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Sorry about that
Sorry about that
No worries just letting you know before it gets moderated
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Ah, 5 minute jobI just don’t know why the eLoops are out of stock...
Now all I have to do is desolder and resolver 34 of them...
Soldato
Waiting! - id love to see the build costs too! 
Waiting! - id love to see the build costs too!
Have a bunch of updates coming, I don’t really know the costs to be honest but the hardware was already owned so not sure I’d count that
Currently the case is stripped bare and been modified, probably going to send it and parts for powder coating just deciding on colour choice. Radiators now all refinished white and there is a pile of 32 fans desoldered ready to resolder and braid on my desk... terrible job awaits but also finishing my apartment renovation so bit slow progress!
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Where do you send it for coating? Is it very expensive?Have a bunch of updates coming, I don’t really know the costs to be honest but the hardware was already owned so not sure I’d count that
Currently the case is stripped bare and been modified, probably going to send it and parts for powder coating just deciding on colour choice. Radiators now all refinished white and there is a pile of 32 fans desoldered ready to resolder and braid on my desk... terrible job awaits but also finishing my apartment renovation so bit slow progress!
Two questions I will be getting answers for, seems to be a few places locally within a few miles and given it’s small parts I hope not too expensive - will let you know when I get as far as that
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Thank you.Two questions I will be getting answers for, seems to be a few places locally within a few miles and given it’s small parts I hope not too expensive - will let you know when I get as far as that
Soldato
Also interested to find out. On my last build I searched ages for a company to anodise some heatsinks. WhenI finally found someone who would take on such a small job, the price was very reasonableTwo questions I will be getting answers for, seems to be a few places locally within a few miles and given it’s small parts I hope not too expensive - will let you know when I get as far as that
Also interested to find out. On my last build I searched ages for a company to anodise some heatsinks. WhenI finally found someone who would take on such a small job, the price was very reasonable
Yeah I think powder coating should be ok, need to finish some more mods on the chassis then I’ll ask. Literally 2 miles up the road there is one which looks decent.
Also interested to find out. On my last build I searched ages for a company to anodise some heatsinks. WhenI finally found someone who would take on such a small job, the price was very reasonable
Quoted roughly £75 from somewhere up the road gents, colour choice to be confirmed but I’m coating the chassis and removable metal probably smooth gloss with metallic.
The tray and new res mount will then be covered by a Matt black thing sheet. Metallic grey/colour... thoughts?
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Thanks for the update. I don't know what the picture in your head looks like so I can't comment on the colours. I'm sure you've got something in mind and i imagine it will all come together nicely, so i say just go with your gut and do what you want.
Looking forward to seeing it!
Edit - metallic grey would certainly match the metal theme of the build you mentioned in the op.
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Can’t wait to see the finished article. Looks mega already.
Me too, been struggling for time but works winding down now so hopefully get a few bits in next week. Possibly even get to the powder coaters and see about picking colour and how the metallic top coat looks!
Some pics to post so will most likely do that next week...
Well, long overdue proper update as promised... Been pretty hectic the past month or so but making some strides in to the base of the build. First up, the case... Well it doesnt quite look like the 1000D that was delivered:
Drive bay removed and some areas cut out to get rid of some parts which get in the way of the res:
Since then its been stripped even further, the basic reason for this is for powder coating. It will be dropped off the get shot blasted/stripped clean and then powder coated probably dark in colour with a metallic finish:
Seems pretty extreme I know but the glass panels are all separate and hopefully I can figure out how to put it together again. Whilst doing this I've pretty well decided the board tray mount is quite flimsy and not exactly as I want it, so i'll be designing a new one which I will get machined in some much thicker brushed aluminium. I think this will look really nice in the middle of the new chassis, you wont see much of it but it will be far more sturdy and more fitting for things like board cable routes which currently do not align with the standard slots.
See parts removed, these will be coated also. The current plan above is likely to be the end result but i'll probably get the existing tray coated also as it wont cost any more money that the current quote.
Whilst I've been doing other work on the apartment (new floor now in, you will see in the pics just some underlay and bathrooms finished) I've also completed the radiator sprays. You might recall from above that XSPC decided to stop doing runs of the XR series in white and after a month messing about they confirmed all gone so I got hold of 3 more in black and sprayed them all white. Now completed I have 4 matching white rads:
And on to the very long job, I have too many fans to go with these rads... And as above I wanted to rewire the short connected eLoops to a single long wire all the way to the Commander Pros (in pairs). This as predicted was VERY long to complete and crazy boring, but I have to say improved my own solder skills working in the tiny space. Long story short, 28 fans completed:
Remove short rainbow crap:
I now realise I have about 60+ fan extensions as each fan comes with 2... I'm not using any so will probably sell them off/give them away!
Cut to size a hell of a lot of wire:
Resolder 4 wires on each fan...
Group all the wires to make cleaner braids, also taping the colours to make the new connections easy - this took a lot of time...
But made the braiding much easier!
This read of the fan will be covered by an aluminium disc, for ease and exact fit i'm getting some laser cut as its only about £20 for the 30 odd i'll need, should look pretty clean as the braid is fit through the rubber grommet nicely.
Paracord guts everywhere
One other thing of note, as you will see in the snaps i've got 2 x 140mm as the rear exhaust fans for which there are rails cut to mount this or 120mm. However, two 140mm do not fit vertically within the rail limits which seems to be an error in the measurements if you see the top fan it sits over the end of the slot limit by about 10mm:
I dont have any other 140mm fans but I measured the 120mm Noiseblocker vs Corsair MLs and they are EXACTLY the same physical size. I assume then they cocked up the measurements and the channels designed for the 140mm were not extrapolated out as the width was, there is clearly room for the two and channels for two but looks like a mistake... I've since measured and drilled a hole above each which fits them both perfectly (a few plastic washers under the top two mount to create the stand off probably).
Next up, I own two 2080Tis. This probably makes some people angry, some laugh and some furiously type in the GPU section about AMD - call it what you will the cards are fantastic so far and i'm in it for the love of trying new things. This aside I dislike the NVLink bridge design against my metal build, so its been dismantled with a view to designing my own cover (which looks mega easy):
If anyone was wondering the LED is the small white panel, the NV logo actually pushes out so if you wanted a minor mod you could probably replace that with something of your choice:
One of the blocked Dukes checking for the standoff and fit which looks ample:
I'l not planning anything crazy, having seen the vendor bridges not really hitting the market fast its probably something a little like the Asus design but again brushed metal plate on top, there is probably room to get creative and put a temp display in there if you wanted
So thats it for now, I need to sand a few parts of the chassis then off it goes to get coated. I've got more heat shrink arriving to finish the fan pairings as I forgot I only had white left, then those will be paired and fit to rads ready. The main things to work through now are:
Cheers!
Drive bay removed and some areas cut out to get rid of some parts which get in the way of the res:
Since then its been stripped even further, the basic reason for this is for powder coating. It will be dropped off the get shot blasted/stripped clean and then powder coated probably dark in colour with a metallic finish:
Seems pretty extreme I know but the glass panels are all separate and hopefully I can figure out how to put it together again
. Whilst doing this I've pretty well decided the board tray mount is quite flimsy and not exactly as I want it, so i'll be designing a new one which I will get machined in some much thicker brushed aluminium. I think this will look really nice in the middle of the new chassis, you wont see much of it but it will be far more sturdy and more fitting for things like board cable routes which currently do not align with the standard slots.See parts removed, these will be coated also. The current plan above is likely to be the end result but i'll probably get the existing tray coated also as it wont cost any more money that the current quote.
Whilst I've been doing other work on the apartment (new floor now in, you will see in the pics just some underlay and bathrooms finished) I've also completed the radiator sprays. You might recall from above that XSPC decided to stop doing runs of the XR series in white and after a month messing about they confirmed all gone so I got hold of 3 more in black and sprayed them all white. Now completed I have 4 matching white rads:
And on to the very long job, I have too many fans to go with these rads... And as above I wanted to rewire the short connected eLoops to a single long wire all the way to the Commander Pros (in pairs). This as predicted was VERY long to complete and crazy boring, but I have to say improved my own solder skills working in the tiny space. Long story short, 28 fans completed:
Remove short rainbow crap:
I now realise I have about 60+ fan extensions as each fan comes with 2... I'm not using any so will probably sell them off/give them away!
Cut to size a hell of a lot of wire:
Resolder 4 wires on each fan...
Group all the wires to make cleaner braids, also taping the colours to make the new connections easy - this took a lot of time...
But made the braiding much easier!
This read of the fan will be covered by an aluminium disc, for ease and exact fit i'm getting some laser cut as its only about £20 for the 30 odd i'll need, should look pretty clean as the braid is fit through the rubber grommet nicely.
Paracord guts everywhere
One other thing of note, as you will see in the snaps i've got 2 x 140mm as the rear exhaust fans for which there are rails cut to mount this or 120mm. However, two 140mm do not fit vertically within the rail limits which seems to be an error in the measurements if you see the top fan it sits over the end of the slot limit by about 10mm:
I dont have any other 140mm fans but I measured the 120mm Noiseblocker vs Corsair MLs and they are EXACTLY the same physical size. I assume then they cocked up the measurements and the channels designed for the 140mm were not extrapolated out as the width was, there is clearly room for the two and channels for two but looks like a mistake... I've since measured and drilled a hole above each which fits them both perfectly (a few plastic washers under the top two mount to create the stand off probably).
Next up, I own two 2080Tis. This probably makes some people angry, some laugh and some furiously type in the GPU section about AMD - call it what you will the cards are fantastic so far and i'm in it for the love of trying new things. This aside I dislike the NVLink bridge design against my metal build, so its been dismantled with a view to designing my own cover (which looks mega easy):
If anyone was wondering the LED is the small white panel, the NV logo actually pushes out so if you wanted a minor mod you could probably replace that with something of your choice:
One of the blocked Dukes checking for the standoff and fit which looks ample:
I'l not planning anything crazy, having seen the vendor bridges not really hitting the market fast its probably something a little like the Asus design but again brushed metal plate on top, there is probably room to get creative and put a temp display in there if you wanted
So thats it for now, I need to sand a few parts of the chassis then off it goes to get coated. I've got more heat shrink arriving to finish the fan pairings as I forgot I only had white left, then those will be paired and fit to rads ready. The main things to work through now are:
- Get the frame powder coating in metallic glossy goodness
- Finalise the designs of the distro/res and whether I attempt to build the pumps in to it (tips welcome!)
- Finish up the mega fan job, I need a few more most likely
- Design a new board tray and get fabricated with the res - could be brushed alu or matt black acrylic like a Parvum case...
- Fit the rads in to the new chassis and play with bending the black chrome tubing
- Look at various parts in the base where I probably want to make panels to cover up some of the holes where other mounts formerly were
Cheers!
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Fantastic update.
These things take time but you are making good progress and I'm loving the detail in the description of the process and the accompanying photos.
I have a question about some fans that I have that you might be able to help with.
I have 9 pwm fans that i need to connect to my pc but they are going on an external radiator. I was thinking of using extensions and then connecting each fan to a controller, probably a thermaltake one since that is the only one i've seen that will 9 (10).
Since you are using so many, do you find you have any issues with controlling them? Does having 2 fans on one port create any problems with fan curve, or speed, or reporting?
And finally one you may not be able to answer, but may be able to test? Do you think it would be possible to daisychain x amount of extensions to allow a 3m connection from the external rad (controller) to the pc (a 4 pin to usb header connection i am guessing)? I understand that this wont look the best but since I don't solder it is an idea I am playing with. At least in the near term.
Please don't put yourself out trying to test for me, i realise that you have a lot going on so if it isn't possible no problem. Thanks for the update.
These things take time but you are making good progress and I'm loving the detail in the description of the process and the accompanying photos.
I have a question about some fans that I have that you might be able to help with.
I have 9 pwm fans that i need to connect to my pc but they are going on an external radiator. I was thinking of using extensions and then connecting each fan to a controller, probably a thermaltake one since that is the only one i've seen that will 9 (10).
Since you are using so many, do you find you have any issues with controlling them? Does having 2 fans on one port create any problems with fan curve, or speed, or reporting?
And finally one you may not be able to answer, but may be able to test? Do you think it would be possible to daisychain x amount of extensions to allow a 3m connection from the external rad (controller) to the pc (a 4 pin to usb header connection i am guessing)? I understand that this wont look the best but since I don't solder it is an idea I am playing with. At least in the near term.
Please don't put yourself out trying to test for me, i realise that you have a lot going on so if it isn't possible no problem. Thanks for the update.
Fantastic update.
These things take time but you are making good progress and I'm loving the detail in the description of the process and the accompanying photos.
I have a question about some fans that I have that you might be able to help with.
I have 9 pwm fans that i need to connect to my pc but they are going on an external radiator. I was thinking of using extensions and then connecting each fan to a controller, probably a thermaltake one since that is the only one i've seen that will 9 (10).
Since you are using so many, do you find you have any issues with controlling them? Does having 2 fans on one port create any problems with fan curve, or speed, or reporting?
And finally one you may not be able to answer, but may be able to test? Do you think it would be possible to daisychain x amount of extensions to allow a 3m connection from the external rad (controller) to the pc (a 4 pin to usb header connection i am guessing)? I understand that this wont look the best but since I don't solder it is an idea I am playing with. At least in the near term.
Please don't put yourself out trying to test for me, i realise that you have a lot going on so if it isn't possible no problem. Thanks for the update.
Howdy,
You could use splitters with fans in pairs or more. In the last build I had some Splitty9 which needless to say take 9, three of those with fans in to them and single outs to the controller. Outcome is that the controller can control the bank of fans on the splitter, with one in a designated slot to provide the tac feedback on RPM.
I would do something like that, in my eyes is fine as you tend to want to control them in radiator banks not as single fans - so guessing you have 9 on one of those big square rads. The key is to connect the read from just one in order to keep the PWM current speed, then the other wires are basically + and - and then a set speed. A splitter 9 would be my solution and they are about £9, short cables to that then one to a controller with the appropriate wattage on the channel.
Extensions you could do, simply connecting the wires is all it’s doing. That said you could easily get some wire and just make the extension up, connecting all 4 on the input to the controller. If it’s a long distance I believe higher AWG is advisable, mostly they seem to be about 24/26AWG on fans but you could do a run of higher quite easily and it’s just a fan plug on each end then - no solder required as you crimp on the connectors... I have a bunch so if you are stuck possibly make you one after Xmas.
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Awesome thanks! I'll look into the splitty9 and crimping on the connectors. 