Sprocket Resurfaces...

[clocker]

Right then, a bit of backround.
At a recent holiday party (being a liberal I'm opposed to Christmas, doing all I can to ruin it for middlemerkins, but I do enjoy the associated festivities...), I was chastising my friend Eric for never even setting up the Stacker case I gave him which had a full water loop preinstalled.
"Hmmph" he said, "what about you? You have parts you bought and never even unboxed!"

Indeed, he had a point.
I started rummaging and came up with a Swiftech Storm (rev.2), a custom built Delrin reservoir and a Radiical top for a MCP355 pump- none of which I'd ever bothered to use.
Seemed a shame really.
I also have quite a pile of bits and bobs material-wise, so I wondered if I couldn't completely make over the TJ-06 without buying a single new part.

Yes, as it turns out but it wasn't easy.

The hard part turned out to be the raw material angle...I had lots of offcuts and previously made panels but nothing large enough to make the single large piece that I envisioned.
In a perfect world, Sprocket's new front panel would be a single virgin hunk of black anodized aluminum, but that was not to be, so I made do with what I had.
This (miserly) approach made the design and fabrication about five times more difficult than it needed to be but I was on a mission, so to the garage I went.

The new front panel was always going to be a complex undertaking.
It had to hold not only the radiator but also the optical drive and the fan controller.
Although having a completely gutted case makes for great freedom, it also means that everything you want mounted has to be custom fitted. No slotting the DVD burner into the cage and calling it quits...there is no cage there!
Furthermore, what if you want to use a stock faceplate and add a Lian-li optical drive cover and have everything line up with the opening in the front door?
It gets kinda hairy, let me tell you.

I shan't go into the gory details but about 20 hours later I ended up with this...


It's made of two pieces- both of which had pre-existing 140mm fan holes cut in them, so they had to be spliced in such a way to line up with the triple rad mounting holes (using 140>120mm fan adaptors).
The radiator had to be mounted at a certain height so the barbs would line up with the not yet installed pump.
Unfortunately, that raised the rad too high for the remaining front panel necessities, so I fudged as much as possible to make everything fit.

Next, I disassembled the ApogeeDrive (combined pump and waterblock) and installed the Radiical custom pump top.
While trying to visualize the loop layout, it occurred to me that the coolest solution would be to place the reservoir right on top of the pump, so I machined an adaptor and screwed the two parts together using Goop as a sealant.
The CPU waterblock, being new, required nothing more than installation.

Being a budget build, I didn't spring for new tubing (Tygon is expensive!), so I made do with the scraps I had laying around.
Naturally I would have preferred all new black tube but the clear on the intake side did make bleeding the air easier because I could see the bubbles.

Now we're here...


This is the finished front inner panel...


At the top are the knobs for the fan controller, below that is the DVD-RW with the Lian-li beauty panel and the shiny round thing centered below that is the "clear CMOS" button (Danger, Will Robinson!), the rest is radiator.
Covering most of this is a mesh screen.

The panels for the front door are not finished (OK, not made or even conceived yet...) but here's the door closed...


And here you can see the optical drive mount and (if you look closely) the SSD, tucked away by the upper radiator area...


Now all that's left is the wiring.
I threw her together- posting from Sprocket now, in fact- to see how it would work.
With luck she'll be finished by Monday.

Hope everyone had a jolly, holly Christmas.
Believe it or not, in the midst of all this bustle I found time to set my Mother's table for the Christmas dinner...my only contribution, she does everything else...


Somehow I also managed to kill the better part of a 1.75 litre bottle of Myer's rum.
Maybe that's why all this took so long...

[j2k4]

Cool(er).

I expect Wolfie will soon be brushing up against 5G, eh?

Myer's would definitely help expand the work to fill the allotted time; experience tells me this.

I'll remember that, next trip to the store.

[clocker]

I expect Wolfie will soon be brushing up against 5G, eh?

I doubt it.
I am conflicted...on the one hand, I have a really sweet overclocker.
On the other, my sensors don't function below @65° C, so I have zero idea on temps- it reads a constant 24° all the time.

For the nonce, 4.2GHz has been very stable and problem free...not sure what more I need.
Beyond that I would need to do a bunch of BIOS tweaking and frankly, it gets old.

[j2k4]

I expect Wolfie will soon be brushing up against 5G, eh?

I doubt it.
I am conflicted...on the one hand, I have a really sweet overclocker.
On the other, my sensors don't function below @65° C, so I have zero idea on temps- it reads a constant 24° all the time.

For the nonce, 4.2GHz has been very stable and problem free...not sure what more I need.
Beyond that I would need to do a bunch of BIOS tweaking and frankly, it gets old.

Oh, okay.

You'll probably play at it for a day just to see, get another tenth or so, and call it good.

My guess.

[clocker]

You are probably right.

In keeping with my normal project trajectory, today I completely ignored the wiring.
I've had a concept in mind for a while and since it was going to require yet another complete teardown to implement- about the tenth in the last 4 days and trust me, it gets harder every time- I decided to bite the bullet and git 'er done.

Part of the attraction was just to see if I could actually do it.
Although it doesn't look like much...


...fishmouthing the horizontal bar to fit the upright bar is normally a job I'd do on a mill.
However, I no longer own a Bridgeport so I was reduced to working on a drill press and working by eye.
I surprised myself by getting it right the first time...the old man still has some moves.

Next came mounting the mesh beauty panels...


Which then get covered with foam...


As did the floor and the backplane panel...


And, just for kicks, a closeup of the pump/reservoir combo...


So, even though I can't comment on temps (bloody stuck sensors!), this has still been a success because the PC is almost totally silent now.
Seriously, it is barely noticeable in a pretty quiet room.
Of course, a lot of credit for this must go to the solid state drive which makes nary a peep.
The waterloop/pump is also remarkably noise free as well.

The main noise (or more accurately- sound) is a faint intake whoosh of air.

Now, to the wiring- which for some reason I've been avoiding.
Not sure why, there really isn't very much.

First though I have to watch the Broncos blow their chance at the playoffs.

[j2k4]

First though I have to watch the Broncos blow their chance at the playoffs.

That is coming along swimmingly as well.

[clocker]

I should just give up and move to Detroit.

[Detale]

Clocker you have impressed me yet again and as always. It looks great. That font panel is orsum WHat did you use to cut it? Is that the AC ryan mesh or a piece of screen or some other MacGyver move you pulled

[clocker]

The fan holes were originally cut with an adjustable trepanning tool (popularly referred to as a "widowmaker"). The rest of the fab was done with a drill press and a jigsaw.
The mesh did indeed come from AC Ryan and the black anodized aluminum came from a set of Lian-li v2000 sidepanels.
AC Ryan now sells black alloy panels in the 2mm thickness and that is what I'd go with if starting from scratch.

Knowing me however, as soon as I invested the $100 or so in new material, hacked it all up and installed it...I'd just decide to do something else.
Mostly I enjoy the process more than the finished product.

[Acid_death69]

clocker, what's that modded GPU cooler like? i know you've got the same one as me just wondered if having those two heffing fans on it makes that big of a difference.