MiniFusion - *Sponsored* by Xtia and Bitspower

Soldato
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Make sure you use male to male rotary fittings or you'll never get them to line up facing perfectly when you tighten them

EDIT : i suppose you could pad out the difference with an extra O ring here and there.

I got both, my worry with the male to male rotaries is the added height with them. Was looking to see if Bitspower has another way of connecting them together like the water tank connectors but doesn’t look like they do.
 
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Xtia's case arrived the other day, just not had time to post. They literally did send me everything available for this case... Unfortunately they sent me the wrong colour :D. Will remedy this the old fashioned way.

I love flat packing, the whole case and all of its accessories was crammed into this small box.






 
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Wheel out the drain cleaner!

(assuming that's anodised aluminium)

Haha! Yes it was, cleaned up pretty well and the painting came out nice :D :D :D

Decided to do it two tone white with black inserts so it breaks it up a little.

I just looked up the case as I had thought it was an open type case, but I see it can be fully enclosed and look more traditional. What do you intend to do with it?

Yup i got the enclosure mesh panels too but i don't intend to use them for this build. See page one near the bottom for the design. I've sort of planned the tubing runs but will plan it better once i get the rest of the parts in.
 
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And tonight we get to build it! What a beautiful case and i think the parts match it perfectly. The black insert sections break up the 2 halves nicely and gives the frame some depth instead of being all white.

Really looking forward to the next phase now in building up the bottom section to hold the 240mm radiator. While i design that, there is abit of drama with the gpu waterblock. Royal mail seems to have lost it.... great timing too. In comms with the retailer in either getting a refund or sending another one out but will need to wait 10 working days.


While it's semi built up, i took the opportunity to test out my new LED softboxes and reflective surface.




 
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And tonight we get to build it! What a beautiful case and i think the parts match it perfectly. The black insert sections break up the 2 halves nicely and gives the frame some depth instead of being all white.

Really looking forward to the next phase now in building up the bottom section to hold the 240mm radiator. While i design that, there is abit of drama with the gpu waterblock. Royal mail seems to have lost it.... great timing too. In comms with the retailer in either getting a refund or sending another one out but will need to wait 10 working days.


While it's semi built up, i took the opportunity to test out my new LED softboxes and reflective surface.




Wow, that's clean. It's almost a shame to add anything more to it... I mean, what's a little CPU throttling :)

Seriously though the old DC-LT pump broke down on my i5-8400 while I left running it Windows Update overnight. LibreHardwareMonitor logs said it clocked @ 400MHz for 6hrs. That was a nice surprise the next day.
 
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I'm really interested in how this will look when you're finished. :cool:

It looks beautiful with the limited hardware in it but the idea of the cables exiting at the top would concern me (personally). I remember having a case with the cable exit out the top but that had a top cover so the cables took a right angle and ended up out the back, so the layout, whilst different in the case was pretty traditional in function.

Given your previous builds I'm really looking forward to what you do with this one. I'm already trying to figure out pipe and cable runs! :o

P.S. Your photography skills are to be envied also.
 
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Soldato
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Big step up in the photography, nice work.

I'm intrigued by your reflective floor. At first glance it looks like you've used a black-tinted mirror, but there is no edge and light overspill. Is that all in-camera, or did you just edit afterwards? Same with your backdrop. Do you have a lot of space between the case and the backdrop so you can use depth of field to smooth out fabric texture, or paint it out in the edit?
 
Soldato
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Wow, that's clean. It's almost a shame to add anything more to it... I mean, what's a little CPU throttling :)

Seriously though the old DC-LT pump broke down on my i5-8400 while I left running it Windows Update overnight. LibreHardwareMonitor logs said it clocked @ 400MHz for 6hrs. That was a nice surprise the next day.

I know tell me about it. It looks so good as it is now, i don't want to stick anything to it but i have a sponsorship to fullfil so i have to continue :D. Maybe afterwards i will do something else with it, my creativity right now is pretty wild.

If there's enough coolant in there and enough radiator space to diffuse the heat, it should technically work fine while running at low usage. I sometimes run my MORA passively and it does the same job though temps will climb gradually but never to the point where it would overwhelm the radiator.
 
Soldato
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I'm really interested in how this will look when you're finished. :cool:

It looks beautiful with the limited hardware in it but the idea of the cables exiting at the top would concern me (personally). I remember having a case with the cable exit out the top but that had a top cover so the cables took a right angle and ended up out the back, so the layout, whilst different in the case was pretty traditional in function.

Given your previous builds I'm really looking forward to what you do with this one. I'm already trying to figure out pipe and cable runs! :o

P.S. Your photography skills are to be envied also.

I've been looking at 180 adapters for this build so i can run the cables underneath the case. I would only technically need 1 for the video output and the rest can be done via front IO or internal usb.

Thank you for the compliment, i'm always experimenting with light as i love photography. Product photography is still very new to me so this is all very refreshing in contrast to what i normally do.
 
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Big step up in the photography, nice work.

I'm intrigued by your reflective floor. At first glance it looks like you've used a black-tinted mirror, but there is no edge and light overspill. Is that all in-camera, or did you just edit afterwards? Same with your backdrop. Do you have a lot of space between the case and the backdrop so you can use depth of field to smooth out fabric texture, or paint it out in the edit?

Thanks man,

It's actually a black piece of Diabond board that my friend cut for me 400x400mm wide, it had a reflective side and a matte side. I used the reflective side to achieve this look, it's not overly reflective and the black helps bounce some of the light back onto the object (while not being overwhelming). I use 2 LED softboxes to light up the case to create the desired effects.

There is an edge but most of it is done via the camera so when it comes to LRC editting there isn't a whole lot to correct. I'm currently looking at a Sigma Art 35mm 1.4 lens next for crisper and cleaner macro shots, i primarily work with prime lens too.

The backdrop and the subject is relatively close but LRC has a function which allows me to mask the backdrop so i can remove anything that looks out of place. For these pictures, i mostly shot in f8, no room light and just softboxes for lighting.
 
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For all my years in media, photography has always been something I've struggled with. Should really get practicing for when I need proper project shots of my own.

That's all it is tbh, lots of practice and experimenting. Everyone takes pictures differently and finding their own sort of style. I've always looked towards others to see how they do it then try out new things, composition as you probably know is also key to a good picture.
 
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The 3D Modelling is almost complete, i've decided to incorporate Bitspowers new CR distro's into the build. The CR802 is an 80mm Distro block with a Hercules pump installed all in one solution. All i need to do is fabricate a custom bracket to install this to the back of the case. The small size of the unit means it suits the build and form factor im working with. Was a little tempted to use the CR801 which is an even smaller version but wanted to maximise the space i had available.













 
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Finally the waterblock has arrived! The smallest block i own to date and fits perfectly into the frame. With this now done i can work on tubing measurements and build a mock up of the radiator shroud before sending it off to the fab.

This block was relatively easy to assemble just out of common sense but the instructions weren't particularly clear however. Definitely needs some improvement in the instruction manual but other than that, it's a very nice and quality block. I believe the machining has somewhat improved since this version is part of their classic range which is now EOL.














 
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