Project :: Silver Shadow

Leeum · Apr 9, 2005

Due to a lot of picture downtime Ive moved the pictures to a reliable server (thanks cheebs!) Ive also added a bit more detail in some areas of the log. Enjoy

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After many months of planning and saving for bits (having this hobbie at 15 is bad news

) it's finally coming together; welcome to my project

With so many influential modders such as Nexxo, coolmiester, G-gnome, Pug and many others, inspiration hasn't been hard to find.

My plan is to customise a Chieftec case to hold a big bore water cooling system, incorporating many people's ideas aswell as my own. After many hours of searching the web and forums I decided a Chieftec mid-tower would be perfect for holding all the gear. With the existing mods done to the Dragon series, I decided to go for the Matrix series to produce something a little more individual. I managed to get one of the last mid-tower models from Germany, it turned out to be quite a bit more expensive than the full tower but I was prepared to pay the difference for the non-blowholed side panel and overall smaller size.

Anyway enough banter, first of all I need to get the case ready to host my water cooling gear.

My Christmas present that arrived from Tekheads, lets open it up

Heres the stock case, its a Chieftec Matrix MX-01WD in beige.

A shot with the front bezel open.

The side panel. I ended up paying more for it being non-blowholed but itll pay off when it gets cut.

The side panel removed, nice and spacious case for a mid-tower.

The HDD cages, pity these will have to be removed, means Ill have to get an adaptor for my HDD to mount it in the large cage.

The HDD cage holders, these are held in by 3 pop rivets each, 5 minute job with a drill and small drill bit.

Leeum · Apr 9, 2005

HDD cage holders removed, lots of space there now

Heres a test fit with the XSPC R-120D, now you begin to see how the Chieftec mid-towers are made for water cooling.

Next task was to drill the holes for the radiator, I used a template and the shroud to accurately mark them out. Once that was done, I decided to cut out a basic outline of the shroud for the radiator fans to freely pull air in from outside the case; this turned out to be a total pain as the panel already had holes drilled in for the 80mm intake fans.

After triple checking my marking I was happy it would work. Next day I took the naked case to the school workshops and made the cuts with a jigsaw.

Considering it was my first time with a jigsaw, I think I did ok

The cut needed tidying up with a hacksaw and a file before it was ready for some blowhole trim.

I also gave the rear blowholes a little treatment of my own to allow for better airflow, I cut the pre-drilled grills with metal tin-snips, they also needed a file down to tidy them up.

Heres a test fit of the radiator installed from the front.

From the inside.

Im pleased at how things have turned out; the cuts should provide the radiator fans with enough airflow to do their stuff.

harmlesskils · Apr 9, 2005

looking good so far
keep it up

KrakenGuy · Apr 9, 2005

Me likey so far. Keep it up dude.

rogue_jedi · Apr 9, 2005

is there a filter inbetween the radiator and the front of the case? if there isn't, you should put one there, or it'll get VERY dusty. you should see the filter on the front of my lianli after a month or two without cleaning it... lots of dust on it. and a radiator is harder to dust than a filter.

looks nice so far... wish i still had a working dremel so i could mess with my case more.

GlobalFear · Apr 9, 2005

Not bad. Looks like you are going for clean wiring, too. (masking tape on mobo tray)

Hinokagutsuchi · Apr 9, 2005

Sup Chieftec Matrix buddy?

I've got the full tower version of that case, though. It looks good so far. Where'd you get the shroud?

Leeum · Apr 9, 2005

Thanks guys

The radiator came with the shroud, it's an XSPC R120-D, it's said to perform better than a BIXII and it's $20 cheaper

Adding a filter is a good idea but i feel it may kill airflow, the bezel of the matrix is good in the way it won't let in any thick amounts of dust and doesn't jepordise airflow.
I've decided i may not go ahead with the cut in the mobo tray, it was originally going to be there for me to access the bolts for the CPU block but i feel it won't be needed.
Thanks for the comments guys

ness1469 · Apr 11, 2005

Leeum said:
I've decided i may not go ahead with the cut in the mobo tray, it was originally going to be there for me to access the bolts for the CPU block but i feel it won't be needed.

Honestly, I think you'd be happier if you did. Imagine setting everything up only to find you have a bum chip that dies in a week.

I'd think it would make upgrades a lot easier, unless you have no frequent plans for this like some of us freaks do

Leeum · Apr 11, 2005

This chip has been going strong for about a year

Once it's set up i'll not be touching it for a while

Leeum · Apr 11, 2005

Here are some pictures of the water cooling equipment that will be used in the project. Each of them will be modification of some degree to make it fit the theme and colour of the case.

All the water cooling gear

Here's the reservoir Ill be using, it's an Aqua Computer Aquatube in silver.

Two of the threads have been tapped to ¼ BSP and fitted with ¼ BSP to ½ barbs for use in a big bore loop.

It also has a lighting module fitted, it fits a 5mm LED to light up the inside

Here's the radiator, it's an XSPC R120-D. These radiators are fairly new to the market but from the reviews Ive seen, it should perform well.

One thing I really like is the chrome shroud, the reflection is demonstrated by an orange (nearest thing I could find lol)

Leeum · Apr 11, 2005

Here's the GPU block, its a Danger Den Maze4.

Here's the CPU block, also a Maze4.

The pump, a Hydor L30.

The front section is only used when the pump runs in submerged mode.

I decided to go for some aluminium fans to match the radiator shroud. These are Titan 120mm fans, they push 79.14 CFM each but air fairly noisy, Ill be using a fan controller with them.

IndyJoe · Apr 11, 2005

I don't see any images.. Not sure whats wrong

Edit: Working now

em00guy · Apr 11, 2005

"bits" heeh i love you uk kids. I would have gone with a more powerfull pump but your on a budget and that can always be replaced. I like your rad cutout, very industrial. GW

Leeum · Apr 11, 2005

Thanks, it was a pain to cut because of all the holes that were already there, lucally none of it can be seen once the front bezel is on

As for the pump, it's powerful enough tbh, it has similar flow rates as an Eheim 1250 and was £20 cheaper

Sorry for any pic downtime, it doesn't happen often.

Leeum · Apr 12, 2005

After seeing coolmiesters LED mods to the Maze3 series blocks, I decided to give the same process a go with the Maze4. I took the block into school and did a 5mm hole rougly 5mm into the top with the drill press.

Here you can see a small cloud in the lucite at the top where it's been drilled in.

A close up of the hole.

Here's a test fit with a 5mm LED, there's no need to glue the LED inside, the hole tightly holds it in

Just to show the pleasing effect with the block I tried it with a lit blue LED, for a few minutes work with the drill it certainly paid off

Ive decided to use a white LED for the block to match my silver/ white theme.

em00guy · Apr 12, 2005

The lucite mod was a great idea that i will likey be stealing. Maybe you could sand the edge of the lucite to diffuse the light a bit.

Leeum · Apr 12, 2005

Could do but i'm too lazy

I'll have to drill the Maze4 Chipset when it arrives aswell

KrakenGuy · Apr 12, 2005

Dude, that is a wicked ass Maze 4, lol, I must do that to my TDX or something =D.

Hinokagutsuchi · Apr 12, 2005

Holy crap that looks awesome.

Leeum · Apr 13, 2005

I imagine it'll work for all of the Danger Den blocks with lucite tops, the good thing is it only takes one LED

Leeum · Apr 14, 2005

Remember the Hydor L30 pump? It was black and not in a good way, lets see if we can fix that

Heres the pump all masked up and ready to paint. The stuff Im going to be using is PlastiKote vinyl dye.

After 4 coats I left it outside to dry for a good few hours. I took it into the house to check there were no spots Id missed or where the paint had ran.

Here are the nickel plated hose tail barbs I ordered from Airlines, unfortunately I was unable to them to ½ hose, I had to settle for 12mm fittings which are near enough. I applied two passes of PTFE tape onto the threads.

Here are the barbs fitted into the pump, I think they go really well with the newly painted silver.

I also hacked off the mains plug; this wont be needed as the pump will draw its power from a relay inside the PSU.

Leeum · Apr 14, 2005

Heres the finished pump, had to shoot the photos in a different room this time as the kitchen is getting decorated.

A shot from the front with the

A side shot with the front removed.

From the front.

Heres the male molex for the pumps power.

While I was at it I wired and sleeved two white LEDs for the CPU block and the Aquatube and also sleeved the PCI plate for the motherboards extra USB connectors.

The sleeved radiator fans.

The nickel plated barbs for the radiator.

em00guy · Apr 14, 2005

I see your vision now. I like the pump painting.

Troney1169 · Apr 14, 2005

Me Likey!

cell_491 · Apr 14, 2005

looks good

incomudro · Apr 14, 2005

ill be wathching

Leeum · Apr 15, 2005

Thanks guys

Small update to the Titan fans, I gave the beige plastic innards a spray with vinyl dye.

Sprayed fan from the front

From the back

While the insides were out I gave the frames a little polish.

Installed on the radiator, now were in business.

Close up of the top fan.

Leeum · Apr 16, 2005

Heres the PSU I got roughly Novemver 2004, Its an Antec SmartBlue 350W, solid rails and more power than Ill ever need

It wasnt long before I had the thing pulled to bits in preparation for some modding.

After seeing G-gnomes Orac I decided I wanted to chrome the casing as I was astounded how well his TrueControl came out. As my grandad has so many connections from his days in the industry I decided to give him a call to see if he knew any local platers. A few days later he was over to pick up the casing; I dismantled the PSU and annotated all the components so I knew how they went back together. Trust me, when it comes to 240V you dont want to take any chances

Next day my grandad returned with the casing wrapped in brown paper, he explained the casing couldnt be chromed because it had a layer of lacquer over it, instead it was nickel plated. I un-wrapped it and found the finish to be almost identical to chrome and for £10, I wasnt complaining at all.

Next task was getting everything back into the casing in working order, it was quite a daunting task because at the time I had very little electronic experience, Ive only started a systems & control course at school this year.

I gave the casing a quick polish up with Mer non-abrasive polish just to see how it was going to look. Shiny

I then screwed the top on and proceeded outside with the extension lead to test it using the paper clip trick. The reason for testing it outside was because I had little faith in my soldering and expected the thing to go off with a nasty bang. Much too my surprise, it worked, I was completely amazed I had pulled it off.

Leeum · Apr 16, 2005

As I was on a bit of roll I decided to add some goodies to the cabling, no harm in that seeing as the PSU worked? How wrong I was.

After hours of blood, sweat and tears from dismantling and pulling cables from their connectors I finished up for the night. I then proceeded to plug it into the house mains and power it up to test it was ok again for piece of mind. After all the hard work, it went off with an almighty bang, by this time I was tearing my hair out from the fact it had worked fine outside a few hours ago. Upon opening up the casing to see what was up I found the remains of green powder all over the inside, turns out a small green thermisistor had blown its top and fused the kettle lead. Perhaps the extension lead I used stopped the fuse from popping which would explain how it worked outside. By that time stuff like thermisistors were far from my knowledge.

The one and only ShinyMod from Moddin.net kindly offered to have a shot of fixing up the old Antec. After weeks and weeks of ordering components, soldering and tripping the circuit breakers in Shinys house we decided to call it a day. I then ordered a new PSU which he kindly offered to transfer into the nickel plated casing, I also sent up a 240V relay for the pumps power; I decided it would be best for Shiny to fit the relay seeing the bad luck I had from messing with the PSU. Seeing as Id sleeved the cables, he also cut them and soldered them into onto the PCB of the new PSU to save me having to re-order a kit and do them again

After all this time youll never guess what was delivered to me this morning? Yup, the PSU Shiny has worked so hard on for the past couple of months. I finished sleeving the mains supply molex and polished up the casing ready for a photo shoot.

Here it is in all its glory.

Leeum · Apr 16, 2005

A close up of the casing.

From the back. If you look you can also see the internal fans, they also got some silver vinyl dye treatment

A shot to demonstrate the reflection of the nickel plated casing. These pics dont do this baby any justice, Im sure Shiny can agree

Leeum · Apr 16, 2005

The top removed, I decided to open it up to show you guys all the work Shiny has put into this.

This is where the relay draws the main power to switch from.

Here you can see the relay all nicely heatshrinked. Also note the MOSFET sinks, they had to be cut down with an angle grinder to accommodate the 92mm Antec fan.

I dont know about you guys but Im over the moon with the result. Just to remind you, the result is a completely custom PSU with nickel plated casing, pump relay and full UV sleeving and molexs. A massive shout to ShinyMod for all of his hard work hes put in, I couldnt have done it without him

KrakenGuy · Apr 16, 2005

Your going to want to replace those fans, they make a shuffling noise when the PSU is turned on, I know this cause I own a TrueBlue 480.

I really like this, 2 of my favorite colors in one place =), nice.

Leeum · Apr 17, 2005

Thanks

The fans don't bother me

The PSU that's inside has a temp control PCB for the fans (that gadget covered in masking tape

) so when i turn it on they go nice and slow until they need to increase speed.

KrakenGuy · Apr 17, 2005

Mmhmm, that temp control sure helps. But its not temp control that fixes the shuffling, I may have just had duds for fans, but both of the fans that are in my PSU make a shufflin noise as if something on the inside is touching/scraping the outer edge of the inside of the fan. So no matter how fast or how slow the fans spin, I still get irritating shuffling sound.

Seeing you do all this stuff to your PSU makes me want to do it to mine, the only problem though is that my soldering skills are crap and I don't want to break my PSU =). So therefore I might buy a presleeved PSU or something along those lines.

zapperfish · Apr 17, 2005

that PSU looks so nice, just should have made it with the plugs on it, for the cable management

Leeum · Apr 17, 2005

You mean make it modular? Tbh, i'm not a fan of modular cables atm, more fuss and wiring

zapperfish · Apr 18, 2005

yeah i guess it is a bit of a fuss, but well worth the effort

Leeum · Apr 19, 2005

Next we move onto the Maze4 GPU block. We cant let a nice lump of anodised aluminium go into the case un-modded can we?

The finish I was aiming for was similar to that Nexxo and Coolmiester achieved in their projects. If Im honest I think its their inspired thats got me into all this water cooling and shiny business, thanks guys

Well have to get round to writing a guide together sometime.

I believe this is Coolmiesters first polished Maze4, looking very bling indeed

Image credits to him.

Just for the record, this is the stock Maze4 GPU block. I realise now how lucky I was to get the older revision without hi-flow barbs; this wouldve proved a pain later on if I hadnt.

I started by removing the bottom section of the block.

I then removed the barbs with an adjustable wrench. I removed the remaining thread tape after this picture and blocked up the holes with masking tape. The only set-back when sandblasting the block is the anodising must stay on the bottom so no bear aluminium comes into contact with the water. In order to get a clean line around the block I bolted a plate of Perspex using the 4 holes on the underside, if I used masking tape it mightve given a nasty finish around the edges. I then called my grandad again to source a local sandblaster.

Heres the block back from the sandblasters, note the small imperfections around the barb holes, these were caused by the masking tape. Not to worry these will easily be cleared up later, better than sand inside the block.

Heres a picture from the side.

Bolting on that plate of Perspex really paid off, look at the clean line on around the bottom

Leeum · Apr 19, 2005

Now we move onto stage 2, wet and dry sanding using 800, 1000, 1200 and 1600 grit. It took me god knows how many hours and sheets of sand paper but as youll see it all payed off. The sanding also took care of all those little imperfections where the sandblaster had missed.
Now for stage 3, some elbow grease in the form of heavy polishing with an abrasive such as Brasso, in this case I used Autosol and damn the stuff is good!

Here it is fresh from the garage, lovin that shine baby!

I then applied some fresh PTFE tape to the barbs and screwed them back in. The masking tape is to stop the wrench taking any of the plating off the barbs.

I then screwed the bottom back on. As I gnarled the threads of the old bolts when I fitted the Perspex to the bottom, Coolmiester kindly sent me some new ones and the right size allen key, thanks mate

Heres the block ready for a photo shoot, sorry for the bad quality pictures.

From the back, notice all the imperfections are long gone. The sanding took care of those

While I was at it, I lapped the bottom to 1200 grit, nice and shiny.

Can you say eye candy? The money shotliterally

Project :: Silver Shadow

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