PROJECT LOG 1260 Benching Table

So I have been in search of a better benching setup for about 6 months now and have tried multiple configurations and was not satisfied with any of them. The largest factor in this is the monster rad I have in the Phobya 1260 Supernova Radiator. No matter what I did I could not seem to manage this thing well. Lately I have been running everything just attached to a large piece of plywood because it made moving the whole setup easier than anything else, it was still unwieldy and an eyesore.


Existing Setup





So after fighting with this for awhile I have decided that I need something better. So I have decided to integrate the radiator and stand directly into the benching table. Being my normal cheap self I am trying to utilize as much material as I have on hand as possible so I set out on a manhunt through my house looking for parts. I luckily came across my old drawing board which I decided would make a great base for the pc components.






So first step was to clean up the board and strip off the existing hardware.





I was then able to free up my radiator stand and laid out the board to mark some drill holes for the upper deck supports and lower legs.






So i drilled my first 2 sets of holes and bolted it tight to line up for the drilling of the other side and make sure everything lines up afterwards.





After finishing up the drilling pulled everything apart to check out my handiwork and clean up the holes as need be.





So for the lower support legs I am using 4x 6"x3/8" hex bolts. I ran a nut down tight against the back of the threads and topped with a washer. These were slid through the holes in the radiator stand and then added another layer of washer and topped it off with a 3/8" all thread coupling. This coupling will serve not only to lock the legs tight on the lower portion but will also act as spacers to offset the upper deck.







I then bolted down the top deck with 4x 1.5"x3/8" hex bolts with washers sandwiched on either side of the top deck.







This was it for the work I set out to complete in the first stage as I need to play with the system to figure component layout to figure out how I want to layout the components on the top deck before I start drilling and cutting on it. I decided to bring it in the house and sett it up to try some layouts and I am glad I did because I ran into a hiccup first thing. So first I laid out some parts to see what is going to work best. I was kinda limited by the tubing lengths I had on hand so was restricted to where I could place the motherboard. I have more tubing on order so I can have more flexibility to test different component layouts but in the meantime this is what I am running with.





SO I mentioned earlier I found a hiccup in my plan already (other than short tubing lengths) and that reared its head after running my system for about 45 minutes. I was running along fine and then noticed that my temperatures cpu temperatures were starting to climb as well as my water temperature. So after checking to make sure I had proper flow and the fans were running I found that the fan plate I made for this radiator was flexing away from he surface of the radiator and allowing all of the air out of the sides.





So after this discovery I have temporarily added some supports underneath to hold up the fans and everything seems to be working well. I have an email out to Performance-PCs and they are trying to help me get a replacement plate on order through Phobya(great customer service here by the way) but am waiting on this before doing final wire management on the underside of the radiator. I am probably going to add the fan breakout connector I had on the outside of the radiator stand underneath to power the fan array, speaking of the fan connector, getting that unstuck from the side of the radiator stand was the hardest part of the build so far. I ended up have to force a razor blade underneath and wiggle it back and forth the full length of the break out board to get it off. I don't know what glue they used on it but man was it stuck.

So that is it for tonight, I hope this sparked your interest enough to join in the discussion going forward because I am sure I will need help/ideas going forward to get this to a final build stage. I apologize in advance as I do not have Swarthacks way with words and I tend to be kinda dry, maybe I can con him into narrating this build log for me as it would probably be much funnier that way. My next plan is to test different component layouts to see what I like best and then work on some cad drawings of how to finish the top deck to accommodate the components. I will get some pics up of the different layouts and the associated cad drawings to see what everyone thinks. In the meantime please feel free to leave feedback and suggestions as I am flying by the seat of my pants on this one.

Now everyone can go back to,



-Lochekey

Solid start

You explained everything good .
If you can, Try fitting the PSU under the mobo, Something like this:

Note that my PSU is small factor thats why it looks weird.

Oh and the toothbrush is for cleaning components.

Just a quick update tonight. Performance-pcs came through for me and got some replacement fan plates in stock. So if you are looking for a replacement plate in the US they will now be carrying them.

So, when ordering my replacement plate tonight I realized that I once again shot myself in the foot as I do not have enough 140 fans as my existing setup utilizes 120s. So I had to order 9 new fans as well, luckily I found some yate loon highs on sale for under 4 bucks a piece so they should do me good for now.

Ordered some other bits and pieces I needed as well. Hopefully everything arrives by this weekend so I can get a little more work done on it.

So, when you're starting an overclock again, please tell me you'll exclaim "back to the drawing board!" before you start it...

Looking good Lochekey!

One of the lessons I learned while building my FreezerBurn Project is it's a good idea to set it up so all the plugs are facing you. Think opposite of a standard case. during change outs or even CMOS clearing it's nice to have the plugs all there facing you. I'm actually considering modifying FreezerBurn to do just this.

I wouldn't worry much about the narration. Swarthack's flair is unique to him alone. It would be cool if he helped out though. LOL

ATM- "back to the drawing board!" Bah Dum CHHH!

Oh, and keep an eye on those cats. They're all evil.

ATMINSIDE said:

So, when you're starting an overclock again, please tell me you'll exclaim "back to the drawing board!" before you start it...

Click to expand...

Yes, yes I will. Oh and the cats are definitely a hindrance on this project Blaylock.

So it has been a little while since I was able to work on this mainly due to work and waiting on parts but the parts showed up late last week and I got a little progress. So I got my plate and fans and for how cheap these things are I they do move some air and the red LED is not as horrible as I thought it would be.






So you can see from the pics that I have been testing the system over the past few days with different parts layouts and I think I have decided what will work best but wanted some input on things I may have overlooked.

So I have kept the I/O portion of the MOBO on the "Operator" side of the table for easy access and the whole MOBO is slightly off center towards the right side where the tubing from the Res and pump are. In the upper right hand corner I have my tube res and I actually plan to cut through the board and recess the res down into the table so I can hook into the Rad and Pump directly and this will allow me to monitor the water flow when I have the system outside in the winter. Continuing in our counter-clockwise trend we move on to the SSD that is standing on end. I intend to create 2 slits in the table so that I can slot 2 ssd's into the table and have them sit without moving to much. Lastly I have the PSU sitting on its side on the left side of the table so that the wiring easily reaches the components as they are laid out. I am looking to add 2 flexible fan holders like the ones you find on manufactured benching tables but I have not been able to source them yet. I also intend to cut a hole and mount a fan on the underside of the board to blow up on the back of the cpu socket. In case I have not mentioned it before my goal is to be able to slide this whole thing out my window onto a table outside during the winter months. sorry I dont have other pictures of different layouts I tried but just have not really had the time to concentrate on this. Any feedback on how I can do this better would be appreciated.

Maybe looking at the layout of my Spotswood stand would help?

http://www.overclockers.com/spotswood-compact-tech-station/

You know I almost bought one of them but could not figure out how to integrate the rad into it so went this route.

The biggest issue I'm having with the layout compared to most systems is that I am keeping everything on the v upper level as opposed to having the psu and ssd mounted underneath. Ideally I would use a different res and pump but this what I got so I'm gonna make it work.

I tried putting the psu on the right side of the mobo but the 12v cpu wire does not reach the plug neatly.

Would it help any to mount the SSD on the under side at the back edge?

Looking pretty good Lochekey!

Hey Blaylock thanks for the encouragement.

Atminside, I will look at mounting the drive back there to see if it would work. I originally had it up tip because I tend to change the drives out a lot so was looking for easy access.

Make it where your drives mount on a slider instead of bolting in then

I use something like this. works pretty decent.

http://www.icydock.com/goods.php?id=196

So I continue to tinker on this on and off so figured I would get some more pictures up. I got the bolts for the Mobo mounted and sleeved to act as standoffs. I also cut a hole for a fan under the cpu socket and cut 2 slots for the ssd to sit in. I may upgrade to one of those icy docks in the future but for now this will at least get me going. Was not able to mount it back on the lower half as I am currently using the fans to cool a laptop I am playing with.

Will do a full update later but here is a pic of where I am at now with things.

Killed your Turkey yet?

That's really nice looking farm boy! I got bench envy, gotta eventually get one of those 9x rigs...
Missed this at first, sub'd now...

Speaking of which, Hardware/Case & Case Modding and Hardware/Alternative Modding
I obviously have lived in the "Alternative" Universe, but what is the big diff. Some old turf war!?!
I'll just start double posting! for the extra exposure
Especially since I seemed to have lost all my followers or have been boycotted after the last two stellar posts??

Looking forward to seeing that thing hover!!!

Suerte