The crate.

[AlienALX]

An update. With the summer leaving us bike season is now nearly over. I am just finishing up some projects, but have been dabbling in PCs.

TBH this rig was actually better than my desktop. It was just much cheaper. I have been using it now since I built it and I bloody love it. Did a complete play through of several games including Dead Island 2, Tiny Tina's Wonderlands and we are now smashing through FO76 as my mate bought a pass so we can have our own private world.

Any way, I decided to switch the rigs over as the other one that was at my desk is a lot smaller and performs around the same. I also wanted a new monitor, as with my eyesight deteriorating quite badly over the past three years I can no longer focus on the 32".

Well infact, let me explain that. The stand on it is so huge I can not push it back on the desk far enough to focus on it, so I had to do the reverse and bring it into me. At which point it was too big. So I bought a new monitor a couple of weeks ago.

27" IPS 165hz.

I also wanted speakers on my PC. I have not used speakers on any PC since 2017. Problem is the 32" was so big I could not fit any even when I wanted to.

So I gave that to a friend and bought the 27. I also had a issue with the RGB software on the RAM. I could not control it any more as RGB fusion updated, broke itself, and then I lost all control of the lighting. Open RGB does everything but the RAM, so I bought this.

I then set to work. Two days later, and.

Before finally.

And now I want to water cool the GPU. So I got this.

As I only have 240s. I now need a block. Hoping to sort something with Bitspower.

 

[Deadtroopers]

My sympathies for your vision. After 50+ years going increasingly myopic I'm going in the opposite direction now. I have three different prescriptions:reading, PC, distance. The reading are now right for the PC and I need new prescriptions for reading & distance.Aging is no fun!


Couple of questions: those Edifier cans, what is the model please? And, most importantly, the autistic trust you mentioned; who are they please? I've a friend who needs one of those with lawyers that actually work quite badly, and I hope you don't mind me asking.



On the actual build log, blimey, don't you ring the changes? All good stuff and very helpful. You are an impressive fella for all the world throws at you. Tah and TTFN.

 

[AlienALX]

Headset. The red one?

Edifier Hecate GX.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/HECATE-EDI...mzn1.fos.d7e5a2de-8759-4da3-993c-d11b6e3d217f

I do not recommend it. Well, I say that, it sounds incredible thanks to the ti drivers. What does not sound good is the mic. It is terrible ! that is why I got it for £25 in a blowout when I got it. My buddy got one in silver but it too has a terrible mic lmao.

If you are not going to use the mic much? deffo. The ti drivers are fast and very very crisp. but the mic is awful.

I will PM you RE the rest.

 

[AlienALX]

I was indeed correct. Their most expensive water block does indeed fit the 6950XT MBA lmao.

Ordered. I did get a discount code, though, which paid for the Fedex.

 

[AlienALX]

And some stuffs. Two DDC mounts. Will use neither lol.

A flow meter I got for £10 in the sale. Might use two.

360 filters.

Rad.

Aquaero 5 LT and paste.

 

[AlienALX]

Update time. Long post incoming...

So I cleaned up the LT. The block is delayed until Monday. I would imagine due to flooding, given the rain we have had. Oh well, it is what it is.

Went on OCUK and ordered lots of things.

The EK thing will allow me to bolt the pump and res onto a fan. I will machine some sexy cover panels to stop it looking like ass.

No clear coolant on OCUK ATM, apart from Corsair which is over £15. Screw that. I won't change the LEDs as the lavender is extremely relaxing. I really dig it.

Two more flow meters to make 4 total. These will be modded. I will remove the fan blades from three of them and create a pretty water fall. The straight rotaries are for connecting them together, and the Splitty 9 interfaces with the Aquaero LT to give you lots of connectivity. Again, all cheap, just like me.

Finally on that order we have some caps that cap off unifans, and give you RGB on the older type. I have one, and it is going to be mounted in the floor for extra intake to cool the pump. You will see it in a pic in a minute....

I also got this. I have one in my rig at mum's and I love it. Extremely quiet, very nice to look at and the RGB on it is lovely.

Righty, so actual progress. First thing I did was fit the rad. You can't see it, but it is at the back. Not in the front, but directly behind it in the side part. However, I then realised I had an issue.

When I bought the Strimer cables they were something daft like £14 B grade on OCUK. However, they come on white cables. Yeah, nah. I had some black braided ones that came with the Thor PSU so I swapped them out. Only I did not realise how hard they were to change. As such they always looked peed, like this.

Last night I found some more combs for them, and now they look like they should. Like this.

Like I say, the Unifan is in the bottom there. The other two end caps? I will mod to work as decoration strips. just a wee bit of soldering required

 

[AlienALX]

I've got GPU boxes smaller than this !

 

[AlienALX]

Stuff has arriveth.



Before I get into that though I worked out why the GPU was sagging. The screws that go through each port through the IO plate were hitting the plastic block and making it twist. Did some measuring, and it seems the screws are 5mm long. I need 3mm. M2, like.

Will be here soon.



OK. So at first I did not have long enough screws for the bracket. Amazingly I found some. This would have been annoying, as they are not M3 and thus harder to locate. Any way, I also fitted together those Lian Li end caps.

Now weirdly I thought they were for my one Unifan. IE, they clipped on and had edge connectors. They don't. Gawd knows what fans they are for, but check this out.

So all I need is this.

They literally slot straight into my fans. Splitty 9.

And the story so far...

However. I have one tiny issue. The way they are designed the openings for the fittings are tiny, so that you can use those flush caps. So, I need to grind out the inlet and oulet to allow more flow.

I will cover that when I do it. I also bought these.

Because you can never have enough .8mm bits.

 

[AlienALX]

OK so lots of work done. About 4 hours. First I redone the RGB cable again, this time with all of the original bits.

Moved the 8 pin for the cooler (I could not get it through before, nor did I think it was long enough, turns out it was by about 2mm) and generally tidied up a crap load of other stuff, inc braiding etc.

And then.

And then

Before.

And then dig.

 

[AlienALX]

Am now on the design of the connecting back plate for the hex cascade..

 

[AlienALX]

Vrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Finished.

Peel and snap. How I did not make it through IDK. Bloody thing

File and peel then.

This also arrived today

 

[AlienALX]

Quick mock up. Need to remove the bracket.

I also ported one of the flow meters for the cascade. One in, two out.

 

[AlienALX]

Wood is the in thing right?

Well so is forged carbon.

 

[AlienALX]

OK so what the heck did I get that for?

Well, I wanted to mod the appearance of the case. Note mod the appearance. Not change it, alter it or deface it.

I had an idea about inlays and I have been looking at some atomic structures lately. So I came up with this.

That will be carved and or cut. So basically cut out, and the inner pieces pocket cut to around 2mm deep.

At which point I can flip the design, using the inner pieces to cut out carbon and wood. Note I will have to set the machine up outside for this, as carbon is not nice to machine. I also can't machine it wet, as I have a wooden spoil board.

Noting the darker areas are pocket cut. Or "machined out" in English.

Also note that is real carbon. Vinyl would be a bit crude tbh. It is coming from Ali, so I won't begin that stage for around two weeks (going on holiday next weekend).

 

[AlienALX]

OK. Packed it all up and returned home.

Fiddly, but it worked. Then onto lots of other jobs.


I realised the pump top is too bit to fit onto the bracket as I had it. So I flipped it upside down. This then had the good knock on effect that the TEC pump had two matching screw holes. So..

Just making sure it all fits.

It does. I needed a straight rotary male to male. Sadly the Barrow ones I used on the cascade were all out of stock now. So I got this.

Also whilst at it on a mission to get free shipping with DPD for tomorrow I spotted this. B grade, £25.

It is reverse flow, so you get to see the pretty side. That will go in the floor under the pumps.

Then this morning I fitted the fan side LED things, and started sizing up a light bar for the vertical GPU stand.

 

[AlienALX]

OK like, tons more done. Mostly wiring and testing.

I've finally fixed the bent neons.

The memory cooler would not fit because of the TEC hoses and the other way around its block hit it. However, what it did do was fit beautifully into the back of the case.

RGB test.

I've now perma fitted the pump and res assembly. I realised that thanks to the end port rad I could literally hide every hose. One will run through the shroud and come out behind the GPU, and the other will show about 2" before it too vanishes behind the GPU.

 

[AlienALX]

Morning all.



Yesterday I had a marathon sesh. 10 hours.



I will cut out a lot of the small jobs that took all of the thought and time. Here is the rig with a filter in the floor (and on the PSU, you can't see that one) and tons of work done. Note how the hoses are routed through the shroud. This is so virtually nothing will be visible when I am done.

OK so more done here. Notably I found a ton of the clips for the neons. So I completely redesigned the bottom one.

Also note the 140mm LCD fan is now in. Well, for the time being. It is out again now as I am waiting on the controller. I then spent hours making all of the RGB work. This was not a small task. Final RGB test before I fill it. The reason being some of it is behind the GPU and yeah.. Once that thing is full I can't get it out easy.

Also note yes, it is very bright. However, look at the GPU block. The side panels have dark tinted glass (black) and it dulls it down perfectly.



OK, fill.

And then spend the next three hours testing.

DPD are coming today with the fan controller, so by this evening it should be all done and back on the desk. That will be the interior finished. Will do the exterior when I come back from holiday.

 

[AlienALX]

OK so here goes around 12 hours in work. Firstly I had no option as I mentioned to get back into the PSU. It was horrible, and I cut my right hand to ribbons. Any way, I salvaged some molex pins (male) and soldered them on like so. Not my proudest fap, but it will work.

I then did all I could to hide it. All I had at my disposal was heat shrink. I left a bit poking out on the yellow, because I need to know where they are. Eventually I put electrical tape over the pins on the positive, and heat shrunk the negs.

It was then over to the three molex connectors. These were VHB together, then wrapped in tape.

And pinned.

Noting how my right hand looks like it has been through the cheese grater. It feels like it too ffs.



It was then all wrapped and bound in tape. To the point where it becomes almost invisible. BTW, check out the sheer hell load of RGB connectors.

So now with some power shoved up its bum.....

It works. No RGB yet, as I need to get to the USB connector to activate it. Waiting on that to be delivered.



So you will note in this pic the fan is now level and at the correct height front and rear.

Not it won't just sit there on its own. This is why I never got the rig "finished" the first time around. I was due to put a 120mm fan there, but it needed something to keep it level. Turns out I am amazing at thinking on my feet, and came up with this solution.

Block nuts. And springs. This means I could adjust it to the perfect height to hold the back up. Front sits on a rail.



So, with all that done..... I decided to do something else. Did you spot those two Corsair shrouds in the early pics? these?

Those live there now.

It needed some silver up there. It was all lob sided. So with that done....

We are actually caught up.

 

[AlienALX]

It was a nightmare.



The cable for the USB came. I then spent 5 hours trying to get the LCD screen to work. It would not. Long story short these fans IMO are too needy. They need a 6 pin PCIE power, which is ludicrous, and then need to be plugged directly into a USB header. All of that for a screen. Was it worth it? somewhat. I had to remove the GPU *again* which really peed me off. I then used the USB converter on the Aquacomputer LT thing, which tbh doesn't need touching any way as I set it all up the last time it was used.

With that the interior is now finished.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvcSqkjIwKE



Video there.

 

[AlienALX]

FINARRY.

I've also ordered a sheet of opal.

I will explain all in good time.