Project Mountain Mod UFO Xtreme

[NortHWizarD]

I am just starting this build... I have accumulated the majority of needed parts and am now just waiting on some custom pieces to be made and then I can actually start the building process.

Here's the plan/idea:

Mountain Mods U2-UFO case (picked one up really cheap on another forum, along with a nice bunch of goodies tossed in... hiper PSU, Matrix Orbital, Sunbeam Theta... other odds & ends)

Xtreme cooling... now this is where things have started going a little nuts LMAO

My original plan was to have a real nice water cooled system... water cool just about any and every piece possible, just for the heck of it... then, while browsing this forum, I ran across a phase unit for sale, and plans started to change

Here is the case as I got it:
(yes, the fan grills are an ugly, caution-sign yellow color and the fans have green LED's)

Now, although I agree that thermochill rads are good and all, I already have a brand new Black Ice GT Stealth X-Flow rad I wanted to use, and what I never realised is that the MM cases are not built for mounting anything but Thermochill rads... the fan spacing on the front is to much - they only fit a thermochill rad... so, I decided to make a custom panel for the front of the case.
Then, looking at the case again, I noticed that with how the fans and window are placed in the top cover, unless you have the window to the back of the case, you either can't mount the PSU on the left side at the top as the fans will hit it, or you have to use the PSU mount on the bottom, right back of the case... but I will be using dual PSU's, so this was no good for me... I don't like top windows anyways, so designed a new custom top as well... heck, since I am going that far... may as well get new side panels too!

So, since I was doing a new front panel... I went searching for a good quality 8" widescreen LCD to place in it... and I picked up an 8" Lilliput LCD for a great price and even had the guy do some custom wiring on it so that it will suit my needs.

I bought (and it should be arriving Monday or Tuesday) the phase unit and Lian Li case off of Asazman (link to the thread.. ignore the pending, the money order was shipped out last monday to him and UPS is delivering the unit to me the 26th or 27th - http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1129448&highlight=prometeia )

So, now the plan is to mount that whole unit internally (remove it from it's original housing) and use it to cool the CPU... but, that leaves me a triple 120mm rad that now won't have much of a workload... that just won't do... and heck, if I have phase on the cpu, water cooling the graphics seems a little mild... so, Peltier cooling for the vide... here we come.

I am not sure whether I will be going with SLI or not at this point... I really do not do any gaming, so really high-end video/gaming cards are not really needed, although I do a buch of cad work, so I may just invest in that form of a graphics card instead.
I will be using a decent to high-end card for my normal display, and something low-end to run the display on my 8' front panel mounted LCD screen - it will be basically just for displaying system specs, temps... that sort of stuff.

Well, here are some pics of the parts I have so far and also the design I came up with in Sketchup that I am following for this build (no, there are no fan grills in the picture... they are a big secret for now.)

8" LCD screen, ready to mount in the case:

the remote for it, which I will be placing inside an old laptop PCMCIA slot/card holder which will be mounted in the case... can eject the remote whenever I want/need it, and have a place to store it when not needed... not really necessary, but kinda cool

rad for the front:

custom wired triple LED lights that I will be using inside the case:

here is the case design I did in Sketchup, and in the end it will be pretty close... there are a few things missing in the pic and there may be some minor changes... and there is defintely going to be some air-brushing getting done.

now since the prometeia was originally for socket 462, I had teh choice of either going out and buying/ordering a new mounting kit for it, or building my own... well the guy I bought it from sent me a link to a site that shows how to make a mount for it and it looked quite easy, although also very cheap and ugly, so after a little redesign, this is what is getting made for it:

I am still undecided on what system will go in it, but for now and for the initial testing and playing around, it will be an FX-55 on an Asus A8N32SLI-Deluxe - I would rather work out bugs on that, then on a brand new system with a $250-$400 motherboard, and processor worth even more.

As soon as the new custom panels are done and in my hands, I will post some pics of the actual building of it... although I may post some stuff a little sooner since the phase unit will be here pretty soon... I probably won't be able to just let it sit

~NortH~

 

[lozaning]

this should prove to be very interesting

 

[piako]

where do you think the phase unit will fit?

 

[NortHWizarD]

the phase unit will fit in the side that houses the optical drives and hard drives.

some redesign and re-organization will be needed, but it easily fits.

~NortH~

 

[NortHWizarD]

The phase unit arrived and it works like a charm (thanks Wes) - now I am just waiting on my custom panels and a few other parts to be done so I can start on the cutting and building of this thing... collecting parts is only exciting for so long

here is the phase unit when I tested it shortly after it arrived:

I have a friend who does HVAC who has taken a look at it and we are now talking about making a few minor changes to the unit to make it work better for my project.
Changing the evaporator tubing on it to change the length and bends as well as add a longer flex line, and possibly do the 404A mod to it - not sure on the 404A yet as I don't want to start messing with the cap tubing if I don't have to, and we have an abundance of 134A available, so we may just regas it with 134A, the same as it came with originally - yet to be decided.

~NortH~

 

[omegatotal]

nice! def post more details of the mods to the prometeia phase unit and its installation!

 

[Ockie]

Poor case before... that looked hideous!

 

[NortHWizarD]

I just shuddered when it arrived and I unpacked it LMAO

I can say I had never seen a case quite set up like that before... and quickly went to getting rid of the *ugly*



~NortH~

 

[alkaline]

you know....instead of a little 8 in lcd, you could probably fit a good sized monitor on the side of the case

 

[NortHWizarD]

actually, the case will easily fit a full 17" LCD - I was going to make a 17" LCD fit on the top and raise up, but in the end decided I didn't want something that large in/on the case - I just wanted something small, that would *fit in* to the look and build and can be used to display system info and stuff like that... like a Matrix Orbital on steroids idea

It just seemed to fit in that area below the optical drives really well, so it's the plan we are sticking with.

Hopefully this weekend I will get a chance to start work on the Prometeia unit.

~NortH~

 

[WarMace]

Make sure you document the phase-change autopsy

 

[NortHWizarD]

I actually just got off the phone with my buddy who is working with me on the phase part of the build.

He dug up his guages, has the vacuum pump ready, a whole new container of R134A - we just have to go and get the Schrader valves and the extra tubing and hardware I will be using in it... we are also installing a set of guages on the unit to show the pressure of both the high and low side, and will be mounting the valves right into the back of the case so that it is fully serviceable without having to even crack the case - will sure make for easy fine tuning when that part of the build comes.

~NortH~