![]() ![]() With three loops in this beast, that's a fair bit of tubing and A LOT of fittings. In total that's two Commander Pros, five RGB controllers, and two Lighting Node Pros. To provide power, I made a bunch of SATA power cables that were to length so that they reach from the AX1600i PSU all the way to where they need to go. Each bracket has two RGB controllers, which then feed into a Lighting Node Pro, which in turn is connected via USB to a Commander Pro. I designed the front and top radiator brackets so that they had a suitable gap between them in which to place controllers and wires, to prevent clutter. Some have had success with this, others have reported less desirable results, so I decided just to play it safe and use more ports instead.įor the RGB, things were a little more complex. I wanted to do four fans per cable, but since each supposedly draws 0.3A it would have put them above the 1A per channel capability of the controller. These then go into the fan power sockets on two Commander Pro controllers. With four fans on each radiator, that meant there would be two cables coming from each to allow the fans to spin (I used the handy fan cable mod to do this), so 10 cables in total. The solution I went with was to first combine the power cables into pairs. I'd be lying if I said it was a simple fix, but it did all work out in the end. Okay, that's fine, but we have 20 fans here! Not only that, but they're all placed in hard to reach locations, and each controller used requires an additional SATA power connection. You can then optionally plug that controller into a Lighting Node Pro and/or a Commander Pro controller for more advanced software control. The RGB connectors, however, require you to plug into a small controller (which can support up to six fans). The power wires are standard four-pin connectors that you'd typically plug into the motherboard or a fan controller, so no surprises there. ![]() ![]() The LL120 fans we're using come with 2 wires, one for the lighting and one to power the fan motors. Probably the biggest drawback of any RGB system for a PC builder is the wiring. Additionally, I made a set of matching backplates for the GPUs as well as blanking plates for the front and rear (again to keep those pesky cables in check). This gives the panel a clean finish with no visible fasteners.Īlso on the chopping list was a rather bombastic pump mount, specifically housing three VP655 Vario pumps that lead directly from the reservoirs above and flow into the other distro panels. Similarly when viewed from above, the mirror finish gives the impression that the bottom section is in fact empty! To achieve this I machined an acrylic mirror alongside a thicker 10mm section these were then chemically bonded together to create a tight seal, as opposed to screws and o-rings like the other panels. To alleviate that I went with a mirrored panel approach, and that way the coolant channels appear to float on top of the mirrored surface. The thing is, I also wanted to make it seem like it wasn't there, most of the build is clear or polished metal, so having a large opaque section would seem out of place. Since there will be so many fan and accessory cables in this build, it made sense to have some some sort of shroud at least so that things can be kept neat. Next up we have a rather special distro plate, which sits below the GPUs. I'll be going into more detail about how to create one of these terminals in a future dedicated article, but in essence it replaces the stock acetal one provided by Watercool with an acrylic version (also running parallel), meaning the coolant will be visible within the terminal. First on the list of pieces to finish up was a custom GPU SLI terminal to connect the three GTX 1080 Tis going into the TR4 system. With iSeries fast approaching and a Corsair booth that would be decidedly lacking without a certain 1000D project in place, it was time to button down the hatches and get to it. Well, thankfully the good folks at Alphacool were happy to step in and provide, and boy did they - look at this pile! Of course, up until this point there's been a distinct lack of fittings, tubing, pumps, radiators, and coolant. That said, there's still a huge amount of work to show off, including the assembly of the main distro plate system, all the interior metal panels, mucho hardware, and last but not least a little too much RGB for any sane individual. Actually, there's a hell of a lot left to do and not much time in which to do it, namely all the major cable work and the custom front panel. ![]()
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