650D Mod Project Log.

[Shakal]

What's up guys so last week i "finished" my rig or so i thought i did but i every time i looked at i was never 100% satisfied. So for this weekend i tore the whole thing down to bare bones and started from 0. This time i will do a few mods in order to fit the parts properly instead of just velcro'ing (sp?) my way out,

I went out to home depot and got me of of theses along with some tips

First thing is cut out the round mesh in the front as it blocks some air.

First go around

after couple more times

next step is to get rid of one of the bays as it is blocking the rad. I decided to cut the side as well. The less the better imo.

This does not look straight in the pic but it actually is as the scrapes make it all look uneven. The only thing that is not 100% perfect as of not is the corner but i will tinker with it some more tomorrow.

After this i drilled some holes for the rad and this is where i am right now.

Next up is finish up the corners and take the thing to get powder coated on Monday. The color scheme i am going for is Orange/Black. All metal in orange and the plastics in black. I was also tinkering with the idea of orange outside and black inside. Maybe a suggestion?

Here is my professional schematic on how the tubing and such are going to be routed. Also i would love some suggestions on this as well. Note that the res is the danger den one so it will be mounted to the fans. ie res.fans.rad.

 

[PapaSmurf6768]

Ballsy move my friend, think I'm gonna cut the mesh out of my 650D too. Not sure on the paint job, maybe you should leave the front aluminum alone and powder coat everything else? I wish you the best of luck.

 

[Liarma]

Nice man, I really want to cut out the mesh from the front 200mm spot like yours, the air resistance is noisy and annoying ahah

 

[Ru5ty_t00l]

orange outside , black inside sounds great to me

 

[yassarikhan786]

I don't like the painted rad

 

[Shakal]

well then i first started i wanted a black/red theme but after i was done i was not to happy with it. In order to hide the red radiator i bought a piece of metal that will go from top to bottom and will cover all the bay drives. i will likely get it powder coated along with the case and have some writing cut into it. I like the idea of it being Half Life themed as i've been fan of the series since i was about 10 years when the 1st came out.

Also another question i have i kind of wanted to paint all the plastic on the motherboard to black and was wondering if could use a paint marker to accomplish this. I saw the guy that painted his board black and looked BADASS!!! but he was using paint and i don't really trust myself with that.

 

[Shakal]

What's up guys! Dropped off the case at Powder Coat shop today and the guy said should be ready for pick up on Thursday or friday at the latest. Also the rest of my equipment will be here on Thursday according to fed ex. So keep an eye out for a big update this following Thursday!

 

[CPMFW]

orange and black sounds good...
waiting for updates

 

[Shakal]

What's up guys! As projected a few great things happened today. 1 out of 3 orders came in and you guessed it i picked up the case from the powder coat shop! What i'm still waiting on. 3 Scythe Ultra Kaze fans from newegg and a full mod kit for the mcp655 from FrozenCpu all should be here by Saturday. Which means for now i can brainstorm

Pics -

The box...we all love box

The beast fan

didn't realize it came with bare wires so extra work

And here is the bare case

And here after the case is together :thumb:

 

[PapaSmurf6768]

Gotta say, I thought it looked too orange when it was all apart, but back together it looks sweet with the black highlights. Can't wait to see more!

 

[MadMarc]

I really like the colour but the dvd drive and the stickers look terrible imo

 

[yassarikhan786]

Paint job looks awesome

 

[Thundercg]

Hi m8 i like the pint job. One question what are the extra dremel bits you bought???
As i need to cut through my 800d

 

[Shakal]

Hi m8 i like the pint job. One question what are the extra dremel bits you bought???
As i need to cut through my 800d

I bough an extra pack of reinforced metal cutting wheels as well as another 5 pack of metal cutting wheels with ez lock you have to get the easy lock stem as well. I didn't know that so had to go back to the store. The 3000 comes with 2 but if you plan to cut a lot they got fast especially if its thick metal.

 

[Shakal]

What's up guys! Had some time to tinker with what is going to go where and got the rads and reservoir mounted up. Had to make a few trips to hardware store as i needed a lot of different bolts and such to get everything to go together.

I had to mount fans like this so i can mount the res to the fans and it was kind of a pain since it's hard to find metric bolts in many different lengths even at home depot so i ended with this set up:

The biggest task was to get the 240 rad to go together with fans and the reservoir. The 2 Delta fans will be pushing air through the radiator out of the case and the res will be mounted to the fans. Once again after long time and many different variations of hardware i ended with this:

I will adjust the height of the reservoir once i receive the pump mod kit. I hope it clears the fittings on the rad but even if it does not this is where my 45 and 90 degree fittings will come in:

Mounting the 360 was not to bad as i've had it there before. The only thing is no the Ultra Kaze's are 38mm instead if my old 25mm fans so it was a really tight fit between the fans and motherboard heat sink.

That's it for now. Not much else i can do until my pump parts get here so i can start routing the tubing and bringing it back to life

As far as the stickers go i will likely take them off and as far as the drive goes they all look the same no?

 

[FOX91]

I really like the orange and black theme that you've got going on . Just a few questions, though:

- What colour of coolant are you going to use? I think black would look really awesome B)
- The Delta fans are extremely loud, aren't they?
- How is the colour difference between the 240mm rad and the case in real life? In the photos it looks like it's clashing a bit.

 

[Shakal]

I really like the orange and black theme that you've got going on . Just a few questions, though:

- What colour of coolant are you going to use? I think black would look really awesome B)
- The Delta fans are extremely loud, aren't they?
- How is the colour difference between the 240mm rad and the case in real life? In the photos it looks like it's clashing a bit.

I'm going to use black tubing with distilled water and biocide.
The difference is noticeable but the rad is so tucked and hidden away you can barely see it. Delta fans are actually not AS loud as i expected them to be. I read many reviews before getting to be honest i thing people over exaggerate. At half speed the are i can barely hear them and they still push ton of air.

 

[Shakal]

*** Final Update***

Hello guys this is the final update as i finished the system yesterday after working on it for about 12 hours. Ran into a few problems. There was no way i could connect the tubing with a 38mm at the end of the 360 rad so i ended up using a 25mm fan and put the ultra kaze outside as intake fan which is actually really efficient. Spent long time trying to figure the cleanest possible look so please let me know what you think. Also note that this is only 2nd system i ever built and first one was air cooled. Sorry for bad quality pictures but i made a youtube video and there is shows the system much better. I also turned all the fans all the way up so you can hear how loud it can actually. Just dont turn your speakers all the way up . The difference in temps is not that big when im running the fans at full speed maybe 6-8 degrees max. I haven't messed with cpu for too long but @ 1.27vcore and 44 multiplier it idles at cool 33 degrees and barely ever hits 60 degree mark at full load. Max temp i had was at 62 after 1 hour of prime. The gpu is running really cool at 33 idle and 45 full load overclocked to 1.2v and max clock speeds in msi afterburner.

Here is a link to the video. It's only about 2 minutes long:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5RIbxeWYuA

and pics with cable management and final additions

Could not fit a cover and a compression fitting to the pump on top so had to use a barb.

 

[jamesriley94]

I think you should have left the top black.

And with the hard drive and fan controller in the front just looks.....wrong.

I like the colour - but I think your decisions of where to paint have been pretty poor, and it looks like patchwork to me.
I'd have left the outside black completely but painted all the internals orange. Or at least left the top black too so it didn't just look like the front was stuck on :/

 

[PapaSmurf6768]

I like it dude, almost as much as my 650D