buyobuyo

Tubing going in. Fuck me is it tough to get compression fittings over this stuff.
 

 

Had some fun and started work on the radiator mount. I had a general shape in mind that I printed on some paper and then glued to a piece of 3/4" aluminum angle. I cut each to length with a table saw first and then I used a piece of wood I had laying around to hold the angled aluminum flat. I brought it over to the old bandsaw and went to cutting.
 



 
I confidently drilled my holes as one does when thinking a perfect layout is glued to the materiel being drilled. A quick test instantly showed me that the holes were not in the right spot for the second fan. There is a decent gap between the fans that Corsair designed in there that I assumed wouldn't be there. Another set of holes fixed it up and now the hole case is a little bit lighter! haha
 





With the test fit done I drew on some lines to make a shape that looked less like aluminum angle and more stylish. I cut these with the bandsaw as well and cleaned up the edges with a file.
 





I didn't have holes yet drilled through the angle or into the mount because it is not a simple thing to drill given the strange angle. I used the trick of some gel super glue to hold the pieces together exactly as you want, drilling them while glued, and then smacking them apart so you can tap your threads in one half of the setup.
 





I couldn't help but mount it to the frame and see how it was going to look. I then was more excited and mounted the grill on to see the entire setup in place and test the opening for clearance.
 






 
Everything looked awesome so I finished shaping the bottom of the angled aluminum to match the mount by sanding and filing it flush. I went over the pieces with a fine file to soften some edges and then lightly scuffed them up to prep for painting.
 
I also prepped the frame for painting the interior by sanding the inside of the frame lightly with some sandpaper and then taping all my edges carefully with some painters tape. (The two colors are simply because I ran out of one and not for any special reason)
 




 
I hung the mounts from wire and an old piece of bamboo before proceeding to spray paint them with a few coats of satin black.
 





I sprayed the case interior with the same satin black. A few coats here as well. I am very happy with the results. My tape lines came out very clean and the paint sheen is really what I was hoping for.
 

Made a test piece for the side wall with vents to see how well the hole pattern would turn out, got better with them as i went along. 

Had some more time to spend on the Spirit so I started by working to finish all the grill shaping.
 
The very top most grill pieces have some compounding curves that I want to look good so I finished those up with a file. I also used a file to smooth some of the areas where I noticed some inconsistent light reflections.
 





I then started what turned out to be the VERY long process of getting all the grinding marks out of the grills while keeping the surface curves smooth. I had to go over the entire grill with a coarse fiber first and then jump to a fine fiber to finish the process. You can see in the photo below that I was grinding on the left side of the upper two grills to eliminate the markings left from the aggressive shaping.
 





I was using a simple harbor freight die grinder and quickly found the limitations of my air compressor. The die grinder was a great tool for the job, but the compressor simply couldnt keep up with tthe CFM demand.
 



 
I also made the choice to finish the aluminum with a fine brushed finish that goes along the direction of the grill. Using long straight strokes by hand with 120 grit sandpaper. I am happy with the bright shine I am getting.
 



 
I then jumped over to the air spring bracket. I drilled and tapped a hole to mount to the rear plate of the grill.
 





I have a small spring scale but it didn't have the capacity to lift the grill. To fix this limitation I 3D printed a small pulley and mounted it to the bracket attached to the grill backplate.
 





I strung some paracord through the pulley, held one side and tied the other to the spring scale. Pulled both ends up and was SUPPOSED to get the numbers I needed to choose an appropriate spring.
 





After getting the numbers from my pulley setup, the poundage didn't make sense as I should have been able to lift the grill just outside the range of my scale. When I lifted the grill with the scale I could clearly tell I was more than a few pounds beyond my scale's range. Because my bracket is so close the backplate, the diameter of the pulley was actually playing into the test more than expected! I ended up using a very smooth 1/4" oak dowel and retesting. Numbers are now making way more sense at about 25lbs of force required to lift the grill from its closed position.
 
I'll get that ordered soon! I'm excited to see this working.

I want the components of this system for my dad to be as awesome as the case, so I reached out to a few companies. I'm very thankful and excited that EVGA and NVIDIA stepped in to sponsor two amazing items that take this computer to another level!   EVGA provided a fully modular SuperNOVA G5 power supply.        NVIDIA sent over a GeForce RTX 2080      Huge thanks to the support from everyone here on the forums. You have all been incredibly nice and quick to build up fellow modders of all skill levels. Without this community these sponsors probably wouldn't be possible. 

Gamers Nexus posted a video on this recently. 
 

That's the location to the entrance of area 51. Don't let anyone else know.

So with the lower half welded I need to shape the ends of the individual grills to match the contour of the main chassis.
 
The 3D prints didn't hold up to the heat of welding well and they deformed a little. My spacing between grills is 1/2" and 1/4" conveniently though so I cut some scrap MDF I had into little squares to use as spacers between each grill.
 





I set up some foam to hold the assembly upside down and fit the MDF squares into the grill followed by painters tape as a clamp, squeezing the grill tight. The lower most grill had a weld that needed to simply be filed flat before shaping the contour could begin.
 



 
I measured the height of the half grill with the spacers and it measured over sized unfortunately at just over 11-3/8". It should be 11-1/4" to match the main chassis height so I set to sanding each spacers just slightly to lover the overall height evenly. After a round of sanding on each side, the height was nice and the grill fit nicely over the chassis.
 







With the spacing all set I slid the half welded grill along side the chassis, placed my grill end cap (this is what the grill ends will be welded to), and traced the curve along the face of the grills so I could simple grind them up to those lines for a nice tight fit.
 



 
I started the shaping process with an angle grinder that had a flapper wheel attached. It was 40 grit I believe. It wasn't fun and felt clunky to handle so I was uncomfortable, thinking I may mess up since the wheel didn't grind very predictably.
 





So I switched to a belt sander with some 60 grit paper and it went much better for me. It was a little slower I think but I felt like I had more control over the material being removed and it felt a little safer to boot lol
 







 
It is coming along and it is great to see the build emerging!

Long time since last update, will try and make up for it with a longer one then usual    First of I finished all the wood working and added the corner pieces that will be holding the front and back pieces in place.                           Not a single screw will be used for the wood frame itself its all held together with wood joints so it was really solid even before applying glue.       Here is plexi for the side windows.       This is what it looked like when it was all clamped in for the glue to dry.           I really like how the bends turned out with the different layers.       Front and back are made of some spare material I found, actually have no idea what its called. But Its made up of some kind of plastic in the middle and very thin aluminum on both sides, that made if very easy to machine with wood tools.                   Made a wooden jig to help with cutting the holes for the front intake fans, and it worked really well. And thanks Mnpctech for the awesome template       

I am using Prusa Galaxy Black PLA. I've had great results with this filament in a couple different brand printers. Definitely give it a try if you get the chance!

@MaximumBubbleMods What filament are you using for your 3d printed parts.

I'm back with an update!
 
First thing I did after the fun I had cutting that giant hole in the sheet metal was to actually mount it up. I cleaned the metal dust and cutting oil up and squeezed it in the frame. It is a snug fit but I'm happy to say all the holes line up and it looks fantastic!
 



 
I'm not sure what to call the middle shelf/mount thing but I printed it up in the same filament as the motherboard mount. This print took around 24 hours but came out clean. There was some support material on the bottom and within the cable channel that needed to be removed but it popped out nicely and you can't see any of those areas regardless.
 




 


 
I mounted this to the main aluminum frame but the bracket did not line up perfectly with the sheet metal cutouts. I didn't want to re-print the part so I found some small washers and simply spaced the bracket out by a washer width. Lined up well after that and I tightened it up. I want the alignment close because of the optic drive.
 



 
I kept almost all the threaded holes in this case 3mm so I picked up a cheap box of 250 various length 3mm black button head cap screws for cheap. Just under $11! Super nice just grabbing the length I need for each different location and I think they look great.
 



 
I grabbed the power supply and slipped it under the bracket and mounted it up.
 




 
The optic drive just slides into the back and the bracket. It has a cutout for the cables as well as the three holes for mounting it at the rear. The drive cables will come out, do a U-turn, and go into the cable channel along the bracket's edge.
 



 
Further out on the bracket is the SSD mounting location. This is lifted up so the cable can come out the bottom and turn 90 degrees into the channel. These cables will run with the optic drive cables to the back of the case. I made a couple cutout on the 3D printed bracket so the SSD wasn't insulated against plastic. Better airflow even if it isn't needed was my thought.
 



 
The picture below shows why the alignment of the 3D printed bracket needs to be pretty close. The optic drive doesn't have huge amounts of space around it. No large panel gap on this vehicle!
 





I slid the GPU in the sheet metal cutout and noticed that the PCB sticks out proud of its plastic housing. Along the edge that sits on the 3D printed bracket. This holds the GPU up a little so I will need to make a little cutout along the 3D printed bracket so it can sit down the tenth of an inch or so that it is being held up.
 



 
Because the case is so open and the cooling will be coming in the front and out the top, the rear of the build I think looks simple and clean and I'm really happy with it.
 

That's great to know! Powder coating is a little spendy so I'm going to have to try this sometime for sure

Rustoleum Bed Liner in the spray can matches powdercoat texture really well if you do light coats.

That sounds terrible! Now, mistake time!
 
So I got the one sheet metal piece that I had made by a local shop. The lightly textured black powder coat and workmanship look sooooo good.
 



 
The excitement was short lived though as I instantly noticed that I messed up pretty badly. BUT... fixable. I forgot the power supply fan hole so I measured it and marked where I was going to need a big hole in my brand new sheet metal part.
 



 
I put a scrap piece of wood behind the cavity, clamped it to the corner of the table and I grabbed a metal blade for the jigsaw. This is the bottom of the case but I could have preserved the powder coat finish better if I would have lay masking tape or painters tape all over that bottom surface. Hindsight. Applied some oil and went to carefully cutting out the hole.
 



 
I took my time and the jig saw did a pretty good job besides some scratching of the powder coat. I grabbed a couple files and smoothed the edges just a little before sanding the inside edge with some 80 grit sandpaper. Ended up being nice and smooth to the touch once I was done.
 



 
Could have all been avoided work but I'm glad it was something easily fixed without compromise.

UPDATE 2.0 - OH NO THEY DEEDNT!   Sorry for the delay, turns out it editing photos with a three-month-old baby strapped to your chest just isn't the way to do it. I'm trying hard to push this project forward, almost everything is in hand now so truly its just a case of carving out the time to move it along.    Let's meet the hardware!!!!   ...   AMD UK - RYZEN R7 3700X (LINK)   Yeah, that box is empty! haha! The truth is I've had most of the core hardware much longer than the cooling. Then Half-Life Alyx came out.... and that's why they created test benches. I've got Adam over at Thermaltake UK to thank for much of the industry support I receive. But most of all for my introduction to the guys at AMD UK. Thanks again AMD and as always, thanks Adam.    SILVERSTONE TECH - ST1200PT PSU (LINK)   ...       1st build with Silverstone on side! Though I've maybe built just a couple of PCs at most! that haven't used their products. Simply put, they are the best (IMO).     ... ...   GIGABYTE UK - X570 AORUS MASTER (LINK) / AORUS RTX 2080 XTREME (LINK)   ...   The boxes may well be pretty beaten up (pretty sure every online tech-site had them before me) but these two beasts are hungry for their forever home... on liquid cooling... here with me... in rainy North Wales. Oddly enough the RTX2080 had slipped through my hands once before. They sent it to me for my ASHEN build but that cooler is huge! so with a heavy heart, I sent it back in exchange for an RTX2070 (I know right!).    I've never really been one for board partner designed pcb/coolers (yeah a couple the EVGA efforts are pretty sexy), having historically always opted for the reference design. Mainly because those are the first to get water blocks. I think this may be, as back in the day, it felt like CPU/GPUs were more thermally limited. Slap a block on them and you'd see better clocks... MUCH better clocks. Today, sure you'll get that extra slice, but mostly the chips are tapped out, fresh out the box. IMO, it's more about keeping them quiet under load and looking great doing so (forever dreaming the next-gen will rewrite the OC rules again, boost clocks have ALOT to answer for!).   The Xtreme cooler is extreme... at idle its silent but slap a couple of tabs open in chrome and those fans will come to life and with them a beautiful dance of RGB pride. So first thing first (whilst I played through ALYX) I turned that bollox off. Instead, opting for a dim red effect. Looked awesome!    ... ... ...   Looks great right! The fans never spun up past 70% under sustained gaming load and it was comfortably quiet sat on a test bench next to me (granted.... I was wearing a headset... but that's why I'm water-cooling it duh).   This motherboard, on the other hand, is gorgeous! Truly I think Gigabyte did a great job with their X570 range of boards. I run the ITX offering in my other build MODZERO SEVEN (It's a transplant from ASHEN, I'll post photos of it once I've happy with my loop runs) and that's been great too!   ... ...   On my bench I'd been running a single 8-pin EPS as that 3700x isn't going to tax it much, but I'll make the full 16 for the build. Depending on the 4000 series compatibility I do see perhaps the 3900X(T) in its future.    Now, if you're not already and are so inclined. Follow me on Instagram, I mentioned it in the last post (and I'm sure I'll mention it again) but I'm making 'stories' of some of the smaller build stuff. I'd recently posted me swapping out the chipset cooler for EKs Quantum Chipset block and I'm pretty sure I'd shared my experience fitting the Vector Aorus block on the Xtreme.    I eventually save each story so you can check them out from the profile page.    https://www.instagram.com/modzero_customs/   So I guess we should take a look at this GLORIOUS TABLE OF EK LOVE!   ...   SO, what have we here... well.   Blocks   EK-Quantum Magnitude D-RGB - AM4 Nickel + Plexi (LINK)   Quite possibly the most exciting WC product release of recent years. This thing is a labour of love and whilst to demands a high price tag, genuinely feel its worth it.   Rads   EK-CoolStream SE 360 (Slim Triple) (LINK) EK-CoolStream PE 360 (Triple) (LINK)   Both of these (as seen) have been painted to match the rest of the case. The Razer edition is the midi variant of the 0-11d so its slim down at the bottom and regular (yeah... let's say regular) thickness up top.   Res   EK-Quantum Kinetic FLT 360 D5 PWM D-RGB - Plexi (LINK)   Another exciting release from EK, the flat res! This was always intended to be the EK distro for the 0-11D. But then covid happened and stock died and that brought with it delay after delay. So once I received the green light from EK for this project I actually opted for a res. I've still no idea how I'm going to do the loop... but this gives me options that a distro doesn't.    Fans   EK-Vardar EVO 120ER Black BB (500-2200rpm) - Dual Set (LINK)   But... but... what about the X3M or the EVO RGBs! NOPE! If it's not Noctua, it's OG Vardar! (I just get that tattooed) The case, the blocks, res and ram all light up like Christmas! I'm not an RGB guy in the RGB sense.. er..    For me, I like that RGB means I can pick whatever colour best suits the build. Maybe, if I'm feeling like a tart, I'll add an effect to said light.    Coolant   EK-CryoFuel Lime Yellow (Concentrate 100mL) (LINK) EK-CryoFuel Solid Laguna Yellow (Conc. 250mL) (LINK) EK-CryoFuel Clear (Premix 1000mL) (LINK)   Yeah, it's gonna be yellow... acid piss-yellow or big bird bleeding out yellow. Only time will tell.     Fittings   EK-Quantum Torque HDC 12 - Nickel (LINK) EK-Torque HTC-12 Color Rings Pack - Nickel (10pcs) (LINK) EK-Quantum Torque Rotary 45° - Nickel (LINK) EK-Quantum Torque Rotary 90° - Nickel (LINK)   Again, I've been doing unboxing 'stories' on my Instagram if any of that interests you. It was a big box and everything in it is beautiful!   Now, I'm a few steps ahead in the real world so maybe I'll leave it here and post again sooner. But basically, I've put the blocks on the board and the gpu is pimped out now too. I test fit the gpu on the vertical mount and because the GPU pcb is wide/tall it blocks a lot of the CPU (can't show off that stunning Magnitude block... gutted). That said, the GPU block is glorious and stands proud up front. I've made a couple of tweaks and that's beginning to give me loop ideas.     I'll leave you with a few more shots of that motherboard, only with the blocks fitted this time.    ...   Not so funny story, I tend to get into this after my wife and kids have gone to bed. Which often means I'm already exhausted. I can maybe pull a few hours out of a week (what!). So one night I'm thinking.. I've had that box of wonderful EK goodies sat there for weeks!!!! (mainly because the case was off getting painted, I wasn't neglecting it.. haha) pull your thumb out ya ass and move this forward.    So I fitted the CPU block, chipset block and shot 100+ photos (95% as always, are shite). Loaded them onto the computer and edited three before I noticed the CPU block was upside down!!! I put this down to muscle memory though.. I've not built a PC that wasn't inverted, for years! so when the block went on, the board was upside down (right side up... whatever).   Anyway, couldn't leave it that way.. so spat my dummy and went to bed. came back the next night and refitted and reshot. You live and learn.. #dumbass   ...   I'll not be running any SATA drives, why would you.. M2 options for days! I'm running sabrent drives on this. They are unreal value and perform great!   ...   Cheeky little chipset block, this reminds me of MIPS blocks anyone else ever used there products? I wonder if they are still in business (googles it).   NOPE     ... ...   AORUS RGB Memory 16GB (2x8GB) 3200MHz (Limited Edition) (LINK)   I guess I've not mentioned the RAM huh! it's pretty. I had it in my ASHEN build but retired it when switched out the loop. I hope to use the Ryzen DRAM tool and really dial this kit in.   ...   I'm excited, this should be good.   Thanks for reading all that, or for just looking at the photos... until next time.    J. 

https://www.ekwb.com/blog/parallel-vs-serial-loop-why-choose-one-over-the-other/
 
 

I've seen dual GPUs run in parallel, but the CPU has always been in series with the GPUs. I've never seen a loop that runs the CPU and GPU in parallel. Granted, I'm new to watercooling, as well, so I  haven't seen it all by any means.

Surprised no one else pointed out the weird cpu/gpu parallel loop route.
 
Typical is routing is cpu/gpu in series, so into the gpu, the gpu out to the cpu in, and the cpu out to the radiators. Alternatively, you could run into the gpu, gpu out to 1st rad, the rad out to cpu in, and cpu out to 2nd rad.

I'm all for people to take the dive to the deep end and if they intend on ever doing hardline just to do hardline from the start. The difference between hardline and soft tubing is so large that no number of softline builds will prepare you to do hardline. Of course you will also need to buy 2 sets of fittings if you start with soft tubing which is a waste and should be dedicated to more hardline tubing so that you have room for error.
 
Acrylic does not contribute in any significant manner (and honestly, even if it was copper tubing) the amount of surface area offered by a cylinder is a non-factor for cooling. Therefore any consideration for tubing size for cooling benefits can be thrown out.
 
In terms of achieving bends, either thickness is fine. I do indeed find that it is easier to screw up the thinner 10/12 tubing, but the flip side is that it is easier to bend and so the process is faster when you get used to it. But the bigger factor is how the runs look like in the end so if you like the look of thicker tubes just go for it. For smaller systems where you need to do tighter bends, I think the 10/12 mm will work in your favor.
 
As for bending, I pre-date the popularity of bending kits and so do everything by hand, maybe using the corner of my table as an occasional guide for 90 degrees.  Therefore I don't have an opinion about bending kits apart from the opinion that I don't need them myself.
 
12 mm in mini-ITX case (Ncase M1)

 
16 mm tubing in a mid-tower (Meshify C)
 

 
16 mm tubing in a full-tower (Obsidian 900D)
 

I live in Iowa. The home was built in the 1911, but it was remodeled 4 years ago and no the remodeler did not update the the service to 200 amps. At the time I was not worried about it and it has crossed my mind to update that 200 but it will take a bit of effort to do so.
The remodeler I bought this off of opted to put gas stove and dryer in the house instead of increasing the service. /shrug. The two items I have in my home that has the largest draw is my pc and my microwave. lol.

while i was working on the layout, I mocked up the table: to get a polish on the epoxy, it took going from 180 grit to 3000 grit (not skipping a step, and going wet at 800), then a 3 stage polisher. it took 16 hours of just sanding to get this done. and I didnt get it right the first time.
 
a cool shot I took through the edge of the table (yes, there are bubbles, mistakes were made):

 
after the polish job:

And that's a wrap people!
 
Final ranks and prizes will be announced in due course, thank you to everyone who joined in on this event, I really appreciate every single persons effort here. 

Yep, these "117" WU are killing me this week... oh well.. new normal I guess as they keep popping up more and more.

Edit:  Might need to add a best and worst WU of the week to the PPD DB so we can pour one out to the folding gods when we get hard ones during an event.

Oh no! I fell victim to the lack of gpu WUs. I was folding when I went to bed, and it was idle when I checked it after waking up.  Not sure when it went idle, but it's a loss of at most 5 hrs which is about how long it takes for my gpu to crunch through a WU.  I just set the client-type and next-unit-percentages and restarted F@H, and I'm folding once again.