Inspired by the incredible Brandywine produced by a certain "Mister Fist" I wanted to do a rather tasteless modification on an Arc Mini R2. I love this case, but the look of the front panel is not to my liking. The faux brushed aluminum just looks cheap IMHO. The rest is great though, and it's the only case that can handle a 360mm radiator that is Micro ATX (at least without modding)
I'm calling it DiscoSteele because there will be a disco ball somewhere, and it will have a somewhat metallic appearance, so the "Steele" part is to pay homage to a certain 6'10" singer of Type O Negative who passed away a couple of years ago.
On to the actual hardware:
1 Core I7 3930K probably between 4.4 and 4.6Ghz
1 Asrock Extreme X79 Extreme 4-M motherboard
1 Quad Channel Memory kit, probably 4x4GB of Corsair Dominator Platinum RAM @ 1866mhz
2x XFX R9 290 Double Dissipation video cards
1 Corsair AX1200i or AX860i PSU
1 Samsung 840 EVO 512GB SSD (mounted behind the motherboard)
1 Seagate Momentus XT 500GB SSHD (also mounted behind the motherboard)
1 Custom painted Fractal Design Arc Mini R2 (already painted with Krylon Fusion Black textured and Metallic Nickel paint) with the front disk cages and top optical bay removed
Water cooling:
1 DDC PWM pump (Dazmode)
2 EK R9 290X waterblocks Plexi/Copper with custom mirror backplates
1 EK Supreme LTX (Dazmode Canada Plexi/nickel version) water block
1 EK X3 tube res
1 set of fan mounting bracket plus UNDesigns Z2 bracket
Either copper or painted metallic shimmer acrylic tubing (not sure which, to be finalized), but likely copper
Imperial or Metric Primochill silver rigid revolver, or EK HD black sparkle type fitting with Bitspower BP-BSE90DML 90 degree angle dual ended fittings (if I have problems bending the copper properly)
1 XSPC painted EX360 radiator (top)
1 XSPC painted RX240 radiator (front)
5 Cougar CFD120 blue led fans at 1200RPM or less
1 Disco ball that might spin on a motor or just hang
2 Darkside LED white strips
Custom heat shrinkless sleeving (Darkside and Paracord)
A whole lot of fun!
Here's a shot of the case in my new basement bathroom (I know wife is mad) after painting with the Krylon fusion Black metallic texture paint.
This paint so far has been berry berry good to me. In lieu of investing time into my painting skills I did some test runs with it and it is excellent. The case was cleaned, rubbed down with mineral spirits and then tack clothed clean prior to painting. This shimmer texture hides flaws in the paint, but when I was painting it, I was able to easily see low spots and address. Also the paint comes out in a very thin coat allowing me to avoid over spray and drips which would require sanding and re-painting.
With two kids and a finally finished basement reno, time is of the essence here.
I then removed the top filter panel, and then drilled out the rivets holding the top metal chassis panel in place and painted it, and then lightly sanded the radiators and cleaned/tacked them and painted them too. Here's a shot with the EX360 radiator and fans mounted to the newly painted top panel. You can see the silver/aluminum rivets at each corner after I re-installed the top panel:
This adds a little silver streak to the look of the case. I have more true digital camera shots (not just crappy cell phone pics) to upload at a later time.
Overview shot. I was originally going to use an Asus Z97M-plus motherboard because it has a metallic look, but the Asrock X79 mobo is more industrial looking and fits the look even better. This is why you see the Asus mobo in this shot.
More to come after sleeving fun and procurement of the PSU and Dominator Platinum RAM.
Thanks for viewing!
I'm calling it DiscoSteele because there will be a disco ball somewhere, and it will have a somewhat metallic appearance, so the "Steele" part is to pay homage to a certain 6'10" singer of Type O Negative who passed away a couple of years ago.
On to the actual hardware:
1 Core I7 3930K probably between 4.4 and 4.6Ghz
1 Asrock Extreme X79 Extreme 4-M motherboard
1 Quad Channel Memory kit, probably 4x4GB of Corsair Dominator Platinum RAM @ 1866mhz
2x XFX R9 290 Double Dissipation video cards
1 Corsair AX1200i or AX860i PSU
1 Samsung 840 EVO 512GB SSD (mounted behind the motherboard)
1 Seagate Momentus XT 500GB SSHD (also mounted behind the motherboard)
1 Custom painted Fractal Design Arc Mini R2 (already painted with Krylon Fusion Black textured and Metallic Nickel paint) with the front disk cages and top optical bay removed
Water cooling:
1 DDC PWM pump (Dazmode)
2 EK R9 290X waterblocks Plexi/Copper with custom mirror backplates
1 EK Supreme LTX (Dazmode Canada Plexi/nickel version) water block
1 EK X3 tube res
1 set of fan mounting bracket plus UNDesigns Z2 bracket
Either copper or painted metallic shimmer acrylic tubing (not sure which, to be finalized), but likely copper
Imperial or Metric Primochill silver rigid revolver, or EK HD black sparkle type fitting with Bitspower BP-BSE90DML 90 degree angle dual ended fittings (if I have problems bending the copper properly)
1 XSPC painted EX360 radiator (top)
1 XSPC painted RX240 radiator (front)
5 Cougar CFD120 blue led fans at 1200RPM or less
1 Disco ball that might spin on a motor or just hang
2 Darkside LED white strips
Custom heat shrinkless sleeving (Darkside and Paracord)
A whole lot of fun!
Here's a shot of the case in my new basement bathroom (I know wife is mad) after painting with the Krylon fusion Black metallic texture paint.
This paint so far has been berry berry good to me. In lieu of investing time into my painting skills I did some test runs with it and it is excellent. The case was cleaned, rubbed down with mineral spirits and then tack clothed clean prior to painting. This shimmer texture hides flaws in the paint, but when I was painting it, I was able to easily see low spots and address. Also the paint comes out in a very thin coat allowing me to avoid over spray and drips which would require sanding and re-painting.
With two kids and a finally finished basement reno, time is of the essence here.
I then removed the top filter panel, and then drilled out the rivets holding the top metal chassis panel in place and painted it, and then lightly sanded the radiators and cleaned/tacked them and painted them too. Here's a shot with the EX360 radiator and fans mounted to the newly painted top panel. You can see the silver/aluminum rivets at each corner after I re-installed the top panel:
This adds a little silver streak to the look of the case. I have more true digital camera shots (not just crappy cell phone pics) to upload at a later time.
Overview shot. I was originally going to use an Asus Z97M-plus motherboard because it has a metallic look, but the Asrock X79 mobo is more industrial looking and fits the look even better. This is why you see the Asus mobo in this shot.
More to come after sleeving fun and procurement of the PSU and Dominator Platinum RAM.
Thanks for viewing!
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