A Window To Wales

[OJ46]

That reservoir looks great. Looking forward to the finished product! GL.

Thank you

I just love how different the Monsoon looks to the other 'off the shelf' reservoirs, especially if you get a bit creative with the way it's put together.

Nice leaky build mate, you making a shower or a pc?

I'm quite sold on swapping out the O-Rings for the bitspower version, slightly thicker and gives a better seal for about £4 for 10. Even the EK ones are pretty thin.

Well we did have the shower ******* water through to downstairs not that long ago, so guessing this is a sign I should stay away from both!

I did think about that mate, especially as I have some spares already sat here, but used it as an excuse to switch the 90°s out so they'll all be he same. That one worried me to start with tbh as the fitting is very loose, but I wasn't expecting it to leak where it screws into the rad.

 

[OJ46]

Small update with some minor miracles:

First up, the metallic red paint that I bought to do the small triangles on the motherboard turned out to be absolutely perfect for the CPU block nuts

Much better than the fugly black lumps.

Then I tried some of the window tint paint used on the fans on one of these, expecting sheer awfulness:

The results were extremely difficult to photograph properly using a Nexus 6, but in reality it looks brilliant

So pretty much the one day I never thought we'd see: A day of successful painting!!

 

[OJ46]

Thoughts on this to tidy up the floor and make it look more 'planned' than 'afterthought' or 'cover-up'?

Looks a lot better to my eyes but I'll let you far less biased folks be the real judges on that one

 

[OJ46]

Thank you, it's great to see the finish line finally coming into sight

The patience part can be a problem but I can assure you that if I manage to pull this off then skill is definitely not needed, just a double dose of patience to compensate

 

[OJ46]

Miracle number 2: More painting that didn't go disastrously wrong! Had a bit of down time so finally got the GPU backplate finished up

Paint done, time to add the dragon

Looking goooooood.

Looking...

...Awful. Balls. Looked so good on the screen but really didn't work on the backplate

Luckily it wasn't a difficult fix. A bit more body and some claws creeping around the edge and things are looking a lot better.

Pretty happy with the results in the end

Now for those of you wondering why the loop hasn't been fixed I'll let you in on a small secret: Some days I can be incredibly bloody stupid! Ordered the £1.50 barb I need to drain the loop as I'd forgotten I no longer had any spare. Few days later I was wondering why it hadn't arrived, so I checked on OcUK and I'd only ordered an out of stock one hadn't I. Worst part? They had dozens of an identical fitting in chrome instead of the black chrome one I had idiotically ordered by mistake... MUPPET!

Oh well, once that comes I'll fit the backplate properly, refill the loop and start making some progress on small jobs like wiring the lighting, then get the top loop in again and HOPEFULLY finish it up

 

[OJ46]

Well that makes me feel better, thank you for 'out stupiding' me

Remember it'll have Tux the penguin on show soon, so that will balance the dragons a bit with the whole fire / ice thing

I know I really shouldn't until the leak is fixed, but it's so tempting right now to throw some green dye into that reservoir just to see what it looks like... Must resist!

 

[OJ46]

I feel like you need more dragons on this build.

Not a dragon mate, but how about Taffy Tux instead?

 

[OJ46]

Rubbish mate, penguins aren't red.

Taffy ones are mate

I'll be putting Linux Mint 18.1 on that one, Windows will be purely for gaming with everything else done on Linux

Love those badges man. Nice work. I've not been around much lately but I love how this is coming together now

Cheers mate, did notice you'd not done any logs for a while. Hope you're keeping well dude

 

[OJ46]

Small update once again:

Replacement 90° fitted to stop the leak.

Decided I would also replace the 2 bends down to the floor as I wasn't happy with them...

...A lot better now but guess where the water came gushing out of this time?!

Stood her up, turned her on and... Whoosh! Yep, I'd only gone and left the 90° fitting where the pump > GPU tube goes into the GPU loose. One hell of a mess and a small clean-up job later it was all good

Then it was time to get the wiring for the floor sorted. First up, check the dirt cheap eBay switches work:

Worked, so now wired up properly. The LED doesn't light up (guessing that needs an earth wire?) but didn't want an LED anyway, so quite happy with that!

Next up: How to solve a problem like chavvy LED glare... I know I know, most modders love em etc but I just really hate the glare given off buy LED strips and wanted something more subtle. Got lucky and found a great solution

Time to add the switch...

...And puke at the awfulness of the light they produce

Quickly clip the diffuser in... Ahhhhh, much nicer

I'm not sure why the light has such a purple tinge when taking photos using my phone camera but it's really nothing like that, it just has that very slight blueish tinge that most white LED strips seem to have.

Will mount the top rad and fans next so I can decide where to place the other strip, but unfortunately it's back to work time now so that's me done for the day. Never mind, there was PROGRESS!!

 

[OJ46]

Was on a bit of a go slow with the build as I was waiting on the new delid tool to come into stock before rebuilding the top loop. I know I should man up and just use a blade but would feel less of a risk using this and I'd be less likely to lose fingers.

Sooooo, new plan. Going to rebuild the loop as is, get everything finished, stress tested and some decent quality photo's taken, then I'll delid the CPU and see how much of a temperature drop there is

Also installed the top rad and fans to quickly check the lighting wasn't too close to the rad to fill the case.

Perfect

Will see what it looks like when the fluid is in but undecided on whether to put the other strip (de-chavved, obviously) down the left hand side to light the reservoirs better.

 

[OJ46]

Thank you for your kind words, I must admit there have been a couple of moments when I've doubted if this colour scheme was actually going to work!

After a few years of throwing work PC's together in a couple of hours it has certainly been a new experience building something like this, could have built enough PC's to fill the OcUK warehouse in the time this has taken

Any hints on what your next build will be or is it secret until the building begins?

 

[OJ46]

Well that's certainly got my interest, guessing there was much swearing when getting the spacing right on those bends! Will definitely be following the log once you start the build

Had a bit of an 'OMFG what have I done' moment when I sprayed the motherboard heatsink green but more than happy with how it has all turned out. Thought I'd just have a bit of fun and do something a bit different with the SSD, and it's always easier to be brave when it's just vinyl that can be removed easily

I've started re-assembling the top loop now so should be onto the leak testing stage by mid week if I get some spare time, and hopefully be close to finished by next weekend. Only issue is the missus is off to China & Japan on Wednesday and she's taking her DSLR camera with her... Very inconsiderate when I have a PC to photograph!

 

[OJ46]

Few more small jobs done today, starting with the sleeving and mounting of pump 1.

Luckily the design of the mount makes good cable management very simple

The one thing I do need to figure out though is how best to route the GPU cables... MESSY!

Leaving the mess for a minute it was onto filling and leak testing, watched every step of the way by an evil hedgehog carrying a drill!

No leaks this time, and really glad I took 2 minutes to paint the CPU nuts red. Looks soooo much better

So next jobs will be drain the top loop, refill both with the proper fluid and figure out where the GPU cables can go without looking awful. Should keep me busy for a few minutes!

Also found I really liked the reservoir effect with the pump running full pelt, going to miss that whirlpool once it's turned down a bit

 

[OJ46]

Thank you once again for your kind words

I've got one little idea planned to help tidy up the front of the case around the radiator / fans (I hate the look of the Corsair fans and they really don't go with the build) and to also add a little more light to the case, then it's just a case of filling it up, getting the wiring sorted and hoping it boots up!

If all goes to plan I should have some final photos up (phone ones until the missus brings the camera back!) at some point next week

 

[OJ46]

Bit more progress as the build edges ever closer to completion.

First up I wanted to hide those fans which are, in my opinion at least, seriously fugly.

Much better. But why stop there...?

As the case needed a bit more subtle lighting to get things glowing I may as well kill 2 birds with one stone

Quick mock up to check it's going to work:

You can see where this is going...

One nearly finished piece.

Eeeeeeeewwwwww! Fugly fans AND chavtastic lighting

Much better

Gives out quite a decent amount of light for one small LED strip hidden behind 5mm frosted perspex. Again, ignore the awful purple tint, hopefully the pictures will come out properly once I get my hands on the DSLR and learn how to use it!

Only issue (apart from the light bleed, it was only chucked in loose to check it would work and I've not mounted it properly yet)?

Yep, it showed up how wonky that tube from the pump to front radiator is

Wasn't really happy with it before as it wasn't right on the horizontal or the vertical and it looks even worse now, so time to drag out the one remaining piece of pipe and pray it goes well...

Much better!

Still not perfect, but a lot closer on both axis

Front LED's have now been wired into the same switch as the top ones, so getting VERY close to completion now

 

[OJ46]

Cheers mate, I'd never really done any 'proper' modding before but this is tempting me to go back and make improvements to the previous build as well now

Unfortunately when it comes to photography I'm beyond useless, was just hoping auto mode on the Nikon DSLR would be a step up from auto mode on a Nexus phone! I do know how to manually focus it though, so guess that's a start lol

 

[OJ46]

I've tried playing with manual settings on the Nikon but found 90% of the time I made it worse, so stick to auto now!

Seeing the price of decent lenses it's probably a good thing we aren't pro's

 

[OJ46]

Random question: Both loops are using identical Aqua Computer D5's, but with the Aquabus cable unplugged and only the Molex connected the one runs a lot faster than the other. At a guess I'd say the one in the top loop is at 100% while the identical pump in the bottom loop seems to default to around 60%... Does anyone know if Aqua Computer changed the default speeds recently? I know EK changed their default speed from 60% > 100% last year so I'm hoping Aqua Computer have done the same, and that I've got pumps from 2 different batches rather than 1 dodgy pump! Cheers guys

 

[OJ46]

Good news: Both loops filled and neither (so far!) leaking. More good news? I found out why my photos were coming out purple... Apparently all I had to do was turn HDR off lol I'm such a muppet some days

Still not mounted the new lightbox properly as I'm waiting for something from eBay and not added the green dye to the bottom loop yet, but here's a few non purple photos anyway

CPU block is always lit soooo, on its own:

With floor:

With LEDs not looking so purple!

Everything

My bends are a long way off perfect, but at least they're level(ish) now...

Hope you like it but thoughts, ideas and criticisms welcome as always

 

[OJ46]

Thanks mate, wasn't going to post again until I'd finished everything but just couldn't resist

To be honest I'd never even thought about that but yes, that would have looked good! *Heads off to eBay...*