Cable Sleeving and Upgrade Advice

[DanTheMuffinMan]

Hello Guys, this is gonna be a long one.

 

So after posting my build (Obsidian 1.0) and being super proud of it, I looked at the Build Of The Week thread, that was a mistake. The pure awesomeness of those systems has driven me to do better myself, I doubt I'll ever get it as good as those guys, but damn I can try. The first things I decided to do was ditch my air cooler and colour-coordinate my system (Obsidian 1.1), but the real significant mod I want to do is cable sleeving (Obsidian 1.2). I've spent the last week researching the hell out of it and I'm finally convinced someone with no experience can do it.

 

People with actual experience, I'm requesting you go over my preparation process to make sure it make's sense and that the numbers are correct.

 

I've been asking some questions on LTT, but decided to start my own thread so I wouldn't be taking over anybody else's. From what I've learned it seems that Lutro0-Customs is the best sleever out there and his FAQ and youtube channel are my primary source for instruction. And most people say Million Dollar PC (MDPC-X) is the best sleeving material source there is, they are in Germany, so shipping won't be free, but it seems very reasonable and they provide lots of options and nobody has said anything bad about it's owner, Nils. However they are not the only choice, you can also get Paracord from Lutro-0 Customs, have Lutro-0 do it for you entirely (obviously expensive) or you can get extensions which are machined large-scale, so they'll be lesser quality and you'll have to deal with managing longer cables, but they're fast and simple. The best selection I've seen for extensions (in Canada) is Memory Express and I've heard a few people recommend BitFenix if you do go the pre-done extension route.

 

You can see my Obsidian 1.0 specs and pictures here.

 

My Obsidian 1.1 upgrade will be done this spring and consists of cooling and aesthetic upgrades:

• Replacing the quality but ugly Noctua NH-D14 with Swiftech H320 All-In-One liquid cooling
• Replacing the stock Swiftech Helix fans with Cougar Vortex fans
• Replacing the 750D's stock fans with Cougar Vortex fans
• Adding NZXT LED lighting (orange)

My Obsidian 1.2 upgrade will be the sleeving upgrade, but requires more planning. Following Lutro-0's advice in his FAQ and some random guessing, here is the process I came up with, please make sure I'm doing this right.

 

PSU: First I decided to replace my semi-modular PSU with a fully-modular PSU. I believe this will make the sleeving process much easier, though I have seen some people say working with a non-modular PSU is easier, but that it requires opening the casing, something I am not willing to do. Since I've has such good experience with Corsair, I decided to go with the AX-860. As an added bonus this will mean I can continue to keep the old PSU in my computer and have it functional during the actual sleeving, which will be a multi-day process.

 

What method/sleeve do I use? I decided after watching all of Lutro0's guides to go with the MDPC (plastic) heatshrinkless method. This should deliver a real nice look with the added bonus of not having to line up all the heatshrink perfectly. I also considered paracord but it didn't have all of the options I wanted so I decided to go with MDPC.

 

Colour Scheme: I've decided to with black as my main colour and orange as my accent. I hadn't originally planned on modding or colour-coordinating when I originally built the system, so I kind of have to work with what I have, namely black components. For the sleeving I've seen lots of looks and decided that I would make each cable 75% black with an orange stripe offset from the centre. The pattern i would use for the 24-pin:

 

 

How much sleeving do I need? I used the PSU's datasheet to determine the length of the cables I intended to sleeve. I broke the sleeving into the three different categories as named by MDPC:

• Small Sleeve, for individual wires. The 24-Pin, EPS, PCI-E, Molex and Sata power cables. Black Orange
• Sata Data Sleeve. Black Orange
• USB Sleeve. For small wires such as the internal USB, front-panel and audio cables. Black

Then I multiplied the number of each cable by the length of the cable by the number of wires I wanted black and the number I wanted orange like so:

(Number of cables) x (length of cable in mm) x (number of black wires in cable)

Example: 24 Pin connector = (1 cable) x (610 mm) x (18 black wires) = 10.98 meters of black sleeving

 

 

I've added a 25% safety margin to each total, I'm hoping that is enough but if someone with experience would like to correct me, I would be thankful. I have also decided to buy heatshrink pre-cut, so I took the number of connections I had (120) and added a 75% safety margin on those for a total of at least 210.

 

You'll also need some tools to complete all this. If you already have some of them then it will be cheaper for you, but this is what my price estimate came out to:

 

 

And here is the actual cart from MDPC:

 

 

Note that since I'm ordering from Canada I don't have to pay the 19% VAT (tax?) so the cost is lower than what is shown on their website by default as Nils details here. Shipping is also better then I thought it would be.

Note that I have not placed the order yet as I'm waiting until summer to do this upgrade and I want to hear back from some pro's to make sure I'm doing it right.

 

Thanks for reading that long-ass post and I welcome any advice or questions.

[cerulean]

I do a fair amount of sleeving and custom cables for client builds so I'll answer what I can

 

Usually I order about 150 feet worth of sleeving when I do a PSU, that leaves about 20-30 or so feet of extra which I then use to make extensions and sell off.

 

As for material, paracord is awesome, cheap, looks nice and is really very easy to work with. the only real issue is that any brand of white paracord you get will leak colour, but seeing as you aren't using white this wont be an issue for you (EDIT- it also looks nowhere near as good as MDPC or Teleios) I have done alot of work with MDPC sleeving and it looks nothing short of outstanding, but recently I've made the switch over to Teleios sleeving which is also available at Lutro0's store and it is a step up from MDPC, not by much, but it still does look better.

 

As for method, go with whatever you think looks best, I personally love the heatshrinkless look and do suggest that to my clients as much as I can, Keep in mind though that on Lutro0's site he actually sells heatshrink thats designed to be used for heatshrinkless sleeving and wont stick to the sleeve as much as the regular stuff, so order some of that if you can, then a few peices of regular heatshrink to do your sata power with as the regular stuff looks better when you leave it on

 

A fully modular PSU is also the best way to go by far, dealing with a non modular PSU is a pain to say the least.

 

Apart from that everything you have posted looks fine and you seem to have a decent grasp of it all. Just remember that it's going to take a great deal of patience the first time doing a sleeving job and don't expect to be able to pull it off first shot and have it perfect, it's much easier to make heatshrinkless look nice, but it still takes a little while to get your head around it, so be prepared to have to redo cables here and there. Also be prepared to cut yourself when depinning, My hands were shreaded when I did my first PSU and every other sleever I know has done the same.

 

If you have any other questions feel free to drop me a personal message more than happy to help!

[FluffyNuggets]

You should get as much sleeve as you can afford. I would say around 60m for the 24-pin, 8-pin CPU, PCIE cables. You will most likely mess up quite a few long runs so you need to account for that. Don't throw it away though since you may be able to use that sleeve on another cable. 

 

Having just done a Corsair AX850 I can tell you a few tips that I learned. Some of the pins will have two wires going to one pin and that makes it a pain to sleeve because the end is fatter and with the sleeve there it's hard to get it back in the connector. I'd suggest splicing the second wire further down and either soldering or tying the wires together and using electrical tape. I used electrical tape since I didn't have a soldering iron and I'd probably mess it up anyways. I did this on quite a few wires and everything works fine!

 

I went with heat shrinkless sleeving using Lutro0's method. It works really good on most of the cables but there's a few that didn't stick and the sleeve pulled down. This was mainly due to when I put the wire into the connector and the sleeve being too high up. So if you go that route try to melt it as low as you possibly can. It's a lot of trial and error figuring out where it needs to go.

 

Another tip I can give you is for the pins that have two wires is to cut the sleeve longer than it looks. This is because with the MDPC small sleeve doesn't stretch out when there's two wires in the sleeve. So I would measure the sleeve like usual but after I got the wire in the sleeve it was way shorter than what I measured. To account for this I measured from the middle of one pin the the very end of the other pin. It's always better to cut it a little longer because you can just cut off the extra you don't need.

 

I hope you have better luck than I did sleeving my AX850 because my 24-pin header sucked and the pins wouldn't release! I would highly advise buying some crimps and a crimper now because you're most likely gonna need it.  

[DanTheMuffinMan]

Does anyone have experience with Corsair's individually sleeved cables? Granted they don't have the colour scheme but it would undoubtedly be cheaper and easier.

 

I don't suppose it would be advisable to purchase those cables and then custom sleeve just the bits I want in orange?

Edit: or Shakmods? or IceModz?

[lutro0customs]

It looks like you got a good grasp of what you need to do.

 

Always buy more heatshrink and sleeve then you need because of the learning curve and errors.

 

I have listed an easy way to calculate what you need in my FAQ which is where you seem to have grabbed allot of your info.

 

As for PSUs I have listed some of the easiest ones to sleeve in the FAQ as well. One of the newer ones on the market I like to work on are the corsair axi series and the RM series.

As for double wires I have made a video guide on my youtube channel on how to tackle them. If you follow it they will turn out perfectly.

Also for supplies I ship stuff to Canada all the time. People have loved the new Teleios Line - however we do not have an orange out yet but are working on one.

Another place that is close to you for sleving supplies is DazMod, he carries good supplies and is in Canada.

Please feel free to send me a PM if you need any help with anything! Also the links to my guides is in my sig.

[DanTheMuffinMan]

THE @lutro0customs ?, tis an honour sir

 

I will definitely  check out the Teleios line and thank you so much for making the video guides

[lutro0customs]

THE @lutro0customs ?, tis an honour sir

 

I will definitely  check out the Teleios line and thank you so much for making the video guides

 

Thanks and not a problem, the more people we can get into sleeving the better!

[vong]

Hey guys,

 

Rather than start a new thread, I'm looking to do some cable sleeving on my AX860 as well and just wandering what size sleeving I need. Can someone recommend me some sizes? Or would one size fit all the cables?