[Build Log] Batgirl

[diluzio91]

That's right... Another mod... This time it's for my wife's PC. It's going to be a little simpler, but it's still going to be Liquid cooled, and should be pretty sweet when it's all finished. The colors and themes are all picked and approved by my wife, so yall just sit back and enjoy the ride :D

The case:

NZXT Noctis 450 in black. The lighting on this case is pretty crazy, and we're going to be using almost none of it.

http://i.imgur.com/V2JHEYj.jpg

The Inspiration:

Bat girl is one of my wife's all time favorite super heros, and after seeing my Iron Man build she got a little jealous, and challenged me to design a Bat Girl themed build for her.

The break down is like this.

The build will be taking advantage of the "armor" look of the noctis 450 case, and will bring in elements from the bat family franchise. The "armor" will be coated in 3m Carbon Fiber vinyl on the outside, while the interior will be done in Metallic purple. Various Die cut vinyl and other bits and bobs will be added as the build unfolds.

http://i.imgur.com/5laXDpD.jpg

The top panel of the case taken off

http://i.imgur.com/3y7w1aj.jpg

The Armor stripped off and ready for the Vinyl to be applied when it arrives.

http://i.imgur.com/jubKK9z.jpg

Finally the mesh is removed from the panels as part of the prep work on the case.

http://i.imgur.com/KQce7i6.jpg

Since the parts for this build will be coming from my old desktop I can confidently share the specs of this build as follows:

i7 3770@4ghz
Asrock Z77 Board
16gb Memory
Corsair HX850 PSU
EVGA Classified 780Ti
Full liquid loop
2x 250gb SSD's

[diluzio91]

Got some more work done today.

Step one, Remove the front side of the HDD cage

http://i.imgur.com/vkOVO6N.jpg

Now we need to cover that hole...

http://i.imgur.com/ZpVV0z5.jpg

Convient placement of the screw holes makes it easy to secure the new back plane to it's holder.

http://i.imgur.com/rHM7Oqw.jpg

Modification to the PSU cover to make it look a little more complete

http://i.imgur.com/UGEtSJe.jpg

And bending the cover to shape... Easier than it looks with a good heat gun XD

http://i.imgur.com/wT7bWE5.jpg

A better view of how it will look here.

http://i.imgur.com/fg7lgEr.jpg

Here's what it looks like now... All the guts have dissapeared!!!

http://i.imgur.com/URkzh5p.jpg

Guts in the garage for paint, Primer done in this photo

http://i.imgur.com/Z3S55hL.jpg

First coat of the purple laid down

http://i.imgur.com/Av4KzP1.jpg

It's pretty dark out so I tried to get a good image with my cell phone's flash of the purple paint. It's deeper in person and sparkles like crazy. My wife came out in a mask to check the paint but threatened physical harm if I took a picture of her doing QA for her build.

http://i.imgur.com/aLKcTKC.jpg

And last but not least I got the first part wrapped with the grey CF. My black and yellow vinyls are in the mail, so it'll be a bit before I can start doing the big panels.

http://i.imgur.com/rxGMPZx.jpg

Thanks for watching!!

[TheMainMan]

I think the purple will make a pretty cool accent colour, definitely not a colour that is commonly seen on PCs. How do you bend your acrylic? Just heat it in place?

[Zenator]

Love that case. Look forward to seeing what you do with it. :)

[diluzio91]

Lots of work got done today.

First up, everything was riveted back together.

http://i.imgur.com/BdWcsRo.jpg

Then we Marked out the lines for the new enlarged window

http://i.imgur.com/V0Sl8Wg.jpg

Did a quick repair with some epoxy where I slipped with my cut off wheel.

http://i.imgur.com/1np9Zjg.jpg

My assistant met the UPS guy and brought up the vinyl for this case. Now we're getting started for real.

http://i.imgur.com/H3PMNmk.jpg

First, the window panel got covered (Bubbles have been worked out by now, it takes about an hour after application for any bubbles to go away on their own.)

http://i.imgur.com/kWs3fSv.jpg

Armor Plates wrapped up

http://i.imgur.com/xf4Jzbs.jpg

And installed again with the Mesh filters

http://i.imgur.com/Y4QgcaV.jpg

All plates and panels covered and installed on the case

http://i.imgur.com/IVfh3lA.jpg

Front shot of the effect

http://i.imgur.com/1PAOlD2.jpg

At this point my assistant got bored and watched some videos on how to make cupcakes...

http://i.imgur.com/eF0a0OE.jpg

Next we tackled the front panel...

http://i.imgur.com/0UfHd3L.jpg

Bat girl action in progress!

http://i.imgur.com/8BnnfYU.jpg

The decal is split on the two different plates, the effect is actually pretty cool.

http://i.imgur.com/vBh5mlU.jpg

Now time to work on the back panel. The Batgirl Silhouette started in this picture.

http://i.imgur.com/edHREzQ.jpg

My Assistant (wife in case you didn't guess) decided she didn't like the letters so she removed them.

http://i.imgur.com/FsemCqa.jpg

Closer to being finished, but it's missing something...

http://i.imgur.com/mRwG2Ae.jpg

Adding bats completes the look for sure.

http://i.imgur.com/jmKgQPL.jpg

Floor plate is installed now

http://i.imgur.com/Y5y677d.jpg

and I'll leave you with a shot of where we left off until we have some more parts come in.

http://i.imgur.com/a95fih8.jpg

Thanks as always for watching guys! If you have any questions let me know!

[diluzio91]

Just a small update today.

I need to figure out how to cover the blue Alpha Cool Logo and the Blue Ram...

http://i.imgur.com/yyN62GK.jpg

[OvRiDe]

Well you could paint the RAM with the purple paint, but I don't know how advisable that really is. I have seen it done, but never seen any conclusive evidence if it affects the performance of the RAM cooling. If you have any of the carbon fiber film left, you could cut out a bat shape with it and cover the Alphacool logo. Stealthy but still fits the theme if its spotted.

[diluzio91]

I actually tried the bat girl logo, the problem is the low point of the bat would hang off... I think I'm gonna try to make the Alphacool logo up on my vinyl cutter about 2% larger and redo the logo with yellow that way. Should be interesting if nothing else.

For the memory I've decided to do a light coat of plastidip since it's non conductive, and if it causes problems I can remove it easily...

[diluzio91]

Got a ton of work done today including all the cable management for what I have... But first things first.

This looks easier than it was, but look! Yellow Alphacool Logos!!

http://i.imgur.com/2mDKzQY.jpg

To achieve this I took a picture of the logo on the radiator (the logos I found online were slightly different dimensions) photoshopped everrything but the blue away, then imported it into illustrator. After pulling it into illustrator and cleaning up the vectors I exported it to a Gigantic .png file (the only file my vinyl cutter can use that's not it's own format) and after measuring the logos I printed up 4 sets, starting at .255 inches and increasing by .01 inch incriments. then it was just a matter of finding the best match for the original lettering.

Here's the result

http://i.imgur.com/4GzPHRu.jpg

Next I put the Memory into a sacrificial motherboard and hit it up with some plasti dip.

http://i.imgur.com/uDZjlcI.jpg

While the dip was drying I installed the floor for the pump to mount to.

http://i.imgur.com/TwOSRKi.jpg

permanently attached the pump and res at the same time my phone's camera forgot how to focus.

http://i.imgur.com/o4DKtqd.jpg

Lots of bending... I found out that a jigsaw with a metal blade on it makes cutting PETG tubing stupidly easy...

One crazy looking bend per build is going to be my new motto.

http://i.imgur.com/aXfq76O.jpg

with the bend in place

http://i.imgur.com/dkVbuNr.jpg

I re-arranged the loop for a little cleaner run on the tubing.

http://i.imgur.com/NGjHn2h.jpg

Then I started on the back... Now the point of this build was to re-use parts I had on hand.... Part of that was my Non modular PSU... Cable management time!!!

http://i.imgur.com/YkV5yGM.jpg

I used yellow zip ties... they work with the theme

http://i.imgur.com/RKX86T7.jpg

zip zip zip zip...

http://i.imgur.com/J6DoOBn.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/hMJjBLV.jpg

SSD's mounted to the back, all the cables tied in place, LED controller tucked away at the back.

http://i.imgur.com/M3VEFbv.jpg

Finally the front view. Lights installed, tubes installed... now we're just waiting on the drain system, fluid, another front fan, and cable extensions.

http://i.imgur.com/oZkGGcR.jpg

That reminds me... I have to get the window to the laser cutter...

[OvRiDe]

That came out great!

[msmrx57]

Nice looking build. Very clean. :up:

[diluzio91]

I'm back from vacation! Just 2 pictures today.

First up we got the window cut.

http://i.imgur.com/JGozc2d.jpg

Getting ready to fill the loop, ignore the white extension, i'm waiting for the final extension to come in.

http://i.imgur.com/RyeccDc.jpg

[diluzio91]

I finished the real 24 pin extension. The cable management on the back isn't the greatest, but it's the best I could manage with a non modular power supply.

http://i.imgur.com/fosEiKR.jpg

Here's the loop filled and bled... The yellow Pops like crazy!.

http://i.imgur.com/NeW2bxm.jpg

Purple lights to fit the theme, I'm using an RGB LED strip that the green burnt out on. The case has a nice even glow.

http://i.imgur.com/G6SzLjR.jpg

Finally the window is in the side panel... The logo glows surprisingly well considering the glass isn't edge lit.

http://i.imgur.com/BEO7kGl.jpg

Sadly one of my memory sticks died, so I'm waiting on an RMA, but I can still install windows and overclock the system with the one working dimm. When the new memory comes in I'll do the final glamour shots.

[diluzio91]

The memory came back from RMA!! So here's the final round of Pictures for this build.

http://i.imgur.com/RUBGWFJ.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/eMCW4cI.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/eyzC1x1.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/hD0zh3I.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/uj0wkUW.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/j4CTr7p.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/PCR6gXp.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/vBb9vef.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/v5chAY5.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/BXhsAgS.jpg

As always higher resolution photos can be found on my website at the following link.

http://www.diluzio.us/#/bat-girl/

Let me know what you think! (PS, My wife loves it!!)