RIP: TEC Lian-Li

I was typing CyberD a PM, and gave him a run-down of what I, along with a friend, are going to accomplish tomorrow:

I'm getting ready for my big mod day tomorrow, prepping my entire room to get parts laid out and such So tonight the prepping starts, and in the morning I'll start bright and early! I'll probably spend the whole day doing pure PC-related work...Here's a quick to-do list:

• Move all components (CPU/MB/RAM/DVD Drive/HDs, etc.) over to the new Lian-Li
• Re-insulate the back (Lian-Li's standoffs are shorter than the P180's, so I'm going to have a big problem insulating...I'm thinking of using a mousepad.
• Wire up the Peltier PSU (Gotta go to Home Depot and buy two 6' extension cords, cut the female ends off, and strip the wires...That'll make my Wall outlet-PSU run...And then wire up the TEC and solder.
• Install the hard drives into the 2 racks (2 hard drives per rack) and make the runs up to the motherboard
• Install the PC Power & Cooling 510 into the new rig
• Mount the new radiator (HWLabs Black Ice (Lawl) 360 GT Stealth) with the Swiftech Radbox, mount fans accordingly
• Mount the 120mm res
• Think up of the runs for tubing
• Do massive amounts of cablework
• Re-verify insulation, put extra amounts of Vaseline on
• Fill & Bleed
• Triple-check Insulation
• Do massive amounts of cable management while waiting for it to bleed out air

Take pictures! I've got quite the list going on...That's off the top of my head, too Looks like we're going to have a long day ahead of us tomorrow, I may want to disassemble the PC tonight, and start fresh tomorrow with everything laid out nice-like

And of course, I'll take hundreds of pictures..The SD card is going to take a beating tomorrow

Gonna shut down now, so I can start pulling the PSU and peripherals...So I'll have as much time tomorrow as possible.

Hope to post a record-breaking amount of pictures tomorrow...I promise you, I will break the record.

Okay, the beast is up and running...BUT

I refuse to post pictures until I get into Windows with it! Baha! I point you to this thread.

I will give you a teaser...I am sitting on 14C in-BIOS. At 15V...I can go all the way up to 18V whennecessary.

Okay....The Grand-Daddy post of them all!!!

Draining the setup...Started off with the GPU block and CPU block in the bucket to drain. Actually took me a while to drain the whole thing.




This is a shot of the order the SATA cables go in, so when I go to re-connect the cables, my RAID01 array will be intact...As you will find out later, I still lost all the data on my hard drives.


In this picture, you can see the liquid electrical tape. I put on 2 layers of this stuff, front and back, and made sure that the layer extended out past the insulating foam to prevent any drips from condensation that might ever occur.


The hotplate (Waterblock part) lubed up with Arctic Silver 5...When I tightened everything down, I ended up having some Ceramique and AS5 coming out the sides. Not a whole lot, but it still warranted cleaning up with a Q-tip and some rubbing alcohol.


The CPU is in place now, and has had a heavy layer of Vaseline put around it. Dielectric grease provided by Devin @ Wintsch Labs was put into the socket. The way I did it was put a layer of grease in the socket, then put the CPU in, took the CPU out, put some more on, then put it in and made sure it was firmly seated. That way, I knew that the majority of air had worked its way out, and I would be condensation-free in the socket area. I then spread a Vaseline layer around the socket, with the CPU installed, to provide one last final seal around the circuitry.


About 1/3 way through the project, took a break to photograph the havoc I wreaked on the room...It still is a wreck, and after typing this I am going to try to clean as much up as possible tonight, then finish tomorrow.




The USPS man showed up at my doorstep and dropped off a present for me Xoxide was having a HUGE sale on Cold Cathodes, and I decided to pounce on a deal that I knew wasn't going to come around again for a while. You can see the one UV light that didn't work, Herman @ Xoxide is sending me one out now, so I should have that in a couple days. Herman FTW!


A really cool effect with the lights off- That is not camera-created, it was photographed with the lights out and no flash. The individual cold cathodes made a really cool effect, no?


Here, the waterblock is seated, insulated and wired up. Soldering the 14AWG wires to the 10AWG wires proved to be a major PITA, but I think I 'dun well. Heatshrinked, I passed the wires through the motherboard's I/O panel Pretty tricky eh? Made wiring it up a whole lot easier, and much cleaner!




Here we can see the copious amount of Vaseline that was used...Squirting out the sides is a good thing!


Installed the Audigy 2 ZS to make sure I cleared the HR-05 SLI...I re-oriented it to make access to the SATA ports on my board easier.



I wired the Meanwell up before to test the hot/cold sides of the peltier, but decided to take a shot of how I wired it. I got 2 "Medium-Duty Tool Replacement Cord" cords, which had the male end that went to the wall (120VAC), and had pre-stripped and tinned wires on the other end! What a deal! I bought 2 because I have another 27V Meanwell coming for my CNC Mill. As you can see, black went to "L" or hot, white went to "N", or neutral, and green went to ground, which had the ground symbol on it. The letters in parentheses were stamped into the Meanwell's side.


The Meanwell in all its glory Draws 12A max from the wall at 120V AC, and spits out 40A at 15V DC Plenty of expansion room if I wanted to go do a GPU Pelter


The motherboard tray installed into the case...Routed the 10AWG wires through the I/O slot, worked perfectly


A shot of the res installed...I wanted to install it on the rear 120mm fan mount on the inside, but it hit the I/O connectors, so I decided to give it some ingenuity and moved it to the top! I think it looks much sexier up top, you can see it glowing


Some pre-routing of cables. Later on, this would change, but for now I was working around with mounting and such.


Decided to sleeve some wires in the downtime that I had. I woke up early that morning, and was too sleepy to start working on the PC. My eyes weren't fully up to speed yet, so I decided to sleeve some fans while I had some spare time...Before I came up to full steam



The radiator, mounted with the 3 Enermax 120mm Enlobal fans w/ the Swiftech Radbox...These fans are DEAD silent, and push 44CFM...Too little for the peltier setup, but they work very nicely.
http://www.rigshowcase.com/img/8K0XHG/8381.jpg[/img]
Blurry shot :\\


The back end mounted up The spacers allow the case's rear 120mm fan to still spit out air without hitting the bracket, which is a definite plus



Everything mounted up...Clearances are good!