YYCUBE Case Mod Question

FWORKSTECH · 04-11-2003, 02:36 PM

I am kinda new at the case mod scene. I purchased the cube case after seeing the case mod by Kevin and was impressed by the potential of this case and the mods he did. I have presently a Full Tower Case that is Jammed full of cables & quite the heat build up. I do not have, nor want the lighting for the case, I personal pref is performance rather than looks. I use a P4 2.40B (might upgrade to 3G) w/ MSI 845PE Max2 FIR Mboard, 512MB DDR 333, 52x24x52 CDRW, 16x DVD, 2 Alum Removable drive trays ( I have 2 80g drives & 2 40g for RAID), 1 18g 10,000 RPM SCSI, Creative Aud2 with front panel, Fan Monitor LCD, 6-n-1 card reader, and how can I forget the 3.5 Flop. My question is this. I have 2 120mm antec smart fans, 1 antec 92mm smart fan & duct, and as many 80mm smartfans as needed. I have a Antec True 430W PS with two fans, 1 in the back and 1 on the top. I like the idea of the blow hole in the front and I wanted to put the 92mm there. I was hoping of having the top of the case free of fans inorder to store items on top of the case. Can the 12o's be just as efficient on the sides of the case? I own all the necessary tools for the job and would like for it not to look like a hack job. I am open for all suggestions.

JSimmons · 04-17-2003, 06:35 PM

I ordered one of these cases too, and it will be here this Monday, unless the UPS Groiund god looks kindly upon me and a miracle happens, resulting in a 1-working-day early delivery.

I've been watching the newspaper that pigs are flying and/or that Hell has frozen over.

I've already started a web page for the change-over from air-cooled tower to water-cooled cube.

shiltz · 04-28-2003, 12:35 PM

personaly I don't like the side fans, when I first got my YY cube case with the stock 92mm exaust fan on the side of the case my CPU's were running hot, 40C and 45C at idle and the case temp around 35C with a room temp of around 60F, by moving the 92mm fan to the top of the case and adding ducts directly over the 2 CPU's to draw cool air directly from outside I get CPU temps of 25C and 30C and a case temp of 28C at idle, the side exaust fan basicaly was fighting with the CPU fan for air since they were about 1 1/2 - 2" away from eachother trying to blow air in the oppsite direction so the CPU ended up recirulating warm air, now it has a nice airflow, in the ducts, thru the CPU fans and exausts out the top of the case where the heat is gona want to go naturaly since heat rises.

JSimmons · 05-01-2003, 04:44 PM

Okay, my case arrived and I'm currently in the process of cutting it up.

I'm currently fabricating the copper duct work for the radiator (thanks to user "BigNutz" for the idea):

I'm also going to completely replace the back panel to acommodate the fan plenum, and maybe even turn the power supply on it's side.

Pump and radiator go on the drive side, and the reservoir will go on the motherboard side.

I also got a crossflow exhaust fan that fits neatly in that little area above the expansion ports.

JSimmons · 05-02-2003, 06:24 PM

Man, case modding is a pain in the ass.

It took me two hours and three power tools to cut the back off the case, and a rectangle out of the motherboard mounting panel (so I can thread bolts through the back of the motherboard for the cpu and northbridge chips).

JSimmons · 05-03-2003, 05:02 PM

Here's the radiator duct with the radiator in it:

Pritorian · 05-03-2003, 06:29 PM

Nice work man..

Looking good. and waiting for more

-P-

JSimmons · 05-04-2003, 09:54 AM

Wow, that's weird - I posted a reply and it's not here.

Anyway, Here's some pics (again) of the case after being chopped.

This is the side of the case where the mothgerboard goes. I cut a hole in the mounting panel for the motherboard so I could have access to the holes for mounting the waterblock. It also shows that I removed that thing at the front of the case that adds structural support for "full-size" PCI cards (something that hasn't been made in almost 15 years).

This pic shows the back of the case after I cut out the back panel pon the side of the case where the PSU and hard drives live. I've cut an aluminum plate to take it's place, and will be cutting a hole for the fan plenum neer th top of the new plate.

Finally, here's a shot of the Dynatron CF-001 crossflow fan placed in it's intended mounting position, just above where the ATX motherboard expansion ports are located. This fan moves 55cfm of air and is almost silent in operation. With the removal of the square motor cover, and an insignificant air director, it fits in that little void perfectly.

TerraMex · 05-04-2003, 10:46 AM

Looking good. But you've got a different YY cube than it's shown on the Yeong Yang page. The guts are a bit different (aside from the cutting).

http://yeongyang.de/specpics/specs_yy-0221.htm

See? What the reference on that particular case?

> structural support for "full-size" PCI cards (something that
> hasn't been made in almost 15 years).

Well ... thats not entirely true

.

http://www.tba.pt/sitetba/html/contr...raid3ware.html

A big and nasty IDE At133 RAID card with 12 channels.

JSimmons · 05-04-2003, 02:50 PM

I noticed that too when I saw pictures of other people's cases. I don't know quite what to make of it, other than the possibility theat either I have an updated version (I've only had it for a few weeks), or everyone else does.

Weird.

I don't know *anybody* that's got a card long enough to need that support thingy, and most importantly, I haven't need it in almost 15 years.

utabintarbo · 05-05-2003, 07:09 AM

I've got some nice workstation grapics cards that would fit! Check out 3D Labs Oxygen and Wildcat series.

Bob

msv · 05-05-2003, 08:22 AM

Nice job!
I like that rad duct.
Somewhere in my longterm planning there is a YY cube (if they still make the cube, if PC´s are still around). Where did You buy Yours? Approx. price?
regards
Mikael S.

shiltz · 05-05-2003, 09:49 AM

my case looks like that as well, not like the one on the Yeong Yang page, the one on the page must be the original and they have updated it since then, i've had mine about 4 months or so now I think.

where did you find that Dynatron CF-001 fan by the way? very nice how well it fits right there.

JSimmons · 05-05-2003, 11:18 AM

http://www.rackmountnet.com/rmc/c_ac...f001/cf001.htm

Find their contacts page, and phone them to place the order. The cost is only $17 each, and they ship by eaither fedex or ups.

I got the case for $149 + $34 shipping (without a power supply)from this site:

http://www.circotech.com/ccmincubser.html

I don't think there's any threat of them not making the cube. It's been around for at least four years.

BTW, I'm planning on eventually building an aluminum "backpack" box to put dual rads (or one huge rad), the pump and a reservoir into so I can move all the cooling stuff out of the box itself. The box will be designed to be the same footprint as the YY Cube, but about 7-8 inches tall.

JSimmons · 05-12-2003, 09:53 AM

Well, I finished the radiator box, but I'm not happy with it.

Since I suck so bad at soldering (especially with a torch as the heat source), I fell back to plan B - epoxy. While the epoxy was fine for building the actual box, a few problems arose (but not because of the epoxy).

The resulting basic box was not exactly square. In fact, one side is shorter than the opposite side, resulting in a slightly bowed shape to the other two sides. I epoxied the radiator rails to the top/bottom of the box (these allow me to slide the rad in/out without worrying about any alignment issues). This went fine (and served to force the top/bottom of the box into a reasonably flat appearance.

Next, I wanted to install a moutning flange for the pusher fan. I cut it out, bent the opposite ends into attachment flanges, and epoxied one side to the bottom of the rad box. Yesterday afternoon, more than 24 hours after attaching the first side, I epoxied the 2nd side. This morning, I removed the vice grips from the first epoxied side, and the fan mount detached itself from the rad box. I guess it was a sort of bizarre desire to confirm my suspicion, but I prompty re-vice-gripped that side, and undid the vice grips from the 2nd side. Sure enough, the 2nd side detached with a disheartening "tick", and I was left with a fan mount that wasn't attached to anything. It was time for Plan C.

Pop rivets. As much as I hated to do it (pop-rivets are ugly little bastards), I drilled and riveted the rad box and the fan mounting flange together. As if that wasn't bad enough, I think the epoxied radiator alignment rails are coming loose, too.

While it's not perfect, it will do until I can construct an improved version of the box, this time out of aluminum. Aluminum is cheaper, and I won't feel so bad about complete screwing it up, and I also want to change the design of the actual box mounting flange a bit.

I'll post a pic of the finished box tonight.

Pritorian · 05-12-2003, 11:07 AM

Waiting for pic´s

JSimmons · 05-12-2003, 06:25 PM

Here they are:

And here's a drive tray modified to hold the via aqua pump. It will be mounted to the rear wall of the case.

Lastly, my worst fears were realized this morning. The epoxy is coming loose on the radiator guide rails. I have to rebuild the box. Grrrrrr.

JSimmons · 05-27-2003, 10:48 AM

I forgot that these pics are linked to the web site. The copper abomination pics are gone, replaced by the ones you see now.

The aluminum radiator box is a wonderful example of over-engineering and excessive use of fasteners. However, I did get to buy a new drill press and miter saw in order to efect it's construction.

vegetto714 · 06-11-2003, 12:25 AM

Question for all YY case owners. If someone would be so kind as to measure the width of the motherboard chamber, I would be ever so thankful. I want to use a YY case for H2O cooling, but I dont know If my 6 inch wide D-Tek heatercore will fit in front where the intake fan is.

04-11-2003, 02:36 PM	#1
FWORKSTECH Cooling Neophyte Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: NC Posts: 2	YYCUBE Case Mod Question I am kinda new at the case mod scene. I purchased the cube case after seeing the case mod by Kevin and was impressed by the potential of this case and the mods he did. I have presently a Full Tower Case that is Jammed full of cables & quite the heat build up. I do not have, nor want the lighting for the case, I personal pref is performance rather than looks. I use a P4 2.40B (might upgrade to 3G) w/ MSI 845PE Max2 FIR Mboard, 512MB DDR 333, 52x24x52 CDRW, 16x DVD, 2 Alum Removable drive trays ( I have 2 80g drives & 2 40g for RAID), 1 18g 10,000 RPM SCSI, Creative Aud2 with front panel, Fan Monitor LCD, 6-n-1 card reader, and how can I forget the 3.5 Flop. My question is this. I have 2 120mm antec smart fans, 1 antec 92mm smart fan & duct, and as many 80mm smartfans as needed. I have a Antec True 430W PS with two fans, 1 in the back and 1 on the top. I like the idea of the blow hole in the front and I wanted to put the 92mm there. I was hoping of having the top of the case free of fans inorder to store items on top of the case. Can the 12o's be just as efficient on the sides of the case? I own all the necessary tools for the job and would like for it not to look like a hack job. I am open for all suggestions.

05-03-2003, 06:29 PM	#7
Pritorian Cooling Savant Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Norway Posts: 201	Nice work man.. Looking good. and waiting for more -P- __________________ Boo!

05-04-2003, 10:46 AM	#9
TerraMex Cooling Savant Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Portugal, Europe Posts: 870	Looking good. But you've got a different YY cube than it's shown on the Yeong Yang page. The guts are a bit different (aside from the cutting). http://yeongyang.de/specpics/specs_yy-0221.htm See? What the reference on that particular case? > structural support for "full-size" PCI cards (something that > hasn't been made in almost 15 years). Well ... thats not entirely true . http://www.tba.pt/sitetba/html/contr...raid3ware.html A big and nasty IDE At133 RAID card with 12 channels. __________________ "we need more cowbell."

05-05-2003, 07:09 AM	#11
utabintarbo Cooling Savant Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Sterling Hts., MI Posts: 496	I've got some nice workstation grapics cards that would fit! Check out 3D Labs Oxygen and Wildcat series. Bob __________________ Sarcasm is yet another of the free services we offer!

05-12-2003, 11:07 AM	#16
Pritorian Cooling Savant Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Norway Posts: 201	Waiting for pic´s __________________ Boo!

04-17-2003, 06:35 PM	#2
JSimmons Cooling Savant Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: 4-sided room with an exit going east, and an exit going south Posts: 392	I ordered one of these cases too, and it will be here this Monday, unless the UPS Groiund god looks kindly upon me and a miracle happens, resulting in a 1-working-day early delivery. I've been watching the newspaper that pigs are flying and/or that Hell has frozen over. I've already started a web page for the change-over from air-cooled tower to water-cooled cube.

04-28-2003, 12:35 PM	#3
shiltz Cooling Neophyte Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: usa Posts: 84	personaly I don't like the side fans, when I first got my YY cube case with the stock 92mm exaust fan on the side of the case my CPU's were running hot, 40C and 45C at idle and the case temp around 35C with a room temp of around 60F, by moving the 92mm fan to the top of the case and adding ducts directly over the 2 CPU's to draw cool air directly from outside I get CPU temps of 25C and 30C and a case temp of 28C at idle, the side exaust fan basicaly was fighting with the CPU fan for air since they were about 1 1/2 - 2" away from eachother trying to blow air in the oppsite direction so the CPU ended up recirulating warm air, now it has a nice airflow, in the ducts, thru the CPU fans and exausts out the top of the case where the heat is gona want to go naturaly since heat rises.

05-01-2003, 04:44 PM	#4
JSimmons Cooling Savant Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: 4-sided room with an exit going east, and an exit going south Posts: 392	Okay, my case arrived and I'm currently in the process of cutting it up. I'm currently fabricating the copper duct work for the radiator (thanks to user "BigNutz" for the idea): I'm also going to completely replace the back panel to acommodate the fan plenum, and maybe even turn the power supply on it's side. Pump and radiator go on the drive side, and the reservoir will go on the motherboard side. I also got a crossflow exhaust fan that fits neatly in that little area above the expansion ports.

05-02-2003, 06:24 PM	#5
JSimmons Cooling Savant Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: 4-sided room with an exit going east, and an exit going south Posts: 392	Man, case modding is a pain in the ass. It took me two hours and three power tools to cut the back off the case, and a rectangle out of the motherboard mounting panel (so I can thread bolts through the back of the motherboard for the cpu and northbridge chips).

05-04-2003, 09:54 AM	#8
JSimmons Cooling Savant Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: 4-sided room with an exit going east, and an exit going south Posts: 392	Wow, that's weird - I posted a reply and it's not here. Anyway, Here's some pics (again) of the case after being chopped. This is the side of the case where the mothgerboard goes. I cut a hole in the mounting panel for the motherboard so I could have access to the holes for mounting the waterblock. It also shows that I removed that thing at the front of the case that adds structural support for "full-size" PCI cards (something that hasn't been made in almost 15 years). This pic shows the back of the case after I cut out the back panel pon the side of the case where the PSU and hard drives live. I've cut an aluminum plate to take it's place, and will be cutting a hole for the fan plenum neer th top of the new plate. Finally, here's a shot of the Dynatron CF-001 crossflow fan placed in it's intended mounting position, just above where the ATX motherboard expansion ports are located. This fan moves 55cfm of air and is almost silent in operation. With the removal of the square motor cover, and an insignificant air director, it fits in that little void perfectly.

05-04-2003, 02:50 PM	#10
JSimmons Cooling Savant Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: 4-sided room with an exit going east, and an exit going south Posts: 392	I noticed that too when I saw pictures of other people's cases. I don't know quite what to make of it, other than the possibility theat either I have an updated version (I've only had it for a few weeks), or everyone else does. Weird. I don't know anybody that's got a card long enough to need that support thingy, and most importantly, I haven't need it in almost 15 years.

05-05-2003, 08:22 AM	#12
msv Cooling Savant Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Sweden Posts: 336	Nice job! I like that rad duct. Somewhere in my longterm planning there is a YY cube (if they still make the cube, if PC´s are still around). Where did You buy Yours? Approx. price? regards Mikael S.

05-05-2003, 09:49 AM	#13
shiltz Cooling Neophyte Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: usa Posts: 84	my case looks like that as well, not like the one on the Yeong Yang page, the one on the page must be the original and they have updated it since then, i've had mine about 4 months or so now I think. where did you find that Dynatron CF-001 fan by the way? very nice how well it fits right there.

05-05-2003, 11:18 AM	#14
JSimmons Cooling Savant Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: 4-sided room with an exit going east, and an exit going south Posts: 392	http://www.rackmountnet.com/rmc/c_ac...f001/cf001.htm Find their contacts page, and phone them to place the order. The cost is only $17 each, and they ship by eaither fedex or ups. I got the case for $149 + $34 shipping (without a power supply)from this site: http://www.circotech.com/ccmincubser.html I don't think there's any threat of them not making the cube. It's been around for at least four years. BTW, I'm planning on eventually building an aluminum "backpack" box to put dual rads (or one huge rad), the pump and a reservoir into so I can move all the cooling stuff out of the box itself. The box will be designed to be the same footprint as the YY Cube, but about 7-8 inches tall.

05-12-2003, 09:53 AM	#15
JSimmons Cooling Savant Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: 4-sided room with an exit going east, and an exit going south Posts: 392	Well, I finished the radiator box, but I'm not happy with it. Since I suck so bad at soldering (especially with a torch as the heat source), I fell back to plan B - epoxy. While the epoxy was fine for building the actual box, a few problems arose (but not because of the epoxy). The resulting basic box was not exactly square. In fact, one side is shorter than the opposite side, resulting in a slightly bowed shape to the other two sides. I epoxied the radiator rails to the top/bottom of the box (these allow me to slide the rad in/out without worrying about any alignment issues). This went fine (and served to force the top/bottom of the box into a reasonably flat appearance. Next, I wanted to install a moutning flange for the pusher fan. I cut it out, bent the opposite ends into attachment flanges, and epoxied one side to the bottom of the rad box. Yesterday afternoon, more than 24 hours after attaching the first side, I epoxied the 2nd side. This morning, I removed the vice grips from the first epoxied side, and the fan mount detached itself from the rad box. I guess it was a sort of bizarre desire to confirm my suspicion, but I prompty re-vice-gripped that side, and undid the vice grips from the 2nd side. Sure enough, the 2nd side detached with a disheartening "tick", and I was left with a fan mount that wasn't attached to anything. It was time for Plan C. Pop rivets. As much as I hated to do it (pop-rivets are ugly little bastards), I drilled and riveted the rad box and the fan mounting flange together. As if that wasn't bad enough, I think the epoxied radiator alignment rails are coming loose, too. While it's not perfect, it will do until I can construct an improved version of the box, this time out of aluminum. Aluminum is cheaper, and I won't feel so bad about complete screwing it up, and I also want to change the design of the actual box mounting flange a bit. I'll post a pic of the finished box tonight.

05-12-2003, 06:25 PM	#17
JSimmons Cooling Savant Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: 4-sided room with an exit going east, and an exit going south Posts: 392	Here they are: And here's a drive tray modified to hold the via aqua pump. It will be mounted to the rear wall of the case. Lastly, my worst fears were realized this morning. The epoxy is coming loose on the radiator guide rails. I have to rebuild the box. Grrrrrr. __________________ My Watercooling Stuff Last edited by JSimmons; 05-13-2003 at 10:06 AM.

05-27-2003, 10:48 AM	#18
JSimmons Cooling Savant Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: 4-sided room with an exit going east, and an exit going south Posts: 392	I forgot that these pics are linked to the web site. The copper abomination pics are gone, replaced by the ones you see now. The aluminum radiator box is a wonderful example of over-engineering and excessive use of fasteners. However, I did get to buy a new drill press and miter saw in order to efect it's construction. __________________ My Watercooling Stuff

06-11-2003, 12:25 AM	#19
vegetto714 Cooling Neophyte Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: MI Posts: 10	Question for all YY case owners. If someone would be so kind as to measure the width of the motherboard chamber, I would be ever so thankful. I want to use a YY case for H2O cooling, but I dont know If my 6 inch wide D-Tek heatercore will fit in front where the intake fan is.

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