Water Cooled Framer Project

And then it dawned on me. I've got a completely disassemble-able frame made from tubular aluminum. Why not route the wires right through the frame?


The first step was to remove the necessary frame bars and punch some holes into them:






The light blue arrows point to the holes I punched out. The red arrows indicate where the bar originally came from. As you can see, this would be nearly impossible without being able to disassemble the frame.








The holes were made with: good ol' nibbler tool, then sanded to a dull edge:

Finally, I threaded a test wire through the whole route:









The detail is a little hard to see, so I've highlited it, then terminations indicated at the arrows. I'll probably terminate with some quick disconnects, so that the panel can be removed easily if necessary.

As you can see, again, this wouldn't be possible without disassembling the frame. The vertical bar is unattached and that is the only way to thread the wire thru the 90 degree turns.

And there you go. Completely hidden wiring!

Wow that's sweet. Minor question but what did you use for a gasket to seal the fans against the case in post #61?

MadMan007 said:

Wow that's sweet. Minor question but what did you use for a gasket to seal the fans against the case in post #61?

Click to expand...

looks like some type of weather stripping to me not sure if its a foam or rubber variant, more or less rubber.

I order so many things from mcmaster, thank goodness they keep a record of my past orders.


mcmaster part#93085K671
Adhesive Back Foam Rubber Bulb Seal 3/8" O'all Width, 7/32" O'all Height, 10'Length

Thanks. I figured it was some sort of weather stripping but bulb seal sounds cooler I was mostly just curious.

Awesome case. I may do something similar in terms of construction for my next case build.

Good luck. I think a pretty big theme to this build is that it is mostly DIY. I'm using only basic power tools and widely available parts.






Here are some pictures illustrating how I work my internal wiring:





First I built a wire bundle. There are 3 bundles comprised of 22 AWG wire. The first contains the 2 leads to the CCFLs and the toggle, the 2nd contains 4 wires to the power switch/power LED, and the 3rd contains 4 wires to the reset switch/HDD LED.










I feed it thru the small end holes at the bottom of the case, down the horizontal bar. The vertical bar has been displaced so that I can grab the end as it comes thru. Then I send it up vertically thru the vertical bar.











It comes out this small hole at the level of the top horizontal bar, then I send it down to the exit holes:











Finally, I can re-mount the vertical bar and pull the wires taught:











I decided it wouldn't be a good idea to have the cables running thru these fairly sharp holes in the aluminum, so for the bottom hole, I made a little plastic trim tab:







Which goes here:








For the holes at the top, I might also make a trim plate, but I also have some rubber pass-thru's in the mail I might try. I can't really finish the wiring until these arrive and I decide.

Okay, finished up the wiring in this corner of the case:







You've got to be careful about finishing the wiring. Dozens of wires, multiple layers of mesh and heatshrink, rubber gromets have to all be assembled in the correct order.










And here is a quick pic of the final product:







Nice, simple and understated. Generally I want the wiring to not be noticed, leaving the overall image to be clean and tidy. But when you start looking for the cabling, you're going to realize it is truly hidden.

Here's a little trick I've used to build a fan multiplier.



Here I start with a standard easily available pci pass thru bracket:








Trim the edges:







Add a top cover and mount:









And here it is in the case:







As you can see, its very unobtrusive, yet has plugs for 6 fans (as you can see I will be using 2 for the inflow fans, and 4 for push-pull on my 2x120 radiator). Furthermore, I don't have to do any sort of crazy modifications to my fans--simple standard 3 pin terminations.






.

That is SEXY

Okay, now I've moved onto the wiring on the backside of this case:



Here you can see where the wires for the upper CCFLs and the fan multiplier for the upper bank of fans enters the frame:
















And here is where they exit.

I'm going to mount several terminations (upper fan multiplier, lower fan multiplier, and ccfls, probably even the power connections for 5.25 devices and hard drives) on the underside of the panel that supports the psu (which has been removed in this picture). This is a nice place, close to the psu, yet tucked away and hidden.









Here I am testing the connections. Just look at that tangle of wires, and you can see what kind of wiring harness I'm building (and trying to cable neatly).

And here is my first test of the fully wired and cleaned cabling for the CCFLs:











To give you an idea of what this took, I hilighted all the wires for the CCFL system here:

I quickly slapped a few of the panels back on to give you the effect I was trying to achieve:





In the dark:











Then lit up:










And a real time video of that action:

Starting in on details now.






Linked up all the wires coming from the switching panel to the wires from the motherboard panel. Used an 8 pin psu interconnect.








I mentioned before that I was going to use the space underneath the PSU support panel to organize cables: these are nice "p" shaped cable clips:










And here are some stacks of fans I've got to sleeve!

what is the best way to sleeve fans???

I am a fan of everything you have done! this is great. probably one of my dreams/goals someday. to actually build my own case, have control and mod everything. it would be amazing.

Everything looks great!!!!


keep it up

"what is the best way to sleeve fans???"

Since you ask, and since I'm sleeving a bazillion fans, here you go:

3 pin fan cable sleeving guide.




navig

Very nice wright up!

Okay, finished sleeving and installing this bank of fans.

That's six fans crammed together, with easy access to disconnect any one.

And here is the upper bank of fans:









I had to take this radiator from my first watercooling loop. Don't feel bad for this system--since I took off the watercooling loop, its now sporting a Thermalright Ultra 120 copper. This heatsink rivals decent watercooling, both in performance and price.

I should mention, that this project will progress a little slowly over the next week, as I am going to take the time and review the Ultra 120 copper. Then the q6600, IP35-E, and G80 8800gts will migrate to this case.