Project Log: Lian Li TU150 Stacker

[Muel]

I did this build a few years ago, but never got round to posting it for a couple of reasons - firstly I couldn't think of a name, and secondly I never got round to ordering custom PSU cables for it. Doubt I will do either now, so thought I may as well post it!

I'd wanted to build a small form factor system with a single GPU, so ITX seemed to be all the rage at the time (2020-2021). Then I came across the TU150 from Lian-Li, and thought it suit combining 2 of them into a stacker style system, with the rads in the lower compartment. I'd always wanted a Caselabs SMA8 but they were always crazy money, and there was no way I could afford to fill it up with enough hardware so it didn't look empty.

So I bought a couple of cases, and started chopping them up...

 

[Muel]

First job was to get some radiators that would fit, I settled on two of the Alphacool NexXxoS HPE-60 Full Copper X-Flow 80mm Triple rads, stacked with 2 sets of grey Noctua 80mm fans blowing through. These rads had the advantage of having mounting holes in the sides, meaning I could easily rubber mount them on little feet, and being crossflow it made it super easy to plumb them in.

 

[Muel]

Next up, chopping down the lower case to fit the rads. I just drilled all the rivets out, cut it down to the right height, and bolted it back together.

 

[Muel]

Then, mounting the pumpres. I was a big fan of EKWB kit, so this little 120mm mount one did the trick, in the place of the TU150s SSD mount. I had to notch the motherboard tray for it to fit, but that meant the wires poked through the back of the tray, so are completely hidden. The mounting holes aren't exactly pretty, but it's solid. Rubber mounted again to avoid any vibration.

 

[Muel]

A bit more chopping required to mount the vertical GPU bracket

 

[Muel]

All bolted together and finished. It looks like I got a bit slack with taking photos of progress as I went annoyingly, there was a lot of fiddly work to do to get all the pipework together.

But that's that, it's been running nicely for the last 5 years. Spec wise it's an AMD 5600X, Gigabyte B550i motherboard, some Corsair RAM I can't remember the specs of, Strix ROG 1080ti, Corsair 2tb M2 SSD, and a Corsair SF750 PSU.

 

[Matt_Hirst]

Very nice, love the idea and finish looks great.

Matt

 

[Muel]

Very nice, love the idea and finish looks great.

Matt

Cheers, it's not perfect, I've never been happy with the lower front panel because the cut across the mesh looks a bit odd, but overall I'm fairly happy.