[Finished] HAF Pipe 480 (original from 2014)

[DBRichard]

At the moment of posting this build log from my casemod that I did last year, I already started the build log about the 2015 update, this buildog is just to show you what I did last year, if you want to see the update you weill have to look in the new build log called "HAF Pipe 480 (2015)"

Everything is an exact copy of what I posted last year in the other forums, I had no time to also post it on this forum back then so since I do have the time now, you can enjoy it here too

The final result is this, I've made it a spoiler since some like to read the thread before viewing the result

Spoiler

From this point everything is back in 2014!!!
Recently I started buying the parts for a Custom watercooling loop to be fitted in my Coolermaster HAF X case

At this moment I have:
EKWB Supremacy Nickel/Plexi (Polished)
Mayhems X1 Blood Red Coolant
2x Aquatube reservoir (Not sure yet if I will use them in this loop)
HardwareLabs Black Ice Sr-1 480mm radiator (which should fit nicely in a HAF X)

In this Buildlog I will show what I'm doing to my HAF X case to fit the 480mm Black Ice Sr-1 Radiator (normally it only supports 120 or 240mm rads without modding) also I will do my best to keep as much of the outside looks the same


I started by measuring the room between the front and back of the HAF X's frame which was about 519mm, the front and back panels are both 1mm thick so I have room for a 517mm radiator (which is perfect because the HWL Black Ice Sr-1 is exactly 517mm in length)

I ordered the radiator

This shows how an HAF X frame looks from above before modding (not my picture)

Before I started cutting I wanted to know if I could keep my Front I/O, sadly the answer was no (kind of expected it) so I removed it (need to think about what I will do with it)

Even the plastic fins at the back had to go

First cuts are made, cut out the two radiator brackets and immediately cut out a section at the back too

Also made a start with cutting out the front

Lets start with smoothing the rough edges on these cuts

As I said it should fit

Also making surte the front and back are perfectly smooth so I don't scratch my radiator (...too much)

THE universal modding tool

Well time to see if it fits and yeah it's a perfect example of "If it fits, it sits" measurements where spot on :cooldude:

Cutting away the fins was not enough so a quick freestyle cut was needed to get it to fit at the back

Shot of the empty front I/O (at this moment I got an idea what I'll do with it) and the radiator's in and out

Now I need to make some brackets to keep the radiator 18mm higher than the old mounts (I need the maximum height to get the motherboard clear) higher than that would mean I also needed to get rid of my Power, Reset and Fan LED switches

I'm going to use the old 240 mount brackets to make some new ones

Cut the brackets in half, scraped the paint of the bending points (and some metal) to make them bendable by hand

The result

Putted the brackets on the Radiator to see if they are bend well enough to get the 18mm rise, this is how it will hang in there

Looks good from above

The clip in which the power, reset and fan LED switches are mounted rests exactly on top of the radiator so it's a perfect fit

By now it's time to get the drill and drill the holes which will be used to fasten the brackets, sadly my little brother broke the drill a few weeks before I started this so I need to get a new drill

 

[DBRichard]

It's time for a new update

I got a new drill to drill the mounting holes for the brackets

Everything is here for assembly

Bolted everything down and tightened it as much as possible to make the brackets somewhat Semi-Permanent so I can easily mount a different 480mm radiator if I wanted to

Still need to get the other ends of the brackets a little shorter and grind the to the same round shape as the other end

As I said I wanted to change as little as possible to the looks so I even bolted them upside down so only the nice bolt head would be visible (if you look very good)

Ordering the fans pretty soon, will use this nice 8-Way PWM Splitter from Swiftech to control them with the onboard Fan Xpert 2 software on my VI Formula board saves me a fan controller

So three days went by and I got the fans in

4x Corsair SP120 High Pressure PWM edition fans

I need to say Corsair does make some nice fans, I need to get rid of those blue rings and put on the red ones

Changed the rings and mounted the fans on the radiator

Mounted the radiator to the brackets, it seems like I still have some room to get the 8 and 4 pin CPU power cables in there when the board is installed

Now I needed to find a place for the 8-Way PWM Splitter, found a perfect spot on the backside of the motherboard tray which has room for the headers and no cables crossing that spot

Now I need to drill some holes, clean everything including the radiator, bolt everything back on there and wire everything etc.

Till next time (which will be soon I guess)

 

[DBRichard]

I forgot to throw the last two updates on this forum but here they are this is PART 1!!

Got some nice stuff in

GPU Block for the ASUS GTX780 DCII OC

Pump Top for the MCP655

The Pump itself (Laing / Swiftech D5-MCP655)

The third Aquatube that I own Love these reservoirs

The supernice looking backplate for the GTX780 DCII OC

Three stop fittings, one for the reservoir and two for the GPU SINGLE link I'll get in soon

Got two fittings to see how they look, the rest will be ordered with the remaining parts, I honeslty love these (just needs a black or red O ring to match the build (at least for the visible ones)

The Phobya 20 LED's MODboard/station

Two 5mm LED plugs for the reservoir

Some extra EK badges because I damaged the one on the CPU block

So that was the unboxing lets get to the stuff where I work on them...POLISHING ALL THE BLOCKS!!!

Pump top before

Pump without the default bracket and top

How it looks on the pump before polishing

Polishing time!!!

How it looked like after polishing and mounted to the pump (little preview of the GPU block on the right)

The GPU plexy before

After polishing it twice I finally got it totally clear (the little bit of fog is some polish residue that I cleaned of afterwards)

Now the whole family in one picture

Now it's time to also mount the GPU Block to the GTX780

Normal

Cooler came off nice (too much paste ASUS)

Nice and clean

Adding the Thermal pads

Mounted the block and the backplate

Also here is the CPU Block which I did a month or so ago

Before

After

With the Mayhems X1 Blood Red coolant which I'm going to use

Next order is already placed, in the meanwhile I need to make some brackets for the Pump and the Reservoir, how about some acrylic

 

[DBRichard]

It has been a long time since the last update, been really busy and never had the time to update the forum

BUT HERE IT IS!!!! A FREAKISHLY BIG UPDATE!!!

Putting the block on there with the Direct Die cooling kit from EKWB

Had an idea how to mount the reservoir in the HDD Cage

One tube done

When I noticed that I would need a lot more tubing than I had anticipated I got a nice deal with E22 (Nate George) and my good friend Fred, they sent me this

Got several meters of tubing and a bending cord, in return I will make a 3D model for one of Fred's his upcoming mods

Also the last fittings, a 1L fill bottle and some Bitfenix sleeved cables arrived, FINALLY!!!!

The cables (didn't have time to sleeve them myself this time)

The new fittings with 2x Fillport fitting, 2x mini male to male G1/4 connections, 2x 90* degree G1/4 fitting, 1x 90 degree enhance fitting, 1x 500mm extension for the actual filling port and I bought a nice logo badge from Bitspower not sure what to do with it yet xD

Tried to collect all the fittings together for a nice group photo, sadly I forgot about 4 of them

Drilled two big holes at the top of the HDD cage and fitted the reservoir by mounting it hanging on two fillports with two male to male fittings never seen this before and I thought it looked pretty sick

The PSU cover/midplate will not be here anytime soon and I wanted to use my rig so I made a quick decision to mount the pump on the floor temporary (with a thich piece of rubber in between the block and floor)

The hardest tube of the complete rig went right at the first try xD looks good

It's a perfect fit, just need to put a plastic sheet between it to keep it from scratching when I need to take it out (which still happened a few days after xD)

I also have to wait for the LED's but still wanted to see the effect on the pump top so I got a little RGB led and it looked pretty cool (will be two 5mm white LED's)

I assembled the hardware again and I finally got all the tubes right

I did change some things after making these photo's, I did change the tube on the top of the reservoir from the back to the front for 10x easier air bleeding

Filled it up with Mayhems Pure H2O to clean the tubes a bit, used the rig for a couple of days seems like the temps where way too high on the CPU so I knew I had not used enough of Liquid Ultra (I was out of the stuff) I will apply some Arctic Silver 5 when I change the liquid

It looks awesome but it will look even better with the X1 Blood Red coolant from Mayhems

At this point it should be clean so it was time to take it apart, clean all the tubes, change the Liquid Ultra to AS5, put all the tubes back and fill it up with Blood...Red coolant
*These photo's are made right after filling it so the liquid still has a lot of air in it and isn't clear yet

Still need to remove the clear piece of plastic that I putted on this little round window, the scratches will be gone then

Bleeding out the air in the radiator by tilting it back 45 degrees xD

Some Semi-Proffesional photo's of the result after bleeding out the air

I've started editing these pics a little bit and these are the result of that

Hope you guys and gals like it

This is it, for the update please check out the other build log HAF Pipe 480 (2015)

 

[Kyiami]

that little blue wire!!!!

 

[DBRichard]

that little blue wire!!!!

I swear that until you just mentioning it I didn't even notice how annoying it is in there, gonna take care of that in the update

 

[McGraw]

Really like this!

Wasn't sure about it from the very first pic but the others help to really tell the story.

I'd love to do this but would always find other stuff to spend the money on.

 

[Mads1]

nice build.

 

[Havark]

Wow a few of us here at OCUK really like what you have done with the plexi waterblocks as we did not even know it was possible to polish them down.

I think we may have to use that idea in a future build.

 

[Quartz]

That is a work of art.

 

[jimbaw]

love the look of those polished blocks. usually not a fan of the CSQ ones but it really works in there

great job!

 

[DBRichard]

Thank you all for the nice comments

Polishing is a hassle but totally worth it, got some new blocks to polish for my update/upgrade, the EK SLI link and the block for the second card, I can feel my arms and hands hurt already :')

 

[Andygully]

Really nice build. You need a psu cover haha

 

[Apem]

Thought the HAF X came with a psu cover?

 

[DBRichard]

Yeah it comes with a PSU cover (isn't good enough for me), I wanted to get a metal custom cover made last year but the company that would sponsor and make it backed out.
Still got the design for the cover so maybe I'll have it made for the upgrade in the next couple of weeks

 

[Apem]

cool look forward to seeing it m8

 

[teh_captain]

That is really bloody lovely mate.

I think your 780 needs a friend, he looks lonely

 

[DBRichard]

I'll be adding that second GPU this month
Everything that I will upgrade will be in here HAF Pipe 480 (2015)