Project: Elegant-Li

[The boy 4rm oz]

@ Fuganater - I hope so .

@ Espie79 - Thanks for the kind words.

[The boy 4rm oz]

My sponsor goodies came in today so I thought it would be time to introduce my sponsor .

I'd like to introduce Speedy IT Services, a local South Australia stockist of watercooling, hardware and a PC repairer. For more info check out the first post in this thread.

This first lot of stuff is only the gear I had completely made my mind up on. I am still getting a complete parts list together and changing it every 5 mins lol.

First up I have a whole bunch of nice and shiny EK Barbs:

I also got some 90 degree and 45 degree EK fittings as well:

A twin 5mm white LED, also from EK:

The last of this order was a new EK pump top for a second hand DDC I picked up earlier:

Here are some goodies I ordered for myself as well.
I got a Steel Blue dye bomb so I can start experimenting with coolant colours:

A Blue ring illuminated Bulgin switch;

A ModSmart Molex/ATX depinning kit:

2 Bitspower fill/drain ports:

(I will be using these as bulkhead fittings to pass through my custom floor panel.)

And a 120mm black fan grill:

No progress shots for tonight but I did install that nice new EK pump top .
Here is the pump as it came, a Swiftech 355:

As you can see it already did come with a pump top but i'm not a fan of the plexi Alphacool tops, not only it is way oversized but it wont be seen so clear plexi is a waste.

And after replacing it with the EK top it looks like this:

Much better IMO.

Well that's it for now. Until next time...

Happy Modding.

[Espie79]

That's some nice gear. I like the switch but they are so expensive.

[The boy 4rm oz]

Yeah those Bulgin switches are a bit pricy, that one cost me about $16UAD for a 20mm if I remember correctly, I still need one more, a smaller one for a reset switch, hard to find in Australia though. Thanks for the comment Espie.

[xr4man]

they are costly, but they are sooo nice. i used one on my htpc and i was quite impressed with the quality.

[The boy 4rm oz]

Alright I managed to get a little bit of work done over my weekend, not a whole lot but it all leads to bigger and better things. I decided I would try and finish off my custom top plate and this is what happened.

I started with trimming the ugly fan grills from the Lian-Li top mounted fans:

I then marked out on the top plate where the new fan grills will be situated:

I pretty simple design but I believe it will add the the sleekness I am trying to achieve with this project.

It was then time for Mr. Jigsaw to go to work and this is what I got (filed on the right, raw on the left):

While filing I did manage to square off a couple of the rounded corners, this is no big issue however because I can fix this easily with some body filler:

Fits quite well over the fans I must say:

Both holes filed:

And some mesh to go in behind them:

I intend to hammer the mesh into the holes to make it sit flush, the mesh will be painted black to contrast against the white interior.

I still need to do some minor filing but this will be done when I do the final prep before painting. Now that the top plate is done the next step is to rivit it to the top of the case and then the motherboard tray can be mounted. nce I have that done the final location of the floor can be decided . Well that's all for now, until next time...

Happy Modding.

[OvRiDe]

I really like the look of the mesh grills when they are flush mounted. Nice clean look.

Nice work ... looking forward to how they come out.

[The boy 4rm oz]

I love flush mounted grills myself so i'm keen to give it a try, the hard part for me is getting mesh, that stuff in the picture is just a little bit too restrictive for my likings. If you look at the picture above you can just see the stock mesh grill through the fans, I want to try and get something like that.

[msmrx57]

It's gonna look great when you get them in with your attention to detail.