[Build Log] Project Firefly - a C70 tribute to the TV-series

Hey Everyone,

Welcome to my first Case Mod Work Logs. I'm fairly new to OCN and I'm certainly new to writing one of these. So please excuse me if it's not like it should be. Any tips on that are obviously welcome. Before I go any further, I must confess something though. I have already completed most of the mod. And since I only just came up with the idea to make a build-log, I don't have pics of every step along the way. But I promise, it will still be worth it. Well, let's get on with it then...

The project started getting shape after 5 years of using my loyal and almost zombiefied laptop. Since I am a student, i didn't have the money to get me an upgrade earlier, but to be fair, I never really had any problems performance wise in all those years.
But since we all change our gaming habits, that **** just don't cut it anymore .

My idea to start modding, basicly sprouted after seeing Dwood's bracket, which makes it possible to mount a Antec H2O 620 onto your graphicscard. I had to get this magnificent peace of art and in order to do so, I had to become a member of this lovely forum, which turned out to be alot more interresting then I first expected. After looking at some build logs on the site, I started getting more and more tempted to make this first desktop in 5 years, a special one. So the search for an awesome theme commenced.

At first, nothing that came to mind, really seemed to be a suitable contender. Until I thought of the wonderful TV-series Firefly, I just recently watched (Here is a link to IMDB). All the equipment used by the crew in the series (including the ship itself) has this sci-fi, but still oldschool kind of vibe. Which seemed perfect to me.

After finishing my wishlist , parts had to be ordered and a year of saving up my earnings, enabled me to do so. Oh how iI love my part-time job . After a couple of weeks I finally got all the components together. And the time to work out the mod in detail, had come. This was about 2 months ago now. Ever since it's been hard to find the time needed to work on this project. Now let me first show you the product-list of the hardware this baby is holding.

CPU: Intel Core i5 3570K
GPU: nVidia EVGA GTX670 FTW
Motherboard: Biostar TZ77XE4
Memory: 2 x G.Skill Ares F3 8GB 1600 9CL dualchannel-kit (16GB total)
SSD: Samsung 830 256GB
HDD: WD 500GB upgraded to: 2TB WD Green
PSU: Corsair TX550M
Cooling: Corsair H100 (CPU) and Antec H2O 620 (GPU)
Optical drive: LG 24x DVD-rewriter (Black)
Case: Corsair Vengeance C70
Fans: 2 x Cougar Vortex HDB and 4 x Xigmatek XLF1253
Fan controller: Zalman MFC1
Sleeved cables: Bitfenix Alchemy orange

I've added some product-pics of the components that are key to the build.

First the case, in it's original form:


And some components that define the look, but might not be ringing a bell for everyone:



(as you can see, it will be orange/copper coloured)

Tomorrow, I will make some more pictures of it's current state and post the one's I allready took. Since that's what a build-log is all about, those yummy pictures! Of course, you can all expect plenty of explanation included with the pics. And I will be most honored to show you guys what I've accomplished so far.

That's it for now, and I hope to see ya'll tomorrow.

p.s.
A little spoiler: quite some copper-tubing was used. (Which btw, is way to expensive these days)
Edited by Juraat - 4/28/13 at 10:26am

[Reserved for final pics]

In the mean time, here's a link to the latest current state-post (if you're lazy and want to skip the rest).
Edited by Juraat - 4/7/13 at 2:49pm

Hi everyone,

As promised!

Here are some pics of me me and my cat painting the back of my DVD-drive black.



I warmed the paint up, in a bucket of warm water, before using it. Outside temps were about 10 degrees Celsius. So not ideal for painting.


I have to apologize for the picture quality. The camera was set to 800x640 for some reason. Changed that for later pics though


And here are some pics of the Zalman fancontroller I modded, using one of the front drivebay-covers that came with the case.

Original:


Modded:



Now it's even tool-less . To still be able to see how far it's turned up, I used a drill to make little holes on the front of the knobs. Well, they are not really holes, but more like dents.

Edit:
To mod the fan-controller, I used one of the metal 5.25" bay-covers that came with the case. I first took the plexi front of the zalman fan-controller. This was as easy as pulling the knobs of by hand and taking out the 4 screws on the front. Next, I taped the plexi front onto the metal 5.25" bay-cover. I made sure it was completely strait on there and just drilled through the existing holes of the plexi, onto the metal. This way, I didn't have to do the work of messuring everything to get the holes in the right place. After cleaning up the drilled holes, I just screwed the baycover onto the fan-controller, instead of the plexi-front. I had to use spacers, since the bay-cover was thinner. This got me a perfectly matching fancontroller for like 20 euro.

To cover up the PSU and the rest of the bottom of the case, I used the top of an old case I still had standing around the house. I cut out a hole for a 120mmm fan and glued a speaker-guard on top. To make sure the fan would draw it's air from outside the case, I made a fanduct out of 2 of the fans that came with the case and a piece of 110mm PVC-pipe, which touches the bottom of the case.

What's left of the old case now:


Top of the cover (it's quite dirty here, since I was working on it at that time):


Side view, incl. fanduct:

The black stuff you see glued to bottom of the cover is what is left of noise dampening material I had used on the old case.

Since the original side-window was way to ugly, I replaced it with a piece of clear polycarbonate and painted the edge copper-coloured:



These were some pics I made earlier. I still have to make some with higher resolution and more work done, which I will try to do today.

I'll be back in a few hours, so hang in there!
Edited by Juraat - 3/11/13 at 7:31am

Oh btw,

I found this early sketch I made in Paint (LOL). I was planning on using copper-pipes to route cables, and this was what I had in mind.

The sketch also included the PSU-cover:


EDIT: the black parts are the H100 and Antec 620

Thanks, glad you like it!

I'll try to keep posting every few days. For now I only have some more low res pics. After 2 pictures on higher resolution, the battery of my camera died. I left the charger with my parents, where I will pick it up this weekend.

Ok, so I'm gonna show you what i've accomplished so far. Let me start of with the top. I had ordered a Phobya 240 rad grill (stripes), because the mesh on the C70 is kind of tight. And I thought, if I paint it copper, it would look great as well as providing more airflow.

So here is a pic of the grill already painted and just layed on top of the case to see how it would look and which position would be best.



It looked kind of good to me, so I went ahead and cut the top out. I did this with the tool in the picture instead of the dremel, cause I had already mounted some hardware inside, and I didn't feel like taking it all out.


You can see a bit of the pipes and motherboard already. Because the motherboard-tray isn't flat, I will have to make some sort of spacer to make the copper-pipe go strait instead of like it is now.

EDIT: The rough edges of the cutout will be covered with some of this:



So before I reveal the inside, here's a pic of the back of the case, without any real cable management done. Note that these aren't nearly all the cables that are going in there.


I still hadn't taped my SSD to the back of the motherboard tray yet, it's already laying on the desk though.

In the above picture, on the left you can see the HDD bracket I made out of one the original ones. I made it so it can be tilted back a bit, after taking out a screw. That way it's posible to get the HDD in/out. Otherwise it's stuck under the optical bay of the case. It can only hold one HDD, but that's all I need.

Here are some close-ups with me, pulling the HDD out a bit. Still low res though



I guess that's enough for now . I'll probably post more at the end of the weekend if everything works out.

So for now:

That's all folks!

Have a great day/evening/night! (depending on location)
Edited by Juraat - 11/9/12 at 8:24pm

I just ordered some more stuff I stil needed for the build:

120MM Fan Grill Black:


(Going to paint this copper and use it on the back exhaust, after cutting out the mesh there as wel)

Enzotech MOS-C10 10x10x14mm Heatsinks:


(to go onto the GTX670 when mounting the Antec 620. will probably have to shorten them though)

Ultra Bright White TWIN LED 12v:


(to shine some light on certain dark and mysterious places... basically, I will fit a figurine in the case, which will need some light)

XSPC LCD Display Temperature Sensor - Orange:


(will use this to monitor gfx-card memory temps)

So more work to be done!

So I noticed I forgot to post a pic of the inside of the case earlier. Here's a foto of what it looked like a few days ago. I just put most of the components in to see how it would look. Remember, this is no where near being the final result. In the pic you can see the figurine I was talking about. Here I just put her in for a moment to see where and how to place her.


The white stuff around the edge of the speaker-guard is double-sided tape that dissolved because of the plasticizer in the rubber ring around it. So I used superglue instead.
Edit: replaced "dissolvent" with "plasticizer" after looking it up.

And here is a picture of the HDD-bay from the frontside:




Let me know what you guys think!
Edited by Juraat - 11/9/12 at 9:43pm

I wanted to explain a bit about the figurine I'm going to put in the case.

Here's a pic to see what it actually looks like:



The figurine shows a scene from the TV-series Firefly, which is the theme of this build. In the scene Kaylee, the ships mechanic, intensely enjoys eating a strawberry. It was very special, since strawberries are almost impossible to come by in the time they're living in, and she didn't have one, in like forever!

The strawberry was given to her as part of a payment, for "the Shepard" (another important character on the show) to be able to travel onboard the ship Serenity. Serenity is a transport ship, of the type: FireFly.

For those who wanted to know