Simon Quinn

Step7: Affix motherboard with M3 stainless bolts into the threaded M3 bolt holes on the mount. There a multiple variations for different motherboard positions. Something I would like to mention here is how much of a dream it has been to work with the X570 Xtreme motherboard. This motherboard design is a true master of engineering. With it almost completely armoured front and back of board it was very easy to make the build visually appealing. Not to mention protecting its delicate innards from a blind boilermaker with a pointy screwdriver . The Aorus RGB fan commander has made the nightmare of managing fans and RGB cables into pleasing experience with an efficient, centralised location. No splitters are used in this build. The motherboard software of this particular board is yet to be flaunted. Getting Close

Step 6: cable management…… this step takes me hours and I’m terrible at managing cable so I’ll just highlight some good bits. It’s important to run ALL cables at this step as once the motherboard goes on you cannot access inside the mount. it’s also important to make clearance room for the back of motherboard (BOM cooler) there is a heck of a lot of cable here so it’s a bit long to list off but some are, 2 temp sensors (one inside the mount, the other inside the rad fins), cable and adapters for the 10 fans, all Mobo cables, 5m! of ARGB cable, 2x hdmi cable, Audio, fibre optic cable, 2x antenna, Aorus RGB fan commander for the 6 120mm and the Aercool hub running the x4 200mm fans and additional RGB, noise detection sensor maybe a few others. the cables running out of the PC are shrouded with natural suede leather that I have recycled from an old welding lead shroud I had in the garage. I have bound it with stainless zip ties to tighten the lot so it ports through the channel inside the locker nicely. Cables can also be ported through the opening at the front of the base for completely hidden cable management, that is if you are willing to drill a hole in its resting place. I got the boo boo from handling the zip ties, I knew I should have been wearing gloves to pull the zip ties tight. My hands have gone from being permanently oil stained, burned are hardened by steel to those of a new born child since leaving fabrication.

Step 5: Affix the mount to the chassis with M10 stainless bolts. in a perfect scenario I would slot the holes for an adjustable position, when you see the tools I have used to get here you will understand.

Step 4: Affix rubber material to the cable portals of the motherboard mount using M3 stainless bolts. The rubber matting is recycled leftovers from protecting our furniture corners for our daughter Valkyrie. She is 4 now and learning to stand and move about again for the second time.

Step one: place Chassis on table Step two: seat cooling unit in by socketing the bolts through the mounting points located in each corner. Step three: Use the T wrench to tighten down the four M5 nuts onto the the bolts. Done the entire cooling system affixed solidly with just 4 bolts. a thing to note here is the faceplate that bolts into the chassis could use any variety of hole patterns to mount basically all models of cooling hardware. On the front radiator plate I have taped my own M3 bolt holes to affix the 6 120mm fans as the 1260mm NeXxos is designed for 140mm fans.

This is basically the only way I can display a picture to show the i70c is actually functional as a cooler for the back of the board. Once the other pieces go in there will be no way too view it. The motherboard mount and the cavity it provides is a key component behind Goliath as a whole.

Applying Alpha cool Eisfrost Xtreme liquid metal thermal compound. Whenever applying liquid metal thermal compound I advise doing this in warmer ambient temperatures as the liquid metal is far easier to spread when above melting temperature. Thermal conductivity: 40W/mK (the best non metal thermal compounds range between 16-17W/mk Spec. heat capacity: 320 J (kgK) Electrical conductivity: 3.29 MS/m Spec. electrical resistance: 0.453 Ω∙mm²/m Density: 6.44 g/cm³ at 20 °C Viscosity: 6 m Pa ∙ s at 20 - 110 °C Surface tension: 0.38 N/m Melting temperature: - 19.3 °C

The final build begins. The Aorus X570 Xtreme is the mother of the hardware. The motherboard I purchased second hand from a fellow off of Facebook marketplace for $400 aud unused!! Im a big fan of pre loved goods. Here I have fitted the Alphacool Eisbaer Solo AIO in place to cool the 5900x CPU. On the back of the motherboard I have created a custom bracket and attached is a Coolermaster 170C CPU cooler to cool the back of the cpu, there is 6mm of thermal pad between the CPU socket and the cooler. Funny story about how I got my hands and this cooler. I advertised on social media for ANYBODY that has a AMD GPU to suit my waterblock. A guy named Ryan in my area saw my add and was eager to help. It was uncanny he arrived, I took one look at him and said “what do you do for work” seeing him covered in very familiar work stains, burnt clothing and a rugged look. Ryan said “Guess”. I replied “you are a boily aren’t you?” we both just laughed. a “Boily” here in Australia refers to a boilermaker or what is commonly known as a fabricator of engineering. We immediately clicked and he tried a good 10 of his 80 GPUs but sadly no luck. It was good to meet another boily after over 2 years of missing the career. Rushing this build over 7 days has given me a little faith back into the community I have also cut a cover plate for the area around the Eisbaer solo from 3mm plate steel and painted it matte black to match the motherboard.

Control board for the 10’1 inch monitor Alphacool NeXxos 1260mm Supernova, 4 X Aerocool 200mm, 6x 120mm Aerocool Edge pro which make up the Cooler for the water loop. I have sneakily ported the cables for the 200mm fans through the centre of the rad by removing 3 copper fins between the channels.

Here are all the tools required to assemble Goliath. The old Ryobi box has been given a refresh with some paint and i have applied a bunch of stickers I have had accumulating. We all get the sticker sheets pile up as it’s hard to find a place for them. Using them to personalise your PC toolbox is a great place I think. the foam is recycled from an old PSU box, and the old tools have been acid etched with white vinegar then galvanised. Im a big fan of using vinegar to remove rust and clean steel. It’s about the most eco friendly way as it uses no electricity and is harmless to the environment, plus no labour involved . The below were vinegar bathed for two days.

All dressed up and ready for the ball… no pun intended towards the Eisball reservoir , Silver zinc and clear coat applied and curing. I’m so excited to start building.

3mm steel Aorus Keychain for the locker.

Here are all the tools required to completely assemble Goliath and the water loop. They are old second hand tools i have gathered over the course of building. I am going to modify this old Ryobi assorted driver bit case to become a mini toolbox to be stored within the locker.

Chassis parts stripped of chrome paint and repainted with the silver cold gal and clear coat topcoat. The Aorus pieces hanging are part of a keychain for the keys to the locker and a “PC passport” holder which will contain the numerous keys and passwords that accumulate when owning a PC, Updates to come tomorrow.

Welding in the cable guide and power button mount.

I started removal with strip discs but the chrome paint was proving to be a problem as the stripper disc gummed far too easily. I switched to the trusty wire wheel on a 115mm angle grinder. I then went over the parts with a vibro sander with various grits.

I was very unhappy with the finish the chrome paint left so I spent today stripping it all off back to bare steel. I will be applying a silver zinc based paint. This will give the chassis excellent corrosion resistance as well as being far more biodegradable than other paints and finishes. In a perfect world with budget to spare I would be electroplating the chassis.

A little work has taken place in between. The framing has been added for the glass panels. The 6mm tempered glass has been cut and drilled, 6 120mm fan covers I fabricated from 1mm stainless perforated mesh (the same material as the back mesh cover) have been added. The panes are old recycled display shelving I picked up from a hoarder. I purchased a good 20 large panels from him for $20aud. Luckily I had so many because I broke all of them attempting to work such thick tempered glass. Sorry for the bad pictures I had to pull them from a video. It was at this point I also assembled my Alphacool GPX-A waterblock to a recently purchased 6800XT. Something went wrong and I had to RMA the GPU. It is currently in processing. This was a very sad day. I felt like throwing in the towel, I lost a $900 part before even getting to use it. What is even worse is it’s closing in on the due date and I may fall short of completion.

System running with soft tube for the water loop. Running RGB and metrics display tests. The metrics display here I am running an old IPad mini, connecting it through Duet and running Aida64 (This is a headache I do not recommend). the background for the screen I designed myself in Blender and Aida64 simply overlays it.

After paint test fitting.

Test fit of all running hardware

Testing the monitor cavity and stainless mesh cover and faceplate for fitting. Decided to remove the 45degree angles from the back as the where superfluous to the design.

The beginning of fabrication of the Chassis. Trailing the Mobo mount, radiator fit and 200mm fan clearance.

Hi all. I’m so happy to be a part of the event. It’s exactly what I have been searching for. Im kicking myself I only discovered the the comp on the 12th of December. This is my first scratch build and entry to an event like the case mod World Series so please forgive the lack of pictures on my projects timeline as I am not on social media other than a personal Facebook. My creation is what I name Goliath, Project: The Alpha Aorus (Alphacool/ Aorus build) The parts I am using are Aorus X570 Xtreme motherboard AMD Ryzen 5900x Aorus 4400hmz 16gb Ram Aorus 1TB Gen 4 NVMe, Full Copper Aorus 850w Gold power supply Aorus 6800 master (if I can’t find a card for my waterblock) 4 X Aerocool Duo pro 200mm 6x Aerocool Edge pro 120mm Alphacool 1260mm NeXxos Supernova full copper radiator Alphacool Eisball with Vp755 pump Alphacool Eisbaer Solo Modular CPU cooler/pump combo 5m of ARGB cable, and a Coolermaster ARGB strip to finish off below the motherboard. and secret Coolermaster back of motherboard cooler (read on to find out more, and remember you saw it here first ) Goliath has been in development for around 2 years now and is very close to completion (I prey this doesn’t exclude me from the comp if you read further I have a very valid excuse on why this has taken me longer than usual I have only really began fabrication around September this year). It has taken an extensive amount of planning and trialing to come up with a design I was happy to move forward with into the fabrication phase. The inspiration for Goliath comes from seeing performance builds using multiple rads in awkward arrangement to achieve the cooling desired. I wanted to invent a design that used one large efficient radiator over many small rads. By having one large rad it reduces the hose fittings down to 2 which in my mind is optimal as it reduces possible failure points. With the sheer size of the full copper radiator the systems fans can operate at zero or low RPM and rely solely on passive cooling which greatly increases efficiency and fan lifespan. Goliaths chassis is entirely fabricated from mild steel RHS (Rectangular hollow section), SHS, (square hollow section) and plate steel varying between 2-3mm thickness. The chassis is fully welded and is a single piece no fixings are used. The thickness of the steel is by design. Built into the case at its base is a keyed locker armoured by 3mm plate steel. All the materials are salvaged workshop scraps from my old workplace so the expense on steel is $0. The most expensive part of the process has been buying all the required tools for the job as i no longer have workshop access Eg grinding discs, drill bits, taps, welding supplies ect. No longer having workshop access that I am used to was a big hinderance so I have been working from my car garage and have setup a clean room in our spare room. This project has taken over our house at several points lol. All the cables for the PC components are routed though either the hidden port in the base or out through the back door. The Locker also protects the switch to the PC power button as well as the ON/OFF switch for the PC itself, this means you can lock your Pc, walk away feeling confident it’s secure and unusable while you are away. The locker protects any additional hardrives and SSDs securing them behind lock and key. The motherboard mount is heavily bolted in front of a Alphacool 1260mm NeXxos supernova and inside houses the power supply, cables from Mobo and fan hubs. The motherboard then becomes the faceplate for the mounting bracket. 4x200mm Aerocool Duo200 are pushing and 6 Aerocool Edge pros pull air and ventilate the hardware cavity, the power supply is also positioned to pull air through the radiator acting as a 7th fan. The approximate Volume of Goliaths case is around 110L. Goliath is 100% my own work. From design, fabricating the chassis, learning to cut and drill glass, through to painting I can honestly say painting has been an absolute nightmare. Due to the nature of silver and chrome paints being very finicky and the showing the slightest imperfections. My latest work has been adding the framing for the four 6mm glass panels that are affixed with security bolts as well as modifying the front plate to suit a 10.1inch LCD that runs as a monitor by HDMI, I run AIDA 64 extreme as a metrics display. I use all Aorus hardware because I just love their customer support and quality products. for lighting affects I have used 5m of generic ARGB cable and a Coolermaster ARGB strip to finish off under the motherboard. How it all came to be. WARNING graphic Well here goes. I have bounced around a lot in my life learning all kinds of manual skills and experience. I was finally in a place in life I was truly happy. I was 3rd year into a fabrication of engineering apprenticeship. I have a way with metal so it was more off a dream than a job for me. My wife was starting her career in sport and exercise science. Our little daughter Valkyrie was about to turn two and she was shocking people with her gifted talents from a young age. life seemed perfect for once until July 22nd 2020 our daughter Valkyrie had a tragic drowning accident. She went 16mins without oxygen to the brain despite our CPR efforts in other words she was deceased for that time. The accident left Valkyrie with an extreme hypoxic brain injury. I wont describe how much this event broke my entire family. I went through a legitimate mental breakdown and to try pull myself through I turned to gaming. I could no longer work as I cared for my daughter and was by her side every minute going days on end without sleep making sure she was comforted in every way. I purchased my first second hand PC so I could play the same games as my childhood friend who helped me through the worst of it. From that point I was hooked on modifying and messing with the setup. Breaking things and making bad decisions I learnt quickly what not to do. I was very happy to discover this was a manual task I could do quietly through the night as I took night caring and my wife did days. I sorely missed my job as a fabricator and realised my tools were going to waste, so I sold them on and invested in PC hardware and tools more suited to the task. I invested in premium parts from Alphacool which cost an arm and a leg to ship to Australia but I don’t like to compromise. This began the creation of Goliath which has slowly grown over the last two years from an idea through to today as I have used it as a distraction from very gloomy thoughts. I hope to kickstart a company in the new year called Armoured Core Customs that’s focus is supplying PC chassis like Goliath and modification. Thanks for reading. I look forward to sharing my progress.