I don't consider myself a case modder, I'm more into extreme cooling/benchmarking, and am more at home with my pc laying on a bench with my ln2 pot bolted to it. I do however, love building and modding phase change cooling systems and have wanted to put one in a Lian Li V2000 case for quite a while; I got the email about this competition and just happend to know a guy that was trying to sell his Lian Li V2000B..... so..... here I am.

I'm more into function over form and really don't go in for much "bling", I like my units to look clean, but other than maybe a back light inside the case, I don't use a lot of things that are just for "show". I believe thats why I've always liked the Lian Li cases, they have a classic functional simplicity that I really like.

Ok.... my plans are to strip all the hdd racks out of the bottom of the case and fit a highly modified Vapochill LS phase change unit inside. I don't know how it will count toward the competition, but there will be a lot more modding of the Vapo than there will be on the Lian Li. I will only use the compressor and condenser from the Vapo, the rest will be replaced with better components so the unit will be capable of handling a very well overclocked quad core cpu. I'll document the work on the case and the phase change unit, including charging and tuning, whether it counts toward the contest or not.

Here are pics of the case as it sits now, at this point all I've done is remove the hdd racks. I'll carefully measure the available space in the bottom of the case (making sure to allow enough room for any of the newer high wattage psu's); Then I'll make a template that size to put on a board, I'll use this to build the phase change unit on, this will make sure it will fit inside the case when completed. Once the phase unit is done, I'll mount it inside the case and mod the divider in the case to allow the flex line pass through.

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First.... Let me apologize for not getting anything posted until now I have been working on it, but with a full time job and going to school full time, I've been pretty swamped lately.

Anyway, I have made quite a bit of progress and should have it finished, or very close to it in time for contest end.

These pics are just some of the case and the components that will make up the phase change unit and will let you see how it's going to be fit into the case.

I decided to go with the Vapochill LS compressor, condenser, and controller. With some modification, these parts are more than capable of meeting my target goal of -25c to -30c with 200watt load.

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One hurdle was getting the phase unit as short as possible in order to assure there was enough room for almost any power supply the owner will want to install. I wanted a coil of copper between the compressor and condenser (desuperheater), this will drop the discharge temps by about 20c and give some much needed help to the small Vapo condenser. I ended up doing quite a few before I found one that fit and that looked good. I also wanted to have some options on fan setup on the condenser; My goal was a very quiet unit, but again, with the small condenser, airflow was going to be a key to performance.

Here is the unit all brazed up and being vacuumed, I also have the evap bolted to my load tester for tuning.

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I got the unit tuned and it worked out better than I'd hoped for for a silent unit. I tested it with a low speed Panaflo 120X38mm fan, then again with one of my 120X38mm Delta "screamers" and there was only a 2.5 deg temp difference at 200w. The Delta will allow the unit to hold 225w at -24c, but a gaming, or daily use pc will not see 225w on a 45nm quad. Keep in mind that load tester watts are actual watts, the processor watts you get from the online power calculators or by using the formula is way off; I tested 5 different cpus with a phase unit that I knew what temps it would hold at certain watts, then bolted the phase unit to each of the processors I had and used an online calculator to get an oc'd wattage for the processor..... in every case the online calculator was off by 60-70 watts to the high side. To give you an idea, a good friend I built a phase unit for is running a QX9650 at 4.7ghz with 1.65 vcore, this unit puts out around 185w with all 4 cores loaded.

Here is the list of components for the phase unit and results of tuning and load testing.

Danfoss NF5.5CLX compressor
VapoChill LS condenser
Chilly1 evaporator and mount kit
bronze flex line
8' 10" .031 cap tube
VapoChill LS controller
r502/r290 mix

Temps;
Idle -51.5c
50w -41c
100w -39c
175w -33.8c
200w -31.5c
225w -24.5c

As you can see, the sweet spot for this unit is 175w to 200w, which is perfect for the intended use.

The first pic below is just with initial charge and unit running in vacuum, the end unloaded temp is posted above.

I still need to paint the condenser shroud and the tubing, finish the insulation, and put the UV blue braid on the flex line, then the unit will be ready to install in the case.

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Well..... nothing like procrastination to keep the pressure on I have been working on it as I have time, I've just not gotten around to keeping this log up to date, I apologize for that, but I'm working full time, taking 15 credit hours of classes and trying to keep a couple other phase builds on schedule.

This build is about as much done as I can get, I do still need to do the wiring for the phase unit and fans in the bottom section (all wiring will be sleaved in blue braid like the flex line), but this build is for someone else and they will be installing their own water loop and hardware in the top section.

Here are pics of the LCD for the phase change controller which I mounted in one of the Lian Li drive covers, the controller board for the phase unit will mount on the tray behind the LCD. I mounted the power supply board under the aluminum tray in the bottom section, behind the phase unit.

I also had to fabricate a couple of brackets for the condenser to sit on. It had to be 1 1/2" off the bottom of the case to clear the cables for the front panel I/O's. They are made from aluminum with 1/8" foam under the condenser to help keep any vibrations from transferring to the case.

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I got ready to mount the phase unit in the case and found that the oval hole in the Lian Li divider wasn't large enough to allow the flex line through once it was insulated. I ended up making it 1/8" larger all around and it turned out very good.

I normally don't paint the condenser and copper tubing in a phase build, but since this was going in a case with a window, I decided to paint them black, after time copper turns dull and ugly. I think the black came out very well, I wasn't sure I would like it.

Here are some pics of the unit now, other than the wiring and a couple other very minor details, my part in this build is finished.

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These are my final pics. I installed a 4 X 20 Crystal Fontz blue LCD in the top bays to match the blue phase change controller in the bay just above the power button. The top 2 bays will not be usable for drives anyway due to the 3 X 120mm radiator in the top of the case and the CF LCD was the best looking idea I could come up with for that area, it willl also allow the gpu temps to be monitored and displayed like the cpu temps on the other LCD.

I do hope the owner will replace the side window with something a little different, I don't like the fan cut outs on this one.

So...... here it is. I've really enjoyed building this unit and hope you enjoyed seeing it. As I said before, I'm really not a case modder so I hope this qualifies.

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