Mini Me !

ALXAndy · 13 Nov 2021 at 16:25

Hmm. Well, I have only used this exact paint once before. I usually opt for Kobra. Sadly they did not have the exact shade I wanted so I got Flame again. TBH? the last time I used this it really ****** me off. It was high pressure, and the orange peel was *insane*. This was low pressure, so instead of mad orange peel I got mad dripping.

When I looked up the drying times it said "working time one hour". Come again? Mission accepted.

Remember the drips?

Me either. Wet it down to see what your next stage will look like.

And do the rest.

And the aftermath.

BTW for those interested. I am using P1200. This means more work, as you need to do it about three times. However, the chances of "burn through"* are practically 0, so you won't be putting more paint down and then repeating the process.

*is what it sounds like. You sand through the paint and achieve the layer below. This means you need to repaint it and start wet sanding again. Stay away from high spots, curves and edges here. And don't press hard. Just glide the paper around gently and use your fingers to determine when its smooth.

ALXAndy · 13 Nov 2021 at 17:47

OK so this is about the time of day I usually get done. Have a shower, rest etc.

After giving it a very good clean I removed the masking. There is minimal bleed.

What I mean by bleed is where the paint bleeds under or into the edge of the masking. I expected this. The reason is I used the lower end cheaper masking tape for this stage. Like, the cream coloured stuff, not the more expensive blue stuff. The reason is that because of that white base coat I can just wet sand any bleed off. Bleed now is not an issue, but if the masking on the effects layer bleeds we will be in trouble, hence why I save the more expensive tapes for the more critical stages.

I also need to do some touch ups on the damage on that side too.

Remember, at this stage it will be very hazy. That's nothing to worry about. That means we have a key for the next stage. I now need to let it cure for 24 hours, before beginning more masking etc.

ALXAndy · 13 Nov 2021 at 20:42

Tonight I did the first fine line layer mask.

Then masked off the rest of that panel.

Leaving exposed what will get the 2nd round of paint. Did the same with the other side panel.

Then onto the front piece.

Then mask the backs again.

Tomorrow I will put down the first FX layer.

ALXAndy · 13 Nov 2021 at 21:51

ALXAndy · 13 Nov 2021 at 22:30

Decided to pull a late night. Given that like, 45 seconds are in actual painting and the rest in masking cleaning and prep.

That's the first effects layer. The red flake. The bent pieces of the panels will be getting silver flake, which should make it shape shift. Will leave a straight red line between the two.

ALXAndy · 14 Nov 2021 at 15:49

Today's job. You guessed it, more masking.

ALXAndy · 14 Nov 2021 at 16:08

Silver flake.

ALXAndy · 14 Nov 2021 at 17:45

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ewhGqS4D_Q

ALXAndy · 16 Nov 2021 at 16:20

I had an issue with the clear coat. I know that Kobra sell this in two types. Matt and gloss clears. I think someone put the wrong cap on this one.

I've been using this stuff for two years in all types of weather and it has never done that before. There wasn't even any orange peel, so the application was perfect. At first I panicked and started wet sanding too early. This achieved two things. 1, it made me realise I could polish it glossy and 2, I put two fingerprints on one panel that took an age to polish out today. They are now done, though. Just a light polish along one edge needed (I must have missed it) and we're good.

The flat red line now has much more definition. Very happy I did that.

Onto the elephant in the room. I still need to repair the scratch. I sanded it back ready for blending. I also had a mishap, though I am not claiming responsibility, given that 1. Both panels had fallen off the case in transit and were loose in the box and 2. All I did was pull off some masking tape. I reckon it was already bent/cracked.

ALXAndy · 16 Nov 2021 at 17:06

Well after five days of work I wanted to play. Do note, I am 99% certain the grey "Antec" part will be changed. Got a few ideas, not sure which one to go with just yet.

ALXAndy · 16 Nov 2021 at 19:18

OK so now that the main paint is buttoned up it was time to move onto ideas. Like I said, I don't like the grey bit with "Antec" on. I did think about removing it (you can) but then I just thought I would make a cover for it.

Then I remembered that about two years ago I had an idea for stabilising Kevlar into a sheet so I could make shapes with it etc. So I went and dug that out. It's woven Kevlar into carbon. I didn't realise until today what a pain it is to cut. Soon figured out you need to hold the edges with tape, but man even my really sharp scissors struggled. What I did then was epoxy it down onto a piece of 1mm acrylic that I had spare.

I will then create edges with blu tak or something and pour in some clear resin. Well, I say clear, but I will probably tint it red.

Vidar · 17 Nov 2021 at 00:52

Looking damned good mate, good to see you about again!

ALXAndy · 17 Nov 2021 at 15:03

Hey man ! Cheers dude, not done any modding in over 3 years lol.

Vidar · 17 Nov 2021 at 15:59

Has it really been that long? Lol

We need a catch up, soon mate. Interesting to finally know what the issue was with that Aorus 2080ti, I could never work it out.

ALXAndy · 17 Nov 2021 at 17:23

I did my build (the Lian Li one) in 2020? I can't even remember what year. I've not done any hard core modding since the Area 51 in 2018. Literally three years ago to the day.

It's the VRAM dude. It gets really hot. Only in Unreal Engine though, which sod's law is the only engine I really use now. It was fine under water, it just really hates being on the air cooler which IMO has insufficient cooling for the memory under all of the stupid bling.

Vidar · 17 Nov 2021 at 17:46

Seems really odd but you'd think that they'd be able to fix that with firmware or vbios or something if it's a software issue. Also explains why when I RMA'd the card they couldn't replicate the issue, if it was on an open air test bench it may have held on just enough. Still probably the sexiest looking card I've ever seen.

ALXAndy · 17 Nov 2021 at 19:24

Not a huge fan tbh. The cooling is sub par and the lights are awfully blinky.

But yeah, it's the VRAM temps. In any game they can easily reach 100c without issue. In PUBG being on UE once they get to about 78? that's your lot. You start seeing coloured orbs on screen (not artefacts, like coloured transparent circles in red, green etc) and then it just crashes to desktop.

In the last case I had to under clock it. There's no way to undervolt the memory, so I under volted the core to keep the memory temps down. And it works, fine. In this case? I only have to knock about 50mhz off the VRAM and it runs around stock clocks. And again, it's only PUBG. I played through nearly all of Deathloop and the core got no hotter than 68c and not one single crash.

There are probably other UE games that will cause this, but PUBG is about the most unoptimized bucket of poo you'll play right now. Sadly when you enjoy playing it so much? yeah, it's a pain.

I know I played PUBG on it when I got it off you under water and I had the card at 2100mhz and no issues or crashes at all. So, I am pretty convinced water is the solution (groan). Either way I am not happy with the fan speeds you need to make it behave either, so yeah want my sanity back.

ALXAndy · 21 Nov 2021 at 19:45

Right. Had some pretty terrible news last week so I just sat for three days off my face on opioids. Managed to sort of get my head around it somewhat, so decided to keep busy.

I got the blocks mounted on Friday evening.

Obviously this took the rig out of action. I needed a couple of days of just TV really. Any way moving on. Final order has been placed for what I will need to get it functional as a loop.

I found my small hole saw set. Cool.

This means I can remake the circle adapter (this thing, well it's more of a spacer)

With the correct sized hole in. I also soldered up the ring LEDs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2XuJDc9JDk&ab_channel=Zomb13k113r

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_diA2z9PN4&ab_channel=Zomb13k113r

So that's done too.

ALXAndy · 25 Nov 2021 at 02:37

What an absolute nightmare. Hory shet.

I started at around 7pm. Might have even been earlier. Looped up the rig.

The first thing I realised was that there was a capacitor on the new board right in the way of the pump outlet fitting. Because the pump top is quite big this meant I could not fit it how I had originally test fitted it.

I tried the pump every single way, but with the port coming out straight the glass would never fit back on and with it on the right it runs into the front IO board. TBH? this is a stupid mistake by Antec, and one I am really peed off about. I could not even relocate the pump, because there is literally one place you can put it. In the end I cannibalised some Corsair standoffs that come with an AIO and this brought the pump out away from the mobo tray enough so that the fitting cleared in the original position. At this point I looped it.

Then I realised I had made another mistake. The pump to SATA cable I bought (EK) is 12v only. God, what a racket. That's OK though, I can sort that out later. Ran the loop for about two hours with the hardware turned off. Noticed I had a leak. Guess what it was? yup, a straight rotary AGAIN. Managed to replace that with a straight extension (didn't matter because the fitting that goes into it is rotary) and tried again. Noticed another leak. This time... You guessed it ! exactly the same type of straight rotary. Only this time I had no replacement.

Thankfully it is the one going from the flow meter into the pump, and there is nothing under it. Plus it's a tiny drip. So then I powered on the rig. Nothing. NADA. Fans going absolutely crazy, no POST. Now at this point I **** myself. Like, totally **** myself, and figured I had bricked the GPU somehow which at this point in time would be irreplaceable. However, I noticed that the RAM RGB was not working. At which point I realised I had seen this before. Once I over tightened the clamp pressure on a CPU block and saw the same symptoms. So, I took the board out after draining it and added springs to the back as I should have done originally. Bingo bongo, it boots.

However. Now I have other issues. Firstly one of the RGB connectors on the hub has snapped (they really are the worst headers I have ever encountered) so the pull fans on the rear won't light up. This isn't a major issue as there is another header, however it means I need to completely remove them all as one of the daisy chains has pulled out also FFS.

So I have ordered some more bits. Firstly to completely remove the sh@tty straight rotary and fit something that won't friggin leak. I also get a free drain port, which I will no doubt need.

Bitspower one was out of stock. Plus it was 3x as much as that. I've ordered this to create a 7v feed to the pump. I really can't be assed paying AC for their software every year and fitting an enormous controller just to run the pump at 7v.

And these. Because the ones that came on it all fell off and have trashed the top of my pedestal.

OK. So the final problem. Because I had to space the pump away from the mobo tray the glass no longer ****** fits. Seriously, you couldn't make it up. So I have ordered these.

I will show what they are for when they are fitted. No point trying to explain it.

Jay85 · 25 Nov 2021 at 14:54

What a nightmare lol, i would have gone to sleep by then and come back to it in the morning. Nothing more stressful that trying to fix something so late at night, would drive me nuts! Best coming back to it with a fresh mind and a fresh pair of eyes.