The controller is HEAVY. Heavier than I've seen any controller and this feels like it is bulletproof. It has a massive plate up front. You aren't going to bend this thing. Incredible build quality on these Lamptrons. I honestly did not expect it to be this good. I know what fan controllers I'm using on future builds. See ya, Sunbeam.
Check this out:
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Got the top fan installed and hooked up. Very easy, quick and direct wiring path. In the second and third picture, I actually had the fan in backwards. I flipped it so it is pointing out when installed.
For some reason, I felt compelled to get that grill out of the way. I still need a find a way to touch up the part where I had to file it down, but it looks decent and the flow is a lot better. I washed (yes) the motherboard tray to get the dust and metal filings off the parts. Easiest thing I could do, that thing was filthy. Had to run to the hardware store to buy the "ring terminals" to replace the stock fan controller ones, check out some rivets (possible mod) and a grinding wheel for my Dremel. The terminals happened to be the exact size I needed, and I just guessed from memory. The rivets will be interesting. I don't need this case to have a motherboard tray. In addition to that, it likes to shift around and come unlatched when you put pressure on add-in cards, which is extremely annoying and it looks bad. I was thinking of riveting the loose side to the frame, to completely eliminate moving. A possible positive to come of that is I could then hang one or two 120.3 radiators off the back! Keeps the possiblity of water cooling open, which is always a good thing.
This is literally bolted to the work bench. There are holes under the CPU socket and it lined up perfect.
Still trying to figure out how I want the wiring harness on these fans. I'm also debating whether to use all black wiring by resoldering the entire tail on each fan, omitting the RPM sensor since I won't use it anyway.
These are the ones I bought. It had a plastic shroud over them, so I simply ripped it off! Perfect match.
I should have one more picture coming up of the cut motherboard tray. I may bundle it with the next set of pictures, if I have any later tonight. Until then, enjoy.
Got a lot done so far. Here is the "finished" motherboard tray. I'm going to order some U-channel to mask the unpainted edge. I did nick the bottom right corner on the outside, which makes me a little sad. Not sure how to repair that or make it invisible. I think two 120.3 radiators with a plethora of fans will distract everyone so they forget about it. That sound good? Mmm....tastes like overkill.
Been thinking of how I want the fan channels:
1 - CPU (2 fans)
2 - Other/Open (GPU?)
3 - Back 120
4 - Front fans
5 - Door fans
6 - Top 120
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This is right as I was starting. All the fans are bolted in with two screws to give me an indication of what the spacing is like so I can figure out where to run the wires. After deciding what to do, I peeled back the label on one fan and clipped the wires. I'm in luck, the pads are in an opening; albeit very small and cramped.
Close-up of the fan get operated on.
Wires are gone! Don't worry, I wrote down which wires need to go where.
New wires in place, but not sleeved. Fan looks stock, except that its awesome level is around ten times higher. I've also chosen to leave out the RPM wire since it will not be used. Saves wire and space.
Fan sleeved. It does not have a connector on the end and both wires are black. "But Thideras, how will you know which one is positive and which is ground?!" Very easy, fellow overclocker, I used a silver Sharpie to mark the end of the positive wire.
Two fans done and installed. I don't have a close-up, but I did remove some of the plastic between the bottom fans, where the bottom right fan crosses over into the next quadrant. I made it deep enough so that the wire didn't have to bend up. It helps keep the wire in place.
All 4 fans completed and installed. Still no headers on the end. I had to cut the plastic even deeper above the top two fans, right in the middle. I have three sets of fan wires going through that hole.
Close-up of the unfinished ends. They are longer than I need and will be shortened when I get the rest of the cable designed.
Just fixed a HUGE problem with the case. If you put in a card, the motherboard tray would come unlatched. If you moved the case, it unlatched. If you didn't do anything, it unlatched. Not to mention, it moves around when you are working on it. This would have been a deal breaker had I known about it. Luckily, I found a fix and did it. Rivets! The color is annoying (eww silver), but I can easily drill these out and use black ones if I find them. I saw these at the hardware store and found the smallest ones. I didn't see any black rivets, so I just got these since they were a few dollars. Didn't think I'd actually use them. I started looking at the structure of the case and saw the support beam that the motherboard tray normally clips to was around 1/4"-3/8" wide and very strong. I used 1/8" rivets and it worked perfectly. Cross that off my list of reasons to sell the case.
Not only did a fix the motherboard tray, I can add a serious amount of weight off the back of this case. They used a thicker aluminium than most cases. This gives it an incredible amount of support. I could probably hang three 120.3 radiators, decked out with fans. How hot would that be?
Just one picture for this update. Not sure if I want to do anything else tonight as I've done a ton of work.
Yes, having more time is actually pretty awesome! I might have some time tonight depending on if I get this board recapped for a good friend of mine. If everything goes according to plan, I can start on the CPU/Back 120mm breakout and possibly the door breakout. Still trying to come up with designs.
Thanks, I'm still making progress, just not as fast as Thursday!
Today, I decided to tackle a few "smaller" tasks. They take a long time to complete, but they are important to the functions of the case. To start, I cleaned and put back on the top and bottom of the case. There was no reason to leave them off any longer.
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Solid color cables are difficult to create because you have X cables that are all the same color. They also get jumbled around in sleeving. To ensure that the pinout is right, I have to do continuity tests on each wire then place it in the correct hole on the other connector. After all the pins are in and before the sleeving gets finalized, I have to verify that everything was correct. If I plug the cable in, I run the chance of killing hardware. Once verified, I test the cable out. USB is one that I have not done before, so it was an interesting experience.
I start by taking the required number of wires, putting on pins and attaching them to one connector. The order doesn't matter, so I just put them in. This is the easy part.
Close-up of the first connector.
I straighten the wires so they line up and then put a zip tie near the end to hold them.
This is a neat little trick I figured out about a year ago. Take some heatshrink, put it over the end of the wires and heat it up. This will hold the wires together tightly and prevent them from moving. This plays two roles for making the cable. It gives a "ramp" for the sleeving to start on, which makes it magnitudes easier to get started, especially on big cables (ATX 24 pin!). The second is that it holds the wires together so they don't shift when you are putting the sleeving on. Many times have I put sleeving on the cable to find one of the wires pull far back into the sleeving, where it got caught. In that case, I'd have to take off the sleeving and do it over. This completely removes that risk.
This pictures has a few steps. You can see the heatshrink labeled "USB" on the desk, I do not actually use this on the cable, but use it to measure the pieces that are going on. This gives me a uniform size for the heatshink and makes the cables look better overall. The sleeving is also installed and I skipped a few steps. I take my roll of sleeving, slide it up to where I want it, mark the wires (you can see silver near the connector), pull the sleeving partially off to cut it and then slide it all the way on up to the mark.
Once I have it in position, I put the first final zip tie on the sleeving to hold it in place. This is in the final product to hold the sleeving in place. Overall, it just makes the cable sturdy. I try to do this wherever I can. Not to mention, it looks very good.
I then slipped the heatshrink over the ziptie so the "peak" of it is at the center of the heatshrink.
Apply heat! Professional looks.
Finally, the finished cable. I got the final pinout and tested the cable to make sure it works. Of course, it worked the first time.
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For some reason, Cooler Master thought it was a good idea to not have a normal straight-through pinout for the USB cables. Because of that, I have to custom make each cable at different times so I don't get confused. I also can't get the final cables mixed up later on. That is what the silver marking on one end of the cables is for. The PCB that it plugs into has similar markings.
I also found out that I didn't order enough pins and I have enough to only do two USB cables if I don't screw any of the pins up. I can't complete the front panel until I get these. Luckily, I need some other parts as well, so I'm seeing if there was anything else I missed before completing the order.
These cables will run down next to the front of the 5.25 bays. There is space there for whatever reason and I can run two USB cables plus the front switches/lights. Completely stealthed. I also made some undocumented changes to the bottom of the case. I basically drilled some holes in the bottom stand where there are holes in the case. This opens up the possibility of ground lighting in the future. I figured I might as well do it since it would look neat and only took 10 minutes to do. You can't tell the difference anyway.
Have you ever used the MDPC cable sleeving\heatshrink? I ask because it's generally regarded as "the best", but carries a hefty price. The stuff you're using looks to be a comparable quality from the pictures, but was just wondering if you've worked with it to compare to what you're using now
Nope, mine is just the "normal" stuff. If someone wanted to use that instead, I would since they are paying for it, but I wouldn't use it on mine. Not worth it.
Nope, mine is just the "normal" stuff. If someone wanted to use that instead, I would since they are paying for it, but I wouldn't use it on mine. Not worth it.
Was just curious, last time I ventured into sleeving I ordered one of those all-in-one kits, that came with a bunch of different sizes of heat shrink and sleeving, but it was horrible quality. The cables showed through the sleeving, the heat shrink barley shrunk, etc, etc...
Got another big chunk done, this time the fan door. I've been thinking about how I want to combine all 4 fans into a single cable so the fan controller can do everything with one knob. It also needed to work with having the door open and closed, without user intervention. Here is what I came up with and it works perfectly!
This cable is a simple molex to 3 pin fan connector, but not wired like your power supply. From farthest to closest, it goes 12v, ground, 12v, ground. After getting it created, I needed a reliable way for it to work with opening and closing the door. If I just sat it in there, it held ok, but fell out about half the time. Not satisfied, I was looking at a way to modify the door to either hold the connector in or hold the wire. That led me down the path of using a zip tie. There is a hole there for the Cooler Master snap in fan things (best way to describe it), that I'm obviously not using. This was a perfect mounting point for the cable, so I dropped a zip tie on. After testing, it was extremely solid and is not moving from that position.
3-pin end of the molex delivery cable. This plugs into the fan controller.
Here is the internal breakout cable, next to a tape measure to give an idea of how big it is. The hardest, by magnitudes, was that duo up against the molex connector. The 4 wires on those are under 1" in length. Much frustration was encountered trying to get those to just work. There is no way I could have sleeved those.
Completed door. 4 fans into a single 3 pin connector is so sexy.
Close up of the breakout connector.
Close up of the other end of the breakout connector.
Door installed. No wires are visible.
View from the front. If you look closely, you can see the wire running along the left support and into the fan controller. I couldn't get good lighting to show it completely.
Here is the tie down that gives the door slack when it is closed and prevent the cable from snagging on the metal. This is when the door is open.
Same tie down, but with the door closed.
Overall, I'm satisfied on the way it turned out. Only took around 3 hours to make it.
The fourth fan (upper right) will have to be removed when I put my actual system in. The TRUE hits the fan and I can't close it.
Little bit of an update. I wanted to fire up the door to see what kind of airflow I was getting, so I decided to make the cable for the fan controller. This cable plugs directly into any Corsair power supply.
Got the front panel completely done, another huge part of the case. I have the cables routed and they are completely hidden. I'll try to get pictures to explain later. Here is the last front panel that I completed tonight. I got the power/lights hooked up, in addition to the other USB cable. I was two pins short, so I had to do surgery on the stock connectors to extract a pin. What a pain in the motherboard.
The labeled connectors were actually stolen from the stock case wiring. I simply used a screwdriver to crush the pin and then pulled the mangled mess out of the connector.
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