bmawn

Hey guys. Things have been turbulent for me these last few weeks. Monday was my last day at a previous workplace, since then I've been spending time at a new workplace basically all day every day. This weekend will be no different will be no different which is a shame since pretty much all parts needed to get started have arrived. But it is what it is. I have a lot of programming to learn for the arduino since I currently only wrote some basic code to move a servo and light up one LED. Until the next update I have a couple pics from the hardware thats going to be used along with some other stuff. Bear with me, I'll be able to get this project rolling for real very soon. It's going to be a challenge fitting all of the parts I want to fit inside this case. But that's the fun part Size comparison between the Phanteks Enthoo Evolv Glass and the Fractal Design Nano S Such a teeny little PSU! One of two kinds of fans that will be used in this build. The new ML140's by Corsair. Hastily made some measurments to kind of eyeball how everything would fit. It's tough without really having any hardware to put there. Please tell me if the pictures are too large and I'll make them smaller. Awesome!

Hey guys! Some time has passed since I posted in these parts of the internets since I mostly hang out in swedish forums such as SweClockers.com. After spending some time here in the last few days though I can definately tell that I've been missing out. Such amazing and interesting builds and so much inspiration all over. Enough blabbering, I came here to tell you about my new project: BLUE FRACTALS by BMAWN INTRODUCTION Hailing from a cramped apartment of a hard-working soon to be 23-year old I am going to do my best to bring you my most ambitious custom build yet. Some of you might've seen my previous project; Dark Knightmare. This build let me in the championship class of the Dreamhack Casemod Championship and allowed me to share the stage of some of (in my opinion) the best modders in the nordic region. ABOUT THE PROJECT Blue Fractals will be a different build in a number of ways. Firstly I am going to build in a mITX case for the first time, the case of choice is the Fractal Design Nano S which will be modded to fit an mATX board. Fully watercooled with a GTX1080 and a 7700K I am excited to create a small computer which definately packs a punch. Some panels of the case will be replaced with either acrylic panels or tempered glass panels, depending on availability and implementation possibilities. Even though I want to use the latter its probably going to be the former, but we'll see. The GPU will be horizontally mounted. Lately I've seen a lot of build implementing this, I've had my GPU mounted like this in my daily driver inside a Phanteks Enthoo Evolv Glass and I see no reason not to implement it into the next build since it looks awesome. This time around I'll be making my own custom cables with sleeving, although I am getting all of the stuff needed from Icemodz.com. After using glass tubing in Dark Knightmare I'm happy to return to PETG tubing this time around, although using glass was a learning experience I appreciate the flexibility and versatility of PETG. Something special for this build is that I am going to control the lighting in the case via a microcontroller. The microcontroller in question will be an Arduino Nano and the LEDs will be the Adafruit DotStar APA102 LED strips. This will allow me to control the lighting howewer I want and choose, and it will also force me to learn how to work with and program the Arduino. With no earlier experience with microcontrollers I am excited to see how it turns out. A bonus feature will be the ability to control the lighting via WiFi or bluetooth, depending on whatever I can get to work. This is a summary of some of the things I am aiming to achieve with this project, but some things might change throughout the course of the build. HARDWARE Fractal Design Define Nano S ASUS STRIX Z270G GAMING Intel Core i7 7700K 4,2GHz EVGA Geforce GTX1080 Founders Edition Corsair SF600 600W G.Skill Trident Z Series DDR4-3200MHz CL16 32 GB Samsung SSD M.2 EVO 500GB Samsung SSD EVO 250GB Arduino Nano V3.0 ATMEGA328 ESP8266 WIFI transceiver Adafruit DotStar APA102- 60 LEDs COOLING Black Ice Nemesis Radiator GTS 240 Black Ice Nemesis Radiator GTS 280 Phanteks Glacier C350i CPU Block - Intel LGA1151 PHANTEKS Glacier GTX 1080/1070 FE Watercooler - Acryl, RGB - Black 2xProlimatech Ultra Sleek Vortex 120mm 2xCorsair ML140 PRO PrimoChill CTR SFF Phase II High Flow D5 Enabled Reservoir System PrimoChill Enhanced D5 Liquid Cooling 12V Pump PWM PrimoChill 1/2in. OD Rigid PETG Tube - 8 x 36in Clear PrimoChill 1/2in. Rigid RevolverSX Series Fitting 12 pack - Sky blue After this wall of text-introduction I still hope I kept your interest all the way through, and if you had the energy to read through my rambling I applaud you. Critisism is appreciated and encouraged, whether if its about my photos or the way I choose to write this project log I want to hear it. Other than that, I am absolutely excited to get started on this project and I can't wait to see the end result. That's all for now, until next update! // Oskar

Hello everyone! Things have been turbulent to say the least, to finish the project up for Dreamhack Winter 2015 which started today thursday 26/11. I haven't announced it before I think, but I've qualified into the championship class of the Dreamhack Casemod Championship and will be exhibiting my project alongside eleven other skilled modders. For me it is a huge opportunity to be able to make a name for myself but also meet up with like minded people to chat with. If anyone is here at Dreamhack you are welcome to come take a look at the build or just to chat in the D hall seat number D46:14. Next update will probably be a gallery post with a lot of "end of project" pictures, which I have not yet taken but I do feel that this build deserves a better setting than the one you'll see in the picture I'll add to this update. (Taken with lights off in my apartment...) Until next time!

Thank you man! I will probably post some pics of the "finished" build tonight. So stay tuned Cool thx for telling me! And thank you Yeah me too, turned out way better than expected!

Hello everyone. Things have been standing still here, I know and for that I apologize. I've really wanted to be able to update and build but parts were missing hindering me to continue and believe me, I hate having to wait cause of something I cannot alter. But now I've recieved some fittings that I needed so I completed the loop today, leading to me performing a leak test although with the copper tubing instead of glass (still waiting for that though...) Everything worked out fine, there was some air getting caught in a lot places I believe so it took a while for the pump to bleed out the air. The feeling of success was also present as this was the first time I tried out the pump after resoldering and redoing the cables. It turns out my molex to 6 pin "mod" worked! I also have an announcement to make so stay tuned Until next update enjoy this high res pic: Please tell me if a single high res pic is too painful to load and I'll change it. But I feel that things are really shaping up for this build and I am really glad. Looking forward to getting this build finished early next week.

It's awesome that you listen to feedback! Looks much better. Although I would have gone with a bit more polishing but thats just me, and this is your build! Might want to look into some kind of support for that intel ssd as well cause it looks slightly saggy.

Looks really interesting! Can't wait to see the end result man. Rest and post some more updates

Did you manage to fix the radiator? Looking forward to see the end result of this. Did you ever think of maybe designing crystals in e.g sketchup or solidworks then either 3d printing them or maybe milling them in acrylic?

Well me too but this way I'll be able to see what looks best! Thx haha So today I finished up the tube routing, only to find out I was two fittings short... But I've ordered them so they should arrive along with the glass tubing. As some people have told me, yes, chrome tubing looks awesome in this build. But I've got my mind set on the glass tubing and it will look even more amazing with some black dye combined with aurora. So a lot of pressure is lifted at the moment, since I've made the most difficult runs already I just have to cut the glass tubing to size when it arrives. I was really worried about the three holes at the top but I think it turned out pretty OK. In the pictures below you'll notice I didn't finish the rad->GPU and GPU->CPU. Those two are the ones I need fittings for, so I'll be able to finish those when fittings arrive. Was really hoping to be able to perform a test of the loop today but oh well, I'll just have to have patience. Enjoy the pics, not so many and not very good today though: In the picture above you can see the three holes I made, from the far left: CPU->radiator, radiator->res and lastly the one that I will use as a fillport. I probably wont use this passthrough fitting seen but I used it to test how it worked and I think it looks fine. Filling the loop will be very easy as well. Here's the "hidden" res->cpu constellation I managed to pull off. Really happy with this one as the fluid will "magically" flow to the pump when looking into the case from a front view. I probably wont update tomorrow since I wont be able to progress without the fittings but we'll see if I figure something out.

Ask and you shall recieve kind sir! While waiting for a care package from Mayhems with more glass tubing I decided to prepare basically most of the stuff I had planned. I "repainted" the transistors on the motherboard with a sharpie pen because they were mostly light grey+red and that just doesn't fit with the theme. So all of them are black now, some were very hard to reach so I only coloured the top. I also put vinyl on a couple places where I thought it was needed. This stuff probably won't be able to be seen when everything is mounted in the case but small details like these are important to make the build great as a whole in my opinion. What do you think? I sleeved the start button almost melting the cabling straight off with my lighter while putting on heatshrink... Hopefully it still works lol. I also eradicated my warranty for the HX850i by opening it up and repainting the fan blades. They had a grey, very dull colour with and ugly corsair sticker so the PSU got the black treatment as with everything else... I asked corsair and it did not come in black I will probably either create another fan grill or just skip the current grill completely because as it is now I don't like it. I also went to buy copper tubing to get the tubing lengths right for when I get the glass tubing. Almost makes me want to switch to copper tubes because they are beautiful and very easy to work with. But no sir, this built is meant to have glass tubing and nothing else! I drilled two out of what will be three holes in total. The two holes I drilled are for the return line to the reservoir and the other hole is for a fill port, for this I will need to get a passthrough fitting most likely. What do you think so far? Please tell me! I appreciate every little bit of feedback you've got. Here are some pics: I'll be back tomorrow with more hopefully

Hi people. I haven't been able to progress very much on the build since I ran out of glass tubing pretty quickly. But more is one the way from Mayhems along with some more cable combs and some LED strips from Icemodz. What I did do though is that I went to the store and bought some matte black vinyl, which I wrapped the profiles with. I was thinking that the vinyl wrap would just be an extra little detail but I think it did a lot of difference. See it for yourself and tell me what you think: Not sure when I will update next, we will see when I have time to work on the build and when the new tubes arrive. Until then I wish you a pleasant week

Dream build for sure! Have you been thinking of maybe polishing the blocks to make them clear? Looks good so far

So... It turns out glass tubing is a real and true pain to handle. At least for me. I broke pretty much 70% of the pipes I tried to cut and when I did succeed in cutting them they were one or two millimetres too short or long. So, I've ordered for some more tubing and then I'll probably measure the tubing then ask my local glazier for help to get more exact cuts. Corrections and cutting smaller pieces is apparently easier if you have a diamond disc dremel bit but I don't have one and I can't afford one either right now. So I'll have to do with the tile cutter I bought today I also tried out the cables and set them as they most likely will sit when I'm finished and I really love the look of them. Mundi at Icemodz did an amazing job making custom cables for me. So yeah, today wasn't as productive as the other days. But thats just a regular sunday for you I guess. Oh, and I've applied to the Dreamhack Casemod Championship which I am really hoping to be able to participate in. Here are some pics: I hope you had an amazing weekend

Hello again! Feels good being able to finally be able to keep my word regarding more frequent updates. Tools have been going hot down in the cellar and I've managed to progress a lot the last couple of days. I stayed up til half past four in the night yesterday (friday to saturday) to finish up the paint on the radiators and pump mounting plate. One thing I did not tell you yesterday is that when I went to the hardware store to shop paint cans something caught my eye. That something was Hagmans granit, a granite texturizing (is that a word?) spray paint which I thought could look awesome if I combined it with matte black paint. And yeah, needless to say the results were spectacular in my opinion. I'd love to hear yours as well! I will definately abuse this in future projects lol. In between coats (paint coats, that is) I tested the pump and after confirming that it worked I went on with re-doing the cables for the pump. The process went like this: removed lid revealing the wiring and the electronics in the pump. Soldered off the cables to be able to cut and sleeve. Cut cables and soldered them onto shortened atx cables (I didn't have a crimping tool or wire), sleeved the cables with black sleeving acquired from icemodz, soldered the cables back into the pump, drilled the hole for the cables on the lid to fit the larger sleeved cables, put on lid and mounted the pump in my bitspower modkit. And god damn I love the all black look of this build. My sleeving work isn't the best, but I managed to shorten the cable and change the connector from molex to 6-pin atx to enable direct connection to the PSU. I also spray painted some of the screws, a small detail that at least I think does magical things. After this I mounted everything back into the case to be able to plan the tube routing. I am planning on finishing up tubing runs for the build tomorrow (sunday) and hopefully I'll be able to perform a leak test on the full loop as well. Anyways, I apologize if there was too much text to read, but I feel it is a crucial part of any build log to explain the process. It's also nice to be able to recap what I did to be able learn and become better at what I do. Enjoy the pics: Tested the pump with an external power supply. First time using one of these, pretty interesting. As always I appreciate every little bit of critisism, be it photography tips or tips on how to write project logs correctly, I am all ears. If you think this project log is exactly how it should be, please let me know. If you want to lurk this thread without saying anything at all, well, you are more than welcome to do so. Until next time!

Alright, hello again. I've managed to get some time to get set up and edit here in the "workshop". So this update I'll show you a bit of what I've been up to these last few days, I'll talk about the next steps after I explain what I did. As mentioned earlier I've disassembled the rig, tried out the custom cables I recieved from Icemodz (they worked ). Efter doing this I was able to get started on the various "case mods" that I had planned. Test mounting the radiators I found out the 'murica screws used with Hardwarelabs radiators didn't fit the brackets in the R40 so I had to do some filing but it fits fine now. Originally I had not planned to repaint the radiators, but inspecting them I made the decision the original paint finish just wouldn't fit the build. So tonight/tomorrow I will repaint them using a new technique I think will look unique and awesome, more on this when I have some results. I've also drilled the holes for the pump bracket which can be seen among these pictures. The hex gear R40 comes with an aluminum piece/plate which is intented for these kinds of "mods". It was very easy to work with, although I am very far from an expert working with metal I think I managed to get it done pretty well. The mounting plate will be repainted so it fits with the radiators. Anyways, enough talking. I need to get to work testing the pump and painting radiators and plate. Here are some pics: NSFW below :3 Obligatory GPU close-up. The bitspower summit EF CPU block. I used a M3 tap to tap the holes for the pump bracket. Screws fit like a glove! I'm going to repaint most screws as well. (I know anodizing would be better, but I can't afford it right now.) Just felt the need to snap a pic of my dads awesome trackball explorer mouse. It's very comfortable for things like editing and browsing, although the sensitivity of the ball is a bit dull. I'm spending my night here, where did you spend yours? Hope to see you tomorrow! EDIT: by demand I've resized my photos, if you want to see them uncompressed I'll upload them and post a link here later.