fit threw. The list goes on,

Now here it is.
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Not the best picture but I would love to hear what people think so far. I'm kinda stuck on something. From the picture you can see the kama bay (Yes I replaced the fan and removed the dust filter so it is useful now) and it's black. My question is, do I leave it back to match the optical drives or what.

I was kind of thinking of leaving the base frame black and painting the mesh white.
 
Dude, she looks real nice. I love the contrast going on there. As for the Kama bay, I'd say paint the mesh white as well (for 2 reasons).

1 - It will look pretty sweet with the added contrast (seeing the black fan through the white mesh. Will grab your attention more I think.
2 - It should hide the dust, the black mesh will show dust accumulation pretty quickly. White not so fast.

Edit :
You should cut out the real fan grill while there's still no system in it. That will improve airflow and allow you to use a quieter exhaust fan (if u want) since the air will be ejected with no resistance.
 
Well the 1200P sandpaper finaly came in today, Also got all my fan grills, thumb screws (black), sleeving kit (white), extra molexs (black) and enough connector pins to make it all work (a not so small pile) and some other items.

I will get back to work on the case in about 2 weeks. I'm still moving right now and I got a buisness trip next week... should be fun.
 
Ok keep us updated. Also once you are done your setup, make sure you take some pics for the forums.
 
Well I know I've been away for some time. The reason being. I moved and everything got packed up. Well things are unpacked now and I'm back to work. This weekend I'm going to try and put all the final little details on the case it's self such as the fill port and some molding around the top. That will be easier to under stand once I got pictures up.

Thanks for all the support.

I've decided to also give all the mesh another coat of paint. I'm just not happy with a few small areas I missed and that you can see veryations in. When I painted the mesh I only painted one side. (Yep bad move) so now I've got to paint the other side.

I need to also do some touch up work on the radiator. I put a small scrape on it where it can be seen. Nothing that needs to be replaced just a pin drop of black paint.

The front fan grill is going to need some thing to fill in a little space left to ether side I'm not happy with. I picked up some black weather stripping for it. The mesh on it will also get some white paint.

After long debait and headache. The optical drives are going to say stock black. I installed them and they are the same shade as the other black parts and don't look to bad. The while lettering on them looks good really. Really keeps with the theam.

I still need to order one more fan... YES MORE FANS!!!!!! A 80x80x15mm white LED fan I found on Performance-PCS.com to supply some air flow to the back of the motherboard. It's a low CFM and db fan. Just enough to keep that air from being stagnet.

The side panals are DONE... sanded and polished and look GOOD. Just going to add one final detail I will reveal on the final pics.

Cables will likely be the VERY last thing I do in this case as I want everything else in place.

Not much else left. I know it's been a LOT more work than I expected and deffently came out diffrent than I invisioned it. But I'm happy with it.

And if everyone liked watching this. I will be modding another case starting as soon as I am done with this one... An old Chieftec Full tower into a File server....

Well all I'll post more updates as I got them.
 
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