Quick question, as I saw this discussed briefly in another thread... You painted the GT fan blades... Do you have any reason to believe that a potentially uneven coat of paint on the fan blades would result in decreased performance? The only argument that I saw that seemed plausible was that an uneven coat could cause slight wobble in the blades that could potentially result in a rattle...
i think that depends of the rpm of the fans. low speed fans i dont think you would run into any issues. high speed fans you prolly would unless you were very carefull while painting. in both cases you would have to be very carefull to avoid runs or anything like that. cause that would definatly cause a wobble. i have noctua fans which while the performance to noise ratio is great. they are just ugly as heck so id be interested in finding out how well the painted fans work out.
Quick question, as I saw this discussed briefly in another thread... You painted the GT fan blades... Do you have any reason to believe that a potentially uneven coat of paint on the fan blades would result in decreased performance? The only argument that I saw that seemed plausible was that an uneven coat could cause slight wobble in the blades that could potentially result in a rattle...
Thanks black. Vibration of the fan blades is certainly possible if they are painted unevenly. However, I took care to paint them with many light coats to prevent uneven distribution of paint mass and it worked out well. The first thing I did after re-assembling the fans was to test them through their range of RPM values and there was no noticeable vibrations coming from the fans.
Well I am glad to hear that they don't exhibit any wobbles or vibrations. It certainly makes the adherence to a color scheme easier if you can paint the fan blades!
Sooo, this log is well past due for a large update. This update will feature the interior modifications made to the case, which was to completely throw out the stock interior and start from the ground up. Completely redoing the interior was a task started mainly to keep consistent with the theme in that the large and oval holes of the motherboard tray clearly would not fit. Additionally, redesigning the interior allowed for sectioning off the interior into distinct regions since the drive bays were no longer necessary it was possible to create a new midplate with a large vertical wall and a side wall was also fabricated in part to hold the midplate up and to further section the case up.
To begin the pieces were drafted up, printed and put on an aluminum sheet.
Following hours of cutting, filing, and more filing...
Now, since most of these pieces required some bending the bend lines were scored with a razor to allow for a tighter bend.
Time for bending. As you can see this is a highly sophisticated set-up.
More bending...
A little more...
...Oops... .
So after this disaster I could either buy more metal and remake it from scratch again or attempt to salvage it. There was little risk in trying to fix it so why not go for it. After putting the case together and seeing what it looked like, it was only necessary to add an L-bar to the bottom to provide stability so this is what was done. The original design was overly complicated and mostly unnecessary so there was no compelling reason to remake the piece.
Below are the finished products, sanded down and cleaned.
I started to paint the pieces when I decided that I should probably show what the case looks like assembled, so the pictures below show the case after the first round of painting and wet sanding.
It was also necessary to devise a way to mount the hard drives. This underwent several revisions until I ultimately went with a simple mounting system in which the drives will mount to a thick aluminum plate on one side and be free on the other side. In order to have a place to mount this plate two large L bars were cold welded to the midplate.
+1 lol Man i wish i had the time to do mods like this. I just couldnt bare that long without a working comp. Maybe if im made redundant ill do a project like this. hehe
Well, the case has been painted for a little while now. Here are some pictures of it, unfortunately due to the environment in which the pictures were taken it is difficult to see the mirror finish of the exterior paint, so perhaps I will take some outdoor pictures soon to better show this.
Remaining tasks to be completed are making the circuit boards, making the side window (for the third time ), taking pictures of the sleeving and my favorite, the hardware, followed by the final system shots.
So it would seem it has been awhile! The build has been finished for quite some time now, although I will admit it was not with out its' tribulations including, but not limited to, an unexpected leak resulting in blue water spilling on carpet , a PSU failure (unrelated to the re-wiring!) and multiple failures in making the flush side panel window. Complications notwithstanding, the build was finished roughly 6 months ago and I have just gotten the time to go through the pictures I took and wrap this build log up. In the next couple of hours I will be sharing hardware pictures, sleeving photos and of course images of the finished product!
The majority of this update will be pictures of the motherboard, however we begin with what must go on the motherboard.
We'll start with the CPU block.
To add some texture variation (and uh, shininess?) I elected to wet-sand down the middle portion of the top of the block to a mirror finish.
Mirror indeed!
Top of the northbridge block.
As you will see in some later photos, I also wet-sanded this piece down to a mirror finish as well. As beautiful as the brushed nickel was, a mirror finish seemed more coherent from an aesthetic point of view.
RAM!
But those unsightly stickers must go!
Much better.
VGA and block.
Time for the motherboard.
It seems like it needs some water blocks!
Reservoir and radiator, truly exciting stuff.
The window that sits flush with the side panel of the case. This was actually constructed from two pieces of acrylic, the main square that still has the protective wrapping on it and the frame around it. The two pieces were attached via acrylic cement to form a single piece.
So a short entry of sleeving here. Keeping with the theme of the build and the name, the sleeving chosen consisted of white and two shades of blue. First up, some shots of the sleeve itself.
Keeping in line with the clean look of the build I did not use heat shrink on any of the main cables and instead went shrinkless, attaching the sleeve with the aid of the pins.
Wow, just amazing build log. Thanks for keeping us posted. Love the theme.
Not to down anything you have done because there's really nothing else that can top this off, have you looked at acrylic tubing? I think you can do wonders with that.
Wow, just amazing build log. Thanks for keeping us posted. Love the theme.
Not to down anything you have done because there's really nothing else that can top this off, have you looked at acrylic tubing? I think you can do wonders with that.
Thank you for the compliment. I have not looked into acrylic tubing, nor even heard of it as I have not been keeping up with new developments in the WC community. A cursory glance of it however looks quite interesting and something to think about for updates on this build, as I suspect this will be my first and last build.
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