Her we go again.

paulstung

New member
So after the Phantom Bee died a death by jigsaw, my new case arrived on Wednesday. I opted for the Storm Trooper. And after a couple of days, of tinkering it is just about ready for leak testing.

I have scrapped the idea for the mid plate, purely down to the S T'er being quite a lot smaller than the Phantom. I am sticking with the idea of using acrylic to box in the front rad, but that and other mods can wait. I need to get it up and running, the pretties can wait a while. Plus with the design of the Trooper, the front box will be a whole lot easier to do with the basic fame of the box all ready being there.

I have managed to hide the long hose run from the top rad, with the barbs at the back, to the front rad, by knocking up an acrylic plate connected to the fans, and running the hose between the fans and the case. Also the front hose run going from the top of the rad to the bottom res inlet is hidden behind the front drive bay plate. So the only hose you can see is 3 small runs and 1 large ish from the pump to the gpu. I also ended up using a Bitspower D plug to connect the res and pump, so it is almost like, a pump mounted res.

I'm still unable to fill her up till Tuesday, as I snapped the res bracket, and the dog got the other, so all that is supporting the res is the D plug, and hose. I don't like the idea of that, so I have ordered some new clips. Oh and a new res, I thought the black nickel would add some contrast, but it just looks out of place, so I have ordered the Frozen Q amber, and along with the Avexir, ram rippling with amber light, once the yellow fluid is in, it will almost look like the life force of the rig, flowing through the hose.

I haven't got many progress pics only pics of where I am now. I just want to get her finished now. My old laptop just isn't the same. There are a couple of runs that need trimming down a bit just to straighten tham up a bit, and the 2 front Noctuas are being changed to 2 more Vipers, allong with the 3 top fans. I like to match, plus the 1 Noctua has lost a blade. It arrived like it a while ago, and the shop sent me a new one without the need for an RMA, which was nice of them, a picture is all they wanted.













 
When the main parcel arrived, I had 5 fans a set of speakers, and a few other bits and bobs, it looked like the box had been turned over in transit, and the speakers ended up on top of the fans. Something like that I think, as the Haribo were all flat to.
 
Right so after a manic couple of weeks, I have finally got around to rma'ing the pump. But in the meantime I have ordered a D5, with a Koolance top, along with a Bitspower Z mutli 250 ( that I've been told will fit onto the top) and a few other bits and bobs. I ordered from specialtech first thing, but it looks like they haven't shipped it yet so expecting my goodies to arrive by Wednesday. So I can finally get my rig up and running again. It will just be a case of working out the psu shroud and a blanking plate for the drive bays.
 
Yes mate I've got 2 more vipers coming with the order. The bracket that I knocked up to mount the front rad is between the fans and rad. They are only there to hold it in place for now, till the V's come.
 
Finally I have some progress to share. My order arrived this morning, I'm just waiting on another box with some fans and other goodies. Yet again an item of my order was out of stock, and I had to change for an alternative, but it's in and I think it looks great. All the other plans for cover plates and a psu shroud are on hold for now, I just want it up and running and being used for a while.

So what came today was the D5 and Koolance top, and the Alphacool res, that luckily has the same threads as the top so mounts straight on, which is great. My original res was going to be the Bitspower Z multi 250, but that is what was out of stock, so I opted for the Alphacool core 30, which is a 340mm, and to me atm as it is now looks a bit big but once the cover plate is in place it should look pretty cool. As you can see the res and gpu are just touching, but only just. When I measured it it was to the mm, 28cm and 8.4 and it lands on 28 and 8.4, so for once something went right for a change.

whagqX2.jpg


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First problem, it turns out that although the res fits onto the top, the threads must be slightly different. As it leaks, but never fear they sent me a free male to male, fitting. So onto plan b.
 
Probably because it doesn't have cables or anything in yet ;)

True, but the water loop is pretty neat in and of itself imho. ;)

First problem, it turns out that although the res fits onto the top, the threads must be slightly different. As it leaks, but never fear they sent me a free male to male, fitting. So onto plan b.

I don't remember where it was, but I once read a quote from a TV show or a movie or something
which went something like

"Onto plan B?"
"There is no plan B. Using letters for our plans would insinuate that we only have 26 plans.
We shall proceed with plan 2."

Anyway, this just reminded me of that :lol:

I like how things are turning out so far though. :)
 
Cheers mate, a few hours into leak testing and all is good. So up early and get to work on the rats nest of cables. There are bloody loads of the buggers.
 
I was thinking the exact same thing only with everything. I'm still stumped on how to power my pwm fans would this do the job ? http://www.nesteq.de/gb/products/cables/nsk1205/ I no it has 3 pin connections but they are the open pin type. I have tried modding my fan controller but they make a horrible hum sound, but they are fine through molex. The other way i'm thinking is, I have a 10 way fan board from my Phantom, is there any way I can put a 7v resister between the psu and board ?
 
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So stage 1 is finally complete, as in the basics, none of the plates or shrouds. They can wait till I can be bothered, to be honest I haven't had much luck building this rig, I just want to get her buttoned up and working so I can enjoy my handy work.

Overall I'm chuffed to bits on how it has turned out, all in all it has ended up being nice and clean, no stupid long hose runs, and minimal visible cables. The cable side of things was a bit of a pain, there isn't a whole lot of room at the back for cables, but after a good few hours and god knows how many cables ties she got there in the end. There are so many bloody cables on the thing it is crazy.

The only thing left to do is sort out the handle I'm not sure if I'm going with the way Tom done his with Orca, or Knock up a pair of brackets to attach the handle too, so it is usable. Also I need to order some yellow pastel coolant, and some lighting of some sort. Here are a couple of pics for now, I'll post some better ones in the AM, when there is proper light to do them justice.







The coolant colour is almost spot on to the fan yellow in person the pics don't do it any justice at all.
 
Cheers mate. The Phantom, well I had my brother around for a while, when I was sorting a few mods out, and I had to pop out for a bit. With my bro being egar to help, I left him with a small list of small jobs, tidying up cuts with a file, and sandpaper. Which my bro interpreted as use a saw a and start cutting. He ended up cutting off all 6 split pins that hold the front panel onto the case. I had told him my plans to trim them a little, to fit behind the front blanking plate, but he cut them all off completely.

I can't be mad he was only trying to help. So for now it sits in it's box, awaiting to be sorted. If it can be ?

Woop woop, she is up and running, These are the first words to be typed in weeks. It's a pleasure to be using a decent rig, rather than my battered old laptop.
 
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