[Scratch Build] Red Queen [Ongoing]

[ZeroMo]

Hey there,

Thanks for stepping by.

A few weeks ago, I saw a

picture of some awesome wallmounted pc and 

decided:

Yeah...imma build something like this.

 

After maybe three weeks of sketching and figuring it

had evolved into a "simple" case...I dont know why it ended up beeing what it is now but

it just somehow did.

 

Honestly speaking it isn't finished yet so if you want to come along with my experiment I would be 
quite pleased.

 

First of all, I am a 23 year old student with literally no workshop or tools...so everything was build from scratch...

I had to buy all the tools like a drill, a saw, screwdrivers and so on.

But i did not waver and soldiered on.

 

Here she is...with my...case...and cable managment from my first pc

(Specs are listed on my profile)

 

Well...i know...its a little bit of an eyesore...but thats why i decided to build my own   (because screw logic )

 

 

The final sketch looked like this...(Sorry for no fancy renderings or gooogle sketchup models)

 

it kind of evolved during the building process but i had to do some adjustments and dumping the two loop plan was neccessary...would be overkill anyway for this setup

And now the fun started. I found a company which would cut all my pieces out of wood and acrylic and send it to me for i had no big saw and i wanted it to be as precise as possible.

I ordered some watercooling parts too because i needed everything in front of me for the dimensions and visualisation

 

The wooden pieces arrived

Why wood you may, completely correct ask, because it is the most affordable material and the one I am most comfortable working with.

 

getting an idea of how it is going to look

 

Then i went on and throwed a whole lot of money around to get the tools and all the little things i needed..

and instantly had a broken drill which i sent back to get it replaced, what left me playing with the stuff i already had laying around.

 

like those LTT Edition Noctua NF F12

 

 

aaaand another test fit

 

After recieving another ton of stuff and the drill, I began to work. It was a real challenge do do this in my room...

because i had nowhere else to go but it somhow worked...not brilliantly but it did the trick.

 

After that I made the commitment that my rig is not going to see another case until this thing is finished, by ripping out all the good stuff while waiting for additional deliveries

 

There it is...the crappy thing...never going to see the light of day

 

 

Now she sits on my desk waiting for a new case. 

 

Without further ado I went back to work and did a lot of test fitting, drilling and sawing.

 

My "workshop"

 

 

It was probably at this point where i dumped the second loop  because it would be to much of a hassle to hardpipe the whole thing with two loops and simply not justified especially looking at my bankaccount.

 

Drilling and rasping

 

my little touch of OCD

 

First steps and little bit of progress

 

more progress...

 

with this kind of results showing i was fired up to get it done.

 

firing her up for the first time with parts of the new case

 

now it is slowly becoming what i had invisioned it to be (not sure about the grammar here )

 

that was the point where she got her name

she is just too goddam big...but yeah...too late to stop now

 

trying to get some "glamshots"...not really working with a smartphone camera 

 

now the whole assembling and disassembling was a pain in the neck...and in the back...

 

 

and there where times where I simply was too dumb/lazy to read thoroughly what was required..like that time when I went full retard and bought a holesaw just to realize i couldnt use it with my drill because I needed a standing drill...like one of those big ones...well i did what was needed and pulled it of with my bare hands...damn that hurt

for a little bit of ventilation for the graphics card and the motherboard

 

time to go crazy with filler and let all the screws and screwups disapear

and for a smooth finish after sanding and before vinyl wrapping.

 

or i ordered the carbon vinyl...aaaand overdid it because it was in the middle of the night...now i have enough of that shit to cover my whole room...maybe not really but you get the point, do you.

thats like 9 squaremeters of vinyl...

  with that much material at disposal i went full moron on the vinyl wrapping but surprisingly never screwed up.

 

 

some pieces...and then

 

*BOOM* assemled and running...geezuz that blue RAM hurts my eyes...thats what you get for changing the coloursceme in the middle of the build

 

Well folks...thanks for coming along...and hopefully sticking around as this is still far from finished...she needs the watercooling loop finished...she needs a cablemod and fancy cablemanagment. 

The aluminum needs to be brushed and then reassembled...the bottom and the top need to be finished as well as replacing the RAM with somthing like dominator Platinum or colouring it...

and finally an GPU upgrade which is going to be watecooled as  I'm not going to do so with this GPU because i don't want to spend

120 bucks for watercooling a 970 when i know I'm going to upgrade it anyway with the upcoming pascal/polaris release. I forgot the red LED lighting.

 

I'll try to update this Build Log every time when there is progress.

 

 

 

Hello there,

 

nearly one month later I am back with a little more done to her.

 

first of all I helped myself with the stupid holesaw to drill two holes into the bottom plate for some fans. But this time I figured a way to do the job without 

killing my hands.

worked way better and easier...and ignore the markings...they where wrong and I was to lazy to erase them.

 

there they are...mounted and ready to go.

 

at this point in time my desk looks like this.

WAN Show ftw

 

With the rest of the watercooling stuff on the way I gave the aluminium brackets a brushed finish

brushed vs factory look                                                                                                       all ready and looking fine

 

and the top plate with the holes for the four radiator fans.

Topplate wrapped and assembled

 

Yeiiiii finally the  the Watercoolingstuff is complete and ready for my first ever watercooling expirience....an yes i know even Linus said that one should not start with a hard tubing loop but this build

simply isn't going to look good with soft tubing and my bit of OCD didnt allow it either.

With that in mind i decided to go for gold and try

Btw...this picture was taken after the whole loop was done so there are a few fittings and tubes missing 

 

I started with some easy bends to get used to the whole thing and did good for the first bends of my life and got really excited.

There where some screwups at first but i ignored them mostly because they where only hideous but not damaged or bent in the wrong way (like the one leading into the pump)

 

 

The following part probably needs a little bit of explanation. I was just recently enlightened by some videos i didnt watch before...that it doesn't matter in which order your components are located in the loop.

My loop was designed with the thought that it would be good if the coolant goes through a radiator before entering the next component...like this:

...Rad -> CPU -> Rad ->  GPU...

which hopefully explains the crazy bends i did there.

 

Without further ado...

lets go completely crazy with the tubing!

yeah i know...they are not the prettiest and straightest bends in the world but i am completely satisfied with how the turned out.

remeber....this is my first watercooled build...and at some point in time i will redo some of the bends but for now they suffice...

and i kinda like the unrefined look remembering me that nothing is perfect from the start.

 

Time to install the CPU block and do the rest of the loop...yeah...i ran out of money and wasnt able to fit the GPU block in my budget...

aaaand i couldnt wait 

         old cooler off ...                                                cleaning                                    new cooler on...dat excitement

 

now thats a look on every bend i had to do and every fitting that went into this stupid thing...fittings can really blow your budget

thats actually a lot...sheesh...my poor wallet

 

now filling her up for the first time...(that sounds a little bit wrong..

anyway)

 

aaaand there goes the red....of course i let her run for more than a day to look for leaks...(it isn't getting any better isn't it )

 

 

thats looking good i think...have some more pictures (i tried to do some kind of fancy pro looking photos )

 

 

ah...that inlet bend on the right of the CPU is getting reworked as soon as the GPU is getting its treatment.

 

now the whole Deskemperess in her glory...

 

 

Well folks...thanks again for checking out my build...this is it...at least for the time being because i really need to stop spending the money i had planned for my food...

no it is not that aweful but I really dont have enough to include the GPU at the moment but it'll happen in a little bit...meaning like one maybe two months.

Until then i will paint the RAM if i have the time and do some LED lighting. And if I am really bored...the cabelsleeving. 

Geezuz dat blue RAM looks super dumb...well i have to deal with it.

 

The best part of the whole thing is...every time i walk into my room I really enjoy the accomplishment standing there on my desk in all her glory.

And I really like her with all the mistakes, being big or small, I made because it is the first thing in a while i had the energy to finish.

 

And thanks for the kind words after the first part was done...that kept me going.

See you another time.

 

................

 

2017

 

Hey again...it's been  a while...geez its been nearly a year.

I thought I'd update the buildlog.

 

I did different things to my Red Queen.

New Hardware were the red RAM Sticks (Corsair Dominator 16 GB)

God they look good...but they are a little on the Orange side but im fine with it for now.

Coolermaster V850 PSU 

Bitfenix Custom Red cables

aand the goodness...
finally the EK waterblock for my GPU.

 

But first she got a new place to sit on and some lighting

 

few weeks later i started (what i thought would be the) final stage of building.

 

I added some ventilation holes because i had problems with the airtemperatures inside the case.

(Still learning )

 

 

Cablemanagment...well i tried

 

Looook now with new and fresh fluid

 

Well until the stupid Fluid changed color again...so i cleaned the whole system and tried my luck with pastel coolant from EK because i thought it should work as the Coolingparts are nearly all from EK.

 

disassembling and cleaning 

 

aaaaaaaaand there she is back together

 

That was last year....

 

the sad thing is...the fluids are changing color again...

and i have no idea whats wrong.

 

Better pictures following after another cleaning and fluid change.

 

well then...see you soon

[Damikiller37]

I really like the design! Reminds me of the Lian Li PC-08 case. Watercooling will really make it shine, looking forward to see what that looks like

[ImBleu]

From wallpc to piece-of-wall on your desk pc.

 

I like the direction, something that is kinda reminiscent of the Lianli PC-08.

[themaniac]

and now i feel even worse because i'll never be able to make something as great as that but great job

[j3dington]

Wow! This makes me want to build myself a case! But it's probably best that I stay away from custom cases, because I would mess mine up completely. Anyways, great job! I'm loving the carbon vinyl! I would have just painted the wood, but you took it to a new level! Amazing job!

[nmil]

Looks pretty good 

[ZeroMo]

Well, thanks for the positiv response...gets me all fired up to contiue this adventure  and finish her in the near future...if...my wallet isn't suffering to much.

and...yeah...it resembles the Lian Li PC-08 but completely unintended...i honestly had to look it up as i didn't know how it looks 

[Snooli]

The layout is cool, and the wood looked awesome. Lost me on the carbon wrap.

[ELSknutson]

I liked it better as bare wood 

[ZeroMo]

@Snooli & @ELSknutson I like wood as much as u do but if i wanted to build a wooden one (which i am planning for the future) i would need other tools and i would choose a nicer looking wood like cherry wood or similar looking one. But for this one i stand by that decision.

.

@BurnerMCpositive or negative

[ZeroMo]

On 26.3.2016 at 1:23 AM, BurnerMC said:

Positive because of 4 words: THIS IS FUCKING AWESOME.

 

Also because you are someone who really knows how to handle wood ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Thanks man, i agree...it turned out very well..at least until now

about the wood handling...my grandfather is a carpenter so i learned a lot from him as  a kid. Thanks anyway.

She'll get her watercooling this week...at least i hope so

[ZeroMo]

I forgot one picture...

 

she is really big isn't she?

 

[dditty]

What an awesome case. Excellent job! Keep it up!

[Crossbred]

Looks dank as crap but seriously, get some red ram! It's painful!

[Guest]

The RAM and PSU are real eyesores... Also cable manage the GPU power better. Otherwise, looks amazing

[clarkmcc]

Fantastic... I'd say right up there with @Maki Role wall mounted rig. I'd fix that blue RAM tho 

[ZeroMo]

@ChickenNugget @Crossbred @dditty

Thanks Guys....and i know, i know...i have to stare at this hideous RAM everyday...try to get this fixed as soon as possible...the PSU too....but later

 

On 22.4.2016 at 2:31 AM, clarkmcc said:

Fantastic... I'd say right up there with @Maki Role wall mounted rig. I'd fix that blue RAM tho 

Thanks man....that means a lot to me because this build was one of the deciding factores which got me into the whole casemodding/Customcase thing...and i wanna do something similar in the future 

[Hackentosher]

Wow, amazing build! I love the ridiculous bends that go in and out of the CPU, simply incredible. Perhaps you could put some of that carbon fiber vinyl on the PCIE ribbon extension? For sleeved cables, have you considered just getting extensions from primochill?

[ZeroMo]

12 hours ago, Hackentosher said:

Wow, amazing build! I love the ridiculous bends that go in and out of the CPU, simply incredible. Perhaps you could put some of that carbon fiber vinyl on the PCIE ribbon extension? For sleeved cables, have you considered just getting extensions from primochill?

Thanks man...the bends for the CPU drove me insane...siriously... I love the carbon fiber idea on the PCIE extensionscable...gonna try it.

i think they're hard to get in germany at least when i was looking for them...but thanks for reminding...gonna look again. And thanks for the input...really appreciate it. 

 

[ZeroMo]

Two pictures i forgot to add