[Build Log] The Dark Knight

[Noble07]

Question: Why is it so difficult to upload, resize, and move images? The amount of time I spent here trying to wrestle with the images was more than the amount of time I needed to do this whole write up and make update posts on OCN. Am I missing something, or am I not doing it correctly? Please help.

 

 

Intro
I built my first PC last year, and in the pursuit of perfection, I decided to make the build as gorgeous as possible. That started off with managing cables better, putting in a conservative amount of LED lights (just enough to illuminate what I wanted the onlookers to see), and then went onto sleeving the cables with MDPC. I ended with this:

 

However, I was not happy with it. I decided to go a bit further and water cool it, but truly make the build unique. I decided to go with copper pipes and since March of 2013, I've been doing research, buying parts when I come across them, and slowly testing products here and there. And I'm extremely thankful for B Negative's, which made my research so much easier. Also, over time, I've been upgrading and changing parts within my PC itself so some of the older images don't completely reflect what I have under the hood.

PC Parts/Tools

CPU: Intel i5-3570k
GPU: Sapphire R9-290
MoBo: MSI MPower z77
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 4x4gb
SSD1: Intel 530, 240gb
SSD2: Samsung 840, 240gb
SoundCard: X-Fi Titanium HD
PSU: Seasonic X-750
Case: Bitfenix Shinboi XL



CPU Block: Swiftech Apogee HD High Performance
GPU Block: EK Radeon R9-290X VGA Liquid Cooling Block - Acetal + Nickel
GPU Black Plate: EK R9-290X VGA Liquid Cooling RAM Backplate
Reservoir: Koolance Tnk-501
Pump: Swiftech MCP655-PWM-DRIVE
Pump Top: EK D5 X-Top Acetal Pump Top CSQ
Radiator 1: Alphacool NexXxoS UT60
Radiator 2: Alphacool NexXxoS XT45
Fittings: Aquatuning fittings
Tubing: 10mm Copper pipe



Copper Tube Cutter: Home Depot brand
Copper Tube Bender: IMPERIAL TUBING TUBE BENDER 10 MM 364-FHAM
Metal file set
X-acto Knife (seriously, everyone should have this!)
Lutro0 pin remover
MDPC-X Black Sleeving
MDPC-X Titanium Grey MK II Sleeving
MDPC-X Precut Heatshrink



Plan
Mock up of my water loop that I will be going with. Start at the reservoir and work your way down to the pump and follow the rest of the loop that way to get a sense of direction

 

To-Do List

1. Size, cut, and bend the pipes
2. Leak testing
3. Fit the pump to the platform and add cushion under the pump
4. Add a second SATA power port to the already sleeved cable :thumbsdow
5. Make a platform for the 2 SSDs on the drive bay cage
6. MORE DINOC!http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/96763-build-log-the-dark-knight/?p=1294474

Updates

1. Making PSU Cover
2. Sizing, bending cutting Pt. 1
3. Adding power port to an already sleeved SATA cable
4. Sizing, bending, cutting Pt. 2
5. Leak testing Pt. 1
6. Sizing, bending, cutting Pt. 2
7. Leak testing Pt. 1
8. Help Requested! What color to choose?

[Noble07]

Reserved for final images.

[Exotath]

omg...can't wait!

[Noble07]

Work log up until now:

 

 I bought acrylic sheets from Home Depot, took measurements, scored it about 40 times before the piece came off. Lots of measurements and time went into something seemingly simple.

 

 

After doing so, I frosted it using some Rust-oleum window frost spray paint. I didn't like the end result especially because of the black shadows so I just decided to dinoc it. I didn't take any pictures of test fit but you'll be able to see it in the next pictures.

 

 

Pump to Rad2

 

Res to Pump

 

Had massive difficulties with this one here (CPU to Rad1).  I think I took about 2-3 hours to get this b*****d in, and even then, I'm a bit reluctant to believe that it is fully in.

 

So I only had about 5 inches of copper tubing left, too short for any of the remaining parts. I decided to bend this as best I could to form the pipe from the GPU to the CPU. This is just there for looks, and doesn't really have a function.

 

 

 

[Exotath]

Damn! Nice work so far!

[twizzle]

Gorgeous! Just beautiful. Keep up the good work!

[Quantum]

Good work so far!  I'd suggest you take off the yellow accents on your mpower.  I did it myself and it looks so much better .  

[YouRezz]

Good work so far!  I'd suggest you take off the yellow accents on your mpower.  I did it myself and it looks so much better .  

YES and spray paint the sound card black

[old reece frost]

Dem pipes <3

[Noble07]

 

Good work so far!  I'd suggest you take off the yellow accents on your mpower.  I did it myself and it looks so much better  .  

You can take them off?? I was going to cut DiNoc out with the exact size and stick it over the yellow, but if you can just take it off easily or peel it off, it'd make my life so much easier! How do I do that??

 

 

YES and spray paint the sound card black 

I actually sold the SBZ and bought an X-Fi Titanium HD sound card :-)

 

Damn! Nice work so far!

 

Gorgeous! Just beautiful. Keep up the good work!

 

Dem pipes <3

Thank you guys!!

[Kiwiandapple]

For pictures, no idea. I had this aswell. What I now do when I upload images (i use imgur) is rescale them to 1000x750. Can do this with imgur. This way, most pictures are all the same size. 

 

Anyway, can't wait to see how this goes, there was another batman build done a month or so ago. Wich was freaking amazing. So, good luck to match that build! 

[Noble07]

 

So what happened was that last year I sleeved all of my cables. I was a bit nervous with sleeving the SATA power cables and didn't know how to approach it and at the time, since I only had 1 SSD, I just decided to sleeve the whole thing and leave one port at the end for my SSD. Fast forward to today, I bought an additional 240GB SSD for $105 ( ), and so I'm making room for that. This is how I went about it.

 

The white string is around where I wanted to put the second power port (whatever you want to call it). From the other PSU end, I unclipped the wires and slid in 2 heat shrinks per each wire. The heat shrinks will be on either side of the power port .

 

This is the most tedious part. Using an X-acto Knife (is there anything this knife can't do??), I sliced away the sleeving. I tried keeping it at the same spot, but didn't do that good of a job, You can see how uneven it is. To fix this, use a pair of nose hair clippers!

 

One of these bad boys! very easy to use this, vs other scissors

 

Tried doing my best on evening everything out, but its not too big of a deal if you're unable to since the heatshrink will be hiding it.

 

Now, before you jam the power port in, make sure that of the 10 heatshrinks (2 per wire), 5 of them are above the power port and 5 of them are below! Use a flat nose screw driver to jam the wire in.

 

Before putting on the back plate of the power port and before shrinking it, make sure it works! I had to improvise a different way to test this cable since my only PC was this one that I'm working on and its been taken apart. My case comes with a charging USB port which is powered by a SATA power port so I just hooked that up to my SATA power cable, used the paperclip method to start the PSU and plugged my phone in to see if it charged. And it did.

 

 

Now position the heatshirnks

 

 

Instead of using a heat gun, I used a lighter because this way the fire would be able to go in between the heatshrink and "lick" all around it. Position the other 5 as well and shrink it

 

 

 

Done!

 

Also sleeved the SATA data cables.

 

[Noble07]

For pictures, no idea. I had this aswell. What I now do when I upload images (i use imgur) is rescale them to 1000x750. Can do this with imgur. This way, most pictures are all the same size. 

 

Anyway, can't wait to see how this goes, there was another batman build done a month or so ago. Wich was freaking amazing. So, good luck to match that build! 

Are you talking about Paul Tan's build? I was first introduced to his work by his Lamborghini build which just blew me away. I've seen his Dark Knight PC, and I don't think I can ever match his artistic ways lol.

[Kiwiandapple]

Are you talking about Paul Tan's build? I was first introduced to his work by his Lamborghini build which just blew me away. I've seen his Dark Knight PC, and I don't think I can ever match his artistic ways lol.

 

Hah, yes that's the guy! ^^ Well, yeah.. don't think many people can match him! But still a nice way to go at it, set the bar high! ^^ Good luck man. 

[Quantum]

You can take them off?? I was going to cut DiNoc out with the exact size and stick it over the yellow, but if you can just take it off easily or peel it off, it'd make my life so much easier! How do I do that??

If I remember correctly, there are some screws that hold them together on the back of the mobo so you could take off the heat sinks.  Then use a heat gun or hair dryer so you can remove the yellow accent plates.  It's a bit tedious to remove, but it looks so much better.    

[SwimBiggs]

Love your work

[Deviou5_]

Stunning

[Noble07]

Thank you for everyone's kind words! I've got a pretty big update to add on here.

[Noble07]

I really want to apologize about the images. I'm so used to OCN's more user friendly system that I've lost the patience of cropping and re sizing images that this forum requires. However, if its too painful for some people, I'll find some batch image resizer. I'll make sure that the final studio quality images are compatible with this forum, though.

 

Sizing, cutting, and bending pipes, Pt. 2

 

Pop some steak into the slow cooker for some pepperoncini sandwich :-)

 

 

Started with the largest pipe so that in case if I messed up, it can be salvaged for the smaller pieces. Its a bit too angled for my taste, but I think I can live with it for now.

 

Using existing pipes to make measurements cause I was too lazy to get a ruler

 

All pipes are in! For this part, I got rid of the PSU cover so that I may see and make sure everything underneath (the radiator mainly) is okay and no leaks are happening from any other port.

 

Leak Testing

 

So leak testing a copper pipe system is a bit different from your normal transparent tubing. Main difference being that the only way to tell if water is moving is through a transparent reservoir. Through doing this, what I found was the best way to leak test is to put in pipes piece by piece as the water is flowing through. For example, put in the pipe from the res to the pump, pour water in, and see if the water is pouring out of the "out" port from the pump. If that happens, put in the second pipe, make sure water is reaching the end of the radiator/block, and then the third pipe, and again make sure that the water is reaching the exit port, etc. etc. This ensures that water is able to flow through the whole system and there is no blockage, and at the same time, you're also looking for leaks.

 

Something with copper pipes is that the ends need to be perfectly flat. If there is even a small ridge, it will leak. For that, I used a file to "wet sand" it

 

Here's a pretty major leak. Again, just wipe the water off, take off the pipe, and file the end and stick it back in.

 

I've been passively filling the system up to this point. Now that I see that the res isn't decreasing in water as I'm pouring it in, it indicates that I need to turn the pump on.

 

 

It looks like I cut the GPU to CPU block too short or I hadn't put the pipe in correctly the first time, which gave me a false reading. After doing some more investigating, I saw that Rad2 to GPU pipe wasn't the proper size either and I would be able to force the card back into place, but I'd be very uncomfortable in doing that. I'll just have to cut a new pipe tomorrow.

[Noble07]

 

Sizing, cutting, and bending pipes, Pt. 3

From my previous post, I talked about how two of the pipes I made were too short and were putting unneeded strain on the card. This phase of the project mainly looked to address that problem.

 

Measure once, write them down. Then throw those measurements away because they were wrong and measure again. Measure 3-4 more times and check your math. 10mm copper tube is expensive!

 

Always overcompensate. For this tube, I added about 3 more cm than I needed (and even then I messed up a little)

 

The simple $3 cutting from the Home Depot. You don't need anything expensive.

 

This is what I was talking about last time. When you make cuts, there will be this ridge that is left. You can see it clearly in this picture, in the center of the pipe. Something that minuscule will cause leakage!

 

Get a high grit file and just smooth it down.

 

Measuring on the pipe where the bend needs to be

 

Bender

 

I didn't take pictures of making the second pipe, because it was a lot simpler than the first one. But here's the final picture

 

 

Leak Testing, Pt. 2

 

 

Using my PC's PSU since I didn't have access to my dad's PC. When doing stuff like this, always remember safety and don't be the styoooobid.

 

 

After passively filling the system as much as I could, I turned the pump on. I had to make sure that water was flowing through the pipes so I used a steth

 

 

Also, visually checking the res showed that the intake in the res (left most port) had water/bubbles flowing through it, which indicate that the water had made a full loop

 

 

Putting down tissue to check for evidence of leakage in the morning.

 

About 12 hours had passed since I left my system. Water level is at the same spot as it was last night, and water was still flowing through it.

 

 

 

Finally propped my system up on my desk to manage the cables

 

 

 

Made the rig a little bit more presentable

 

 

 

Ummm..."testing" my system

 

 

 

Another shot while doing tests

 

 

This rig is about 75% complete. I need to flush out the system, remove the tubing, and clean, sand, paint it.

After painting everything, I need to position the PSU cover back on, make the platform for the two SSDs (I got 2 new SSDs, giving the current one to my dad), and from there, its all software work of clean installing and starting from a fresh new build. End is almost in sight but with school starting tomorrow, I'm hoping of getting this all done by the end of January.

[Noble07]

Help requested: What color should I make the pipes? Matte Black or Dark Gray?

Basically, this is what my rig looks like:

 

I have a PSU cover over it that I'm not complete with, but it will look like this:

I'm choosing between gray (that resembles pretty closely to the gray on my PSU wire sleeve) or a matte black sort of color. This is a sample of what the gray looks like: The sample tube is sitting right above the PSU

 

 

 

Please help!

[adamdidthis]

If it was me I would chrome them.

[J4M35]

i know its a lot of work, but i would almost consider trying to polish them up, get them all nice and shiny to contrast all the dark colors in the rig, other than that go full stealth and matte black them. Having said that, awesome work mate

[GuideMe002]

amazing!