Building the Fortress.
- Thread starter jonowee
- Start date
I plan to get sleeving and 3:1 heatshrink from TechFlex Australia. I started looking at paracord, but decided to dig deeper on plastic sleeving for more defined weave instead of the softer fabric look of paracord. I did not want to pay the crazy per-metre/foot prices resellers were trying to squeeze from us, much less the postage from overseas. I'm convinced TechFlex (they've listed more standard colours on their website than the picture I pulled from the product PDF) do OEM work for MDPC-X. I'm also looking into getting clear PVC heatshrink because they are the clearest, least visually intrusive heatshrink I could find outside that of fabric heatshrink available from TechFlex only in black.
If I go with grey or black, I'll use Clean Cut sleeving for the denser weave and minimised fraying after cutting. With other colours, I'll probably buy short retail pack lengths of standard Flexo sleeving to see how they look in their expanded state over bigger cables/bundles. If worse comes to worst, I'll try double wrapping to hide colourful wires since the Corsair PSU comes with oh so convenient full modular black wires.
cbiltsouris
New member
holy crap I didnt realize your from wa! good on ya mate great looking build log
alienware
Banned
You want to be very careful with that. Filters are bad enough at trapping dust and becoming clogged, but anything even finer will just do a tumble dryer and you end up with a lovely thermal blanket to keep your computer warm at night.
Day 10: 24JUL2011, Sunday
Transferred the old rig into the new case to get the system running and give an opportunity to examine the AX850 cables and what I have available to work with.
Bleh straight up SATA sockets! Also found out this LGA775 board is narrower than standard ATX width.
Gauging out gaps between SATA power plugs.
Punching down the power supply wires into the right angle SATA power connectors. I scuffed up the wire insulation more trying to pry the wires out of the connectors than when punching down with a flathead screwdriver.
The AX850's four-way SATA cables come with three right angle connecters and one straight connectors at the end of the cable. While the SATA power cable are routed 'from the top' even if other cable lengths and connector placement seem to leaning towards a bottom mounted PSU placement. The FT02's 3.5" drive bays makes the use of 90° SATA data cable a messy affair, I tried looking and I'm not sure they make right angle SATA data cable that route from the top instead of the standard bottom route. The blue tape is me insulating the old connection points.
Tried to unpin the wires from the PSU end; but tweezers, pliers and staples did go too well. Oh well, time to wait for be PSU pin tools.
Transferred the old rig into the new case to get the system running and give an opportunity to examine the AX850 cables and what I have available to work with.
Bleh straight up SATA sockets! Also found out this LGA775 board is narrower than standard ATX width.
Punching down the power supply wires into the right angle SATA power connectors. I scuffed up the wire insulation more trying to pry the wires out of the connectors than when punching down with a flathead screwdriver.
The AX850's four-way SATA cables come with three right angle connecters and one straight connectors at the end of the cable. While the SATA power cable are routed 'from the top' even if other cable lengths and connector placement seem to leaning towards a bottom mounted PSU placement. The FT02's 3.5" drive bays makes the use of 90° SATA data cable a messy affair, I tried looking and I'm not sure they make right angle SATA data cable that route from the top instead of the standard bottom route. The blue tape is me insulating the old connection points.
Day 11: 27JUL2011, Wednesday
Fitted all the parts in and powered up, but awaiting the SSD and OS to arrive. Using two separate SATA power cables to power the ODD and the SSD. Snipped off the cable ties and heatshrink to pull back the sleeving to get more flexibility to see what cable routing options I could achieve.
Debating whether to remove the AX850 sticker on the PSU, but with the switch to a more current, less-rainbowish Gigabyte or MSI motherboard whether the sticker will work together.
Using the Fortress' standard cable management tiedowns and cable ties, very limiting to say the least. Cable management planning tape haven't been updated since the first day of planning. I decided not to use the plastic 2.5" hard drive mount after this and to use the 3.5" bay adapter that comes with the SSD, that way everything can be kept tidy with the SATA power and data connections.
The plastic HDD caddy does a nice job of disguising the hard drives, but it makes identifying multiple drives tricky. I'll replace these blue tape labels with grey text on black labels.
Fitted all the parts in and powered up, but awaiting the SSD and OS to arrive. Using two separate SATA power cables to power the ODD and the SSD. Snipped off the cable ties and heatshrink to pull back the sleeving to get more flexibility to see what cable routing options I could achieve.
Debating whether to remove the AX850 sticker on the PSU, but with the switch to a more current, less-rainbowish Gigabyte or MSI motherboard whether the sticker will work together.
Using the Fortress' standard cable management tiedowns and cable ties, very limiting to say the least. Cable management planning tape haven't been updated since the first day of planning. I decided not to use the plastic 2.5" hard drive mount after this and to use the 3.5" bay adapter that comes with the SSD, that way everything can be kept tidy with the SATA power and data connections.
The plastic HDD caddy does a nice job of disguising the hard drives, but it makes identifying multiple drives tricky. I'll replace these blue tape labels with grey text on black labels.
Day 12: 27JUL2011, Wednesday
Digitising my scribbles to check my calculators were accurate. I decided to bundle cables together in ribbons with clear sleeving instead of clear heatshrink as the clear sleeving weave is less visually intrusive and willn't cause a tight pinch between cables. The ODD calculations are wrong above as I decided to create a molex to SATA power cable instead of clogging one PSU 12V socket. I also saved another 12V socket on the AX850 by installing the SSD into the 3.5" bay instead of using the Silverstone-supplied 2.5" plastic mount.
Digitising my scribbles to check my calculators were accurate. I decided to bundle cables together in ribbons with clear sleeving instead of clear heatshrink as the clear sleeving weave is less visually intrusive and willn't cause a tight pinch between cables. The ODD calculations are wrong above as I decided to create a molex to SATA power cable instead of clogging one PSU 12V socket. I also saved another 12V socket on the AX850 by installing the SSD into the 3.5" bay instead of using the Silverstone-supplied 2.5" plastic mount.
Day 13: 05AUG2011, Friday
Some parts arrived today.Mainly the OCZ Vertex 2 since the board doesn't have SATA 6Gbps and I'll be waiting for FM2 Bulldozer. Windows 7 Professional OEM, because the retail box prices are so disgustingly expensive that it would be the most expensive component of the build, even more expensive than the 560 Ti, so expensive I could buy the OEM version twice and still get it cheaper than the retail box. The TV tuner card Compro E900F, a dual tuner card which I picked watch/record two channels functionality over another card I was looking at with video capture functions. I also got a USB 2.0 NEC chip PCI card, which has a 'nice' curry brown-yellow PCB and decided to pass it onto my dad's USB hub-ridden rig, sticking with my existing slim black PCB VIA chip USB card.
So arriving that day was my new camera, a Canon Powershot S95 new at near half price. Oh how I have missed the manual controls of a Powershot; and before you say G12, the S95 has a less funky pant bulge. First day using it, got the white balance very wrong below.
Sitting the mobo on top an old rag T-shirt while I get to more cable management planning. The TV tuner card's power switch cable was preventing proper powering down and kept booting up the computer. I wanted to run the TV tuner in the top PCI-E 1x slot but the board's reduced width and the length of the TV tuner PCB causes a clash with the DIMM slots.
Stripped out the old case of fans and the PSU, the old Coolermaster Elite 330 feels like aluminium foil compared to the FT02. Online spec list states it to be 6kg, while the Fortress is 15kg, two and a half times the Elite. Switched the P12 fans on the Noctua with AP121 fans to match the Silverstone theme and the first Air Penetrator surprised me with its quietness. While it's not in my grading silent at 12V, compared to the swoosh of the Noctuas, the hum of the Silverstones is less intrusive to me... so... win-win. I wonder if I can get newer Noctua fan clips.
Some parts arrived today.Mainly the OCZ Vertex 2 since the board doesn't have SATA 6Gbps and I'll be waiting for FM2 Bulldozer. Windows 7 Professional OEM, because the retail box prices are so disgustingly expensive that it would be the most expensive component of the build, even more expensive than the 560 Ti, so expensive I could buy the OEM version twice and still get it cheaper than the retail box. The TV tuner card Compro E900F, a dual tuner card which I picked watch/record two channels functionality over another card I was looking at with video capture functions. I also got a USB 2.0 NEC chip PCI card, which has a 'nice' curry brown-yellow PCB and decided to pass it onto my dad's USB hub-ridden rig, sticking with my existing slim black PCB VIA chip USB card.
So arriving that day was my new camera, a Canon Powershot S95 new at near half price. Oh how I have missed the manual controls of a Powershot; and before you say G12, the S95 has a less funky pant bulge. First day using it, got the white balance very wrong below.
Sitting the mobo on top an old rag T-shirt while I get to more cable management planning. The TV tuner card's power switch cable was preventing proper powering down and kept booting up the computer. I wanted to run the TV tuner in the top PCI-E 1x slot but the board's reduced width and the length of the TV tuner PCB causes a clash with the DIMM slots.
Stripped out the old case of fans and the PSU, the old Coolermaster Elite 330 feels like aluminium foil compared to the FT02. Online spec list states it to be 6kg, while the Fortress is 15kg, two and a half times the Elite. Switched the P12 fans on the Noctua with AP121 fans to match the Silverstone theme and the first Air Penetrator surprised me with its quietness. While it's not in my grading silent at 12V, compared to the swoosh of the Noctuas, the hum of the Silverstones is less intrusive to me... so... win-win. I wonder if I can get newer Noctua fan clips.
Day 14: 16AUG2011, Tuesday
Stripping off the quite inflexible outer insulation off the front panel and card reader USB cables, I slashed through one of the inner audio wires and found one of ground(?) wires was stripped of insulation. So I'll have to replace the broken wire and probably also the insulation-less wire, was going to shield the cables with aluminium foil and tape but I just so happen to find a roll of aluminium (Mylar?) tape which I don't have to worry with the al-foil tearing if I kink the cable.
Scavaging front panel pins from the AC'97 header plug as I've had trouble finding virgin pins for use.
Before restarting cable management planning work. In the bottom of the photo is the box of cable tie mounts, while I like that it's in the translucent natural colour plastic but the white double-sided tape kinda spoils the look. Also above I switch the VIA USB PCI card for the curry-coloured NEC card as the VIA card was having all sorts of driver conflicts and flaking out when I inserted a USB card reader or WLAN adapter, so far so good with the NEC card and Windows 7.
High res image
I'll be shortening the 24-pin cable, not too much in case the 24-pin socket placement of future motherboards shifts about. But I will be leaving the PCI-E and CPU power cable at standard length since some motherboard stick the the CPU power socket next to the North Bridge, and I get to shuffle graphics cards around. The SATA data cables are a pain in the bum with this old motherboard so I'm getting cheap $2.50 simple moulding straight plug SATA cables to work with the 3.5" bay orientation, when the new motherboard comes I can get more fancy locking cables at more proper lengths.
The 180mm fan power distribution board in the bottom left corner needs to be moved since the fan connectors or power board PCB is too wide as the motherboard tray bulges out toward the side panel. I can move it a short distance to that horizontal ledge that's formed from the bulge to accommodate the AP181.
I still have yet to plan the routing for the internal LED work lights. With a bit of research I find it's a simple 12V connection, so I know how to correctly rig the case's fan switch as a on/off switch. I'm going to use BitFenix Alchemy Connect lighting strips since PC Case Gear started to carry them, when I initially planned to install lighting I was looking at Logisys strips from Frozen CPU, but decided to go with the BitFenix since seeing the OC3D video I can be confident they will be proper bright. I'll fiddle around with an old PSU molex power connector to see whether those complaining about the brightness of the BitFenix LEDs whether you can step down the voltage and along with the voltage, the brightness. I don't have a rheostat or fan controller to play around with voltage too much.
Stripping off the quite inflexible outer insulation off the front panel and card reader USB cables, I slashed through one of the inner audio wires and found one of ground(?) wires was stripped of insulation. So I'll have to replace the broken wire and probably also the insulation-less wire, was going to shield the cables with aluminium foil and tape but I just so happen to find a roll of aluminium (Mylar?) tape which I don't have to worry with the al-foil tearing if I kink the cable.
Scavaging front panel pins from the AC'97 header plug as I've had trouble finding virgin pins for use.
Before restarting cable management planning work. In the bottom of the photo is the box of cable tie mounts, while I like that it's in the translucent natural colour plastic but the white double-sided tape kinda spoils the look. Also above I switch the VIA USB PCI card for the curry-coloured NEC card as the VIA card was having all sorts of driver conflicts and flaking out when I inserted a USB card reader or WLAN adapter, so far so good with the NEC card and Windows 7.
I'll be shortening the 24-pin cable, not too much in case the 24-pin socket placement of future motherboards shifts about. But I will be leaving the PCI-E and CPU power cable at standard length since some motherboard stick the the CPU power socket next to the North Bridge, and I get to shuffle graphics cards around. The SATA data cables are a pain in the bum with this old motherboard so I'm getting cheap $2.50 simple moulding straight plug SATA cables to work with the 3.5" bay orientation, when the new motherboard comes I can get more fancy locking cables at more proper lengths.
The 180mm fan power distribution board in the bottom left corner needs to be moved since the fan connectors or power board PCB is too wide as the motherboard tray bulges out toward the side panel. I can move it a short distance to that horizontal ledge that's formed from the bulge to accommodate the AP181.
I still have yet to plan the routing for the internal LED work lights. With a bit of research I find it's a simple 12V connection, so I know how to correctly rig the case's fan switch as a on/off switch. I'm going to use BitFenix Alchemy Connect lighting strips since PC Case Gear started to carry them, when I initially planned to install lighting I was looking at Logisys strips from Frozen CPU, but decided to go with the BitFenix since seeing the OC3D video I can be confident they will be proper bright. I'll fiddle around with an old PSU molex power connector to see whether those complaining about the brightness of the BitFenix LEDs whether you can step down the voltage and along with the voltage, the brightness. I don't have a rheostat or fan controller to play around with voltage too much.
At the moment the hard drives' low rumble are the noisiest component, but the three AP181 fans on 12V are the second loudest compared to graphics cards on max speed fans. But one of the fans on the 560 Ti this kind of very faint bearing friction I guess rattle, I tried disassembling the fan to try to oil the bearings. But under both stickers revealed plastic faces and the fan's PCB and motor seems to have been soldered together.
sheroo
New member
Thanks - doesn't sound as if the cooler is as good as I thought? You don't want rattly fans on your gpu...
Day 15: 29AUG2011, Monday
Just a quick session with the drill press to start work on and retweak some work.
Just drilling open the mounting holes on the 2.5"-3.5" adapter, didn't want or need to buy tapping tools just to cut in new threads in the soft metal. And yes, the SSD was just had in with just 3M masking tape.
The card reader that hot glued earlier after having drilled holes in the 'front panel' to align everything to together. The hot glue didn't hold between smooth plastic and painted steel, so realign everything and drilled new holes in the card reader frame.
A picture from a day in future when I got a new countersink that could handle stainless steel. Destroyed this countersink drilling out the adapter plates for the under desk cable management basket.
Just a quick session with the drill press to start work on and retweak some work.
Just drilling open the mounting holes on the 2.5"-3.5" adapter, didn't want or need to buy tapping tools just to cut in new threads in the soft metal. And yes, the SSD was just had in with just 3M masking tape.
The card reader that hot glued earlier after having drilled holes in the 'front panel' to align everything to together. The hot glue didn't hold between smooth plastic and painted steel, so realign everything and drilled new holes in the card reader frame.
A picture from a day in future when I got a new countersink that could handle stainless steel. Destroyed this countersink drilling out the adapter plates for the under desk cable management basket.
Day 16: 06SEP2011,Tuesday
Got a new countersink that could actually handle stainless steel, and expanded the four outer holes >4mm to accommodate the unthreaded portion of 'shank?' of the screws.
Buzzing the plate with 2.5mm think angle grinder cutting disc. I'm confident to say that I love these thin and stiff cutting discs for straight cuts instead of rotary cutting discs. The stiffness and stability really helps keep the kerf as tight as a rotary tool.
Belt sanding the burrs, corners, and edges clean.
A quick buzz with the angle grinder, using the burr as threadlocker.
Got a new countersink that could actually handle stainless steel, and expanded the four outer holes >4mm to accommodate the unthreaded portion of 'shank?' of the screws.
Buzzing the plate with 2.5mm think angle grinder cutting disc. I'm confident to say that I love these thin and stiff cutting discs for straight cuts instead of rotary cutting discs. The stiffness and stability really helps keep the kerf as tight as a rotary tool.
Belt sanding the burrs, corners, and edges clean.
A quick buzz with the angle grinder, using the burr as threadlocker.
Day 16: 06SEP2011,Tuesday
Taking inspiration from Hayleywow's desk, I put together this under desk cable management basket.
The frame is a pot holder... flower pot holder.
Before:
I pulled out the powerstrips from being lined up against the wall to vacuum up sawdust from drilling holes in the desk for mounting the basket.
The four screws per adapter plate and their close proximity make this basket very firmly mounted to the desk, even more rigidly put together than the desk it's mounted to.
After the first session of cable management:
That big, coil is the five metre DVI cable. I did get a two metre DVI cable, but I also need to buzz off the plastic corners on the plug so that two DVI plugs can fit next to each other on the 560 Ti. That tool box is my footrest and racing wheel pedal rest.
If I feel like it, I may or may not grind off and reweld the centre span of the basket to reduce the amount of basket that drapes below the desk.
I did find this on the web last night while searching around for a new office chair.
Image source: IKEA Australia
Taking inspiration from Hayleywow's desk, I put together this under desk cable management basket.
The frame is a pot holder... flower pot holder.
Before:
I pulled out the powerstrips from being lined up against the wall to vacuum up sawdust from drilling holes in the desk for mounting the basket.
The four screws per adapter plate and their close proximity make this basket very firmly mounted to the desk, even more rigidly put together than the desk it's mounted to.
After the first session of cable management:
That big, coil is the five metre DVI cable. I did get a two metre DVI cable, but I also need to buzz off the plastic corners on the plug so that two DVI plugs can fit next to each other on the 560 Ti. That tool box is my footrest and racing wheel pedal rest.
If I feel like it, I may or may not grind off and reweld the centre span of the basket to reduce the amount of basket that drapes below the desk.
I did find this on the web last night while searching around for a new office chair.
Image source: IKEA Australia
Day 16: 06SEP2011,Tuesday
Cable twisting with help with the Intel Front Panel I/O Connectivity Design Guide, foiling with Mylar tape, and blacking out with good quality electrical tape so that I don't get colours peering through clear sleeving. Good quality tape is sexy
in my world. Also practice soldering and heatshrinking.
Not sure which switch to use for hopefully combining fans and LED lighting, the one on the far left is the original switch that came with the case.
Electrically gifted folks, I need your help.
Image source: Altronics
25W, DPDT~ Dual Pole, Dual Position? Wired: 5V-12V-12V Ground, positions 7V-12V.
Image source: Altronics
9W, DP3T~ Dual Pole, Three Position? Wired: 5V Ground-5V-12V-12V Ground, positions 5V-7V-12V.
Image source: Altronics
15W, DP4T~ Dual Pole, Four Position. Wired NC-5V Ground-5V-12V-12V Ground, positions Off-5V-7V-12V.
Image source: Altronics
5W, 4-way. Wired as simple pass through from molex power.
Not sure how the skipped gaps in the contacts affect connections for the three and four position slide switches.
Devices that will be connected to the switches:
Image source: Silverstone
120mm fans: 1.08W?
Image source: Silverstone
180mm fans: 5.4W
Image source: BitFenix
60cm Alchemy Connect LED strips: 7.2W
The current plan without considerations to wattage limits for the switches, I was thinking combining devices as:
Cable twisting with help with the Intel Front Panel I/O Connectivity Design Guide, foiling with Mylar tape, and blacking out with good quality electrical tape so that I don't get colours peering through clear sleeving. Good quality tape is sexy
Not sure which switch to use for hopefully combining fans and LED lighting, the one on the far left is the original switch that came with the case.
Electrically gifted folks, I need your help.
Image source: Altronics
25W, DPDT~ Dual Pole, Dual Position? Wired: 5V-12V-12V Ground, positions 7V-12V.
Image source: Altronics
9W, DP3T~ Dual Pole, Three Position? Wired: 5V Ground-5V-12V-12V Ground, positions 5V-7V-12V.
Image source: Altronics
15W, DP4T~ Dual Pole, Four Position. Wired NC-5V Ground-5V-12V-12V Ground, positions Off-5V-7V-12V.
Image source: Altronics
5W, 4-way. Wired as simple pass through from molex power.
Not sure how the skipped gaps in the contacts affect connections for the three and four position slide switches.
Devices that will be connected to the switches:
Image source: Silverstone
120mm fans: 1.08W?
Image source: Silverstone
180mm fans: 5.4W
Image source: BitFenix
60cm Alchemy Connect LED strips: 7.2W
The current plan without considerations to wattage limits for the switches, I was thinking combining devices as:
- 3x 180mm case intake fans. 16.2W
- 2x 120mm CPU heatsink fans (Maybe combined with exhaust fan). 2.16W/3.24W?
- 1x 120mm case exhaust fan. 1.08W?
- 2x 60cm LED strips. 14.4W.
