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Exsectus by Maki role
Project log

Maki role's summary:

With Exsectus I really wanted to try and push the watercooling as far as I could. Working with flexible tubing meant that I had to approach many areas differently to how I normally would (no tight tubing bends for instance).

I began with sketching out a design on a piece of paper for the midplate. I find sketching really helps with general layout themes and concepts, so I try to begin all my projects traditionally. I wanted to try and have as many of the parts incorporated into the midplate as possible, this would help avoid messy tubing runs and general clutter. After finalising the layout, I hopped into Autodesk Inventor and drew up the part, which was later machined by Parvum Systems from 15mm cast acrylic.

With the case itself I wanted to keep things simple and elegant. The Core X31 is sleek enclosure, it has very few external features bar a large window. Given the time frame, I chose to do all the case mods by hand, working with 2mm and 3mm aluminium. Since the midplate reduces the part width considerably, I sliced the case in two, removing 80mm of unnecessary width. I made sure to keep the side panel strips intact as they're the perfect size for a flush, 5mm acrylic window.

I'm largely very pleased with how the mod turned out. Thanks to a number of material delivery setbacks, I ended up with only 1 1/2 weeks to finish the whole mod after receiving the midplate. This was simply manic for me as I decided to mod so many parts of the case and components. I'm particularly impressed with the lighting strips and fans. I've connected them to the motherboard so everything can be controlled from there, the lighting can range from beautifully subtle to merry Christmas at whim!












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