Guess what?

[ApacNTS]

looking good. cant wait for more! good luck.

[clocker]

Roof panel done, waiting for the silicon adhesive to cure.
Meanwhile, the radiator is mounted.
Here ya go...

That's from the inside, here is the front...

The gap at the bottom will allow passage for the USB/Firewire/switch wiring/
At least that's the plan.

Roof should be mountable after I watch the Steelers kick Indy's ass.

[ApacNTS]

heh looks like steelers did just that. bears got theirs handed to them as well by the panthers. nice job on the project man. it just gets better every picture.

[clocker]

Bears lost.
Boo hoo.

Roof panel finished.
Yay!

I was afraid that I'd need to use screws to fasten the mesh to the opening but GOOP came through and the mesh panel is secure and flat.
Whew.
The hardest part is now finished.

Still left is polishing of the front aluminum trim and fabbing the front mesh bay cover (using the same material as the roof insert). Not at all sure yet how this will be held in place but something will come to me. I'd like to avoid visible fasteners if possible.

Now it's ice cream time.
Ta.

[clocker]

Today's project is to turn this pile of plastic...

...into the new reservoir.
The first version I made has worked just fine, but even as I was making it I could see ways to improve the design.
Specifically, the way the inlet/outlet barbs were mounted into the tube bothered me. Threading into a 1/8" wall tube is not terribly secure and I was forced to resort to copious amounts of GOOP to ensure stability and watertightness.
The new design will address this concern as well as a few others.
I'd like the rez and the pump to be mounted on a common base so they can be removed as a unit. I'm also going to change the drain plug configuration so water can be removed without disturbing the reservoir or moving the case.
All this will require more machining than the original design (and more parts/joints as well), but ultimately I think it'll be worth the effort.

I'm waiting for the new 74GB Raptor to arrive (all the way from Juneau, Alaska!) so I have some time to kill before Sprocket could be running anyway.
This time round the HDDs (the big Raptor and the trusty Seagate 120 SATA) will be watercooled also, so I won't be RAIDing the drives which prevents access to SMART info...I want to see the temps.
There's no room for a floppy drive anyway, so the F6 dance would have been a PITA as well.

It's gonna be a long day...

Edit:
Well, might be a shorter day than I thought.
I've been amassing so much watercooling gear that I completely forgot about a reservoir that I got last November.
A cute little unit, I was originally going to use it in the G5, but it became redundant when the Ehiem 1048 came with it's own dedicated rez, so it's just been sitting in it's box all this time.
I discovered it whilst searching for my stash of high-flow barbs and decided to put it to use.
All she needed was the barb holes retapped to fit the DangerDen fittings, an easy task as the reservoir's body is machined from Delrin, and a mounting bracket fabricated.
The unit is much smaller than what I was going to build so the visual impact will be much different. Actually, it's so small that it's more of a glorified t-line than a reservoir- I hope that filling/bleeding is as easy as my original version...time will tell.

This is great, now I can move on to the wiring-the last major project before reassembly can commence.
There will still be lots of fiddly little stuff to do, but I'm encouraged by the progress.

[clocker]

Today's update is brought to you by Blind Optimism, cause that's what it took to get me here this morning.
After fiddle-fucking around with the reservoir and the wiring I finally decided it was time to reinstall the roof panel.
This was @9pm last night.

Finished at one this morning.


Although there was no way for me to know ahead of time, I'm now convinced that CoolerMaster assembles this case from the roof down...exactly opposite from my approach.

There are 24 rivets holding the roof to the chassis and lining them up with the inner structure was a nightmare, especially the front bay panels. It would be impossible to explain without a detailed diagram so you'll have to trust me, but had the bottom of the bays been loose I probably could have done this in under an hour.
As it was, I had to machine five tapered pins and gradually lever the holes into alignment. Wooden blocks and clamps held things as I made my way around the front to the sides. All made even more difficult by the top plastic trim piece which couldn't be clamped, of course.
I made it though.

And here I thought cutting the roof insert was the hard part.

Anyways, progress should now be smoother.

Before installing the roof I wanted to put tubing on the radiator barbs because tightening the worm clamps was much simpler with top access...in fact, I'm not sure it could have been done afterwords. This is the only area I don't use zip ties as clamps for this very reason. Should there be a leak, fixing it would be very difficult.

Here's how Sprock looks this morning...

The reservoir is the tiny black box towards the top of the baypanel.
The long dangling tube will feed the harddrive waterblocks but they can't be installed till the Raptor arrives.
Most of the wiring is finished, it's just not tied up yet.

Next big project will be the front bezel area.
Oh boy.

[ApacNTS]

its taking shape pretty quick now. looks great. cant wait for the final rendition(well final for now, changes will always come)

[clocker]

Progress report.
About 85% done now, have remounted the rad three times trying to get the fans visually centered in the (as yet unmade) front bezel.
That solved, I moved on to finishing up the wiring and began to mount the waterblocks. The new Raptor finally arrived from Alaska and just this morning I was able to fit the Danger Den Aquabay and route the tubing to/from it.
Here's where she stands as of today...

Straight on side shot.

Tried to show the HDD block a little better but it's difficult...everything is black.

From the back, looking into the bay area and the radiator.

Hope to get the loop finished and Sprocket up and running by next Monday.

Bye.

[ApacNTS]

now if only you could make a video and put it with some good music 2006 would be a fantastic year! looking great. cant wait for the next installment. really clean wiring to man, inside is near perfection.

[suprafreak6]

lookin reallllll nice keep up the good work clocker!