Project: ~Shadow~

[cyberlocc]

 


The Plan: The plan of the build is a completely black build with accents of blue and dark purple. When done it should be a silent stealthy build that you couldn't see coming from the shadows. The reason I choose the theme shadows is as a tribute to my WOW Guild The Cult of Shadows (Im the GM). Don't let the black on black on black fool you when complete there will be lots going on inside of this case mostly done with artistic methods airbrushing and laser cut panels. I plan to do all the water cooling tubes In flat black painted copper. I choose a NZXT hue for the lighting as it is the only light that can get the hues I want pun intended.

Any comments feedback needed and wanted!

So the question on everyone's mind the components! I will underline the components as I get them.

NZXT Swicth 810 se matte black
Sabertooth z77
Ivy i5 3570k
Vengence ram 16gb 4 x 4 - 8gb at the moment but wrong color
Wd blue single platter 1tb- Ended up just throwing some drives I had around into a raid array for now until I decide how to handle the hdd situation
Samsung 830 128gb
Samsung 830 128gb (raid0)(have one of 2)
GTX 670 FTW
GTX 670 FTW (second card in sli)
Corsair AX 850 (Went with the new xfx 850 back edition instead)
Raystorm cpu block
Alphacool UT45 420
Xspc ex 240
phyoba gchanger 120mm
D5 water pump
Xspc in bay rez
Black tubing
compression fitting black(monsoon)
compression elbows black(monsoon)
Some kind of fan controller suggestions?
Nzxt Hue
Razer death adder
Razer blackwidow Sadly Not stealth because I got a great deal on a regular one.
Razer nostromos Now they come with a new one darn it lol but its green anyway so ya.
Razer Electra
Ill ad more as i think of it

 

Glossary

Gotta start somewhere

Accent painting

Front panel design

Front panel Painted

NZXT Hue and more paint

Last Air pics ~DAY~

Last Air pics ~NIGHT~

Preparing for Water

Whole Lot of Hot Air

[cyberlocc]

kinda just copying a pasting my build log from ocn but the best is yet to come. The winter was a little hard on me money wise my business slows down but as i said the best is yet to come stay tuned. here is what is up so far Okay to clean the post up and better organize Every update and mostly every mod will have a spoiler drop down with the content for it. If you want to see it all at once well just click em all and start scrolling. I am using this method as I have found when looking at others Mods hard as I have to scroll forever to find the part I want to see and its no fun.

Okay so got the case today so my thoughts on it.

First off I love this case its excellent and huge. Really its huge i had know idea how big it realy was until it arrived so plan for it too take some space. Basically its everything id expect from a high end case might even be up there with lian li adn other extremely expensive cases. The one bad thing i have to say so far is the center spring loaded thumb screws are junk. 5 mins after taking it out of the box one of them broke. I was going to call NZXT and ask for a replacement until after completing the build in it the other one broke so I give up on those.

Got my NZXT HUE yesterday and I must say I love it and for all those wondering it covers the switch short of maybe 3-4 inches but you wont notice. If your considering it jsut get it you wont be disappointed I spent maybe 100 dollars in different led strips trying to get the color blue I wanted and finally got this and got my blue.:thumb:

Okay after looking at the thoughts and organization they have changed so much I am going to have to re do all this lol so here we go. My new psu should be here today so ill put up pics of all installed later today until then. here is some older stuff I did

Panels After removing the tooless locks form the bays and even with them I thought it looked gaudy. Also after removing the there is a large hole that shows through to the side panel this wasn't gong to work. I made plates out of acrylic and wrapped them in matte black vinyl.

This is them finished letting them get some sun so the vinyl can dry the windex that i use to simplify applying them and too heat and shrink down nicely.

The plates installed with the back panel off. The drive plate has the ssd velcroed down to it. I will velcro the other ssd below it when I get it.

NZXT Hue. Really glad I got this I have tried many diffrent leds and could never realy find the rich color I wanted the hue I can get it to a T. The fact that the hue mounts in a bay was a issue I plan on using a bay reservoir a dual bay reservoir. So needless to say my drive bays left are valuable atm the plan is a fan controller and the hot swap bay for my hard drive this might change however. Due to needing those bays I came up with a new way to mount my hue. I have a usb 3.0 hub that is self powered mounted to my desk and the way I orientate the case on top of my desk I cant get to the usb ports on front anyway. So I put my Hue there :)

Frontal view with hue installed

How did I do this well Im glad you asked.

I hot glued the hue into the hole it sits at sort of an angle as the hole is smaller than the hue however. You will also notice there is a break in the metal. The hues plug wouldn't go through there so I had to make the hole bigger. I know the break looks bad as I did it with pliers I did it in the middle of the night and didn't want to get out the dremmel will tidy it up later.

The first thing Im always asked when people see my build is how did you mount that window as you will see my side panel is one big piece of acrylic. I experimented With a few different methods before choosing this one as my favorite. You may have seen this mod done on Haf X cases however im the first to do it with a switch from what I have seen (this method anyway).

What your looking at is in every corner of the inlaying rail is a mobo standoff. You'll notice there is a blob around it that is because i had one break off so i layered hot glue around them to better hold them in. They are jb welded into a hole I drilled in the case you could probaly make them just screw in and maybe into a bolt on the other side but the standoffs I had were very short screw side so I welded them. There is weld in the hole around the screw behind it and a little around it then flooded with hot glue. I will probably try to mask the glue better so you cant tell as much but with the panel on its really hard to notice anyway.

There are then holes in the acrylic that line up with these standoffs the standoffs are crucial to rise off the inlay and to the level of the other 2 rails. After getting it mounted I noticed the acrylic would try to bend inward a little. To combat this as well as make it more air tight i line the inlayed rails with black foam the foam is level with the other rails. I used a old black mouse pad and ripped off the cloth and cut strips and glued them down. Im sure there is other foams that could be used but this was what I used as I had it on hand.

The window put on I don't know if the camera will show it but htis piece was cut a little too big so I had to shave off a very slight amount about a mm and so the top edge is a little ruffed and jacked up. But at 20 dollars a sheet Ill use it for a little while and will replace it when I go to apply my vinyl to the window the vinyl will say shadow and make the glass appear etched. My vinyl guy is very busy atm and said he will get back to me when he can get to it so don't realy have an eta atm.

The top I do love NZXTs idea of the closeable vents however I have found that I usually forget to close them. Also my pc is running most of the time therefore the vents are open anyway. This I find is letting lots of dust in my case. So what i ahve done is not necessarily a dust filter but a screen to promote good air flow and prevent some dust it obliviously will allow some but not as much. I used some heavy duty outdoor screen i had left over form doing are porch it keeps the snow out in the winter so it should keep some dust out right.

The above pic is too show how i mounted the screen as i said its outdoor grade so its quite heavy for screen. On the bottom of each rail I put 3 spots of hot glue one on either side and one in the middle. I did each one one at a time and stretched them tightly. On the front end and around the squarish hole where the slide was I did lines of glue all the way it seems to hold pretty strong. Double sided tape by 3m would also work Im sure but its very thick and I didn't have any at the time.

Here is a pic of the top finished looks good. When I find a dark purple paint that matches the color I want for accents I will most likely yank the screen and paint it and put it back. all of the mesh areas will be purple.

Thats all till my psu comes later today ill post pics when it does. The psu I had been using blew up and took 2 hdds with it (thus why I didn't get a ax 850 I had a tx 650 just blow up. Although the xfx I got is the same hardware as a corsair ax 760 and 860. Basicaly a re branded seasonic mk3)

[cyberlocc]

reserved

[cyberlocc]

New PSU is here, I feel like a kid on Christmas waiting for the ups truck :).

True wattage guarantee does tha mean it wont catch fire like my corsair did.

Those cables are gorgeous might not even sleeve them there too pretty.

Alright well I got the psu ascetically I'm in love it matches my theme perfect and looks great. Now its time to hook it up and see if it lives up to its reviews.

[Youssef Medhat]

why glass :D + yea don't sleeve the cables they look amazing :D and good luck bro :D that's my favorite Case Over There :D

[Gdog96]

Looking good...I have the switch 810 and I dislike the optical drive quick release things too.

[cyberlocc]

hey thanks guys so got my psu hooked up and it makes a high pitch buzzing noise when the system is off or on should I send it back Id really rather not wait for another one again lol. The sound isn't very loud but its a whine that gets to you if your 2 ft or closer. It does seem to be getting quieter however.

EDIT: Okay I spoke with Seasonic tried XFX but there CS dept is unavailable atm moving locations or something. The seasonic rep was very nice and happy to help (They would prolly no more anyway as they built the psu XFX just puts there name on it lol) they said it should be alright the sound seems to be getting quiter just leaving it plugged in. Amazon is out of them and wont have any for 2 weeks so i think im going to use it and see if it gets better and wait for my corsair RMA that way I wont be without a PSU while this one gets replaced.

[cyberlocc]

why glass :D + yea don't sleeve the cables they look amazing :D and good luck bro :D that's my favorite Case Over There :D

Its acrylic lol not glass. And why acrylic because ill be putting 3 rads in here and I want to see everything.

[cyberlocc]

okay got bored last night as I wrapped my psu up to send it back and get a new one. So I Decided to try some of my purple paints I have like 4 diffrent kinds Im just going to have to use one. I grabbed some acrylic scraps I had laying around and painted them 1 shot purle and 1 shot flat clear as I want it matte but there aint matte purple. My paint booth (realy just a shed outside my porch) light died after while i was doing this with the 4th color to compare. What I seen then took the cake lol as I opened the shed door my porch light slightly illuminated the shed as much as a pc screen and tv being on and maybe a nightlight in a dark room would. All the colors were of course darker in the lighting but still as vibrant as ever except one. Krylons regular purple with a krylon flat clear coat appered matte black in the low lighting it almost macthed the case parts color to a T where you could barely tell it was purple. In bright light it appears a flat dark purple in lesser light a vey dark purple almost like the night sky in very low light straight black. And we have a Winner :) granted the other paints changed a little depending on lighting but not like this and it truly spoke the word shadow to me as the darker it is outside the darker your shadow will be.

Heres the paint in the sun. all the metal mesh on the case has been painted as well as the screen in the top panel.

Heres a pic in the house average daytime lighting few lights on all curtains open. My phones camera doesnt like the non blinding light lol. I will try to take some night pics tonite sometime but ya you kinda see what I mean from these pics

Also I have painted the pci dust covers on my sabertooth and a few of the thumb screws (the two that hold the plate over the 5.25 drive bays and the 4 that will hold g cards. I will also attempt to paint some anti kink coils the same color and thats where the purple will end. Tiny accents of chrome purple and all the rest black will be the end result. I dont like too have to much color I think builds with alot of color led fans multi colored tubing ect is just too gawdy too much going on IMO. So this build will be silent subtle and fast the ways of shadows :). What yal think about the paint. Any other cool ideas to modding the build let me know.

[cyberlocc]

So I got my Front plate painted using a tape stencil method. So here we go. I lined the plate with masking tape printed out the image I wanted and then slowly and careful cut the images paper and tape with a razer.

Now off to Paint. Wish me luck.

[cyberlocc]

Okay paint is done I don't know if I pulled the tape soon or too late or what but it kinda peeled with the tape so i preseed it down with my finger. It looks pretty good though I kinda like the textured look to it. Although Im going to get a new panel and have it laser cut and slap a painted piece of acrylic behind it maybe. This will do for now.

Also I have dwood making me a custom back plate for my 670s one atm. The back plate will be painted with the same font and say shadow and gtx 670 ftw. On don't yet have an eta but hopefully soon as Ill be ordering my loop next week.

[Dacho]

cool

[cyberlocc]

cool

thanks

[Elliotf38]

Looks great.

[Williamchan87]

Looking good

[hiyayhi]

Sweet build :D

I wish I had the materials to do something like this to my PC...

[Onyx]

That looks badass can't wait to see what it's like when watercooled.

[cyberlocc]

Sweet build :D

I wish I had the materials to do something like this to my PC...

most the stuff i use is cheap or house hold or do you mean the tools

[cyberlocc]

That looks badass can't wait to see what it's like when watercooled.

Thanks very much the watercooling is gunna have to be set back a month or 2 as i just broke my phone and had to get a new one and since i dont use contract plans new phones for me is about 600-700.

Although this time i got a good deal from a friend i bought his galaxy s3 for 500 he only had it for a month. beats 669.99

[cyberlocc]

hey thanks guys so got my psu hooked up and it makes a high pitch buzzing noise when the system is off or on should I send it back Id really rather not wait for another one again lol. The sound isn't very loud but its a whine that gets to you if your 2 ft or closer. It does seem to be getting quieter however.

EDIT: Okay I spoke with Seasonic tried XFX but there CS dept is unavailable atm moving locations or something. The seasonic rep was very nice and happy to help (They would prolly no more anyway as they built the psu XFX just puts there name on it lol) they said it should be alright the sound seems to be getting quiter just leaving it plugged in. Amazon is out of them and wont have any for 2 weeks so i think im going to use it and see if it gets better and wait for my corsair RMA that way I wont be without a PSU while this one gets replaced.

K well i guess im swicthing to a xxx semi modular as i ordered a new full from new egg and they sent me the wrong one and said the can only refund my money so 2 more weeks without a psu i been without one for almost a month now so im just gunna live with this one for now thinking about running 3 gtx 670s anyway so ill need bigger and use this for another build later

[cyberlocc]

Okay so im getting the water started thios month after all although not going to go all out right off the bat but get a baseline and go from there

[cyberlocc]

Okay guys got a few updates I have done lately so first I think I mentioned before that I Painted my pci covers and some screws purple here they are.

PCI and screws painted

HUE NEW mounting as I said I wrote a big long thing on how I did this but it logged me out and I don't want to type it again atm So if you want to know ask if it haven't added the how to yet.

This one I will explain that i had to shave the buttons down a little just the raising on the sides and the color strip otherwise the flip cover would not close all the way flush. I put stickers just cuh I had them.

Any 1 with a switch that has taken the front panel off knows that flip door connects to the USB bay thing I took it apart and cut off the entire center of it. All that is left is the sides that hold the door then I screwed those on with a little glue to help them from moving. I then took apart the hue and insulated the back of the board with electrical tape. Used a heat gun on low and far away to make the tape better mold to the board Left about a 1/3 inch trim on the back of the board that wasn't taped and ran a thick line of hot glue across it and glued the board in between the 2 sides

Sorry pics suck my new phone is out for repair I flashed a bad rom so it out for jtag be back tomorrow tho.

When it comes back Ill take some good pics of the complete current state. The pics i post will be the last on air next stop Water Cooling!

[mvitkun]

this looks awesome so far,can't wait for more.

[Theonlymitch]

Sweet nice build

[cyberlocc]

Thanks very much guys :)