The Lightbringer by Kaidis a.k.a. partybrosdesign

[Kaidis86]

Updates updates!

Got my mounting hardware and passthroughs in, thanks to Daz and his wonderfully fast shipping options! Now to decide how to mount it.... if I mount it high I have no use for 2 of my 3 passthroughs in the current plan. If I mount it low it's kinda wobbly and not very secure(even empty), and I have to reroute my drain, but the 2 extra passthroughs will look nice. I could probably brace the res and pump with something but that takes away more space in the already limited basement area and I still have to run cables and install the psu again so I doubt the low mounting option will end up being viable, even if it looks nice with the extra fittings.

I'm leaning towards up high and modding a bracket to drop down a bit, the top of the res with the heatkiller logo plate is JUUUUUST touching the fan as it sits in the first photo now, stopping it from freely spinning, and the mounting is at the very top and cant be moved up any further without a bit of modding.

I COULD get a 15mm fan, but I'd rather not take the easy way out and spend money or get someone else to machine something for me so, it's time to brainstorm with some random case mounting brackets and see what I can adapt!

on the plus side... I'll have some extra fittings if I need to change anything between now and december! Tuesday is tubing day though which means I'll finally have a working PC this week again... even if it's not entirely finished yet itll still be functional!

[Tpbmods]

If the other contestants aren't worried about you... I want it to be publicly known, that I'm terrified at how amazing this build is

[Kaidis86]

If the other contestants aren't worried about you... I want it to be publicly known, that I'm terrified at how amazing this build is

Aww shucks heh thanks mang! It would still be an empty shell in my storage if you hadn't pushed me to do it

[section31]

Amazing Build. I wonder if its possible to add some of the features that was in the SMA8A revision into the Mercury Lineup.

I've been thinking of some mods to my S8 in the future. Get an acrylic with temper glass windows door system like the SMA8A revision, an pedestal like the S8 one but supports 480/560mm radiator. Also expand the depth of the side doors so it had an channel for the hard tubing to go through. The ultimate version of caselab tribute.

[section31]

Front mounting it vertically, space restricts me from doing almost anything else. Using the heatkiller mounts with a 140mm fan mount adapter kit. Was contemplating mounting it up top horizontally or in the back horizontally but I dont think I want to have my res over my components for my first hard tube loop. In the event something leaks the way I've got it, it will drain instead of pooling inside the case.

I would have loved to see that. However, lot of work to get that setup working. Ever looked into adding those BarrowsCH temperature, flow meter or even the aquacomputer external next display. That would be kind of cool addition to any system.

[Kaidis86]

I have a flow direction meter but I'm approaching the point of not enough space for tubing. There are going to be a lot of tight curves as is to connect everything. The s3 is like a reverse tardis... it's a lot smaller in the inside lol.

[section31]

I think i saw the s3 you got, it was one of the leftover from the short time ncix carried caselabs. They were really good bargins.

Caselabs by themselves are reasonable price imo, what kills it is shipping and gst/pst. My s8 originally cost me 800usd before gst/pst (bought it to replace pain to build in lianli pc-012). The shipping was 100usd and i probably had to pay another 100dollars in gst/pst. Fortunate i had friend in state i could ship to and bring the case up as well (parents still live here). Final price was 600ish usd, much more reasonable. Basically i spent 600cad on pc-012 when i should have just got another caselabs for slightly more instead that didnt cause me headaches building in day one.

Did same thing with the bh8, what would cost me 400usd in total became 300usd. Used the savings on heatkiller tube and cpu block.

[section31]

Tells you tip of ice berg on overbudget my personal build went. That resulted in two new computers for friends (they chipped in to complete the builds). Three full custom loop builds (gpu, cpu). The kicker was my friend got my original pc build from 2008 (i7-920) upgraded with modern sub 100cad case, gtx970, ssds over the years but just changed chipset to an z370 and i5-8400. Literally whatever i passed to friends in the past, come back to me and get reused. In a a way, im quite environmentally friendly tech wise. Only throwout items that no longer work.

Took me a long time to throw away all the primochill tubing i got from ncix. Everyone who used it all ended up buying mayhem soft tubing and giving it back to me.

[Kaidis86]

The s3 I got was from Linus. It was a review sample they were given. It wasnt in view on any of the auction pages.

[Kaidis86]

Well what a day! Headed over to Mr. Pipebombs place this morning (I dont own hard tube bending tools) so I could do my bends! Made up a mount for the res out of some spare acrylic sheet, painted it black to match the radiator its attached to, and got the reservoir mounted right where I wanted it!

it's now in the perfect place to fill, doesnt obstruct the fans at all, and looks awesome (at least in my opinion :p)

ended up doing away with the top shroud plate for now, so no passthroughs, was difficult enough for my first time bending tubes to get some of these bends, but I've got a great teacher who showed me how to fix my mistakes as they were made!

Once again, an enormous thank you to my mentor Kevin, for all the instruction and patience in helping walk this greenhorn through the intimidating process of doing a custom hard tube loop!

more photos to follow pronto!

[Kaidis86]

Aaaaaaand a whole bunch more of the loop bit by bit as it went in!

[Kaidis86]

One little glamour angle for good measure heh the final touches will be installed over the next week and my final photos will be following that!

[section31]

Really tight fit. You used all the space literally.

[Kaidis86]

Really tight fit. You used all the space literally.

It definitely was a tight fit! Was a lot of brainstorming and messing around to figure out how to get it all in there and looking nice.

last night I got to finally boot it up and set up the lighting a little bit. Added in the Fluid, it's distilled water with EK Cryofuel Navy blue concentrate! Ran a 5 hour leak test before adding the Cryofuel concentrate! Then another 8 hours of leak testing. Booted up on the first try nothing makes me happier than a seamless first boot.

set my xmp profile for my memory at 3200mhz, installed windows and drivers, ran a couple quick tests, and after 15 minutes in prime95 it maxed out at 49c at 4.6ghz across all cores(not overclocked yet) idling between 22-26,

GPU is idling at 22c and maxed out at 36c with a cinebench run.

I'm thoroughly pleased with the initial results, and will be pushing things further since I definitely have the headroom for a decent overclock!

only one issue I ran into was some goofball crimped the connectors together for the power button and reset button so it having trouble getting them apart without ripping the pins clean off the button. So I'm gonna have to find a set of replacement cables so I can wire the switches I want to use, for ow though I'm just using the caselabs ones draped over the side... not final but functional for now. Gonna play with the rig for a while now that its functioning and finish the remainder of the build in the coming weeks.

for now though heres some more pictures with it lit up

[section31]

Looking nice. Your issue is easily fixable. Its just standard vandal buttons. I actually have spare vandal power one around (the one on my old s5 slightly damaged ) just never installed it.