Project: Little Bit Big.

[Smffy]

Thats what she said...

Its time to start another probably reasonably long log! My current setup as logged here:

Ryzen Era...

Holding out for 2080Ti release with the 8700k and Apex...


And finally now stripped out after its service to temporarily run the new RTX cards on air while I build - looking pretty empty!!




Massive pile of the fans that came out (17 in it in total, mostly HD120 Mag levs):

Grabbed a temporary pump housing and stripped out the old kit

Here she is, massively empty giant frame - looks very odd given what was inside it


The new build in a reasonably short summary is to take this huge lump of copper and transform it in to what I would like to be a great system housing for many years to come. The basic premise is to keep most of the kit and transplant it, but of course i've not done that and bought loads of new stuff...

Swag

Clearly need one more drive...


Thats right, its a 1000D giant. Rough shot of the case sat on my newly finished desk which I made from scratch timber, sitting on scaffold frame to replace the old one which I MAY have split badly moving the office room around. The old one is now a coffee table so its been reclaimed twice in one life . The new case on my desk for scale, its not small


The plan...

I will be decking this little fella out with lots of metal, as you can see my current build is heavy metal and this will be following the same. This time, i'm not doing crazy copper (sorry) but moving over to Nickel/chrome/black Nickel which I hope will be as good looking when i'm done. For the case i'll be designing custom parts so step one is to take my new 1000D and drill holes in it, probably not everyones cup of tea... But no need for this massive drive bay which is rivet fixed to the chassis!


Before:

After:


This space will become a large distro plate meeting in a reservoir at the base, where the drive bay was, and two (probably) D5 pumps will be sitting there on a platform running the system. To do this i'm learning CAD and will no doubt post a lot of my learning/mistakes along the way - not had much time lately due to drinking commitments in Germany but see first sketch below just learning the ropes (this is not remotely the design):



While I wait for some components to get back in stock i'm rebraiding all my cables, this time i'm working with Paracord and I have to say I totally love it compared to plastic MDPC. I will be mostly using the matt black but a white single and then potentially Purple (thoughts?) or electric blue.

Some samples made:


OCD organising of my mess of cable making kit just now because it was driving me crazy!


A lot of sticker removing and cleaning of fans then occured...



And finally just to test a few braids on the fan cables, so much nicer that MDPC!


Next steps...

1. Take less crap photos for you all
2. Waiting on:

• EK Velocity Full Nickel CPU block (bye bye mono its been fun)
• 2 x EK Full Nickel 2080Ti back plates (I have the black CPU blocks already)
• 3 x XSPC RX480 V3 Radiator - I have one, the EU is out of stock and I confess i've been silly and ordered the 2 x 480mm top radiator tray from Corsair so will be running 4 x 480mm rads

3. Need to order some more fittings and bits to plan my drain ports, i'm using XSPC 14mm triple seal black chrome fittings (I have already received 28 of those).
4. Find some time to plan and get moving, it may be a slow process but hopefully in a week i'll be taking delivery of radiators to start working on getting those in
5. Order more fans, I have an extra corsair commander pro to cope with all the fans (the 1000d includes 1 which is tight). I have 5 fans which have not made the cut, 2 have a flicker of yellow in the white of 1 LED (WHY?!) and 3 the LEDs were dead from day 1 but didnt matter on the old case.

More to follow, busy with work and life and still renovating my apartment so need to not get too sidetracked from finishing the living room which is the last job! Hopefully I can keep plodding along!

Thoughts and suggestions welcome, many more smaller chunks to follow as it comes together...

Cheers

 

[ALXAndy]

I never did see this finished. Looked great man lol.

Those RTX blocks remind me of staplers. I look forward to seeing them all fitted up

God it looked good though dude. I guess I just got caught up doing other things for ages and didn't see it done.

 

[Smffy]

I never did see this finished. Looked great man lol.

Those RTX blocks remind me of staplers. I look forward to seeing them all fitted up

God it looked good though dude. I guess I just got caught up doing other things for ages and didn't see it done.

Thanking you, it was certainly a changing build as in a short space went through a lot of updates. My aim for this one is to make something update proof for a long time, we can assume that 4 x 480mm rads is fine for the future . I'll be placing tactical stop valves where flow meets rads so i'll be able to shut the coolant off from the components with those and drain the kit without so much work, basically stops either side, one below to drain and much less to drain out over 3-4 litres each time (like now!).

 

[alex crossland]

That is a pile of fans!

 

[Smffy]

That is a pile of fans!

I will need more with 4 x 480mm in push pull lol!!! Why did I do this again...

 

[Smffy]

Very small update while I still wait on some major items before I can really get going... I thought i'd start repairing the LED dead fans, there were 2 flickering and I have 3 just nothing. These fans are REALLY not easy to get apart, clearly designed not to be messed with but after much figuring out got them out and cleaned the strip and gave it a bit of a flex around which seems to have done the trick...



Nake fan for comparison with the black frame removed, kinda like it - makes me wonder why the hell they didnt use white plastic with these would be much more fitting in my eyes. I could actually mod them all like this but its a painfully long process getting in to them


Very good planning for once, marking them up so when they go in they will be fitting to the inside layer of the push pull in case the fault returns I can easily get to them to remove/replace/repair. I think i'll be needing quote a number more anyway, and also looking at the new versions but they are quite pricey to replace and buy about 30 - the new versions also have more of a ring which has a different effect i'm not sure on.


All the fans have had connectors snipped off, waiting on some molex fittings and the plan will be to probably pair them in to either 2's or 4's, the commander pro (x2) is pretty crappy really given it only has 6 fan headers. So depending on final layout i'll either end up with 32 fans (!) or the top layer will be pull only or push only, i'm in two minds as to how either will look... This means i'll either have 24 fans in a perfect 12 pairs or 32 in some sort of group, OR i'll do what I did the last build and have larger groups or 4 or 8 (which sort of renders my second pro redundant).

I am probably going to receive some more goodies this week, I've also ordered a 9900k (importing from US due to horrific price inflation here) and pending some info I may choose to replace the Apex 370 with the 390 - given I could sell this one as a good package (CPU clocks 5.3). More to follow when I get chance and more importantly more stuff delivered so I can start putting things in!

 

[ALXAndy]

You just reminded me how much I am not looking forward to the wiring phase

 

[Smffy]

More stuff has arrived after much wait the shiny goodness from EK is here...


I've not had huge amounts of time but generally focusing on stripping the 1000D down to build, measure and customise - its looking a little bit less flashy now after taking apart all kinds of parts to remove a few pieces:

For scale sat next to the Lian Li 8Pack, which is not a small case. The 1000D completely dwarfs it but because its slim/more refined it looks more practical, well when its not naked:


On stripping out the front IO port to braid a few of the cables noticed that there is damage to one or two of the USB header cables where they come off at an angle in to the plastic surround - time will tell if they are actually dead but not great design there forcing the stiff cables in to a right angle bend:


Still missing 3 out of the 4 rads due to stock globally and the Apex Z390 which is the intended board seems to be nowhere to be found now since announcing it on the range weeks ago but been learning to design in fusion 360. Having drilled out the drive bay the right hand side of the board will be a combination plate featuring cable routing, distro lines to components and a res at the base. Two pumps (at least two) will sit on a platform there where the drive bay once stood raised from the floor. Early work and still learning but some rough measurements of the current board (Apex Z370) while I wait:

Front layout, runs the whole height of the tray down to about 20mm off the floor:


Angled to show the model better:


Res close up:


And finally some of the cable routing slots, these are measure so they align to the slots in the tray just about but i'm planning on adding an opaque sheet to the rear of it all which will hide all the old fitting wholes etc:


Probably a few more to add for the fron IO connections and potentially pumps unless all that goes in to the two Commander Pros on the rear hidden away... I'm also considering adding a 40mm extension up and all over to the left to frame the board and route the CPU cables but this feels like it may be quite vulnerable to breaking given it would be roughly 40mm x 300m - any comments on that welcome. I guess I could get this done as a separate piece to avoid that and plate in metal or something.

Slow but steady, need to do a lot more fan management now i've got tons of connectors i'll be cutting wires down and making very tidy connections in the probably pairs. I also need a lot more fans to do this but no rads yet so difficult to plan.

Cheers!

 

[ALXAndy]

Hmm, that's weird. Seeing you have issues with the LEDs.. I bought some frames and one of them immediately went odd. Three LEDs went out, flickered and then there was no green on them. I took it out (the LED strip) and oddly I had the same issue as you. Pushing or twisting it would cause it to light up temp, but then it would stop working again. Not tried to repair it yet, not sure I can be bothered..

Nice views there.

 

[Smffy]

Hmm, that's weird. Seeing you have issues with the LEDs.. I bought some frames and one of them immediately went odd. Three LEDs went out, flickered and then there was no green on them. I took it out (the LED strip) and oddly I had the same issue as you. Pushing or twisting it would cause it to light up temp, but then it would stop working again. Not tried to repair it yet, not sure I can be bothered..

Nice views there.

The strip is what connects it all but I just covered it in iso and bent about a bit and seemed to work, i've not tried fixing the dead ones yet... View is nice yes, better get this giant case out the way ey

 

[zx|muppet]

ive been thinking of getting a 1000D to replace my tj07... i just dont know if i can lol. I even went a bought a 2nd tj07 so i have spare parts to mess about with :/ looking forward to seeing this take shape!

 

[Smffy]

ive been thinking of getting a 1000D to replace my tj07... i just dont know if i can lol. I even went a bought a 2nd tj07 so i have spare parts to mess about with :/ looking forward to seeing this take shape!

Nothing will prepare you for the size of the box which turns up if you do

 

[subbytna]

The strip is what connects it all but I just covered it in iso and bent about a bit and seemed to work, i've not tried fixing the dead ones yet... View is nice yes, better get this giant case out the way ey

You bought two 2080Ti's, you can afford new fans

 

[Smffy]

You bought two 2080Ti's, you can afford new fans

You say that but 30 of those is £600, a bit much for fans but still deciding - seems like the rads are out of stock for a while so thinking about how to press on...

 

[BluD]

Yeah, fans soon add up in money, i used to use push pull on my rads which ended up with me have over 20 fans but recently i stripped all the rads down to push or pull and i've really not noticed any difference in temps. Might be the better option for you so you dont have to worry about a few dead ones.

 

[Smffy]

Yeah, fans soon add up in money, i used to use push pull on my rads which ended up with me have over 20 fans but recently i stripped all the rads down to push or pull and i've really not noticed any difference in temps. Might be the better option for you so you dont have to worry about a few dead ones.

Yeah similar thinking but due to the size of the case I think it would be good to have push pull on the front. I’m obviously not too bothered because I’m fully aware I do not ‘need’ 4 x 480mm rads it’s more for the fun.

Potentially I’m not going to do push/pull on the top rads but will not write it off just yet. Just cancelled my 9900k order, just based on the gain and what I wanted to be a less work swap for my 8700k still needs delid and therefore I’ll sit this one out until the next round...

Just need to find the time to work on things, had a leak in my newly refurbed apartment so been addressing that and now bringing it back up to scratch again!

 

[Smffy]

Minor updates, so it turns out my timing is terrible and XSPC have stopped making the RX480 in white... I must have missed the last stock by weeks so pretty annoyed, now in the process of swapping the order to black and i'll be spraying them matt white again (pain in the ass). I've also semi-decided on some of the fan setup to go along with it, my thoughts are i'll be using Noiseblocker eLoop PWM fans on the internal layer and potentially the RGB on the outer for effect.

Anybody have experience of these fans, they seem to be very good silent fans and dont need so many unnecessary RGB everywhere - I am debating whether to use these across all then just look at doing the lighting separately both inside and out but not sure. Opinions would be great - inner layer of the super quiet noiseblockers, outer the Corsair LED or all Noiseblockers and sort out some tasteful lighting in isolation?

Once I start receiving these bits the build will get moving again!

 

[OJ46]

Switched some Corsair fans out for some Noiseblocker eLoop's on a watercooled build a while back mate and rate them highly, if you used all eLoops you could always add Phanteks Halos frames to the ones that show

 

[Smffy]

Switched some Corsair fans out for some Noiseblocker eLoop's on a watercooled build a while back mate and rate them highly, if you used all eLoops you could always add Phanteks Halos frames to the ones that show

Good to know mate thanks, was considering a frosted acrylic frame with strip LED. The halos are a good idea but again then I’ve got 8 on each side

Have a few eLoops arriving later to test so will see how they are!

 

[OJ46]

The joys of massive cases, you end up spending more on fans than on the actual components

I'm running 14 fans on the current rig but luckily 6 are completely hidden, so saved a fair chunk by using the ridiculously cheap Akasa Piranha's (£15 for a 3-pack!)