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First off, I would like to thank Daz and Thermaltake for sponsoring the competition. It happened at an opportune time as I just finished my Nuka Cola based build that has been in the works for many years. I apologize for the lack of pictures of the actual build process as well as the poor quality of the photos. Photography is not much of a hobby of mine and all I’ve got for a camera is the one on my phone. Here is a teaser before the next wall of text.
I’ve wanted to build a system utilizing a Nuka Cola Quantum bottle from the time I first saw what UV reactive fluid could do. The original plan, which predated Fallout 4, was to use a small Coke bottle with a hole cut into the glass bottom for a reservoir. I had done some preliminary testing but wasn’t putting a lot of effort into it at the time. The first couple bottles I tried to drill broke and I decided to take my time to find a way to make it work. Then Fallout 4 came out and changed the design of the bottles. I abandoned my plans for this build at the time because I could not think of a way to recreate the new bottles in a way that would be watertight.
Last October I came across an article about printing optically clear containers with a 3D printer. 3D printing had interested me but I could not justify the cost to myself to get one. The ability to create the Fallout 4 bottle was the push I needed to get one. I spent the next few months learning to do 3D design and learning to get the most out of the 3D printer. I went through 3 – 1KG rolls of PETG plastic just prototyping the bottles. It took many months of testing to prove to myself that it was even possible to make this work.
Test Setup for temperature testing the bottles
The pump and Peltier setup to test the bottles
Testing the bottles to 60°C coolant temperature. The pump did not survive.
In December I figured out that I could also use the 3D printer to do the exterior mods to the case that I was originally planning to do with aluminum. It took many months of designing and prototyping until I was ready to start to put it all together. The computer hardware in the system is:
Gigabyte Z170N-Wifi Mini-Itx motherboard
Intel i7-6700 processor
Corsair Vengeance LED 32GB DDR4 3200 Blue LED ram
Samsung 950 Pro 512GB M.2 SSD
Sandisk Ultra II 960GB SSD
MSI Armor 1080 OC 8GB Video Card
Silverstone Strider Platinum 550w Modular Power Supply
Bitfenix Prodigy – base case
The Watercooling hardware is:
Phobya UC-2 Nickle Plexi CPU Block
EKWB 1080 TF6 waterblock
EKWB PWM DDC Pump Kit Nickle Plexi
Darkside 240 Slim Radiator in top
Darkside 240 Slim Crossflow Radiator on the side
Bitspower 10mm acrylic tubing
Various fittings (Mainly Darkside)
5 Darkside PWM 120mm fans
I started the final fitting and painting in July and finished it at the beginning of September. Here is the rest of the pictures.
Left Profile
GPU Close-up
Top of case
Right Profile. The fan grill is 3D printed and held in place with magnets.
Switches mounted under the case to turn off the screen and LED’s
3D printed cover for SSD
I designed the case feet to look like fountain drink cups
Cramped interior shot.
Left side with side panel off
Right Side with side panel off
Back of case
Coin mechanism is used as power switch. It is designed to work with $1 and $2 coins, quarters also sometimes work but smaller coins tend to miss the switch. Coin return switch is used for reset switch. Screen is a 5” display attached to a Raspberry Pi 2 set up to rotate through a few images while on. It has no communication with the system inside the case. Both the door in front of the bottle and the panel the switched are connected to are held in place with magnets.
I’ve wanted to build a system utilizing a Nuka Cola Quantum bottle from the time I first saw what UV reactive fluid could do. The original plan, which predated Fallout 4, was to use a small Coke bottle with a hole cut into the glass bottom for a reservoir. I had done some preliminary testing but wasn’t putting a lot of effort into it at the time. The first couple bottles I tried to drill broke and I decided to take my time to find a way to make it work. Then Fallout 4 came out and changed the design of the bottles. I abandoned my plans for this build at the time because I could not think of a way to recreate the new bottles in a way that would be watertight.
Last October I came across an article about printing optically clear containers with a 3D printer. 3D printing had interested me but I could not justify the cost to myself to get one. The ability to create the Fallout 4 bottle was the push I needed to get one. I spent the next few months learning to do 3D design and learning to get the most out of the 3D printer. I went through 3 – 1KG rolls of PETG plastic just prototyping the bottles. It took many months of testing to prove to myself that it was even possible to make this work.
Test Setup for temperature testing the bottles
The pump and Peltier setup to test the bottles
Testing the bottles to 60°C coolant temperature. The pump did not survive.
In December I figured out that I could also use the 3D printer to do the exterior mods to the case that I was originally planning to do with aluminum. It took many months of designing and prototyping until I was ready to start to put it all together. The computer hardware in the system is:
Gigabyte Z170N-Wifi Mini-Itx motherboard
Intel i7-6700 processor
Corsair Vengeance LED 32GB DDR4 3200 Blue LED ram
Samsung 950 Pro 512GB M.2 SSD
Sandisk Ultra II 960GB SSD
MSI Armor 1080 OC 8GB Video Card
Silverstone Strider Platinum 550w Modular Power Supply
Bitfenix Prodigy – base case
The Watercooling hardware is:
Phobya UC-2 Nickle Plexi CPU Block
EKWB 1080 TF6 waterblock
EKWB PWM DDC Pump Kit Nickle Plexi
Darkside 240 Slim Radiator in top
Darkside 240 Slim Crossflow Radiator on the side
Bitspower 10mm acrylic tubing
Various fittings (Mainly Darkside)
5 Darkside PWM 120mm fans
I started the final fitting and painting in July and finished it at the beginning of September. Here is the rest of the pictures.
Left Profile
GPU Close-up
Top of case
Right Profile. The fan grill is 3D printed and held in place with magnets.
Switches mounted under the case to turn off the screen and LED’s
3D printed cover for SSD
I designed the case feet to look like fountain drink cups
Cramped interior shot.
Left side with side panel off
Right Side with side panel off
Back of case
Coin mechanism is used as power switch. It is designed to work with $1 and $2 coins, quarters also sometimes work but smaller coins tend to miss the switch. Coin return switch is used for reset switch. Screen is a 5” display attached to a Raspberry Pi 2 set up to rotate through a few images while on. It has no communication with the system inside the case. Both the door in front of the bottle and the panel the switched are connected to are held in place with magnets.
to the Forums and the Competition
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