project M8 (CaseLabs M8 workstation build)

Hello there, and welcome to project M8!

The idea:
The idea came when i first saw a post on overclock.net, where a person named Jim showed some prototype pictures of a new case lineup. The company he started was named CaseLabs, and they specialize in high end enthusiast watercooling cases. I knew that this was a case that was build to house a HUGE watercooling system, and wanted to see how far i could push it. Jim was generous enough to offer sending one of his cases all the way to Denmark for me to play with!

The watercooling:
I will put a lot of time into creating a watercooling loop that is simple, silent and easy to fill and bleed. My latest project PC-Beto had its flaws with the watercooling, one being that it was compact, and components was pretty tight screwed together.

Components:
Case:
CaseLabs M8

watercooling:
3*360 mm radiator
2*laing d5 vario pumps
Bitspower fittings

More components will follow as i figure out what to put in:)

And now, lets get to the fun part! This project is going to progress slow since school and other stuff is taking up a lot of time, but i will try to update it on a regular basis! But on to some pictures, since half of you dont read this anyway:D

Enjoy!

Full review of the case:
http://www.itrends.dk/31638/

First, some pictures of the case itself:

As you can see the case is absolutely HUGE and will have plenty of room for loads of watercooling and hardware!

I will be using this combo of pumps and bitspower fittings, and the first update you will see sometime next week will be the mounting of the two pumps to the radiator.

This combo will sit in the psu compartment in the bottom.

Still havent decided weather to use the EK reservoir, or to make one myself. (am i the only one that think that picture want to dance with me?)

For ease of acces, i will use these awsome QD´s. They are 100 times better to work with than other QD´s you can get, and only spill about 1 drop when disconnected.

And just to give you a clue to what the general theme will look like :D

I hope you will enjoy this project, and i sure look forward sharing it with you!

-p0Pe

A great thank goes out to the sponsors of this project, Jim from caselabs for sending me the case, Vincent from bitspower for providing me a huge load of fittings, and Daniel from Coolbits for providing watercooling parts!

And a update already:D (was a little late on updating the beginning of the log here (sorry!) so actually this is a late update lol)

Remember this? That was the project of the day:)

First, i had to mill down a 10 mm alu plate, since i did not have any 5 mm lol! Then bolting them together, and went to war with the mill.

As you can see, i just printed out the cad drawing, and used that as reference.

And on it went. Luckily this mill got "autopilot" so that I can just set it to move at a certain speed, and comfortably take my pictures.

For the detailed parts, I had to use a smaller bit, and then just fill the edges.

Finished middle pieces. The one on the right have been glasblasted, but will need to have another go.

And this is how they mount on the pumps.

And how they mount on the radiator! I will put some rubber pieces under each end to dampen vibrations. Once all of this is mounted I should have a great pump setup:D

And the finished result. Only need to weld it, and then grind it down again, give it another go in the sandblaster and maybe paint it, yet to be decided:D

I must apologize for the lack of updates, but exams are coming up at school, and there is quite a few things to do :)

That's a sweet case to score for free man!

+sub! :D

Thank you guys:)

Well, as the previous alu stands failed duo to not being "weldable" I decided to make some of 6 mm steel! This will provide better rigity, and I made them look better this time!

A picture of the failed alu welds.

Used the old stands as reference, and then bolted them together.

These are the new ones, with the old alu one to the left.

And again, new versus old.

I am going to make the support rods tomorrow, and hopefully get it welded too! Lets hope second time is the charm lol.

If that case is the kind of thing Caselabs is gearing towards I definitely look forward to seeing/hearing more from the company, will definitely be watching this one to see where you go with this beast.

yup aluminum is hard as @#^5 to weld.

Its amazing what you can do with a milling machine lol.

A very nice beginning here, p0Pe. I'm excited to see where this goes from here. +sub

Thank you all:D The steel welds did go a bit better lol!

And welding and filling done! After my .cad exam I picked this up from the workshop. A buddy had welded it in the meantime, and I went straight home and put the pumps on:D

How it looks in its full scale, mounted on the radiator. Did I mention that it is sturdy as hell!?

A close up of the milling. I also countersunk the screw holes for good looks:)

Had to fill about 2 mm off the Bitspower crystal link to get it to fit, but now its like a glove!

Cant decide what color I am going to paint it, but I think that white might be the choice!

Hope you like the end result here:) Now its on to the top!