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Team Glasslicker Interactive Build

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Something like this. Its an inside view and you would still be able to see the GFX cards and CPU. It will also cool the case better allowing you to reduce fans that are needed and only use the three on your rad. Red = the area in which windows can be placed. The BIX can be mounted simply with screws.

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Hang on everbody...I'm fit'n to hook a right !

OK, for starters, I ordered the water pumps and the hose. 7/16 ID. Clearflex. It's 5/8 OD and we should be fine as we dont have any really tight curves.

I went down to Frys to look at chassis boxes and they just aren't going to cut it. Big ugly seams. Not gonna cut it. I'd leave the rad and fans bare first.

Now for the curve. We were supposed to have a nice easy build with a few simple mods right? Well that party's over. TIme to put you thinking caps back on.

Here's the problem. I hate the frame paint. I also hate the gun metal grey paint. It's horrific. It looks like industrial grade paint. I just can't live with it.

In conjunction with my disgust over the paint, things started popping into my head. So here's the plan.

I'm yanking the face plate....actually the entire front cover off the case. We are going to anodize it. So, our choices appear to be blue, red, gold, black, and hard anodizing which is kind of a stealth black. But wait, there's more.

We cant anodize the chassis as it's steel. Sooooooo, we either paint it or we chrome it. That's right....chrome it.


Good people borrow and great people steal! There is a gentleman on the project logs named Vonkaar who has been working on a huge project since 2003. The guy is amazing in his design concepts. He's also been through he//. Anyway, he chromed some panels a couple of years back and they looked phenom.

I would suspect that a chromed chassis and case would look absolutely incredible with an anodized face plate. The only thing I dont know is if I'll have to drill all rivets out or it could be chromed. To complicate matters further, I'm not sure if these are steel or alloy rivets.

Now check this out. If we have have to drill out rivets in order to chrome, we can replace them with anodized rivets or even screws that match the front panel color! Can I get a Woot ! Or we could replace them with black anodized ones for contrast.
I'm not decreeing we chrome. Paint works too. Just a thought.

Now since we are going to do something with this thing, we need to solidify bay duty. I'd like to figure out what's going where prior to sending out for paint/anodize or the big C.

Soooo

5.25 bays from top

1) Fan switch panel
2) Open
3) Open
4) Open
5) Stealth slide-in LCD Screen

3.5 bays from top

1) Open
2) Open


We will likely need a rhoebus for lighting and to give us some control over pump flow volume.

We need a CD RW DVD.

We need to decide if we want a Typhoon type bay or cylinder.

We also have to be careful that nothing deep runs in the top 2-3 5.25 bays as our rad hoses are coming down through there.

Color schemes people we need some color scheme and design work pronto. I'm ready to get moving on this thing. Tired of coming home every day to shiny parts with no way to power them ! lol
 
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Mayday ! Mayday ! Pull up on the stick !

Remember back on page two when Midnight dream humbly suggested that we pay close attention to our wire management ? Well I really wasn't worried but then remembered that this case was taller than most. I started eyeballing cables and everything looked fine until I got to the 24 pin. Well I plugged it in to the mobo and sombababichae.....it's tighter than 10 toes in a sock ! Lookie !:

IMG_0347.jpg


IMG_0348.jpg


IMG_0345.jpg


The cable comes straight down from the back of the PSU. There is no duress on the connector or mobo but it is tight.

We need to start thinking wire management ASAP.
 
Black anodizing and Black Hard is going to be about the same color, but hard will be twice the cost. Anodizing does show up some imperfections in the base metal and black does not always come out uniformed in color. Seams like you can shell out some money so why not get a quote on power coating the case the color you want.

Control over pump flow volume- Full Power

I have a silver case, black, couple white. But I would really like a Red.


Drop the PSU down to the next bay and run the wire down the back and cut a hole next to where it connects to the motherboard and cum through and it will look clean. Don't forget to use a grommet. Um.... Er..... Dump the mouse on the final assembly, keep it clean.
 
Like the idea Ken (aka son1990), Tho I can't tell in my mind if the black would look quite as nice as gold/bronze (maybe even copper) for those tho. Everything is sounding good... and to tell the truth, I'm thinking of a side "window" mounted rad for my future build. Just thinking, so I might not do it, but I imagine it could turn out very nicely.
 
Burdman27911 said:
Like the idea Ken (aka son1990), Tho I can't tell in my mind if the black would look quite as nice as gold/bronze (maybe even copper) for those tho. Everything is sounding good... and to tell the truth, I'm thinking of a side "window" mounted rad for my future build. Just thinking, so I might not do it, but I imagine it could turn out very nicely.

I hear where your coming from but gold on chrome would look very nice with black rivvots which would give the color and case some definition.
 
Son, I somehow missed your design post. My apologies.

Setting aside the window itself, I'm not sure we can use it. I have to leave the case on the desk (we have a small place) and drawing air out through the side would throw air across the desk. That' water filled rad is also a lot of weight for that big flimsy panel.

Paint scheme suggestions thus far:

For paint we have RED powder coat by Mr.DLucey. (thanks for the info on hard coat, sir !)

Chrome case, anodized GOLD front plate and BLACK rivets is suggested by Son.

Burdman suggests same layout as son with the exception of exhanging black rivots for gold or bronze.

I'll get all costs associated with doing this today and post them up today.

Other suggestions ?
 
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I say you powder coat the frame, get a car painter to do a design on the case. I'm really against the gold front, I just hate the gold color.
If you are going for anodized look then Blue front with red rivets and red chassis would be very cool IMO, the side and top panels will be the same color as the front right?
 
OK. I called a couple of powder coating places. I stayed away from the guys that work out of their garages. I also stayed away from the guys that do the 100K Harleys.

To powder coat top end, multi layer candy is 300.00 including chemical strip. A single or double layer coat is far less.

The chrome guy here (Phoenix) is out of business. Calling Tucson now. Also, waiting to hear back from anodizing guy.
 
Flip-Mode said:
Thats a little steep for the powder coat....

I agree; however, I asked him to quote me worst case scenario which was a four coat process. Personally, I dont think we need anything that crazy. Should we decide to go P.C., I expect approximately 150.00.
 
glasslicker said:
I agree; however, I asked him to quote me worst case scenario which was a four coat process. Personally, I dont think we need anything that crazy. Should we decide to go P.C., I expect approximately 150.00.
Alrighty, bring the ruckus!
 
$150 seems more reasonable. To add in my personal tastes (commenting on Flip-Mode's earlier comment :D), I also don't like gold too much. For my stuff I make, gold is a good accent, but I'm not a huge fan when it is one of the main components.

I don't think the case should be solid Chrome either. IMO we should do a good blend of various colors, gold very well may look great, but both it and chrome have the potential to be overwhelming. Just some thoughts to keep it looking tasteful seeing it will be sitting on your desk.

Hope some other people have thoughts to add to the design. Also if anyone has a chance to do a mock up with maya or some rendering of a case with chrome/gold design that would be great (not sure Son what cad program you use). I suppose I could wander into one of the computer labs and sit down with some solidworks and throw some crude representation of a PC in there, but the chances of me having time to do that is low.

Keep the juices flowing!

Burdman
 
It would be really cool if you could have a guy paint some custom graphics on the case. In this is what you want though, it would be painted and not powder coat.

Chroming the case would look sick... but I hate chrome and gold together
Maybe chrome and red... with orange and yellow accents. That would look hot, pun intended.

You could also etch the window... my dad has a laser engraver at his business and he could put an awesome image on it. On the other hand, I don't know if you want to ship your window to Wisconsin and back but their are probably places that do the same thing much closer to you.

For a video card... I don't know your schedule for finishing this project but I would wait for the new nvidea 7900 series to come out mid march. In the mean time, you could throw an old graphics card in there just to get the system up and running.

I think a 4in screen would look amazing and I will probably put one in my next rig. highly recommend you go with this.

I second the rad on top idea and have attached my idea for a WC loop. I believe this is the best because two pumps generate twice the heat and this way the water is first cooled off. Then gravity helps pull the water through the blocks. I don't have too much WC experience so I don't know if you might possibly get by with one pump and free up some space. P.S. sorry about the bad MS paint work... I was in a hurry!

Also this was from a while back but why don't you use your seagate for storage and buy a raptor for games/OS? With this system starting to get extreme, I could see how the hard drive might start to limit you. If you want extreme bling, the new 150GB raptor has a window which would be killer, but it has the same performance as the normal one and therefore doesn't have the cost justification IMO.

Also, could you give us a pic of your workspace so we can see where this bad boy will be going?
 

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From a watercooling aspect (anyone can correct me if I'm wrong at all), it's not the best idea to put the res right after the pump, because you aren't forcing the water through the waterblocks, besides that order isn't a huge deal because with a good pump (or 2) water will be circulating as a relatively fast rate.
 
Houston, we have a problem !

Since we are sending the case somewhere paint,powder coat, chrome, or anodize, I thought I'd pull it back apart and get some holes drilled so it's ready to go when we figure out color scheme.

So, pretty easy. Strip face plate and all switches off case and you end up with this:

IMG_0351.jpg


Then, instead of going through all the gyrations that most people do to create a crappy template, just pony up 7.00 for a shroud which fits between your fans and rad. This one happens to be made of acryl. It also doubles as a perfect template:

IMG_0353.jpg


As I started to to line up the template to mark the holes in which the spacers will be attached to case, I noticed we gots big ol' problems.

Specifically, if we move the rad to 1/2 inch from the rear of the case(due to a metal lip support for the psu) the rad sits really far forward. Taking into account that we need the 5.25 bays, clearing any installed item in the bays will create a pretty severe angle on the hose. How severe ? Well, I grabbed the only tubing I had for a little sim:

IMG_0364.jpg



You can see that we'd have to put a pretty extreme curve in the tubing.

Being that it looks like we have no choice but to move the PSU to the HD bay (more cutting and hacking), I flipped it around and took a picture to show where the tubing would enter the case taking into consideration the most most recent design posted:

IMG_0365.jpg


So any ideas ?

A) We can install as planned and potentially limit flow do to severity of hose angle.

B) Turn rad around, which still means coming up with a new design.

C) Flip as in last pic and let barbs hang of back. We can run hose back in the case down below although makes for some long runs,like this:

IMG_0367.jpg


IMG_0368.jpg


Anyone ? Anyone ? Buehler ?
 
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it might be cool if you had hoses running inside and outside of your case... kinda like those indoor water parks where they have the slide start inside, snake around outside, then go back in. IDK i guess it would just be different.
 
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