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Thermaltake - My experience

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Since I was dead in the water...

I took the opportunity to do a bit of fitting of one of the mods I have planned. I bought 24" * 24" ABS Sheets to smooth out the look of the case.

Here are some of the pics showing that fitment process. This pic really shows just how frikking BIG the case is. That's a full-sized ATX motherboard, and there is enough room to mount another one on that side, lol.
View attachment 196737

Close Up of one of the edges below. Not bad considering I don't have access to any modding tools like a laser cutter or dremel. I didn't even use a saw.

View attachment 196738
 
Let me get this straight...
- You bought something you knew to be typically a "cheap alternative" product
- You aren't impressed with the quality and call it cheap and not worth the money

What were you expecting to get? Case Labs quality for less than half the price??
 
Let me get this straight...
- You bought something you knew to be typically a "cheap alternative" product
- You aren't impressed with the quality and call it cheap and not worth the money

What were you expecting to get? Case Labs quality for less than half the price??

I've had around 8-10 Thermaltake cases over the years and was always very happy with them. The quality of this one is considerably less than the quality of the other cases I've owned from them. So yeah, I'm complaining. Feel free to browse other threads if you aren't interested in this one.

Last thermaltake product I had was the TT armor . It was a decent case for its time ( it was pretty strong and heavy) but still required mods to get my rad in the front . I don't blame them for this as it was in the early days of pc water cooling and very few case's were designed with them in mind.
It had a 3x120 rad in the front and that heater core from a forklift running passive on the top =)
View attachment 196697


TT Armor cases. The name was apt. I had 2 at the same time at one point when I was playing EQ2.

I had a black one like yours as my primary box (with external radiator mounted on the back) with 9800s in SLI and had a silver one with passively-cooled 7600s in SLI to use just in case something happened to the primary computer because the "main tank dirge has to be online for all raids", lol. They were great cases. From what I recall modding them was a chore because they were built with thick steel. I think I went through 10 cutting wheels modding those two cases.
 
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I've had around 8-10 Thermaltake cases over the years and was always very happy with them. The quality of this one is considerably less than the quality of the other cases I've owned from them. So yeah, I'm complaining. Feel free to browse other threads if you aren't interested in this one.

You're also using considerably more weight in that front panel than it seems the case is designed for (they list 3x 5.25" bays on the site, you're using 6x 5.25" worth that is full of HDDs).
Not sure where TT's fault is here other than telling you to go pound sand.
 
there used to be a pretty common quote in the WC community "friends don't let friends buy thermaltake" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
You're also using considerably more weight in that front panel than it seems the case is designed for (they list 3x 5.25" bays on the site, you're using 6x 5.25" worth that is full of HDDs).
Not sure where TT's fault is here other than telling you to go pound sand.

Owner's manual states you can install up to 10 drives in that panel area.
 
Yes, 10 drives in the 3.5" drive bays. Not 10 drives in 5.25" bays.

It doesn't come with "bays". if comes with 10+4 3.5 to 5.25 trays that slide into the 5.25 panel area.

But let's forget about that for 30 seconds since you want to thread crap.

Installing "only" the Max3503 caused the bending. No drives in the bays installed in that hot swap cage. Just the cage itself cause the bending.

My belief is that if installing an empty drive cage causes bending I consider it their fault.

Not sure why you want to thread crap and, since you're a mod, there really isn't much I can do about it, so I'll just overlook your future posts.
 
Installing "only" the Max3503 caused the bending. No drives in the bays installed in that hot swap cage. Just the cage itself cause the bending.

This was not clear to me in reading the thread. I thought the 3503 was the last thing you installed.
If the front can't hold an empty drive bay, then I agree that's crappy.

You can lay off the attitude, though. I didn't get one with you.
 
This was not clear to me in reading the thread. I thought the 3503 was the last thing you installed.
If the front can't hold an empty drive bay, then I agree that's crappy.

You can lay off the attitude, though. I didn't get one with you.

Actually, your posts came across as very confrontational. To the point I PM'd ED
 
Followup with some progress this weekend.

Replaced the fans in the MAX3504, Max 3503, and replaced the one in the 2506 a few days ago.

IMAG0292.jpg

The Noctuas move a lot more air and are more quiet. One side effect...they spin slower than the OEM ones and that causes the hot swap bays to think the fans are failing (odd since the alarms didn't go off when the OEM fans started shrieking from what I assumed was bad bearings...) (If you look closely you can see two spools stuffed under the 3503 to keep it from sagging.

They (3503 and 3504) include a jumper on the back which allows you to mute the alarm (which I did) since I already have good temperature monitoring software which will alert me if the HDD temps climb too high.

The installation of the bays had to be totally redone while I had them out to replace the fans so I thought I would use the opportunity to re-re-do the cable management oon the Intel side. I made a pretty decent improvement so far. One of the problems of having a case like this is because there are things you can do to improve it, you start thinking about what you want to do to improve it and before you know it, it's been 11 hours since you cracked open the case to take "a few" measurements.

IMAG0293.jpg

IMAG0295.jpg




The AMD side is in pieces right now. Hasn't been in an assembled state since Wednesday, and won't go together for at least a week while I'm getting parts designed and printed. (Here's what 17 hours of anxiety looks like when it's just getting started.)

IMAG0300.jpg
 
Nearly done with the AMD Side. finished mocking up the PSU shroud and installed it temporarily in this pic. Need to design the 3d printed part which will mate the 3 smaller ABS panels together to form the shroud. Should be simple enough to do. the front fans have no fan guards because by the time I was ready to order them from Performance PCs they were out of stock. Kinda glad now because I did order 2 of the red anodized 140mm grills and I think they look like *** in the pic below. They definitely don't stand out at all.
View attachment 196857
 
That's looking really good. I love the shrouds that you made, it really cleans the case up. IMO you don't need the fan grills. There are no cables anywhere near the fans so no worries there.
 
The mobo and cable shrouds look really good, are they easy to get in/out?
I would just forego the fan grilles personally.
 
That's looking really good. I love the shrouds that you made, it really cleans the case up. IMO you don't need the fan grills. There are no cables anywhere near the fans so no worries there.

Thanks. Wasn't ignoring your post, I was holding off on replying since the forum seems to be affected by some sort of database issue.

I'm not really using the grills to protect cables near the fan as much as I'm using it to break up the large expanses of "blackness" because of the shroud and false panel. I could get by using the black fan grills I now have leftover from replacing the ones on the Intel side with blue anodized ones, but that's just adding more black to the case where it already has more than enough.

I may pick up some duplicolor and paint the black grills a bright(er) shade of red so they help offset the panel and shroud a bit.

Now that I have that large area available, I was considering printing a mount for my Liliput 10" touchscreen and mounting it and my Intel NUC in that area. Then load Android onto the NUC and use Remote System Monitor to display speed/temps/etc on the 10" LCD inside the case

Another route was considering is installing my Raspberry Pi and having it access my music collection so I can use it to listen to my MP3s while I'm gaming without having to alt-tab back and forth

still got some other ideas bouncing around too but nothing definitive, which is why I'm kinda taking my time with it.
 
Thanks. Wasn't ignoring your post, I was holding off on replying since the forum seems to be affected by some sort of database issue.

I'm not really using the grills to protect cables near the fan as much as I'm using it to break up the large expanses of "blackness" because of the shroud and false panel. I could get by using the black fan grills I now have leftover from replacing the ones on the Intel side with blue anodized ones, but that's just adding more black to the case where it already has more than enough.

I may pick up some duplicolor and paint the black grills a bright(er) shade of red so they help offset the panel and shroud a bit.

Now that I have that large area available, I was considering printing a mount for my Liliput 10" touchscreen and mounting it and my Intel NUC in that area. Then load Android onto the NUC and use Remote System Monitor to display speed/temps/etc on the 10" LCD inside the case

Another route was considering is installing my Raspberry Pi and having it access my music collection so I can use it to listen to my MP3s while I'm gaming without having to alt-tab back and forth

still got some other ideas bouncing around too but nothing definitive, which is why I'm kinda taking my time with it.

No worries, I just deleted my five extra posts from said db issues. They're fixed now though.
 
3D Printed a new endo-skeleton which holds the shroud pieces together and then drilled holes in the shroud for the screws I'm using to fasten it all together. (Pics later...didn't take them last night)

I miss-aligned several holes on one piece in what I now believe to be my own stupid mistake in not ensuring the panels were properly aligned before marking my drill points. (I bought 4 ABS panels, believing I'd use 1 panel per side for mocking up the false floor, then 1 panel per side as a final "product". Looks like that was a smart move considering my screw up)

I have 70% of my mock up ABS panel leftover to make new shroud panels, and the false panel on the Intel side is probably going to be less than half the size as the AMD side so I'm pretty sure I'll be able to do everything and still have over 50% of 1 panel leftover.

Instead of upgrading the 4770K to a Threadripper 2920x in April, I'm going to pick up a Mosaic Pallette+ unit (or two) this week so I can do 4-8 color printing to make 3D parts
 
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