[Build Log] Watercooled Case Labs M8, i7 2600K, Dual GTX580 SLi - Page 2

Its been a few days since an update - but I managed to complete the fan cabling last night so here are some new pics

Fans Part II (Distribution box)
I had real difficulty finding a solution that worked and I actually liked for the rad fans - I needed something that allowed all the cables to be largely hidden, looked good and was also robust enough to allow any future maintenance.

In the update above I have a un-even Y cable; these were fine to make for 2 way splits but become a bit of a nightmare to sleeve when going more than 2 ways....

I firstly tried a Y with all three cables coming from the same female 3-pin fan connector, but they were a bit weak at the point where all 3 cables joined into the connector. I also tried a single "bus type" cable with a little branch for each of the 3 connectors, this proved very hard to get the right length on each branch and was generally a bit untidy. Overall the sleeving job for those cables was not made any easier by using fan cable (AWG24), and also trying to learn sleeving while doing so. Also I noted that a good soldering iron makes the job far easier!

In the end I thought I would try using the fan headers "as intended" and placing them on a circuit board. A visit to my local maplin turned up a little strip board and project box for less than £10 which looked like it would do the job perfectly. The advantage of this approach is that the cabling would be all single cables and easy to make, no tricky double or triple ended cables! - It would also allow me to run the same sort of cable from every fan so fans could be interchanged and swapped out relatively easily



The parts to use in the fan distributor box:
The stripboard I bought when cut in half was luckily the perfect size for the project box (which is itself internally slotted to accept boards) - That meant I had 2 little boards, and I could use the 2 ends of the box (once cut) to provide access to the boards. Doing this meant I needed only one box to accomodate two splitters - each splitter could handle 3 fan cables and an cable for connecting to the aquaero.



The made up circuit board itself - there are four fan headers, the strips on the back join across al four - the tach signal strip is cut so that only a single fan delivers its tach reading to the aquaero. I coloured the board black with the trusty old sharpie. It will be partly visible with the case roof off so might as well make it try and look a little better The notch you can see in the board is to allow the box lid/base to fit as there is an internal lip inside

The "circuit" looks like this (Note this may not be the same orientation as the pictures but you get the idea!)


I made a cutout in each end like above - I may come back and file this a bit for a neater finsih (or use some edging or something) but the finish of this box isnt too critical as it will be hidden away in the case roof between the rads.



This is the finished distribution box - the MB side cables come from the hole at the top of the picture, the PSU side cables come in the bottom - there are two cables towards the aquaero which exit through into the MB at the left of the image.


I think the end result looks pretty good (thought the sleeving isn't quite perfect)

After I did this I ran up the aquaero yesterday with all of the fans (except rear exhaust) running. Its going to be pretty quiet when properly controlled.
Edited by alstorm - 12/2/11 at 9:12am

Next job

Got a link for that?

I am trying to figure out a sensible method - I think I will go with 4 sets of cable pairs

The interesting thing may be trying to mark the +ve and -ve terminal on each end for the system connector

Again a few days since an update as I have been busy with some other stuff. As was pointed out a few posts ago the system cables that go to the Power and reset switch were looking out of place - obviously they needed sleeving....

System cables

I decided to sleeve each cable in its pair individually using the small MDPC sleeve. This gives me four discreet cables each with two connections (Power switch, Reset Switch, Power LED +/-, HDD LED +/-)

One of the problems here was what to do with the spade connectors on the back of the lamptron switches - the problem being that the spades themselves are made of metal and therefore inflexible, they are also needed to fit over terminals several mm apart, and they need to be protected so the metal could not touch. I could not figure a way of sleeving all the way up to the spades (baring sleeving cables singly rather than in pairs) so I decided to use some narrow 2.5mm heatshrink (unfortunately not MDPC)



The finished cables
I had some nicely silk screen printed MB terminal blocks on a cheap motherboard "test kit" so I dismantled the test kit and used them.



Detail view of the heatshrink encased spades


The end result in the case


Next up... install PSU and start wiring up the aquaero and Power adjusts

This build is still ongoing, its time for another update (apologies its been so long as I have been busy with work and other stuff in evenings)

Aquaero
In the spare time I have had In the evenings In the last few weeks I did manage to do some important pre-installation stuff with the Aquaero and PowerAdjusts, that will hopefully prevent some headaches further down the road.

After some reading I found out that "out of the box" a set-up with multiple power adjusts won't necessarily work - the PA's need to be each given a different "address" so that the Aquaero 5 XT can find and use each one. To do this I used my current PC an internal USB cable and the various versions of the aquasite software to do the following...

1) Update firmware on Aquaero XT 5 (finally I can disable the touch buttons and not worry about them being overly sensitive )
2) Check/Update the firmware for each PowerAdjust
3) Set the three power adjusts to addresses 51,52,53 (or was it 50-52?? )

I don't have any pictures of the above being done, but thought it was worth pointing out/reminding others that may be using a similar set-up that its worth doing this first to prevent fiddling around with cables on an installed unit.



Once I had some more time this week I was able to build some new cables. - Firstly each of the Aquaero and PowerAdjusts has a molex power connector so I made a cable with four molex ends and a long lead to come up from the PSU which will be mounted in the rear of the CaseLabs M8 at the bottom.



The cable with four ends was pretty tricky to make and I am still a bit of a beginner with sleeving, I am happy enough with the results for the moment and might revisit this one in future to tidy things up (I probably had the leads between the PA's a bit too short)



I also made some tiny aquabus leads - these are basically jumpers that join the three PA2's and the Aquaero, they're short and simple!



The finished result is reasonably neat. I quite like the twist effect you naturally get with the short molex spans, if I redo the cables at any time I might play a bit more with that.



Finally to match the case I have black faceplates for both the Aquaero and PA2's

One thing that puzzles me though is why Aquacomputer don't supply some black countersunk screws with these really nice faceplates (basically you are expected to re-use the standard silver ones)

The pack of screws and fixing parts for the PA2 bay panel is actually quite extensive (but with no instructions) I'd rather have had less mounting posts, washers etc and have some matching screws instead - Anyway after some time searching around I ended up buying 20 of these black ones from on an online radio controlled car specialist, in my opinion they give a better finish than re-using the silver ones would against a black powder coated case like the M8.



Around the back the cable is routed around the access hole where the front panel switches are



The cable is neatly routed into the AX1200 - I have a plan of how I will route most of the other cables - its now really a question of if I can do it all with my poor sleeving and wiring skills. I am purposely leaving the more visible stuff until later in the build in the hope that some practice and experience will improve the results.

Eventually I might replace the cable tie bases with some lovely MDPC-X cable clips, but to do that would mean firstly finishing the build completely to see where to place them and which ones are needed, and then a complete tear down of the system to drill holes.
Edited by alstorm - 12/21/11 at 2:45pm