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Project: Aluminum Water Cooling Case

t_ski

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Glad to see you're still going with this, but I'd love to see it come along a little faster :p
 
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Man I wish I had the resources and skills to do what you do... AWESOME job so far... Can't wait to see it finished... :toast:
 
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I made a mistake, placing the false back too far into the case, which required having to re-fabricate the back sheet. But I figured I could take advantage of the situation by improving the mounting of the motherboard tray, by fastening the tray to the false back with a 7/8-inch long spacer.



I don't remember if I already offered this tip before, but I try to reduce the wear and tear on my 1/2-inch flush cutting router bit by first rough cutting with a 3/16-inch spiral downward cutting bit.

 
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A PSU mounting plate was routed out of a piece .10-inch thick aluminum sheet with the help of a custom template.

In order to accurately transfer the locations of the PSU mounting holes, threaded hole transfer punches (mcmaster.com part # 3385A31) were threaded into a PSU.






And then the PSU was carefully centered and pressed into the sheeting, with the end result being a perfect squarely mounted PSU.

 

Phusius

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faster! faster! ::cracks whip::

thats what she said
 

de.das.dude

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A PSU mounting plate was routed out of a piece .10-inch thick aluminum sheet with the help of a custom template.

In order to accurately transfer the locations of the PSU mounting holes, threaded hole transfer punches (mcmaster.com part # 3385A31) were threaded into a PSU.

http://i715.photobucket.com/albums/... Cooling Case/ThreadedHoleTransferPunches.jpg

http://i715.photobucket.com/albums/...num Water Cooling Case/TransferPunchInPSU.jpg


And then the PSU was carefully centered and pressed into the sheeting, with the end result being a perfect squarely mounted PSU.

http://i715.photobucket.com/albums/ww153/Spotswood_/Aluminum Water Cooling Case/PSUMountingPlate.jpg


thats a nifty piece of tool right there :O
 

t_ski

Former Staff
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System Name My i7 Beast
Processor Intel Core i7 6800K
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Cooling Nickel-plated EK Supremacy EVO, D5 with XSPC Bayres & BIX Quad Radiator
Memory 4 x 8GB EVGA SuperSC DDR4-3200
Video Card(s) EVGA 1080 SuperClocked
Storage Samsung 950 Pro 256GB m.2 SSD + 480GB Sandisk storage SSD
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Another router template was made to cutout the areas for the PSUs out of the back sheet. A guide was clamped to the bottom of the template to keep the cutouts perfectly aligned along the bottom.







 
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Turned out that I needed to cut one more slot out of the bottom shelf. But the last time I used my wooden "small slot" router template, I somehow managed to crush one edge, so I quickly cobbled together a new out of some left over t-slot extrusion. I'm really loving using these t-slot extrusions to make router templates - fast and accurate!




Here's a teeth-shattering video of me cutting out the slot.



 
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Performed the mind-numbing task of fastening the bottom and top sheets to the case frame via flat head socket cap screws. Through and countersink holes were drilled into the sheet and transferred to the case frame via a self-centering counterbore drill bit.







Bottom sheet all fastened:




And top sheet all drilled out:

 

mediasorcerer

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What a monster, pleasing to see your metalwork, inspiring and thanx! How will you finish the aluminium? what about anodizing in a color??
 

mediasorcerer

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Memory 2x4gb g.skill ripjaws z 2400
Video Card(s) h.i.s radeon 7950 reference 3 gb- hooray!!!
Storage samsung 128gb~830 ssd. samsung 500gb hdrive.
Display(s) 22 inch tele.
Case circa 1996 grey rat box with no sides front.until my own is finished
Audio Device(s) inbuilt creative.supreme effects 3
Power Supply thermaltake tt-500w
Software win 7 x64-
Benchmark Scores Coming soon
I used to do casting in aluminium, it can look great polished, but does oxidise slightly over time, black powdercoat sounds beautiful. cant wait to see it!
 

HammerON

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Long time no see:)
Glad to see you are making progress:toast:
 

de.das.dude

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Cooling 240mm Rad | Not needed | hyper 212 EVO
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VR HMD ;_;
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i thought you had forgotten us XD
 
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Finished the lower portion of the back sheet, which involved installing the PEM nuts, trimming the PSU mounting plates to the final size and creating an extra solid cover plate (which I almost forgot to do).

 
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Aug 1, 2009
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959 (0.18/day)
Location
Currently somewhere around NSW, Australia
System Name hmmm... / lappy (ASUS Scar III)
Processor Intel Core i7-8086K / Intel Core i7-9750H
Motherboard ASUS Maximus XI Formula / ASUS G531GW
Cooling Noctua NH-D15s w/ 2 x Noctua NF-F12 PWM Chromax and 1 x Noctua NF-A15 HS-PWM Chromax Fans / Stock
Memory 4x16gb G.Skill Trident Z DDR4 3600mhz / 2x16gb Kingston Hyper X Impact DDR4 2666mhz C15
Video Card(s) 2 x EVGA GTX 1080 TI FTW3 / Nvidia RTX 2070 8gb
Storage 2 x Samsung 960 EVO Plus 1tb NVME/ 1tb Intel SSDPEKNW010T8 NVME + 2tb Samsung 860 EVO SSD
Display(s) Acer Predator X34P / ASUS 15.6" Screen
Case Fractal Design Meshify S2 White-TG + Noctua Chromax Fans / ASUS Scar III Case
Audio Device(s) Onboard + Logitech Z623 / Onboard
Power Supply Seasonic Prime Ultra Titanium 1000W + PROLINK PRO903WS / ASUS ADP-230GB B Power Brick
Mouse Corsair Vengeance M65 PRO RGB / Logitech MX Anywhere 2S
Keyboard Corsair K70 LUX RGB / ASUS Scar III Keyboard
Software Windows 10 Professional x64 / Windows 10 Professional x64
I am in AWE... :toast:

Keep it coming... Keep it coming... :D
 
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