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Fractal design Arc mini Case Club

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RedGreenGeek

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Discussion starter · #1 ·
The Fractal design case club is jammed with to much stuff to work as inspiration.

Please post a pic or two of your build and mods, to inspire and for the rest to admire.

For future owners a quick pro/con list, please help me add stuff.

Pros
- good quality for price
- versatile
- lots of rad space for size
- fan filters included
- good sized case feet
- excellent cable management space
- 4+1 expansion slots (that +1 is vertical)
- superb storage capacity
- easy to water cool

Cons
- average quality fans (a little too value oriented)
- narrow cable management space
- the 240 rad in the front is a tight squeeze with 5.25 bay installed
- a PSU longer than 160mm prevented a 120mm fan from being mounted in the bottom of the case
 
Discussion starter · #2 ·
#3 ·
TBH looking at what you have written, I think that this idea/thread would work more to your interests as a discussion based thread rather than a club.
 
#4 ·
The cons of the Arc Mini (V1):

- only one usb 3.0 in the I/O panel thing
- USB 3.0 was loose
- Wasnt 280mm Rad compatible despite the 2x140mm fan mounts on top
- The 2x120 fans in the front weren't radiator compatible due to the front bezel's layout
- A PSU longer than 160mm prevented a 120mm fan from being mounted in the bottom of the case

PROS:

- 7 120mm fan mounts (2 of which are 140mm compatible)
- Great material quality
- Good sized case feet
- excellent cable management space
- 4+1 expansion slots (that +1 is vertical)
- superb storage capacity
- easy to water cool

Recommendations: get the Arc Mini R2 instead.
 
#6 ·
I dont think I took any. Ill do it when i vaccum my room in a couple of days.
 
#7 ·
Front


Side view


I like them wires


Flowmeter (Acquacomputer)


Bonus images






Hardware :
Case : Fractal Design Arc Mini R2
Mainboard : Maximus VI Gene
CPU : i7-4770k
GPU : GTX 680 2Gb SLI
Ram : G.Skill Trident X 2400 2x8 Gb
Storage : Crucial M4 128Gb + 512Gb, WD Blue 1Tb
PSU : Corsair AX860

Cooling:
Mainboard : Stock
CPU : HK3.0 Nickel Black + Backplate
GPU : 2x Watercool Black Nickel Hole Edition + Backplate
Pumpe : PWM Laing DCC
RES : Aquacomputer Aqualis 450 Base
Controller : Aquaero 5 XT + Black front
Rads : 360 45mm + 240 45mm
Fans : Corsair SP120 Quiet

Worklog :
http://www.overclock.net/t/1462550/project-2k14-wet-arc-mini-r2

As I really like the case, I bought a second one and deriveted it immediatly, now it´s waiting for further ideas.
Which could be just a White Paintjob, or a little modding, or an inverted mAtx layoutchange.
Really don´t know what to do with it.
 
#8 ·
Found some old pictures on my photobucket account
rolleyes.gif






















 
#9 ·
What fits in this hUge PC case
smile.gif


7 (seven) fans - Corsair SP120 - 1 back (blowing in), 4 front (blowing out), 2 top (blowing out)
Radiator ( top ) 240mmx30mm (push)
Radiator (front) 240mmx45mm (push-pull)
Reservoir XSPC Twin D5 Dual Bay
2 x D5 pumps - Alphacool D5-VPP655
CPU water block
GPU FULL water block

Asus Rampage 4 Gene 2011
CPU Intel i7 3960X
GPU Nvidia 780 TI Classified
RAM 16 GB Corsair Dominator 1866
SSD 180 gb Intel
Hard 1000 GB /7200/64 mb
PSU Silverstone 1500W

Firestrike P14470 - линк







 
#10 ·
@webTourist :
Clean build.
But why do you use the only unfiltered Fan as intake and all the Fanspots with a dustfilter as outblower ?
Looks like you use the case as Vaccumcleaner for the Air of the room.
I´d probably use the fans from all your rads as inblowing and the rear as an exhaust.
Will provide you with a massive positive pressure in the case, so no dust will crawl into it
 
#11 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by saxovtsmike View Post

@webTourist :
Clean build.
But why do you use the only unfiltered Fan as intake and all the Fanspots with a dustfilter as outblower ?
Looks like you use the case as Vaccumcleaner for the Air of the room.
Click to expand...
Why do you have to insult me? Vaccumcleaner?
of course I have dust filter.



Quote:
Originally Posted by saxovtsmike View Post

I´d probably use the fans from all your rads as inblowing and the rear as an exhaust.
Will provide you with a massive positive pressure in the case, so no dust will crawl into it
Click to expand...
Massive positive HOT pressure. Maybe.
Do you have experience with water cooling?
your rad fans blowing in? Realy?This is the wrong way .
I need fresh air sir.
If my rad fans blowing in will be very very HOT inside after 1 hour gaming.
you should know that.
 
#12 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by WebTourist View Post

Massive positive HOT pressure. Maybe.
Do you have experience with water cooling?
your rad fans blowing in? Realy?This is the wrong way .
I need fresh air sir.
If my rad fans blowing in will be very very HOT inside after 1 hour gaming.
you should know that.
Click to expand...
No Insult inteded, please take my excuses if you felt like that.
Concerning the Aiflow debate, it was just an attempt to give you an Idea , just like a friendly advise (to think about)
I´m watercooling since about 6 years or so, started with S775 QX9650 & HD4870

As you say it, the radiators need cold filtered air, best way to get that, take it from the outside.
The inside of the case will get warm, but for that you have the positive air pressure, which will move the warm air out of every so little hole in the case + the exhaust fan.

Wenn you do it other way round I´d you have the same problem, except a warm case, as a single intake fan might not get that much fresh air into the case as 4 radiator fans will blow out.
When you switch on Page one of this thread you will see my arc mini (Stage 2, with mora external, in the linked worklog is stage 1 with a 360 inblowing in the top of the case)

I personally did a test with my setup, where the front 240 was inblowing and the top 360 was outblowing (got feeded the hot air from the 240) which made the 360 really inefficient, as the measured temperature inside of the case was the same as the watertemp, so the additional 360 rad had not delta to work with.
I had to stop the Test as the watertemp rushed to 45+°C
But that was a test with Furmark on my 680sli and Prime95 on the 4770k, means really to much heat for a 240 only (measured 480w on the 230V side of the psu)

After Rotating the Top radiator to inblowing got the temps inside of the case went down as the watertemp went down, as the radiators got fed with air much cooler than the water was, so there´s a Delta to work with and cool the water

It is hard to get an even number between inblowing and outblowing fans in this case, when you want to prevent feeding one radiator with the hot air from another one.
Perfect in my view would be n Inblowing fans and at least n-2 Fans as exhausts

On the Arc mini and in my case it would be 5 inblowing fans (360 top, 240 Front), rear Fan exhaust.
Additional to this, the psu could help a bit and be used as Exhaust, and if the PSu is short enough, you could fit an exhaust fan between the front radiator and the psu (you psu seems to long for that)

As a matter of noisereduction I went back to my external Radiator (Mora2 + 4x180mm Fans) and the next step will be removing the front 240 Rad to clean things up.

Again, my Post was not inteded to insult anyone.
 
Discussion starter · #14 ·
Thanks for posting guys, nice builds. If you know anyone who have nice builds with build logs, then please link to them if ppl have not posted them selves.

@WebTourist thanks for the idea with a fan supplying the top rad. I have copied it for my build, so it starts up under heavy load, when my PSU starts taking air out in the bottom to balance the pressure.
 
#15 ·
Hey guys,

Here's my ARC Mini R2 as @RedGreenGeek kindly suggested I post in here.

Here is the build before I decided to mod the case:

zGMvmD2.jpg


dp1vHre.jpg


frLKo9p.jpg


I am currently working on it now and decided to call it Green Molecule. Here are some in progress shots, not far to go before it's done.

AAodrbL.jpg


LxJgwFa.jpg


TzYkJqr.jpg


jCvV7TD.jpg


cas4GJz.jpg


Iyuod0A.jpg


Custom res going in the 5.25" bays

1AloEc8.jpg


b2MTuzG.jpg


ko8YE8p.jpg


P67Z7bC.jpg


If you would like to see more of my project the link to the build log is in my sig, as well as to my other project Vault Boy.

The Green Molecule build is currently nominated for Mod of the Month on Bit-Tech, go over and show some love it you like it (new members can vote too after a day or two)

Cheers,

Alex
 
#16 ·
I'm currently working on an r2 mini

4690k (seidon 120m)
R9 290 (corsair hg10/kuhler 620)
8gb gskill sniper
Samsung 840 250gb
3x Seagate 3gb
1x WD red 4tb
Corsair tx750

I'll post up pics when it's done
 
#17 ·
Hey guys. I'm really new to this game but have been gaming since original Pong
tongue.gif
and building a good gaming rig is a fun hobby. I have an Arc Mini R2 as per this part list:
https://pcpartpicker.com/user/Pharst%C3%85r/saved/#view=Km9XsY
(I'm not sure how to post pics yet but will work on it). I'm considering this alternate cooling setup and wanted to ask for opinions on it. I currently have a CM Nepton 140xl aio rad up front with push/pull setup as intake, another CM Jetflo as intake, and 2 stock fractal fans as exhaust. I like 2:1 positive pressure to keep dust out and having a water cooler as push intake seems to make sense to me (as it will cool the cpu the best) provided there is adequate exhaust which in my case there seems to be. I wanted to increase the SP on this rad with a single Delta 190 CFM 120mm fan and then add another 120x38mm Delta fan beneath it for a whopping ~380 CFM as intake. My mobo/cpu load will determine the fan speed on the rad so the bottom fan will most likely be kept at a static full speed. I'm also getting a fan speed controller. Lastly, I'm trying an AOC Pci system blower as exhaust for the bottom of case dead spots in airflow. Here is a link with my potential new cooling setup:
https://pcpartpicker.com/user/Pharst%C3%85r/saved/#view=73VH99
I guess my basic question is does anyone see anything wrong with a single fan pushing air over this rad? The fan size is 120x38mm so I'd really prefer not to have fans too close to everything, and I also prefer to have purely exhaust fans top and rear to keep a linear flow. Secondly, does anyone have any experience with Pci slot blower style exhaust fans? Any tips appreciated.
 
#19 ·
Hiya! very nice builds. This case really has tons of potential.

Here's mine, its a rebuild but so far so good. Sadly I can't finish construction til i get 8 more 3/8 barbs! T_T




hope to finish when umart restocks their barbs or i might just drop the money and have some from pccg.
 
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