[FINISHED March the 8th, 2015] Redefine R4

[Razbit]

First of all, this is my first post on this forum

 

So, the Big Idea: Lets "watercoolerize" the Define R4, and make it better looking == Redefine R4

 

I've started making the mod a long while back (a little after R4 came to stores in Finland, so we're talking about August -12), so heres what I've done so far.

(Sorry about the pics, SGS2 and OnePlus One say hello)

 

 

 

 

TOC:

1. The beginning and the whole last 15 months in this post

2. Window planning

3. Naming conventions..

4. Introducing a new element: titanium

5. Paint & putty & sand

6. Back from the dead..

7. And now the system is all wet!

8. Nearly there!

9. DONE 8.3.2015

 

 

Here's the first "update"

Spoiler

 

 

Before:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, I started by taking the case as apart as possible without any un-needed violence:

 

 

PS. Of course, the front panel already has a few scratches, damn those shiny plastic surfaces.. 

 

 

 

 

 

Then began the needed violence part, I removed the 5.25" slot and modified the front metal plate a bit:

 

 

 

No more pics of the act since they would have been censored for their violence..

 

The original plan was to put one 240 rad on top of the case, move the 5.25" slots (2) to the bottom of the case and install a 240 rad on top of it. After reconsidering the situation, I decided to dump the 5.25" slots and use only one 360 rad. 

 

 

 

 

HDD rack:

 

 

It is the Define's 3-slot rack, I just took it apart (all the plastics and screws away..) and mounted it upside down right in front of the rad:

 

 

The rack is mounted through the bottom with four screws (the ones that keep that plastic thingy in place). The fan holes (120mm) matched the raster of the holes in the rack, so I only had to drill two holes on my own.

Then I made a cover to the bottom fan slot from an old side panel that has been laying around, to close the fan's grill and holes

 

 

 

About the next picture:

 

 

A: My mobo (Maximus IV Extreme) has these molex connectors, called EZ Plugs, to provide more power to the video cards. Well, the other one of them is placed right to the bottom of the PCB, so that I have 5mm space between the connector and and PSU :sigh: So now I need to find a solution (of course, the connectors can be left unused.. )

B: The fan slot cover is in place, I mounted it underneath the case's bottom sheet, so it really isn't shown that much.

 

 

 

 

A cover for the 360 rad's holders and a holder for my two SSDs:

 

 

 

 

October 12th, 2012: Revising..

 

 

 

 

At this point, I started to re-think the mod..

 

 

- HDD Rack is better if rotated 90 degrees

 

 

- Make a sandwich of the rad and it's fans

 

 

 

 

 

So, here we go:

 

 

I started off by mounting handles on top of the case, and noticed that the other one was scratchy an rusty (I guess that had been in use before, I found them from our apartment (they were leftovers from the kitchen  reshuffle made by the previous owners of the apartment). Gotta go and by new ones.. :wallbash:

 

 

 

 

Then I turned the HDD rack around and made a cover to the rear of case to close the fan hole and make it a solid rear panel:

 

 

 

I had to dremel off one of the extension card slot (the vertical one) to put the rear panel in place:

 

 

 

 

Rad and fan mounting system, version 1:

 

 

 

 

I'm gonna paint it all black, install some cool (white led) fans, and make/buy a good-looking grill

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, and one more thing: remember the SSD mount bracket I made? It just got installed and painted:

 

 

 

 

 

 

12-12-12: Shrouds!

 

 

 

Now, I've made a couple of shrouds from Al, one to go

 

Let's start with the vertical one:

 

 

The sheet's a little corroded, but fortunately, those parts of the sheet were not used/were left to the back of the shroud. This one's gonna be secured to the mobo rack and the rad with total of 6 screws, and, as usual, be painted matte black. There's gonna be holes in the left side of this to get the cables from the mobo hidden.

 

 

 

 

And then to the other part, the horizontal shroud.

 

This one's made from 1.6mm Al, different from the vertical one (1mm). It has some kind of a plastic on its surface on the other (top) side. I made this by hand, using Wiss' snips and dremel and of course, a file.

 

I just love aluminum, its so soft but rigid, that you can make a plane from it, and cut using a butter knife. Steel, on the other hand, is something I try to avoid. It's so heavy and hard, that it isn't a nice material to shape by hand..

 

 

 

Back to business.

Here they're both in place:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

January 21st, Shrouds, pt. 2

 

Like I mentioned in the previous update, one more shroud was still to come. So, here it is before painting: 

 

 

 

Made from 1.6mm Aluminium, its quite strong and solid.

 

 

And then, all three shrouds got a matte black spraypaint and varnish. The turned out quite good, some scratches can be seen though (someone didn't have the patience to sand carefully enough..)

 

 

Ok, now its time to put everything together and see if its gonna work out. I started by installing the motherboard first, though it didn't really work that way (try 2: start from cables and shrouds, mobo goes last..). There it is in place, as you can see, part of it is hidden behind the HDD rack (of course, the connectors are there.. ):

 

 

 

 

 

And because the SATA power cable is veeery long, I had to shorten it:

 

 

 

 

 

And the wiring between the PSU and HDDs:

 

 

Quite messy, but it will be covered. I also had to mod my top fans. I soldered them together and fixed the sleeving. And finally, a ready-for-now picture:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

March 24th, Sleeving

 

 

I received a package from Nils, and this is what was inside:

 

 

 

So, I think you know how I've spent my days lately, fingers sore, trying to get every cable sleeved. My Sunbeam tool set for disassembling the connectors was a piece of s*it, so I made my own tool from a paperclip..

 

 

I started with an easy one: the PCI-Express cables (6 and 6+2 pin). Silverstone had soldered anti-ripple capacitors to the graphics card end of the cable, and a ferrite bead to the PSU-end of the cable. So after removing the connectors I removed the cap (2200uF) and the bead. After that I sleeved 'em, and they worked just fine, so no harm done, eh?

 

 

 

 

Once those two were done (day 2) it was time to sleeve the EPS cable. Same plan, remove connectors -> sleeve -> test:

 

 

 

 

Ok, last, but not least: the ATX cable. Again, removed the connector with my own tool, sleeved and re-installed.

 

 

 

PART TWO: THE RE-ASSEMBLY

 

After sleeving the cables it was time to re-assemble the computer.

 

 

Then, last but not least, graphics card in-place with all the cables connected:

 

 

 

 

Oh, and I messed up. Big time.The 12V and 0V lines got mixed up in the EPS connector (the ends were swapped by silverstone), so the PSU blew up.. *sigh* Had to buy a new Strider to get the same cables to fit..

 

 

 

 

 

April 17th, the front

 

 

Ok, so, I started by removing some pieces of plastic that were blocking me from gluing acrylic (transparent sanded from every angle) to the sides to block airflow and annoying things that could be seen through. Then, I clued them in place. Also, I  made a hole to the "door" for three 120mm fans and an A.C. Ryan 360 Grill, to push air through the rad inside the case. After that I drilled mounting holes for the grill and the fans, tapped (m5) the fans' mounting holes and the holes I made for the grill to the door. Then it was time for test-fit, which turned out to be great!

 

Those acrylics glued in place

 

 

Then I took it apart, glued the door to the frame (both plastic, I used Kiilto Flex as the glue, which is very similar to Sikaflex, a flexible glue that glues almost any material and sticks to your hands and spreads everywhere, especially if its black..) and re-mounted the fans and the grill. I used the same M5 socket-head screws found from inside the case. This is the whole front, with lights on.

 

 

And finally, a night view:

 

 

The fans are BitFenix's Spectre white LED 120mm, they're just great.

 

 

 

 

 

September 13th, cable management

 

 

So anyway, I've been arranging the cables in the case and made a few improvements to the shrouds. So, I gave the case a good bath after the summer (it was quite dusty inside), I washed all the coolers, fans and other parts of the case. After that, I made a wire separator from 20x25mm aluminum angle and painted it white. The holes (small ones) are for ATX and PCIE cables, the bigger ones are for SATA data cables. It got fixed in place using two M3 screws from Define:

 

 

 

 

Also, I made another piece of al to make it a bit better-looking. I installed it using double-sided Scotch tape (sorry, the pic is a bit shaken up..):

 

 

 

 

 

Time for some clips! I made a total of 7 clips, 3 different sizes (3 for EPS, 2 for PCIe and 2 for ATX). The "lip" on them was waayy too short, if someone is going to use these clips I recommend making them WAY longer than mine. I solved the problem of cables not staying in the clips by bending them longer later when the cables were in them already (that might affect looks though..). 

 

 

And here they are:

 

 

 

(from left to right: EPS, PCIe, ATX)

 

 

 

 

I painted them matte black and used Tesa's Ultra-strong double-sided tape to install them. The first ATX+PCIe clips needed a piece of al between them and the mobo tray because of a "hem" too close; the cables couldn't bend that much, so here we go again.. I cut a piece of an old piece of Al I had laying around, filed the edges and painted it black. Then I taped the clips in (Only PCIe at this stage, it was easier to install the ATX clip "on field"):

 

 

 

 

 

Now, let's get to the cabling, shall we?

 

 

Since my previous 750W strider gold died (It went to the PSU heaven with a boom and sparks), I bought a new 1000W Strider Plus so that the sleeved cables would fit. It was a bit shorter though, so the SATA power cable didn't _quite_ reach it.. It had to be made longer, so I grabbed my soldering iron and got to work.. 

 

 

 

 

Then, all the components got in place, followed by a bunch of cables. I installed the new wire separator, fiddled with the cables for a while, cursed the inventor of cables and fiddled more. They turned out pretty.. well, pretty..

 

 

 

 

And a view from the back, with the clips mentioned above:

 

 

 

 

 

I'm quite happy with the cables, they turned out quite good.

 

 

 

 

 

October 29th, A rather "wet" update

 

 

I found money for water cooling parts! Yay, finally!

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, let's get to mounting them:

 

 

first off, the GPU..

 

 

 

Next up, the reservoir. This needed a bit more work to be done. The Phobya mounting brackets were really ugly black pieces of plastic, so I made a new one from copper and painted it black.

 

 

 

 

 

And painted:

 

 

I also needed a fill port (and a drain, no pics of it though [its kinda ghetto ])

 

 

 

 

Ok, now it is time for the tubing... I used 10mm chromed copper tubing with push-in black fittings. So, the first tube done and in place:

 

 

And then the rest of dem tubez.. I was so excited that I forgot to take any pics during the tubing.. Sorry about that

 

 

Filling went fine on the 3rd try.. one not-so-properly installed tube, a leak, a wet mobo and a wet graphics card later, I let it dry over night, and it booted up happily in the morning Temps dropped approximately to half, so money well spent.

I also installed a white led-stripe to the roof

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Still, there a things to do:

 

 

- a window

- something to the top to cover the fan holes (allowing air to pass through though, maybe a aluminum sheet on raisers..?)

- a new gfx card, maybe GTX Titan once I have the funds.. (670+ triple screen= nono)

- fix the tube running through everyting (in front of the graphics card)

 

 

That's it for now!

 

 

Maannn, that's a HUGE post.. Here, have a potato:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Please comment

 

Razbit

[Altecice]

Super sexy build . Have you posted it on the ROG forums you may get into MODSRIGS and get free money!

[KaareKanin]

That's how you introduce yourself at a tech forum! Welcome and nice work!

[lachyman]

Great job! If I saw only the last pictures I couldn't even tell it is a Define R4! How about modding a radiator to the top, that would be sweet and also the carrying handles...

[JokuTyyppi]

The potato picture is the best looking of all of those! Hah just kidding

[Razbit]

Thanks guys!

 

This thread was an accidental double-post, Now you guys have to redefine R4s

 

Sorry about that..

 

lachyman,

 

That's a great idea! I'm open to suggestions, a will look into them once I have the funds (a student modding = wallet crying )

 

Altecice, I will definitely look into that!

[MekaMain]

Looks awesome

[Jeroen1322]

HO LY SH*IT! Dude that is so awesome great job! 

[KamiKatze]

This inspires me to mod my own R4 again. Especially the cover for PSU and HDDs looks very nice!

[alpenwasser]

Very nice!

[Razbit]

Thanks guys,

I'll do my best

[hiyayhi]

Welcome to the forums!

This build is insane, if it isn't showed on BLOW (Build Logs Of The Week) I will be surprised. Although maybe not this weeks as it isn't  finishes yet.

 

When I came to this post I though, oh here we go, another fractal design define R4, but no. You have showed much more!

Thanks for posting

[AxelPeeters]

It's beast just ... too ... beatiful

[Bferrari]

Nice job man!

[Analog]

Incredible build, man! Your modding skills are insane...! Good job!

[BiFii]

Very nice!

 Alpenwasser approves!

[atomicmonkey101]

I gotta say, you did a good job with all the custom shizz but it kinda takes away from the R4 not having the front door on it. Just my thoughts.

[LogicDeifying]

Thanks for the potato,Great build! <3

[NanoMasky]

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHH DIS BE SEXY

[RadSalacan]

The black paint on the copper res mount is hot.  Like knowing there's sexy lingerie under drab clothes.

[JAKEBAB]

that piping just does it amazing creation!

[Homicidium]

This build didn't got the attention it deserves! Amazing build and mods, mate! Well done  

[JokuTyyppi]

This build didn't got the attention it deserves! Amazing build and mods, mate! Well done

True, this should already have more views

[Ham1234]

Wow that potato looks so good

[alpenwasser]

This build didn't got the attention it deserves! Amazing build and mods, mate! Well done

 

 

True, this should already have more views

 

That's the disadvantage of posting a build log all in one post: It has much less time

to gather attention unless it's continually bumped by readers.