Hey guys, it's time for another case mod project! This will be for my daughter this time (if you recall I did a Minecraft R2-D2 mod last year for my son).

I'll be using the Suppressor F51 for this build, as it lends itself well to the sleak and elegant design my daughter and I came up with.  She wanted a pink rose themed build, so I will have a beautiful rose-shaped reservoir in the front, and all the hardware will be openly displayed on a custom one-piece angular chassis insert. All plumbing will be hidden behind the insert, except for an elegant curved water channel that spans over the motherboard to the GPU...




Here's a breakdown of hardware I'll be using in this build:


EVGA X99 microATX motherboard


EVGA GTX 970 with EK block


EVGA 550w Supernova GS PSU and X10 Carbon mouse


Crucial 250Gb SSD, and 16Gb DDR4 Ballistix memory kit


EK Supremacy Evo CPU block


EK D5 Pump top and chrome cover


EK 280mm Coolstream Radiator


EK 45º and 90º elbow fittings


Primochill Revolver fittings & fluid

Huge thanks to Primochill, EVGA, Crucial, EK, and of course Thermaltake for their continued support!

So let's get to some actual modding shall we? Seems lately I can't help but to hack into a case first thing. So after stripping it down to the frame, I taped off the area that will be cut away to make room for the new one-piece insert...




I made a cardboard template to see how the pieces will fit together.  Only three pieces make up the entire insert:  Back piece, angled center piece, and front piece.


After some initial attempts at bending the center piece myself, I realized I wasn't going to be able to produce the results I was looking for, so I sucked up my pride and brought the cardboard template down to the local metal fab shop and had them weld it up for me.


They did a nice job bending and tack-welding the pieces together.  I can now go in with the bondo and smooth out the panels and fill in the corners.


I'm hoping to have this case done for PDXLAN 28 in July, my daughter's first lan.  :)  Stay tuned!

I was wondering if you're going to give that 'rose' on the front of the chassis a 3D effect.

Boddaker

rjohnson11
I was wondering if you're going to give that 'rose' on the front of the chassis a 3D effect.

Yeah, the plan is to design a 3D model and then print it using a transparent PLA.  :)
 

Nice!

I am curious about the purpose of the tube...

My guess is, Tube makes for a nice reservoir  - ?
 
 

Very cool build to do for your daughter. Looking forward to seeing your progress and looks great so far.

Impressive.

Thanks guys!
 
Now that the bubble tube assembly is done, I just have to install it into the case.  And the only feasible way to do that is to come up from the bottom.  So I started by cutting out a piece of the bottom panel.


The hole is just big enough for the bubble base to fit through.


Then a cover plate was made, and mounting brackets to hold the base.


Now the base is secured to the cover plate.


And the whole thing can slide right in from the bottom, and secured in place with a few screws.


All I need to do now is connect the lights and the pump and its good to go!


Filled and bubbling..


And of course the token night shot..


Thanks for reading, 'til next time!


 

It's always fun to watch how your mods evolve from start to finish.

This is so cool, really enjoy the bubbles

That's a great feature the bubbles are awesome!

getting better and better

Got the graphics card placement figured out over the weekend..

As much as I hated to cut into the angled panel, I needed to set the video card down into it.  So I cut a wide H pattern and bent the top down so it was vertical..


Then I bent the bottom half so it was flat, creating a nice ledge for the card to sit on.


Next was to cut away some material for PCI riser card and IO clearance..


Here's the card in place.


Wide shot with mobo tray..


Close up of DVI ports.  Wish I could just remove them from the card altogether, since I will just be using the HDMI and/or displayports.


And finally, a little reinforcing was done, using a spot welder.  Of course all the welds will be smoothed over with bondo before paint.  :)


I just have one more rose grill to cut out (for the PSU exhaust), and then a few wire pass-through holes and it's ready for final prep/paint.

Finally finished the last rose cutout!  This time I could use my scroll saw, as the cutout was located in a more accessible area on the panel.

Made up a slightly different rose template to match the more vertical shape of the PSU.


Glued it down, and started cutting out the holes.  A bit cumbersome maneuvering the whole thing around on the saw, even with using a spiral omni-directional blade.


So far so good..


.. and done!  After the scroll saw, I went back over every hole with a dremel grinding bit to smooth out all the cuts.  Still need to do some sanding yet.


Final shot with the PSU placed behind.  Notice the bottom hole lines up with the power switch.  :)


Next step is to cut one more square hole at the bottom for the power cable plug, then I can mount the PSU.

Thanks for reading!