Got the old 'itchy dremmel finger' feeling again
So it begins! (All suggestions for a name are welcome),
Edit: my project has now got a name! thanks Leeum!

I estimate it'll take me a few weeks to get this one finished, what with work/house/fiance committments, and still waiting on a number of parts.

This is what I've gathered up so far!

Hardware:-
Lian Li V1000, Antec true Power 480W, Meanwell 320W Peltier PSU, XP2500 mobile, NF7-S V2, Radeon 9800XT 256mb, 2 X 76GB raptors (to be raid 0), 180GB Maxtor, Plexor DVD RW R-R+ CDRW combo, Dell 14" laptop LCD screen (to be fitted to a side window).

Cooling:- New WACC Dual Row compact radiator, New 350mm WACC Active reservoir 10mm barbs, WACC AMD CPU block 10mm barbs, New WACC NB 10mm barbs, WACC GPU push fit, 223W potted Peltier, 2 X 5cm copper coldplates, 2 X 120mm fans (17db), 120 aluminium fan.

Case Mods:-2 X Matrix orbital 2 X 20 LCD displays (8 Temp probes) 8 UV CCFL, 20 UV leds

I've started making some changes to the case, (bear in mind this case cost £160 so its gently gently!) i just hate it when that dremmel slips and you get a huge score right up the side of your case! dont you?

I've started chopping and have made some interesting modifications to the res, Scott (viperlair), your comments about adding some UV led to the res caps were interesting, i was think exactly the same thing!

The images might seem a little pixelated as i've optimised them as much as possible for all you 56Kers out there!

One problem i will encounter is where to place the Meanwell Pelt PSU! is slightly bigger than i had estimated!

This is the 350mm active res with the barbs removed. I plan to drill two hole's in the top of the case and used the barbs to fix the reservoir to the case. It will sit horizontally and the tubing will be hidden inside the case!



The reservoir cap removed.



Inside the reservoir. You can see the internal grooves to enhance surface area







The reservoir cap had to be sanded flat on the edge that the barbs were mounted on to get it to sit flush to the case.







The first set of holes drilled in the top of the case. These had to be spot on or else the barbs wouldn't marry up to the holes in the reservoir. The good thing is i could get it wrong as the res will hide the holes but i would have to then use a washer and it might not be water tight! :shock:





The res fits perfectly but i will still have to test how water tight it is.









The barbs fixed from the inside of the case.







Some UV Leds, these will be attached to the low power gpos on the MX222 lcd and will fit inside the cap of the reservoir! :wink:



I drilled the holes at an angle so the UV led will reflect into the reservoir. The coolant will have a flourescent invisible blue dye added. Hopefully this will be quite a nice effect through the clear acrylic ends of the reservoir when lit by these ultrabrite UV LEDs.



Two 6 mm holes to place the UV leds in.



The led fits nicely!



Two small holes drilled and aligned to allow the led wires down into the case.







The new double row radiator in black. I'm not going to change the colour as this portion of the won't be on view.



I dremelled a hole into the bottom of the case wall this allows a perfect of the radiator onto the front fan assembly. The front fan is mounted on a sound deading device so this should keep it even quieter!







I've added some trim to stop the radiator from getting scratched and extra noise deadening.





The radiator viewed from will the front bays removed i have the inlet outlet arranged so there is as little tubing and distance running from radiator to the CPU.





I removed the case fan from the rear of the case and replaced it with an aluminium one. The removed fan will be in a push/pull configuration for maximum cooling at load. These fans will be connected to the MX222 unit and will be controlled by DS18B20 temperature probes (accurate to 0.5oC). These will be attached to the CPU die, cold plates and inline water temp sensor.





Thats it for now.

I'm just waiting for my coldplates, neoprene, conformal coating and dielectric grease to arrive. The next installation will be installing the pelt and testing the watercooling setup. Hopefully i will be able to modify the hold down clip to accomodate the extra width of the cold plates and peltier as it will require an extra 10mm of clearance :shock: .

It takes a lot of balls to cut up a nice (not to mention expensive) case like that. Your project looks fantastic.
I truly can't wait to see the finished product.

Nice reservoir....reminds me of a mini Reserator, but what about galvanic corrosion? Is the inside of the res anodized or what?

It looks to be anodized, most extrusions are...
Very nice start, what are your plans for condensation?

Quote: Originally Posted by lAnonymousl Nice reservoir....reminds me of a mini Reserator, but what about galvanic corrosion? Is the inside of the res anodized or what?

Yes the whole reservoir is anodised, i have been running a similar (Mark I) mixed metal system for nearly 2 years with no problems. This one is all copper. As for condensation, i'll take the usual precautions, confirmal coating, dielectric grease, and neoprene on the mobo, CPU pins and cold plate. I haven't done this before but should be fun!

Did a little bit more last night.

(WACC guys will have seen most of the images of the WACC components before most of you being owners! :-D but I'm posting them anyway as i can swipe and paste into other PLs i have started.)

I knew figuring our where to place the Meanwell PSU was going to be a problem after i purchased it, and reading the spec for size. I have hoped to place it in the bottom of the case after removing one of the hard disk racks and placing the WACC rad outside the case. I decided against this after seeing how well the fan was mounted at the front of the case and that it would be the perfect place for the radiator for optimum airflow. I hope i would still be able to squeeze it in at the bottom.

nope! just slightly too tall!

here are a few images of bits and pieces!

This is a good end shot of the reservoir to show how it has been designed for optimum surface area, both inside and out.



A picture of the Pump, I like the feet as they should absorb a lot of the pump vibration and will also allow crafty mounting to the top of the case.



This is the Meanwell 320 switching psu. I bought this from Sidewindercomputers in the US it was £60 inc p&p, i think they are selling here for nearly £115!





I thought about placing the Meanwell here, but it might interfere with the WACC CPU block... so it had to go into a drive bay. I didnt want to put any components into the body of the case that might output heat, but i believe meanwells dont really emit a lot of heat.



I had to modify a floppy bracket to hold the Meanwell in place. I just dremelled it a little and drilled two holes.

The meanwell has a special mounting bracket to fit it into drive bays but i think this does the job!







this is the bracket in place. I had to place it so it wouldnt interfere with tubing coming from the radiator.









The WACC CPU cooler copper core.





The CPU cooler with AMD mounting bracket. I will have to used the universal Mounting bracket as this one won't give me enough space for pelt and coldplates. The nylon bolts should be long enough and tightening is still via the innovative single nut system, applying even pressure across the die rather than using traditional spring systems.











The WACC Northbridge Cooler, i am going to change the push fits for barbs in keeping with the rest of the system.





I've figured out the the best way to fill the system will be as normal by removing the reservoir cap. This will involve tipping the whole machine bottom up, then removing the reservoir cap... makes sense! :wink:

Thats it till next week. I'll be installing the motherboard and hopefully have all the components to test the pelt and watercooling.

Looks almost like you know what you are doing.
Good job man, keep up the nice work and bring us more pics.

Funky little project ya got goin' on here...I like the way that Lian-Li has the motherboard mounted 'upside-down' or backwards - however ya wanna put it - it's like emulating the new BTX form factor...

Look like a hell of a rig.

I'd give myself nightmares about messing up on any portion of that project. Just the cost factor alone would make me very nervous.

Glad to see someone making a Lian-Li even better. Easy cases to dremel, and tons of mod potential.

It will be interesting to see if this peltier setup is going to work for you. Who knows how long, but so far peltiers have been mainly "all talk and no show" around here.

Its my first time with a pelt but one of the guys over at WACC had one running with on die temps are around 2oC at full load (XP2500M @2.7ghz) I have this oc @ 2.7 stable already on my water cooling setup so i think i have a good chip and ram i just need to chill it a little and hopefully i can hit @ 3ghz.

I'm nervous too cause you always hear horror stories about ice forming and things going pop!

but as the syaing goes..... He who dares!....

Mod time again! :-D

This time i have installed the peltier (tricky job) and WACC cooler block on to my NF7s Mobo, added a relay to control the pump and meanwell powersupply for the peltier and built some home made probes to slip under the ziff socket and attach to cold plate, cpu and hotplate.

I'll not got thought the whole peltier install as there are already some very comprehensive articles on this... needles to say its not as easier as it looks! :? scratched the bottom fo the cpu in the process.

I had to use the WACC universal hold down clamp as the AMD one just didnt give enough clearance. I also had to use thread wire instead of bolts as i couldn't find M4 bolts long enough

some images:

I've used AS5 thermal epoxy to attach the two copper cold plates to either side of the peltier and quickly wired it up to determine the hot and cold side before installation onto the MoBo








The copper plates, neoprene and WACC CPU block with Universal hold-down clip. I wont go through the installation details but if you want to know more there is a very good tutorial by Jon on installation, over at the modfathers..



In this image you can see my home made Dallas 1-wire digital temp sensors attached to the directly to the bottom of the CPU, emerging from between the neoprene. The probes will be attached to a modified Matrix Orbital MX222 display to control radiator fans in the cooling loop and to display accurate temperature on the LCD display.



Another shot of the CPU and north bridge blocks



A close up of the temp sensors.. these will be wired in series to show coldplate hotplate ambient and water temperature.



I have put UV braid and molexes on all wiring from my Antec 480W True blue.









there goes the warranty! :wink: ive opened up the PSU as i intend to install a relay switch inside. When i got it open and had a look inside i couldn't believe how little room there was! On removing the fan i couldn't see anywhere to fit the relay switch! :shock:



The relay!! i made it with components ordered from RS components and some circuit board.



The great thing about Antecs are most have an external molex at the back of the case so you can attach an external fan eg. for a radiator in a watercooled system. It made it easier to solder the +12V and -VE for the relay.



The 240V live and earth for the pump and meanwell were soldered here. For those not familiar with relays, power won't be supplied to the pump or meanwell until the system is in a powered on state, thus the pelt and pump will switch off when the system is powered down :-D . There is a very good tutorial over at procooling.com.



the 12v and -ve switching power coming from the PSU.



Here you can see the 240V input controlled by the relay, which i will connect to a molex for easy removal.







Here you can see the pump and meanwell supply molex, and the only position i could fit the relay internally was tight to the top fan!






I swapped the ugly white molex for a nice UV reactive blue one! tidied up the cabling and popped the hood back on! job done. That's what I believed would be the trickiest part of this mod, as tinkering with 240V scares the hell outta me! but it wasn't that bad.. guess ill have to wait till the powerswitch is thrown and pray [-o< nothing goes BANG!



I've just popped the motherboard into the case and installed the meanwell again to make sure there were no obstructions. the only bad thing i can forsee is connecting the sata raptors as the SATA headers are at the top of the board and the HDDs at the bottom, and i hate unnecessary cabling! :x






The V1000 has a handy quick release way of installing HDD bt having larger screws that slide along a rail with a locking system.



the system upright!



Next i hope to install the pump, tubing and fill the system for leak testing..
...till then!

Mod time again!

A small GPU mod this time.
I have to give props to Womblebt for this one! :wink:

The WACC GPU cooler !





I've drilled a couple of holes to fit two 5mm blue leds (being incredibly careful not to crack the acrylic block!)

The great thing about the Lian-Li V1000 case is, thats because the MoBo is upside down, you can really show off that GPU cooler. Traditionally it would have been hidden underneath the Graphics card! :-D





Two 5mm LEDs fit perfectly!





I've soldered the two LEDs in series with a 1000 ohm resistor (heat shrink over the whole lot). This will be attached to the 12V fan out put on the Graphics card.





The GPU fitted to the graphics card!





Here is wombles WACC GPU lit up which i think will look excellent in the dark. I haven't actually fired up the system as i have a some more testing to do but it will look pretty much like this! :rock:



I'm nearly done with leak testing (all clear so far) and hope to fire the pelt up tonite! :twisted: then i'll be adding a modified MX222 with a Lian-Li face plate (better fit than the provided MO face plate) and connecting up all the case LEDs, CCFL etc..

(A big thank you to Wombletbt for the idea for this mod!)

till then...

I just put my nifty 7x rep multiplier to good use and gave you some major bling - excellent work!!!

I'd advise others to do the same - this is turning out better than I expected!

Great job

This is turnin out great man, and the worklog is being kept up to date. Great job and welcome to PR man.

WOW!!!


I love the Gpu block with leds in it




(Bling Bling Rep points coming your way)

Why can't all new PR members be like this?

I'm flattered! thanks for the praise guys! it is appreciated!

Theres a lot more to come and the LCD mod i hope will be truely original. I know someone else is working on a similar idea, but i had the idea a few months ago so im not coping. I like to give props where its deserved.

Another guy is giving me a hand on a delay circuit bypass, to power the water then the pelt, then the system. So i'll have to see how that turns out. I'm a bit of a nOOb when it comes to pelts but i'll carry on with what I'm doing.

I'm just waiting on the LCD on a slow boat from the US but it will be interesting to see the actual size and dimensions. Some side panel laser cutting will also be on the drawing board.. i found out a company just up the road has a brand new laser cutting machine! i havent settled on a design yet, but thats for another day!

thanks again!

Bl4ze one for the N4... tion!

Looking good wondering how you plan on connecting the LCD to your vid card cause you could have the cable be outside the case some but it wold be pimp if you could keep it all in the case

Now there is a challenge!

I've thought long and hard about that! but to butcher a £400 video card would be just a little brave! i may have a solution but i need to test it on a cheaper card or may see if i can find an old PCI card and butcher that as it only as to run a 5" LCD? 640X480 resolution i think?

but it would be pimpin' to have the cabling all inside and run dual screen off my 9800XT.