- Joined
- 1 May 2017
- Posts
- 16
This week i worked a lot on this project and got a very big update ready. I started sleeving the cables and decided to use black, grey and yellow mdpc-x sleeve, this will give a nice contrast to the crystal blue coolant. For the yellow sleeve i chose white wire underneath, this makes the sleeve more vibrant.
These alphacool combs work very good with mdpc-x sleeve which has some rougher meshes than other sleeves.
Before putting the other end of the cables into the male connector i need to guide all the wires through my custom combs.
This is the GPU cable.
In the meantime i had a new little job for my 3D printer. I plan to install UV and white LEDs to illuminate the inside of the case later but i want to be able to turn it on and off. I ordered some little switches and printed a small cover for them. This will be attached to the back of the case.
Made a rough cutout with the dremel.
The edges still need to be sanded.
Small but very effective. I love to create such things with the printer. It only costs a few cents (with the switches) and takes less than 5 minutes to make.
Now before i install all the aluminium covers i need to prepare the pump. When designing the aluminium covers i measured everything as exactly as i could.
To get a straight axis for the in- and outlet of the pump i had to turn it a bit. There are only a few mm space between the pump and the fins of the radiator later.
Taking exact measurments is worth so much. The in and outlet are right undernath the holes.
Let's get back to the printer, which is currently printing the small lightbox for the chemical formula. Look at these clean layers.
To create the "crystal effect" i will only use a piece of LED Strip without a distribution plate.
A quick test.
And we're ready to attach it with double sided tape.
I ended up putting another LED strip in there since some parts of the formula were too dark. Now i have the perfect effect that i was looking for.
Turned down the exposure so you can see what it looks like. Cameras tend to make these things more white than they appear to our eyes.
2 or 3 months ago i already put some coolant into the custom reservoir to see if it gets rusty and doesn't leak any water.
Now i had to check if there are any residues inside the coolant. If so, i couldn't use this reservoir since it might destroy the pump or other parts of the loop.
But everything was fine, the coolant was clear as day one and there was no rust inside the reservoir.
I love this part of a build, especially when working with soft tubing. I really should do more soft tube builds..
The first tricky part: connecting the pump under the aluminium cover.
It got even more tricky when i wanted to connect the reservoir with the pump.
I think it's time to put the hardware in there.
Made a fast cutout on the top radiator mount to place an inlet right above the reservoir.
My aim for the tubing was to achieve this "chemical lab" look, tubes going everywhere and stuff like that. It's easy to put more tube in there as needed, but i had to find the balance between too much/messy and too less. And after 2 or 3 hours i think i got what i wanted.
No tubes are touching each other, made use of possible short connections (CPU Block -> Top radiator) and even got some kind of looping when i connected the GPU block with the front radiator.
Time for some crystal blue coolant.
It looks very dark in the bottle, but it gets just the right colour inside the tubes.
Didn't want to include the loop filling in this update, but i thought i might tease you a little bit. Stay tuned!
These alphacool combs work very good with mdpc-x sleeve which has some rougher meshes than other sleeves.
Before putting the other end of the cables into the male connector i need to guide all the wires through my custom combs.
This is the GPU cable.
In the meantime i had a new little job for my 3D printer. I plan to install UV and white LEDs to illuminate the inside of the case later but i want to be able to turn it on and off. I ordered some little switches and printed a small cover for them. This will be attached to the back of the case.
Made a rough cutout with the dremel.
The edges still need to be sanded.
Small but very effective. I love to create such things with the printer. It only costs a few cents (with the switches) and takes less than 5 minutes to make.
Now before i install all the aluminium covers i need to prepare the pump. When designing the aluminium covers i measured everything as exactly as i could.
To get a straight axis for the in- and outlet of the pump i had to turn it a bit. There are only a few mm space between the pump and the fins of the radiator later.
Taking exact measurments is worth so much. The in and outlet are right undernath the holes.
Let's get back to the printer, which is currently printing the small lightbox for the chemical formula. Look at these clean layers.
To create the "crystal effect" i will only use a piece of LED Strip without a distribution plate.
A quick test.
And we're ready to attach it with double sided tape.
I ended up putting another LED strip in there since some parts of the formula were too dark. Now i have the perfect effect that i was looking for.
Turned down the exposure so you can see what it looks like. Cameras tend to make these things more white than they appear to our eyes.
2 or 3 months ago i already put some coolant into the custom reservoir to see if it gets rusty and doesn't leak any water.
Now i had to check if there are any residues inside the coolant. If so, i couldn't use this reservoir since it might destroy the pump or other parts of the loop.
But everything was fine, the coolant was clear as day one and there was no rust inside the reservoir.
I love this part of a build, especially when working with soft tubing. I really should do more soft tube builds..
The first tricky part: connecting the pump under the aluminium cover.
It got even more tricky when i wanted to connect the reservoir with the pump.
I think it's time to put the hardware in there.
Made a fast cutout on the top radiator mount to place an inlet right above the reservoir.
My aim for the tubing was to achieve this "chemical lab" look, tubes going everywhere and stuff like that. It's easy to put more tube in there as needed, but i had to find the balance between too much/messy and too less. And after 2 or 3 hours i think i got what i wanted.
No tubes are touching each other, made use of possible short connections (CPU Block -> Top radiator) and even got some kind of looping when i connected the GPU block with the front radiator.
Time for some crystal blue coolant.
It looks very dark in the bottle, but it gets just the right colour inside the tubes.
Didn't want to include the loop filling in this update, but i thought i might tease you a little bit. Stay tuned!
Yeah it's about time to finish this build to move on to another big project
