Project Smurf

[savagesam117]

I had this problem in mine

Mount the res on the bottom sitting on above the SSD bays? Or on the left in front of the cards?

Looks really nice so far.

 

[Smffy]

I had this problem in mine

Mount the res on the bottom sitting on above the SSD bays? Or on the left in front of the cards?

Looks really nice so far.

Original thought was a sweet looking horizontal mount above the SSDs, however I plan to add multiple GPUs when next gen Nvidia is released next year so that will just become impossible. But fear not, I ordered a shorter res tube, which was pretty good only about £10 and will replace the other making it a tidy 100mm shorter. So that will allow me to mount as I wanted originally, hopefully it comes Thursday!

And I'm not good with the quote editing stuff so please forgive me for that noob move

Edit your post and delete the numbers next to the quote text:

[quote="Gaming4Life, post: 28945546"]

So today I attempted some hardline bending... Pretty annoying evening I have to say. One thing really got on my nerves, the pretty pricey OCool silicon tube for my ID 12mm tube was NOT a tight fit, seriously its pretty damn pricey for what it is but its not big enough, this is why I struggled to get quality bends as its not totally flush in the tube.

Soooooo, much trial and error later i've got a better handle on it and realising my loop is a massive nightmare to hard tube. But I do not give up, I will try again when im in a better mood .

Here is one I did get done, not totally happy but one in.

 

[Gaming4Life]

Edit your post and delete the numbers next to the quote text

Ok thanks I think I got the hang of it now

Btw really nice build! How much is it costing? And how much have you spent on it so far?

 

[Smffy]

Ok thanks I think I got the hang of it now

Btw really nice build! How much is it costing? And how much have you spent on it so far?

At a guess its in the £2k region, but to be fair 25% of that is GPU and probably another 25% on quite 'overkill' watercooling... Parts of it could be compromised but its really a base to improve on next year - it would have been cheaper had I had a decent PSU/GPU already for example by some way, also don't really 'need' two giant rads and the pump/res could have been far cheaper.

Money is not really the focus of it to be honest, should be offloading my old machine for something like £500-600 and focusing on the quality/future proofing.

 

[Gaming4Life]

At a guess its in the £2k region, but to be fair 25% of that is GPU and probably another 25% on quite 'overkill' watercooling... Parts of it could be compromised but its really a base to improve on next year - it would have been cheaper had I had a decent PSU/GPU already for example by some way, also don't really 'need' two giant rads and the pump/res could have been far cheaper.

Money is not really the focus of it to be honest, should be offloading my old machine for something like £500-600 and focusing on the quality/future proofing.

Wow that's a lot of money, but if your going to sell your old one then I guess it's not really. I could go buy a cow for my farm for that amount of money though

 

[powelly]

turn the case on its side and fill the res and then once the air is gone and its full turn it back to normal

 

[Smffy]

turn the case on its side and fill the res and then once the air is gone and its full turn it back to normal

Cheers mate, I decided that it was simply too big with the hardline tubing as well... Its a shame because I like the larger res but i've now had delivered a replacement inner tube for it so its shrunk down and fits perfectly.

Notice i've also now got some angled fittings ready to rock, what do you think of that placement?

More bending kit has arrived, this is the Monsoon insert (red) - you can see even in the picture how poorly the Alphacool insert fit the tube. Remeber it was sold as 12mm ID... its not, there is at least a 1mm gap which made it impossible to get perfect bends.

New one is a better fit, not as tight as i'd like but its better:

And finally the white carbon wrap arrived, it looks OK has a slight shine to it so I think it will look good - only concern is that it will look 'too white' in the base so we shall see!

White vs. normal black:

So thats it, i've got tomorrow off work so the plan is to finish up tomorrow with all my tubing etc and then its just customising other non essentials. Wish me luck people!

 

[OJ46]

Must say I really like the smaller reservoir positioned next to the RAM, looks very neat & tidy and leaves space for more GPU's
Shocking that they're selling inserts that are basically unusable, but glad you've found one that actually fits, want to see the finished Smurf!
Not sure on the white carbon being too white, but could you paint match one of the blue components and spray the edges of the drive Smurf blue? Just a (probably crap) idea

 

[Gaming4Life]

Good luck with the rest of the build mate

 

[Smffy]

Must say I really like the smaller reservoir positioned next to the RAM, looks very neat & tidy and leaves space for more GPU's
Shocking that they're selling inserts that are basically unusable, but glad you've found one that actually fits, want to see the finished Smurf!
Not sure on the white carbon being too white, but could you paint match one of the blue components and spray the edges of the drive Smurf blue? Just a (probably crap) idea

No all good ideas, maybe someone should tell Crucial to make me nice shiny blue metal labels for my 3 drives

I've obviously got limited experience with hardline bending but I'm surprised the inserts aren't sold a few mm over to sand to fit (given tighter is better). Looking forward to getting this over the line so hopefully loads of progress tomorrow.

 

[LePhuronn]

Are you sure you bought the correct silicone insert? Alphacool do 2 sizes because they sell 3/8" and 1/2" ID hardline.

Still, you have the Monsoon kit now so fingers-crossed you'll enjoy the bends a lot more.

 

[Smffy]

Are you sure you bought the correct silicone insert? Alphacool do 2 sizes because they sell 3/8" and 1/2" ID hardline.

Still, you have the Monsoon kit now so fingers-crossed you'll enjoy the bends a lot more.

Yep, took me a while to track some down and it was defo the right size... Maybe I got a dud or maybe the actual insert was mixed up supplier side but either way much swearing was involved

Tomorrow i'm going to organise my mess of kit, make a big pot of coffee and get stuck in. Good times.

 

[Luggs]

Wow, some great progress being made dude! The blue / white colour scheme looks really nice, especially the gpu block. Look forward to more pics!

 

[Smffy]

Wow, some great progress being made dude! The blue / white colour scheme looks really nice, especially the gpu block. Look forward to more pics!

I know right, someone needs to just give me another card already so I can have two

 

[powelly]

the angled fittings look nice but i would have gone with white bitspower ones to match the theme just to be critical

 

[Smffy]

the angled fittings look nice but i would have gone with white bitspower ones to match the theme just to be critical

Actually feel the same I didnt use the black ones (where visible) in the end, the chrome looks pretty tasty.

Almost there, few runs i'm not happy about but soooo close...

 

[Smffy]

Are you ready for MAJOR updates?

So today has been fiddly, tiring but also fun... Thanks to Monsoon bending was a much better experience, I think the bends went pretty well (there is one I might consider copying tomorrow). So i've got a load of snaps from todays work, apologies they are of the tubes still dirty and dusty from bending/cutting down for the most part but you get the drift.

Started with a few simple bends but quickly realised I needed to get the tricky bits in before. This one is pretty close to the RAM (finger gap) so I hope its fine there?

By the way I used my professional cooling station to cool off the bends... Jokes. Actually this is a really good way of doing it, because of my black case and the fans LED you can easily fine tune the shape of the bend while it cools.

Treated myself to a nice easy bend here:

So while I was thinking I need to get the res in and make sure I can route that ok I just could not stand that **** white mount you get with the res. No offence to EK but 1. Its not the same white as the res, 2. In my fussy opinion it looks really cheap. So I decided to crack on a make a small stand for it:

Cut a small piece of MDF:

Refined the shape to fit the res well:

Thought about painting it white. Realised I have no white paint... Remebered I have new white carbon wrap...

Went with a black underside, not perfect but its much better looking and less intrusive than the side clamp crap you get with it:

Mounted in the case where the bracket would be for the EK clamps, what do you think - better or worse? Now its tubed in it doesnt move but i'll probably put some strong sticky pads under it just in case.

Plumbing it in:

Remembering I didnt put the ***king drain valve in so had to remake a few tubes while I moved things around, ended up good though - it swivels on the 90 degree fitting so should be easy to drain.

Many awkward bends later some of the really tricky shapes were in and I was finally nearing completion. Trust me these took some effort

Then I check the back and... Oh, touching the rad. Not happy but not defeated, I also remade the tube to the pump AGAIN to remove the spacers I cheated with earlier.

Fairly typical that it was one of the most technical bends in the rig, needed so very careful reshaping to bring the bend in.

Winning... It fits nicely.

So there we are, pulled them all out and have just given them a nice soapy bath/good rinse to clean out the olive oil (amazing for the bends) and dust. Here is what feels like a lot more work than it looks, drying off post wash

Before I pulled them out took a quick snap, without the nice blue compressions but this is how it looks through the window (swapped out the black fittings for shiny ones):

And that is today, its getting there and i've got some more mods to do on the case but progress! Tomorrow i'm helping a friend move but hoping to check, tighten and fit it all back in... Right now its time for a few well earned beers and a steak!

 

[OJ46]

That's looking seriously good mate, and agree with you 100% on the mounting for the reservoir. The standard one looks proper tacky and the whole system looks so much classier with the white carbon stand

When I first scrolled through I thought that tube was glowing red lol wondered if you were doing a bit of glass blowing might have been a right PITA to do all those bends but man, the results are stunning! This shouldn't be used as a PC, it should be hung on the wall as art

 

[Smffy]

Smaller update, time to put the jigsaw back together again... This time with the sexy blue fittings to complete the look. I put in all but one tube, there is just something about this one i'm not sure on - I feel like I want to make it again different but I can't see where. Tell me what you think, its the left hander on the GPU which is quite an awkward tight bend.

Without it:

The tube that just makes me think I should, nothing wrong with the bends just visually its something:

And all of it in one:

Tomorrow I should have time to connect up the power to the pump, attempt to make a jumper and then test it out... It better work

 

[powelly]

Coming along great. not sure on that reservoir mount you've made though, Can't help but feel like it looks tacky from the pictures (might be the wrinkles in the wrap?) and as for the tubes personally i think it might be because they aren't parallel making it seem as if it doesn't look right?