Neptune's Trident

[Boddaker]

I finished up the video card bottom plates tonight. Get ready for some more UV glowy goodness!

One of my 260 cards already has an aluminum bottom plate, but it has this factory decal on it.

...which was easily removed.

My other two cards do not have a bottom plate. But that's no problem, I just made two more from acrylic using the
existing one as a template.

The stock plate has raised mounting posts where it's screwed to the card, to clear certain parts on the pcb.

so I had to replicate that on the acrylic copies. I basically cut a bunch of squares from 1/8" acrylic and glued
them on the back of the plates after drilling the large diameter holes. Then I went back and drilled the smaller
holes through the squares.

Since I pretty much stripped these cards of all their identity, I wanted to put some of that back on, so I had Moddersmart
cut me a few EVGA logos out of 1/8" blue transparent acrylic. I could have just made all three plates out of the blue
acrylic and masked off the EVGA lettering, but I thought the raised logos would stand out a bit more, giving them a
more 3-dimensional look.

I laid the letters out on the plates, lining them up with pieces of tape as guides. After marking each piece's position,
I removed the paper backing on one side and glued them down.

Here are all the plates with the logos glued on and ready for paint. Notice I left the paper backing on the lettering.
Makes a perfect mask!

Primed, painted, pearled. lol

Time to take the masking off!

Me like, iz goood!

All the plates de-masked:

They looked so good, I got out the UV cathodes for some glowy pimpage...
Lights on:

Lights off:

Of course with the flash off, the camera lets in way more light than normal, causing an exaggerated effect, but it's still cool!

I was going to get a shot of the plates on the cards, but I ran out of time. I'll see if I can do that after work. 'Til then!

[Boddaker]

Thanks guys!

PAINT PHASE III: Water Droplets

Got the water droplets on all the parts today! It wasn't as easy as it seems though, and we had to try numerous
methods before we got the water to bead properly, but I think we succeeded. First we scuffed up the parts, getting them
ready to accept the next layer of paint.

However, the scuffed surface didn't yield satisfactory results, because the water didn't bead at all on the scuffed surface,
because it was too rough. So we tried leaving a bit of dust to help with the beading, but that didn't work to well either.
Then we noticed the water beading up perfectly on the table (look next to the part) and realized we needed to re-clear
everything and not scuff them at all.

After clearing everything again, we waited about :30 minutes to let it tack up, then went in with the water bottle and the black paint.
Here you can see how well the water beads up on a freshly cleared part:

A close up shot. This is what we are aiming for the final look:

So after we laid down the black over the water drops, we just let the water evaporate away, then went back in for
one last wet coat of clear. And here are the results:
Side panel:

Close up:

Case top:

Close up:

Front I/O trident:

Monitor Base:

Keyboard palm rest:

Close up:

So after some trial and error, I think we got it pretty close to what we were looking for. I have to leave the parts in the
booth for a few days for the clear to cure, then I can re-assemble the case.

[Boddaker]

Mocked up the video card bottom plates last night...

That should hold you until I get back with the parts tonight!

[Boddaker]

I got home late last night, but stayed up til the wee hours of the morning laying out all the parts and starting the re-assembly process.
After peeling off the masking, I got the two case halves put together and the wheels on, and now we have a rolling chassis!

I had painted the interior with the white/pearl prior to doing the exterior because I didn't want to see any white through the mesh.
Had to do extensive masking, but it was worth it!

I also got the power supply put back together (yes, I kept the factory decals )

Before buttoning up the psu, I realized the fan needed some work, since it would be visible from the back. So I took it apart, gave the blades the white/pearl treatment, and re-assembled it.
I discarded the wire grill and will mount my own Trident version.

Next step is mounting the motherboard tray back into the case, but I still need to make some holes for the cabling, and that is easier to do while it's out of the case.
So I will take care of that tonight. 'Til tomorrow!

[Boddaker]

I was getting the holes cut out of the motherboard tray this morning, but I decided to take a break from
that and put the monitor together. Then I had to see how it looks in the sun, and oh man, is this paint amazing!
The metallic flakes add a whole 'nother dimension to the components in the sunlight, and actually takes little away
from the water droplet effect, due to the depth. Luckily, this will be displayed indoors lol. Anyway, here are the eye candy shots!

The monitor looked so good, I had to see how the keyboard looked in the sun as well:

And here is what I did with the mouse. Logitech offers custom G9 grips for $20. You upload a picture to their site,
and they print it onto the grip and send it to you. Pretty cool!

Ok, back to the mobo tray! ;-)

[Boddaker]

So Boddaker I'm guessing this mod will be done by Intel Lan. Will we be seeing it there?

i was planning on going to the one in Sacramento, but unfortunately I didn't get my seat before it sold out. I will, however, be attending PDXLAN the week prior, and PAX in September.

[Boddaker]

WOW! Two updates within a 12 hour period! :shock: The assembly part of a build is the most exciting, and gratifying.
So much so that I just couldn't stop!

Here are the holes I cut in the mobo tray for the cabling. A couple along the top edge (of the tray (on the bottom in the pic)
for the front I/O cables and pwr/reset, one for the case fan, and the long one is for the IDE cable.

Here's with the back plate and cover on, with matching holes:

I'm using both counter sunk and white rivets to put the case back together.

Here's the tray back in the case:

Back shot:

A shot of the side panel latching hardware:

Back shot with side panel on:

left side panel:

Right Side panel:

Well, I couldn't stop there, I had to get the rads in too! Here is the rad/fan assembly with the revised mounting brackets:

In the case:

And with the mesh boxes:

Tomorrow I'll get some shots with the mesh boxes in and the side panel on. I will be getting the window in as well.

'Til then!

[Boddaker]

Of course system installations never go issue-free. I ran into a problem with the video card heatsinks (Swiftech GTX200).
It appears that two of my 260 cards have a slightly different board design than my other one. As such, the heatsink
won't fit properly. So now I must modify it!

Here's the card with the heatsink:

You can see here how the heatsink is designed to fit around the components on the video card.

however, on the newer GTX260, it doesn't fit quite right.

The chips and capacitors have been relocated.

So I lopped off the offending section of the heatsink...

Now it sits flush onto the video card, but what to do about the exposed components that need cooling?

Enter the stock cooling solution!

I cut along the dotted line...

Made a couple adjustments to take advantage of the screw holes...

and voila! Problem solved.

Gave the stock part a coat of black to match and it's done.

So now installation can continue (until the next problem arises) lol.

[Boddaker]

Ok, here's an update (not that I have time for it, seeing as how I haven't even installed the motherboard yet lol)

I had to leak-test the floor before mounting it into the case. So I hooked up a bunch of hoses so that I could test all channels at once.

Once I knew there were no leaks (yay!), I prepped the underside for paint and taped off the top.

In order to get the same white/pearl effect on the floor, I had to spray the pearl first directly onto the acrlyic, followed by the white.

Looking at it from the top down, the effect is intact.

To finish off the floor, I wanted to make a nice logo trim piece to go along the visible edge. So I took some blue
transparent acrylic, scuffed it up and applied some custom lettering. I first printed them out on label paper, then
cut them out of that masking material with an exacto knife.

Painted.

un-masked (the blue you see through the letters is the blue masking tape on the back side).

Close up of the un-masking.

And here's the overall shot of the final effect. When I designed the floor, I left a cavity behind the letters for a 12" ccfl.
Should glow nicely!

That's all for now. It's back into the garage for me (and a late night I'm sure!)

[Boddaker]

haha thanks guys. Well, I got back from the lan (and our mini vacation), so now I can continue assembling. I was trying to at least get fluid into Trident, but last minute set-backs prevented that from happening. I will be re-doing a couple things including the floor. Yes, it holds water, but it looks terrible and I know I can do better! I got some clear-setting epoxy to try this time, so hopefully I can get it completely bubble free.

Anyway, here are some assembly pics I took last week: