Project Monolith

I also followed my way back here after seeing someone from OCAU making a nutty watercooling system! (its been a while since ive trolled around here)

And take the ugliest mod thing as a compliment - its a sign of jealousy. Hell i think you know but the difference between something functional and something beautiful in the mechanical world is essentially a fancy cover. Fancy wood grain doors in your car? Well just behind that is a bunch of pushrods and levers and sticky black goo! Fancy engine cover on your new ford GT? Well just under that is a mess of hoses and wires.

Also if they bothered to look at each component they'd quickly see that each solder, each component is very carefully and beautifully constructed with purpose and skill. Overall it looks a bit messy now, much like an unfinished house looks messy, so dont get down about that, the rest of us really can appreciate the effort involved and the skill involved.

 

Well said.

Keep those updates coming!

 

Ok, updates of a sort, in that i have decided to go back to clear side covers, and uv. Screw it.
I dont want to cover this. Its fantastic and looks great, so im on the look out for some cheap acrylic, or perspex.

 

HoOLY CRAP

I just joined the forums, and then I stumble upon this...

rainwulf have you been diagnosed with some kind of bio-mechanical fetish disorder? because this case is by far the craziest, insane, most awesome case mod i have ever seen.

well done mate, I will be keeping a keen eye on this thread

 

Soo.. What's happening with this project?
Was my favourite worklog when you were updating it regularily lol

 

Yeah Id love to see if the sides have been made or any other changes to the system
Also how all the small tubes are going, any blockages or grime thats been trouble to clean up?

 

I have been slack as hell, so sorry for the lack of updates.

I have been working on other projects, including my nitro remote car, and my audio amplifier.

NEWS:

Given a 36gig raptor.
Tossing up putting in a xonar d2x to replace the x-fi.
Broke due to saving money for the upgrade of "x" and various other things, so waiting for the perspex.

And the good news, is after saving a whole pile of money for "x", i have it!
"x" is a high end 4870x2 with 1gig GDDR5 per core!

This will need to be converted to watercooling for installation.

I am also replanning the watercooling system. The blocks and pipe joints are under a lot of pressure due to the layout of the system.

Thus, im going to redo it so that the blocks are all on the suction sides of the pumps.

The layout will be blocks -> pumps -> radiator -> res.
I will have to properly seal the res too, because when the case is on its side on the way to lans, i get some small leaks.

I will also integrate temperature sensors into the loops as well.
Fair bit of work to do.

I have also upgraded to windows 2003 64bit, and i bought another 4 gig of DDR2 - 1066. I had to get four matched sticks of ram, and they are currently not watercooled. Moving the new sticks to watercooling will be fairly difficult due to the nature of the heatpipes.
This is not much of a problem however, because even at 2.2 volts, the ram runs very cool.
I may worry about it when summer comes along, but because im really not overclocking the ram, i may just forget about it.


Will start tomorrow.
I have already started to plan the watercooling for the 4870x2

 

I can't not post a comment here, but unfortunately there isn't much for me to say. People much more articulate than myself have already said it all.

But like I said, I can't help myself...

This will go down as one of the greatest builds of all time. It doesn't even matter what hardware is in it. This is a stunning peace of contemporary art.

You should be proud of all the attention you have received, you deserve every last bit of it.

 

seriously one of the most insane things i've ever seen lol.

i know cable management probally isn't big on your list but why not just turn the HDDs the other way and have the sata cables going out the back?

 

news:
On the weekend, i watercooled the new 4870x2, and my new RAM, as well as did a bit of a revamp on the whole watercooling loop.

Some of my solder joins where a bit iffy on the waterblocks, so i redid those.
I replaced all the silicone hose with new stuff. The old stuff had gone white from the few weeks i was running tap water in it.
I also put in a new res, and the whole system is now sealed. That way when its laying on its side in my car, it wont leak coolant.

The watercooling has been rearranged with the pumps at the dead bottom.
The pumps now push the water into the rad, and then from the rad directly to all components.

GINORMOUS pic here.
Ignore cable management for the moment, its still a work in progress.

 

awesome news!
Just upgraded to a 1000 watt PSU, free thanks to a friend who decommisioned a dell xps 730 machine. I also got the watercooling system out of it as well.

So now the machine is even quieter with a really powerful and stable 1kw PSU, with plenty of 12 volt outputs.
I also finally did some cable management, with black mesh. Looks fantastic!

Will post some pics soon.

 

nice, is it less generic lookin then the one in the last pic?

 

HUGE PICS

 

Another update.
I put some fine fiberglass mesh on the front of the machine, it will help keep the damn cat hair out of the fans, and provide a bit of a uniform front of the machine.



Its held there by being clamped between the case and aluminium strip screwed down every 10 centimeters.

It doesnt look great with the flash, so here is what it looks like in the normal light.



I am thinking about putting more screws in because the mesh is fairly lose in the middle between the screw points.
That, or glue.

There is also the option of changing to any other kind of mesh that i can locate, as well as the possibility of using alumium insect screen mesh as its a bit stiffer.

 

what was happening with the side pannels?

 

Smoked perspex.
It will look black until the UV lights are on.

 

Love your work mate

With the fibro-mesh - might I suggest you look at an alternative? You can also get brass fly-wire, although it's a little hard to come by. It'd be well worth your while calling around to some of the smaller hardware stores around to see if they've got any in-stock. They generally come in black, but can be raw if you prefer - and the real benefit is that they don't go slack if there aren't enough screws.

Of course there is one drawback... if the screws are too big, they'll push open the weave of the mesh and break the look of the thing, but it's generally not too hard to deal with. Also - with the wire over fibro thing - you can also cut it to shape before you put the cover over it, and wont get the overhang of the dags.

Having said that, it looks great as is.

Cheers.

 

Mesh

Look forward to seeing the plex on the sides will definately 'complete' the look

With regards to the above posters suggestion, I found the best place to secure mesh is from Security door manufacturers (check YellowPages for local manufacturer) they often have meter wide offcuts that are perfect for modding and happily give it away...it is available in aluminum/steel/stainless steel in a variety of different patterns.

Best of luck getting the case finshined looks superb as is IMO...

KiM

 

Thanks for the ideas guys.
I may have just secured a source for some ACRyan modding mesh.

Its a bit shorter then the height of the case, but thats ok, i can put in the front usb/led/switch bar to cover the join.

the fibro mesh is a bit soft, and yea, i was looking at going for the aluminium or brass mesh.
But for the moment its doing the job, keepin cat and dog hair out of the radiator hehe.

I might do the same thing with the rear of the case however. Use the aluminium insect mesh, and cut out with a stanley knife points where i need to plug things in.
WIll provide a bit of insect protection, and a bit of RFI protection as well.

 

UV!

Yes, UV lamps have been kinda dodged in for now, will be properly setting them up at a future date, along with the fan speed controller.

as for now, look at this!