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—19 7 07
I had some time tuesday to get some milling out of the way.
-had to cut a notch to accommodate the frame rail on the motherboard backplate.
-and another set of notches on the tank mounts. This will make it easier to line up for glue.
-I had some scrap I thought I’d add to the on switch tube. I added some holes.(Did I mention I LIKE the new mill bit? Is it obvious yet?)
-Making the hole for the on switch. This is a post that will sit behind the big marble. I started with 4 tiny holes in each corner…
-Then cut out the center with the 1/4″ mill bit. (It really is handy…) After this I filed the corners out a bit. When I dug the switch out I realized it was larger than I thought it was.
90% of my mistakes come from trusting my memory. My memory is so bad I forget that my memory is bad.-what?
-Today I bored the hole out with a little dremel bit. High drill speed, slow feed, and lots of water. Next I drilled the rest of the way through the block with a slightly smaller bit. (for the wires.)
-After some filing the switch fits.
-In the afternoon something amazing happened. I got my freaking Futurlec order that I purchased on May 16th!!!!!
Odd that the 1st thing I ordered was the LAST thing to arrive.
-Some stuff from Xoxide showed up too. An 80mm Swiftec radiator, 120mm fan, and a 80mm fan. I bet you were wondering if I would ever get some hardware. -And YES I know the Chinese knock-off fans are loud. I like $2 typhoons…
-With the magic of photoshop I can show the layout that would let me add a 2nd radiator, should I need it.
-Back to the on switch… Here I abuse the countersink bit again.
-An OLD friend. The buffing rig. I need to change the belt on it, -it’s older than I am, and pretty frayed.
-Mostly finished and partly polished switch mount. I need to figure out how much of the back to cut off now.
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—21 6 07
I actually ended the day with putting something together!
I finished polishing the rails. It took longer than expected because one part had some kind of protective coating on it. I ended up having to hit it with 80 grit paper, rather than starting with 400.
-lining up the frame to drill holes for the rivets.
-A quick trick I like to use when I want to keep the drill perfectly vertical. Line up the mark to be drilled in the center of a pipe fitting…
-Then you can use the upper rim to keep your bit aligned.
-I noticed fairly quickly that I forgot to countersink the rivet holes in the frame…
-Used a deburring bit to make indentions where the drive bay rivets will be.
—22 6 07
First, here’s the core for the experiment…
-I took my parts and did a quick layout check. I keep a big pile of dead drives for mocking up. some of the cleanup cutting will have to wait until I get my big tilesaw back.
-putting things together so I could mount the back panel. I like how close I got the fit here.
-My favorite weapons for this: scotch tape and bottles of lead shot.
-test fitting the rivets.
-I noticed the fit for a radiator will be close. I will need to do something to strengthen the back too. It’s going to look like swiss cheese.
-Trimming some small parts up in the garage with the table saw was messy. My hair ended up like this too. One of these days I will remember that little bag that came with the saw…
-An order from Tap Plastics came today, (packed like it was explosive.) My glue and my balls for the on switch. They seem smaller than they should be…(please ignore all possible double meanings.)
-I tried out the glue without doing any testing… With more bottles of lead shot.
-OOPS! I treated the glue like acetone. It dries faster and doesn’t ’squish’ out like acetone. Also, I had the blue side up and noticed that I couldn’t see to avoid air bubbles. I’m glad this is the backplate. This can be fixed later…
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—17 6 07
Rollled my press out and did some cutting to resolve a clearance issue.
Made countersink cuts. This part is best done with a lot of water, so my vise went to the garage later to take a WD40 bath.
Mostly finished brackets.
—20 6 07
It stopped raining long enough to do a few more cuts. I had to re-figure my cut layout. (I used Illustrator, It’s much faster for me.)
-Cut for the drivebay/faceplate.
-Cutting out a block for the motherboard backplate. Like on Hypnotoad, I’m fusing 2 sheets to the back wall to make an offset plate. Here I have a piece of junk plexi vised to my guide to steady the cut.
-#2424blue. It’s very dark…exactly what I wanted.
-#2085neonred. Together they give a nice purple tint. This case will either be very cool or incredibly tacky.
My experiment on the side hit a slight delay when I realized the sealant I used was not drying…Well, it WAS a ten year old tube. Why didn’t I think it would go bad?
-Machining an edge down…
I screwed up by making the frame before I finalized my dimensions. So My finished botom rails will become my top rails. I am building a new frame to match my plexi cuts.
-grinding a 1/8″ inset…
-setting up the rivet holes…
-countersink (pun intended)
Much sanding and polishing to come…
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—13 6 07
I’m still waiting on parts, but I finished fitting and polishing the bottom frame box…
I’ve been looking into doing an experimental cooling loop on the side, just so I can work out the bugs before building an expensive loop. I have an old 500mhz in the garage that I can butcher.
-Of course, I don’t want to spend any money on it sooooo……
Yes, it’s a dead lawn mower engine…
I thought the aluminum fins would help with cooling. Inside the Piston cylinder is an old Whisper 500 aquarium pump.
It gets worse. For a cpu water block I have this…
How ghetto can I get? The piston head fits 5/8ths tubing perfectly.
Here I filled in the oil holes with JB Weld.
AAANNNNDDD I made a baffle/lid from scrap plexiglas.
—16 6 07
Almost everything came in friday. The only thing I’m missing now is my order from Futurlec.(The first order I made…)
I have to thank Greensabbath again for mentioning Delvie’s Plastics. They responded fast and were the best price for acylic I found.
On to phase 2: CHOPPING!
This is my prep for the first cut with my wetsaw. I was a little worried the paper would melt or get sticky, but everything turned out okay.
My 1st obstacle. I had to dig around to find a ruler long enough to use as a guide on my faceplate/topplate cut.
I don’t have many pics of the cutting because I was racing a thunderstorm. as I was doing the last cut, it started to rain.
So I went to the garage to cut the polycarbonate for the drive latches. I decided to shave a few HUNDRED bucks off my costs by cutting my own parts. I ordered a 12″ square from McMaster Carr. It showed up in 3 days (in a HUGE box,) and was actually a little larger than 12″.
I then proceeded to make a horrible mess. I used a fluted dremel bit, spraying water on it after each pass to cool it down.
More mayhem…
My finished bits of junk.
A test fit on a gutted hardrive. I forgot to countersink the holes while I had the drill press out… :duh:
-Dug my 1st batch of molex plugs out of the jar of dye on the back porch. Why didn’t -I- think of this? Thanks for the idea Tjedi AI.
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First, Thank you to DangerDen for their support of this project.
—3-6-07
I’m starting a new project. I really don’t have enough progress made to post this as a project log. Most of this post will be hot air…
-But I’d like to discuss what I’ve got planned so that I can get much needed help and feedback.
1st - The rough concept…(This render was made just to check the colors, the final rig will not look this cludgy.)
-I plan to use 1/4″ dark blue and flouresent red plexi. I have already purchased the red 2″ OD tubing from Tap Plastics.
-The orb in the top front of the case is the on switch. I plan on using a marble that will fit just inside the 2″ tube.
-The blue frontplate will act as a fan shroud.
-eventually I plan to build my first watercooling loop out of mostly copper pipe. (This is where most of the feedback will be needed.) The idea is to avoid hose kinking by only having short lengths of vinyl tubing at the pump and heatsink plate. I will also polish and laquer all copper.
I am even so crazy as to plan to build my own waterblock. For this I have saved…
It’s an old 1 1/4″ thick copymachine window. I think it will be hard to crack a coverplate THAT thick…
I would also like the loop to be zero pressure. -by using an open to the air condensation loop, (like you see on a still, YEE-HAW!)
Stage 2: Collecting junk and experiments…
I want to make a slide-lock rig for the hardrives. This is a test rig I made out of Lexan. The last image is a bit of vinyl tubing that I Dyed using Rit fabric dye. It worked surprisingly well, but I’m having a hard time finding flourescent red dye…
I ended up with this design for the drive locks. Laser cuting this is my best option, but the quote I got from Emacineshop was over $400 US!!!
To cut up $30 of lexan??? I think I will be calling around for cutting services.
Next I wanted to see if i could cut my frame rails with my wetsaw…
EEwww! BAD idea. I guess a hacksaw is still the best bet…
Next I wanted to see if I could polish up the aluminum angle. This is the first time I actually PURCHASED this stuff, so it was fairly clean. (This kind of stuff frequently shows up at renthouse cleanups…) I sanded the bottom piece down with 400 grit, then 600, then finally with DuPont Polishing Compound.
I may need to break down and buy some more sandpaper…-But hey! It was free too!
At the end of the day, all I have is a pile of junk and a bunch of packages lost in transit. Not exactly a spectacular start.
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cheapskate
I am cheapskate, a regular over at Bit-Tech. I recently stumbled onto Custom PC and decided to migrate Project: Bloo Balls over here. The original log is over a year in the making, and I am a master of keyboard babble, so I might not have it completely edited. I hope you enjoy reading it.
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