DigitalDream
08-14-2008, 04:53 PM
http://www.digitaldreamart.com/img/FrozenDragon.jpg
This is a rebuild of my original Frozen Dragon mod. I would like to start by giving credit to Xperiment and his "Reality Bites" build for giving me some inspiration on several things in my mod.
System Specs.
# EVGA Nvidia nForce 780i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard
# Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 CPU
# Two 8800GT running SLI mode
# Western Digital Raptor 10,000 RPM Drive 160GB
# Maxtor OneTouch External Drive 500GB
# 8GB memory using four 2GB G.SKILL DDR2 SDRAM 1000
# ABS Tagan BZ Series 1100watt Modular Power Supply
# Main Monitor: Acer 20" widescreen LCD Flat Monitor
# Secondary Monitor: Sony 19" LCD Flat Monitor
Liquid Cooling Specs.
# High performance 120 x 240 mm Racing Level Radiator
# High performance 120 x 120 mm Radiator
# Two DC 12V P500 Pumps 500 L/hr
# Danger Den copper CPU Cooling Block
# Two Koolance GeForce 8800GT GPU Cooling Blocks
# Two Innovatek Ram Cooler Kits connected together
# Typhoon 120X Series Large Reservoir - UV Blue
Lighting
# Three 12" Cold Cathode - Ultra Bright UV
# One 4" Cold Cathode - Ultra Bright UV
That being said there were two things I really wanted to accomplish in this build;
1) Have dragons in and on the computer without making them stand out or clash too much with the overall appearance of the system.
2) Use mirrors to give the impression of a "web" of tubes and more depth to areas.
http://www.digitaldreamart.com/computer_mods/images/Rebuilt/OpenSystem_001.JPG
You can see 2 Dragons here (Ceramic dragons I broke off a picture frame my GF gave me ;) ) Both dragons are holding crystals, I used a small blue led wrapped up to aim light up through the crystal in one dragons hand.
http://www.digitaldreamart.com/computer_mods/images/Rebuilt/CrystalDragon.JPG
You can see the switch here I use to turn the led on and off for the crystal
http://www.digitaldreamart.com/computer_mods/images/Rebuilt/CrystalDragon_Glow.JPG
I still need to get another blue LED for the crystal held by the second dragon in the back. But his main purpose is to hide the IDE and Main power cables for the mobo/CDrom which he does perfectly.
http://www.digitaldreamart.com/computer_mods/images/Rebuilt/CrystalDragon2.jpg
The last dragon is my logo on the top of the case. In the center you can see a LED Switch that controls all my Cathode lighting (For easy on off of all the internal lights)
http://www.digitaldreamart.com/storage/DragonSticker.jpg
With the dragons all in place we move on to the "Mirror Box" I cut out a section of the drive mounting area on the bottom of the case for better visibility of the area where most of my tubing is. The mirror setup is three mirrors; one large one covers the entire inside bottom of my case. Then a square piece fills the space from the video cards to the front of the case. And one final 4" wide by 9" long piece sits at an angle against both the others. The result is a "half circle" of mirror. All the mirror was sanded on the edges after I cut it to remove the sharp edges, but just to be safe I put blue tubing on all the edges. (Most the tubing I used in my case was cheap rubber auto tubing)
http://www.digitaldreamart.com/computer_mods/images/Rebuilt/MirrorBox_01.JPG
http://www.digitaldreamart.com/computer_mods/images/Rebuilt/MirrorBox_02.jpg
http://www.digitaldreamart.com/computer_mods/images/Rebuilt/MirrorBox_03.jpg
http://www.digitaldreamart.com/computer_mods/images/Rebuilt/MirrorBox_04.jpg
http://www.digitaldreamart.com/computer_mods/images/Rebuilt/MirrorBox_05.jpg
http://www.digitaldreamart.com/computer_mods/images/Rebuilt/MirrorBox_06.jpg
I'm pretty happy with the overall effect there. You can see the pump is in the middle of the tubes, Its actually "Tied up" in the water tubes suspending it which I actually found makes it more quiet then if I mounted it to the case. And gives it that octopus of tubes coming from a central location look. Although it might be hard to tell in the pictures, due to the mirror angles, when you are sitting by the computer its hard to tell which tubes are real and which are reflections.
On to the Rad Grills. I used the double radiator grill concept I saw in Xperiments build replacing his green with my blue. A blue grill, covered by the metal black grill. I also cut a bit of thin foam to cover light coming out of the side of the fans and a few dead spots on the top of the case I didnt want light coming through.
http://www.digitaldreamart.com/computer_mods/images/Rebuilt/Grills_01.jpg
http://www.digitaldreamart.com/computer_mods/images/Rebuilt/Grills_02.jpg
http://www.digitaldreamart.com/computer_mods/images/Rebuilt/Grills_03.jpg
The final part of this build is the front of the case. I didnt like the original Armor case front, it was too dark for this bright system! The flaps were blocking some air flow and looked awful in my opinion. First I mounted the large uv blue typhoon Reservoir in the bottom using some aluminum painted black. Then I removed the fan covers and flaps and replaced with the blue acrylic and black metal double rad grill. These grills dont fit Thermaltake reservoirs though, so rather then mount it to the radiator itself I mounted it to the case front. I used some green uv tubing to fill the empty space to each side of the grill for a bit more color.
http://www.digitaldreamart.com/storage/Front_Light.jpg http://www.digitaldreamart.com/computer_mods/images/Rebuilt/Front_Dark.jpg
So thats all for now! Feedback encouraged, what did you like? What didn't you like? How can I make it look even cooler!! :D
http://www.digitaldreamart.com/computer_mods/images/Rebuilt/FullSystem_01.jpg
http://www.digitaldreamart.com/computer_mods/images/Rebuilt/FullSystem_02.jpg
http://www.digitaldreamart.com/computer_mods/images/Rebuilt/FullSystem_03.jpg
This is a rebuild of my original Frozen Dragon mod. I would like to start by giving credit to Xperiment and his "Reality Bites" build for giving me some inspiration on several things in my mod.
System Specs.
# EVGA Nvidia nForce 780i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard
# Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 CPU
# Two 8800GT running SLI mode
# Western Digital Raptor 10,000 RPM Drive 160GB
# Maxtor OneTouch External Drive 500GB
# 8GB memory using four 2GB G.SKILL DDR2 SDRAM 1000
# ABS Tagan BZ Series 1100watt Modular Power Supply
# Main Monitor: Acer 20" widescreen LCD Flat Monitor
# Secondary Monitor: Sony 19" LCD Flat Monitor
Liquid Cooling Specs.
# High performance 120 x 240 mm Racing Level Radiator
# High performance 120 x 120 mm Radiator
# Two DC 12V P500 Pumps 500 L/hr
# Danger Den copper CPU Cooling Block
# Two Koolance GeForce 8800GT GPU Cooling Blocks
# Two Innovatek Ram Cooler Kits connected together
# Typhoon 120X Series Large Reservoir - UV Blue
Lighting
# Three 12" Cold Cathode - Ultra Bright UV
# One 4" Cold Cathode - Ultra Bright UV
That being said there were two things I really wanted to accomplish in this build;
1) Have dragons in and on the computer without making them stand out or clash too much with the overall appearance of the system.
2) Use mirrors to give the impression of a "web" of tubes and more depth to areas.
http://www.digitaldreamart.com/computer_mods/images/Rebuilt/OpenSystem_001.JPG
You can see 2 Dragons here (Ceramic dragons I broke off a picture frame my GF gave me ;) ) Both dragons are holding crystals, I used a small blue led wrapped up to aim light up through the crystal in one dragons hand.
http://www.digitaldreamart.com/computer_mods/images/Rebuilt/CrystalDragon.JPG
You can see the switch here I use to turn the led on and off for the crystal
http://www.digitaldreamart.com/computer_mods/images/Rebuilt/CrystalDragon_Glow.JPG
I still need to get another blue LED for the crystal held by the second dragon in the back. But his main purpose is to hide the IDE and Main power cables for the mobo/CDrom which he does perfectly.
http://www.digitaldreamart.com/computer_mods/images/Rebuilt/CrystalDragon2.jpg
The last dragon is my logo on the top of the case. In the center you can see a LED Switch that controls all my Cathode lighting (For easy on off of all the internal lights)
http://www.digitaldreamart.com/storage/DragonSticker.jpg
With the dragons all in place we move on to the "Mirror Box" I cut out a section of the drive mounting area on the bottom of the case for better visibility of the area where most of my tubing is. The mirror setup is three mirrors; one large one covers the entire inside bottom of my case. Then a square piece fills the space from the video cards to the front of the case. And one final 4" wide by 9" long piece sits at an angle against both the others. The result is a "half circle" of mirror. All the mirror was sanded on the edges after I cut it to remove the sharp edges, but just to be safe I put blue tubing on all the edges. (Most the tubing I used in my case was cheap rubber auto tubing)
http://www.digitaldreamart.com/computer_mods/images/Rebuilt/MirrorBox_01.JPG
http://www.digitaldreamart.com/computer_mods/images/Rebuilt/MirrorBox_02.jpg
http://www.digitaldreamart.com/computer_mods/images/Rebuilt/MirrorBox_03.jpg
http://www.digitaldreamart.com/computer_mods/images/Rebuilt/MirrorBox_04.jpg
http://www.digitaldreamart.com/computer_mods/images/Rebuilt/MirrorBox_05.jpg
http://www.digitaldreamart.com/computer_mods/images/Rebuilt/MirrorBox_06.jpg
I'm pretty happy with the overall effect there. You can see the pump is in the middle of the tubes, Its actually "Tied up" in the water tubes suspending it which I actually found makes it more quiet then if I mounted it to the case. And gives it that octopus of tubes coming from a central location look. Although it might be hard to tell in the pictures, due to the mirror angles, when you are sitting by the computer its hard to tell which tubes are real and which are reflections.
On to the Rad Grills. I used the double radiator grill concept I saw in Xperiments build replacing his green with my blue. A blue grill, covered by the metal black grill. I also cut a bit of thin foam to cover light coming out of the side of the fans and a few dead spots on the top of the case I didnt want light coming through.
http://www.digitaldreamart.com/computer_mods/images/Rebuilt/Grills_01.jpg
http://www.digitaldreamart.com/computer_mods/images/Rebuilt/Grills_02.jpg
http://www.digitaldreamart.com/computer_mods/images/Rebuilt/Grills_03.jpg
The final part of this build is the front of the case. I didnt like the original Armor case front, it was too dark for this bright system! The flaps were blocking some air flow and looked awful in my opinion. First I mounted the large uv blue typhoon Reservoir in the bottom using some aluminum painted black. Then I removed the fan covers and flaps and replaced with the blue acrylic and black metal double rad grill. These grills dont fit Thermaltake reservoirs though, so rather then mount it to the radiator itself I mounted it to the case front. I used some green uv tubing to fill the empty space to each side of the grill for a bit more color.
http://www.digitaldreamart.com/storage/Front_Light.jpg http://www.digitaldreamart.com/computer_mods/images/Rebuilt/Front_Dark.jpg
So thats all for now! Feedback encouraged, what did you like? What didn't you like? How can I make it look even cooler!! :D
http://www.digitaldreamart.com/computer_mods/images/Rebuilt/FullSystem_01.jpg
http://www.digitaldreamart.com/computer_mods/images/Rebuilt/FullSystem_02.jpg
http://www.digitaldreamart.com/computer_mods/images/Rebuilt/FullSystem_03.jpg