Epic PC X Series Scratch Build (first post)

Thanks guys!

name='stonedsurd' said:
That's stunning. I feel your pain on the international deliveries. Hang in there!

Speak of the devil....

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I have mail! I havent picked this one up yet but I am hoping its Nils package with all the sleeving, if so....tomorrow should be huge.

I dont have work tomorrow so it would be an ideal time to sit down and sleeve with a nice cold beer, whilst the TV is on and im watching rugby. I lied about the TV and beer, sleeving just doesnt sound manly enough on its own.

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GAMMods came through with some more gear after my gross underestimation of fittings I needed. Remember the corsair1000w I had? Fan died? 140mm replacement fan, sick! Also got a drain t-valve and some more tygon 3603.



Thanks Greig!

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Some Lamptron gear arrived today, switches actually!

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They are all black matte with white LED rings and orange sleeving. Goes well with the colour scheme as the water coolant will be orange.

Thanks Lamptron!

 
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Went to the post office to pick up a package, I was delighted to see Nils had made artwork out of my parcel (I will be framing this :p )

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The local hardware store had a few white pvc rolls for me and I was ready to sleeve. Nils had also provided some samples and that royal blue is a really, really nice sleeve.

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The Daniel edition! This tool saves lives, it really does.

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This was my first real attempted at sleeving and my fiancee got the hang of it faster than I did.

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I only did about 8 or 9 cables, she did the rest of the ATX whilst I was out at soccer training!

The initial OMG the ATX is done feeling was soon overshadowed as I looked at all the PCI cords, 8 pin CPU power and all the modular molex's.

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Oh and the cable management thing for the wires, this thing...

The holes are not big enough, not by a long shot. They need to be at least 6mm in diameter so its back to the drawing board and bring on a recut.



 
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THIS IS MADNESS!

Wow, how about that for a spoiler :p

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Forced myself into toolpathing hell and went about getting the cuts for the PSU done. At this stage of the mod I had hid away the radiators and made the HDD bays presentable so why not give the PSU the same treatment?

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Since I had gone with MPDC-X, it wasn't good enough to have it just lying around sprawled all over the place. Sleeving your cables doesnt give you a licence to have bad cable management.

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I wasnt prepared to stop there though, every cable would be managed, every cable would have a route to follow and a purpose. I had to go cut a whole set!

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Slowly but surely becoming more efficient with the CNC, multiple cut win.

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The PSU cover was a lot of fun, I even used the side of the panel to etch in my website (very much still in construction).

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I need to finalise the route the ATX cables will take and once I get the other cables sleeved, ill do some shots of the PSU in the case. The cover is bolted onto the PSU with all the 6 screw points covered with m3 cap screws. I bought a heap of the things for the waterblocks and now they are paying dividends here too. Cap screws are legendary.

Until this thing is mounted, I will leave you with some compugraphical porn.

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Oh and a big thanks to my sponsors! Lamptron has sent out a very VERY big box of goodies! Did I mention it was big? More on that when it arrives!



 
Is that just one side your doing for the PSU? Or will you be doing something on all sides, so sort of completely creating a new case for it? Looking good though, cant wait to see how this cable management works out!
 
name='Ducky Spud' said:
Is that just one side your doing for the PSU? Or will you be doing something on all sides, so sort of completely creating a new case for it? Looking good though, cant wait to see how this cable management works out!

Its the whole thing!

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So its been raining and I had some time to sit down and let my fiancee finish all the sleeving :p Kidding, we both worked on getting the sleeving done, lets just say its been tedious, anyone that sits down and enjoys an afternoon of sleeving is not from this planet, we just cant be friends.

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The PSU shield has paid dividends in turning chaos into order :p

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I dont know what to say about this other than I really like how it has turned out.

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Sleeved my sata's and played around with some depth of field, Im not the photo pro I want to be but I hope to get there one article at a time.

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Probably shouldnt sleeve on your bed, its just not a good idea....

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I am all ready for the install test fit, I'll leave that for tomorrow though :)
 
"jizzzz in my pants"

man that is some genious acrylic work :D also someone finally did orange sleeving, and the best orange sleeving at that.

may i ask if you will be making test benches or any form of case for sale in the future?.
 
name='Ghosthud1' said:
"jizzzz in my pants"

man that is some genious acrylic work :D also someone finally did orange sleeving, and the best orange sleeving at that.

may i ask if you will be making test benches or any form of case for sale in the future?.

I am actually in the process of designing one right now :p

name='cl0ck_ed' said:
8) very nice, the cable routing idea has gotta look brill once finished.

Hopefully! I wont know till its all together!
 
Update!



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Lamptron came through with ALOT of goodies for the mod.

Be sure to check out the product section of their website for more information on the items shown here http://www.lamptron.com/products/

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Fan filters, fan controllers, CCFL's and even an aluminium converter for up to four lights. A huge thank you to Lamptron for supplying all of this!

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This thing is awesome, I haven't fired it up yet because my computer sprung a leak on the mosfet and I had to take everything out. but when I do get around to firing it up, there will be pictures, lots of them.

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Normal CCFL converters look really bland. I am sure we have all encountered the little blue boxes of cable management hell and I am glad that Lamptron have come up with an alternative. This CCFL converter comes with 4 CCFL ports, more than enough to light up a few cases.

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I will post more pics of this thing lit up when I get my computer leak free.

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I cant think of another fan controller that looks better than this thing. Quality bit of kit.

It has jumper switches for the separate colours red, green and blue. You can have any colours of the rainbow and changing the LED is as easy as removing a jumper. They also went a fair way to provide temperature probes for each channel. I did test the fans on the actual unit and you can even power them down to 0 volts. The reader lets you know what voltage and RPM each fan is operating at which is nice to know because the figures fluctuate quite a bit with each fan.

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Dust proof! I've seen some horror stories involving dust and radiators over the years, fan filters are a great investment!

Once again, a huge thank you to Lamptron for sponsoring this mod!



Update on the mod: I will be sealing up the mosfet soon and testing for leaks for another two days before continuing on the install, more progress soon!
 
I thought that was a Scythe Kaze Master!!! They look very similar. Looking like it's coming along nicely though, can't wait to see the finished product.
 
Time for another update!

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Test fitting without cable management, messy fun :)

I finally got my computer online but the install is far from complete. A little...ahem...biggish stuff up with my PSU sleeving means that I will have to resleeve pretty much all of it. I put the heatshrink and sleeving too close to the pin, now I have to move 24 bits of sleeving back. Woo....

Also I have just a normal 450W Corsair in there atm and as legendary as corsair is, it cant handle overclocks past 3ghz at current especially with 6 of the HDD's, watercooling, gfx and everything else, not to mention the fans, oh the fans...

I put in the primochill and started the bubblebath.

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Not too worried.

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Slightly concerned....

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Shutdown :p

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The problem was that there wasnt enough fluid in the res to start with and that sucked in bubbles that became more bubbles when the primochill went in.

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Just adding a little more water resolved the issue completely.

So the test fit is done and the watercooling doesn't leak, all good news. Even better is the fact that my computer is up and running so I can post regularly now. Once I resleeve and put the 1000w back in, party time.

Until then, enjoy some post processing plus a poor attempt at photography.

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Whoa its been a while, cut some grills for a few clients and did some for myself.

The project is slowly getting back on its feet, I lost all the X series drawings with my HDD's and im designing the components from scratch, again.

Seems alot harder the second time...

Anyhow, onto the grills.

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Triple passes, one cut through and 2 smoothing passes.

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Big thanks to Andy at Lamptron for all the support!

 
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