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Radiical Water Cooling Cases

Thermaltake Armor VA8000B Conversion

Date Log; December 3, 2007

Water Cooled Thermaltake Armor VA8000B Black Steel case

There is no doubt of the popularity and appeal of the Thermaltake Armor case. It is a well constructed case with ample provision made for the most discerning customer. There are multiple hard drive racks available in the upper and lower levels of the case and adequate amount of drive bays and a floppy drive mount. Add to this ground floor storage via a nifty little slide out drawer for storing DVD's and the like and it is a very well equipped bit of goods. Thermaltake have produced a very solid design here even to the extent that the case can be be supplied with an inbuilt dual radiator based water cooling system for little extra cost.

Unfortunately that is usually about where the party ends when you mention water cooling and Thermaltake to many aficionados. To be honest Thermaltake have spent a lot of time improving water cooling. They are, however, not the best available components with that title going to the specialist water cooling parts providers.

To the prospective Thermaltake Armor case purchaser who really really wants to add water cooling this adds up to one of two options. Either buy a pre built Thermaltake water cooled case and then replace the exiting water cooling. Or, buy a "do it yourself" brand name water cooling kit then fit the components into the case.

Now the situation has changed. Prospective Thermaltake Armor case buyers have the opportunity of opting out of the DIY issues of getting the right parts to do the job. That's where we step in and value add a water cooling kit already fitted into the Armor case. All the hard work is carried out by us and the product comes ready to fit motherboard, PSU and the other components.

The Water Cooling System

The water cooling system we have design used for the Thermaltake Armor case is a fully enclosed split "triple core" system. A dual radiator is mounted in the front lower section of the case and a single 120 radiator is mounted on the back wall. The water cooling system, as provided, is suitable for CPU cooling only. Provision for cooling the GPU and chipset is an additional option.

The water cooling kit used in the Thermaltake Armor Case is made up from the following parts.

Pump
Laing D5 variable speed pump modified to fit threaded barbs.

Filler Port
Danger Den Filler port.

Radiical Patent Pending Primer Port Adaptor

Radiators
One Single Slimline 120 radiator.

One Dual Slimline 240 radiator.

CPU Block
One D-TEK FuZion Water Block.

Tubing
Tubing can be adjusted to suit personal preference at the point of construction to include 1/2" and 7/16" systems for this system build Radiical 3/8" tubing has been used.

Tubing clamps
Sufficient stainless steel clamps are provided for the complete conversion.

Fan
One additional Xinruilian fans is supplied for the rear mounted radiator.

The Conversion

Completed System

Click For Larger Image

It would be true to say that after many water cooling case conversions the amount of useable space left inside the case after a water cooling is usually somewhat limited. The Thermaltake Armor case seems to go against this trend. The amount of usable space for hard drives, CD-DVD devices, additional floppy and hard drive placement is surprisingly large. The options available are set out below.

Hard drives

At the end of the conversion there is the provision to fit a total of five hard drives all of which are cooled by adjacent fans. Three in the upper hard drive bays next to the PSU mount and two in the lower hard drive mounts.

Upper Hard Drive Bays

Lower Hard Drive Bays

CD-DVD Drive Bays

The storage drawer has been retained along with two bays for CD-DVD combo devices. The storage drawer could be removed and another bay device fitted in its place if required.

Floppy Drive

One floppy drive can be fitted in the top bay of this case and the second hard drive bay mounting rack provide with the case is available to provide a sixth hard drive mounting position.

The Cooling loop

Radiator Placement

Rather than having just a jumble of tubing this conversion is designed for adding on cooling for the video card and/or chipset with an inverted rear radiator set to receive coolant from the CPU water block. This rear mounted radiator pre-cools the coolant just prior to entering the GPU block or blocks. The secondary objective here is to extend this radiators function so that it is used to avoid the difficult tubing curve usually found at the point where the CPU block tubing curves to connect with GPU block/s.

The lower dual radiator and hard drive housings have been formed into a single assembly. This was done to facilitate servicing the unit. The complete assembly can be removed from the front of the case by simply removing the CD-ROM bay blanks.

Radiical Primer Port

Considerable thought has gone into the Radiical Primer Port adaptor with the fitting of a much needed drain port just prior to the pump inlet. Filling and emptying the system is a very simple matter using the drain port.

Fans

The rear blue LED fan has been moved to the front dual radiator to provide the case with two forward mounted blue backlit fans.

This enhances the case appearance and marks it as different to the standard Armor case. The rear radiator is cooled by a Xinruilian 120mm fan which can be mounted directly to a motherboard header.

Other Considerations

To avoid confusion measurements are given here for some of the components which may raise fitting space issues.

The first item is the graphics card. The total distance between the PCI face plate mounting point on the rear of the case and the front drive bays is in excess of 31 cm. This should provide sufficient space for all of the current "8XXXX longer" graphics card. Sufficient space has been left to avoid contact with the pump or inlet tubing with the pump unit being set above the top surface of the graphics card. Sufficient tubing length has been provided to rotate the primer port and pump out of the way for emptying the system.

The distance between the side of the rear mounted radiator and the motherboard is left virtually unchanged from the manufacturers original specifications at approximately 62mm.This means that motherboards with tall mosfet or voltage regulator heat pipe structures should have sufficient space to meet fitting space requirements.

Shipping Preparation

The D-TEK FuZion CPU block is left unmounted with sufficient tubing to correctly position the block on the motherboard socket. This is done to assist with the fitting of the motherboard and to avoid any shortfall of tubing in the final fitting of the block. Two stainless steel clips are "loose fitted" to the tubing so that the tubing can be secured when CPU block is fitted to the motherboard socket. The tubing to the FuZion block has been "loose fitted" in the correct order for final fitting. Care should be exercised to ensure that the same tubing orientation is used when the block is fitted to the CPU. The FuZion block is secured to the base of the case for shipping on a foam base pad.

The pump and Radiical Primer port structure is also secured to the top of the lower hard drive bays for shipping. The pump should be released to assist with motherboard fitting or at least once the system has been set up.

Further manufacturers instruction and a fitting kit are supplied to fit the D-TEK FuZion with the block packaging.