Heavily modified Fractal Define R4 with dual 180mm and 360 radiators

[d33g33]

After a bit of filing work its come out not to bad at all!

 

[alpenwasser]

After a bit of filing work its come out not to bad at all!

 

<lots of work>

Knowing from personal experience how time-consuming filing tends to be, I must

say that is a pretty good job. The straight lines are actually almost totally

straight (it looks in the picture like the vertical line in the bottom left

corner is bent ever so slightly to the right), and the angles on the hexagons

look perfect.

Once you paint the edges I doubt you'll be able to see those minute imperfections

though. I like the idea of those hexagons as well, gives it a bit of character

without ruining the understated look of the R4 IMO.

[d33g33]

WOW 

 

I got 4x 180mm fans for a 180mmx360mm rad and they are HUGE. I have to put photo's up... just... amazing...

 

So I will have 4x 180mm's in push pull on a 180x2 Radiator. Here is them next to a 120.3 Koolance rad shroud.

[d33g33]

Hi all,

 

Started some work on the blanking panel today. I will have 2. One will sit behind the motherboard and extend all the way up to the front radiator. The second will be bent up over the PSU to hide the cables, fan controller and water pump.

 

I first started by making up a paper template over the top of the acrylic sheet I got. oh by the way this acrylic sheet perfectly matches the colour of the Fractal Design case. It was just an off-cut that the plastics shop had and I said it will do but its turned out super close so i'm very happy about that!

 

Here is a picture of the template I made. I just made sure I marked out where the PSU will be slotting in plus there is a little edge that comes out from the motherboard tray that I had to cut around as well and I took off about 3mm from the base of the panel to make fitment a bit easier. I want it to be as tightly snug as possible!

 

 

Zing! Jigsaw FTW

 

Was tight to get in there but once the new rad arrives I'll be cutting a heap out of the front vertical face so fitment will be a lot easier.

 

Super tight around that little notch and above the PSU

 

Just pressing the panel in place firmly I marked out the CPU cutout and I drilled pilot holes for the motherboard standoffs

 

Then i drilled out the pilot holes with a 5.5mm which gives me a tiny bit of wiggleroom around the standoffs. Could have used a 5.0mm drill bit but my pilot holes would have had to be perfectly centered and I knew they weren't.

 

 

Finally here is a quick look at the bottom PSU cover. the plastics place that I bought the panels off have all the line benders and stuff like that so easy for them to bend the panel at 90degrees for me instead of me trying and failing. This will hide all the cables to the PSU, Fan controller boards and waterpump.

 

 

More updates soon

[alpenwasser]

I really like the paint finish on that bottom cover.

And those Silverstones are awesome, I just really wish there were thick radiators

for 180 mm fans.

[d33g33]

I really like the paint finish on that bottom cover.

And those Silverstones are awesome, I just really wish there were thick radiators

for 180 mm fans.

 

Its not a paint finish it's the colour in the acrylic. The motherboard blanking panel is cut from the same sheet.

 

Yeah super excited to get those Silverstone Penetrators in the case! Gonna be a whoooooooole lot of rad. The rads I'm going for is the Alphacool XT45 180mmx360mm and an Alphacool XT45 120mmx360mm I dont think there is any way to get any more rad into this case unless you through in a single 120mm somewhere... 180x360mm is on backorder until the end of the month so I have to wait for them to arrive before I can do much more. I'm also waiting on some fan PCB splitters and I'll need to get some sleeving for molex and fan cables. I have a baby due in Jan so want top get this done before Christmas... Also NVidia just announce the GTX780Ti which is very temping!

[alpenwasser]

Its not a paint finish it's the colour in the acrylic. The motherboard blanking panel is cut from the same sheet.

Oh, that's pretty cool.

Yeah super excited to get those Silverstone Penetrators in the case! Gonna be a whoooooooole lot of rad. The rads I'm going for is the Alphacool XT45 180mmx360mm and an Alphacool XT45 120mmx360mm I dont think there is any way to get any more rad into this case unless you through in a single 120mm somewhere... 180x360mm is on backorder until the end of the month so I have to wait for them to arrive before I can do much more. I'm also waiting on some fan PCB splitters and I'll need to get some sleeving for molex and fan cables. I have a baby due in Jan so want top get this done before Christmas... Also NVidia just announce the GTX780Ti which is very temping!

Hehe, I like the way you think.

[MunsonedForLife]

Wow great build..very nice work!!!

[Nicktrance]

Wow I really like where this is going .

[d33g33]

Wow I really like where this is going .

 

Thanks, me to!

[d33g33]

Teeny update, i swapped out the LED's on the power switch from a 3mm blue to 2x 5mm white LED's (because thats what I had spare laying around). Managed to just hot glue them in and gave them a quick test. Looks really good!

 

Updates will be a bit slow going forward as i'm waiting for some gear to arrive like the rads and tube fittings but once they come I can get 99% of the work done and just leave the GPU until the end (waiting to see what happens to pricing with the release of the GTX780Ti)

 

I'll make a similar hex feature on the back side panel with some feature lighting for the SSD's.

[sperkowsky]

is that res painted white

[d33g33]

is that res painted white

No its a normal fusion style res with black acetel end caps, clear acrylic tube and twisted white acrylic tube inserts  

[d33g33]

I have a single PCB Fan 'controller' that has 4x12v, 4x7v and 4x5v and I had some serious doubts about it being able to run the fans I want to off a single molex but I tried it out today and they all fired up no problems...

 

 

 

 This is 4x 180mm Siliverstone Air Penetrators, 2x 140mm Fractal-Design R2's and 3x Scythe 2150rpm Gentle Typhoons. Silverstones are about to be pulled apart to be painted.

 

I have some splitter PCB's that I'll be running closer to the rads so only single fan cables connecting everything.

 

Little video

http://youtu.be/2j4gggDjN-Y

[Homicidium]

Are they running on full speed all the time, then? Or is there a way to control it? 

[d33g33]

Are they running on full speed all the time, then? Or is there a way to control it? 

No they have no curves so they will constantly run at the same speed however the 180mm have a fan switcher on each which I can mount easily enough to drop them from 12v to 9v

[d33g33]

So progress is going slow because i've been holding off to see what happened with the R9 290X, then what happened to pricing with the GTX780... now depending on pricing of the GTX780Ti so in a week or so I should have made up my mind...

 

In my down time I painted up my 180mm AP's

 

Stock fans

 

Disassembled

 

Painting!

 

Back together

 

From the back

 

 

Painting the stickers to match, the silver foil wouldn't have matched to great.

 

Done!

 

The gang!

[BenD]

consider being followed

i would like to add, i would never, ever delid my 3930k that thing is way to expensive

[ValentinM97]

Awesome pictures and awesome build.

[d33g33]

consider being followed

i would like to add, i would never, ever delid my 3930k that thing is way to expensive

Ha no, there'd be no point. Sandy Bridge-E are soldered between the die and IHS so you couldn't separate them if you wanted to

[TastyMidget]

OMG that is just beautiful. but i wonder if you can mod the old stock EVGA cooler back on? I think that would make a nice cover

[BenD]

Ha no, there'd be no point. Sandy Bridge-E are soldered between the die and IHS so you couldn't separate them if you wanted to

didn't even know that, not that into modding

[d33g33]

OMG that is just beautiful. but i wonder if you can mod the old stock EVGA cooler back on? I think that would make a nice cover

 

Over the Waterblock you mean? I'm sure its possible however the GTX670 HAS TO GO so that wont be a problem for much longer...

[d33g33]

I got some satin black paint to patch up the edges of the window I cut out and decided to go over the rad shroud instead if the thin brush aluminium look it should now, hopefully perfectly match the case

 

 

 

 

Also Tilly felt a compelling need to oversea quality of the finish, her face doesn't give away much if she is pleased or not...

 

[d33g33]

This is what i'm thinking because I had to drill out the roof to fit it around the Sabertooth.

 

 

 

 

 

And a closup of the paint finish.

 

Pretty damn close i think

 

Just after taking these pictures I've put a ruler up and the smallest distance to the shroud on the Sabertooth 'thermal armor is 45mm the exact same thickness as the rad. So... in theory I can put the shroud dead center and it will just fit snug BUT i have to try and some something about the holes that i've drilled. I guess just a  sheet of aluminium over the top will be ok and will mean I gain a few mm's as well...

 

What do you guys thinks? It looks ok off centered or need to center it?

 

Cheers,

DeeG