Arc Mini R2 - DiscoSteele

[10e]

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!

[DazMode]

I really like this color. Great job with painting!

[gdesmo]

Looking good, I like that metallic shade.

[Father Fuzzy]

cool project

I agree sweet shade

some powerhouse graphics

[10e]

More to come soon. Bought a metal pipe bender from EBay, and a Proxxon mini scroll Saw DS115/E from Depot Homme so I can make those intricate cuts in acrylic.

Both this and Frosty-G will be back soon. This build is much more simple than the Frosty-G change I'm making though.

[10e]

Some update(s), more to come.

Some updates.

I changed some of the hardware around, because I took some inventory and want to sell some stuff. Wife is not happy with the storage area in our newly finished basement, and to be honest, I don't blamer her.

DiscoSteele is nearly done.

CPU changed from i7 3930k to my old, venerable i7 4770K
Motherboard changed from ASrock X97 Extreme 4-M (Micro ATX) to Gigabyte GA-Z87MX-D3H with all the heat sink labels removed, so the two mobo heatsinks are matte black only.
Video cards moved out and changed from 2xR9 290 XFXs to single PowerColor 7990 (based on Devil13 design) with EK FC7990 Acetal Nickel water block with mirror finish backplate, via Vvivid Vinyl bought from FleaBay.
Mayhems UV clear coolant and a bit of Daz Protector, with a couple of CCFL UV lights, one 12" and the other 4". I like the LED versions but I find they turn things more purple than the CCFL style
Darkside UV 3mm LED pair with 3-pin fan header connected to a Lian Li FT07N 4-port single channel fan controller, which also runs the front Cougar fans and pump
Hard disks went to OCZ Octane 512GB boot drive and WD 750GB 2.5" Black mounted to the back of motherboard tray
Pump is DDC 3.25 from Daz with a Bitspower Mini Water Tank with DDC pump mount. I had limited space for a rez with the change to the big video card and the RX240 in the front. I drilled four holes in the case to mount the EK DDC anti-vibration screws to the bottom.

The build is up and running, but once I order the crimp tool I will change the PCI-E wiring to sleeved silver and black reflective heat shrink-less 2mm/3mm sleeving from Daz, Paracord, and Lutro0. Right now it's just the stock Corsair cable with the stock Corsair sleeved black 24-pin ATX cable and EPS 12v cables. I'll probably leave them there because they are blacked out and inconspicuous

Case is unchanged.

Sorry for the blurred pic of the video card. I needed some beer before I did this:



I'm lucky it has the HyNix RAM, which is good for overclocking.



Got the Monsoon hard line bending kit with the 45, 90, 180 and circle mandrels. Very handy kit to keep the bends consistent and works just fine with both imperial and metric rigid tubing as long as the appropriate silicone rod is used for the insides. The one from the video card to the pump was cut slightly short and is at a slight angle because the video card is so darn heavy, and I measured it with the case standing up (my mistake)

Here's a shot with the rig off.



Here's a shot with the rig on with the UV lights and Mayhem's clear UV liquid. I wanted to keep it somewhat subtle so it's only a few drops added to distilled water, and then a bit of Dazmode protector. No unseemly effects on the Mayhems clear uv from Dazmode's protector:



There ended up being a scratch on the bright strip at the top, so I'm going to re-cut some of the mirror vinyl and cover it with that and re-take some photos.

Sorry for the "staccato" updates, I've been a bit busy with my monstrous 3 year old and 6-month old boys, so a lot of it was a bit rushed the past few weeks. I'm relatively happy with it, but the sleeving should help give it that extra bit of bling it needs IMHO.

Also the last three images are in-line because, for some reason, drop box is misbehaving sharing them out. The tinted window on the Arc Mini R2 is very handy in hiding the blacked out stuff and showing only what I want, albeit in a very muted fashion so this isn't a super bright, gaudy UV rig, just something somewhat more conservative looking. I'll break out my real camera for the remaining shots to give a better representation of what it looks like.

[Hooded]

Tube runs looks very nice.
Well done indeed.

[Bartacus]

Very nice! And what a monstrous GPU! Especially all blocked up!