Project: Angel

w3bbo · 14 Jan 2010 at 11:17

Small Update:

After leaving the paint to fully harden on the PSU for 48 hours, I re-assembled it.

Quite pleased with the results

. I might do a bit more detailing on it (Project Angel on the sides perhaps?) but I don't want to over do it and spoil the effect. The grill surround was sprayed cobalt metalic blue, matching the board. It appears a little dark in the photos though

.

mk17 · 14 Jan 2010 at 13:34

It's all looking very sweet so far, glad to see this build is back up and running.

looking forward to the video mate

domthecondom · 14 Jan 2010 at 14:56

Nice PSU W3bbo

You seen my Enermax?

It was wet sprayed white but the arrows are blue with the enermax writing in blue!

I can link you up to pic if you want

w3bbo · 14 Jan 2010 at 15:38

Yeah I just seen that. Looks very nice m8 but a bit too 'busy' for my particular build.

James Manns · 14 Jan 2010 at 19:07

looking very professional, keep it up

Clum · 14 Jan 2010 at 19:12

Looking great so far. These threads are going to hurt my wallet eventually!

domthecondom · 15 Jan 2010 at 16:25

I was thinking about doing mine all white aswell W3bbo but decided against it!

White is indeed the new black

Keep it up......can't wait for it to be finnished!

One question! Did you braid the cables with the casing off?

I want to start braiding my PSU soon and i don't know how to heatshrink the cables ending when they start going into the PSU case, if you know what I mean?

I hope it make sense!

w3bbo · 15 Jan 2010 at 17:54

Yeah I braided with the casing on however, as you will come to know, the cabling comes to an end at the hole entrance on the PSU so braiding the cable all the way through would be a pig to do, especially in such a tight space.

domthecondom · 17 Jan 2010 at 12:13

I am still thinking about how to do mine.....don't really fancy taking the casing off as I turned the PSU on and people say its really easy to get a shock

w3bbo · 17 Jan 2010 at 21:22

Never had a shock myself but then I tend to unplug electrical equipment when messing with the internals

. Seriously though m8 you should be ok. I've never had a jolt (touches wood).

Muel · 17 Jan 2010 at 21:27

Neither have I, I've never sleeved a full PSU but I've rebuilt a couple of nasty cheap ones before when the fan dies or something. (Happens to all of them long before anything goes wrong with them).

Handled the main circuit board on most of them aswell and never been shocked.

domthecondom · 18 Jan 2010 at 08:36

time to take it appart and braid and get some volts down me

w3bbo · 18 Jan 2010 at 10:02

Anyone smell burnt flesh yet?

ChrisGreen1993 · 18 Jan 2010 at 20:18

Wow, this is looking good

W_i_l_l · 22 Jan 2010 at 10:33

Looks great

nice job

w3bbo · 24 Jan 2010 at 19:16

UPDATE:

Decided on using barbs and 7/16's. I know the fashion is to use comp fittings but I personally think they look a little bulky. I also don't trust them. That said they do look mint if there isn't too much being cooled. For me however I don't think they are right for this build.

The barbs are standard hi-flow affairs which give the best grip imo. This is imperative as I intend to use 7/16 tubing WITHOUT any form of fixing (tie wraps/jubilees etc). This should give a nice clean appearance.

To minimised the amount of flex on the tubing, I also intend to use these babies:

Gotta love shiny bitspower goodies. Overpriced for sure but they certainly look the dogs danglies!

w3bbo · 24 Jan 2010 at 19:22

Motherboard prep:

The Gigabyte EX58-UD5 is the older revision but that doesn't mena it's any less capable than the newer one. Infact I've heard on the grapevine that it actually overclocks BETTER than the newer revision. Anyway for those that don't know what this board looks like here ya go:

While the stock cooling looks nice, like most things OEM, they are made with budget in mind. I decided to go for the full monty EK setup but first I removed the stock heatpiped affair, which is a doddle to do as it's only attached via push pins:

Stock vs the EK kit:

more to come...

w3bbo · 24 Jan 2010 at 19:27

Strip washing the mobo was made all the more easy thanks to IPA. Both sets of MOSFETs, NB (QPI) and SB (ICH10R) were given a good clean to remove all traces of the original compound, to ensure the best possible surface contact to the blocks:

I was gonna use paste on the fets but as the levels were so misaligned, thermal tape was the best option.

For the chipset I used Arctic Ceramique which is getting on a bit but still pretty good stuff (and more importantly non conductive!).

Appologies for some of the poor quality pics - crap lighting and crap camera.

w3bbo · 24 Jan 2010 at 19:36

Back to the shiny bits. Heres a few shots of the chipset blocks:

Fitting the blocks was a doddle thanks to EK's perfectly machined blocks and aligned screw holes. An idea for the future might be to get some white delrin/acetel style tops instead of the acrylic but for now the acrylic look better than black for my build.

Here they are fitted to the board:

...Oh an it would have been a shame not to take a piccy of all the onboard copper blocks together

:

w3bbo · 24 Jan 2010 at 19:56

As mentioned earlier in the build log, I will be using the full copper Watercool Heatkiller block for the CPU so here's a few snaps of that block too:

Must say this block is perhaps the best looking block I've seen for some time. Not only that but it's also (and more importnantly) the best performing block on the market at present. The LT version with the Delrin top is cheaper and almost performs on a par with the full CU block but I couldn't resist the lush full CU version

.

For those who are interested here's the FPO/Batch of the CPU. No idea if it's a good one or not but as long as I get 4/4.2 without issue I'm happy:

The paste choice is not so critical as it once was as most popular 'high performance' pastes perform within a degree of each other so I went with what I know is good, Shinetsu Microsi:

Next up - CPU mount