Sleeving on Ft-02

[FalconSS]

okay guys, I just purchased the Silverstone FT-02 it being the most expensive case i've ever purchased. It just shouts quality and durability. (probably due to the 4.5mm aluminum slab that is wrapped around it)

anyway while it is incredible The yellow fan wires really stand out. I have never done sleeving before but I wanted to add the MDPC grand bleau sleeving. How would I go about sleeving these fans(the 180mm) and fan controller.

in terms of skill I have never sleeved but I'm okay in desoldering and soldering components so I do have a steady hand and understand the patiance needed when working with small electronics.

I really want NO CHANCE of messing anythingup, like I said this is the most expensive case i've ever gotten and DO NOT want to mess it up.

 

[zero2dash]

The fans (3pin power cables) are easy to sleeve; the switches, not so much.
They soldered the leads from the fan to the switch and then used heatshrink on them.

If you use sleeving that is large enough to fit over the switches, it's going to be too big.
You'd really have to either cut the switch leads, pull on the sleeving, splice the leads and then finish the sleeving (hopefully covering the splice job), or you could desolder the leads, pull on the sleeving, resolder the leads, then finish the sleeving.

In my case I just didn't want to bother with spending that much time/effort on it, I found a decent way to route the switch wires so they're not that visible anyway, and I just left them be. I did sleeve all the other fan wires though (the power wires). I would have hoped they'd use adapters or some sort of quick disconnect on the switches, but they didn't.

(If you don't have the case already and don't know what I'm talking about) the way it's wired up is this, there's 6 wires coming from each 180mm fan...3 are power (connected to the 3pin power brick terminal), the other 3 go straight to the switch. Each 180mm fan is this way, and each fan has it's own switch.

GL

 

[FalconSS]

Thanks! I'm also interested in general sleeving technique do you have any pics of your sleeved fans? I would love to see them! Also how did you route the switch wires? I have the case here but it looks so nice I'm a little afraid to mess with it . I know it would look even better with that awesome blue sleeving though

 

[zero2dash]

I ran the switch wires down from the switches, through the EPS hole, zip tied around the back. You can only see the switch wires if you really look for them, and it's only a few inches worth....the rest are hidden behind the motherboard tray.

Fan sleeving you can see mainly on the bottom back side, I ran the 180mm fan power cables along the bottom behind the fans themselves to keep cable visibility down.

 

[FalconSS]

yeah i remember seeing those in the ft02 thread. any tips for sleeving? what tools would I need?

 

[zero2dash]

I bought PET techflex sleeving and heatshrink off cableorganizer.com
There are other places to buy the stuff but they're pretty much the cheapest. Of course there's also MDPC if you want murdermod sleeving.

I've been sleeving for awhile now but I just looked over some of the guides in the modding FAQs for cable sleeving. Basically all you need is the sleeving, heatshrink, and then a few other things....small/fine point screwdriver to remove the fan plastic plug (and get the bare wires out), pair of good sharp scissors to cut the sleeving with (sharp scissors won't cause it to fray as bad), and I use a regular run-of-the-mill hairdryer to shrink the heatshrink. Best tip/advice I can give you is when you cut the sleeving, open it as little as possible to fit the wires in. The more you open the end up to fit things, the more frayed and split apart the loom gets. The heatshrink usually covers this anyway, but still it's easier to work with if the fraying and opening is kept to a smaller size.

 

[FalconSS]

so I just take off the 3pin and slide the sleeve all the way down to the fan? then slide a piece of heatshrink all the way down? heatshrink the fan end then put the 3pin back on and heatshrink it?(after adding the heatshrink of course) whats the best way to get the wires back in the connector?

 

[zero2dash]

My steps -
1) bend the pins on the wire terminals by poking small screwdriver or point through "windows" on back, pull wires out of 3pin brick
2) measure sleeving to cover wires (roughly about 3'), leave a little gap at both ends (which will be covered by heatshrink)
3) cut sleeving, slide over wires, then cut and slide 2 small pieces of heatshrink (I use about a 1" piece) over sleeving
4) bend wire terminals back, slide back on the brick
5) slide 1pc of heatshrink towards each end, i do the fan side first and the brick side last

I put a guide up on 3DGM a long time ago but their forums are still fubar'd, here's a Google cache copy
http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache...ide&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a

I recommend buying what I did when sleeving the FT02, it was much easier...I bought bigger heatshrink and I didn't have to fuss with it at all, it slid right over and shrunk perfect. I bought

ORDERED SKU DESCRIPTION PRICE
15 BS0125BK 0.125 inch PET BLACK- PER FT1/8 inch PET per foot - Black $0.25
3 HS3-025FT-BK 1/4 in 3:1 Heat Shrink - per FT1/4 in 3:1 Heat Shrink - per FT - Black $0.91

15 feet of 1/8" sleeving and 3 feet of 1/4" 3:1 heatshrink. (you won't use much heatshrink...buy 2-3' just to be safe, but you'll probably have some left over)
Again figure you will need about 3' per fan, if you want to do the front panel wiring (for the switches and LEDs) I recommend using larger sleeving (and also larger shrink obviously), use 1/4" sleeving and like 1/2" 3:1 shrink should be ok (estimating). 3:1 shrink will shrink to a third of the original size (like the 1/4" 3:1 will shrink to an ID (inner diameter) of a little bigger than 1/16".

On their site "nominal size" is what the shrink starts out at before you shrink it.
Measure out a cable, multiply it by how many you have and you can easily figure out how much sleeving to buy. (I just guesstimate, I'm too lazy )