Project: The Elephant in the Room

foop · 29 Jan 2017 at 11:15

Project: The Elephant in the Room

We recently moved house. I've been using a little water-cooled mini-ITX build for a while. I felt the need for a little more space, though.

It was around then that I had a sudden rush of blood to the head. I wasn't helped by my wife, who said that she didn't object at all.

As a result of all this, it was Thursday lunchtime when my cheery local DPD driver, Cosmin, wheeled his trolley up to the door. "Is heavy," he said with a smile as we man-handled the box through the door into the hall. Then the cat started complaining that she couldn't get past the box.

Ruh roh.

So, yeah, it seems that I bought this:

I've got no idea what I'm going to put in it. I guess it will have to be SLI and double loops, at least, with all that space. I've spent a week staring at it dolefully.

This is definitely going to be a slow burn project. Don't expect rapid action. First off, I'll try to disassemble it and get some photos together.

Cenedd · 30 Jan 2017 at 09:37

Well, it's certainly not Mini-ITX that's for sure! Although it would probably have space for a cluster of water-cooled mini-ITX in there.

OJ46 · 30 Jan 2017 at 09:48

Never seen that case before but just checked it out on their website... What a beast! Look forward to seeing what you can fill it with

orbitalwalsh · 30 Jan 2017 at 10:04

would love to see the Cyber Power LCD screen on this case! love to have it double over as a fish tank

Cenedd · 30 Jan 2017 at 10:13

orbitalwalsh said:
love to have it double over as a fish tank

Custom acrylic reservoir taking up the entire front panel with 50mm depth and then add robo-fish?

foop · 30 Jan 2017 at 15:05

Cenedd said:
Custom acrylic reservoir taking up the entire front panel with 50mm depth and then add robo-fish?

That was the first thing I thought of, weirdly.

In fact, it's so big I think you could put a real fish tank in there. Tropical fish, heated by the cooling loop maybe, with Prime95 running as required when the water gets too cool?

I might not try custom reservoirs quite yet though...

Cenedd · 30 Jan 2017 at 15:20

Actually it wouldn't be that hard. It's just an acrylic sandwich. All you'd need to do is ask someone like Parvum or E22 to cut one for you and give them the dimensions - for a basic rectangular cuboid, that wouldn't be difficult. In terms of real fish, I'm not sure I'd connect it to the real loop myself. I'm no fish expert by it's entirely possible for a loop to get to 40°C. Granted that with more volume of coolant it takes longer but I think that's more soup territory than tropical waters :eek:

foop · 31 Jan 2017 at 11:58

I really ought to stop staring at this case and actually do something, but it's a bit overwhelming. Here are some pictures of it out of the box. Getting it out of the box is not a simple matter. This thing weighs a ton.

Here we are, tempered glass protected by lovely plastic. All the fish tank suggestions are pretty apt at this stage. It's a big, empty fridge-sized box. I could probably fit my nine year old son inside.

So, the top is... Well, it's ventilated. And covered in mesh.

And, eurgh, a bit plasticky.

It doesn't show up well in this photo, but that USB and button panel has the sort of finish that white plastic PC cases used to have back in the 90s. It's also a slightly different finish from the rest of the top of the case which rather highlights the ickiness.

I'm not a big fan of this part of the case.

When you look directly down from the top of the case, you can see that the vented top is a nice idea but the grille doesn't really hide the rather random placement of vents and holes.

The vents and holes are there, of course, to allow airflow from the fans in the top of the case. I'm not sure I'm going to be needing the vent fan in the compartment at the back, because that's probably going to have at least 7 fans venting out of radiators in the sides.

The cable management under the top panel is rather nice. There's plenty of headroom, and gaps at the rear to allow you to run monitor cables and the like.

Turning now to the back of the case we have... more fan mounting points. Because the one thing the rear compartment of this behemoth needs is more fans. I'm guessing it's to help maintain positive pressure if you have big radiators venting out of the back of the case.

Once you take the back panel off (with captive thumbscrews - a nice idea but a little fiddly) you can see that you probably ought to be watercooling in here. Without the drive cages you can get two 560mm radiators in, no problem. With the drive cages, one side is down to (I think) 360mm max and people who love symmetry start twitching slightly.

There's a spare radiator/fan mount panel in the back of the case to use if you don't need the rear drive cages. These panels are a bit weird. The openings in them don't match either 120mm or 140mm fan spacing. Whatever you do, you're going to have a metal bar across the airflow from your fans.

The fan panels on the rear compartment come off easily with a spring loaded latch under the lid. The case comes with two spare springs for these latches. The panels have the usual magnetically attached mesh. Apparently we don't worry about magnetic strips next to our HDD cages these days.

Next post... the front of the case. Can you contain your excitement?

Cenedd · 31 Jan 2017 at 13:01

foop said:
It's a big, empty fridge-sized box. I could probably fit my nine year old son inside.

Can he make noises like the sound-effects in Crysis though?!

foop said:
So, the top is... Well, it's ventilated. And covered in mesh.

And, eurgh, a bit plasticky.

It doesn't show up well in this photo, but that USB and button panel has the sort of finish that white plastic PC cases used to have back in the 90s. It's also a slightly different finish from the rest of the top of the case which rather highlights the ickiness.

I'm not a big fan of this part of the case.

Spray paint it?

foop said:
I'm not sure I'm going to be needing the vent fan in the compartment at the back, because that's probably going to have at least 7 fans venting out of radiators in the sides.

Maybe an intake fan to supply air for the rads to exhaust....or the reverse.

foop said:
Without the drive cages you can get two 560mm radiators in, no problem.

Nice. That's nearly to my level over overkill....and you've still got more slots available!

foop said:
Whatever you do, you're going to have a metal bar across the airflow from your fans.

*cough* Dremel *cough*

foop said:
Apparently we don't worry about magnetic strips next to our HDD cages these days.

Probably find that the magnets are low enough powered and also quenched by being placed against the case - see if anything much will stick to them once they're attached.

Well, you certainly shouldn't have issues with it being too cramped to work in....unless you forget to take your son out first!

foop · 31 Jan 2017 at 15:56

Cenedd said:
Can he make noises like the sound-effects in Crysis though?!

Bribe him with enough bags of Monster Munch and he'll give it a good shot.

Spray paint it?

Quite possibly. I was wondering about vinyl wrap, but I have absolutely zero experience. I don't know how easy it would be with buttons, USB ports, LEDs, and headphone ports to deal with.

*cough* Dremel *cough*

I've got a few Dremel candidates in the front, too.

Cenedd · 31 Jan 2017 at 17:39

foop said:
Bribe him with enough bags of Monster Munch and he'll give it a good shot.

Will Haribo work...?!

foop said:
Quite possibly. I was wondering about vinyl wrap, but I have absolutely zero experience. I don't know how easy it would be with buttons, USB ports, LEDs, and headphone ports to deal with.

I have no experience with vinyl wrap....but I can point you in the direction of the master! The man who's log you want to read (and maybe post questions to) is Legend: Build Log: I am Titanium

ALXAndy · 31 Jan 2017 at 20:23

Wow that's a big one

I love this case, can't wait to see what you do with it

Cenedd · 31 Jan 2017 at 20:45

Oh, Andy's done some vinyl too...nearly forgot. Step forward volunteers.... <takes a step backwards>

ALXAndy · 1 Feb 2017 at 01:08

foop said:
Quite possibly. I was wondering about vinyl wrap, but I have absolutely zero experience. I don't know how easy it would be with buttons, USB ports, LEDs, and headphone ports to deal with.

It's not that hard really. Just ***** the centre (ooer) and then gently take the blade of a pointed scalpel around the edge. Might want to practice on something else first, as too much pressure will carve away at the edge of the hole/take the paint off etc. Or you can use the diamond/triangle method and tuck the edges (which does look better but does not work on small circles) but you will need some of the primer stuff that helps the vinyl hold, or else they will start to peel after a few days. Same goes for any indentations and slight bends etc.

foop · 1 Feb 2017 at 11:26

ALXAndy said:
It's not that hard really. Just ***** the centre (ooer) and then gently take the blade of a pointed scalpel around the edge.

My mind is boggling as to what just got censored there.

Sounds like it might be worth giving a try. I suspect I'll have lots of badly cut acrylic sheet lying around half way through the project to practice on.

Mind you, vinyl comes in lots of colours which adds another bunch of decisions to the process.

ALXAndy · 1 Feb 2017 at 11:44

p-r-i-c-k.

But of course in the non insult variety

LePhuronn · 1 Feb 2017 at 11:48

I'm a total noob with vinyl and my heatsinks came out really nice, although the power board was fiddly because of the shape and having stuff under and around it.

All you need is a cheap heatgun and waft it over the vinyl in awkward places to warm it up (you'll see it start to wriggle like a worm when it's ready) and then gently brush it down into place with a bit of a stretching motion. I put firm pressure on the raised areas and held until the vinyl cooled to retain the shape.

foop · 1 Feb 2017 at 15:53

LePhuronn said:
I'm a total noob with vinyl and my heatsinks came out really nice, although the power board was fiddly because of the shape and having stuff under and around it.

It was seeing your build that put the idea in my head, but then I couldn't remember which project it was in.

foop · 1 Feb 2017 at 16:50

Contain your enthusiasm, I'm about to move onto the front of the case.

We have a removable motherboard tray the orientation of which gives you vertically mounted GPUS. No GPU sag, although I can't say I've ever suffered from that <cough>. Another removable panel below, with lots of grommets for cable management. And finally, presumably because they ended up with a lot of empty space that they couldn't work out what to do with, a weird plinth that sits in the bottom. This has two slide-out 3.5" HDD trays, a fan mount on top (more of which later), and the 5.25" drive tray in the bottom.

The Thermaltake logo pops off easily enough. The 5.25" drive space is pretty much designed for fan or pump controllers, and that is what I'll be using it for.

Either side of the plinth is an oddly shaped cage thing with no obvious purpose. More obviously, there is a 2.5" SSD tray which can slide onto mounting slots at the back of the cage or the side of the plinth. In the front of this space, just visible, is a removable pump/reservoir mounting plate. I've no idea what the hole spacing is, but from previous experience I'd be willing to bet that it doesn't match the mounting screws on whatever pump I end up buying.

On the subject of holes...

...this case is full of them. Count them in that picture. Some of them have an obvious purpose, like standoff mounting holes for E_ATX. Others are just mysterious holes. Some of them are small and threaded. Some of them are large and not threaded.

Frankly, I'm baffled. I'm sure some of them are for doing cunning things, but I've no idea what.

Look at the top of the plinth thing, for example.

Ok, fair enough, we have 120mm and 140mm fan screw holes. We also have some mysterious threaded holes and some mysterious unthreaded holes. Any ideas?

The whole hole- and grommet-strewn area looks a bit meh to me. I'm thinking about maybe having some standoffs on it holding acrylic sheet with custom tube and cable holes drilled though. This will probably cause me endless pain.

Finally, fittings.

All the usual M3 and 6-32 screws, thumbscrews, standoffs, cable ties, etc. A couple of spare springs for the side panel release toggles. Some USB extension cables. And weirdly, some 14mm black M5 thread standoffs. The only other M5 threaded things are the screws that hold the tempered glass in place. I can't see what you'd use the standoffs for, unless you wanted the glass have a gap all the way around it. You can't use them to mount the glass and hold something away from the glass, because the threaded portion isn't long enough to hold the glass in place.

Cenedd · 1 Feb 2017 at 17:24

foop said:
Either side of the plinth is an oddly shaped cage thing with no obvious purpose. More obviously, there is a 2.5" SSD tray which can slide onto mounting slots at the back of the cage or the side of the plinth.

The white bracket with the black thumb screw is what I thought you meant and that looks like a drive sled. Also looks like you can move it to the back (mid-plate) if you prefer. Personally I like my drives hidden but I've seen some that's have been pimped with custom vinyl look pretty good.
If you mean the curving arm thing at the side, I think that's either style or to provide rigidity to the case.

foop said:
In the front of this space, just visible, is a removable pump/reservoir mounting plate. I've no idea what the hole spacing is, but from previous experience I'd be willing to bet that it doesn't match the mounting screws on whatever pump I end up buying.

Of course they won't match up! There'll be all sorts of holes that almost match up just to frustrate you, but they'll be painstakingly calculated to not match all known pump brackets....a lot of effort will have gone into designing it like this!

foop said:
The 5.25" drive space is pretty much designed for fan or pump controllers, and that is what I'll be using it for.

I was going to say that you can almost read "Aquaero" on that space already

Holes: No idea. It could be they're for you to mount cable management on? Or they could be there just to confuse you. Could even be there to hold the plate down while it's machined...but it's a bit naff if that's the case. I've got a temperature sensor wire running through a similar hole in my mid-plate...just 'cos it happened to be in around the right place.