Rise of the Triad.

[AlienALX]

Of course I just had to do this

 

[AlienALX]

The paint booth is finished Firstly the hose came.

 

 

I then fitted it. Note you will need scissors and a pair of clippers for this (so you can cut through the wire support)

 

 

And then sealed it all down.

 

 

Then fitted the fan.

 

 

Test

 

 

Yup that works alright  I then fitted the front intake filter.

 

 

Secondary internal filter.

 

 

Tested it again with all of the fans and lights running.

 

 

 

And then sealed it all up 

 

 

Noting that I had to remove some of the internal filter as it was too dense and blocking airflow. I then did the "vape test" where I use vape to test air flow (I do this in my rig as well with my fans) and it is doing what it should the goggles and mask arrived today but sadly the goggle lens is broken

 

[AlienALX]

OK so the serious crap has begun.

Here are all of the primed parts except one.

There are three errors. Two where I accidentally touched them whilst laying down other parts and one where I didn't use the tack cloth (across the top of the masking tape).

That's OK though, because it's on the masking tape which will be coming off.

Here is the last part, the nose cone.

The booth is kinda dirty now but man, it's exceptional. I mean obs it stinks of paint in the kitchen because the parts are drying in there but if you look at the sunlight it's completely clear. All paint that would be floating around has been extracted

If you look at the back filter you can see how much crud it has removed.

It will need a good clean with alcohol before I paint in it again but yeah, don't know how I lived without this thing tbh. I now need to let the parts fully harden for a few days before I can repair any bad areas and wet sand them with P1000. I reckon I may be putting on finish coat this time next week

[AlienALX]

Ah the pains of being human. So I messed it all up pretty much. I went out to check the panels were dry today and they were so I started off wet sanding with P800. That went really well and it didn't take long before they were ready to be painted. However, it's hot today and I probably should have just left it but I decided to paint on any way.

Mistake 1. Not making sure that the booth had been completely cleaned out so the first part is now covered in bits /facepalm. Not too much of a problem, because mistake 2 would have seen that part needing more paint any way. It seems that Montana Gold is not the same finish as Montana black (not the colours they are the range names). So Montana gold is a really nasty shiny satin which I really don't like.

 

And then I went on to make the same three mistakes I made before, on exactly the same bloody parts. It seems the board I was laying them out on was not big enough and I was clumsy and touched two of the sodding panels, so they'll need repainting too.

 

Ah well, the joys of PC modding I guess. I did take a pic but all of the parts are still very wet and this paint is weird because when it's wet it looks like you have the worst orange peel ever, yet when it dries after about an hour (well, dry to the touch) it seems to have smoothed out. Odd !

 

And I even made a video

 

 

 

What's annoying is this paint takes about two weeks to fully cure.

[Julian5]

That is a ton of work for a computer, Why not just paint the parts outside? Seems like too much work for spray painting a couple pieces of acrylic.

 

Great job though.

[AlienALX]

On 8/7/2016 at 3:41 PM, Julian5 said:

That is a ton of work for a computer, Why not just paint the parts outside? Seems like too much work for spray painting a couple pieces of acrylic.

 

Great job though.

 

I have no outside dude. I live in an apartment with no outside space at all

 

If at first you don't succeed, kick him in the nuts.

 

 

[AlienALX]

Awww fudge I forgot something lol.

 

 

It's the front/bottom intake panel. This is the panel the fan with the nose cone will go in and I forgot that I hacked it around when I got the rig. It had a 2mm deep channel around the fan and because the fans I switched to had rubber gaskets they wouldn't fit. So as you can see, I did a sterling job of modding it I didn't think you would see it but it was visible and looks like poo.

 

So today I will prep and try and get that done. I also forgot to paint the mobo heatsink cover, so that can go in the booth with it.

Here are all the painted parts happily drying

 

 

I have also removed the masking on the bottom panel so it's ready to have the strip covers fitted and the cathodes.

[AlienALX]

Well that didn't go as I thought it would it turned out that in my impatience when removing the lip over a year ago I broke into the surface, so it wasn't just a case of sanding it flush. I had to do some bodywork on it.

 

 

And it's masked up ready for cleaning and painting

 

[AlienALX]

It's now been over a week since I painted the first run of panels and as such I haven't really had that much to do apart from sitting around twiddling my thumbs and thinking about future projects.

 

I made up some GPU extension cables but the blue Cable Mod ones (I made the black ones) are thin and don't hold in the combs I have properly. I may end up not using them, but it saved me from terminal boredom yesterday so that's good, I guess.

 

 

However the paint seems to be nice and hard now so I can present this, the first almost completed part, hurrah !*

 

 

*This is the panel that needed bodywork and it's come out splendidly it's not complete yet because I have not assembled the nose cone but I think it looks awesome.

I will start work on the nose cone later tonight

[AlienALX]

Here's what I have been up to today

 

Firstly the completed nose cone assembly.

 

 

I'm very happy with that. Especially as it literally came from junk.

 

Here is the back/side PSU cover and the radiator covers (they are numbered )

 

 

The front of the PSU box / control panel.

 

 

The SATA port cover.

 

 

And finally the "main deck"

 

 

The only panel I have left to do now is the upper deck where the SSDs will live. However, I now need to focus on wiring and fitting lots of LEDs (and of course the cathodes) so I will probably tackle the SSDs last.

 

I absolutely love this phase of a mod. It's when all of the ideas you have had come to fruition.

[AlienALX]

Part two of today's fun !

 

 

And with the grommet in place.

 

 

And lit.

 

 

I'm probably one of the most morose, melancholic persons alive but man, seeing that really made me smile.

[AlienALX]

Last update for the day as I'm knackered now ! The SSD platform is now being made.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So basically both of the SSD plinths (the UFO mod and a standard 5mm) are now fitted. I need to then make a comb that can be bolted down, as there will be quite a lot of wiring running over this panel.

 

The message on there is how I feel about modding some days

 

[AlienALX]

The front intake panel is now complete.

 

 

Just waiting for the glue to dry, it should be good tomorrow. Then I soldered the loom onto the switches. This loom provides two +/- 5v for the LEDs in the switches, as well as 12v switched (for the cathodes) and 5v switched (for the SSD UFO and nose cone).

 

 

I've promised myself a new XXL mouse mat and wrist rest but only when the build is complete. Here it is all lit up.

 

 

And all working as it should

 

I have decided I want custom GPU cables made up with a 14 pin comb x4. So they should be in some time next week, then I can press on and build it all

 

[AlienALX]

Can't believe I'm actually posting this.

 

Well guys and girls, this will be the penultimate post in this thread with work in it. I really can't believe it's actually almost finished.

 

I started out today with the rig moved around so I could work on it easily.

 

 

After some jiggling I realised that the SATA cables Tom sent me (hail the Tom) were not long enough to loop around and then go to the SSD floor. It was OK though, as thankfully I had a couple of joiners left kicking around from an old project.

 

 

I then fitted the SATA port cover.

 

 

And finally completely built the SSD panel.

 

 

And fitted it.

 

 

Then I started to wire up the side panel but catastrophe hit and the positive wire for the nose cone snapped off so it was out with the soldering tools ! the nose cone also decided it wanted to fall off too.

 

 

Then I fitted the main floor and glued the nose cone to the fan.

 

 

Then I fitted the radiator covers.

 

 

And then the back side PSU cover.

 

 

Then I powered the rig on.

 

 

And pressed in the two buttons whilst holding my breath...

 

 

And tidied everything up.

 

 

Then tested the lights again.

 

 

Wicked, nice and subtle ! let's take a peek in the rig..

 

 

And a rig pic.

 

 

So all I have left to do now is fit the new PCIE extensions, fit the mobo cooling cover (for the top fets) and well, that's really about it. Hard to believe that in one more hour or so of modding this will be all done !

[NoobCase]

Great work mate...  What the first thing you will be doing with it?

[AlienALX]

Sitting back listening to music haha. I'm shattered !

 

Going to get the cables and heatsink cover in early next week and then I can take a break whilst all of the parts for my new project start to arrive from all over the world lol.

[AlienALX]

Couple of night shots. Sadly there was only so much I could do as my phone has no ISO adjustment and my camera that does is knocking on ten years old.

 

 

[AlienALX]

Now with added cableage.

 

 

 

 

Sadly it's still not 100% finished because I haven't painted or fitted the cooling shroud.

[AlienALX]

Been a while

 

Sorry about the missing pics. Not much I can do about that, I am not paying $400 for them. Here is the Triad the last time you guys saw it.

 

 

 

The rig has now been upgraded. First I upgraded the board to a MSI X99 SLi Plus.

 

 

So that I could fit this.

 

 

It's a Xeon 2680V4 14 cores, 28 threads. I got it for £369, figured it was cheaper than a Ryzen 1800X.

 

I also bought this.

 

 

It's not NVME. Just a regular 180GB M.2. Then I got this.

 

 

I decided to test and set up the rig on my desk before the transplant.

 

 

 

Then bench.

 

 

I can overclock the bus, but I have not had the time to sit down and do it properly yet. I did manage 150mhz though (so all 14 cores at 2.95ghz) but it needed voltage. I've been away since..

 

Any way, time to transplant.

 

 

Bit of a rough pic, sun wasn't playing ball. You may notice something is missing.. The Titan XP has no AIO ! The Titan XM had a EVGA Hybrid on it, but you try finding one... So I bought a 1080Ti cooler.

 

 

And an AIO

 

 

The cold plate needs machining out something like this so I can avoid using a shim (that is what I bought the 1080Ti cooler for)

 

 

It is now in the very capable hands of my buddy Gareth, who is going to mill it for me.