Project: Silent Overkill

Ok, the RTL8127 has arrived as has the PCIE4 X1 cable. ...and that means redesigning everything...again. So a couple of stupid errors later and some PCIE cable tidies too:




In this shot you can see the back of the GPU and also the hex grill that I swapped into the top two PCIE slots:



The part the ribbon mounts to is higher than necessary as I thought it might hold the GPU ribbon clear of the heatsink or even allow the cable tidy to mount to it. I'm not sure I've got there quite yet...but I'm sure there'll be another redesign before it's final! :rolleyes:
The thought also occured - after this print, obviously - that I could, if necessary, tweak the design to put a 40mm Noctua fan in that grill space. It's only a couple of mm off being big enough. In theory this card should run cooler so that may wel not be necessary. Have I not tested it then? Well, no. Obviously I just rushed into redesigning things before I bothered to do that. Really, you're surprised?! :D

I need to nail down where to mount the Aquero and the Farbwerk 360 at some point. I'm not sure where yet. Between the PCIE bay and the PSU is one possibility. It could go in the flat space below (from this picture's perspective) the PCIE bay but the ATX power cable will run through that area and it could get messy....unless I mount it on the ceiling (there's a half door that closes over that area) but then the wiring might be a mess. We'll see I guess.
 
Alright then. Burdened with the most hideous man-flu I've had in ages, I'm determined to make some sort of progress....anything but daytime TV! :eek:
So I've started mocking up the distro plate and realised I'd got some lovely angles between unbendable things. I really want to use the nice clear, fat glass tubes I used in some of the last build. They only come in straight or a single 90° bend - you can't easily add more bends. So I've added in a couple of Koolance 30° fittings and it causes an offset like this:

Distro1.jpg


Mocked up. Forgive the extension piece, and assume they both get to the same plane - the old bits of glass weren't long enough....but it gives the idea. Not sure if I like the fat 16mm fittings perched on top of the slim 30° fittings.




The other option is to try to keep them straight. Originally there just wasn't enough room for this but there should be just about now that I've redesigned the GPU mount and moved the whole things in slightly. Mocked up with and without the front glass:





I'm after opinions really. Which looks better?

While we're in this sort of area, the plan is to separate the pumps - still in series but not directly from one to the other - I'm thinking one for the link out to the rad and one on the return. I'm also pondering what to do about a res. I rather fancy playing with LeakShield and an Ultitube with that mounted would also sort out a strainer (conveniently built into the base of it and also reasonably accessible to clean if necessary). I could mount one in front of the GPU but it seems a bit heathen to display it and then block half of it. Alternatively I could try to mount it on the external rad. I've got space underneath the distro I could do something as another option but couldn't do a LeakShield that way as it wouldn't have the air gap at the top. Thoughts?
 
Both look nice but it depends more of the angle you're going to be looking at it, I personally would want to see both tubes more clearly
 
A very fair point. Both the front and the side will be glass and there will be no corner pillar, so the render is quite acccurate and you should be able to see both tubes from either front or side. I'd sort of got it in my head that the pairs of tubes should run next to each other but the fact that they have to land on the distro staggered doesn't fit with that. If I land them straight on the distro plate, it looks rather like they've been jammed against the front window instead. Not sure yet.

I've modelled up the CPU block and adjusted the position of the ports in the distro - found that they needed to be further away so that the tube was straight into the CPU rather than still being on the curve.

Distro5.jpg


Had a play with modelling up some Barrow 45° fittings that I thought might be chunky enough to match up with the hard tube fittings. They probably still aren't but they are chunky enough to clash in this configuration. This is another option if slimmer 45's were used. The fittings are then in line but down the centreline of the distro plate.

Distro6.jpg
 
This arrived this morning:



Will need it when I mount the bulkhead QDC's to connect to the external rad*. Of course, the QDC bulkhead hole diameter is entirely and incompatibly different to the hole cutter I purchased previously and naively thought I might be able to re-use! :rolleyes:
The plan currently is to have a 3D printed bracket internally (mounted to the fan plate at the bottom) to back up the sheet metal and have the QDCs bolted through both. I fear the sheet metal alone may be a bit too bendy. Lining it all up should be 'interesting' - especially since the QDCs threaded portion is 15.85mm and the hole cutter is 16mm! Next size up was 17mm and the threaded nut that retains the QDC is only 20mm in diameter...so there's not a lot of tolerance in either direction! Hands up who can foresee me having to make the hole bigger and then custom make a new larger diameter nut! :rolleyes:

*Talking of the external rad, since it's no longer going to be mounted to the side of the case, it could, ideally, be protected on the newly vulnerable side by another grill. It then occurred to me that I had such a grill already as I purchased the deeper one to replace the original to get better fans under it....and it then further occured to me that this had gone to the scrap metal skip at the dump in the major clear-out when the office roof had to be replaced - because, of course, I'm never going to need one of those! *facepalm*
 
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There's a variety of sizes but also grades. There's cheap import (via eBay) that could be perfectly good...or could mangle your important project...which is why I went with one from Stakesys. They have three grades by themselves: DIY (round), trade (Q-Max) and Pro (the ones with the comedy prices :D). I restrained myself to Q-Max! You have to drill a hole large enough to put the bolt through and that then pulls the punch through without making further swarf. They do work for incomplete holes - where you're overlapping the edge of the sheet, but you need more than about 2/3 engagement to get two of the three teeth on.
They also do them for square holes and for massive holes.
I'll shut my trap now :D
 
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