[Fushyuguru]

Please do not post Questions/Comments in this thread.
Follow link below to a thread special for Fush Zero Questions/Comments.

Project: Fush Zero - Questions/Comments (Old Thread)


Last Updated on: 05-15-06 12:37 PM

Read on, MOD on.

[Fushyuguru]

Welcome OC-Forums.

Id like to welcome you guys to my Pictoral Journal of Fush ZERO, my soon to be completed powerhouse Desktop PC. With this project I hope to bring all of you along, step-by-step, with every little piece of work I complete. Not only should newcommers find this a good learning experience, but I hope more experienced modifiers find some spark to their own creativity in what I do.

I found it necissary to split the thread into two, one for the project and another for Questions/Comments. The project has gone on a long time and has become quite lengthy. So to keep it interesting and easy to browse for newcommers, this thread will only contain Project updates and pictures. Everyone likes pics, not everyone likes chat.

Note: Alot of what follows this post has been adopted from my old thread about Fush Zero. The original dates of the posts are listed in the subject lines. New posts will not contain a " Posted on:" line.

Mod On.

[Fushyuguru]

Hi OCers Forum. I'm sure you've seen me around, seen some of my work, heard some of my ass'ishness. Well, recently my house was struck by lightning. Luckily my server and several other boxes were offline, though my main computer was hit and toasted. After a short period of grievance, I picked up the shattered remains of my Beloved Tokyo-Fush, and threw him in the garbage.

Being the person that I am, I see this as an opourtunity. To spend some cash, and avoid all the mistakes encountered with my last system build. After some initial brainstorming I came up with the following ideas, read here.

What I present to you, is a step by step , day by day pictoral journal of the progress of my new main computer workhorse, Fush ZERO . I will attempt to keep as up to date as possible, keep the pictures as relevant and quick loading as humanly possible. Any and all input along the way will be greatly appreciated. I would love to get crtiques and feedback throughout the entire modding, design, building and overclocking process.

I hope you enjoy this, as it will be almost as involved as the build itself. The posts will start tonight, I have many pictures already, so I will be playing catchup for the next few days.

[Fushyuguru]

Note: As I am writing these posts, I am still ordering and deciding on parts. So the order of the mods and construction will follow what parts I have and what design aspects I have finished in my mind. Suggestions always welcome.

For the main case, I chose a variant of the ever popular Lian Li PC65. This particular case is the PC6085. It's my first Lian Li case, let me say, I'm very impressed. Meticulous quality, and functionality out the ying yang.


At first glance you can see the resemblance to the PC60, and those sweet light strips.

So lets get a closer look. This may be repetetive to some of you Lian Li owners, but its my first and I'm liking it.


Closeups of the power buttons and LEDs. Also a shot of the intake and USB 2.0 ports.


I ended up grabing one of those new stealth drive covers from Lian Li. Its a neatly engineered piece. No modding of the drives needed... damn, no fun in that.


Only blemish I could find are some little white streaks around some machined edges. Anyone else ever seen these marks?

Next installment well pop her open and maybe do some re-engineering of the guts.

[Fushyuguru]

QUESTION: Does anyone know where I can find a transparent side panel for this case? Every vendor Ive contacted is out of stock. I would love to have one soon.


After popping the case open and reviewing some part layouts in my mind, I found the first piece that just couldnt go unscathed in this operation...




That dang 3 1/4 drive cage was just taking up too much room. It had to go. Meanwhile its larger counterpart on the floor of the front of the case was eyeing me up the wrong way, Ill deal with him later...

I believe this is a good job for my brand new 5hp Dremel Tool. Whats better to de-virginize a new rotary tool on than a $130 case.





Like Butter!


My new Stout -- stubby little 3 1/4 drive cage. That'll tech him.

In Part II, I'll take care of the cages bigger brother, then show you why I made this one stumpy.

Lattas!

[Fushyuguru]

Okie Dokie. I gotta post alot of pictures tonight. Im about a day or two ahead of what Ive posted. I'm sure you guys wont mind more pictures.

Soooo, first off. Why did I chop that drive cage? Easy answer.


Sweet and Snug.

If you don't know already. theres gonna be a water cooler in this box. I know, big deal. Though I'm only cooling the Northbridge and GPU with H2o.

Next off. That drive cages big brother had beef with me last night. That leaves only one thing to do. I'll let the pics speak for themselves.


World of Hurt.

Now why did I just do that? Needed space for this little bugger.

"Im a Resevior!"


Stay tuned!

[Fushyuguru]

Some of you may have noticed I left out something....

Gotta mount that pump. Its an Eheim 1048 pump. Not the most powerful in the world, but its low heat output and compact for its capacity. Ok time to mount!

This is an easy mod.


MEASURE THREE TIMES! I always mess up.



All warm and cozy in its new occupied territory.

If you notice, the bolts are kind of long. I left room so I can squeeze some rubber bushings in there to reduce vibrations. These guys can hum if youre not carefull.

I'll be back with more pics!

[Fushyuguru]

I'd like to keep you guys up to date with all the sweet, practical, extravagant, stupid, useless, excessive or custom parts I'm going to be spending some hard earned money on.

Its like shopping! But not with your money!!!!!

Ok, to start off with, yesterday I got a big shipment of random parts in from my new favorite store: performance-pcs.com . I needed a power supply, my buddy suggested them, so I mosied on over to their store. Heres what I got:


Its an Antec True Power 550 Watt. Though theres a neat catch...


It's been moded with fully detachable and sleaved cables. You know those pesky extra molex connectors? Lop em off! Though now they just snap back on. Less clutter, and should be much easier to cleanly wire up the case. Also, the extras can be used as molex extensions. I applaud these guys!





... I also bought a few other things...


Yeap. Thats all UV reactive stuff. Misc cables and fans. You can probably figure out the color scheme by now. Oh, and don't worry, Im not making a CRAZY RAVE box. It will be tastefull, and pretty sweet. If I was just slapping some UV stuff in a case, you wouldnt be reading this. I promise some cool mods.


One thing I loved was some of the sleaving tricks these guys at performance-pcs did. Sometimes the sleaving and heatshrink can slide around if not tight around the wires. No problem for those guys, inovate.


Stick a zip tie under the heatshrink. Why didnt I do this before? Take it from the experts.

K, stay tuned guys, and I hope youre enjoying my pics and ranting! I know I'm getting a kick out of it...

[Fushyuguru]

I don't have much time to do any mods tonight. Though my hobby room def needs some cleaning. Bad.


Holy God.




Much Much better.



No, thats not it. I finally plugged in the PSU and powered up the light strips. I just want to share the joy. They look sweet.


Is it Tron-ish? Or is it Tron-ish?


OK, next post will be a real post, I swear.

[Fushyuguru]

I'm tired, I feel lazy. No mods tonight. Though I'll slap up some pictures and fill you in on some descisions that need to be made.

Soo, the H2O cooling.


Mmmm new, so purdy.

Youve seen it before, Danger den Z-chip and Geforce Blocks. Solid performers, and they look sweet. They all have 1/2" fittings. Besides the blocks I'll be using a black ice extreme radiator, Eheim 1048 pump, 3603 1/2" ID Tygon and a new danger den acrylic resevior. Should look snazzy, and be a good performing setup.

Though there was just one problem... The Geforce block didnt quite fit my MSI Geforce 4ti4200 (I know, old card, I don't play games much. I'll upgrade it eventually. Unless someone wants to offer me a 9700 or 9800 for less than $200 ).


Shiny Tweakmonster sinks, freshly lapped, oh soo pretty and begging for a volt mod.


The holes in the perspex top are off by about 1/4", and the ramsinks prevent me from just misaligning it a little. I cried a bit, then I thought about redrilling new holes (though it would look nasty). Then, it came to me.


Slapped the mounting screws into a drill press. Hit it with a hammer alot. Viola!


Like a glove, kinda. Though it works, thats all that matters.

The center of the block is off center by about 1/8", but I doubt I will see any rediculous degridations in performance.






So. I'm bugging out. Though I hope to have narrowed down what Phase change system I'll be using. I talked myself into liking the vapochill more for this project, though I may or may not be able to use it, as Id like it underneath the case, and im not budging on that. I also want to balance price, performance, compactness and noise. That seems to put the vapo on the top of my list. As long as mounting it underneath is no problem.

Besides that snag, Im drawing out designs to be cut into parts and windows to tie both cases together. Hopefully I can get 64Thunderbolt to do the cutting for me. Id love to keep it in the forums. When I decide on the final drawings, Ill post some pics.

[Fushyuguru]

Sorry guys no pics to post tonight. If I did, they would be boring.

But I do have Updates!

Phase Change Cooling: I have finally nailed down what system I am going to use. Ive been in heavy conversation with the guys at XtremeSystems, here, phase-change.com and asetek forums. The problem if you didnt know was I decided I wanted a compact system with a lower noise factor, but still wanted phase change. Thats a Vapochill's arena. Ill sacridice some performance for form and functionality.

BUT!

You cannot mount vapochill compressors underneath the evaporator, i.e., you cant mount it under the case like a prometeia. So I said, fine, ill mount it up top.

Nope.

Power supply needs to be relocated, and it looks real funky with the design I have in my head. So I talked to the famous Bowman at XS. Problem solved. I just need some massive modifications to the vapochill and I can mount it underneath. So, when this is all over, I will have a slick, quiet, smaller phase change syste, and the only bottom mounted vapochill in town. Alotta work, but hey, this is a Modding Forum.

What I am doing tonight: I'm drawing out all the ideas for my custom windows. I am in contact with 64Thunderbolt, and I hope to have both panels and the panels for the phase change unit, water cut by 64Thunderbolt. Great Guy by the way. Im going for a neat, open air, industrial look with a hint of winter (If you can picture that, heres a dollar )

What I am doing Tommorrow: I will be buying alot of parts. I get Paid $$. When the parts show up, Ill post pics.

Expect more this weekend. Lattas OC.

[Fushyuguru]

In response to a request, whenever I post a "FLEETING BANK ACCOUNT" Post, Ill list the rough costs estimates of the items Ive bought or things Ive spent money on. If you want an exact cost of an item, or where I got it, feel free to PM me. Ill let you know.

Heres an update till now:

Parts I already had/have-
Eheim 1048: $50
BIextreme: $65
Asus 48x cdr: $70
Case: $140
Lian Li stealth drive cover: $14
PSU: $170
Cold Cathodes, SATA Cables, Sleaving, Shrinkwrap and Misc: $100
3 80mm Antec UV fans + 1 120mm UV fan: $40
Z chip Water Block: $38
D Den Resevior: $25


Today I wanted to cut a blowhole for the radiator and do some wiring for the water pump, so I went on down to the Homie Depo and went browsing. I came back with this:


4.5" hole saw ($24), 3" hole saw($12.50), Aluminum 6-32 Machine screws ($2),6-32 rod ($1),hole saw chuck ($12), angle aluminum ($10), other misc ($10).

I never knew the hole saws were so expensive, but I need them anyways in the long run. Heres a closeup if youve never seen them.


Mmm, Carbon steel.

The angle aluminum is for the frame of the vapochill case. Its lightweight and strong. Also easy to tool. The aluminum screws match the lian li really well. I think Ill use them all over.

Now back to modding. Though I leave you with a picture of my art studio as I draw up some designs for the case windows and vapo parts.


Whats my motivation?

[Fushyuguru]

OK, here we go. If you havent seen a hole saw all setup and rip roarin to go:


Did anybody order Badass?

It locks into the chuck of a drill and you need a special mount for them. Yeah, theyre awkward and heavy. Make sure you have a good torquey drill.


Upside down and full of novicane. Im gonna cut you.

Now the saw likes to juke all over the place when using it so its a good thing to have a pilot hole ready. There was already a blowhole in the top of my case, so it made it harder. I had to cut the grill and drill through something underneath then clamp the whole mess together. This would prove a good proposition if I had good clamps.


Gnarly.

Now its time to drill.


Im gonna cut you soo bad, That you no wish I cut you soo bad.

That drill I pictured before tended to suck with the hole saw. It moved all over the place, then got hot, then wouldnt cut, then the battery died. So I pulled out old trusty Dewalt drill and finished the job.

[Fushyuguru]

Lemme give you some advice if you ever cut a 120mm hole with a whole saw.

Light Hands.

Let the saw drill a circular rut in the metal before you start seriously cutting. The cordless drill scraped up the inside of the case around one side of the hole. So I switched drills and pretty much started over. Though the clamps kept slipping. Make sure your setup is secure. After I cut through a bit, it went smoothly.

Heres some pics:


The Yellow one. Thats a real drill.


See the scrapes? But at least its inside.


My, arent we all dirty.


That had to hurt.


All sanded, pretty and cleaned up.

It turned out pretty damn good. Theres a small scuff but you can barely see it. Will probably be covered by the fan grill. On the inside, wont even see it. Will be covered by a fan.

Stay tuned.

[Fushyuguru]

I probably should have said this before. But... I ran into a design flaw before I drilled the 120mm hole. Well, its more like a layout flaw.

Origionally, I had planned on shoving the radiator up into the rafters as an exhaust from the case. Sounds great untill I realized that the drives, radiator and power supply would all bump heads up there, no matter how I moved, twisted, prodded or finaggled. So I gotta move it. But Ill still keep the 120mm blowhole.

Heres a pic so you can kinds see how the drives will interfere with the rad.

CD Rom: Im too damn long!

So heres my idea. Use the rad as the intake and make a shroud for the front fan ports to the radiator. Though Ill make it multi functional.

Rad: Im multifunctional!

Ill mount it at a diagonal with a neat cutom shroud. Then the air from the fan will help to cool the pump as well as help cool the ram and other Mobo parts with a breeze.

I know, "But Fush! That air is warm! *cry*" Its not that warm, the H20 will only be cooling the NB and GPU. What I can then do is use identical fans for the blowhole and radiator. Hook them both up to the fan controller, then I can balance airflow.

Lemme know what you think. Also, what to make the shroud from?
I ponder.

[Fushyuguru]

Ok, so I started the brackets for the water coolers radiator. Im going ahead with the plan to mount it at an angle. Here goes.


Always when cutting metal, start with a good pattern. Measure 3 times, and use a good cutter.

As you can see the mount will consist of two brackets. One for the Radiator, and one to act as a shroud for the intake holes. This way I can separate the radi at will pretty easily.


After scrolling out the design, I went to the bench, Ill cut it out using a combo of my dremel tool with fiberglass wheels and my air powered cutter.


Looking damn good. I used 220 grit sandpaper to get all the nasties off the edges.


I did all the forming with a rubber hammer and my workbench.

Almost done...

[Fushyuguru]

Here sthe finished product for the Rad mount. I cut out the back section for airflow, and I may cut a little more just to open it up. Any other changes will be cosmetic to make it look like its not just a hunk of metal. Ill let you know when I do that.


Awww Sookie.

Now its off to Home Depot again to grab some more aluminum. I didnt expect I would need this much but oh well.

Lattas.

[Fushyuguru]

I know I havent been posting alot of pics the past few days, its cuz theres nothing to post. So, to keep your intrests untill I get the drawings done for the panels, heres some completely shiny, random but usefull to me photos. Enjoy!


Oh so shiny! And Cluttered! And what the hell are you doing?

[Fushyuguru]

I know youve all seen one before, but my mobo came in. $109 at excaliberpc.com . Its an Abit NF7-S 2.0.

I just took a glamour shot, and one of the sweet thing I havent seen in a while. A thermistor right inside of the cpu socket. Its blue.


Purdy! Likee!

I didnt know how orange the board actually is. Sgould look good in my case.

[Fushyuguru]

Here a sneak peak at the future case panels of Fush ZERO. The black part will be the actual panel, white is cuttout. Though I ran out of sharpie marker.

Ill take a break and get some more, breathe a little, and then finish this one and the other 4.


Soooo Tron'ish its wrong.

Ill be done with these in a day or so, then back to cuttng, chopping and modding.

[Fushyuguru]

Got more sharpies, and a splitting headache.

Heres somemore shots to give you an idea of what the case panels should look like. Cant wait to see these in silver.





Dont be too harsh on me.

[Fushyuguru]

Someone not on this forum asked me why I didnt make the border squared off like normal windows. This takes a bit of explaining, and yes it was intentional.

I designed it this way to give accent to the parts I would like to be accented. The border thins out as you move towards the upper left hand corner. This is where the CPU in particular is located. It gives an open view of whatever cooling/monster I would mount on it. Moving to the upper right I have extruded the border out a bit to cloud the 5 1/4" drive cages a bit. Moving down I left enough space to view the backend of the HD that will be mounted in the lowest 5 1/4" bay and the pump underneath. Moving farther down, I have obstructed the lower right corner a bit which will house the chunky Radiator and intake fans. So it is not just a jumble of tronish looking shapes, there was a tad bit of thought mixed in there. I think it will give it an ominous appearance. Also, the Fushyuguru logo is positioned right across the flkat aluminum shroud over the power supply, which when the cathodes/cables glow, will give it a sweet effect glowing through the letters. The other side panel on the Lian Li will be the same exact design with the Fushyuguru logo flipped so its readable. I will in addition skeletonize the Mobo tray so theres some pretty things to look at from the backside. This will also make the Vapo and waterblocks easier to swap.

Also, the side panels of the Vapochil will use the same concept.

I cant wait to get these badboys cut.

[Fushyuguru]

I know weve been talking about these for a while, but theyre done. The jpegs for the panels are done. Here we go, lemme know what you think!



Left side, Right side. Vouge.

Now on to some real work. Back to the basics.

[Fushyuguru]

I got the last parts of the water cooler, the part that makes everything work together. The tubing.

Its R-3603 Tygon with 1/2" ID and 1/8" outer wall. I got 8ft of it at about $2.50 a foot. I like to have extra. Then I grabbed some of the new Arctic Silver Ceramique. I hear it performs better than AS3 after burn in, and it cleans up easier, $3.50 a tube. Next I bought two Evercool 120mm aluminum fans. Theyre rated at 80+cfm at 30db. Thats amazing. I got these cuz the 120mm orange fans were loud and annoying, so Ill use these on the Rad and the condesor.. They were $11 a piece.


Thats thick tubing.

[Fushyuguru]

So I decided, to give my case a clean and professional look, Im gonna shroud all of the wires in UV blue sleaving and heatshrink. That way, if you see any wires, theyll look sweet.

So as a starter, I went into the garage and found my trusty 425W Heatgun.


Old, trusty.

Then I began unplugging things randomly with complete and utter ignorance to everything.



Oh god why!

The LED's and Power Reset switches came out first, along with the fan speed controller.

Then I used a tiny jewelers screwdriver, and negotiated with the molex connectors a little, till they came off.

[Fushyuguru]

Then, I used an age old technique to get the sleaving on.

1. Measure and cut.
2. Singe ends with lighter to keep from fraying.
3. Use the acordian method to scoot the sleaving from one end to the other. The sleaving is braided so when you push it together it gets fatter. If you hold the wires, then squeaze the sleaving against it, it scoots about an inch or so.
4. Cut heatshink and place over frayed ends of sleaving.
5. Use heatgun or tip of solder iron to shrink the shrink (<-- ungh?). When it stops shirinking quickly, its done. You keep heating it, it will melt.
6. Basque in your own glory.

Heres some pics of the process:


Im trying to illustrate the scooting the sleaving here, but I think you get it.


Placing heatshrink 101.

Now for the finished products, ahh so pretty.

[Fushyuguru]

I took some pictures of the cables installed again. I may move them around to clean them up.


Sleaving makes the cables stiff to rout, but clean looking nonetheless.


One thing I did notice, and I dont like, is that the USB headers are positioned so that the USB cable needs to run halfway across the mobo. That wont look very nice.

[Fushyuguru]

I decided I need a relay switch for the water pump. Its just easier, and cleaner.


Pump, Relay -- Bliss.

Unfortunately I ran out of batteries last night, so I dont have pictures of the relay switch being made, but heres the final product:


Front, back. This was the easy part.

The pcb has a standard relay switch, normally open. I put a secondary switch on it just so I can flip the pump on and off to charge the systems ect. The brown molex connectors are quick dsconnect so I can just unclick the cables when I need. The red, green black will lead to a standard Nima connector for the AC power.

I also may put a blue indicator LED on the board to indicate whether the switch and pump is on/off.

...

[Fushyuguru]

Next I chopped the rat tail off the pump and soldered the new connectors on.


Ouchies.

Then I set forth to make the cables that would connect to the computers 12v atx connector and the extension cable for the pump to the relay switch.


Old conector, and the new pretty one!

Heres a pic of the whole assembly outside of the case:


Fabulous!

[Fushyuguru]

I got an odd hankerin to cut up some stuff again. So I grabbed the first thing in sight:


"Oh please Nooo!"

I then put some random pencil markings on it and began to slice:


Slice, sliced, slicing.

Then I took a break for some pictures:


Sweet.