Carlos Martinez Posted March 21, 2015 Author Share Posted March 21, 2015 Mar 19: So I am most of the way done. I resoldered white leds to the board and attached the led strips from earlier. From here I am almost complete. I have custom cables from Mainframe customs coming in and I need to redo the psu cover and bay cover to finish it up. I’m not sure exactly what kind of design I’m going to do for the covers, but that’s essentially the final piece to the puzzle! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carlos Martinez Posted April 19, 2015 Author Share Posted April 19, 2015 So it has been a while since I updated my progress. I happened to continue to update a few things, and ran into yet another snag with the water cooling system. My wallet is really starting to hate my guts with this build, but I’m personally really enjoying the experience. Mar 26 I finally got around to doing the hard drive bay cover, or at least start it. I began by cutting the stencils out of the digital paint job I would be doing. I started by printing out a stencil from the internet, and placing it on a stack of wax paper covered front and back with painter’s tape. I then took a small knife and started to cut it out. I should find a better way of doing this, but I think that the cut by hand adds that extra touch of personalization. Mar 27 I began to paint this side of the bay cover, but in the end it didn’t work out for this side so I ended up scrapping it later as you’ll see. But more importantly, this is where the water cooling pains started to crop up again… Another 140mm fan came in, and I decided to see if I could switch it out with the other fan, but it turns out that some of the screws that came with the radiator were too long. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carlos Martinez Posted April 19, 2015 Author Share Posted April 19, 2015 Mar 28 *sigh* I really started to get upset when I noticed that the radiator was leaking. It’s a good thing that I caught it before it became a BIG problem. But it seems that the screws that were supplied punctured the top part of the radiator and caused the leak. I filed an rma with EKWB (as of April 15 I still have yet to send it in XP) and ordered a thinner 280 radiator from XSPC. I then drained the entire system and waited for more parts to come in. Mar 30 So the back plates for the graphics cards came in as well as extenders for the reservoir. I got tired of seeing the flexible tubing wrapped around the hard tubing on the bottom of the case, so I decided to order the extenders to help fix the eye-sore. I also wanted to make the back-plates add some color to the case so I painted them in the same digital as the outside. I also painted the back of the bay covers from scratch to get a better coat of paint. I started with white base coat, then silver, then grey, black, and finally a clear coat. I finished the back-plates that day, and finished the bay covers on Mar 31 Mar 31 I just finished up the drive bay cover with the digital paint job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carlos Martinez Posted April 19, 2015 Author Share Posted April 19, 2015 April 2 The cables I ordered from mainframe customs came in (all but the second graphics card power cords) and the new radiator. I installed the radiator with the fans, but it barely clears the heat sinks of the motherboard ram. But I was able to make it to work. I then painted it white and installed it in the case. April 4 I didn’t particularly like the digital paint job on the bay covers, so I decided to paint another one. If I ever get tired of one, I can always place another one in its place with the Velcro that I put in. For this one, I took a photo of the USCG MSST teams doing a boarding and cut out one of their silhouette's from painters tape and painted it black with a clear coat. Then flipped it over and painted the other side white. This adds some depth to the photo depending on how the light hits it and gives the paint job a shadow. I do plan on adding to it, but I haven’t been able to get around to it yet. April 5 The other cords came in and now I can finish the wiring. Not having a modular power supply really makes the back look quite crowded, but I managed to fit it as best I could. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carlos Martinez Posted April 19, 2015 Author Share Posted April 19, 2015 April 7 Finally I was able to finish the tubing for the new radiator and started to fill the loop back up. April 8 Finished the bleed and leak test, and she is back up and running! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carlos Martinez Posted April 27, 2015 Author Share Posted April 27, 2015 April 26: So I'm finally finishing up the project. Decided to add to the Plexiglas bay cover to help get rid of all that white space, as well as spruce up the reservoir. I'll post the final pictures in the next post! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carlos Martinez Posted April 27, 2015 Author Share Posted April 27, 2015 So for my final update. This was most certainly a lot of fun. This is my first attempt at both case modding and custom water cooling, so I did make a few mistakes, but I definitely learned a lot. Please let me know what you all think! Thanks for looking at my work-log and have a wonderful day!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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