Ian Helmar is known to the hardware community as “SNiiPE_DoGG” You may have seen his previous build, “Permafrost” at MillionDollarPC.com Ian’s latest project “Flow” exemplifies case modding as a pursuit of perfection. Every modification is finely executed and uniquely stylish. You could say “Flow” is flawless. Ian was kind enough to share highlights of his build with Case Mod Blog.

Ian Helmar writes:

I am a water cooling centric modder, and by that I mean that my mods are traditionally for the cause of placing water cooling in a case functionally and neatly. With “Flow” I wanted to take that to another level entirely. I wanted to make the water cooling reflect the case and the case reflect the water cooling both in design and function. I started on the computer, being trained in CAD engineering I was easily able to channel my desire for a mod that worked with the essence of water into a design. I planned smooth simple curves, merging layered paths and repetitious patterns, all elements of water in motion. When choosing a case I went to the good people at Lian-Li for help, the Lian-Li v2110b was the perfect case because it provided me a workable and clean aluminum structure that could conform to my needs. From there I took my design to a more detailed level and planned exact cuts, panel sizes and component placement. I went through and picked my hardware, carefully to match the specific color scheme or Black, blue and silver accents. I chose the platform seen in the hardware specs and spoke with Eddy at EK water blocks who helped me with the 2 nickel plated 4890 blocks, the EK supreme CPU block and the pump for the system.

Manufacturing of the design I had conceived required that I pursue a CNC cutting source to make the window and vent holes in the side panels, as well as the front design plates – for this I sourced a CNC router to do the cutting – precise and clean the router was a pleasure to work with and the panels came out exactly as I had designed them in the computer. Midway through the build I came up with another cut to be done, a top window in the shape of my self-designed “Flow” logo. This logo quickly became one of the most attractive features on my build. It was originally conceived to contain all 4 letters of the word FLOW as separate entities yet somewhere along the way the O and the W became one and in turn it embodied the meaning of the word while still conveying it clearly. this logo required that I pursue a more advance cutting technique, so I had it laser cut using a local source in order to achieve the sharp edges of the lettering and overcome the physical limitations of cutting a part that was preformed with two faces at 90 degrees to each other. Finally I implemented the logo using blue acrylic which glows blue outwards from the white lighting using inside the case.

All of the parts in the case were powder coated, using a fine metallic black powder, a satin Black powder, and a stunning blue powder for accent pieces.

As I have said so many times already, Water is the main focus of this mod, and as I thought of this I realized that this system had to have an epic reservoir. I designed a reservoir that had dual inlets and two waterfall ledges for the water cascade off of as it enters the res. The design is dual view so that the waterfall can be seen from inside the case and looking in through the front drive bays. It creates a soothing water trickling sound effect and really sets off the build as it glows with the white light from the inside of the case outwards. This also completed a triple view window effect with the internal hardware visible from not only the side window but from the top and front as well. Near the final 3 weeks of the build I was approached by Lamptron, a Chinese company which makes high quality Fan control units for mounting in the 5.25″ bays of computers. I had discussions with them and I asked if they would let me design my own faceplate for their fan controller model FC3 as part of their sponsorship. They said yes and the rest is history, I designed my face plate involving two symmetrical F’s and Sniper cross hairs as the centerpiece and Lamptron made it in a matter of days then sent it rush delivery to me in time for the final week of assembly.

Custom made “cascading” water reservoir.

I had a vision early on in the build that in order to complete the organic water inspired theme I needed something special to accent the case, something that would compliment it in essence – that material was granite. Black polished granite to be exact, trim pieces 4 inches wide slotted side by side and cut to fit on the mid plate of the V2110. I used a wet saw and a set of digital calipers to measure and cut the slabs, each of which is 1/2″ thick. When finally cut down to size the pieces weigh approximately 7lbs and slot in precisely between the 5.25″ bay rails at the ends. The granite has quality which cannot be captured in still pictures, it is holographic in texture beneath the smooth polished surface; each new angle of view gives a new sheen and texture to take in.

Lian Li v2110′s mid plate replaced with Black polished granite. As I strive to do in all my modding and system building efforts I not only looked to make a creative design but also Innovate in wiring technique and presentation of interior of the system. I used 20awg 600v blue wire to replace every wire of the 24-pin power cable and I custom made a Delrin plate to hold and organize the wires – there are 24 equally spaced holes in the plate which I drilled with my trusty drill press by hand. Each wire is custom cut and meticulously crimped to the correct size to achieve equal length of arc in the distance from the wire plate to the motherboard. This creates the effect of the wires vanishing into the black depths of the case interior. for the PCI-E power wires I used a different method originally conceived as a way to turn the wires into an emulation of water in themselves, slightly chaotic, yet controlled with smooth lines and interweaving paths. each wire was individually cut to size and threaded through silver rings which are a solid band in construction.

Customized 24-pin power cable.

2 nickel plated EK 4890 water blocks.

My last point in this long winded take on this case mod is the details – with me the details are everything in case modding. In this build you will realize so many things that are small which don’t even get noticed: the flat black vinyl coating on the rear I/O port blocks to hide their presence inside the case, the Delrin crossfire bridge cover, the painted and sleeved fan, and lastly the invisible 8-pin CPU power which is attached via the solder points at the back of the power socket on the rear of the motherboard. The details are what I spend late nights working at and modifying.

EK Supreme CPU block.

I hope you have enjoyed my case and my description of everything that went into it; after 6 months and over 600 hours of time into it, I am proud to call it completed.

Read Ian Helmar’s work log for “Flow” case mod worklog link on bit-tech

Case: Lian-Li v2110b
CPU: AMD Phenom II 955 BE
Motherboard: MSI 790fx GD-70
RAM: OCZ Animal AMD edition ddr3 1600 c7
VGA: 2 x xfx 4890 XXX edition
Waterblocks: EK waterblocks
Radiator: HWlabs GTX420
Pump: Dual DDC 3.2′s w/ EK X-top v2′s
Fan Controller: Custom Lamptron FC3
Storage: 1 x OCZ vertex 30gb 1 x Corsair S128 SSD
PSU: Corsair HX-850