Well, i decided after years of plain cases, i would try to mod a case and go to water cooling.

Well heres part one.. the new case, the sleeving, cabl emanagement, uv lights, fans, etc.

Heres the new case a Lian-Li PC-7AW Silver Aluminum Mid-Tower ATX Case:






And heres my 1st modding attempt... cutting a whole right above the MB tray to route some of the power cables.



second pic is of the holes i cut out for the quick connects for the cutom water case im going to build.




Here are the new UV 120mm Fan (intake and exhuast)
THey are from VoyeurMods, and are Galaxy fans, and they are LOUD... anyone with ideas on how to quiet them, please let me know.





Heres a pic with some of the UV sleeving on, and some of the chrome loom i used on the PSU cables, and with the CPU and VC installed now too



Heres the Quick Connects installed.



Heres some more pics to show the UV sleeving and chrome loom





heres the hole i cut to improve the cable management from the back side



Heres a pic with the window on



Next up with be the bezels for LL cases for the ROm drives, installation of the UV lights.. and pics of it glowing green.

The pics show how I attached the UV lights to the window casing and how it JUST fit in... the rest is jut the glowing goodness the best I could.. its hard to take good picks of UV.













Here are pics of the High flow quick connect water barbs.. these are so i can quickly disconnect my external water box, and have no spill, no mess, easy piesy.

heres a pic of me holding it together connected



here it is disconnected on my desk



Here it is showing the opening



Here it is together, but no pushed together



Now here it is pushed together connected



Here is where you just press down on the connect.. and poof pops right out, and no water loss!



And lastly here it is unconnected right before i snap it in, the one below it is snapped in



I got them from US plastics thanks to Bio-Hazzards tip!

oh yeah, another minor mod.. was adding the LL bezels, to keep the nice front... heres what they do.

Not looking too bad. Hidding wires on those Lian Li's is tough, isn't it? I just finished the wiring of a PC-65B and it was racking my brain finding places to hide wires.

I still think you can get rid of some of that excess wire, though. Try pulling some more slack on them from the back and taping it to the back of the motherboard tray, or at least try to pull/tape some stuff out of sight of the window. It just...jumbles it up, you know?

Here's a picture of my PC-65B with little-to-no sleeving, and just a bunch of wires tucked and zip-tied out of the way. I need to get one of those front bezels for my optical(s) since I'm too lazy to stealth completely. And here's another in the daytime.

When is the water cooling coming?

those UV 120mm fans from VoyeurMod were LOUD, like a jet engine taking off.... so it was time for a controller.. the Vantec Silver NXP-205... Wish it went down to 5v, but i guess will have to do. Also, the lights grow blue.. not green, like my theme. so i thought would switch them out....but s you can see, that turned into a big problem..








Heres a pic of the 3mm lights i m going to take out.


Heres the Solder i took out



Hey look, I got a green one in, and too work!



And thats where the fn ends boys and girls. It would be the last one i could get to work... 8 green LED later.. it would seem everytime i touched it with the solder, it ould just go out and stop working.. i dont know if it was too hot or what... but i gave up, and just ended up clipping all the lights... it still looks good in the front of th case, with no glow.. i may at some point, put some UV wire in there so it glows.





Need any extra LEDS, all of a sudden i have plenty


Oh yeah, another pisser was the back outlet 120MM JUST wouldn't make it to the vantec controller.. like and inch sort.. so i have to use like and extra 1 FT cable(that I uv sleeved) for and extra inch.. that sucked.



Oh yeah, got some Solder on the TV tray.. the wife was NOT happy


Heres what it looks like



Heres the exra cabling now



All i have to say is.. 7V good... 12 v bad!!! Man when i turned those fans down it was music to my ears!!! So nice and quiet now, I love it!

As A side note, I learned what i did wrong.. my heat source had to big of a tip, and i was getting to much solder on the curcuit, completing the circuit, making the LED's not work.. live and learn.. time for a new pointer heat source!

New p, the PSU mod for the WC external Kit.

ok PSU time..

I thought I was all set was a 500Watt PSU i had laying arounf that came with my $40 broadway case. It tells how what kind of PSU it is, light as a feather, but should be fine for my water kit... when it wont turn on when I plug it in! Turns out you need to have it plugged into a mobo to make it work... first the LED's, not the PSU aint corporating... ell all I had to do was post a message on the Hard Forums... and someone had the answer... So I tried his advice and it worked!

1st i had to cut the MOBO connector, after opening the PSU case that is.


Opps i think i just voided the warranty



Next was to connect the 1 green wire and 1 black wire (there is like 6) together, so to "jump" the mobo connector.



I then wrapped them all up in some electrical tape, tuck it away, and i was done with it!



Here it is all wrapped up, done!




Done right? Nope.. i log back into the Hard forums.. and i had a few messages that said. make SURE none of the wires are touching. SO back in I go, going to wrap EACH wire,then retape. Heres my rewrapping.







It works like a charm, i hooked up 4 fans to it!

Hey man, you should mod that Nexus into one of your 3.5" drivebay covers. I did it on my 5.25" Nexus and it turned out excellent and made it look a little more flush and clean.

Quote: Originally Posted by subdismal Hey man, you should mod that Nexus into one of your 3.5" drivebay covers. I did it on my 5.25" Nexus and it turned out excellent and made it look a little more flush and clean.

Your right about the wring, i can still tidy up a bit more, i just ran out of time that day(i worked on it for like 10 hours striaght) and i wanted to move on to some other stuff, but your right, i am going to work a bit more on it, when i get a chance.

And what do you mean by mod it into a drive bay cover? Do you mean drill out holes in the cover, so just the dials are peeking out?

Got a pic? i couldn't see it in the links you posted.

and the WC is coming right now.. im not done, but the pics are going to follow momentarily to where I have gotten.

did i mention my keyboard glows?

wish it was green

[IMG] [/IMG]

More pics of the windows and install of the UV lights around it.

Chris

as promised, onto the water cooling!


Now onto the building of the custom external water case.

After many hours of plans, drawings, figuring out, buying, buying some more, trying to figure out spacing... it was time to start to build.

The 1st thing I did was see how i could attach the fans to the Rad. I couldn't use the screws that came with the Rad, becuase they were made to go through the WHOLE fan, and i need them to only go through the 1st hole of the fan, becuase i needed the second hole on the fan to hold the screw that will hold on the fan grill through 1/2 inch MDF. So of course, since what I am doing in non-standard I had to head over to my local hardware store (Rockys Ace Hardware) which is thankfully anout 500 yards from my front door. So with rad in hand, i went over and after testing a done of screws finally found out that kinda fit, aftering pretty much "tapping" the holes with one, as i kept screwing it in and out of the holes, so it would adventually take the screw.. so what I thought would be like a 20 minute job, turned into like 3 hours. Anyways heres the results.

Heres the screws that came with it.. they aint gonna help..



heres the screws fro Rockys 27 cents each.



Final Results




Heres what it looks like with the grill on



Ok time to make the Cuts.. The case is going to be 17 long, by 12 wide and 12 high. This is the 1st time I have ever worked with MDF. Have ti say i like it so far, its real easy t work with.

Look time for the 1st cut!



Next set of pics is the top of the case, along with the tools of the trade so far (well except for the saws), a dreme and a 5 inch hole saw. Here is where I cut the hole for the 120mm Typhoon Res. This has been pretty funny from the start. Its advertised it will fit any 120mm blow out. Ah, not. a 120mm blow hole is 4.5 inches give or take. That is a 5 INCH hole saw, i am using, and its still not big enough, i had to dremel the hole some more but it fits great. Thats my Dad holding it up. Hes had to come over to see what I was doing, when he called me up, and asked what i as doing today, and I told him, he was just like "huh?" "water?" "computer?" "thats bad right?" So he drove over to see what i was doing (ok its like a .25 mile down the road, but still)





Lastly heres some of the sides front, and top cut. I ran out of MDF, so I need to hit HD tomorrow, so I can continue. Thats all for now! I hope you stay tuned!

Got some more MDF.. cut the last 2 walls, cut the holes for the the 2 sides... same sized.. one hole for the rad, fans, grill, and the other for fans and grill.

Cut the hole for the front fan controller.. and cut the hole for the back for the power supply.

Well thats it for now, its coming along!

pic 1, pic of the cut out from the fan grill packaging, showing the pilot holes that i cut before I started in with the jig saw.



using the jiggy



it fits.



nows there 2!



making the cut out for the fan controller



a good fit



making the cut out for the PSU



the rough cut out



all the pieces so far.

I dont like how you put UV sleeving on ribbon IDE cables... looks kind of tacky IMO.. get some rounded cables or something. I would take out the chrome loom and hide those wires.

Pretty nice rig though.

I like the external watercooling idea. I'll keep checking this thread to see how it turns out.

Goodluck.

Jesus! All these images are killing my browser. Could a moderator attatch a 56K warning to this thread, please?

But, here's the Nexus I modded into the drivebay.

1. All you had to do was ask, i put the 56 K warning in!! I didn't realize dial-up still existed

2. I agree it does look a bit tacky.. but thats kinda the point, the thing glows a bright green for petes sake...

3. And it did come with rounded cables.. RED ones... the MSI board comes with red rounded cables, kinda didn't go.. and i figured why buy green cables, when i can sleeve them.. I already spent too much money as it was.

4. I could spend a little more time with the cable management, and hide them a little better, but there is the time factor.... married, 60 hour a week job, and trying to restore a 120 year old, 3000 square foot house.. got to pick my battles..

5. And i happen to like the chrome, it makes the uv light and green reflect all the more

6. The pic to the link of your modded drive bay doesn't work....

thanks for all the feed back guys! keep them coming!

Guess I should post some specs too!


Specs lets see:

CPU - AMD 64 3000 Venice Core with a gigabyte rocket cooler HSF on it.
VC - EVGA 6800 GT with a Artic Cooling NV5 on it.
SC - Audigy 2
MOBO - MSI K8N NEO2 PLATINUM Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce3 Ultra
Drives- DVD burner, CD rom burner, and a 200 gig hard drive.
Case - Lian Li PC-7AW
MEM - 1 Gig OCZ EL Platinum ddr 400 (3200)
PSU - OCZ powerstream 520w

Other stuff - a Vantec 205 Fan controller, 2 UV green Galaxy 120 MM fans, 1 pack of UV sleeving green kit, Some Chrome Loom for my local PEP boys (car shop), and 2 12 inch UV cold cathode lights.


Water cooling Stuff:

Danger Den TBX CPU block.
DD maze 4 for the GPU.
Swiftech 655 pump
BIP II Rad
4 120 fans
another nexus fan controller
2 240 EVO fan grills.
1/2 tubing primoflex and some stuff from a local hardware store if I dont have enough primo.
typhoon XL 120 uv green Res
assorted clamps for the tubing (not sure which im gonna use), and a bunch of assorted screws etc depending on need.
some hex mesh
some uv green additives, algae killer and such.. which I have to mess with, to mix to see how to get the best color im looking for
some more UV lights.

So next was, how was I going to install that little switch for the UV lights im going to install?

1st i cut most of the PCI metal bracket off, but enough to hide my hole, and enough so I can drill out a hole for a screw.. i haven't gotten to that part... 1st i just wanted to see If i could do it.


Heres the switch



Heres the bracket after I cut it with the handy dandy hand saw




Heres some pics after i sanded down the rough edges left with the hand saw, with the drummel, came out nice and smooth.






So heres the hole, with the metal bracket now next to it



Here it is fitting, nice! Now i just need to drill the holes for the screws to hold it in place.



i got the wife involved in the painting... was i was cutting etc...i got her to sand and paint some scrap pieces just to see what it would look like. I used Kilz primer. I got pics of the paint can. I did not see the soaking of the primer, that some have said, the primer went on fine, and the paint went on fine. I wish i had pics of the priming.. but i was busy... there will be pics when i prime the whole thing...Also, she barely sanded (she didn't want to help..hehehehe) so its not the best paint job, and not as nice as it will be when i sand it... but it will give you a rough idea (pun intended hehehehe)

here they are painted



in the bottom right there, on the cut, you can see where she didn't sand enough.. but the paint went on nice I thought, for hardly and sanding or care.



no sanding here at all




heres what is looks like compared to the MDF untreated.



Heres the paint





And I cut the hole for the tubes.




Lastly, as you can see in this pic, im thinking of making some port holes in the top and front, the size of that hole saw and covering them with some mesh.... i mean it is going to have cool glowing green water and fans in it.. might as well see it right?

thanks for following so far!

After reading online about playing ith MDF, i read that wall spackle may fill the holes better than wood fill (ie, leave a better, sanded, smoothness, more matching the MDF) so i decided to make some test holes, and fill them, and sand themto see which is indeed better.



and the back of mt paint, it said, it scratches easy.. and they suggested puttng on a clear coat for protection... so i bought some.



i put on 3 coats to a thin test piece I had, and compared it to my larger sample... it looks really close.. and feels nice and smooth, its definately protecting the paint.. but as you can see it the pic, its reflecting the larger sample beneath it(take a look in the bottom left, when the 2 peices meet, hard to see in the pic, more noticable in real life). It has given that small piece, a mirror effect, and i dont like it, so i think i will chance not using it.



Ok next up, is I had to put in a spot in the back for the 2nd UV light switch, and to see how i was going to attach it.





Next were some blow holes in the top, and front, they will get some hex mesh on them to allow a little peek on the inside.



Well, its now just about done, time for the sanding, priming, painting, and put it together! For now, heres a little mock up to show its really a box!

from the side


from the front, showing the 2 new port holes.



from the side and back angle



from the back staight on


and lastly, from the side again.



HAHAHAHA... crap, looking at the pics from the back, I realize I missed one more thing, some screw holes, for the screws to hold the PSU in place.. ok after THAT, its sanding, priming, painting, asembling, etc

finally got some primer on the inside parts ...

and had an unfortunate accident.. my digital camera of about 3 years bit the dust... i had it sitting on the work table, which i bumped... and she fell to the floor and cracked. Ive dropped her 3-4 times before, spilled coffee on her, had to take her apart and clean her... shes been a work horse, 1000's of pics... but alas she has expired... rest in piece my nikon 2100. I bought her big brother, the Nikon 4600.

Primer!



my poor girl.



my new gun.



next up is sanding with some 220... 2nd coat of prime.... then some paint!

Man painting and sanding takes forever.. so this update wont look like a lot, but it was time consuming.. so i painted another coat of primer,, sanded with 320, and did 3 coats of paint, sanding between each coat...so the inside painting is done... next will be painting the 2 sides so i can install the fans, radiator, and grills.

So here we go

pics of the 2nd coat of primer, after sanding.





1st coat of paint





1st coat sanded



2nd coat






3rd coat




ok so thats it for now, this is as far as i have gotten... hopefully i will get to put some of it together tonight!!