Project: The Elephant in the Room

[foop]

Pumps

So, those weird side bits in the pump bays get in the way. With them removed, however, you get a better look at the ugly floor of the case.



Some of that would normally be obscured by the pump mounting plate, but as predicted the holes in it don't match any pump I've ever used and certainly don't match the slightly odd pattern for the Monsoon MMRS D5 standalone pump housing.

My plan is to cut a slightly smaller platform from white acrylic and mount that to the base of the case using hexagonal standoffs and M3 bolts.



It still has the protective paper on it here while I piddle about with things. I can then mount the pump onto the platform. Yet again, the pump mounting hardware interferes with something in the case. This time it's the plastic locating lugs on the feet that protrude through the case just below the platform. I carve these away with a Stanley knife and the feet still fit securely.



You can just about see the Monsoon cold cathode lights that fit into the reservoir mounting bits. I've no idea how good they are, but I thought I'd get them because they're designed to go with the reservoir. Their cables are sleeved with black plastic though, so that has to be changed.



Now I just have to get a decent right-angle bend in the PETG tubing to fit between the reservoir and the pump inlet.

 

[Cenedd]

Looking good so far.
Bends: make sure you have plenty spare. Not enough heat (or not over enough length of tube) and it gives a crumpled look as it folds. Too much heat and it distorts. The one thing you can guarantee is swearing! To be fair, PETG is supposed to be easier than acrylic... and tougher, but can lose clarity quickly I think as it is slightly absorbent. If I remember correctly you need to make sure there's no glycol in the coolant.

 

[foop]

I had some help this weekend.



Everything is now covered in a thin coating of cat hair.

 

[LewisRaz]

Cats do love a good build

Glad to see you making good progress now.

 

[foop]

Waterblocks

I've not done a full cover motherboard block before, so this is a bit of a novelty. I thought I might as well get one as in the early days of Ryzen there seemed to be a lot of talk about the mosfets needing to be well cooled if you're overclocking.



It's all pretty straightforward. The stock heatsinks come off easily, and the cover with its super-high-performance RGB LED nonsense goes back on ok.

The biggest issue was the stock backplate, which is attached to the motherboard with very sticky double-sided tape. This required a lot of gentle(ish) persuasion with some flexible plastic spudgers to free it.



GPU waterblocks are a different matter. I've built six quad-GPU watercooled machines so far this year, so it's getting a bit routine.



I've gone with EKWB blocks and backplates. The EVGA GeForce GTX 1080Ti SC Black Edition GAMING ICX actually has more themal pads on the backplate than the replacement EKWB one, which is something I'm not used to. Hopefully the fact that the backplate is metal will help cooling.



I've also sprayed the backplates orange to go with the rest of the colour scheme.

 

[foop]

Components actually in the case

It's taken months, but I've finally got pieces of computer inside the case.



The GPUs haven't got the terminal block linking them yet in this shot.



It's not looking bad, but I'm worried that the GPUs are a bit close to the reservoir on that side of the case. It's not a physical problem, but it does make it look a little crowded over there. I could make that reservoir shorter, but then the two reservoirs will be different sizes. Hmm.



The other thing I've discovered is that the case doesn't really have a proper way of getting the case leads (switch, reset etc.) or the USB-3 connector over to that side of the board. There's a small hole on that side, but it's not really in the right place. They're not long enough to go down the bottom through the grommets and back up again. At the moment I'm thinking of removing a PCI blanking plate and putting them through the resulting hole. I'll need to build some sort of cable management arrangement to keep them neat and out of sight. The massive, inflexible USB-3 cable is, as usual, a pain in the bum.

 

[Cenedd]

You can get internal USB 3 extensions that are on nice flexible ribbon cable if that helps. You can just about see it in this post.
Project: Silent Overkill

Looking good though.

 

[klaxhu]

this makes me want to start another project myself! I like the case a lot! I am glad TT is back into the scene and being strong, I used a TT 10 years ago and since then only Temjin and Fractal but now it looks they made it back

 

[foop]

Fans

Remember the "interesting" design of the radiator/fan mounting plates, where there are bars going across that don't match the spacing of either 120mm or 140mm fans?



As predicted, when I mounted the fans and a radiator on these as a test there was awful fan noise even at fairly low speeds. It was a buzzy, chopping sound and my guess is that it was caused by the fans blades rotating so close the the bars. My solution was to get the Dremel out.



A quick test on the rough result was much quieter. I need to finish off the Dremel cuts with a file in places to neaten things up.

Three fans back in, and it's not looking too bad.



I'm using an EK-WB Splitty so that I only have to have one fan cable going from each radiator to the Aquaero. Slightly overkill as it can run accommodate 9 fans but I guess it gives me expansion room if I want to go to push-pull in the future.

I trimmed the fan cables and crimped new terminals on to neaten up the cables.

 

[foop]

You can get internal USB 3 extensions that are on nice flexible ribbon cable if that helps. You can just about see it in this post.
Project: Silent Overkill

Now that's just what I need. I could get it going in under the motherboard and then looping round the edge discreetly.

 

[foop]

GPU bridge block and sleeving choices

The EK-FC Terminal X2 3-slot Plexi arrived and has been fitted.



This is one of their new models. The previous range had outlets on the side (which means the bottom in this turned-round case). This would have been easier for the subsequent tube routing, but by the time I realised they had introduced a new range I could find one of the old ones that fitted cards 3 slots apart.

No matter, I shall just have to change my plans for the tubing.

Some samples of sleeving came in as well. I was having trouble working out what to use, so I got some help from management.



I narrowed it down to Teleios white, yellow, and orange:



Or MDPC-X:



It's hard to see in these pictures because the white balance is slightly off, but the Teleois sleeving matches the colour of the orange painted parts better. I'll be going with that.

I've also sent off the SVG files to get some acrylic parts laser cut to neaten the case up a bit. Hopefully they will come back soon and I can see how disastrous my measurements were.

Next time: I can't put off bending tubing any longer.

 

[Andy_Curtis]

This is coming along very nicely. Cant wait to see the final product!

 

[Darren_uk]

Ah ,Very nice ..When my Cat helps On case Projects..I always get Purrfect Results

 

[foop]

I managed to get quite a bit done over Christmas - although not as much as I'd like.

Here's a quick teaser.

 

[JayGee]

/teased

 

[ruthers]

27

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.

27kg case!!! WOW.
Great purchase!

 

[foop]

27kg case!!! WOW.
Great purchase!

We recently had to get our floor fixed downstairs because of a leaking pipe. When my wife and I were carrying the case - now heavier than 27kg with all the components inside - up the stairs, we didn't think it was so great.

 

[foop]

Pipe Bending

Despite quite a lot of practice, I'm not a natural pipe bender. Fortunately I bought about four times as much PETG tube as I needed.



I bought the Monsoon jigs for bending, but wasn't too impressed - they gave a very tight bend that distorted the tube more than doing it more gently by hand. They were quite useful for making multiple bends, though, especially if I need to make sure that the second bend was at 90 degrees to the first.



For the rest of the bends I made a simple right angle from pieces of wood screwed to a piece of plywood.

I could handle tubes with two or three bends after a few attempts but anything more was too optimistic. A couple of the tubes needed to go from the front of the case to the bottom of the radiators right at the back, and I didn't feel confident making these.

The answer was to put a panel in the middle of the case with some EK-AF pass-throughs. This meant that I could split the long tubes into two pieces, with the pass-through in the middle.

I was always planning to put a panel in the middle of the case to hide the ugly holes and grommets below the motherboard. I took the opportunity to get it laser cut with holes for the pass-throughs and the motherboard and GPU power cables.



In the end I used a company called CutLaserCut for the cutting. They were quite expensive, but did a much better job protecting the acrylic than someone I'd used before.

Here's the acrylic - still with protective paper layer and protective film - and a pass-through.



I screwed hex standoffs with M3 bolts onto the motherboard tray to mount the acrylic. I even got the bolt holes in the acrylic in the right place, more or less.



So this ugly grommet mess...



...turns into this. The design isn't on the finished product, it's on the protective film on the plain white 3mm acrylic.



Management approves.

 

[C-Roy]

The size of that case

 

[Bluntwrapped]

Pretty epic case that Looking forward to seeing it all finished. Nice looking cat too

Completely agree with your earlier comments about the panel on the top. Can never understand why manufacturers insist on sticking USB sockets, headphone and microphone I/O and/or drive bay slots on the front of cases, completely ruining otherwise great looking design.