ZdMods - Project 180

[Meelobee]

 
Hey there :) After Project Inverted I started on a new build called Project 180. (P180)
Not a scratch build this time, but a rebuild of an exisiting case, the Antec P180. Why this case? Well simply because I had it sitting around after building Inverted. Hardware will be added along the way of the build.
 
(I've already been working on this for a while and already have a couple of buildlogs online, so some of you might have seen this. Didn't know of this forum till about a week ago.. (shame on me!) I'll update this thread along with the others as I progress from now.)
 
Allright, so without further ado, here's Project 180
 
 
Picture time!

Disclaimer: I try to make nice pics as much as I can, but unfortunately I do not have a good camera (It's on the wishlist!)
Most pics are made with my iPhone 4s, but some are with a Casio Exilim.

 

 
Standard Antec P180 housing

 

 
Again I'll be using 25x25mm aluminum tubes

 

Cut away parts of the original front to make room for the alu tubes

 

All alu bars in place, 3mm transparant plexi in between

 

Finished the top and bottom with a alu strip

 

Testfit of the front

 

I want to put 2 fans in the front that will draw air from the bottom of the front through the tubes. They won't be able to breathe much, but hopefully enough for what I want to do
 

Sketchup of the fan cutout in the front

 

This is what it looks like so far,  the 2 outer tubes still need to be cut

[joelthezombie15]

Wow. subbed.

[delet my acc pls]

Wow that looks cool. Looking forward to see more :D

[extremescouter]

Looks great!

[Meelobee]

Cut all the tubes and test fitted some fans

 

 

The plexi strips had some damage from cutting them, when lit this was clearly visible so I had to file down the plexi another 2mm to get a smooth edge on the plexi

 

Before

 

After

 

Attached the new front to the plastic bevel

 

Front on case

[Meelobee]

Because I want another layout in the case I dont need much of the original metal frame, so I've cut up the front and backpanels and replaced the midplate

 

First I stripped the whole case 

 

After cutting not much of the original parts are left

 

Added aluminum panels to the front and back

 

 

And rebuild the case with new panels in place

 

 

[Meelobee]

 

Took the I/O panel from the original back and put installed it in the midplate. No idea how this kind of orientation is called, so I'll just go with BTX180 :D

 

 

Up next was the top of the case. Cut 2 pieces to size and cut 3 rectangular slits in the side. This way I can still use the original sidepanels. The 'clips' on the sidepanels will slide into the bars

 

Cornerpieces on the front and back to support the top

 

 

 

 

With the sidepanels installed it all aligns nice and tidy

 

 

 

And I had a go at polishing, the strips on the front are sanded with P800 and then polished with Commandant #4

 

[Meelobee]

Continuing on the top, added 2 corner pieces to the bars that were already there, in between I put the same plexi as in the front
From the top it now looks like 4 solid bars, but infact there is room to fit a 360 rad underneath

 

 

And added a small piece of alu on the back

 

[AroundWayOtherThe]

Oooer, very interested to see where this goes

[Meelobee]

 

And now some hareware I've collected 

 

CPU block

 

 

 

OZC Vertex 4 128Gb ssd

 

 

 

Alphacool Nexxos ST30 240 & 360 

 

 

240

 

360 with Coolermaster Excalibur fans

 

 

 

 

 

The 360 radiator is installed in the top. I've added 2 smaller corner pieces, these are mounted to the same threaded ends that hold the whole top together (2 in total)

This way the radiator can be mounted on the smaller corner pieces, and there are no visible screws in the top once installed. (pretty proud on that actually :D)

 

Top (upside down on pic)

 

 

With 360 rad in top 

 

 

And now, dinner.. more later! 

Cheers, 
Meelobee  :ph34r:

[delet my acc pls]

Now it is starting to get really ineresting

[Deus Ragno]

Good stuff.

[Nicktrance]

Wow every week we keep getting more epic builds than the previous one :). can't wait to see the final result.

[Meelobee]

Thanks guys :) 

Allright dinner is done, here we go with the next batch of pics:

 

The top again

 

And here it is installed on the case

 

Got both rads in place, unfortunately I made an error during the measuring, resulting in the front rad being to close the the top rad, and the fittings of both rads got in eachothers way.

So the front rad is now mounted upside down, a bit harder to fill the loop/clear air now, but not a big problem.

 

Another downside of the front rad being mounted upside down is that the fins of the rad are clearly visible, and they show alot of copper (ie bad paint job) 

[Meelobee]

 

 

To hide the ugly copper fins on the rad I've decided to cover it up! For this I've cut 2 aluminum corners to size

 

Then cut a piece of 2mm alu and attached some hexmesh to it with malleable metal

 

Attached it to the rad 

 

Made similair pieces for the 360 rad in the top

 

From the side both rads are now hidden. Also visible here is a bar under the midplate, this will be the tray to lead the wiring to the back of the case

 

Added a window/venthole in the backpanel

 

 

3mm white leds installed in the plexistrips on the front. The light is not equal yet as the plexi is not totally smooth. But this gives a nice indication on how it should look in the end.. 

 

[Lich]

Wow, this looks really good so far! Can't wait to see more.

[Meelobee]

 

Installed the PSU

 

Cut a hole for a window in the sidepanel, this will be finished with aluminum later on 

 

 

Filled the holes on the plastic parts of the front of the case with filler and sanded the whole plastic bevel to grid 2000 to get rid of the fine structure the plastic had. It's now smooth as silk.

 

Made holes in the radcover so the fittings...err... fit :D

 

 

Started on the mobo backplate, this is made of 2 aluminum plates with a piece of 5mm black plexi in between

 

 

 

Behind the backplate there is almost 4cm of room to hide cabling, tubing, etc from view

 

 

 

More hardware! 

 

 

 

Luxury problems, which one to use?!

 

 

I favour the Supremacy

 

 

[Meelobee]

 

Up next is the right sidepanel, the original case has a thin aluminum sheet on the plastic side. I removed the sheet and cut a big rectangular(-ish) hole earlier.
On top of this big hole comes a new 1mm thick aluminum panel, which will have the actual window. The window has a simple shape, but has logo in the lower left corner. All this is cut and filed by hand!  B)

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Meelobee]

More Hardware!

Got a nice midrange mobo for the build, a Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H

 

 

 

 

 

Then I raided my wife's bathroomdrawer to get her nailpolish remover (=Acetone) and used it to remove the blue text on the caps

 

Hiding the 24Pin ATX cable!

I've cut a U profile into size and gave it some bends, and cut a small piece of 1mm alu plate as a cover

 

Fits together like this

 

And is mounted on the backside of the mobotray like this

 

Screws/bolts will be countersunk ofcourse

 

The ATX connectors of the mobo and the psu are aligned within a few mm (unfortunate miscalculation..) all it needs now is a short (10-15cm) extensioncable to attach it

 

[Meelobee]

Made a cover for the PSU/Pump bay

Added a window to the cover, the rectangular hole on the left is for the one of the clips of the sidepanel. Too bad I can't remove the clip from the panel, if I do the panel doesn't keep flush with the front

 

Quick polish on the sidebar

 

 

Had a go at brushing the midplate, not too bad, but not good enough either, need to figure out a way to get a nice straight brush effect. Otherwise it will be painted.

 

Pomp/res/flowmeter combo

[Meelobee]

In this build I want to use hard/straight tubing. Downside of this is the massive amount of fittings needed for a relative simple connection.
These are the fittings needed to connect 2 rads and the cpu block to the midplate

 

BP Matt-Black fittings come with green O-rings, They will be replaced with black O-rings

 

Like this

 

Combined you get something like this (Tubing is E22 UltraClear)

 

 

Made holes in the midplate for the passthrough adapters, 22mm in diameter so I got some margin to move the adapter to the exact position

 

 

And then cut and installed the tubing

 

 

Polished the radcovers

 

 

And lastly all the plastic parts of the sides and front are in their first layer of primer

 

That's how far I've got with this build so far. I'll update this thread as I continue. Thanks for reading!

Cheers,
Meelobee

[mvitkun]

this is amazing,can't wait to see more.

[alpenwasser]

Hehe, good to see this here as well. :)

[MetallicAcid]

Those tubing runs are great!! Inspiration levels rising!!

 

MetallicAcid

[Loe]

That looks AMAZING, really like how the tubing going in and out of the reservoirs look.