frozensnail Posted June 12, 2011 Share Posted June 12, 2011 Project: Dark Master (Intel Skulltrail Stretched Wavemaster Welcome to the Dark Side mod) Maybe this is becoming an obsession with stretching Cooler Master wavemaster chassis’s or a mid life mod dilemma, not seeing a chassis that inspires me in the way it should for that passion & drive needed for case modding. However, this latest reincarnation of the long-term wavemster mod is featuring an Intel Skulltrail, Tri-Fire HD5870 setup. I have been planning for a couple of years now purely to have my own dual CPU case mod to use on a day to day basis for all apps, etc, etc. The Skulltrail although dated against the latest release of say the EVGA SR-2. But for me the Skulltrail has a niche appeal in a sleek looking chassis to which gives me eagerness to start the case mod. Again I cannot thank the sponsors that have come forward & offer support in various area’s of parts etc. But the main components, original cooler master Wavemaster case (yes one I purchased) all is owned by my good self; hence I’m entering the case mod in the Cooler Master Case Mod 2011 competition. The modern cases covered in plastic just don't offer the same appeal to a completely aluminium case like an Wavemaster or modern ATSC840 (which again I previously modded as project: Carbon Overclock CeBit 09) The Wavemaster not being wide or 'fat' really appeals as it looks so sleek, whether they are, mini, standard or stretched in appearance. A timeless classic I my mind and now revamped to use modern hardware & cooling components. The concept for the project that is entering in the Cooler Master case mod competition is a stretched Wavemaster chassis as see in the previous wavemaster case mod. This gives the case a total height of 700mm. It still looks in proportion and being 'sleek' rather than 'chubby' is what I'm trying to achieve tbh. This is mainly due to the hardware that is going to be crammed n this case mod. I've not to date seen anyone extend a well loved Cooler Master chassis to take the latest hardware or hardware of a niche dual CPU motherboard like the one I have chosen for the case mod, the mighty Intel Skulltrail DX4500. There is a lot of modding involved in building a half height second chassis, right across to changing the wavemaster motherboard to hold the Skulltraill system. As the stock wavemaster mobo tray is just not large enough for the Skulltrail! Also allot of cutting to house the top 360mm radiator and show off the internals of the Skulltrail without the 5 1/4" covering the hardware. Out with the hacksaw again & I've cut as much I'd like to from the 5 1/4" drive bay housings purely to show all of the Intel Skulltrail and water cooling loops alike. Moving on to the old style cases or some new for that matter, I feel that you tend not to see a great deal of the internals, due to the drive bay holders. This mod really has no need for a DVD / Blue Ray drive so I’d rather show the complete motherboard & water cooling setup as neatly as possible. (only room for a Intel Skulltrail) With that in mind I’ve cut the viewable drive bay holder down to a minimum size and slotted the other side as well, so too much rigidity is lost in the chassis itself. Again thanks for looking & comments always welcome good & bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frozensnail Posted June 12, 2011 Author Share Posted June 12, 2011 1st I started with the mobo tray conversion, using a Stacker 832 mobo tray. I found this to be almost perfect to run in the milled out wavemaster floor tray. The next job was to disassemble the stock wavemaster tray and figure out a neat way of making the Stacker 832 mobo tray fit without it looking a bodge up! A little long in the photo's but it's a fairly easy job once figured out! Again thanks for looking & comments always welcome good & bad. I hope to be able to show loads more progress very soon, just delays on delays atm!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frozensnail Posted March 20, 2012 Author Share Posted March 20, 2012 Finally I’ve managed to get some long awaited work done on the Stretched Skulltrail Wavemaster! After I finished hacking the wavemaster chassis so that the complete Skulltrail motherboard could be viewed, attention was turned to making the motherboard tray, after a little fettling it fitted like a well made glove! Once happy all lined up and fitted, off I zoomed to the local powder coater to have the remaining parts of the original wavemaster & the half height stainless steel chassis made by yours truly, all powder coated Stain black. After a couple of day of waiting I was pleased to get a call that the chassis was ready for collection. Unpacking all the parts it was a faultless finish and I was eager to reassembleïŠ The bottom half height section for the chassis went together without a hitch. The 2x 240mm EK radiators fitted nicely secured with some quality domed head Allen socket screws. The Cooler Master 120mm fans where next on the agenda, again fitted with domed head stainless steel fasteners. The two 74GBWestern Digital hard drives have come in handy, fitted with Bitspower HD coolers they really look good & raided up will act as some fairly fast storage for the dual O/S system. I will be fitting these the correct way up in due course. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frozensnail Posted March 20, 2012 Author Share Posted March 20, 2012 Soon I’ve turned my attention to the top half of the chassis and re-riveted it together using black rivets. For now it’s as far as I can proceed until I’ve studied the water cooling layout in more detail. At least the rig looks a whole lot different than it did a few hours previously today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frozensnail Posted March 20, 2012 Author Share Posted March 20, 2012 Using some UV reactive 5mm acrylic I’ve decided to mount my three Blistering fast Kingston SSD drives, one of the 64GB SSD’s will be replaced by the top of the range SSD the 256GB Hyper-X & will have Win7 64 bit, the second 60GB Kingston SSD will run Vista 32 as a second option for my old games. I’ve briefly detailed the process of making the SSD bracket below, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frozensnail Posted March 20, 2012 Author Share Posted March 20, 2012 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frozensnail Posted March 20, 2012 Author Share Posted March 20, 2012 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frozensnail Posted March 21, 2012 Author Share Posted March 21, 2012 Next I designed a 360mm radiator grill & had this laser cut from 1.5mm Stainless Steel. Also whilst playing in CAD I managed to knock up the Intel Skulltrail logo, as originally I was going to have the original Wavemaster side panel & a second to enclose the bottom half of the chassis that I extended. I decided to drop this idea, opting for making one complete side panel for each side of the case once fully finished. Again I’ll cover this late on in the project log. Following my further time wasting cutting unnecessary panels, the 360mm radiator grill was spot on, so I set about fitting up the Cooler Master black body LED 120mm fans to the radiator. I must thank Danger Den for helping me out with the X-Flow radiator. With the amount of hosing going on within the case the X-Flow radiator has made life a little easier for hose routing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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