Time Sync.

[AlienALX]

Still working on the interior. I will have the funds to order all of the paint/brushes/masking tape etc soon so it's just finishing up. I've totally gutted it now. There was a lump of metal there to mount the fan holder on and I wasn't sure how it was held in but eventually figured it out. Of course it was fitted before the shell so I had to bend it all sorts of ways to get it drilled out but I got there.

Got a busy week coming up but when I am done I should be able to start cleaning and painting.

 

[AlienALX]

Been doing some thinking, and I think I am going to scrap the 6 drive bays in the back in part X for lots of cable management space. I should still have some grommets somewhere. I think that will work out much better, as I only have two HDDs and two SSDs which won't take that entire space.

 

[Cenedd]

Why not scrap half of it. You need somewhere to mount the disks and they'll have cables to manage - mounting them in your cable management space solves both problems. You could probably get two SSDs in a single cage too. Or just use the cages for the HDDs where the vibration isolation (that I assume they have) would be beneficial.

 

[AlienALX]

Why not scrap half of it. You need somewhere to mount the disks and they'll have cables to manage - mounting them in your cable management space solves both problems. You could probably get two SSDs in a single cage too. Or just use the cages for the HDDs where the vibration isolation (that I assume they have) would be beneficial.

They don't have any vibration isolation. I think they over came that with pure stiffness.

You do have a good point about that though... The nice part is that the hdd bay things are all separate, so I am going to put two back to hold the two full sized HDDs, then stuff the SSDs somewhere else. But yes, coming back to what you were saying dude if you remember the old school build you will remember I did this to get around the DVD drive making a right old racket.

Well I am pretty sure I still have some left, so once that panel has been dealt with I will put some on to stop the noise from the HDDs transferring back into the case.

Today I ordered some stuff. Not all of it, because I need to do it in stages (water cooling requires much spending over many months). I just got all of the things that I need to work on the structure of the case so that I can move on. So most of it was just supplies as they have depleted..

100 3mm pops

This.

Self explanatory.. 1" and .5"

Decided on black

And these, which I usually always forget.

This.

To reduce the stink (hammerite absolutely pongs)

So if you are still following and did not fall asleep..

Tadaaaaaaaaaa.

 

[AlienALX]

Yay !

 

[Cenedd]

Was thinking that you're going to need some dremelling to get that riser cage to fit your case.....but that's genius! Must.....resist.....urge....to buy!

 

[AlienALX]

£40 on Amazon I got Prime too, so it will be waiting to greet me when I get to mater's tomorrow

 

[AlienALX]

I may live to regret this, but then they may be OK. I haven't gone into the design much yet because tbh? all I have is a picture in my head. That's usually how I mod.. Get an idea, make a mental photo of what it looks like and then aim for that photo. I guess it's autism? god knows.

Any way, I don't recall ever seeing a loop with a mixture of hard and soft fittings/tubing. Maybe some one has done it, but I have yet to see it. Any way, I decided to use both, and here is why..

Basically I love soft tubing, yeah? I love how it flows, and curves. It's just so lovely and organic. However, there are parts that look like bum if you use all soft tubing. Usually there is a run where you need a longish piece of hose, and getting it dead straight is impossible really. It is possible with 19mm hose, but if you heated 10mm hose like that it would probably collapse.

So the only part I will be hard lining is the joins connecting the two rads, and possibly anywhere else that it needs to remain straight.

So I was poking around on Ebay and found six of these for £5. I mean s**t, at that price even if they are gash it's only a fiver.

I don't mean £5 each, I mean £5 for all six.

I will probably only need 90mm or 1m of pipe too.

 

[Cenedd]

I have two builds that use both...sorry. One is an external run and for exactly the reason you were thinking - it's dead easy to get a nice straight run that doesn't look wobbly or twisted. If you're not planning to bend it, it's dead easy to work with and the 14/10 that you'd be looking at would be quite strong with 2mm walls. Acrylic is supposed to stay clearer than PETG (does or used to go cloudy) and if you're not looking to bend it, the relative ease of bending is irrelevant.

The other build I have is almost all acrylic tube but there are a couple of soft tube links where it needs to be able to bend (case hinge) and one between pump and res to stop the vibration being transmitted to the res. You can't see the 'hinge' links and the pump to res link is so short it doesn't notice.

 

[AlienALX]

Oh cool man. I didn't know you'd done that I am going to try and get away with bending it any, if I can. I may just use blocks to turn it 90 deg. I have plenty of fittings for one run, any way. But yeah, it will basically join the two rads together. The rest I can swoop around the case. I always loved how the hose follows a gert big loop before meeting the res on my current build. The hose literally sits in place "as I cut it" sort of thing.

As you may remember from our emails I am using clear coolant now. You were right, colours are crap. I destroyed a brand new ecko hoodie and bottoms (they were literally brand new on) because EC6 red does not wash out of clothing like Mayhem's Pastel does (but that turns brown so boo).

So yeah, EC6 clear now dude. Would be awesome if you could machine me a L piece in acetal (to turn 90') and then cut the name of the rig into it

 

[Bartacus]

I mix tube all the time, LOL! But it's mainly so I can have easier-to-use soft tube in places that aren't visible. This helps in complex loops with 5 radiators. Only the visible part is 16mm hard tube.

 

[Cenedd]

I've always found that somewhere along the line, coolant has a desire to get where it shouldn't. Despite everything you try to prevent it, it finds a way somehow. I'd rather have a colourless 'stain' on my carpet than 'alien green'

I can machine the piece but not the engraving....unless you want to buy me a pantograph! (Yeah, I could probably make one but let's face it, by the time it gets to the top of my 'I should make me one of them!' queue, we'll probably all be dead).

 

[AlienALX]

I mix tube all the time, LOL! But it's mainly so I can have easier-to-use soft tube in places that aren't visible. This helps in complex loops with 5 radiators. Only the visible part is 16mm hard tube.

Yeah that is cool I forgot you did that. However, I think you did that for ease of installation and maintenance, rather than having it on show if you know what I mean.

I've always found that somewhere along the line, coolant has a desire to get where it shouldn't. Despite everything you try to prevent it, it finds a way somehow. I'd rather have a colourless 'stain' on my carpet than 'alien green'

I can machine the piece but not the engraving....unless you want to buy me a pantograph! (Yeah, I could probably make one but let's face it, by the time it gets to the top of my 'I should make me one of them!' queue, we'll probably all be dead).

hahahahaha you silly sod ! Yes, I want you to buy a pantograph.

Christ, you proper lined yourself up for that didn't you? hahaha if I know you though it was deliberate. You probably wanted one any way, but now when Gemma goes berserk you can blame it on me

 

[Warchild]

I may live to regret this, but then they may be OK. I haven't gone into the design much yet because tbh? all I have is a picture in my head. That's usually how I mod.. Get an idea, make a mental photo of what it looks like and then aim for that photo. I guess it's autism? god knows.

Any way, I don't recall ever seeing a loop with a mixture of hard and soft fittings/tubing. Maybe some one has done it, but I have yet to see it. Any way, I decided to use both, and here is why..

Basically I love soft tubing, yeah? I love how it flows, and curves. It's just so lovely and organic. However, there are parts that look like bum if you use all soft tubing. Usually there is a run where you need a longish piece of hose, and getting it dead straight is impossible really. It is possible with 19mm hose, but if you heated 10mm hose like that it would probably collapse.
.

Not Autism, just creative thinking. Many do it, and it's how I have been doing my 1000D build so far. I rarely plan it out as ideas change and evolve alot.

As for the combination. It's common, . It makes the difficult sections, and discreet/hard to get to points easier to route the loop. I have always used soft tubing to route the top radiator outlet port around the back of a case and back to the reservoir.

Not only does it save you a ton of $$$ from fittings, but it makes the hastle of stealthing some of your loop pain free. As well as the fact when it comes to cable management, you can shove, twist and push the soft tube out of the way as you train cables from A to B. You couldnt do that with hard tube.
That said, short travel distances <5cm are often best with firm soft tubing when end to end points to not align due to some unfortunate planning or bad luck.

Good luck!

HAve you checked those fittings are standard 10/12? I guess thats the tubing you are going for based on the photograph.

 

[Cenedd]

HAve you checked those fittings are standard 10/12? I guess thats the tubing you are going for based on the photograph.

They're for 14mm OD hard tubing - I saw the eBay listing. Tubing I've seen in that OD size is 14/10 (but there's bound to be others) so with walls twice as thick, it's a good job he's not planning to bend it!

hahahahaha you silly sod ! Yes, I want you to buy a pantograph.

Christ, you proper lined yourself up for that didn't you? hahaha if I know you though it was deliberate. You probably wanted one any way, but now when Gemma goes berserk you can blame it on me

Yup. Can't remember why I was looking at it originally but it'd be dead useful once in a blue moon. And yes, my wife would go nuts if I bought one....and not in a good way either! I do have a set of letter and number punches but I'm not sure they'd do well in acrylic/Delrin. I can try to find some scrap and try them if the aesthetic would work. Got an old res that's acrylic scrap and at worst, Dr Drop is made of Delrin

 

[AlienALX]

Yeah 14/10. The soft tubing is 10/8.

I ran 19/16 for ages and ages and it makes bugger all difference, apart from being an absolute pig to bend, curve or work with.

 

[AlienALX]

I bought this yesterday. It was only a fiver (123mm x 38mm) but I may put it in there somewhere. If not it will go on my desk

 

[Cenedd]

Ok, had a quick go at letter-punching some acrylic for you. It's just freehand, no effort to align the letters. It does work....but it's probably not the effect you're wanting. For scale, the letters are 4mm high. Also, you can see some cracking where I smacked the C too hard. You could fill the indentations with paint but I think a pantograph and set of letter templates is the way to go....or CNC engraving.

 

[AlienALX]

Thanks for that man. Yeah, I doubt that would look right. It reminds me of having my bikes stamped at the police station.

So as I discussed with you earlier I have an annoying conundrum. I currently now run two major rigs. One at home, one at my mother's for when I am sick or need a break.

The rig at home currently has an AC GPU block.

This is the CPU block I have spare, an EK Supermacy.

The rig at my mother's has a Fury X with EK block, EK rad and some EK fittings.

EK Fury WB+BP

And has this CPU block.

So meh, I really don't have a choice. That said even with the aggro it will be totally worth it. I have loads of AC gear going into this new build (GPU block, PA-3, Splitty9, Hubby7 etc) so I think it is worth a day of pain and frustration to balance both rigs and the universe

 

[Warchild]

AC blocks look amazing. definatinately top 3 on looks and performance.

I forget though, are heatkiller blocks also AC or are they from the company Watercool?