SPiC

Waiting for the results of the contest... 

Waiting for the results of the contest 

On 8/11/2022 at 2:19 PM, C0LLARD said:

Good work on that case S.PiC!

 

What's the name of this CATControler?

Thank's a Lot! Her name is Daisy))

Full project specification:

Weight: 10.3kg
Dimensions (mm): 320x370x520 (WxDxH)
Sponsors: ASRock, TeamGroup, CoolerMaster
Case: Scratch built from 2mm aluminum sheet
PSU: Cooler Master V1200 Full Modular
Motherboard: ASRock Fatal1ty X470 Gaming-ITX/AC 
Graphics card: ASRock Phantom Gaming X Radeon RX590 8GB OC
RAM: TeamGroup Delta RGB 3000MHz 2x8GB
Storage: 2 x TeamGroup Delta RGB 250GB SATA SSD

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 2600
CPU Cooling: Cooler Cooler Master MasterLiquid Lite 240

Good luck to all participants!! 

CATControl was at all stages of production and development of the case!

A lot of photos can't fit all the work on the project. They are complemented by short videos.
I hope you enjoy watching the videolog.

My sons are also interested in my projects. They are still young and their favorite games at the moment are Rayman Legends and Lego Ninjago. I think for such games, this configuration will be enough for them for a very long time. Hopefully, one day, they follow in my modding footsteps too.

The history of the Sputnik project you can find in Custom PC magazine 

It takes quite a long time to make and build a project, but if you shoot a video at the same time, it takes many times longer. You’ve got to think about camera position, focus, lighting, chronology and more, and all too often you just forget to hit record anyway. Fortunately, I'm not the only one who likes my hobby. I had lots of support from my curious cat who regularly manages to find her way into all my videos.

The head of the cat control department is known to all subscribers of my YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/c/spic_mod/). It is she who should be thanked for the logo on my projects.

Time for a paint job! 

The rough assembly was successful and I had a brutal aluminum spaceship in front of me. People compared it to a projectile, which to me meant I’d succeeded in conveying the sense of speed and movement I was aiming for. However, I didn't plan to stop there. For a long time I was in doubt, but nevertheless I decided to paint the case in contrasting colors. The plan was to have a dark colour for the main body, so it sinks into the background a little more, and then have a bright white for the wings and front panel, visually turning them into a kind of frame.

Final assembly was a bit tricky, due to the compact placement of components making for very little room to manoeuvre. It was the cable management that took up most of the time, though this was made a little easier by having all the perforations to use for fixing cable ties.

RGB in project!

“I Am Speed!”

The satellite was conceived as a high-speed spacecraft. Even static, standing on a table, it had to look dynamic. To create this effect, the front triangular section is sloped forward, like a sprinter coming up from the blocks. Sputnik had its trailing aerial plumage already, which helps with the speedy look, but I wanted to make things more angular, to fit in with the triangular theme that was required to provide some flat surfaces for the components to fit on.

There are no simple rectangular shapes or ninety-degree angles in the design of this case – every angle had to feel more interesting. Even the USB connectors on the front panel are installed asymmetrically and the ventilation holes are triangles of all sorts of different types and sizes.

I also wanted the project to be installed not only in one horizontal position, but vertically too. The case can sit on any of its three sides, the top/front panel or on its antennae legs. The length of the legs ensures the cables coming from the motherboard’s IO panel and the power supply are not squashed when in this configuration.

I designed the front panel to be removable, which comes with a few benefits. For a start, it hides the rivets that were used to join the panels of the case. Secondly, it made installing the LED backlighting easier and thirdly it means I can design a replacement panel. I originally wanted to create a convex panel that would have been a closer match to the spherical shape of the real Sputnik but the bending machine available to me didn’t support this. By making the panel removable, though, I can always return to the project if new equipment becomes available.

An important factor in the design of this case was keeping it small. After all, Sputnik itself was very small and creating the triangular, rotationally-symmetrical and long-legged design I was hoping for would have made the case huge, with anything other than mini-ITX hardware inside.

As is ever the case, though, mini-ITX cases can be challenging when it comes to cooling, due to the limited internal air space. And this applied double as there’s no room for any extra case fans in this project. As such, I had to think carefully about where and how to position components.

The ATX power supply, which was left over from a previous project, was installed across the case, taking cold air from the bottom and pushing hot air out through perforations on the side of the case. The mains power input is then redirected from the back of the PSU to the back of the case.

The motherboard sits behind the PSU, with the graphics card mounted at an angle above it, using a PCI-E extension cable. This left a very limited space for a CPU cooler, which meant a water-cooling system was going to be required. However, I couldn’t use a fancy hard-line loop, and even conventional flexible tubing would have been a risk, as the panel with the radiator has to be removed to gain access to the inside of the case. Instead, an all-in-one liquid cooler was used.

To install SATA SSD, a special platform was made that masks the cables that are connected to the drives.

There was enough space inside for a 240mm cooler with two fans that would pull air from the outside of the case and blow it through the radiator and onto the graphics card's backplate, giving it a little additional cooling (the graphics card has two fans of its own that pull cool air through the holes in another side panel and vent it into the case). The extra airflow also helps cool the RAM and VRM area of the motherboard. The large cooler will also allow me to install a more powerful processor in the future. Being able to vertically mount the case also helps with cooling, as the hot air can easily flow up and out the perforations in the top/front of the case.

The case is designed for installing a 240mm liquid cooling system on the CPU via a special mount

More components:

RAM with RGB illumination. Built-in Force Flow RGB backlight effect. All lighting can be controlled via special T-FORCE BLITZ software. Power is taken directly from the slot. Radiators are not low profile, so choose the cooling of the processor with this in mind.

T-Force Delta RGB solid-state drives look very stylish even without backlighting. They have a separate connector for connecting the backlight via a special cable that is included.

For the project, I bought a Ryzen 5 2600. The processor is sufficient for most games and was inexpensive. In the future, you can update the new line on Ryzen.

First fitting of components...

Sputnik project is based on rivets.

So let's start building from small to large...

I bent metal myself. If you want to do something well, do it yourself!)

The cut turned out to be quite good, but the guys who work with laser cutting more often than me said that it could be even better!

Remove scale, remove burrs and Polish the aluminium..

Do not forget to take photos!)

And spend time with family!)

After a long time of development, the drawings were sent for laser cutting. I arranged with the guys to shoot the cutting process.

The time took about 4 hours, during which time the battery on the camera ran out.
 

Here's the backstage photo!)

When I was sure that the project was viable, I turned to some sponsors for help. ASRock Taiwan and TeamGroup responded to my request. The folks from ASRock provided the ASRock Fatal1ty X470 Gaming-ITX/AC motherboard and the ASRock Phantom Gaming X Radeon RX590 8GB OC graphics card for the project. TeamGroup also provided a 2x8GB kit of its Delta RGB 3000MHz RAM as well as two 250GB Delta RGB SATA SSDs. As this was a simple, balanced gaming PC build, it was decided to buy an AMD Ryzen 5 2600 processor, as it’s sufficient for most games and is affordable. It’s an easy upgrade if a more powerful processor is later needed as well.

After receiving the components, I started fitting and refined some details of the project. For example, a new mounting plate for the SSDs was designed that helped show off their RGB lighting and hide their cabling. Side covers were also made with special air intake wings, which are not only decorative details, but also give rigidity to the side covers.

Despite carefully designing everything digitally and getting the parts precision laser cut, some errors were introduced during the bending and assembly. As such, the design of these side covers had to be tweaked to get the gaps around them nice and even.

ASRock x470 itx/ac motherboard provided by ASRock Taiwan

ASRock Radeon rx590 8gb OC video card provided by ASRock Taiwan

DDR4 memory T-FORCE Delta RGB 3000Mhz 2x8Gb provided by TEAMGROUP

Two SATA SSD Delta RGB 250Gb are provided by TEAMGROUP

Good Day, Friends!

I am very glad to participate in the contest once again...

How it all started…
All my projects were created for the CMWS competition. And this project was no exception!
I first got into modding when I was invited to participate in the Cooler Master Case Mod World Series (CMWS) 2016 competition. Since then, I have prepared my projects every year specifically for this competition, and in 2017 I even managed to take 1st place with my VEGA project.

As a child, all the boys wanted to become astronauts, and I was no exception. I've always been fascinated by science fiction novels about space exploration, space travel, robots, spacecraft and distant galaxies. It was inevitable that this influence would find its way into my mods at some point.

The first sketches of this Sputnik-inspired PC began to appear a couple of years ago. At that time, I had no experience working with aluminum and decided to start with a simpler project to avoid expensive mistakes.
 

Once the old pencil sketches of the Sputnik project were retrieved, and the project started afresh. Looking at these sketches now, I see how little the finished project has in common with those first drawings. The layout and frame were redesigned several times, and the perforations that are a crucial part of the overall design have changed a huge number of times.

But again we return to space!) The Sputnik project is a reference to The first synthetic satellite of the Earth.

All stages of design and manufacturing was strictly controlled by the head of CATControl!

Full project specification:

Motherboard: ASUS ROG Matrix X570-I Gaming
Processor: AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 3700
PSU: Cooler Master V850 SFX Gold 850W
RAM: DDR4 Transcend JetRam DDR4 3200 MHz 2x16 GB
System SSD drive: 1000 GB SSD M.2 Transcend MTE220S
Data SSD drives: 2pcs 512 GB 2.5" SATA Drive Transcend 230S
Coolers: Cooler Master MasterFan MF120 Prismatic
Graphics Card: INNO3D GeForce RTX 3080 ICHILL X3
Water block for CPU: Corsair Hydro X Series XC7 RGB
Water block for GPU: Alphacool Eisblock Aurora Acryl GPX-N RTX 3090/3080 graphics card (Reference)
Water tank: EKWB EK-Quantum Volume FLT 360 D-RGB
Compression Fittings: Barrowch Wolverine series Anti shedding Fitting 14mm
Coolant Temperature Sensor: Barrowch FBFT06
Radiator with pump: Barrow DARIDP-30 360
Coolant: non-transparent EK-CryoFuel Solid Fire Orange

Good luck to all participants!! 

CATControl was at all stages of production and development of the case!

A lot of photos can't fit all the work on the project. They are complemented by short videos.
I hope you enjoy watching the videolog. 
 

The lid and the ceiling of the room illuminated by it looks very beautiful at night)

Full-height photo 

The family voted for orange! 

Photoset of the project with a flooded coolant:

Ventilation honeycombs and the logo are highlighted.

These were photos for fans of black and white assemblies. 

I'll add colors and highlights soon!!

Before you scroll further - please, think about what color would you choose?