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Nikola
Hung Like a Flea
Joined: 22 Mar 2009
Posts: 790
Location: Edmond, OK
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Project Cobalt
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I finally sat down and thought long and hard about what I wanted to call this PC since I had always hated not coming up with a name for Server. Cobolt is what I came up with and it seems appropriate as it's both a metal and the color of the build.
I am selling off my Macbook Pro and I had some extra cash to throw around and decided that I wanted a Corsair 800D Obsidian really badly and that I wanted my server out of it's case so I was free to play with it. Thus began the spending binge of today. I ordered the aforementioned case, another 3x120mm radiator, 15' of PrimoChill Blue UV tubing and a pair of UV cathodes.
My current plan actually involves no modifications to the 800D which looks suspiciously like a penis in text form. The case supports a 3x120mm radiator stock which is fantastic and has a plethora of routing options for both wiring and tubing and really I won't need to cut a single thing to get everything I want out of this case.
What will require modification however, is the 5.25" bay res I plan to use. What I plan to do with it is mount it in the usual location in a 5.25" bay but I am going to make a faceplate for it to cover up most of the light as I'm no longer a fan of a big block of water in the front of cases.
Here is what I've come up with so far for the faceplate but I'm just spitballing and welcome opinions and I'll update these based on what, if anything, you guys contribute. I'm going to have these cut out of black vinyl and layered so that they are not translucent and if I have the opportunity I will have one cut out of black anodized aluminum so this is important!
This one is pretty simple obviously, a clean font and an outline of Master Shake. It's a running joke for several years with friends of mine that I am just like Master Shake so it seemed appropriate. The white background would actually be black and the black would be cut out to show the water/reservoir behind.
Anyways, let me know what you guys think and I will post pics when stuff starts arriving. _________________ Failure is just success rounded down.
Last edited by Nikola on Sun Mar 07, 2010 10:30 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Wed Jan 27, 2010 7:34 pm
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Nikola
Hung Like a Flea
Joined: 22 Mar 2009
Posts: 790
Location: Edmond, OK
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Well, I'm sure you'll all be happy to know that I completely skipped snapping pics of me just putting the computer together. Not any modding involved so I didn't feel the need. This case is absolutely phenomenal! The more I play with it the more I come to find little things that make my life easier.
That said, I did have a little bit of a hard time deciding where and how to mount the pump. I couldn't mount it in the 5.25" bays because I would have had to mount it directly to the bay reservoir which would mean it couldn't slide out to be filled which would pose a problem. In the end I put the pump roughly where the designers had in mind although I got a little creative with it. You can also see my trusty old Enermax 600w beast there. He's getting replaced with a brand new Enermax Galaxy DXX 1000w as soon as my MDPC-X sleeving gets here from Germany and I get it all resleeved
Here you can see the majority of the loop. Lots of extra tubing there to reach to and from the pump but it is worth it 100 times over having the pump under the reservoir when it comes time to fill and bleed the system. You might also notice my new 4870 there which gave a nice bump in graphics power from my 3850, I'm looking for a waterblock for it but I'm unwilling to pay new prices for discontinued waterblocks
^ Keep in mind that the SATA backplane there for the hot swap bays has a cover, but it wasn't installed when I took the pics
Here's a pulled back shot, I really loathe both the lighting in this house and my apathy towards learning how to actually use this Nikon D70 to take really good looking pics. You can barely see the bottom of the Swiftech MCR320QP-K radiator at the top.
Other than the case, there wasn't much to this upgrade so far. A bigger radiator is probably not usually the upgrade that it was here, but it makes all the difference in the world with this machine. The 120mm single radiator I was using before just couldn't quite handle the output of the 65nm Quads when highly overclocked. The combination of moving to a 45nm Q9450 and tripling the cooling capacity has given me worlds of headroom for the future.
What's left then?
1. Lighting! I still have to install some UV Cathodes to make my tubes glow and install the LED for the bay reservoir. Whether or not the water gets dye or coolant remains to be seen.
2. Faceplates! Not only do I need to get the faceplate for the bay reservoir finalized and cut, but I also have to decide how I'm going to stealth the DVD drive into the front of the case. I'm seriously considering cutting a slot in a faceplate and getting a slot load drive, we will see.
3. Upgrades! This PC is not done getting upgraded quite yet! I have 4gb Corsair Dominator DDR2 1066mhz in the mail to replace my G.Skill DDR2 1000mhz and an X-Fi Xtreme Gamer to replace the onboard sound, woot!
4. Sleeving! My new Enermax Galaxy DXX 1000w modular power supply is here but unfortunately the mass amounts of sleeving are not! Once that arrives I will get to work MurderMod style on all of the wiring in this case and that will hopefully give it a much more polished look.
I bought a good deal of both of these, I'm thinking Grand Bleu for the Ground wires and Black for everything else, all done with black heatshrink.
_________________ Failure is just success rounded down.
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Sat Feb 06, 2010 10:34 pm
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Nikola
Hung Like a Flea
Joined: 22 Mar 2009
Posts: 790
Location: Edmond, OK
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Well, the lighting is mostly done with the case now. Missing a 4" UV and a 4" blue cathode but that's just an issue of velcro and sleeving. Got the controller box complete and installed and the software is in a state where it does most anything I want at the moment, and anything more is just a reprogram away.
Here's a breadboard from the initial mock up of the test. We call this Squid v1.0.
Here's the perf board beginning to take shape. Surface mount LEDs for diagnostics on each channel, 6 for CCFLs, 2 for fans and 2 for LEDs. There are actually 8 fan headers though, split into two channels and 4 LED headers in two channels for 5v or 12v operation.
Bottom perf board nearly complete. We thought it was complete but ended up adding a 5v regulator while at the Intel LAN Fest Dallas.
Top perf board and the connector that makes it one with the bottom. Cutting into it this way we were able to add more headers for connections and still fit it into the project box.
There was alot of soldering on this project.
A LOT!
Putting the box together, it's black anodized aluminum with plastic ends.
Here is the box installed in the case. It's a good thing there is a large amount of room on the backside of this case or it wouldn't have had a chance.
Here is the controller software. It sends commands via Serial to the box through a C# GUI. Right now pretty much everything is fed to it via XML so it's not being constantly recompiled when it's worked on. Also it has a bitchin' icon!
I'll hopefully get some video of the controller in action soon so you can see what it's capable of. Right now when the PC turns on, the Fans go to 100%, each LED channel fades up to 100% and each of the 6 individual CCFL channels fades up to 100% one at a time and then reverts to the default color scheme I set: 100% UV/60% White/100% Blue to give it a nice glow while still keeping clear view of the sleeving.
I would be lying if I said I wasn't proud of this little box and I hope to improve on it for the Subtlety build when it resumes. Hope to hear some feedback on this! _________________ Failure is just success rounded down.
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Sun Mar 14, 2010 2:55 am
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