EnergyFX's Thermaltake Soprano RS build

[kenkickr]

That sucks!! Today I've been working on my friends system and I love it when drill bits decide to go were they want to go

[EnergyFX]

Hey I ordered a couple of Noctua fans for this build and I will need to paint them. Reddish brown and flesh tan just don't really match the theme here.

I wouldn't mind some advice and tips on painting fans. I'm plenty experienced with spray painting, but I've yet to paint a PC fan .

[steelkane]

Originally Posted by EnergyFX

Hey I ordered a couple of Noctua fans for this build and I will need to paint them. Reddish brown and flesh tan just don't really match the theme here.

I wouldn't mind some advice and tips on painting fans. I'm plenty experienced with spray painting, but I've yet to paint a PC fan .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-pYehiy85U

[EnergyFX]

Originally Posted by steelkane

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-pYehiy85U

That's what I needed to know. Thanks.

I just tried it with the cheap Thermaltake fan that came with the case. Worked perfectly, but I lost the little retaining ring

Lesson learned... I'll have to be more careful with the Noctuas.

[steelkane]

N/P anytime, you going to post the fans painted here, I'd like to see what you do with them.

[EnergyFX]

Originally Posted by steelkane

N/P anytime, you going to post the fans painted here, I'd like to see what you do with them.

Of course!

[MKmods]

Originally Posted by EnergyFX

That's what I needed to know. Thanks.

I just tried it with the cheap Thermaltake fan that came with the case. Worked perfectly, but I lost the little retaining ring

Lesson learned... I'll have to be more careful with the Noctuas.

Dont worry about the retaining clips...I never re use them(allows easy re-modding of the fans)

As for painting, try to keep the coat of paint as thin as possible. Heavy coats, multiple coats, primer/Paint coating makes the fan blade too heavy and it slows down the fan.

So far excellent job.

EDIT: one other tip, I clean the fan and motor Assembly of all its grease/oil and when I re install the blade I put just a bit of Car brake grease on the shaft. I use brake grease because it is resistant to higher temps and wont go all over like light weight oil does.

[EnergyFX]

Thanks Mark. I was actually wondering just how necessary the clip is on low-mid CFM fans. Nice tip on the grease too.

[MKmods]

LOL, I raised the voltage to about 19V before the windings fried to see If I could get the blade to fly off but it stayed put.

[EnergyFX]

Originally Posted by MKmods

LOL, I raised the voltage to about 19V before the windings fried to see If I could get the blade to fly off but it stayed put.

Heh, I wonder how one of those ultra high speed 100+CFM fans would do.

[Cold Storm]

Grab a Delta EFB1312VH fan! 185cfms... lol

The mod looks good so far man! Going to add a kitty window!

[EnergyFX]

Here are a couple of SketchUps of what I have been considering on the lower back panel next to the expansion slots. The idea is to use four 40x40x10 mm red led fans mounted to exhaust hot air from the video cards.





I'll have to wait until the fans come in before I'll know whether mounting them the way they are pictured will be feasible or not. I'm pretty sure the LEDs are going to make it a bit more complicated than pictured. I may end up deciding to go with black ones instead of the LEDs too. I'm kind of on the fence about it.

[MKmods]

very nice.

[steelkane]

I know PerformancePCs has some nice 40mm fans http://www.performance-pcs.com/catal...78cc9f01f4364a
I use them instead of the stock fans on the corsair Dominator cooler, they work great, & the Leds are on the back side motor,

[Snipermonkey2]

kudos on the mods looks really good.

[EnergyFX]

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/61...?tl=g36c15s664

I went with these, which look identical to the 10mm thick Performance-PCs version. This is all experimental but I went with the 10mm thick version in hopes that they will create minimal interference with installing/removing expansion cards. Plus I think the lower profile design will look pretty slick. If I can mount them on the outside of the case with the inner housing intruding into the case (as pictured in the SketchUp drawings above) then there should only be about 6-7mm of intrusion, which (in theory) will allow plenty of room to navigate expansion cards into and out of position.

Worst case scenario... the fans will have to be unbolted each time the expansion cards need to be removed or a new one installed. If that ends up being the case then I might as well go with higher performance 25 or 28mm thick fans.

[steelkane]

First off, I should or want to learn how to use sketchup. Second, fans in back will look & work nice, what were you thinking about doing for all the wires, maybe connect them into one harness.

[EnergyFX]

SketchUp is stupid easy to get started on basics. It's free from Google. Just dl it and start playing. It has decent tutorial tips for each tool to help you get started. Also, when you build a model you can publish it to Google so others can import and use it. For example, I drew the panels in the pictures above, but the fans are somebody elses work that I simply imported, resized, and manipulated to work with my intentions. The whole process took about an hour and a half... mainly because I had to keep grabbing the case and measuring this and that to make the drawing accurate.

As for the wiring. I'll harness all four fans into a single cable. I prefer a minimalistic approach to cabling.

[TheCrow]

Excellent thread EnergyFX.

You inspired me to get some modding done on my soprano at the weekend. It's not as nice a job as yours but i'll get there. I'm still waiting for some perspec to arrive for my window. And some rubber trim and a dremel to tidy up my cuts.





I had the same idea about a fan blowing onto the GPU, but i went for just what i had lying around the house!

[EnergyFX]

Hey Crow, what are the two odd looking slots above the small fan in that last picture? The ones that have a bit of red light shining through.

[Cold Storm]

Hmm, that fan design does look good. It beats what Cooler Master tried to do with their Cosmos RC 1000 cases... I have two OCZ fans from my cooler that I can't use anymore... Might just try it out!

[steelkane]

Thanks, I didn't know about Importing other use files, going to give that a try

[EnergyFX]

Oh, BTW... to answer what a few of you have probably wondered but been polite enough not to ask... I painted the frame because I honestly thought I was done with it. I do this quite often actually... assume that step X is complete and eagerly move on to step Y. The problem is when I have to wait for parts to come in. That is wasted time that does nothing but breed new ideas. Not to mention that the time waiting ends up becoming the perfect time to spend endless hours tinkering with menial details that I would have otherwise left alone.

Please tell me I'm not the only one afflicted with this!

[Cold Storm]

Originally Posted by EnergyFX

Oh, BTW... to answer what a few of you have probably wondered but been polite enough not to ask... I painted the frame because I honestly thought I was done with it. I do this quite often actually... assume that step X is complete and eagerly move on to step Y. The problem is when I have to wait for parts to come it. That is wasted time that does nothing but breed new ideas. Not to mention that the time waiting ends up becomming the perfect time to spend tinkering endlessly with menial details that I would have otherwise left alone.

Please tell me I'm not the only one afflicted with this!

Dude, waiting on parts are bad! I'm constantly thinking up things and ways to work on the cosmos.. Ask Steel! lol... But, with more stuff coming in, and so forth, It's slowing down and getting a hand on things!

[MKmods]

Originally Posted by EnergyFX

Please tell me I'm not the only one afflicted with this!

I am sooo guilty of that.