Project: Custom Water/Hide teh wires! - Overclock.net

OzziKing · 12-19-06

DONE... HERE:

http://www.overclock.net/case-mod-wo...ml#post1950594

Went for the sleek metalic blue on the outside.. under construction on the inside.. wadda ya think?

So basically last night I decided that I wanted to set up a custom watercooling system inside of my case and I wanted to hide all of the wires humanly possible.

I am looking to buy the following watercooling parts, wadda ya think?

* 77 Bonevill Heatercore from Autozone
* D5 pump
* Maze 4 Northbridge block (my northbridge is at 49

)
* Maze 4 GPU block
* Keeping my Apogee
* 1/2in Blue UV tubing
* 2 77cmf fans I have then 2 more blue 77cmf fans, both sets are very quiet and thats what I am aiming for.

I started by tracing out the motherboard tray then cutting it out avoiding the motherboard screw holders (forgot what they are called).

Heres what I cut out:

There was alot of dust in my case so I used one of my mowing toys! I guess this is one of the perks to owning your own lawn service!

When and if you do this you want to stick something inbetween the fan blades so the fans don't spin like crazy and burn out the fan motors. I stuck some zipties in there because I have 1000 or so of them lying around.

So heres what it looks like hiding most of the wires:

Looking at this last picture the idea is to cut two 120mm holes in the side right next to the motherboard. I would have to move the hard drives somewhere else and Im not positive where I am going to put them. The water loop would go PUMP > Rad > CPU > GPU > NB > T > Pump. I am hoping to hide the pump in one of the 5 1/2 hd bays.

I am going to head out to lowes today and pick up a 120mm hole cutter. Hopefully they won't be too expensive!

OzziKing · 12-19-06

Day 2

So today I went to lowes and then stopped by price chopper on the way home to get some food coloring. If you want to change the color of your watercooling this stuff is the way to go, look how green it is with about 5 drops.

There was also some bad news when I got home. My 300Gb Hd died...

The warrenty also ran out which really pisses me off.

Either way my lowes shopping was... pricey... These huge drill bits are EXPENSIVE!

Couple of dremel cutting disks

T and 90 degree

Plexiglass for a new side window

Heres the old side window

I picked up a new toy while shopping, a little sodering gun (inexpensive one because somehow I know ill break it).

So yesterday I painted some black fans a metalic silver. I think I like this color, it will add some contrast in my case.

At autozone I picked up a 77 Bonevill heatercore. Im sorry I did not get any action shots but I did cut off about 2 inches on the intake and braze a 90 degree angle on before I painted it. While painting the heatercore I tried not to get any paint on the inside of the fins, I just did a quick sprayover on the outside of them.

This sucker is pretty big, should cool down water well.

I never showed you guys the computer on the wall so here it is!

I am going to replace the mobo CPU with my old 930 and P5WD2

Well when I get home today its going to be crunch time!

Well My camera batteries died yesterday so I have to wait for them to charge before posting more pictures.

OzziKing · 12-19-06

Day 2

YAY! Im excited, I came home yesterday to find a few awesome packages on my doorstep.
One from Dell
One from MNPCTech
and one from FrozenCPU.com

I was so excited! The 24" monitor you guys recommended finally showed up!

I opened it and was like WOW... this things huge... I didn't think It would be this big!

I quickly plugged it into my wall PC and maxed the resolution. All I have to say is wow....

My next package from MNPCTech had my 24 feet of U channel I ordered for my new window and fan holes! THANKS BILL!

And my final package from FrozenCPU.com

It included my zipties, molex pin remover, 2ft of blue heatshrink and 9 - 10 foot of 1/2 Blue UV tubing, they included about 1.5 extra feet of tubing free, thanks guys, I appreciate it!

Now this tubing is awesome. You can bend it very far before it starts to kink. If you are looking to building a nice water cooling setup GET THIS STUFF NO KINKS ON TIGHT TURNS! Its actually pretty heavy, and VERY durable.

Build time!

So I decided to start with the side panel. First off this thing doesn't allow my video card to be seen! I want it fully visible, but I still want to hide the extra usb down below. There was also a huge scracth on the other side so I want to make sure to cut that off. And last there is that UGLY handle on there so I want that GONE! I decided to cut it like this.

I started by removing that ugly handle then proceeded to back over it in my landcruiser.... i mean throw it away.

Here is that ugly scratch I tried to hide with a sharpie lol.

I took my time and cut carefully. I think it turned out pretty good.

Next on my list is to paint my drives... one of them is an off white and one of them is black. I would like them to be matching colors then also painted on the inside so I don't have any ugly gray in my case.

I started by taping off the little light on the front and the pins in the back.

I let the first coat of black paint dry then sanded it over, I will later spray it with another black coat, the first sanding just gives it a cool effect.

Here is one of the last pictures of my case mostly together.

Here is how I want the fans to be setup on the inside, so as you can see I have some holes to cut. I also want to take off the stupid looking plastic hump on the top and put in a 120mm fan.

I also want to take off the stupid looking plastic hump on the top and put in a 120mm fan. I punched out the plastic pins and it came off pretty easily, left a bunch of holes though.. not sure what I am going to do there...

Heres with a 120mm hole:

I am always jumping around in my build logs because I want to do everything at one time and this is how it ends up being done in the shop lol.

So I went to test fit the heater core and guess what... too TALL! Guess the floppy drive has to come out and the platform on the bottom of the case.. dunno what that was there for.

All I did was drill out the taps and it popped right off.

I then measured and marked where the 120mm holes should go....

Parta time!

The extra half a rectangle in the top one is from hiding wires earlier.

I then cut another square right next to that to hide more wires!

Since I cut through the mobo tray I still have to cut through the side panel so I screwed the side panel on really tight and used my current holes as patterns to cut right through the side panel.

Heres all of my beautuful circles!

I decided to call it a day and make on last trip to the hardware store to grab a file and some clear coat.

.

OzziKing · 12-19-06

Alright, for the paint I will just explain how I did it.

I first did a rough sand to get all of the excess chips off.
I then sprayed a black coat.
I then did a long range metallic silver spray to give it the dirty/glittery look.

I think it turned out awesome and the pictures don't quite show it.

The side panels are the regular blue but I did buy a nice metallic blue while I was in a paint shop looking around for the color I wanted to paint my walls. I am going to try it out on the pieces I cut off and if I like it I might repaint them also because unfortunately they somehow got scratched.

Alright, since my last update I have done tons of stuff including completely assemble my water cooling like 40 different times!

So I put some U channel on the side window and super glued it on there.

Well my pump arrived and this thing is huge... so it spoils my plan of putting it in the 5 1/2 bays. I was also planning to drill a hole in the bottom so it would fit but still, no way its going to fit. I then decided to put it on the bottom but then again... to big it wouldn't let the window be put on. So now I have to figure out where to put it. I decided to sleep on it.

I then put in the 80mm drill bit and went to down on the 80mm holes.

For some reason the camera decided to focus on the wall... gah!

So i took another shot!

120mm hole in the top with all of the 4 screw holes, then I also decided to put the extra mesh underneath the other holes in the top of the case left from the ugly usb hider thing :-).

I filed out the 80mm fan hole to make it pretty and square. The camera again decided to focus on the wall.

Cut some excess PSU coverage metal out of there so I don't have to struggle to get the PSU back in there.

Well that 90 I brazed on the heatercore needs to come off because well.. my plans have been #$$##$

Hmm good place to put the pump eh?

Drilled to holes to put a 90 degree bracket that will hold up the HD cage. Pictures upside down for some reason....

Just widened the two holes on the top and then another shot of the two holes I drilled.

Heres the bracket I found in my basement. I went at it with a dremel then cleaned it and sprayed it black.

Cut a hole for the fill port.

Drilled the 80mm hole then went at it with a file. This is the top of the HD cage.

Side panels getting ready for paint

Hanging outside after painting.

Painted the CD drives

Had to braze the 90 back off.

Painted the bracket.

Painted HD cages

Little teaser

Painted and ready for U channel

Putting on the U channel

U channel on the top 120mm fan and the fill port. The fill port was tricky so I had to cut a bunch of notches in the U channel to get it to fit in there.

Package from Newegg including:
Fan grills 80mm and 120mmm
Fan filters 120mm and 80mm
3 120mm fans

All done U channeling and supergluing

TwIsTeDbOi · 12-19-06

Very nice and clean so far. By the way, in that 5th picture, did you drop some liquid or something on your mobo?

OzziKing · 12-19-06

Nice catch there! It was actually melted dieelectric grease that had run down the back of the mobo from underneath the condensation proofing I had done earlier. I cleaned it all off. I just got back from lowes and will have some more pictures up tonight.

**ira-k** · 12-19-06

Nice looking rig you've got going on there....

OzziKing · 12-21-06

Updated

OzziKing · 12-23-06

Very long update today with about 40 some pictures.

NOS--- · 12-23-06

Man, those 4 1/2in whole saws are EXSPENSIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

37$ at my local home depot, but only 13 for a 3in..

Looking good man, great attn to detail...

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Project: Custom Water/Hide teh wires!

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