Project: Nutman

[Nutman]

It's time for another surprise...

Because I hereby present you with the 6th graphics card during the lifetime of this build: HIS ATI Radeon HD6870

This package had arrived from my fantastic sponsor:

EK Waterblocks

And what could be in it?

Yes, of course:

The black tube is MasterKleer 15,9mm x 11,1mm. Unfortunately, it's not completely black. Under UV light it comes off as dark blue and it's not completely black in dayligth either - more of a very deep, deep blue. It's a bit disappointing, because I now can't use it for what it was intended for.
Which was to reduce the impression of too much tubing going on - you know, with these looong tubes going to and from the reservoir it all looked rather overwhelming and I thought that using black tubes for the long tubes would reduce this. I still like the idea, but I have to find other tubing to make it happen.

Those 2 LEDs are UV-LEDs, which I was going to use for illuminating the water in each reservoir chamber. However, I had found some spares in my stash and already sleeved those, so these 2 will go into my collection of spare LEDs...

Ok, let's take a closer look at that new full cover block:

It's very nice. As usual the craftmanship by EK Waterblocks is outstanding. And, also as usual, the package contains everything needed.

Let's mount the beast of the card:

It's lovely to see how the blocks almost appears to be wrapping itself around the components of the card:

Mounted in the case it looks like this:

The PCB of the graphics card is slightly brown - will have to do something about that, but of course I have a plan for that. More on that in one of the next updates...

The 6870 card will be needing power, so I sleeved the modular PCI-E cables:

And attached them nicely using P-clips:

The outcome was rather nice, if I may say so! The plan is to only run the ATX-cable on the backside of the motherboard tray. All modular cables will run on the sides underneath the top radiator. You will see more of that when I sleeve the rest of the modular cables - e.g. the the power cable for the Aquaero and Multiswitch:

This cable also runs underneath the top radiator and is nicely held in place using P-clips:

Yeah, not much room around the fittings on the top radiator:

I also made some extension cables for the fans that sit on the bottom radiator:

In fact, almost all cables in this build are measured to the exact lenght needed, cut shorter or extended before sleeving.
It requires quite some soldering and applying heat shrink before sleeving the cable and this entire process takes lots of time - in fact, I think I spent 1 hour doing just those 2 fan extension cables, but the end result is also very nice.

Ok, I also want to show you how I routed the cables for the front fans. They're connected to the motherboard (no more room on the Aquaero) and I aim at controlling them with BIOS.
I routed the cables in P-clips on top of the bottom radiator:

I'm not totally satisfied with the way the cables split and run to each fan:

I would like to strip both cables close together and have them routed in between the 2 fans. I might correct it later, if I am up for the task...

Remember the last update (it's really not hard - just scroll up a bit, hehe), where I drilled 2 holes for LEDs that were to show a status from the Aquaero? In my case this was to be the status of the water temperature of both loops.
I was really content with the amount of light (or lack thereof) of the green LED, so I bought another 2-coloured LED, so now I got 2. Both LEDs plugged into the Aquaero with a temperature sensor attached, I made this video:

Aquaero LED temperature output

I think it'll come out nicely in the end when the front panel is back in its place.

Now, one last thing to show you in this update is my experiments with light in the case.
I have tried a little of everything - blue, UV, white and green. In the end I had to realize that one colour wouldn't do. A combo had to be put in place to get a result like this:

Of course, it's hard to capture the lights on camera, but this is pretty close. I want the UV-reactive stuff to stand out, but not TOO much - and I want the interiors to be in slight darkness, but not TOO much darkness, hehe.
In the next update I'll show you how I made the lights, I promise - it's a bit special (=an old classic returns!), so I guess you can start looking forward to that...

I'll end this update by showing you some mood shots:

[Nutman]

In the previous update I promised that I would show you how I made the lights for the case.

Do you remember this one?

Yeah, back in the day I had sleeved some CCFLs - with success. All you have to do is to remove the CCFL from the plastic tube (with violence and side-cutting nippers), put regular tape on the CCFL and then sleeve it.

Well, I now needed something similar to put some UV light into the case.

But I found the UV light to be too powerful. I wanted to hide the purple glare, but maintain the UV effect, so I needed some other light to blend in with the UV light.

So, what should one do?

Hell, easy. You just sleeve parts of the CCFL using the colour of choice:

In that way I am able to mix a bit of blue into the UV light:

I sleeved the last couple of cables.

First, the SATA power cable:

Yes, not complete yet, but that's because I still have some measuring to do (see why later in this update).

And the very last cable (I hope so!) was completed and sleeved. It's the power cable for one of the CCFL inverters:

Oh, I gotta mention that I shrunk the heatshrink on these last 2 cables using a lighter, as my trusty blow dryer had given up shortly before that.
It's kind of sad, because it had been with me all the way throughout this project and died shortly before the deadline - boohooo:

I had long been thinking about where to put the window frame from my old case:

I realised that it would look best on the door - which by now also looked a bit boring compared to the rest of the case.

So I went to the basement, drilled some holes and did some tapping:

Attached the window frame:

Yeah, the countersunk holes are not that precisely drilled, so some of the bolts stick out a bit:

But it's not really something you notice, unless you look really hard.

All in all I think it came out quite well:

Oh, and because this guy...

...said this...

...I had to replace these bolts...

...with these...

And... well, what can I say? Bill Owen was right.

And, finally... my new kids!

That's all for this time - next time I hope to be able to show you some tubing work.

[msmrx57]

Looks like some nice progress. And yes Bill Owen was right, the new bolts look much better.

[StormRider]

those are your kids? mental images, mental images O__O
btw, thanks for the sweet idea on how to do multicolored CCFLs

[Nutman]

Thanks.

I hope to complete the build this week, realising that I have made similar promises in the past.

@StormRider: Yeah, go along and experiment a bit. Just remember to use the clear tape first in order to isolate the cord that runs on the outside of the CCFL. I haven't touched such one yet, but having been in contact with the output ports of a CCFL inverter, I know by personal experience how much juice those bastards can deliver - it hurts!
The heat shouldn't really be an issue, but the coming weekend will show me if I'm right or wrong, since the rig will be used app. 16 hours each day.

[Nutman]

Nopes, no tubing work this time.

I'm struggling a bit to put together some videos I made from the 1st start-up attempt. Until then, here's a historic update.

When I say "historic", it's because I'm happy to report that the machine is up and running at the time I'm writing these lines. There have been some initial problems and other small things exist that need to be fixed, but that doesn't mean you'll have to miss out on this pretty delayed update - so, here it is.

I finished the power cable for the SSDs:

And then I got a package from Highflow.nl- hopefully the last package for this build:

Among other items, it contained this EK Waterblocks backplate for my 6870:

And the last couple of Bitspower fittings, in order to be able to make the plumbing look nice and clean:

I has grown really tired of having to look at those half-white no-vibes rubber frames for the 120 mm. fans on the bottom radiator, so I got these instead:

Also got a new black backplate for the PSU, to replace the aluminium-coloured one:

And then there was some black tubing from XSPC in there aswell - 11,1 mm. ID and 15,9 mm. OD. Just like MasterKleer, but this is all black and doesn't respond to UV light at all:

Apparently, Highflow.nl also send some goodies along, just like eg. Coolerkit.dk do:

And, finally, some important tools for putting all the stuff into the case. Priceless if you want to avoid putting fingerprints on all your hardware. Yeah, I know - I should have got these earlier, but better late than never, hehe:

After having received some constructive criticism concerning the lighting in my photo, so I got some powerful lights to bounce light off walls, ceilings, etc. It's an acceptable solution until I build myself a light tent - and I think you can already see some improvement on the photos in this update:

Mounted the backplate on the 6870 - also super quality, like all other stuff I got from EK Waterblocks:

Some component legs were a bit too long on the 6870, so I feared them shorting out on the backplate.
Even though the backplate is made from aluminium, for some reason EK Waterblocks have chosen to paint it instead of anodizing it - anodized aluminium tend to remove the surface's electrical conductivity, but as it was "only" painted (at least that's what EK Waterblocks say on the product's homepage), I wouldn't want to risk anything - so I cut off the long legs using cutting nippers. And then there was enough space between the legs and the backplate:

And then I replaced the semi-white no-vibes rubber frames with the black ones on the bottom radiator:

I am currently producing a hopefully semi-entertaining video showing the first boot attempt.
Until then, you can take a look at this video, where I explain how to sleeve CCFLs:

How to sleeve CCFLs - the Nutman way

After posting the first boot attempt video (later today, I hope) I will probably post one last regular update showing the remaining works, before posting the final result, ie. final shots and my conclusion to this project.

[SXRguyinMA]

looking good!

[Nutman]

Thanks.

Ok, the first boot attempt video is now up.

Laugh at me while watching me suffer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrtaDcdgifw

[StormRider]

ooh, that's sad.
and I just saw the sacrilege of the way you made those sleeved ccfls. I think I'm gonna cry about the wasted tube.
anyway, on a serious note, you know you can take the ccfl out of the tube without breaking it, and that way you can have a sleeved ccfl and still have a tube to use later? as soon as I can re-remember how to do it, I can put up a mini-guide, if you like

[Nutman]

Please do so! I'm always eager to learn stuff.
Some people have said something about heating up the ends of the plastic tube - apparently, this should dissolve or weaken whatever glue is holding the blocky ends on to the tube, but as I don't have a heatgun, I can't test that theory - I wouldn't worry about the heat breaking the CCFL inside the tube, although one probably shouldn't set the heatgun to melt the plactic.