That's it for the build photos, onto the build log.
The outside was vinyl wrapped, including the feet.
custom Acrylic panels finish and painted. annoyingly they are different colours.... I finished a spray can doing one, and the new spray can which was exactly the same brand and paint colour gave a different finish. grr
sadly don't have a picture of just the case after being modded. it wasn't too interesting, just cut up, filed and any exposed metal was painted. here is a picture of one of the acrylic panels being fitted, and pass throughs installed.
Oh and I painted the rads white.
built the loop. was pretty easy design other than the runs going to the CPU. This was the first time using the Heatkiller pump res. extremely impressed with it, also runs very quietly.
masked the ends of the tubing up, then strung them up for painting. This photo was taken after painting just one with a single coat of paint, to see how it would look.
all the tubing painted.
I bend tubing by hand, don't use mandrels. just have a guide i've made on the desk for getting perfect 90's. if you even care to know how 'i' do it
made custom extension cables. i think it's ok for a first attempt. hope to make perfect ones for my next go at it :D
I'm normally pretty bad at taking photos (i would say 'see my other builds for a example' but I normally get friends to shoot for me), i tried quite hard on this build, and took a lot of time shooting it. this photography set up with the dual light boxes and dslr is a bit too professional for me. I'm glade the auto setting on the camera took good photos. glade it was worth borrowing the equipment
Cold Evolv
Edit: I put this into the EK 10k challenge. how amazing would this be if it won without a single product from EK in it?
Spec isn't the highest or most recent, its using his pre-existing system components.
The techniques used for the mods are pretty basic as I have no CNC or Laser Cutter. It's all stuff anyone at home could do if they have a jigsaw, dremel and time.
The outside of the case has been wrapped in white vinyl, which in my opinion came out really well, much better than expected. The case feet were also wrapped. Will be interesting to see how it holds up over time.
The tubing was painted. Highly recommend it for acrylic/petg tubing, it's easy, unique, fast to do and looks great. I'm starting to do it more and more as it allows you to use clear coolant and dictate the exact colour of the loop. no more disappointment with coolant colours :)
Case was modded for pass throughs. Two acrylics panels were made and painted to tidy everything up inside the case, and for the passthroughs to mount to.
This was the first time doing custom sleeved cables by hand. I honestly thought it wasn't going to be that hard, just time consuming. Wrong purchasing decisions with crimpers and supplies, along with a steep learning curve proved it to be quite a challenge. I am very happy with the end result and it's better quality than store bought pre-made cables, I just don't want to do it again for a while. I must admit that most of my time went into the cables for this build....
only other thing of note is maybe leaks... had a 45degree rotary fitting leak on me (so satisfying throwing that in the bin once found). Was a pain to diagnose as it only leaked when the joint had force applied to the fitting (leaked when the rear panel was closed but not when opened, really threw me).
Specifications:
AMD R9 3900x
Gigabyte B550 Vision D
32GB 3200mhz GSkill TridentZ RGB DDR4
RTX 2080 Super EVGA
512GB samsung 970evo M.2 SSD
512GB samsung 860 M.2 SSD
Corsair AX1500i PSU
Custom made sleeved cables
3x Corsair ML120 White LED fans
3x Corsair 120mm basic pressure optimised fans
Heatkiller Watercooling:
-CPU block IV PRO ACRYL
-Watercool D5 pump, and Tube 150 D5 res
Alphacool 2x360mm 30mm radiators
mayhems biocide+ and inhibitors+
cablemod magnetic white led strip
Mod List:
Case mod
Motherboard post code black out
Painted Acrylic tubing
Case vinyl wrapped
Acrylic false panels, motherboard tray and floor.
Mirror acrylic power supply window cover.