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

 

[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!).

 

[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!

 

[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!

 

[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

 

[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

 

[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...

 

[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!

 

[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!

 

[Smffy]

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!)

Had 17 I think, currently reduced to 2 with the stripped down rig and air cooled GPUs.

It seems like it will be 34 total if push pull haha (2 rear exhaust) Likely to be on 0 RPM a lot of the time unless playing something where you can assume very low and silent! Still debating leaving the top rads as pull only but most likely just pull the trigger on a load of them... it isn’t really supposed to be a sensible build is it

 

[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

So my 3 testers arrived yesterday, very nice quality product indeed! You can see a lot of small touches to reduce noise and there’s quite a bit included in the box for the price. 15 more in transit as we speak...

Do you know what thread the screws are? Just for the case they are a little long but can always get the saw out. Will be grabbing some 140mm for the rear exhausts because why not if they fit.

 

[Smffy]

I don't sorry mate, any time screws are too long I just do the same and hack the ends off!

No worries, only 8 to do so will get the saw out!

 

[Smffy]

Update time!

So I hope nobody else wanted some of these Noiseblocker eLoop fans as I've got them all pretty much

Braiding test, looks tidy but will be improved further:


I have to say I absolutely love the quality of these fans, what my plan is now is to resolder some slightly longer black wire and crimp them in to pairs at a corner. This should given me very tidy cables, I will braid up single extensions then (2 per rad) which will go to the Commander Pros hidden in the rear. Unless anyone can think of better solutions of course, i'm debating on using fan headers for this or the small white molex i've recently received:


These will probably hide well in between the rads... Or I should just solder on long wires from each and combine in the rear? 100m of 20AWG coming tomorrow so play around and you guys can tell me which is less dumb

Also now FINALLY have the radiators, after massive delays XSPC decided to confirm they in fact were not doing another run in white for the RX series which was brilliant... So i've compromised and got the 3 I needed in black and started spraying them matt white:



Note the extra SSD also, they went down to £48 elsewhere so I snapped up another to fill out the panel which was a pretty good deal!

Next up been stripping one GPU to test the new block design and sizing for my CAD drawings, this led to what the kids call an epic face palm... Firstly stripping the Duke down revealed a sterling job placing the lower thermal pads on the memory:


For anyone who is interested it was pretty easy to tease off this bad boy and keep it intact in the box for any future returns, as it also was to keep the thermal pads intact on the cooler and back plate:




It was at this point once I cleaned up the PCB and fitted the Gelid Extreme pads (not crap EK ones) that I noticed there was absolutely no way that block was oriented in the right way for the PCB... So dont ask me how but since 27th September these have been sat behind me, but they had sent 2080 blocks NOT Ti! Of course OCUK guys pretty helpful so they are on their way back and I simply ordered them again (which actually saved me £30) and here we go:



SHINY SHINY SHINY!. They look great, one area of concern is the LED cable which you can route through under the block - I'm guessing its fine as temps will not get anywhere near high enough to melt the silicon on the wires?

 

[Smffy]

I think in all my years of computing and using computers (over 40) Eloops are the nicest fans I've used. I really do like them. They would look great with RGB frames on, though it would cost you a king's ransom*

*somehow looking at your rig I don't think that part matters too much

Ha, yeah I'm thinking more along the lines of putting together a frosted frame around them all for the front facing. But I confess I am literally clueless about RGB so will have to learn that craft, i'm assuming I could get one of the long reels of it and go from there but will see... I would agree on the fans, really impressive, my concern with the halo's would be it spoils all the small textured parts which are clearly designed for the noise reduction etc - great fans though, will be replacing stickers with brushed alu and sorting wiring out soon.

 

[Smffy]

I just managed to get a deal from someone selling theirs - I can confirm that the box is absolutely massive!

Welcome to excessive case life - planning any mods?

 

[Smffy]

Loving this. Those fans look great! I've not seen them before.

Thanks, as you can see they are highly recommended especially for those not that bothered about RGB!

Amazing so far smffy! I have the exact same block and bp (nickel) on mine and they do look amazing in the flesh. EK really did a great job designing these.

As with your RTX mine had really poor memory pad placement on my FE (with one chip about 50% covered) so glad i fitted the block.

Looking forward to seeing some parts go in and those custom blocks, very nice job on those btw.

I had the nickel plates on my 1080s but first time going black block and I do think it looks cleaner. Hopefully my custom distro design can progress once I’ve got some rads in place finally I can start to plan channels... a lot of fan braiding to get through first

 

[Smffy]

So few more, basically desoldered the thin coloured wires and tested some I just received. My options are to either solder on longer cables to each and then join in the rear (4 braided as one running stealthily to the back) or connect two to one at the fans and then run extensions...

I’m sort of leaning towards the first, thoughts? Also included a shot of the fans on the temp rig, super quiet!




Either way looks like a boring days work making up those cables and keeping track of all of them - breaking out the coloured leccy tapes me thinks!

Rear of the fans will be covered by a brushed alu disc (cut to size 27.5mm), under the silver sticker is actually a magnet I believe!

 

[Smffy]

I use Corsair ML120 and 140s, and there’s a thick layer of conformal coating over the solder joints. Otherwise I would solder direct at the hub.

What I do is cut the wires and solder them in banks, then run a single sleeved cable for each bank to my controller / Mobo. That way there’s much less wiring and faff. Each fan is wired in parallel, with the 12v, ground and PWM running to all three, and the tach from just one.

Just remember to only connect one tach reading from each bank (I usually use whichever fan is where the cables all come together) and make sure that the header you’re connecting to can handle the current that the fans pull, with a little headroom for inrush etc.

I'm going for long runs to back and fit two to one connector for the hubs, I have order more cable as this stuff is uneccessarily thick to be honest! Got some good 22AWG lower strand like the wires that were on the fans originally coming monday so will get soldering next week!