[Build log] Air 00: Air 240 (shots of completed build!)

[Necrodead]

 

By Necrodead

 

HARDWARE:

• Case: Corsair Air 240 (purchased)
• M-ITX mobo: ASrock z97E (purchased)
• Ram: 16 GB Gskill Trident X (Already own)
• GPU: R9 295x2! (purchased)
• CPU: i5 4690k (purchased)
• PS: EVGA G2 1000W (purchased)

COOLING:

• Full PETG custom loop, 12mm OD (purchased)
• Radiators: 2x Darkside 240mm (purchased)
• CPU: Phobya acrylic clear waterblock (purchased)
• GPU: EK acrylic clear waterblock Aquacomputer acrylic block
• Fittings: Barrow silver fittings, (exactly the same as Bitspower hard tube compressions) (purchased)
• Res: Barrow 65mm diameter 120mm long acrylic res 
• Pump: SC600 pump (purchased)
• Fans: 4x Enermax Vegas blue 120mm + 2x Corsair AF 120mm

PLAN:

• Wrapping exterior of case in white carbon fiber vinyl 
• Acrylic panels for interior wrapped or painted
• Painting frame and grills of air 240 in blue
• Fan controller + temp gauge modded into case
• Fan frames painted white, blades of AF fans in blue
• Painting Rads either white or blue
• Laser Cut acrylic radiator/fan shrouds
• Vinyl logos keeping with the Unit 00 theme
• Custom blue and white sleeved cables with darkside sleeving

This is a weekend project for me, so it may take a while to get this build underway, however I have the case already and the vinyl is on the way. No corners are being cut in this build, since I have a working PC already and I don't need to get this done right away. More updates will be posted as I get things done.
 
Please take a look at my other build, here: http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/339642-a-custom-water-cooled-amd-build-autocad-update-inc/?p=4630313
 
 

And some teaser phone shots of the 1st coat of blue.

Power supply, I had to buy this to get moving on the custom cable sleeving. I know its overkill for this but I wanted something modular for my first attempt at full custom sleeving.

Scratch that power supply, I went and bought a G2 1000W because... just because.

 
I got my vinyl, oh boy.

Did the one side panel.


I also did the next coat of paint, I have to wait 48 hours between coats. I may do one more or I may not depending on how it comes out.

 
CPU:               -i5 4690k or Broadwell i5 (purchased)

PS:                  -EVGA B2 850 - EVGA G2 1000W (purchased)

Cooling:         -PETG water cooling w/ 2x 240mm Black Ice Sealth Darkside thin rads, Bitspower Barrow silver fittings and res, D5 pump SC600 pump (purchased)

 
So I've got the i5 on the way and I just ordered all my sleeving tools and remaining watercooling parts from Dazmode.com. They are away so it won't be shipped till after the 11th. I changed my rads to the darkside ones for 2 reasons, firstly they are about 50% less than I would spend on performance-pcs.com after tax and shipping, and I'm not sure the black ice ones would actually fit in the air 240. The darkside ones are the smallest I could find. However they are flat black and I will have to mod them. Also I was going to go with a bitspower cpu block, but I got a phobya one that I think will match the build better for only $40 CAD from Dazmode.
 
OK on to progress; I had need for a fan or 2 for exhaust and so I've painted a couple of the AF fans that came with the case. I found out you can take them apart which made them way easier to paint.


 
Here is the paint on the case finished and ready to be built in. I will sleeve the I/O wires as well when I get materials.

 
OVERKILL power supply. Any size supply fits in this case which is great. I was thinking of painting it white but I don't really want to void the 10 year warranty.

 
And here is the first finished side panel. Actually I'm going to put some blue carbon fiber in between the white bars where I couldn't get the vinyl to strech. Ordered and it should be here soon.

 
Darkside radiators getting a gloss white treatment:

 
Finished wrapping the case in vinyl, I will save the pics of the case put together for some other time, It looks much better than I had hoped.

 

 
Spent so much time working on the wrapping and now the sleeving that I've had no time for updates, should have another when the PSU is sleeved.

Cable time!
This was my first try at sleeving, and the other end is not pretty, haha. Since taking these pictures I've sleeved everything but the 24pin and the fans, TBH I am scared of the 24 pin after how difficult it was to get the other 8pins in order.
 

 

 

Long time no update! But I'm back with progress. When the place I sent away my CNC cutting finally gets back I will be able to move on to final assembly and tubez.

So all my fittings came from China, they are rebranded bitspower, or at least look identical. They have a high quality nickel plate finish, so not chrome but close.


Here is the pump (SC600, $20CAD) there was some videos on youtube of this pump and it was really quiet so I hope it works well. I do have a D5 in case but this pump is so small it will be easy to fit.


Here is the res, $25 CAD Barrow 110mm. (from China)


$8 fan controller, also from China. Looks identical to 'Kingwin' brand I've seen on newegg/NCIX

 
500GB SSD, Samsung 850EVO. $225 on sale, should have got it last month when they were only 200. Will eventually raid 0 with 2 drives.


Fans have all had their frames painted white (yes I know they make white Vegas fans but these are white with blue LED's, can't buy that in a store.) And I decided to use the static pressure Corsair fans rather than the airflow ones because the air 240 has some restriction with the grills and whatnot. (also I have a little surprise in store, stay tuned)









And what has been taking me so long; this! I used up all the blue sleeve and I have probably 2 feet of the white left to make a molex connector.


My helper, taking a break... Again!



Just thought I would post some quick pictures of vinyl decals that I cut by hand to see what people think. What I did was print an outline of what I wanted and then cut through the paper and into the vinyl underneath with an exacto knife.








So I finally got my acrylic cut! I would have taken pictures but I was too excited to get it installed, so I covered it in the white vinyl and it fit like a glove. I did have another peice to cover the dual 40mm fan slots on the back, but I mis-measured and put the holes in the wrong spot so I think I am going to manually remake those. Aside from that I got a lot of it together. Unfortunately I only have room for one exhaust fan where I planned to put 2.
Also it looks like I have some really REALLY tight bends by the gpu, how tight can I bend PETG? lol.





I kinda mangled the pci-e power while putting it through the back, have to fix.....


CF vinyl on the sides of the DIMMs and painted the top of the heatsinks blue.




Here is the back so far. Might use soft tube back here to make it easier.


Here is the 295x2, sans backplate. Oh right, I have a surprise there. I also installed a single PCIe bracket from the 6990 since it has the same i/o.


Its brushed! I couldn't stand black and painting it white is what I did to my other computer... vinyl might not work well since the heat, etc. I used oven cleaner to remove the anodizing.

There ended up being less room than I had thought inside the front of the case so I moved the fan controller to the rear HDD rack. This way it will be easy to access while the system is on and to also be removed from the front compartment. Its mounted with some 3M double-sided tape on a piece of acrylic I bent to make a bracket. I do lose the HDD slot though; however I have a 960GB Crucial SSD in the SSD caddy. btw thats a 1TB Seagate 7200rpm drive.




I made an acrylic plate and covered it in vinyl. I also added the other Nerv logo I made, which lights up nicely from the Darkside led strip above it.


This is my first PETG bending attempt, thats why I tried the back. Also lots of bends.






 
My 295 assembled with its new finish on the backplate. Its hard to get good pictures of the brushing.

 
The rest of the shots are for my glass window mod. Aww yeah, love dat glass. I bought a $4 picture frame in the size I wanted off of amazon and double sided 'tape-of-the-gods'd it on there.

 
In this shot you can see the only other bend I can do before my angle fittings arrive, and also my phoyba cpu block.

 

 

 

Since the components only fit when the glass was on the outside, this is my solution. I've used some filler to build between the glass and the case so when I cover it in vinyl for the third and final time it will look like it was meant to be that way. *This is in progress, more layers of putty and sanding ahead, I know it looks bad now.

 

As you can see here I've moved my fans to the inside of the radiators, this just gives me more space.

You probably haven't seen the carbon fiber accent I put on the waterblock, so theres that.

And since someone suggested my res was dinky, I've upgraded to a slightly larger model of the same diameter.




 
Liquid Ultra has arrived, and so de-liding!

 
I used the non-hammer vice method as it was the least destructive. I tried with the razor but I got scared after I noticed I was starting to damage the PCB.

 
Applying thermal paste

 
And back into the mobo. I didn't glue it back on or anything, although I've seen people do that as well.



I've pretty much finished my window. The gpu waterblock fits now! :cool:
A lot of sanding later...


masked off and drew my window lines and then cut it out and then


Peel off to reveal the window.


I was also thinking of gluing some screw or bolt heads around the window to make it look like its bolted in.




Just thought I would post some pictures I took while I wait for my fittings to arrive.

[,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,]

I was thinking of wrapping my Enthoo Luxe in carbon, not sure how well it would stick though. Good luck! 

[Enderman]

hey thats the same vinyl as mine
why so much though?

 

EDIT- or did you just get that pic from google...

[Necrodead]

I was thinking of wrapping my Enthoo Luxe in carbon, not sure how well it would stick though. Good luck! 

Thanks! Hopefully I can get it to stick in all those crazy corners the 240 has. Enthoo in CF would look wicked though.

 

 

hey thats the same vinyl as mine

why so much though?

 

EDIT- or did you just get that pic from google...

Yeah its the picture from the page I bought it from. I'd wrap my car if I had that much, lol. Also nice S340, I just checked out the CF you did on that, looks awesome.

[Enderman]

Yeah its the picture from the page I bought it from. I'd wrap my car if I had that much, lol. Also nice S340, I just checked out the CF you did on that, looks awesome.

haha yeah

thanks

[,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,]

Thanks! Hopefully I can get it to stick in all those crazy corners the 240 has. Enthoo in CF would look wicked though.

 

 

Where did you purchase that wrap from? 

[Necrodead]

Where did you purchase that wrap from? 

I got it on amazon.ca from Vvivid Vinyl Canada, $25 CAD for a 5"x 3" sheet.

[sam1405]

Zankoku na tenshi no te-ze!

 

Specs look good, and you're going for the original anime blue Unit 00 it appears, and not the yellow look from the rebuilds :}

Following >~<

[ManOfGold93]

Totally following this! Air 240 owners unite!!

[Necrodead]

Zankoku na tenshi no te-ze!

 

Specs look good, and you're going for the original anime blue Unit 00 it appears, and not the yellow look from the rebuilds :}

Following >~<

Unit 00 will always be blue to me.

 

Totally following this! Air 240 owners unite!!

Blue + white FTW!

 

And some teaser phone shots of the 1st coat of blue.

Power supply, I had to buy this to get moving on the custom cable sleeving. I know its overkill for this but I wanted something modular for my first attempt at full custom sleeving.

Scratch that power supply, I went and bought a G2 1000W because... just because.

[Necrodead]

 
I got my vinyl, oh boy.

Did the one side panel.


I also did the next coat of paint, I have to wait 48 hours between coats. I may do one more or I may not depending on how it comes out.

[Necrodead]

Picked up the 4690k from ebay. I was waiting for a deal to present itself for most of my parts and I was able to pick it up for 250CAD before tax. I also bought some Coolabratory Liquid Metal Ultra for delidding so I can get some real overclocking done with this chip.

[ALXAndy]

Nice!

[Necrodead]

Update 04

 

CPU:               -i5 4690k or Broadwell i5 (purchased)

PS:                  -EVGA B2 850 - EVGA G2 1000W (purchased)

Cooling:         -PETG water cooling w/ 2x 240mm Black Ice Sealth Darkside thin rads, Bitspower Barrow silver fittings and res, D5 pump SC600 pump (purchased)

 

So I've got the i5 on the way and I just ordered all my sleeving tools and remaining watercooling parts from Dazmode.com. They are away so it won't be shipped till after the 11th. I changed my rads to the darkside ones for 2 reasons, firstly they are about 50% less than I would spend on performance-pcs.com after tax and shipping, and I'm not sure the black ice ones would actually fit in the air 240. The darkside ones are the smallest I could find. However they are flat black and I will have to mod them. Also I was going to go with a bitspower cpu block, but I got a phobya one that I think will match the build better for only $40 CAD from Dazmode.

 

OK on to progress; I had need for a fan or 2 for exhaust and so I've painted a couple of the AF fans that came with the case. I found out you can take them apart which made them way easier to paint.

 

Here is the paint on the case finished and ready to be built in. I will sleeve the I/O wires as well when I get materials.

 

OVERKILL power supply. Any size supply fits in this case which is great. I was thinking of painting it white but I don't really want to void the 10 year warranty.

 

And here is the first finished side panel. Actually I'm going to put some blue carbon fiber in between the white bars where I couldn't get the vinyl to strech. Ordered and it should be here soon.

[_blackknight_]

always wanted to do a Blue and White build

super nice man, especially the blue painting

[Necrodead]

 

Darkside radiators getting a gloss white treatment:

 

Finished wrapping the case in vinyl, I will save the pics of the case put together for some other time, It looks much better than I had hoped.

 

 

Spent so much time working on the wrapping and now the sleeving that I've had no time for updates, should have another when the PSU is sleeved. 

[ManOfGold93]

That wrapping looks amazing! Great job!

[hearthofsin]

followed looks insanely good man!

[Necrodead]

Cable time!

This was my first try at sleeving, and the other end is not pretty, haha. Since taking these pictures I've sleeved everything but the 24pin and the fans, TBH I am scared of the 24 pin after how difficult it was to get the other 8pins in order.

 

 

 

[cakez]

 

Cable time!

This was my first try at sleeving, and the other end is not pretty, haha. Since taking these pictures I've sleeved everything but the 24pin and the fans, TBH I am scared of the 24 pin after how difficult it was to get the other 8pins in order.

 

 

 

 

where did you get the custom sleeves?

[Necrodead]

where did you get the custom sleeves?

 

Dazmode.com

[Necrodead]

Long time no update! But I'm back with progress. When the place I sent away my CNC cutting finally gets back I will be able to move on to final assembly and tubez.

So all my fittings came from China, they are rebranded bitspower, or at least look identical. They have a high quality nickel plate finish, so not chrome but close.


Here is the pump (SC600, $20CAD) there was some videos on youtube of this pump and it was really quiet so I hope it works well. I do have a D5 in case but this pump is so small it will be easy to fit.


Here is the res, $25 CAD Barrow 110mm. (from China)

$8 fan controller, also from China. Looks identical to 'Kingwin' brand I've seen on newegg/NCIX

 
500GB SSD, Samsung 850EVO. $225 on sale, should have got it last month when they were only 200. Will eventually raid 0 with 2 drives.


Fans have all had their frames painted white (yes I know they make white Vegas fans but these are white with blue LED's, can't buy that in a store.) And I decided to use the static pressure Corsair fans rather than the airflow ones because the air 240 has some restriction with the grills and whatnot. (also I have a little surprise in store, stay tuned)









And what has been taking me so long; this! I used up all the blue sleeve and I have probably 2 feet of the white left to make a molex connector.


My helper, taking a break... Again!

[cakez]

 

Cable time!

This was my first try at sleeving, and the other end is not pretty, haha. Since taking these pictures I've sleeved everything but the 24pin and the fans, TBH I am scared of the 24 pin after how difficult it was to get the other 8pins in order.

 

 

 

 

how do you sleeve cables?

[k1llampt]

I love the enermax vegas fans. One of the best looking fans out there for aesthetics. And not bad for performance

[cakez]

 

Long time no update! But I'm back with progress. When the place I sent away my CNC cutting finally gets back I will be able to move on to final assembly and tubez.

So all my fittings came from China, they are rebranded bitspower, or at least look identical. They have a high quality nickel plate finish, so not chrome but close.

Here is the pump (SC600, $20CAD) there was some videos on youtube of this pump and it was really quiet so I hope it works well. I do have a D5 in case but this pump is so small it will be easy to fit.

Here is the res, $25 CAD Barrow 110mm. (from China)

$8 fan controller, also from China. Looks identical to 'Kingwin' brand I've seen on newegg/NCIX

 

500GB SSD, Samsung 850EVO. $225 on sale, should have got it last month when they were only 200. Will eventually raid 0 with 2 drives.

Fans have all had their frames painted white (yes I know they make white Vegas fans but these are white with blue LED's, can't buy that in a store.) And I decided to use the static pressure Corsair fans rather than the airflow ones because the air 240 has some restriction with the grills and whatnot. (also I have a little surprise in store, stay tuned)

And what has been taking me so long; this! I used up all the blue sleeve and I have probably 2 feet of the white left to make a molex connector.

My helper, taking a break... Again!

 

where'd you buy the SC600 pump it seems to be a really good pump so I want it but i can't find it.THX