Project: Honeycomb

[Fuganater]

After talking to a guy on one of the forums he has agreed to help me make a custom made mobo waterblock. Here are some shots of the beginning stages of me planing it out.

These are pictures from a few days ago. The current layout is almost perfect. I still have to work on it for a few more days.

Now for the cables.

CPU Power cable cut.

Assembled

And sleeved.

Here is where I stand with all the other cables.

The CPU Power and 2 PCI-E cables are assembled so far. I have the ATX Power cable cut in the middle and on the left was an attempt at sleeving a SATA cable. I just finished cutting the cables for the SATA power for all the HDDs, the SATA power for the Blu-Ray player and the fan hub power cable.

Now to connect all these to the mobo I need more holes. I wanted to make a hole for each wire to go through but that didn't work out. But it did look good.

I ended up doing this.

Here is where all the wires will pass through the center piece.

This is at the top left of the mobo. The CPU Power will pass through here.

Here are the holes for the ATX Power, SATA cables and the PCI-E cables.

I didn't get a good one of the CPU power. I'll have more later.

And finally I couldn't resist doing a fan test. The white LEDs look good for now.

Today I am working on the PSU support, fan grills, painting the I/O backplate/PCI covers and more PSU cables.

Cheers till next time.

[TheMainMan]

I love that fan shot! That's a really cool effect! The hexagons on the side panel look great!

[Fuganater]

I love that fan shot! That's a really cool effect! The hexagons on the side panel look great!

Thanks! If you like that then you will like tomorrows update which has the fan grills installed that I made.

[Fuganater]

My EK Waterblocks order finally got here! Thanks EK for this massive sponsorship.

Here it all is

2x DCP 4.0 Pumps

2x Multioption X2 Res 250

2x 420 Rads (These are MASSIVE!)

1x Supreme HF

1x RAM Dominator

Tons of 10/13 Straight and 45 degree Compression fittings.
Straight and 45 degree

Huge thanks again to Gregor at EK Waterblocks for sponsoring this build.

[Fuganater]

First thing is first. I'm not using the stock bolts for the rads. I like the ones I bought but they don't fit the threads of the rads.

So I drilled

and tapped them to accommodate an 8-32 bolt

When I tried a test fit I was like OH CRAP!! THEY DON'T FIT! My initial measurement was off by about 3/8" to accommodate the rads. So I cut spots in the bottom of the case for them to go.

Here you can see how far it sticks out the bottom. Which isn't much.

Here is the front one on.

How it will look with the second one. Can't install it until the new plexi arrives. Should have been shipped yesterday or today.

I forgot to take a close up but at the bottom of the left rad you can see the barbs are on. I had to cut about another 3/4" to be able to fit the barbs on. No biggie.

It took me quite awhile to figure out where the heck I was going to put the Reservoirs'.

This was my first thought.

And my second.

But in the end my buddy came up and told me they would look sick if I put them back to back on the same stand. I said OK lets try it.

I cut the clear piece of plexi to be exactly as wide as the res clamps.

Drilled and mounted the res clamps. I had to drill a hole the drill a larger hole on the opposite side but only 1/2 through the plexi. The screws they give you are extremely short.

and attached the reservoirs'

Here they are in the case.

This is not actually the final position. They will be about 1 1/2" to the left of where you see them... well to the back of the case but to the left of the pic.

From the front you can see they only block about 1/4 of the 2 front fans. That's fine since everything is WC'd. The 2 fans in the front are just to keep air moving.

With the side panel on.

You can't really see them... Lets fix that.

I cut 2 more hexagons out so that you could see them better. I won't cut anymore because then it will lose its look.

Things are finally coming together. My next update is all about experimenting with lighting. I've never used SMD LED strips before nor just using normal 5mm LEDs but some of the effects look pretty good.

Cheers till then.

[Fuganater]

As I said in my last update, I've never worked with SMD LED strips or used LEDs for this kind of lighting.

I drilled some holes in a scrap piece of clear plexi to see how the lighting looks. At the top is a few 5mm LEDs and the bottom is the SMD LED strip.

It looks ok. I don't like the spaces between the light on the side of the plexi.

Now here is the same piece of pelxi but with the SMD LED strip taped to the side of the plexi.

MUCH better looking IMO.

Here it is in the case. Its a bit hard to see it because I didn't cut it to size yet but I'm testing here.

From the front

I also wanted to see how it would look with LEDs directly under the res.

Deff not very good.

Since most coolant is crap I will be doing distilled water and some silver coils for now. The EK blocks are nice because they have a 3mm hole for an LED so I bought some Orange ones 2 days ago. They should be here next week. Anyways by doing this I won't need the coolant reaction, the LEDs should look great.

Well sorry for the bulk updates but I've been working really hard and didn't have time to publish them. I'm gonna work on the lighting some more tonight. Hopefully tomorrow I get some more materials in.

Cheers till next time.

[SXRguyinMA]

nice goodies

[blueonblack]

Deff not very good.

I don't know. I'm normally more into the smooth well-distributed lighting myself, like your edge-lit example, but I think the shot directly under your reservoir actually seems to go with your theme. Gives it more of a hive look than a solid illumination.

Maybe it's just me, but I think they could look pretty good in there if they were done right.

[Fuganater]

I took the paper off of it and mounted the SMD LED strip to it and it looks way better. You'll see in the next update. It doesn't effect the front shot that much anymore.

[AmEv]

Bee-yew-tee-ful!