Project Mellifera - PC-O11D XL Casemod

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Refinished the stainless steel plate on the front of the distro in brushless/satin.

 

 

Notch cut in the case to run the cables from the pump

 

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Distro in and fitted, replaced the tape on the front thank blanks the screw holes.

 

 

Lightbox in and fitted

[DJ46]

I still can't believe how good that satin finish turned out.

It gives me hope that I could achieve something half as nice with what I have.

[HM-2]

7 hours ago, DJ46 said:

I still can't believe how good that satin finish turned out.

It gives me hope that I could achieve something half as nice with what I have.

I was actually pretty amazed how easy it was to get that sort of finish on the aluminium. The anodising coating on the case front was pretty thick so I had to drop down to 100 grit to remove it, but it flatted out well. The stainless steel on the distro was a bit tougher, but left more of a mirror finish. I probably could have stopped around 500 grit on that. 

 

The Abralon pads are an absolute revelation. They're a soft foam with abrasives on one side and hook and loop on the other. I think they were originally designed for automotive use, for doing stuff like paint correction on curved surfaces without burning through on high points. The finish they leave is absolutely brilliant. 

 

I'm using quite literally the cheapest, shittest random orbit sander you can buy, a 450w Clarke one that was like £25. I've actually spent about double that in the sanding pads and I need to order still more because they're also what I use to make satin finish tubing.

[DJ46]

2 hours ago, HM-2 said:

The Abralon pads are an absolute revelation. They're a soft foam with abrasives on one side and hook and loop on the other. I think they were originally designed for automotive use, for doing stuff like paint correction on curved surfaces without burning through on high points. The finish they leave is absolutely brilliant. 

 

I'm using quite literally the cheapest, shittest random orbit sander you can buy, a 450w Clarke one that was like £25. I've actually spent about double that in the sanding pads and I need to order still more because they're also what I use to make satin finish tubing.

I don't know why but I expected orbit sanders to cost more than an angle grinder.

 

Almost forgot you were doing satin tubing as well, this build is going to look awesome.

[HM-2]

1 hour ago, DJ46 said:

I don't know why but I expected orbit sanders to cost more than an angle grinder.

 

Almost forgot you were doing satin tubing as well, this build is going to look awesome.

I'll probably look to buy a new one once I kill this one, I'm invested in the Makita 18V system now thanks to my drill. 

 

Motherboard is in, LED cables tidied

 

Test fitted rad. May have some slight drain port clearance issues but we'll see.

 

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Bottom rad in.

 

 

I've discovered that one of my packs of Satin Titanium fittings isn't actually satin titanium, despite being labelled as such. I think they're polished nickel instead. Annoyingly I bought them months ago so I'm unlikely to be able to return them. Arse. 

[HM-2]

Tubing test fit.

 

 

It's maybe 3mm lower at the distro side than the rad...not really noticeable but it will annoy me. It's also possibly 2mm too short. Still seems to hold air though. I'll play with some offset fittings to see what I prefer. 

[HM-2]

Now I've got a proper 16mm tubing jig, I cut and finalised some of the straight runs.

 

Bottom radiator

 

GPU

 

Pretty happy with how those are looking.

[HM-2]

On the home stretch now. Ran the bulk of the front side cabling including 24 and 8 pins, USB 3.2, fan and pump control and 5v RGB. Still need to do 12v RGB and the GPU plus some more training to get the alignments how I want. 

 

Fitted top rad, cut top radiator tubing.

 

Also started satin finishing some of the finalised tubes.

 

I only need to do CPU now, which is going to be the only bend in the system. I've played with using fittings but I don't think it looks right. The lower port is just a simple 90° but the top will be a bit more complex, a 90° into a 45° to line up with a 45° fitting distro side. I've currently run out of tubing ,(accidently bought PETG instead of acrylic) so it'll be a couple of days. Then leak testing!

[HM-2]

So that's 90% of the tubing done. I've had a couple of fuck ups trying to get the second 45° bend so I might look to using fittings instead, it'll play about.

 

 

 

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More

 

 

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Finally ready for leak testing.

 

 

 

Absolutely over the moon with how it looks. 

[HM-2]

Looks like a minor leak from one of the CPU tubes. Will have a go at reseating.

[HM-2]

Leak resolved. Wasn't CPU but top rad, must have accidentally used one of the offcuts that was very marginally too short. Air tested overnight and filled this morning.

 

 

So overall I think it looks great. The coolant could do with being marginally darker and the internal drain port was a completely pointless endeavour as it's totally inaccessible. There are a couple of grubby fingerprints that seem to have etched into the aluminium and will probably polishing out. And the bottom plug is the wrong sort so I'll have to flip the whole thing upside down to change it.

 

But overall I'm pretty damn happy.

[HM-2]

After a rather bizarre fail to boot situation that seems to have been caused by my aRGB hub, we're up and running. With no tweaking it seems to be doing 4.4GHz all core out of the box on a Cinebench torture test and four cores have gone beyond 4.9, 2 up to 5. After 30m CPU temperature is a chilly 62°C.

[wct097]

Wow.  That's some incredible work.  Good job!

[HM-2]

Default unicorn vomit

 

 

More tasteful

 

Closeup on the lightbox.

 

Done no real tweaking other than enabling PBO. Sitting pretty at 4.45GHz on all core workloads and still boosting up to nearly 5 on some cores. CPU temps stable at 75°C after an hour of Cinebench. 

[TC_off]

I really like your attention to detail and ability to get the pipes perfectly parallel to one another. This is a really mixed build project and makes me want to try a water cooling build! 

[Captain Matt]

This is SO effing clean. Great work, dude.

[HM-2]

On 1/26/2022 at 4:38 AM, Captain Matt said:

This is SO effing clean. Great work, dude.

Thanks- it's 95% done now and I'm really happy with how it looks. Just need to make up the back covers to hide the spaghetti (not that anyone can see it) and look at etching the glass. Part of me has also been idly considering sanding the case feet and maybe even top panel to match the front IO, so we have some continuity of aluminium through the middle of the case (with just the back and sides left black brushed).

 

I'll try and grab some better pictures at the weekend.

[zogthegreat]

Really nice work! I like how you got the fluid to match the edges of the fans. Ties everything together... like a good rug!

 

 

 

 

[HM-2]

This is still ticking along nicely, thankfully. Currently looking at an upgrade to a 3080ti FTW3 on a Watercool block with an HX1200 PSU.

Recent addition is some colour coded custom keycaps for my Filco Majestouch 2

 

[HM-2]

Nearly a year down the line, and all running very well.

 

 

I did a teardown and clean about two weeks ago as the pump wasn't spinning up. Swapped out my pump impeller with a spare and all running well- looks like a bit of rad flux got caught in the bearing. I also cleaned it all out, gave the front aluminium satin panel a bit of extra love, and refilled with a mixture of EK Cryofuel concentrate in opaque yellow and distilled water with a few drops of Mayhem's inhibitor and biocide.

 

It's running like a dream, better than it ever has before. PBO2 is hitting 4.7GHz in shorter workloads before dropping back to 4.65 once stuff gets hot. I've been able to add another 10MHz onto the GPU too. CPU temps during torture testing are a chilly 73°C.

 

 

 

I will be upgrading my GPU and power supply in the new year, likely moving to an RTX 4080 (but waiting for availability for the Watercool blocks to be announced) and a 2022 HX10000i black label with Cablemod cables. At this time, I'll also take the case feet (front and rear) off and give them the same satin treatment I gave the front panel. I still haven't got round to mocking up the rear cover but will try and do that whilst I have some time off over Christmas.

[HM-2]

REDUX!

 

Some initial progress on a continuation of this casemod. Going to be slowish going due to part availability and lack of free time.

 

RTX 4080

2080 is out, now replaced with an ASUS 4080 TUF. It's currently on air whilst I try and source a Phanteks G40- overclockers are the sole UK distributors but their order which was due in late August has been delayed with no ETA. 

 

 

 

 

Custom 12vHPWR cable

This was supplied by ModDIY with 2x 12 pin AX750 Gold pinout. Yes it's an old PSU but it's plenty powerful enough to keep things tiding over for now; I will eventually upsize to something 1000w ATX3.0 and retire it.

 

ColdZero rear panel cover

Picked up a rear cover that obscures the horrid der8auer sticker and GPU vertical mount. I'm going to spray some sort of hexagon pattern on it before fitting.

 

 

I'm also planning on a few more laser cut / CNC panels, one top and one bottom, in the same hexagonal style as the lightbox. These will partly obscure the upper and lower radiators and I might also fit them with diffused LED strips

 

At the rear I'll also be doing some shroud and cover panels for the cabling.