My new Project

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First OF all guys I'm new here so i'd like to say hello and welcome to my log. Feel free to point out all the bad things about my build and ways I can improve it. It is nothing special by a lot of the rigs and builds I have seen on here but having limited tools and crippling arthritis at times things can sometimes go wrong lol.

My daughter has had a pretty rough time of things lately, with trying to find a job, caring for me and my disabilities and the GCSE's fiasco. So in a bid to give her something to smile about I'm hoping to build her a fairly nice rig.

I am hoping to be able to scavenge a few parts that are laying around the house and maybe if I'm lucky a few donations or some things might come from fleabay.

I will be basing this build around a Coolermaster Staker 832 Nvidia Edition that was donated to me by Stuart over at Wabsys in Wakefield, W Yorks.

Well here we go the starting case pics..... as soon as I have more info and some ideas have been drwan up I will post them here for to all laugh about ermmm I mean read.

 

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well the case is now stripped down and im trying to figure out how and what im going to cool

Im considering a 360 rad at the bottom and a 240 thick rad at the top

Where the orginal fan would sit, Im considering putting the two SSD drives in.. under a perspex " lid " with lighting.

Then I will mount the resevoirs at the edge of the motherboard, im unsure as to go with the cylindical res of lanig tops.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated on this from people that have much more knowledge than me. I am trying to map out the flow etc as I would like to run two loops

Loop one would cool the CPU and chipset ( not sure about the RAM yet. The other Would cool the GPU.

I was thinking a dual loop for the dual colour effect. I can see the advantage of a single loop though. However Ive been advised the 660Ti gets pretty damn hot so doing the CPU, chipset and GPU on one 360 rad I was thinking the heat might get a little two much.

If so I could go dual loops or single loop with dual rads.


For the tubing im unsure on wether to go
A) 1/2 OB tubing
B) 1/2 copper pipng chromed
C) 1/2 Acrylic tubing.

The top of the case where the power button and top USB ports go was damaged on the case. From what I could make out the previous owner had used it as an ash tray ...even to the point of actually putting cigs out on the thing :culpability:.

I had a few options being

1. Try and buy replacment parts...no hope couldnt find them anywhere.
2. Repair and repaint.
3. Repair and replace with Carbon fibre look alike

I choose option 3 as it gave me other ideas.

So I set about repairing the damage next to the power button which involved sanding and scraping the damaged area then mixing the shavings with superglue and then filling the holes.

After that it was more sanding and then time to apply the carbon fibre film.

I then moved onto the actual surrond for the front panel as this was damaged around the edges and needed the same sort of treatment

Then came the time to make the Acrylic HDD holder which im going to locate in the top of the case where the green mesh is currently. Ill replace the mesh with an acrylic window which I will form out of 3mm acrylic. Im will also we adding LEDs to the HDD caddy so they light up and shine through the acrylic and defuse the light a little.

First of all I had to cut the acrylic down to a rough size then mark it up where I needed to bend it to get the flat " U " shape i wanted.

Then I clamped it between two pieces of wood and heated it up using my mini blowtorch. WARNING if using a mini blowtorch be careful and dont get the flame too close or the air will get in and bubbles will form in the acrylic VERY easily

After a few trial runs to get everything right I made the first bend....

Then the second bend....

In the end it came out quite well...

Now I have to cut and shape the front of the HDD caddy so it will fit in fine, plus I have to shave the top a little so the HDD caddy and the window fit together properly. Also I have to finish the Front panel trimming....so hopefully ill get more pics up soon.

 

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This is mainly to test fit the roof panel, window and hard drive bay
First of all I had to clean the roof of the pc then fit the Carbon fibre.

Then came the hard part to trim every single air hole ( over 120 of the bloody things ) and then test fit the acrylic HDD caddy I have made....

the next job will be to paint the airholes black so they are more " stealthy "

all in all Im pretty pleased with it so far

I am still considering a full exterior paint job or maybe a full carbon fibre wrap....or if I can I will make replacement panels from actual carbon Fibre.

 

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I then managed to get some of the lower rad cover bent and test fitted, plus the motherboard tray is all done

Doing the lower rad cover was a lot harder than i first thought due to the cuts etc and making sure I got the right height for it, but here is the finished prototype

After I have made the full cover, covered it, fitted the rad grill and also got the pipe holes drilled Ill post some more pics up as to how things are coming along.

 

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The first rad has turned up a nice shiney Alphacool NexXxoS ST30 240mm which will be fitted into the bottom of the case.

So first came the marking up for the tubing holes

and then making sure the rad was seating right in the prefered place

and after some time ( many swear words ) I had this

And when fitted to the case its self it looks better

Then came the Carbon Fibre time ....which is where it starts to come together i think

Ill be sorting the rad grill to tidy everything up then it will be time to fit the 120mm rad on the rear of the case and also the front 360mm rad with grill. I am hoping to be able to do this over the next few weeks, money permitting.

I hope folks like what they see so far

 

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Things are starting to take shape a little now....soon Ill be ready to get the order placed and get on the home stretch to completion.

Recently I started on getting some of the cosmetics finished which included the front bezels and flaps that hold the drive bay covers in place

Heres the finished result, not too bad in my opinion

Next up was the PCI slot cover for the rear of the case...so out came the acrylic again and i set to work......

and the end result is once again pleasing

Paint day came next so after many many hours of sanding and then using the old etch primer I came up with this

Then after letting it dry and spending what seemed another life time painitng we ended up with .......

Well fitting time has come before I add the final coats of paint ( I now it will get scratched so makes sense to try and test fit everything now then when im happy add the last 2 top coats )

Next ill get the front rad installed along with the rad grills and also get the new window made for the top of the case and also the side window. So stay tune folks I'm hoping to be able to start the home run soon

 

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The other day my 120mm and 360mm rads arrived ( many thanks Gatecrasher It fits perfectly ) so I got around to fitting them. Im going to use the 120mm rad as a passive rad with no fan ( although at a later date if needs be ill add an external pull fan if temps dictate that I need to. )

I had done a test fit up of all the rad covers and the backing area for the PCI slots...

I then had to modify the rear 120mm fan mount slightly to get the rad to fit in propery...

Then perfect in she went.....

I will be repainting the chassis with a few extra " final " coats of paint so all the saw marks will be gone by the time everything is finished.

I then flipped the case over and worked out how the rad was going to fit....after a few trial runs i realised I was going to have to drill some more screw holes for the rad to attach to the case...

I then took out the lovely acrylic I had spent a few days making to fit the rad in and line up the grills etc ........ only to stand on the $£%££@@~~~~### thing

So I spent another couple of days remaking and perfecting the lower rad shield..... this time I nailed it and it looks perfect inside the case now....10x better than the first attempt IMHO...however ill let you lot decide on what you think....

After that came the test lighting of the caddy I have made for the new SSDs uptop....

and then some of the in case lighting.....

This is with the flash on..

and with the flash OFF to get a better idea....

For simple lighting im using theese I got from maplins for a huge £1.74

Im hoping to get the pump and top this week as well so I can fit them....I have a plan to make it as stealthy as possible so watch this space

 

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.just stuck on what colour to get red or orange. I would love MDPC stuff but it's too expensive for me to balls up lol.

I've been trying to do some loop planning so I can get the best look with out it being so cluttered. Im hoping that before I come to do the final fill I'll be able to afford some really nice fittings but for now I'm using Black Nickel Phobya ones...I do have a plan to mod these if I can't afford to buy the bitspower ones I'm after.

Now that I know where and how the loop is going im feeling a little happier....

When I was placing the pump/top and res I noticed that I had no sound proofing for the base of the pump so I made something

tadaaaa

Next up a little something I have been planning for the res.

First of all some 10mm acrylic ( god I LOVE this stuff it has so many uses....wait for my next project which I'm planning and also hoping to be able to sell )

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c11/systemshock/Project firefly/20130423_133310_zps849a1f69.jpg

After a lot of sanding filing and heat polishing I ended up with 2 nice pieces 50mm x 10mm.

Drill out the centre holes so the res mounts can be attached to them....

Then mark up for some extra sneaky holes

and voila

I'll post some more shots of it later when I have everything in place properly as that was just a loose test fit

 

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Thought I would throw up a teaser of how shes looking

 

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After the sucess of the res standoffs I decided to do something similar for the motheboard as in this case it sits on large brass standoffs.
So the first thing to do was to mark out the motherboard area

and cut some strips of Acrylic to size ( 8mm thick this time )

Then mark them up and pre-drill the LED holes. I didn't go all the way through as I wanted the acrylic to defuse the light.

Then it was on to the preparation on the acrylic, I had some nasty edges on them from the saw cuts so after many hours of work I went from this

to

to this

I forgot to take some pics during the process. However for thoose that havent done this its fairly straight forward. I started with 120 grit sand paper to smooth the edges and saw lines away. Then i moved upto 600 grit to get clean then 1000, 1200 and finally 1500 wet and dry paper. Once I was happy with the finish I used my micro blow torch to flame polish the edges to get the end result. At THIS stage be very careful with the flame or you will burn the acrylic and/or get air bubbles in the....which means starting all over again.

Once I was happy with that I moved on to the soldering and wiring stage.....

and then the test run

Then with the res lights installed we have this

Then with the test board installed over them to check for clearances etc we have

All in all Im very please with it and a good weekends work....so I have started on the braiding for now and heres my first efforts

I will do another mini update as soon as I am happy with the lighting on the top window. After that I am hoping that I can order the rest of the braiding or I might even go down the paracord route.

Before I fit everything in the case for the final fit I am going to order a load of fresh acrylic and wrap so that I can make everything from scratch again as a few pieces have been damaged and scratched with being removed so many times.....and I want this one to be perfect....also I am hoping that my new invention might hit the market in time ...or at least the official prototype...more of that on a later date.