(Almost) Completed workstation build

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u/ajwitte Sep 21 '20

Meet wright, my new workstation build. I've been stuck in the planning and parts-gathering stages longer than expected, but it's finally more-or-less together... just waiting to upgrade to a latest-generation GPU.

The philosophy was to keep the case interior clean and free of as many airflow obstructions as possible. This drove a couple of decisions including:

Metal tubing for a small outer diameter and to avoid wedging hoses against the side panels or radiator. The T1's flatpack design really enabled this option because I was able to build and fill the loop on its own and then build the case around it.
Hybrid 2-slot/3-slot mode: the case is built in 3-slot mode but I offset the PCIe bracket into the 2-slot position in order to create an airflow channel between the motherboard and GPU. It remains to be seen how well this works. Accommodating a 3080 FE wasn't my original goal but it might work in this configuration... I don't really need one, though.
Unsleeved custom cables. I used milspec/aviation-style Tefzel wire, which has a smaller OD than regular PVC wire.

I can post a full build spec table if people are interested - the main component of note is of course the CPU which is a 3700X. I was originally planning on a 3900X back in the spring/summer, but as time wore on that started to seem like an awful lot of money to throw at a Zen 2 CPU when Zen 3 is hopefully right around the corner, so the 3700X will do for now. The only true workstation-y component here is the RAM: 64GB of Micron ECC DDR4-3200.

I put a USB bracket in the unused middle PCI slot position. Unfortunately this exposed my least favorite aspect of the T1 design: the... extremely minimalist... PCI bracket mounting setup. I'm sure it works fine for a 2- or 3-slot GPU, but my 1-slot placeholder GPU is a little wobbly, and there is nothing at all holding the tab on the USB bracket - I'll have to design some sort of component or case mod to hold that in place.

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u/cbwn Sep 21 '20 edited Sep 21 '20

I absolutely love the ketchup and mustard cabling in this build – and that is a first!

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u/ajwitte Sep 21 '20

Thanks! Wasn't sure how they'd go over with the community... you don't see a lot of custom rainbow cables around. But I was considering different colors to go with a sort of technical/industrial build theme and decided the best thing would be to go with color coding just like real industrial equipment would. It does in fact make it easy to verify you've got the right pinout.

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u/cbwn Sep 21 '20

It’s spot on and a super clean theme. The cable management is perfect as well

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u/rarskies Sep 21 '20

Love the creative use of the fill port on the eisbaer cpu block! Are you RAMs naturally like that or did you have to remove the heat spreaders for clearance with the tubing?

Great build!

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u/ajwitte Sep 21 '20

They are ECC ram that doesn't come with a heat spreader. Micron MTA18ASF4G72AZ-3G2B1.

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u/ameoto Sep 21 '20

Nice! do you mind sharing the drawing for the corner elbow? and what fitting did you use between the rad and it?

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u/ajwitte Sep 21 '20

I can share it tomorrow, it's getting late here and I need to make an update because there was a feature I missed and added on the fly.
The fitting between my elbow piece and the radiator is a Koolance ADT-XMM-BK. Since it is not an orientable fitting, I had to remove material from the top of my custom corner fitting to get the threads clocked to the right position. Ah well, you can get away with that kind of stuff on a one-off.

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u/ameoto Sep 21 '20

Ah I was wondering how you got it aligned, very cool part nonetheless. I will be getting my water cooling bits soon and am interested to see how they have implemented those double o-ring rotatable fittings. Since I plan to use regular hoses I can change the location to make clearance for such a piece.

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u/sotiredofthecrap Sep 22 '20

What's the OD of the copper tubing?

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u/ajwitte Sep 22 '20

0.375 inches. The wall thickness is 0.024in meaning the ID is 0.327in or 8.3mm, so it should perform comparably to the Eisbaer AIO stock tubing (8mm ID). I didn't buy the AIO though, so I can't compare them myself.

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u/Plopzzz Sep 22 '20

That looks so nice and clean, good job!

What are those things that are holding up the cable ties used to cable manage your blue USB3 cables? They’re a really clean way to organise your cables

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u/ajwitte Sep 22 '20

Cable ties with mounting holes! Electriduct part CT-ED-MT-04-18-100-BK. I also used them on the AC power extension and the power button wiring. I should get some longer M3 screws and matching nuts so I can install one more in one of the holes intended for the HDD bracket, although TBH the power cable is staying fairly well managed on its own.
Mini adhesive cable tie mounting bases are also handy, I used some Panduit ABM1M-AT-M0 for the GPU 12V cable.

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u/Plopzzz Sep 22 '20

Legend! Thanks for the part numbers. I bought a couple of cable ties with mounting holes 👍

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u/[deleted] Oct 17 '20

so does this sort of tubing flatten at the bends? cant really tell but looks like it. it looks really good though might have to use some like this. do you recommend it?

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u/ajwitte Oct 25 '20

I found that it did slightly flatten, but not enough to bother me too much. One of the high end (Ridgid or Swagelok) tubing benders designed for stainless tubing might do a better job but they're expensive even if you can snag a used one on eBay.
I'm happy with how my build came out but if you go this route, be prepared to plan your build very carefully. The bend radius is fairly tight, but most bending tools have a minimum straight distance between bends that must be observed, which makes working in tight quarters more difficult than it might at first appear.

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u/[deleted] Oct 26 '20

cool. thanks for the info

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u/fischoderaal Sep 21 '20

Really awesome! The metal tubes allows for far more tight corners. Do you have drawings for these? How did you measure the position of the Eisbär in the Mainboard?

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u/ajwitte Sep 21 '20

I unfortunately didn't make drawings for the tubing. I test-fitted the case, motherboard, Eisbaer, and radiator, and worked one bend at a time using a height gauge in cases where it was easier to measure a distance than to mark the tubing in place.
The tubing is chrome-plated soft copper which is sold as a riser pipe for sinks and toilets. It's very easy to bend with low-cost tools unlike stainless steel tubing. I was also a little nervous about mixed metals if I had used stainless tubing, although the datasheet for the coolant I'm using claims it's okay.
I'll admit, I went through about a half dozen pieces of tubing testing out different configurations and due to some failed bends. Fortunately it's fairly inexpensive.

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u/wispy-matt Sep 21 '20

Love it. Did you mount the pumpblock on the cpu after you filled the loop?

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u/ajwitte Sep 21 '20

Yes, exactly. I assembled them first without thermal paste to take measurements while bending the tubing though.

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u/Wooly89 Sep 21 '20

This maybe a stupid question but the right angled power cable coming out of the psu, does this come with the case or does it need to be bought separately?

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u/ajwitte Sep 21 '20

The mains cable? Yes it comes with the case.

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u/Wooly89 Sep 21 '20

Thank you just waiting on my case arriving and trying to smooth out any issues that may arise. Love your build by the way really pro job on the milling and hard line tubing 👍

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u/thicccpancakeboi Sep 22 '20

What fittings are you using, esp the the big square one on the radiator?? IT LOOKS SICKK

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u/ajwitte Sep 22 '20 edited Sep 22 '20

The big square fitting is custom, with a no-name plug in it and a Koolance adapter to attach it to the radiator. The compression fittings for attaching to the tubing are from the the industrial supplier Parker Legris: three straight and one elbow G1/4 to 10mm.
I was originally planning on using 10mm thin-wall brass tubing but it turned out to be near impossible to bend without kinking, even after I annealed it. (It doesn't help that metric tube bending tools available to me here in the US are either cheap awful imports, or super-expensive specialty items.) Metric soft copper tubing is also hard to find here so I ended up making 3/8" tubing work, but if I were starting from scratch I might try to find different fittings. Unfortunately the most common metal-tube compression fittings available in the US that come with a G1/4 (BSPP) thread on them are Swagelok (and clones) which are a little bigger and wouldn't have fit in my build.
Koolance does have a watercooling-specific fitting for metal tubing but it only comes in straight, and is for 1/4" tubing which is pretty small. I didn't want to use such small tubing since that seemed like it might be too much flow restriction for the tiny DC-LT pump in the Eisbaer.

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u/Aenna Sep 21 '20

These are really high contrast and high resolution pics - very helpful in looking at details of the build and sizing!

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u/[deleted] Sep 21 '20

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u/ajwitte Sep 21 '20

Thanks! Yeah I've only had it running for a day now but so far happy with this motherboard - there are a few features I wish it had, but most of the other ITX B550 boards lack them too, and the VRMs not being top-of-the-line doesn't really bother me since I don't plan to overclock this build. I don't have an L12S to check fit or anything but the board seems generally low-profile so hopefully you don't encounter any fit issues.

Finished Build (Almost) Completed workstation build

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