This is lookn great. The colour is not for me but everyone is different. I would have got a black with purple/cherry flecks in it. Like car paint on the mazda 6.
Printable View
This is lookn great. The colour is not for me but everyone is different. I would have got a black with purple/cherry flecks in it. Like car paint on the mazda 6.
Thanks all for the encouragement. I'm loving working on this thing. As for recoating adn clearcoating...unfortunatley I dont have access to the same paint (I bought it in the states, but i'm back in India now)...so i'm stuck with some of the paint mistakes that I have...but over all, I'm really happy.
I'm not yet experienced enough to do multitonal paint, only what comes in a can. :) The color doesn't quite come out right on the 'puter. I'll do some pictures of it all when it's done out on a sunny day so you can see how it really looks...it's great!Quote:
Originally Posted by The boy 4rm oz
Welcome back to what is officially the most exciting (at least for me) part of project DEEP PURPLE! That is…putting it all back together.
I’ll do this in a few parts, first I’ll put the case back together, then I’ll start putting parts in, modding them as need be on the way. On assembly, all parts were put together much like they were taken apart. Rivets all went in the normal way, and since I was working on it alone, I really didn’t get too many pictures of me actually working. But I’m hoping that by watching the order I did it you’ll get the general idea.
First, I started with some of the smaller bits to clear some table space. Namely:
The power bay front cover:
Then I did all nine of the bay covers:
I put the springs all back in place on the inside of the motherboard backer:
And the expansion bay covers:
I put the door back on the trap door (the door is the same purple, but the flash is a bit overpowering, even post processing):
Then put the top assembly back on the top of the case:
Putting the feet back on the bottom rounds out the easy work on putting it back together:
Now the fun part started. I first attached the back wall of the case to the bottom with 3 rivets:
And *THEN* I suddenly remembered that I had forgotten to drill my mounting holes for my reservoir. DOH! I had, however, dry fit it enough times that I knew exactly where it would go, and was able to do it at this stage:
And now my mounts are all happily installed:
Next up was the inner mount of the front bezel:
Followed by that all crucial cross member:
For those counting…we’re at about 10 rivets by now.
The drive bays were next:
And
(I also have the lateral support bar in as well.) Putting me to a total of about 30 rivets now. My rivet gun is getting a workout today.
Motherboard tray:
I missed a picture of me putting in the power supply housing onto the top, but it’s in there. As is the top (and the ATX backing plate):
And that’s all the riveting that it took. All in all…62 of them…yes sixty two!
Front door just for looks:
And the front bezel, filled as well as I could for now, with wings:
The top for looks:
And my DD Fillport:
I think that’s all the space I have for now…but you have no IDEA how happy I am that this thing is coming together. Next, putting in parts, and putting stuff together.
Cheers!
-MF
nice.. very pro looking :) awsome to see such a nice case taken to a higher level!
Okay…so…on my last part I said it was the most exciting…but…I lied. :) We are now getting into the “cream of the crop” of any real build…actually putting crap together and installing parts!
So…I’ll be putting in commentary where I can, and I’m sure this will be broken into a few different posts…but let me say this. I had no idea really where to start (don’t’ get me wrong, I’ve built more computers than I can count, but I had so much to put into this thing, and so much to do, that it felt daunting).
That said…it’ll seem like I’m flitting around a lot, but, to me it seemed like quite a logical order. But to me logic is way different than it is to most people. Anyway:
First is a quick dry-fit of the mother board. I plan on looming all of my cables in here to *just* the right length (by doubling the cable on itself inside the loom) as to have minimal amounts of excess cabling draping around to obscure the view of all my nice parts.
Fan #1 (and radiator) loomed (I had to hand hold the fan in the case, rough measure where the fan would plug in, and then do the looming…fun). By the way, this rear exhaust fan will be plugged directly into the motherboard on the CPU fan plug.
And heat-shrunk:
Fan/Rad combo number two, this is the one that will be in the front drive bays, and will also be plugged into a fan mount on the motherboard:
And mounted in the cage for drive-bay mounting. It’s upside down right now (the ports will be on the bottom)…but it works like this for a photo:
Mainly to test fitting I mounted the tool-tray, DVD/RW, and the dual HD Block. You have no idea how happy I was to finally be sure that I modded out the right parts on the drive cages. :)
And yes, before anyone askes…I’m an idiot and forgot to take the housing off of the DVD/RW and paint it black to match. It will happen in the future I promise! LOL @ ME!
I dropped in the radiator cage, and put in the pump (not affixed) just to test-fit, for a case with this much room…I’m running out of free space fast!
At this point I said to myself “SELF” (bonus points to the first response to catch that reference) “why not just install your waterblocks on the MOBO and put it in for good?” So, here is the installation of a northbridge waterblock:
A clean chip (you’ll recall I removed the heatsink way back on page one or 2):
Once again dry-fitting the block:
Mounting screws in place (measured on the bottom so they wont’ be too long down below, but won’t be huge up top either):
The block, and my coolermaster goo:
Forgot to shoot the goo on the block, but, here it is in place, all secured down and happy. QUESTON! The instructions didn’t tell me how tight to put the screws in…I put them to what I thought was a reasonable amount, the springs are to about 50-75% their regular size…any advice?
The CPU worked nearly the same way:
Four mounting screws:
Dry fit:
Coolermaster gave a cool semi-sticky plastic thingy for me to do to get a perfect square of processor goo on the block…neat huh?
Smear it on
And take off the plastic for a perfect amount of goo:
Slide it down and NO! Someone didn’t look closely on the dry fit. :(
Yup…the block is sitting unhappily on a few capacitors. I freaked here…thinking I”d have to order a smaller water block…then I though…hum…it’s less than 1/8 inch, maybe if I pull the block off (and of course clean it up for regooing), loosen the 4 posts, angle them all just a bit off to the side, slide it back down, and *then* tighten the posts back, it should work right:
And…whew…I was right. It’s all tight, secure, and not crushing any capacitors. Yay!
Drop on a couple of ram chips and the motherboard is ready to go back into the case right?
Maybe not…
I’m out of space for here…so I’ll continue this on the next post.
Cheers!
MF
Continuing on with the installation of parts:
I figured there was one last thing I should do since I had the MOBO out and handy. I figure I’d mount the two exit pipes on the CPU block.
First, measure and cut the tubing for the Y-Joint:
Yup, lacking any better tool, I used my friends disgustingly sharp Emerson knife…and it cut the tubing like…well…a knife through soft butter.
Anyway…secure the tubes to the Y-Joint, and lock them down with tube-clamps:
And install them onto the waterblock, securing again with tube-clamps. I don’t want any leaks. I’m told that these clamps aren’t necessary, but…better safe than sorry in my book.
Since I’m at a point where I’m looking at power, lines, looming, and wire management, it only seemed logical that I needed to turn my attention to the powersupply now.
Well…the first thing was the (supposedly) easy replacement of the blue fan inside it with a purple one. First, opening the supply.
This PSU has more stickers on it than any piece of equipment has a right to. Quality checks, burn-in checks, everything.
And anyone who has tried to remove a sticker knows that sticker adhesive is more stubborn than a mother on family picture day. Awesome solution…Zippo Fuel and a cotton ball. Zippo fuel will eat through the paper and adhesive in a matter of seconds, literally, it’s awesome:
A few screws later and I’ve got a fan separated from the PSU:
Quick note, the wiring job inside the PSU is nice and clean, very easy on the eyes:
Now I ran into an unexpected problem. The purple fan has a 3-wire, 3-pin lead, the PSU only two. Problem 2, the pruple fan’s wires are 2x silver 1x copper and I have no idea which of the 3 are positive, negative, and speed monitoring. So..what do I do…look at another 120mm fan I have in another computer, compare the colors, cut a wire…and hope. Okay, I was sure when I cut the wire…but…now to do some splicing.
Wire splicing is easy for me, I’ve been doing small electronics for years (care stereos, computer stuff, etc.) So, putting the end from the original fan onto the new one is a matter of cutting wires and stripping them, splicing them, and cleaning it all up:
A bit of heatshrink and it’s all purty again:
Tuck the splices around the outside of the fan, plug it in, case it all up, and there it is, happily installed into the case:
Motherboard, and the rear radiator/fan combo installed:
And yes, the fan is plugged in, I measured the cable so well that it’s basically totally invisible, totally behind the radiator. Yay!
Next, quick run on the SATA cables, just testing for fit, and they fit great!
The P4 12v line to the motherboard:
And I’m already keeping track of excess wire length up at the PSU end:
Seems like a logical breaking point for posts, so I’ll sign off here, and continue shortly!
Cheers!
MF
So, back to more wire management and parts installation.
It occurred to me that some people may not have done wire looming, and might not know what it means when I say ‘doubling the wire on itself’ before I mod.
So here is what I mean…measure where the cable/wire/whatever needs to go from and to, add about half an inch just in case then do this with the wire to shorten it:
Slide your looming down:
Then tie-wrap and heat shrink:
And then install:
Did the same thing with the LED’s for the power bay:
And unfortunately I did the power and reset buttons as well:
I say unfortunately because I had to cut it all apart on the power and reset buttons because they had to be fed into the bay from the front, and *then* loomed. But I got it all done anyway, and here is my bay:
Complete with front panel:
Now keep in mind, this is also where the pump will mount to…so it’s not done yet. :)
Due to some factors beyond my control, I had to readjust where I wanted to put the pump, it’s not up top, but on the main tray now:
SATA Cables, the speaker, the front fan, and a 2-port power line dropped down. The end port will be for the pump, the one hanging here…it’ll be used to power the neons. No extra cabling remember.
Now for the fun part…okay it’s all been fun, but this is what I’ve been waiting on for a long time. Running the water lines.
First line is from the rad to the CPU. Don’t worry about the photo…it’s not kinked or flattened. No flow restriction here:
The exhaust from the CPU to the HD Blocks:
HD Block to the other rad:
Attaching the T-Line to the pump intake, this will connect to both the fillport and the reservoir:
Installed the pump. Connected a line from the output of the pump to the northbridge, and got the output line from the rad ready to go into the reservoir:
At this point…the front is finally full. Nice to see *something* complete:
Dropped the fillport line:
And the resiviour in and installed. This basically ends the amount of tubing I can do. For those of you counting…there is one big part missing. I haven’t yet gotten my videocard waterblock in yet. :( And even when it comes in (should be this week), I still have to wait…since I’m out of hose clamps and had to order more.
So I did some more line management and power running. My neighbor stopped by and insisted that he take some pictures of me actually hands-in the case…so just because I said I would…here’s the back of my head and some of the case. :)
And there we are…all caught up to Thursday afternoon, as of the 16 of August.
It’s all going great, but, unfortunately, I’m stuck and I’m sad. I want to get this thing up and running! ARGH!
Cheers for now,
MF
Thanks. :) I'm doing my best with what little experience I've got. It's turning out better than I actually expected.Quote:
Originally Posted by dgrmkr
Cheers!
It is coming on really well. :D
Does that CPU block support S775?
very.. VERY nice....
ive been waitin to see this near completion since you started postin about it.... looks real good
