Project P182 Watercooled V2!

[DMB2000uk]

Got my WC parts in today :D





Now I can get some real case cutting done

Dan

[DMB2000uk]

So i've done a fair bit of cutting and didn't take any in-between pictures, probably because I wanted to just get it done rather than faff about with stopping for pictures


(I've still got to cut out some more of this so it can slide open/shut and not get caught on the fans)



And for the first time, here is everything lined up inside!



Look at that! Pretty much a perfect fit :D

And for my next trick, how'd you like the look of a Noctua NF-P12 with a black frame?



Painstakingly hand painted with chaos black model paint that I stole off of my brother
(I don't think I dare paint the blades in case it unbalances it and sends the fan wobbly).

Dan

[Alathald]

I still say you'd probably be ok with a thin coat of vinyl dye but those are pretty expensive fans to be taking those chances with. Looking really good, can't wait to see it done!

[DMB2000uk]

Update time!

Aside from cutting the few extra holes I needed to in the case (and re-cutting the fangrill 'window' in the sidepanel for the third time) I went a little de-rivet crazy.

How crazy you ask?



That crazy :p

I kinda like having the case in small manageable chunks. Definitely made working on the last few cuts easier.

After I'd finished cutting I wanted to see if everything (still) fit, but I can't rivet it together again till I've gotten it painted.

So I turned to my trusty zipties once again. :D





I bet you've always wondered what a case held together with zipties looked like. Well, maybe you haven't. But you now know what one looks like :p


Next on my todo list is think of a window design, this is the best I've been able to come up with so far:



Anyone got any comments/suggestions to improve the design?

Dan

[martini161]

i cant believe you wasted so many zipties

[stopthekilling77]

Anyone got any comments/suggestions to improve the design?

how about the LR logo built as the window shape?

[DMB2000uk]

It's been far too long since I did anything towards this project, so I made some time to work a little more on it.



As per my mockup (in my last picture update), I decided to go with this design for the case window, it looked alright drawn on, and so I decided to go with it.



And here we have a nice cut out window
Test fitted on my current P180 (sorry didn't stop to take a pic), it works quite well I think.



This next bit was a pain in the backside, I had to separate the outer metal from the plastic inside of the sidepanel. It took forever, I cut myself a bunch of times, and I fear I've bent the outer layer a bit too much (it's still masked up on the other side, and I daren't look too see if I've sprained it >_> ). Hopefully it'll sit flat again when it's glued back to the plastic/window when it's all finished.



I went to all that effort separating the panels so that I could get the jigsaw to the middle plastic (and inner metal layer) to cut this nice big square hole.



Once re-assembled, it will look like this.

I've done this so I can recess the perspex for the case window as flush as possible with the outside of the case. If I'd have left it as it was and stuck the perspex on the inside of the sidepanel, there'd have been about a 4mm gap between the outside of the case and the window, which wouldn't have looked great. So this way, there's just the 1mm of the outside layer. (Fingers crossed it is worth the hassle).



I also made a blanking plate to cover all the stock holes in the mid-chamber divider in the P182. The hole in it is to let the water-pipes through, and I'm claiming it only looks that rough because of the plastic curling up (Granted it's not perfect underneath the plastic, but I'll probably be putting some trim on it anyway so it doesn't cut the pipes, in which case it doesn't matter :p ).



And this is where the blanking plate will live.


--

I actually think that's all my cuts done and dusted with now. :D

I've ordered some adhesive remover to get rid of the sticky stuff on the side panel (it's painfully slow to get off even with IPA and elbow-grease!). So when that gets here I'll clean it all up, and then I think I can arrange to get it all powdercoated

Dan

[skier]

powdercoat=SWEET!!!! that things gonna be sick!

[jedihobbit]

So what has happened????

[DMB2000uk]

I got it to this stage and lost motivation:



I've been promised a GT300, so in the back of my mind I'm not wanting to get watercooling set up till I've got that card and wont have to mess about swapping it out a month down the line. And tbh, I use my macbook for most of my general surfing so there's been no motivation to get it up and running in any reasonable timescale .

Dan

[jedihobbit]

Must be a lot of that floating around as I've had my last project sitting idle since Feb when I fried the mobo and got a new one. The mobo didn't come out of the AS bag until two week ago. Oddly it is also my WC system.

[skier]

any updates to this?

(randomly clicked your signature and linked here)

[DMB2000uk]

I'm still expecting a 480GTX soon, but aren't sure if I want to run it in my rig now that I know how hot and power hungry it is.

I put the sidepanel window together (it looks quite messy with how I had to pull the outer metal off ) and I fit and riveted the rest of the case back together properly.

I've been rocking this rig on air (Noctua NH-D14) for the last few months, and haven't had the heart to get the WC up and running without knowing what GPU I'm sticking with, and hence what GPU block to buy/use.

The inside more or less still looks like the last pic, just a little dustier and with more cables running up to the 5.25" bays.

Dan

[deleted]

That case is pretty sweet, I've been looking for a case to start a new build here soon. Where can you post Build Progress Logs? This section of LR work?

[DMB2000uk]

Cheers.

Yeah, this section is fine.

Dan

[Bio-Hazard]

Hey Dan,
It looks like you're never get done water cooling that case............ Just like someone else I know........

[DMB2000uk]

Hey Bio, been a while since I've seen your face around these parts

It's kind of bad that I've got all the WC gear in place but not plumbed up isn't it

Dan

[DMB2000uk]

So, after what must nearly be a year of not really doing much (besides running this rig on air), I've finally done some more work on this mod.

Here's the reason why:



:D

Will fill you all in tomorrow, when I've had chance to edit the pictures and write up some witty comments

Dan

[jedihobbit]

Will fill you all in tomorrow, when I've had chance to edit the pictures and write up some witty comments :)Dan

[DMB2000uk]

So we all know how hot and loud the GTX480 is, so something had to be done about that.

I wonder what will happen if I take this off.



Hmm, there's still more junk that's not needed under here.



Off that goes too.



That's more like it.

You should have seen how much thermal paste was thrown on the GTX480 heatsink, you could probably drop the temperatures of the GTX480 10 degrees by re-applying the thermal paste properly!



So, that's everything loud taken off the GTX480, it should be pretty quiet now. Let's see what I've got laying around to sort out keeping the card cool.

This white box looks promising.



Who can guess what's in it?



Ooh, a shiny thing! How shiny? This shiny:



(and here's a shot of the underneath for all the people who like shiny things too )



Those two holes on the front side (pictured above) are for sticking LEDs into, I think that'd look pretty magic lit up inside the case, so will have to look into getting those lit up at some point in the (hopefully) near future.



And there's the waterblock installed :D


Dan