Exsectus by Maki Role - First place in the Thermaltake UK Modding Trophy! Back from Computex 04/07/16

[Maki Role]

 

Hello everybody!

 

I was fortunate enough to be picked to be part of Thermaltake's new UK Modding trophy, alongside fellow modders HackJoe, F3nixM0ds, Davido_Labido and Abbas-it.  The aim of the contest is to try and do something novel with their new chassis, the Core X31, as well as their new cooling lines and PSU kit.

 

First up, a big thanks to Thermaltake, Scan and everybody else who helped to organise this competition, I'm sure it's going to be a blast!

 

So what am I going to do?

 

Well, unlike my usual projects, this is going to be much more flexible.  I'll be working on the fly rather than doing everything in advance, this is mostly thanks to the hard deadline of April 27th where the mod needs to be complete.  It should hopefully be an interesting ride for anybody who wished to follow the project too.

 

My current plan is to try and pretty much remake much of the case, quite frankly.  I'd like to rearrange the interior massively, utilising many of the techniques I've learnt over the last couple years.  This project is going to be fully watercooled, but hopefully in an interesting way.  Although I have to apologise in advance that there won't be any rigid tubing.  Unfortunately because Thermaltake's rigid lines aren't available yet in the country, they insisted we all keep to flexible.  That said, it's merely a hurdle that needs to be cleared, fingers crossed I can make it work.  I'm going to be using a purple and silver/black theme inside, along with extensive RGB implementation through the motherboard, fans and lights.

 

So let's get this show on the road shall we?

 

Into the workshop to take some pics of the first bunch of hardware.  I'm still waiting on the motherboard, GPU, CPU and some of the fittings, but a good chunk of the stuff has arrived.

 

Starting with the case:

 

 

 

 

There are certainly a lot of options for the interior here, although mostly if you're a bit boring  I'm going to be stripping most of this and turning the insides into something quite unique.  Construction of the case itself feels pretty standard for one of this type, lots of rivets and steel as expected.

 

First of the hardware:

 

 

 

 

Here we have the PSU, RAM and SSD.  Solid kit, although I'd have preferred the PSU be 100% modular for the sake of cabling.  That said, it's only the 24 pin and the 8 pin, so I really can't complain much at all.  One stick of RAM is a little odd from an aesthetics point (along with missing out on dual channel) but again really isn't a big deal.  The most important bit IMO is that the stuff all looks pretty good, which is a great starting point.

WC Gear:

 

 

 

 

Holy moly that's a lot of stuff!  I opted for 2x of the 140mm rad kits rather than 240mm, the two rads should hopefully fit nicely where I'm planning.

 

 

 

 

Going to be using the 140mm RGB Riing fans on this one, given the motherboard and lighting strips are RGB I figured it would be more sensible to stick with that theme.

 

 

 

 

The two rads.  They're certainly very solid, the paint finish is excellent too.  Not so keen on how they're aluminium when the other blocks are nickel plated copper, but apparently the coolant should prevent issues.

 

 

 

 

These pump/res kits certainly feel the part, can't really go wrong with a solid D5.

 

 

 

 

The waterblocks themselves really have a good weight to them, you can tell how much material went into their construction.  Very solid and reassuring.

 

 

 

 

Lots of coolant, went with pastel white as I can then experiment more.

 

 

 

 

Got to have plenty of fittings eh?

[ObeseWalrus]

*sees makirole* Dis gun be gud.

[Maki Role]

Update

 

The second batch of hardware arrived yesterday, which included the mobo, GPU, CPU, fan controller and LED strips.  Thought I'd take some snaps of the new stuff, plus show you a little teaser of what I've got planned.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I wasn't prepared for just how large the Strix 970 was, it's colossal considering the power of the card.  That said, it's very quiet thanks to the shear size of the thing.  Almost seems a shame to watercool it... almost.

 

 

 

 

The Maximus VIII Hero Alpha is a very pretty board indeed.  I was never a fan of the RoG red/black styling, this gunmetal/red is much more appealing to me.

 

 

I didn't have any working coolers to hand, so I decided to ghetto rig up one of the cooling kits.  Works surprisingly well actually, everything is extremely quiet even when just plonked on a desk.  Always a good idea to check your hardware before modding it.

 

 

And the teaser for what I'm planning.  I'll leave you to figure out what I intend to do...

Also, has anybody else found that this new software that LTT is running is bloody awful?  It's just so much clunkier updating things as the formatting is so different to other sites.  I have logs scattered around, so having to update everything individually is just time consuming.  I was already tailoring image sizes etc for each community, but now I have to be extra careful that everything I post is formatted correctly, can't possibly be the only one with this issue?

[EldarNi]

Is it D5 res/mount into 5.25 bay with the pump outside of the case? 

[Maki Role]

On 18/02/2016 at 2:32 PM, EldarNi said:

Is it D5 res/mount into 5.25 bay with the pump outside of the case? 

Not quite, I'll leave people guessing for now...

 

Mini-Update

So the update I had pencilled in for this week is going to be postponed until next, some materials arrived a few days late which threw my schedule a bit.

 

So instead I got to work beginning the dismantling of the case.  This is only the beginning btw, much of the case is going to be replaced, I'm just doing it bit by bit so that I don't warp things by accident.

 

Naturally we're talking lots of rivets, although I was pleased to find that most of the interior pieces are held in with screws.  Given most people won't be doing this sort of work, I don't mind (although screws are always preferable).

 

 

Yeah, lots of this.

 

In an effort to make the rivets more... riveting I tried taking some sort of 'artsy' shot of the process.  Yup there really is a lot to it, rivets.

 

Crikey put some clothes on!

[Maki Role]

And now for the update I had intended for last week!

 

UPDATE

 

I'm still waiting on my aluminium to arrive, so I can't get quite stuck in like the others right now, but I do have some cool progress at least.

 

Earlier I teased a render of a proposed part.  Yesterday I was able to head over to Parvum HQ so we could get it machined.  As usual they did a fantastic job, the accuracy was just perfect and all the bits just slid right in.  But what is it?  This particular piece is a proof of concept, I didn't want to jump in full scale without some level of assurance that it would work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It works!

 

 

This should help reveal a little more about the proposed theme.
 

 

[NoobCase]

I'm starten to dislike  People with access to a cnc machine....  makes me very jealous and for awesome custom pieces!  Can't we move parvum to Denmark please? 

[potoooooooo]

Man, i want a CNC even more now...That's so gorgeous

[Maki Role]

On 11/03/2016 at 7:52 PM, potoooooooo said:

Man, i want a CNC even more now...That's so gorgeous

Then this update will be right up your street...

 

UPDATE!

No doubt some of you were thinking "What does that pump block do that a normal one doesn't?", the answer to that is, well, nothing.  By itself it doesn't operate any differently to the ones I was supplied by Thermaltake.  It was, however, a test bed for this thing instead:
 

 

 

 

 

 

Enjoy working out the loop order

[NoobCase]

Don't care about loop order....  Holy smoked that looks awesome! 

[Maki Role]

1 hour ago, NoobCase said:

Don't care about loop order....  Holy smoked that looks awesome! 

Haha, thanks

 

Man LTT seems so quiet now

[potoooooooo]

Damn, i saw this on reddit and was blown away.

 

I didn't make the connection to this project, that's so sick.

[Maki Role]

 

UPDATE!!

 

So you may ask, what the hell have I been doing all this time?

 

Well, to be frank, I don't have a very good answer for that.  This update was delayed by almost 2 weeks thanks to a problem with my plastic supplier.  I had ordered cast acrylic but they sent extruded, only found out once we started to cut it.  In short, it broke the tool and was a complete disaster.

 

In the meantime, I decided it would be a sound investment to pick up a vinyl plotter!  Figured it would be handy for making things like labels, fan hub stickers and of course stencils.  Perfect, also, for replacing the SSD sticker with something more in keeping with the theme of the build.

 

First up, I picked up a load of these rather fancy screws.  My thought was that the block could use a little colour, these looked just the ticket.

 

And the SSD in its new form!

F*** that hurt.  Bloody sticker sliced through my finger to the tune of about 4mm, ended up needing stitches on this one.

 

Spoiler

 

 

And here we go again.

 

Cutting!

 

The tensest part, lining up for the double sided cuts

 

Eurgh, tapping over 100 holes is not fun.

But the end result is definitely worth it

 

Like a glove

 

Off to Yorkshire now for the weekend, I'll fill it up when I get back.

[enRodjavel]

So this looks just frakking awsome! Needz more pics now! Haha.

[Hackentosher]

Damn, I believe this tops @p0Pe's engineering machine.

[Loleo]

Wow! Can't believe that I just discovered this log now. Bloody Amazing and good luck with the contest!

[NoobCase]

This still does nothing to reduce my dislike for people with access to that kind of cnc machines!

Really digging this build even if i do not like the generel aesthetics of thermal take cases... you may end up with a convert on your hands! 

[Yahtadi]

Can someone notif me when this build has an update? Please 

[Hackentosher]

 

22 minutes ago, Yahtadi said:

Can someone notif me when this build has an update? Please 

just follow it.

[AlienALX]

5 hours ago, Yahtadi said:

Can someone notif me when this build has an update? Please 

Are you blind?

[Maki Role]

 

22 hours ago, enRodjavel said:

So this looks just frakking awsome! Needz more pics now! Haha.

 

You're in luck, since the deadline for completion is the 27th, I'm going to have to double time everything.  So plenty of pics over the next couple weeks

 

21 hours ago, Hackentosher said:

Damn, I believe this tops p0Pe's engineering machine.

Just need to make sure it's as clean, looking forward to trying out the cable channels.

 

21 hours ago, Loleo said:

Wow! Can't believe that I just discovered this log now. Bloody Amazing and good luck with the contest!

Much appreciated!  It's funny, this is by far my most complex work so far but nobody knows it exists on LTT.  Seems like it's just flown under the radar, that said this forum definitely used to be busier not that long ago.

 

20 hours ago, NoobCase said:

This still does nothing to reduce my dislike for people with access to that kind of cnc machines!

Really digging this build even if i do not like the generel aesthetics of thermal take cases... you may end up with a convert on your hands! 

 

Tbh the only thing this build will share with the original case by the end is how it's going to be mostly rectangular.  Got some big mods planned, hopefully I'll have enough time to complete them properly.

[p0Pe]

On 15/4/2016 at 8:17 PM, Hackentosher said:

Damn, I believe this tops @p0Pe's engineering machine.

Can't have that, can we now @Maki Role.

 

I am excited to see how the graphic card will look on the backside of that distributing plate. Seeing you do that makes me sad that I never got my "flatpacked" concept realized

 

The next 10 days are going to be fun for you. Good luck, and I look forward to the end result! You did not even need a case to be a top contender in this one.

[nycesquire]

Very interesting. Subbed.

[RustyHamrLickr]

Really love your builds. You made me join the LTT forum just to comment on it. I read through all your build logs, and I am really amazed by your designs. Your renders are breathtaking as well.

On a more technical question, what are the dimensions of the flow channels you are doing in your custom blocks? I'd think it needs an area similar to the standard tubes that would be used, but I would like to be sure.

Thanks!

[ConnorDahne]

Another Maki Role!!!!

Instant sub after seeing Aetos.

Keep up the good work.