[Project] BalROG

[crazymofo]

Inspirations

 

Before I start my worklog on my upcoming watercooling build I would like to thank all the people that are involved in helping me with my doubts & giving me advice since I was a total noob hehehe...

 

Big thanks to Overclock.net, the members in the water cooling forum is probably the most helpful people that I ever meet online. Special thanks to Martin & Skinnee Labs for all the unbiased testing data that they put out online for people like us. Without their data, making decision would be extremely hard for me & I will probably end up opening so many threads asking questions around instead of reading.

 

Thanks to Martin & Bundymania for their reviews on radiators, helped me a lot on choosing the right radiator. Biggest inspiration on why I want to watercool is probably form everybody awesome build that I saw in the Water Cooling Gallery in OCN & XtremeSystems. Really motivated me since its so aesthetically pleasing. Thanks to Million Dollar Pc too, the gallery in there is like porn hahaha...

 

Thanks to Irie too, gave me some inspiration on the luminous panel. Thanks to the members in forum.lowyat.net too, without them getting watercooling parts would be my biggest challenge.

 

Current Progress:

 

[crazymofo]

Current build status...

Please ignore the un-sleeved cables, cheap mobo & the ghetto screw driver support.

[crazymofo]

Moarr fittingsss!!....

bitspower fittings is sexy alright...feel free to visit my blog for more explanation & stories 

who dont love some durian? 

[crazymofo]

Place for bubbles to rest....

Got the reservoir already :hehe:







Poopadilly, now you guys will know how I get that white background...lmao... :x I aint got no studio man...just trying to diy to get the best out of my camera  

c'mon...dont tell me you dont like some kinder bueno imported from poland? :drool:

ps: I am selling kinder bueno. PM me if you are interested & let me know how many boxes you need.

[crazymofo]

Drain valve arrived!...

So sorry didnt take much pictures on the valve & T-block fittings. Will take more in future 











random shiny shot  :

oh gawd...dat rojak & cendol...nom nom nom!

[crazymofo]

Anti fingerprints...

Bought some gloves to work with my build. Size is a bit small but thats the only size they had.





Plan to use this as the coolant... 


I believe 500ml is not enough, 1 litter should be enough to fill my reservoir...

[crazymofo]

Just a quick unboxing on the NZXT Hue & XSPC Raystorm. Sorry for not much pictures, will take more pictures in the future as I plan to fully unbox it to fix it into my rig because I plan to do a short review on those items soon. Since I haven't get any thermal paste yet so I didn't want to open the WB from its plastic. Any idea how does the K2 thermal paste performs?

I am planning to get arctic MX-4. I really wish I had a proper camera to take quality pictures 

[crazymofo]

RX360 Unboxing & initial thoughts

Unboxing the radiator was fast. This was how it came, packed in the retail box.














I like the matte black finish it has, feels different when you touch it. I even tried putting it in front of my air conditioner & it becomes so cold in less than a minute.

[crazymofo]

Okay flushing time....






As usual, XSPC radiators are famous to have this black gunk inside the radiator. Thats really a big piece, those who didn't flush their radiator before, you might have this trapped in the waterblock which might affect the loop flowrate. I believe this is just the paint but I didn't care much, just flush & throw it away hehe...








Yup, using distiled water to flush alright. In fact I used pure distilled water only, didn't even flush using tap water at the first. I know you can use tap water & rinse it later but what the heck, I bought a big bottle & might as well use it. Distilled water ain't expensive alright...extra 500ml somemore 




Second flushing & there is still quite a lot black stuff. I flushed my radiator I think 7 times until the water is almost clear. Wasn't easy alright, need to fill in & shake shake with my hand manually. Did a little dance with the radiator but too bad no pictures for that. Luckly the radiator build quality is good so no flexing or what when I was shaking it vigorously.



To flush it effectively use warm water. I boiled mine till its hot enough but not too hot as I didn't want to damage it.





Now this is where it gets interesting, I was trying to look into the radiator through the ports, the radiator core inside dosent look as shiny as pictures in the internet so take note of this.The copper looks kinda dull & plain to me but what to do, this is how it is. Also I heard some people got their RX radiators without any threads so they had to tap it manually. Not sure if this issue was with the previous version or what but mine didnt have that issue. As you can see I can fit my compression fittings without any problem.



Conclusion:

Radiator build & paint quality is excellent. Price is cheaper than other radiators too but take a look at the AX360 radiators too. They are sexy with similar price or slightly more. The end tank for mine isn't completely flat, its a little swollen but maybe this is just for my unit? So far I tested there isn't any leaks but will check again once I get my pump.

Radiator can be thick so check if it fits for you or not before buying. I believe it should conduct heat pretty well because when I was flushing it with warm water the radiator did become pretty warm in a short period of time...

I dont have much to talk about it, its just a radiator but feel free to post comments below if you have any question or things I should talk about in the future...

[crazymofo]

Unboxing the Switch 810







First look is nice, I like the black matte paint feel to it. It feels very nice when you touch it although colour isn't perfect matching but it isn't that bad.



Plain & simply at the back of the casing, take note that there is leds at the back I/O panel.



I would prefer if the window is square instead of this shape.



Top panel build quality is bad. So flimsy, in fact it came broken! Basically there is two tiny plastic holding the top panel for its quick removal feature. All you need to do is press the panel & pop it out but 1 of my plastic clip was broken so it's very hard to get it in place. Its still useable but it takes really long time to find the hole to put it back in its place.



This is what I am talking about.



Can fit 3 fans at the top panel, makes it easier to clean the fans.



Cable management is great in this case, lots of big rubber grommets. All the cables are black colour so that is a good thing, even for the fans too.

[crazymofo]

It came with a fan hub, so you can plug all your fans over here. Little things like this makes the building experience easier.



Cable ties that it came with is pretty small in length, they should made it longer in length.





It also came with 8pin power extension cable.



All the front panel cables etc...



Another feature is the quick removal side panel feature. Basically all you need to do is push this screw downwards & pop that side panel off. It gets stuck sometimes, probably need to spray the mechanism with WD-40 to lubricate it. You can also secure the side panel with two more screws to add that extra security





The casing came with 4 x 140mm fans. This is great for people who do aircooling but since I am going to watercool it, I have no use of it. I am going to get corsair sp120 fans, so I might just sell all this fans off. The exhaust position at the back is adjustable, you can position the fan in the middle, top or bottom any how you like. This is great as it gives quite a lot of clearance to the radiator at the top.





This is another great feature. It allows you to mount your hdd/ssd into your 5.25 drive bay. Just mount the hdd into the tray & slot it into the drive bay. It will connect to this pcb & you can plug the cables into this.

[crazymofo]

Notice those holes at the drive bay? Basically if you mount a radiator that is too long, your fans with push pull setup can still be installed. The holes allows airflow for the fans.



This is the built in optical drive cover. Its quite smart actually, if you look at the casing pictures at the front, there is a optical drive cover with a button, basically you press that button & that will press your dvd drive button from the inside. The tray will come out & this cover will move downwards. This maintains the clean look outside of your case when you dont use the dvd drive.



This is another feature to allow air flow the the hdd & cpu/gpu depending on how you position it. I dont need this though so makes no difference to me because I need that space to mount my radiator.



The 3M tape that they use is crap. In fact why did they use a 3M tape instead? Basically a rubber grommet should be under that hole but it was making too much noise as I change the fan directions. Because it was moving here & there.



This is what I was talking about. It should be under that hole there but I removed it as it was secured properly. They should have used super glue instead.



This screw goes into that hole & after tightening it the fan position cant be moved.



This was the hdd/ssd drive bay I was talking about.



You can mount a monster psu in here without a problem. Comes with nice solid pads at the bottom.



This is where the hdd/ssd drive tray goes in.

[crazymofo]

Front fan filter comes out easily. Just push it & pop it out.



All the fan filters in the casing is great! The filter holes is quite small so this will ensure less dust particles will enter but this will add more restriction to the airflow though. I dont mind because the previous cooler master casing that I was using, the fan filter was Poopadilly. The holes was quite big & the casing still gets dusty overtime.



You can fit 2 x 140mm fans or 2 x 120 fans.



The hdd drive bay is easily removable. Just unscrew few screws & pop it out like this.



Take note the fan filer isnt covered at the bottom. Not sure why nzxt did this but bear in mind dusty can come in from here. What I plan to do is buy custom filter & glue it by myself later on.



Casing came with a dead cockroach. Wtf?







Again little things like this makes life easier. The screws are all labeled in its own plastic bag. This is just genius!



Fan filter at the bottom, 1 at the psu & another at the front. Both are easily removable by pushing it & sliding it out. The front filter is longer in side which is good otherwise the psu filter will be long & you might need to move your casing from the wall in order to get it out.



Thats about it. Great casing overall with some pretty heavy weight to it. Lots of nice features here & there but I hate the top panel though. Came broken some more but I discussed with cyntrixtech & they say they can RMA that top panel so I shall wait for a replacement, otherwise might need to buy some top panel & mod it myself.

[crazymofo]

Got new stuff in the mail today. Ordered some thermal paste & modding tool kit.







I ordered silver but I got black instead, not a big deal...just colour difference. Quality seems reasonable, cant tell much until I started sleeving with it.





I had this stuff for quite some time, just didnt had the chance to take any pictures of it...







Biocide comes with ph paper....so cool man!...

[crazymofo]

Time to remove that stock intel cooler! Cooler, gtfo...



Just finished cleaning it with alcohol...thats right, intel i5 2400. Made a mistake last time & didn't get the 2500K but I am going to sell this off soon once haswell is out so no big deal. This processor is still pretty good though...



No wonder my temps are like Poopadilly, just look at that thermal paste...



Silly me, installed the fittings without the acrylic, had to remove the fittings since it can't go in due to the fitting size.





WB came with minor scratches at the copper. I see everyone had mirror finish except me. Contacted cnytrixtech & they said its normal, had to polish it with barso. But since I applied thermal paste & mount it already I don't feel like doing anything with it. I also forgot to flush it, damn! Maybe later on I will manually flush it with tubing lol.



Installed to the motherboard. Before you guys say anything, I just want to say that this motherboard is temporary only. Will be changing to ROG motherboard when haswell is out 



Installed the motherboard standoff already..

[crazymofo]

Oh my, that motherboard looks so tiny in that casing hahaha...











Once again, little things like this makes the casing nice, drive bay panel is easily removable by just squeezing the side of it unlike my cooler master where I need to pop it from the inside.





This is the top pannel section that I said was broken, that plastic is still inside there. Will try to use super glue as a temporary solution for now.



Drive bay hdd/ssd tray is easily removable...

[crazymofo]

Where do you think the NZXT hue sits well? I think the 3rd bay looks better...





The led strips is super long! It was able to cover my whole case.



Easy to install the strip, just plug the pins into the holes. Becareful though the pins are quite small, you dont want to bend it...









Led strip came defect, 3 of the leds are not working as it should. I believe the wire inside the strip is loose or something because there is a specific spot when I press it, it works otherwise it shows a different colour.

This also can be a good thing & bad, if you notice it didn't affect the whole strip so next time if an led failed I believe the others might still be working. The bad thing about this if 1 failed then the colour it shows might be a little f***ed up, so this could mess with your colour scheme lol

[crazymofo]

Oh & I forgot to mention, I couldn't find any pure 99% alcohol around my area so I used this instead. The next best thing to isophoric alcohol..

[crazymofo]

Drilled some holes for the radiator.



I tried using a magnet to collect all the iron when drilling, didn't really work as expected. Still had to clean it manually.





First time drilling a casing hehehe, too bad had a little scratches but its ok, the radiator will cover that...



Injured myself while drilling, modding is a serious business yo! f***...





Need to smooth the behind surface now. I tried to become too pro without using any masking tape, didn't work out as expected LOL, had a little scratches behind but I covered that with a black marker pen hahaha, lesson learned. Don't try to be too pro, use that bloody masking tape!



So far looking good, I should have drilled the holes to the left a little bit, because the radiator looks a little too far away. But I can't move it too close either otherwise I will block the cable management holes & I will have no way to hide the sata cables later.



The psu cable looks nice this way. Its not the cable that I am going to use though, this was my previous sleeving job. I still need to make my custom cable because this cable length is too short.



Actually I wanted to go for this setup, where I have the cables on top of the reservoir but This makes the cable look too long. Maybe later if I get a new motherboard that is bigger in size it will look better. Will see how it goes...



Everything is done! Now I need to get some fittings, fans, pump & tubing. Oh and cable sleevings...

[crazymofo]

So I decided to add some red highlights to my casing since it will be an ASUS ROG theme build. So I started with striping down the casing.



Removed the top panel...



Next was to remove the casing feet...





This is the top panel that I removed previously. It was 2 plastic joined together with more than 10 screws so had to open it in order to remove the mesh.



This mesh is from the bottom part of the casing, i.e the casing plastic foot. It was quite simple, after removing the 4 screws from the bottom you can then pull out the plastic feet. Then you can use a plier to bend the mesh notches straight. After doing it for all then just push it & it should pop right out. Sorry didnt take any detailed pictures because I was lazy hahaha.



The mesh from the front, the one at the fan filter cover.



After applying some red coating to it...



Did the same process to the rest of the mesh...



So this is where the problem came, first of all I was painting above the original coating & without any primer. On top of that I applied too thick coats already so the next day I wasn't very happy with the result.

[crazymofo]

The next day I started sanding all the red coating I applied last night & I sanded until the original coating is removed too. I then cleaned it & started spray coating it with red paint under the sun. It was very hot so the paint dries quite fast so I applied thin coating every 10mins or so. Sorry didnt take picture of this process too, plus I was sweating like hell under the hot sun so yeah...

Tip: Use a primer, but if you are a poorfag & cheapskate like me then just sand it till the base so that your paint can stick better to the material surface. Make sure you do in under a hot sun for it to dry faster, I did the painting at night & it didnt want to dry. The next day the result didnt turn out nice but after re-doing it under the sun it turned out nice.











I like the red highlights at the top but when I cover it with the top panel, only half of it will be visible. Plus I think its not enough red yet, still thinking what to paint, not much choice I have because some of the materials like top cover etc are made of those rubberized matte black material so painting that is not an option. I am thinking of putting some red leds for under glow effect & maybe on the top so the lights will bleed to the side and gives it a nice effect.

Haven't decide yet, because I dont want to overdo the red colour otherwise it will look too red & ugly. Will see how it goes with the flow hehehe, let me get some corsair fans first & fan controller.

[crazymofo]

Just an update on how it currently looks like. The lights are actually more white than in the picture, but there is still a little "blue" to it. Not sure if I will stick with nzxt hue or get a pure white led strip. Once I get everything setup, only then I can tell if the lights are sufficient or not.









The red here in the picture looks very dim but in real life its actually brighter than the picture below but still not bright enough for me. But most probably I am sticking with white due to the fact white gives a better view to the components IMO. If its red, its kinda hard to see the components details.





It looks more like this in real life (adjusted the camera ISO settings  )

[crazymofo]

So I went to the local hardware shop just to browse around & found some clear tubing? They were selling it for RM1.50/feet so I was like dafuq! That is so cheap, what if I can use this as my rig tubing? So I wondered how will it perform because i doubt it was designed for watercooling rigs, so I bought 1 feet just to do some testing on it.

First testing I did was on kink testing and it failed miserably. I wouldn't even post any testing details about how flexible it is, all I can say is if your loop needs some bend, this wouldn't work. Period!

Next I tested it for plasticizer. First of all I would like to say the test I did was just for fun & by right its not a perfect testing condition as I do not own the proper equipment for testing. The testing data is more like for my personal use but I am sharing out for those who are curious like me.

The first test was to cut the tubing in small pieces and dump it in a hot water. I do not have a thermometer that can measure high temps but its pretty hot, water used to make tea. I am guessing its around 80-90'C. The middle tubing is the result of it after 1 day in that water temp compare to the above tubing which is brand new. Also take note that the water & tubing was thrown in a flask (coffee flask) which keeps water warm for long period, so I am assuming the temps falls with a slow gradient through time.

The next test was testing it with a warm temp that was excatly 40'C. Yes I am sure of this because I used a thermometer that measures fever lol, it can go up to 40'C only sadly therefore couldn't get reading for higher temps. As shown in the picture (the last tubing at the bottom) it still leaches. So if the tubing can't even perform at 40'C without plasticizer then there is no point in using it as your temps confirm will go above 40'C because malaysia temps are now freaking 35-40'C outside!



This is what plasticizer is if those who are wondering. White stuff that are like powder when dried, can easily scrap it off from the tubing if you can reach it.



I got my MDPC sleevings already & the pins for custom cables but guess what? I am having a hard time finding awg cables from my local electrical shops...Dang it! Went to jalan pasar & no luck at there either, now I am planning to order it from china although it will take me around 2weeks to get it. Been getting bad luck since last week, though I could do sleeving last week but pins got delay & now couldn't find cables which I thought should be the easiest thing lol.







So I had nothing to do during this weekend so I thought of thinking something to do to be a little productive. Turns out that the NZXT hue plastic cover can fit at the top but I need to grind the plastic edge so that the 25mm fan can fit in there as well. But then I realized that I still need to wait to RMA the led strip so better not modify the nzxt hue first otherwise the shop can reject the RMA anytime if they require to see the nzxt hue even if its just cutting the plastic a little bit. Better not take the risk till RMA is done I guess



So I had nothing to do but to take pictures on my fittings! Hehehe, total cost of that fittings are more than RM600 yo! There is a few rotary in the rig & I am lazy to remove it for photo session...



And here the power tools that I will be using for future modding...

[crazymofo]

So more stuff have arrived for my build. Due to the fact that I have limited money & living in ASIA, getting parts for my build is not as easy as some of you guys out there. I am yet waiting for pump to arrive too...maybe in 2weeks time? 1 month time? ETA is unknown but I hope its as soon as possible. In the meanwhile, I will wait for the lamptron cw611 fan controller 

[crazymofo]

 

Got my custom cables, leds, led strips etc...

 

 

Hohoho, my made in china dremel is here & all its accessories. Not sure how long this is going to last but quality seems decent. Accessories feels cheap though but cant judge it before using 

 

 

Special thread & needles. Guess why I need this for my build? 

 

 

My long waited D5 pump is here! Although this is not MCP655, I can't wait for swiftech anymore, been waiting since January & still no stock, so decided to get xspc the moment my local supplier restocked it so that I can push some progress with my rig & start playing bioshock.

 

 

What is this marking on the pump? Is it common? lol

 

 

 

 

Bitspower pump top! I immediately fell in love with it. Bitspower seriously makes high quality stuff & their packaging is top notch!

 

 

 

More white led strips for testing, this is the 600 bulb version 

 

 

 

Finally got my nzxt hue led strip replacement, previous strip came with problems...had to RMA it. Still waiting for my top panel though lol

 

 

 

 

My new RX240 radiator hohohoho....