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LSDeep

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just like to make live easier for sb else.

 

it is expensive, it is huge (and i mean HUGE), rock-solid and has (nearly) endless space. but, it is well worth the money if you look for sth like that (btw, if it is to small for you, there is sth even bigger supposed to come your way soon (just google it).

anyway, finally last thursday my huge box arrived. considering the damage to the box, the shipping company guys REALLY don't like the size and weight! anyway, it looked worse than it was, a slight dent to one of the door corners from one of the a**holes at ups thinking it is funny to toss ppl's stuff around. maybe trump is right after all!? - just kidding!

 

anyway, the case...

awesome! - the guys at tt did a pretty good job to give Lian Li  a run for the money. diff. is poss the steel vs. aluminum decision. hey, there has to be a reason that thing weights 50+ lbs!

since i have no idea how long i will go on about this case, let me put my relevant findings first:

 

1- the manual is pretty good - do NOT follow it all the way!

 

2- if you just remotely think about using the hdd locations on the back of the (off) center wall (the right, looking from the front) - install the whole little bits and pieces as soon as you got the basic case assembled! just in general, put the little plastic pieces for the 6 hdd's  on the back in!  you will regret if you do not and take out mb, drive cages etc. later to install them!

 

3- be prepared that many of the screws don't go in easy (my experience)! have a screwdriver with a handle that allows for some serious torque and potentially be prepared to re-thread some screw-holes before anything will work.

 

4- i use a lot of asrock mobo's - the right-hand side atx stand-off's most likely will be a shot in the dark for you - meaning they are just not there! so. be prepared that your asrock mobo is kinda swinging free on the far right after putting it in. maybe the same for other mobo's as well, i can't tell.

it's not a disaster, you just want to consider that when pushing in cables, ram etc on that end - use your fingers to support/ hold up the mb while pushing down... otherwise you might have a mb to replace!!!!

 

5- this case has 4 usb3 ports at the front panel, most mb's offer 1 port (supporting 2 plugs) - so you might wanna get a usb3 to usb2 adapter cable to utilize the remaining 2 ports!

 

ok, that was the first little 'look out for...' - i have to re-run the whole build in my clouded head also again. i am sure there will be some more things coming back to me.

 

BUT! - don't let any of that put you off considering this box! it is one of the most awesome cases on the market at the moment - if you need supersized. and in terms of value for the money def in the top of the top5!!!

 

cheers, L

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short addition... call it #

 

6- if you intend to put hdd cages in with the 'side mount' option (using the 2 mounting bars) - do so before you attach the bottom plate!!!! if you ask why, just trust me! top is not a prob, if you just lay the bottom in place (do not screw anything down yet!) you will see what i mean  ;)

 

so there is def. some minor detail adjustment need for a potential rev. 2 of the case in the future, at least the manual could be changed already now to emphasize some of this points and you don"t have to find out the hard way!

 

cheers, L

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First thing I did was to through away the User Manual..  haha just kidding.. If you are new to this, you need to pay extreemly close attention to what the manual shows as there are no written instructions, just  as what LSDeep said about having problems with the screws, I had  no problems. However you have to know things about mechanical assembly and how to be skilled at navigating through common manufacturing issues. These skills come with experiance and I will say that having people, friends, coworkers that share tips, tricks, and in this case, mechanical / electro-mechanical skills with whoever is new to assembling computer cases from a kit, to building custom cable harnesses, as well as to lay out and plumb an efficiant water cooling system. Oh I made a pun "in this case". I always use a screwdriver that locks into the phillips head so I don't slip off the screw. (There are actually 2 basic cuts to types of phillips screws) I go through my bits until I find one that locks good to the screw and holds it, That said I always just start all the screws on a pannel and then run them down. If I feel any resistance, I back it out a couple turns and run it back in. Often this happens due to paint in the threads on the pannel and when you back the screw out you pull the paint out of the thread. Don't have to torque these screws too tight. Usually once the scew is lightly hand tight I will add about another quarter  to half turn and not strip the threads.

Another tip is to absolutly make sure that the four long frame bars are in the correct orientation as the drawing shows. Look att all the holes, not just the ones that the screws go in. All those hole need to be in the right directions when you mount the front and back pannel. This will save you time and not have to dissassemble your work when you find that you messed up. :D

I just got a w100 for a new build and love it. You will hear negative comments from me but they are constructive critisism. I always find ways to enhance any case cause that's what I do "MOD"..

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some good point's made by papa smurf! especially for the just paint covered threads. also for the torque applied to 'tighten screws' at the end. there is a fine line, between tight and 'over-tightened' - speak stripped threads. that's not the lug nuts on your cars wheel! in my case i had one of the horizontal case bars where none of the screw holes had any thread at all, hence the re-thread comment above (it should possibly say just thread). as you can see in the post above as well, some basic mechanical skills help ;) - you should be at least able to initially set a screw without cross-threading it...

to elaborate a little more on papa smurf's kinda 'mysterious' comment about the orientation of the 4 (2 upper + 2 lower horizontal) framebars - you want to make sure the sides with the square 'holes' / openings point to the sites! not to top and bottom!! the doors on both sides have some guide 'pins' which will engage into this openings. now generally the manual says at the bottom, it does not really matter - the top works just as well. mechanically it is the same effect. if you don't mind sloppy it could be even one side top, one side bottom. anyway beside building my own computers from scratch i make a living rebuilding classic cars, so i do not like sloppy :).

 

cheers, L

 

ps: and thx to papa smurf for his valuable insight!

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Thank you LSDeep, you hit the nail on the head. I bet I wasn't the only one who made that booboo. haha Folks hope you read these before you assemble your case, it will save you about 5 or 10 minutes scratching your head figuring out #### you did wrong, and another 1/2 hour of cussing and taking apart what you just put together. It is easy to miss on the figures in the guide.

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OK here is something I would highly recomend to Mod. I have a big issue over the cheap wheels Tt supplies with this case. They give you these little cheap plastic casters. Tell me why build a nice hi-end system with thousands of dollars worth of components, water cooling, etc.? The cabinet is huge and can alot of hardware, and lots of hardware equals lots of weight, and that weight may not be distributed equally nor have a low center of gravity, making this very unstable.

 

For example they show a configuration showing you how to mount your HDDs to the backside of the pannel the supports you MOBO. Do this and you system will become side heavy. If you were to roll your system in that direction, the wheels will pivot in under the case and shift the center of gravity so most of this weight is positioned outside of the casters. At this point all bets are off. Also say you have carpet under those wheels too. You investment could land flat on it's face. The possibilities of dammage makes my head spin, especially if the system is up and running. Add a set of radiators and fans on that side and get the same senario. The best insurance would be to through away those casters, I did. Matter of fact, that was the first thing I modded on my build.  I found me a set of nice casters down at Home Depot:

3 in. Polyurethane Caster with Brake  $8.98 ea. Everbilt      Model # 4120545EB      Internet # 203672194    Store SKU # 194726

Hope it's ok to post a link here?http://www.homedepot.com/p/Everbilt-3-in-Polyurethane-Caster-with-Brake-4120545EB/203672194

 

What is really cool about these casters is the swivel and brake. When you lock the brake it also locks the caster from pivoting. If I want 100% stability, I just lock all four wheels out facing away from the side pannels making it virtually tip proof. I also painted the metal to match my theme.  I also used a thin sticky backed sheet of dense foam rubber between the mount plate and bottom plate of W100 to help isolate noise and vibrations. I really love how these wheels look on this case.

I will be back to discuse a drive mounting issue next.

 

Papa's Outa Here....

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interesting! my tower will disappear in a closet. i bought it solely as the 'housing' for lots of hdd's (with room for future expansion) for a 'giant' nas/ storage server. the casters coming with it do quite alright for me so far. but i can see the point (depending on weight distribution and potential modding) plus the point that they not just lock the wheels, but the swivel as well is intriguing as well. they look quite cool with the red "tires" as well :). btw, i also added little 'rubber washers' (just made them myself from a old bicycle inner tube) between casters and case to prevent/ reduce vibration transfer from housing to floor. if you have carpet flooring it does not really matter, on hardwood or tile you might notice a difference, depending on your setup!

 

cheers. L

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I hate to be negative but because Thermaltake likes to brag about how great their products are, I would like to mention some of the downsides that they could have put a bit more thought to before popping out a new case of this caliber.

1. Let's talk about the removeable drive carriers and dual drive carriers support brackets. I have never in  my life seen a slide out or what we know as a "Hot Swappable" drive configuration that has no connectorized backplane. Like #### were they thinking of? So you got to open the side door and pull off and on the cables to swap out a drive. The engineer on this must have been high on some real good s**t, ya know what I'm talkin bout? When they go as far as to give you a drive tray, they forgot to put the connectors on the carrier support brackets and maybe have included an adaptor for 2.5"...

So hunting I did go.. I found these connectors online:

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/22-Pin-SATA-6Gb-s-Male-to-Female-Right-angle-adapter-7-15PIN-SATA-III-3/32508248071.html?spm=2114.01010208.3.181.1fQ9Ke&ws_ab_test=searchweb201556_9,searchweb201602_2_10017_10005_10006_10034_10021_507_10022_508_10020_10018_10019,searchweb201603_1&btsid=81b734d8-9447-4a03-8d2a-85558ff543ee

Looks like these will do the job and prefer a straight version instead of right angle.

 

2. Which leads me to a related issue. focusing again on the dual drive support brackets again. Problem is that the bottom rear edge of the bracket extends out to far to plug in angled down connector cabling. I had to cut out notches to make angled connectors fit. I like to use angled connectors because you can stack the ribbon cables and they dress into my cable management system.

 

back to the drawing board..

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Another tip is to absolutly make sure that the four long frame bars are in the correct orientation as the drawing shows. Look att all the holes, not just the ones that the screws go in. All those hole need to be in the right directions when you mount the front and back pannel. This will save you time and not have to dissassemble your work when you find that you messed up. :D

 

I ran into the exactly this. The top left bar was not correct rotated. So I had just luck, I could bend the case a little bit to remove and insert the bar correctly.

In the first picture in the manual there was no info about the correct rotation and if I remember correctly no screw holes visible. Only pages later where you put the screws for the doors/top panel...

 

Also a important information which is missing in the manual: if somebody want to mount the hard disks behind the motherborard, please add the HDD mounts before you insert the PS and Motherborard. Otherwise you can't screw it.

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