Project Coppernaut

[Nitrogen]

Aloha! I'd like to share with you my latest build, Coppernaut. I chose this name because 1) this build is heavily copper-themed, utilizing copper components, accents and mods and 2) the -naut suffix makes me think of the Greek Argonauts, heroes of the sea and adventurers. Water is fitting because I am designing custom and completely overkill watercooling for Coppernaut. Adventuring works because I will be pushing the boundaries of my own modding experience and my components. Basically, we're gonna get [H]ardcore here.

I'm also writing this log from the future, you could say. I began this project Sept 22, 2012, so I have a 1.25-year head start on you as you read this. The good news is this will allow me to write up the project chunk-by-chunk without waiting months between updates.

Many warranties were harmed in the making of this computer.

My goals starting out:

• Hard copper tubing
• Extreme watercooling
• Black- and copper-themed components
• Combining some of the craziest ideas out there, plus a few of my own
• Built on the Haswell architecture (i4770K)
• Overclock the bejeezus out of it
• Minimal corner-cutting

I'd love to see what you guys think and see if you have any more crazy ideas for me. It's 90% done right now but I can fit a lot into that last 10%.

So, without further ado, here's where we start.

As my case, I chose a Silverstone FT02B, which has a flipped-and-rotated ATX layout. The motherboard mounts on the left side, not the right, and is rotated 90° so the connections come out the top. Why did I choose this case? THE FANS! There are three massive 180mm Silverstone Air Penetrator fans in the bottom of this beast, which happen to go great with a 3x180mm radiator. Here's what it looks like stock.

Outside:

Inside:

So about $250 worth of case arrived and what do I do? Immediately disassemble it, of course. After much unscrewing and drilling out rivets, it's looking a little bare. Notice I had to remove the drive cage to accommodate the extra height added. But we can deal with these things. I'd seen people shorten them to three drives and remount them horizontally, so no big deal.

Mocked up with the radiator and fans. Sexy.

At this point, I bought a jigsaw (projects are great excuses for buying more tools ), went to town with the blue masking tape, then measured, marked, measured again, and measured some more.

No turning back now.

I also needed a template of the radiator opening, so I did this pencil rub.

Transferred to the case. This involved a ridiculous amount more measuring and checking.

Got the details cut out. This was followed by a shit-ton of filing. Steel is a pain to work with compared to aluminum.

Looking pretty good with the radiator in there.

My clearances were so tight on these tabs on the motherboard tray that I couldn't even put the fan screws in. But it holds tight nonetheless.

So that's what I've got for tonight. Next time we look at a new mounting system for the fan filters and setting up the watercooling reservoir.

Edit: Skydrive wasn't working quite right for hosting the images. Moved to Imgur.

 

[Nitrogen]

Removing the stock fan and fan filter mounting hardware meant coming up with a new solution. I love magnets, and this case is made of steel, so it was a natural direction to go. Plus I had a bunch of spare square NiB magnets from past projects, so I taped four in place as a trial run. This relocates the filters from inside the case to the outside of the sub-case. (There is a U-shaped aluminum body which the steel case sits in with an opening at the bottom for air to flow in, so they will be in that opening now.)

This held very well magnet-to-steel and pretty well with the magnet and steel sandwiching the filter (pictured). I opted for the former for my final configuration, and rotated the magnets to fit in the corners. They were superglued into place on all three filters.

I did a ton of research finding the right reservoir for my design because I wanted something simple and clean looking. I finally found Danger Den's Monsoon reservoir, which fit the bill. Unfortunately, Danger Den closed shop shortly before I needed to buy this, so I had to search eBay and was able to purchase a slightly-used model.

I also bought some copper tape, which seemed like an easy way to add a bit of copper accenting. I trimmed the outside 1/4" with the tape, as well as the inside frame of the window.

I decided after finishing I didn't like having the copper on all four sides, so I removed it and added it back to just the sides.

 

[jojo69]

alright, that "my radiator is the whole front of my rig" thing is totally bad ass

 

[shollz]

digging the copper

 

[DraginDime]

alright, that "my radiator is the whole front of my rig" thing is totally bad ass

It's actually the bottom, but still plenty bad ass. 3x180 Radiator is huge, and looks right at home in there. Nice build so far!

 

[jojo69]

looks like the front to me...unless he has his I/O aperture pointing up

 

[ToddW2]

You two can argue all you want but if you actually would read the OP said "bottom".

Why did I choose this case? THE FANS! There are three massive 180mm Silverstone Air Penetrator fans in the bottom of this beast,

 

[jojo69]

that's fine, I'm not arguing, so he has his I/O facing up,

 

[DraginDime]

yep, that's how the layout of the Silverstone FT02B is. It's a pretty awesome tower stock.
If you look at the first pic of the case, you can see how the I/O panel is at the top, you can see three of the PCI slot cover/screws.
The top cover hides the wires.

 

[Jorona]

Right, the IO plate is on the top of the case. The 5 1/4 bays are facing down in that pic.