underdog1425

With that out of the way, welcome to my work log. The purpose here is to finish this nearly 3 year long project. I need the closure of being able to say "I know it's not 'done' per say, but I am finished and happy with it.".

I want this system to be a folder; my mother is a 6 year cancer survivor and I feel that while folding doesn't necessarily hold the cure, using my hardware for such a cause is more than just.

My plan is to take two Thermaltake Soprano cases and connect them side by side, using one for the computer and the other for the cooling.

Of course once I get the cases modified appropriately and get the goodies mounted inside that configuration is very likely to change, but that is a curb to check when the time comes.

Some ideas that I have toyed with are making a double helix design etched and colored in respectively in clear acrylic, lit with white cathodes and mounting it all in that top area where the PSU sits, to cover that mess of cables.

Another idea was the T virus res, which I am still considering.

My color scheme is still undecided. I love matte black, but I also love the simplistically clean look of white. More on this later as I figure out more of the hardware configuration.

Current hardware:

cpu Q6600 1.32 vid
mobo EVGA 780i Sli FTW
gpu 2x XFX 9800 GTX +
ram 2x 2gb OCZ Blade DDR2 1066 1.8v
psu Coarsair HX 1000
sound onboard
hdd 640gb WD Caviar green, 320 WD Caviar

Cooling:

CPU

• Dtek Fuzion V2
• Micro res
• MCP655 or D5 Vario
• XSPC 240mm rad

GPU

• EK 9800gtx blocks
• T line
• D5 non vario
• MCR320 rad

Overclocks:

CPU 444.9*8 = 3.5 ghz
GPU 799 core 2026 shader 1209 memory



The rest of this post will be a table of contents so to speak.

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Alabama Overclocker Member of the OCN Diablo III ClubCurrent Project Why water > air

underdog1425

Contents:

18 July 2009 Second case arrival
22 July 2009 Rad hole cut
30 July 2009 Tubing, psu and HDD rack mounting
13 August 2009 Pump mounting
14 August 2009 Copper res 0
7 September 2009 Painting 1
19 September 2009 Painting 2
17 October 2008 Painting 3, copper res 1

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Alabama Overclocker Member of the OCN Diablo III ClubCurrent Project Why water > air

underdog1425

For now, here is where the case stands.


I have my second case on the way, and am patiently waiting to do anything until it gets here. I am not looking forward to my system being down while I figure out where to put everything so I will probably break out the air cooling so that I can keep my GPU's folding at least.

As you can see in the rendering, the mobo tray is gone and the rear panel is flipped upside-down. All I did was drill out the rivets and re rivet it on, the mounting holes are in the same locations top and bottom. Lucked out on that one.

I want the PSU on the bottom, I feel like having the rad AND PSU on top made the case a little too top heavy for my taste.

Where to mount the 240 rad is still up in the air. I can squeeze it in I believe if I take one fan off the end of that 360 rad and mount the 240 on the inside of the case using the existing fan hole. I think. This is what Google Sketchup tells me at least . I have also toyed with the idea of mounting it in the front, but that would require some serious body work. That is not out of the question however, I just need to be sure that it is the best way because I don't want to under-commit and wind up with an even larger, more expensive, and more slowly-progressing build than before. Again, this project should be in it's finishing stages once the two cases become one.

I do plan to just drill some holes and use a brace on the bottom and rear and rivet the cases together. I have no intention whatsoever of seperating them. I will probably use the side panel supports along the facing sides in the middle and rivet along that ceiling line horizontally, not too sure how I am going to connect them in front.

Because of the front panel design of this case, I am going to see about bondo-ing the two front panels together and using the mounting parts on the opposing side of each. I.e. when looking at the two front panels next to each other from the front, the left most hardware and the right most hardware will remain the same, that way I have one big panel that connects using the same "door" mechanisms that are already built in.

Another thought strikes me as I write this. Because I will be relocating the PSU, I may want to cut out the top of the new case and put another 360 rad there and just sell off the 240. Could always use the increase in cooling power..hmm... it would certainly put a stop to the issue of rad mounting.

I kept the HDD racks from the first case, I think they will wind up back in the case and the reason is that I can mount HDD's there. This PC is no longer top of the line prime and if I can make it pretty enough and quiet enough, it may end up being a media server as eventually I see DDR3 and 800+ stream processor GPUs in my future.... hmmm. I just want to have the flexibility that will allow in terms of cleaning up the case. Who knows, I may just chuck the entire idea and buy some lian-li style HDD cages and mount them perpendicularly.

The optical drive and the fan controller will live in the cooling case for simplicity of cable routing.

What to do with the primary case's drive bays is a good question and I think a kama-bay style intake fan adapter (custom?) is in my future as these cases tend to have a problem with intake airflow, and the motherboard will need any airflow it can get.

I may wind up with some exhaust fan holes in the floor of the cases. If I did that I could seal up the stock exhaust hole and use it to mount...stuff. Hmm.

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Alabama Overclocker Member of the OCN Diablo III ClubCurrent Project Why water > air

Bizong

looks fun, subbed
edit: sorry if i took your reserved spot

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underdog1425

No reservation taken ^_^ Grats on first post :P

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Alabama Overclocker Member of the OCN Diablo III ClubCurrent Project Why water > air

underdog1425

Update!

18 July 09

Parents took the camera out of town with them. Sorry for the lack in quantity and quality of my phone pics

I got the second case in and stripped it down, here it is next to the other one.



Notice how I flipped the back panel on the left case



This shows my planning for the cable routing holes



And this is where the other radiator is going =]



I will post again with the cutting/connecting when it is all actually done.

Some thoughts, I have an idea for the exterior color/aesthetics. After witnessing multiple exterior paint jobs become scratched regardless of who did the paint and who did the scratch, I have decided that since I am underdog and anything that comes into my possession inherently loses its warranty, that I need to invest my time and effort in an exterior that will stand up to the abuse that this beast is sure to encounter.

I also have come to the conclusion that the front panels not only lack any functional purpose that I can see aside from inhibiting the airflow of the intake fan and providing shinies to look at, therefore they will go.

This is leading up to my decision to take a very arbitrary and function > form approach to the exterior appearance of the case.

I have excluded the front panels from the final build and will rivet sheet aluminum over the front instead, allowing the drives to poke out and leaving room for the intake fans.

Proceeding along this same train of thought, I attacked the rear of the left case. There is a lip of metal left from when I removed the mobo tray components and cutting it away would be painstaking as there is very little room between the edge where it bends in at 90° and the existing rivet holes.

One thing I want to stay consistent with is using the existing holes to maximize the efficiency of my mod; to decrease the amount that I have to mod in order to make my mod work in all of it's brutal majesty.

So instead of cutting that off, I riveted sheet alum over the back of it instead of on the inside (is why I would have had to cut that lip off).

Now you may be thinking why rivet this early on? Well....to be honest I wasn't thinking of that at that moment in time, so from there on the rest of the attachments that I made were temporarified with a home-made cut of threaded rod and two nuts per hole (to be riveted in the future).

I have about a third of the brackets made that will be used to hold the cases together.

Where I stand now: the cases are becoming one.

To wrap this post up, the exterior is going to become just aluminum with a few clears on it. This will be done by deriveting everything and sanding the exterior face of each panel to the metal, which can't be that hard considering that the 'trouble parts' like the two front panels with their numerous holes will have sheet alum riveted on permanently.

I thought about taking the panels and sanding them down then subjecting them to all kinds of abuse to really drive in a brutal appearance to the exterior.......when the image of setting off firecrackers and lighting fires on top of the side panels came to mind, followed shortly by a few passes with a blow torch, I decided that would not be a very well-engineered idea.

So instead it will just be brushed alum look with some clears to project the metal. Is that going to work?

Interior will not be bare metal, and will be a dramatic contract to the exterior.

That's my secret for now though

Whew I wrote a novel

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Alabama Overclocker Member of the OCN Diablo III ClubCurrent Project Why water > air

Icekilla

Just lo let you know, the correct translation should be "El gigante de Agua"

Nice mod BTW

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underdog1425

Thanks for the compliment, I hope people understand where I am coming from in regards to the work that I do to it.

As far as the translation goes, I know that it is incorrect but over the course of this system's life and the subtle name changes I made, I have had such inconsistency with the translations that I have gotten from various latino friends, spanish majors, and translator programs and books that I just gave up and decided to call it what sounded nice lol, but I do appreciate your input

UPDATE!

I got some work done!

This is how I cut the radiator hole in the right chamber.



I learned the trick from Repo-man but I surely don't give him the original credit of the idea. He just happened to be the one that I remember telling me about it.

All that I did was cut holes in the 'corners' and then connect the 'dots' with a dremel =]



Here you can see most of the right chamber mobo holes are cut. I was confused and mislead myself when I was cutting the cpu back plate access, so that needs to be extended to the right more. You can actually see the pilot holes that I drilled for the upper and lower right corners, not too sure what happened there to be honest... ran out of mountain dew I guess. More work to be done there.

Here is a rear view. This will kind of give you an idea of what I mean when I talk about riveting on sheet.



You can also see the clamps holding the two cases aligned with the aid of an L bracket.



Like so.

I found that this helped tremendously when measuring out where the supporting braces were going to go and where their mounting holes needed to be made.





Shhh its a surprise!

The next update is the pump location, connecting the cases, power supply mounting, HDD cage options, and more.

A little brainstorming, I think that I am going to pursue the bare-metal look for the exterior. As soon as I am done with this I am going to see about some alternative drive bay mounting.

It seems that my plan is going to be just simply riveting on sheet wherever there are panels facing the exterior that need to be closed up (front and back). The top and bottom panels can be sanded without a problem, however the top panel for my left chamber case may need to be cut up and modded with a new sheet of alum to start over with the rad mounting. More on that later.

Concisely put, I want the outside to be questionable-looking but very rugged, and the inside to be beautiful and simple.

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Alabama Overclocker Member of the OCN Diablo III ClubCurrent Project Why water > air

doat

That will be awsome, have everything in one case then your mobo in the other so it looks nice and clean. That thing is huge and will be heavy lol very nice idea.

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Very cool idea, I'm sure it will turn out great. I just hope your PC stays in one place because it will be a huge pain to take it for a ride