Everything Back in the Box
The reassembled machine looks a bit like this!
In addition to the fans already mentioned one 5-blade Sunon KDE1206PTB1 was installed on the front grille and two 7-blade Sunon KD1206PTB1 fans were bolted onto the rear of the case. All of the case fans are controlled by OS X through AppleFan.kext, and in the end so was the Panaflo - I just needed a bit more air through the radiator and an extra dynamic fan was just the ticket. And after making that funky 3-pin power socket too...
The three-quarter view shows up all of the fans, except for the 80x15mm Panaflo on the back of the radiator and the 80x25mm 5-blade Sunon on the front grille. As you might be able to tell, things are running at the moment - one of the side effects of the watercooling is that you can run quite happily with the case side down now, as there is no reliance on airflow through the copper heatsink any more. Interestingly, temperatures reported by the onboard sensor actually drop slightly when the case is closed - probably due to air being moved passed it, rather than stagnating under that big copper shim.
Here we can see the cooling path through the machine. The little 5-blade Sunon helps to pull cool air in towards the Thermaltake, which, along with the Panaflo, surround the radiator. The fans are held on with M4 bolts, which match the threads on the radiator. All but the Thermaltake run from the motherboard; the Panaflo and 5-blade Sunon from the front connector pins (where the 120mm used to take power) and the 7-blade Sunons from the mysterious J53 pins.
Up near the internal speaker and PSU is a little controller for the Thermaltake fan speed. It did come with a sensor too, but it gets too loud too quickly.
This shot makes it look more crowded than it actually is under than the optical drive bay - you get a much better sense of the room from the cooling path picture. However, this is actually where the vast majority of the power cabling now lives. None of the original cabling was altered, except for directing both of the double molex power feeds from the PSU into here, but everything else was cut to fit. The one at the back powers the water pump, Thermaltake fan and the two Seagate drives through a molex -> 2x SATA connector. The other one has been fed around the front above the fan and cable-tied to the front grille, providing power for the ATI 9800 Pro and a 'utility' socket if I need to bung an extra hard drive on temporarily. I'm keeping my multi-voltage power connector, just in case - it's got an empty plug clipped onto it at the moment, because the last thing I need is that shorting out on anything... xo)
There's actually a little more tidying work to be done in here eventually, but I ran out of blue heatshrink. It's in the post...
Last of all is the radiator itself. The SATA cabling and HDD power runs down the right of the case to keep this area as clear as possible for the pipework and airflow - only the waterpump and Panaflo power are really visible. When the side is up the bottom (cool / return) pipe just slides under the rear metalwork of the case, while the upper (warm / feed) pipe curls around and out of the way. That upper pipe actually has a slight twist to it which encourages the curling - whether by fluke or by design, it's a good thing.
The only thing I'm having to watch for (other than paranoia about kinking the pipes to begin with) is that there are actually a few pointy edges around here, particularly on the HDD caddy corners and folds where the back of the case fits together. The solution came in the post, in the form of some wraparound braided sleeving which should stop any rubbing or nicks to the pipes - check the Final Tweaks page to see how this went.
Finally, the proof! It really does close! :o)
Finishing Touches >>