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Completed Lian-Li PC-011 Air (RGB) Something old - Something new

sswilson

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Parts are currently inbound, and it's going to mostly be a transplant, but of course it's hard to call something just a "transplant" when the case is only $190 after taxes, yet you end up spending over $400 total once you start adding on extras like fresh tubing, fresh fasteners, fan kits, as well as fan, & RGB controllers.

Don't have the loop completely planned out yet (need to see the case first), but I've got 3 different 240 rads (EK, XSPC, and an old thermalrite I believe originally came from 3.0 Charlie), as well as a single alphacool to consider. I'm also ditching my bay res so I'll probably end up using the modified pump head from my InWin build along with the cheezy tube res I picked up from amazon for a pittance a while back.


No pics yet, but I've already modded up a couple of fan shrouds as a placeholder so that a 240 up top doesn't leave a weird looking gap.


Looking forward to this... pretty hard to believe it's been over two years since I did anything major to my main rig.


edit: Threads with build pics...


https://www.hardwarecanucks.com/for...b-something-old-something-new.html#post891661 https://www.hardwarecanucks.com/for...something-old-something-new-2.html#post891898
https://www.hardwarecanucks.com/for...something-old-something-new-2.html#post891926 https://www.hardwarecanucks.com/for...something-old-something-new-2.html#post891968
https://www.hardwarecanucks.com/for...something-old-something-new-3.html#post892106 https://www.hardwarecanucks.com/for...something-old-something-new-3.html#post892148
https://www.hardwarecanucks.com/for...something-old-something-new-3.html#post892408 https://www.hardwarecanucks.com/for...something-old-something-new-4.html#post892472
https://www.hardwarecanucks.com/for...something-old-something-new-4.html#post892527 https://www.hardwarecanucks.com/for...something-old-something-new-5.html#post892732
https://www.hardwarecanucks.com/for...something-old-something-new-5.html#post892745


And the final completed build...


 
Last edited:

Lysrin

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Excellent! Now the pressure is on... you're going to get yours done before me! ;)

Looking forward to watching the progress!
 

sswilson

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Excellent! Now the pressure is on... you're going to get yours done before me! ;)

Looking forward to watching the progress!


Yeah, but didn't you decide to go with hard tubing? Wayyyy too much patience required for me. :)
 

sswilson

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I was going to take some quick pics of the small pile of hardware that's already here, but it's a crappy day outside so a screen cap of my hardware order will have to do... :)


fastenal.jpg


Pretty hard to beat your local fastenal (or something similar) when it comes to picking up some fresh hardware for a new build with older transplanted kit. 50 ea. of everything I'm going to need ends up being about $14 ordered locally (I do up the order online, but print it off and bring it into the store for them to order).


Not only will your local hardware store probably not have the black fasteners you're looking for, even if they do, they'll be 2 or 3 times the price.
 

sswilson

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Ok, first (small) batch of photos, and first re-think of initial plans....


It was mentioned in another thread that a 240mm rad might look weird in a spot designed for a 360mm so I figured I'd make up a fan shroud to fill the gap.


Start with an old fan (ended up being a pair of different depth YLs)...


yate loon fan.jpg


Cut out the guts...


Lian-li fan cut.jpg


File the rough bits relatively smooth...


Lian-li shroud filed cutr.jpg


But wait.... how are we going to attach two of them together since the screw holes on these are enclosed? Maybe we'll just file down the channels on one of the fans....


Lian-li shroud filed channel.jpg


Attach the two together with a standard fan mounting screw and there you have it... a perfect height when compared to the rad....


Lian-li shroud height.jpg


Gotta like that.... gonna fit perfectly and with a fan attached to it you won't even know the rad doesn't extend across the whole length of the available space....


Or is it??????????????


Lian-li shroud oops.jpg


Oh crap!!!! Never thought of that... most (if not all) rads extend a little bit on the bottom which will mess up my fan mount screws. :\ Depending on how the rad mounts I might have enough room to be able to file enough of the fan shroud to get it to fit, but now I'll have to wait until the case comes in to get a good look at what I'm dealing with (I'll have to check the XSPC that's currently installed in my PC to see how large of a bump it's got as well).
 

sswilson

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No new parts until next week (might be some clear tubing and dye from Daz later today, but everybody knows what that looks like... :) ) so here's a few more pics of gear I already have.


Day 2 Pump and Mount.jpg

I mentioned earlier that I was going to use the modded pump head from my Inwin build (it was initially designed to be mounted to a res as opposed to a stand-alone pump head but I bored and tapped it to allow it to work as a pump head) but it was mounted on the exterior of the case for that particular build so I had to come up with a different way of mounting it... I came across this trailer connector mount while browsing through Princess Auto and while the opening wasn't initially large enough to accept a D5 body, that's nothing that a file couldn't fix.

Day 2 Controller Boxes.jpg


Day 2 Controller Corsair.jpg


Day 2 Controller Corsair aft plugs.jpg


Day 2 Controller CoolerMaster.jpg

The Hue+ is currently installed in my main PC so only a package pic of that, my silverstone hub (PWM only) is also currently in use so no pic of that either. There'll be another controller hub with the HD120 3 pack I've ordered, and I suspect there might be one with the 3 pack of RGB fans included with the case. Not sure how many of those I'll be using, but I'm looking at 3 HD120s, 4 ML120s, 3 Lian Li RGB, and 2 standard Lian-Li fans so I may want to gang some of those together on smaller hubs and then plug those hubs into the commander pro. No matter what... there's going to be an awful mess of wires to take care of. :)



I've wanted a commander pro since they first announced them, not only is it capable of running both 3 pin and PWM fans, it also adds a couple of internal USB 2 headers (great for folks running mITX boards with fewer headers), RGB control (corsair proprietary), and temp probes. It was a bit pricey when it first came out, but @ $60 it's not too bad considering what it does.


Finally... I don't have an RGB header on my motherboard, and the Lian-Li RGB fans apparently don't ship with a stand-alone controller so I grabbed that little CoolerMaster controller for that task (probably going to order the controller lowfat recommended in another thread, but that'll take a month+ to get here on the slow boat). I was surprised at how small that controller actually was (you can see the standard molex connector as reference).
 

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