Lean and Green - modular dual PC scratch build

[Something Else]

thats a nice stealth switch. good work there!

 

[waynio]

thats a nice stealth switch. good work there!

Thanks Jamsames, pretty chuft with how it's turning out.

Mini update while I take a break.

Chop saw time, I need to figure out exactly where I need to place the piece to be cut, also the clamp is a bad combination with the mitre guide because the clamp has decent force to hold things in place but the mitre guide is an easy push over so throws it off whatever angle you set it at so I recognised this & fixed the angle & only clamped so it was touching & held it manually, helped do a straight cut & wow it blitzed through this 45mm pipe with 3.2mm thick walls, took about 3 seconds or less & safety glasses should be worn using this as chips fly everywhere, I will mod this tool at a later date for the clamp & guide combo to function better as well as add a marker for where it actually cuts.

Like said I need to figure out exactly where to place pieces to cut, had about 5 or 6mm excess I had to file & sand down to get it correct length, nice & square.

On to the design.

This is another nice thing about the scroll saw with 760mm throat I can cut a slither off a 1000mm panel easily by doing half 1 way & flip it around & go at the other side but I only needed a tiny bit off this sheet of acrylic lol.

Used scraps for the aluminium bits.

10mm aluminium takes some time to cut so I just took the needed piece off & got busy with files.

Using that sweet precision helper for drilling on both the 2mm alu parts.

Because it's 4 layers that need the same holes I completed 1 of the 2mm alu ones & then aligned that to do the acrylic ones & quickly got it drilled & because the other alu one was on the same panel I decided to just do that one too but same as the first one.

All the needed bits with switch slotted in.

I need to get the multi layer front panel mounted to the bottom HTPC panel before I fix the switch parts together so it functions 100% spot on.

Next up, pci/io pieces & I'll get back to completing this switch when I get to fixing the pci/io pieces together, should have another update in a pile more hours.

 

[waynio]

Hm, couldn't log in about 30 min ago, odd.

Didn't meet the goal of completing the switch & PCI/IO pieces but.

PCI/IO pieces, 1 low profile for the HTPC & 1 standard ATX for the gamer rig.

Started first by printing, cutting, tacking together the templates & I made 2 for 2 slightly different aluminium panels on each one so the IO shield can pop in/out properly & just the 1 for the triple layer acrylic sandwiches which I stuck on the outer layer of the sandwich & roughly cut around it & drew around the master one onto the other layers & stuck together with tensol 12 acrylic adhesive & left them clamped for a few hours, I moved it around so it was 100% caked & squeezing out of the seams on the joining surfaces.

While waiting for the adhesive to get an awesome bond I focused on doing the 1mm aluminium panels.

Cutting the 13mm acrylic sandwiches proved tricky, when using normal blades they would get hot pretty fast even on a slow speed & start melting the acrylic causing some very unwanted problems of the blade going in any direction it wanted to with ease & melting the greenish dust from the black acrylic onto the opal frosted stuff making it look a heck of a mess instead of like a liquorice allsort lol, so I had to drill bigger holes so I could get a modded band saw blade in which still gets hot but not as fast & gets further before it needs a cool down, after cutting it all out I had a good bit of removing that dirty green mess away with files & razors which made my nice cuts dull full of uneven levels & requiring much more finishing, I want to get them to a shiny polished state so still have my work cut out on these.

Loosely fit together, I like them & can picture how sweet they will look if I do polish the acrylic edges & polish the aluminium, they still need mounting holes adding & brass thread inserts pushing in, Ill do the mounting holes next.

Would have posted this at 8PM but I desperately needed a nap or it was a natural hangover coming my way drooling into my keyboard lol.

 

[Ricochet J]

Awesome workmanship.

 

[waynio]

Awesome workmanship.

Thanks Ricochet

Reason for absence, Sleeping Dogs.

Just finished doing these, started yesterday evening but had a few hours of breaks.

Cluster pictures because there was 25.

Placed some masking tape on a square & marked where the blade comes down on the chop saw for easy aligning.
Left near 2mm excess to be safe & filed & used the disc sander to get it the perfect size needed.

Drill helper idea being used for drilling the dead centre of rods & then finishing off in the drill press, I'm calling this poor mans lathe.

Boring fan control knobs.
Cut a 6mm strip of card & wrapped it around the bottom of the knobs & marked a line around it, the bulky bit needs to be 10mm high, the smaller bit needs to be 6mm high.
Whole lot of filing until it's good enough.
Getting the same depth of hole on them all I perfected 1 & then used a pencil to mark where the needed depth should be for the others & did bit by bit until they were all good.

Printed the model from different perspectives as a rough guide & got busy with appropriate files until they were good.

Woooo, just need smoothing off on the drum sander now.

End result but I will perfect these before I get them anodised & once anodised I'll re sand the sharp arrows for a sweet contrast.

Awesome, nice to have those done with.

 

[Diggsy]

Yet again, awesome - your patience, creativity and skill seems to know no bounds

 

[Something Else]

awesome. its the little things that make it!

 

[waynio]

Yet again, awesome - your patience, creativity and skill seems to know no bounds

Thanks Diggsy all this trying has really risen my old limits.

awesome. its the little things that make it!

Tis true thanks Jamsames.

Played sleeping dogs to death time to mod on.

Drilled & heat pressed brass thread inserts into the rear IO pieces with the soldering iron, the inserts are 4.3mm diameter by 5mm long, I drilled 4mm holes & placed a marker on the drill bit so I knew where to stop so it wouldn't go all the way through the 7mm thickness, took it to about 1mm short of drilling straight through so they are nice & neat.

Time to move forward with this switch.
I find clamping pieces to what I'm fixing to to be most accurate way when you didn't cover that part of the design with intentions of just bunging it all together when the time is right but make sure it's square before going forward.
Bottom, the blue tape is a quick rough guide for the 10mm panels so I just drill in the middle, did 1 on both ends.

Top fixing, same as bottom.

Tapping.

Woo hoo, the marble & switch case is loose fit for now & I needed to sand nearly 3mm off the bottom of the 10mm piece which supports the switch in the correct place, took a while to get this done right.

Here I drilled & tapped & countersunk the rear 2mm piece into the 10mm support, the gap you see is the resistance the switch has got from the spring & rod inside, the support piece needs fixing to the bottom panel but I was far too tired to carry on.

Doesn't look like much done but I had no plans for doing the fixing together so had to be ultra careful to not botch any of the work gone into it so far, more soon.

 

[waynio]

Photobucket was having problems the past couple of days but they seem fixed now.

Guess an update is waaaaay overdue, tiny update due to a fat chunk of idling but an update, been having to rediscover improvising & patience with not following a script now so the stabilisers are off lol.

Had to countersink the steel washers for the HTPC side layer panels so they don't take up extra unwanted thickness like they were due to the wave detail panels being 1mm thick & ideally you need 2mm for a good countersink with m3 screws, had to place them in the vice by using a small file to guide 8 of them in place 1 at a time.

Fixed the 10mm HTPC sides to the base so is a little more together, the layer panels slide into place from the rear for easy maintenance, just remove the back panel & front fan which slots in place & slide the detail panels out which leaves room for hands to reach in & tweak things.

Here is the awesomely assembled spindicator done by reikmaharg2 for me, I'm pretty sure the project would be lacking that extra touch of awesome if this didn't happen so thanks mate appreciated, I also learnt the fist basic skill modders need when stepping up to electronics, soldering for keeping the wires numbered I prodded sharpie marker dots on them lol, either that or a lot of fun having to run them in sequence to find the right order after soldering which would make for messy wire work.

I wasn't 100% sure where the negative stems of the LED's should go on the assembly & just had a vague idea even though he explained to me lol, so used an AC Ryan molex pass through adapter with a wire crimped & soldered in place which I will run to the negative 12 to 1 wire for 0v, kier acknowledged that as being fine for the negative legs, so that's the main assembly waiting to be joined to the LED's.

So, made a start on the spindicator LED wire work & here showing the LED's plugged into place after I countersunk the exterior side so they don't bulge out at all & to make sure everything aligns correct, it does, or did after 2 of the holes needed drilling due to a super faint misalignment but got it done with minimal fuss.

My soldering used to be awesomely terrible, I found this surprisingly easy to do, an OK soldering iron with heat control & flux paste & helping hands really changed that pretty much instantly like magic, flux paste is magic for soldering.

And plugged back in place but I don't like what I did for the LED negative stem wire work on the LED end, soldering is fine but heck of a wire mess taking up valuable space for the 12 to 1 wire with the way I did that so I'll remove them & do those again while it's mounted in place to make it neater, I need heat shrink for it though before I fully solder everything together but I ordered some yesterday from phenoptix & it's been sent out so hopefully I'll get the switch & light complete this week with a video showing it in action but don't hold me to that.

Was thinking of mixing good inks or clothes dye with metal lacquer, the same stuff I brushed all over stealthlow, it has kept it all in very nice condition so felt like revisiting the idea to make it work.

Update on the ink idea, I added empty mixing bottles, syringes, main ink colours to make any colour & metal lacquer & looked at the price of just short of £40 & backed away from it thinking that's a bit of an expensive experiment really, I'd love to try it but not that much, that £40 could go towards a nice anodising job.

I do think the ink mixed with metal lacquer could work though but just don't know how well it would work without doing a couple of tests so the idea is there if anyone wants to give it a try but do it on scrap if you do just to be safe.

I also think maybe the metal lacquer might be usable as a clear primer for candy paint but not sure without testing, it does make a nice protective layer that is negligible on thickness yet offering good protection.

 

[GhostlyPea]

I'll be honest - I don't like the design (im just not a fan of spindly cut aways) however that fan controller is amazing. Those dials are excellent and unique, somehting to be proud of. Keep up the good work

- GP

 

[waynio]

I'll be honest - I don't like the design (im just not a fan of spindly cut aways) however that fan controller is amazing. Those dials are excellent and unique, somehting to be proud of. Keep up the good work

- GP

Hear this a bit & I appreciate honest thoughts on what I do true though it is maybe a bit too different or just too busy for most even but still I wanted exactly that, something that makes me say wow when I see it from the thought of knowing I made it without aid of factory machines, only got a tiny bit of it fixed together & it's already having some of that effect on me so can't wait to see it altogether polished, brushed & anodised =) my future projects might be more pleasing to more people though, just wanted a 1 does all rig for my main personal rig to last a good bunch of years, I'll mostly be making rigs for other people after this, either presents, charity builds or commissioned builds or parts, this is a rig that leaves no reason to make another personal rig, unless I fancied making a desk case.

I could do minimal but it would be over way too fast for me, I partly do this to keep myself challenged & busy.

Thanks GP.

I'll have an update incoming sometime during the weekend.

 

[waynio]

Design update before the real update tomorrow.

Been designing most of the week, the stand & HTPC is going to get heavily worked on through the night into Sunday evening, I'll be aiming to have a nice update posted late on Sunday evening.

Gaming rig has been tweaked a good bit too internally, frame work massively improved & both 120 fans are now intakes without the ducts for more space & will allow for a normal none flush fit window if I decide to have side windows still but that's not likely when these panels can act like nice big vents, top window will be removable also but will be flush fit & so will the front windows still.

The Zalman cooler. &
The
Base of the heatsink has a terrible wonky see saw effect but this gives me high hopes for awesome temps after I'm done with it going off the reviews I've seen on it fresh out of the box.
At least 1 of the heatpipes needs carefully filing down, I couldn't believe it that a fault like that passed QC for a premium air cooler but anyway I'll file any bad bits down & lap the hell out of it until it's real nice & super flat hopefully not going so far I sand into the heatpipe & wreck the thing, I should very likely request an exchange but I'm willing to make it work & finish Zalmans job for them.

The
I took the plastic piece off the cooler & got busy making an accurate model of it, this will really test my filing skills to the limit, the fan control knobs was a warm up compared to this thing.

The zalman future car stunt show a split second before a crossing barrel roll went...

Awfully miscalculated, polygons mangled together about to drop on top of the 2 below.

Luckily the 2 doing the brave deed of letting them jump over them have an instant turbo boost to get away from the clump of mangled metal above but both flipped over from the crazy instant speed which couldn't be handled.

Process of it developing while taking all the measurements with my trusty digital callipers.

So I have a choice of 2 flavours, think I'll go with the rounded bits because the heavily angular one might be a bit too difficult if not impossible with files lol, both will be but yeah, the rounded one should be a fraction easier, the upper side I'm not really concerned about, it's the underside which might prove to be really difficult with scoop files (don't know what the proper name for them are).


I'll make it from a chunk of 10mm plate alu but first up is the stand & HTPC, I will update Sunday evening with how it all went but either way this is going to really progress now.

I have also had enough of photobucket nagging me each month to upgrade to pro so I bought a 2 year sub so I'd better make good use of it.

 

[Sneblot]

This is looking amazing, can't wait for more updates

 

[infernox]

Brilliant.

Love the fan grill for your psu.

 

[waynio]

This is looking amazing, can't wait for more updates

Thanks Sneblot

Brilliant.

Love the fan grill for your psu.

Thanks infernox, got a few more of those grills to make yet.

Not the update I was hoping to post.

I'll come clean, I've not been getting much done at all feeling too demotivated (think I just needed a little time out, this project is kicking my rear all over the place lol) so absolutely nowhere near the point of what I was hoping to get done for my 4000th post on bit-tech but that was making me avoid posting far too much & there is much to comment on in other logs & new ones, also need to make the "workshop" more of a workshop that isn't prone to turning into a big game of twister & where's wally insane edition where you need a microscope when trying to find misplaced bits.


Again with that flipping spindicator?, fraid so & we’re not there yet lol.

When I went to do the new wire work on the spindicator after getting some get up & go to continue with white LED's (3rd time doing the soldering BTW) I thought that copper ring idea was possibly a far fetched silly idea that would be near impossible to do & in fact a great doable idea suggested by Keir for connecting all the negative LED legs for the spindicator so went ahead measured & designed/printed it & got busy making it out of 1mm copper sheet.

Snipping LED legs.

Soldering wires of same length to the positive legs.

This bit was difficult & took the longest lining up all 12 legs through the 1mm holes of the copper ring, was a little frustrating.

But managed it & then soldered it in place along with a wire to go to the negative wire, the heat shrink wasn't good enough for making a snug fit so had to think of something else so I ordered some liquid electrical tape which I'll brush on any exposed joints (hopefully have that tomorrow).

The colour discs for changing the spindicator colours, made these from coloured transparent vinyl's (bought a bunch of a4 sheets) & 1mm acrylic sheet & will easily be as good as certain coloured LED's with the diffusion from the opal frosted acrylic (I hope ) & are relatively easy to change the colours but not easy enough to change without some effort so plenty of testing will be done to find my favourite colour once it's whirling.

Also added 2 extra plain discs to make the switch need a tiny push instead of a fairly long push to function but might switch that for 1 because I think 2mm extra will be the perfect addition instead of 3mm, as it is it only requires a very faint push.

How it looks from behind when installed, looks a bit messy at the moment but it won't once I get it connected to the spindicator & use liquid electrical tape to keep solder joints from shorting out & get the lengths to perfect length & neatly routed fixed in place.

Space, did I mention how little there will be between the switch & PSU, look at the huge gap, spindicator was only just possible to be part of the marble switch.

I'll likely make a PSU back plate that mounts to the psu & back panel to give a pinch of space, good thing I don't need to use the modular cables for the HTPC, the gap you see on the switch house is due to having 1 too many 1mm discs in the pipe so it's forcing it over a touch like said the marble only needs a faint push to function, this will change.



Decided to have a go at getting the Zalman CNPS12X Ultimate Performance Triple Fan CPU Cooler base flat because it was a very long way away from flat & had a really bad see saw effect because of 1 of the heat pipes in the middle being at a higher level than the others which created a 1mm see saw, my advice to anyone buying 1 of these coolers, put it on a surface you know is flat & check it out to see if it has a nasty see saw effect & then get something like a metal ruler to check the base out carefully visually, if it isn't flat get it exchanged rather than try to flatten it, I'll show why.

I have never had to file a heat sink base before, had to lap them before now but never had to file, that's as bad a sign as you can get of quality control gone AWOL.

So, once I got it flat from filing I wanted to go a little further by now lapping it, I should have settled for a not flat base but a flatter than what it was base, this fat chunk of 10mm thick aluminium with smooth edges has been serving me nicely for sanding things perfectly flat.

I kept checking for sweet flatness & it has a slight concave base also as a nice bonus on top of the wonky base & because of how much I had to file down it must have left virtually no pipe left to sand so a tiny hole formed on the worst heat pipe & a little liquid had come out, I knew it was knackered at this point so continued to see how bad it would get if I made the base completely flat just to see how badly made the base is on this.

Not good at all as it happens, I noticed another wet spot, joy.

Oh yeah, this is what happens when you make the base of this cooler perfectly flat, a little tiny hole wiped with tissue made it cave in very easily, awesome, not, so see this warning & if you buy 1 of these coolers & it isn't nice & flat possibly with 1 or more heat pipes bulging higher than the rest, get it exchanged & don't try to fix it yourself, it will cut you £60 to £70 short & leave you highly disappointed, could have pre ordered hitman absolution & assassins creed 3 with that & had change to buy I am alive, gutted.

I did also check it out for how you remove the fans if you want to mod them which most modders would want to I expect, the plastic strip mounts the fans are on have some kind of arrow plugs 1 at the top & 1 at the bottom that go into the fins so there might be notches cut out of the fins so they clip in place, free them & you free the fans allowing you to mod them.

Zalman you let me down with your garbage quality control on your flagship air cooler & I'm £65 out of pocket leaving me quite gutted indeed, that could have bought more aluminium or a bunch of good games, doubt I'll buy Zalman again, it did cross my mind to buy another because it does look awesome for an air cooler but could have had the same damn issue so thought I'd have to be very stupid to buy another because even if it was flat it would have been garbage surface finish on the base in need of a good lapping.

I have totally jumped ship & ordered a nicely engineered Noctua NH-D14 which I'll mod to be a monster of a triple custom 140mm Akasa viper fans which kick a hefty 110 CFM & are PWM fans that might well match OK water cooling, that's how I lose the plot, whatever failed me I make something far more awesome, I don't know why, I just do, maybe I need to get the gutted feeling away from me fast & this seems to work.


The workshop sort out can wait until the project is complete, this update wouldn't have been posted today if the Zalman cooler didn't show serious flaw & would have had the HTPC & stand altogether probably in a week or so, so see you in a week, at least I got what was going to be a special 4000th post done & I can comment on logs again, was just aiming to make it an excellent update, the full HTPC & stand & spindicator whirling away & sweet custom all aluminium fan, oh well, next update.

A bunch of the power section shots since I made the marble flush to the inset panel, I wonder if people will get sick of seeing this particular piece lol but if they do there is the anodising contrast thing to come & it will all need a very good sanding session before that, still looks a bit rough but I do like it, how bout you.

More as soon as I have more to show.

 

[DaleTheWhale]

Looks awesome, your creativity and designs are mind-blowing!
I looked through the Stealthlow project the other day and that was incredible, and looking through your work so far on this project, I'm totally mind blown, can't wait to see the finished project, such a clever and creative design you have for this.

 

[waynio]

Looks awesome, your creativity and designs are mind-blowing!
I looked through the Stealthlow project the other day and that was incredible, and looking through your work so far on this project, I'm totally mind blown, can't wait to see the finished project, such a clever and creative design you have for this.

Wow, thank you very much ReaperGuy, glad you like.

To add to that unfortunate thing with the zalman cooler, I still say they make awesome products, I just got unlucky & rather than mess around with RMA aggravation I had a go at fixing it myself, if I'd have stopped once I got it reasonably flat I'd have been OK & by this point the pipes would have been getting thin, I pushed too far for a perfect flat base & knackered 2 of the 6 pipes, I'll run tests on how it performs some time later, I have a feeling it will perform as good if not better than 1 straight out of the box due to the base being perfectly flat despite being 2 pipes down, I think direct touch heat pipes aren't a great idea unless they get given a very nice base finish after they are made so it absorbs & transfers the heat perfectly.

I mostly posted how things went with that so other people don't try to attempt fixing theirs if they happen to get one with a bad base, definitely send it back to the shop you bought it from & get an exchange rather than lose out on what you paid.

 

[IC3]

Some times i amazed of how some people can be enthusiastic about the builds. Keep up the good work, cant wait for the finish. Defenitly will look awesome.

 

[waynio]

Some times i amazed of how some people can be enthusiastic about the builds. Keep up the good work, cant wait for the finish. Defenitly will look awesome.

Can understand that it all started with changing stock case fans & just spiraled out of control.
Thanks IC3

Narrowed down from 120 lol reason for a couple of shots of each angle is to show how the light is shifting around.

Liquid electrical tape, this stuff is straight from world of goo.

Spindicator & all the assembly soldered together at last.

I really should have used a fine brush instead of the big blompy one attached to the lid, the back of the housing ended up a heck of a mess but it's all insulated so I'm OK with that.

It got worse lol.

Moment of truth & the spindicator spins but 1 of the LED's doesn't seem to be working, 11 o clock no worky but because of the diffusion I can't tell.

Testing all the coloured discs before mounting it in the case.

Mounted & went with the light green disc.

Some of the colours are just too powerful, yellow & dark green, what I think this needs is possibly a bit of tinting film adding to tone it down a touch possibly & instead of a 1mm acrylic padding disc I should replace it with an aluminium 1 with a pattern in it, maybe a very thin spiral, I'll do a few different ones, also bear in mind this is just nowhere near as good as it looks to the eye, in the dark there is a nice glow on the panels & the only way I can capture that is with the camera on a higher exposure which makes the marble look far too bright but the marble looks like how it does where the glow isn't captured but to the eye you see both nicely.


And a video, not good quality but it shows it a bit better than static images.

 

[infernox]

Loved the Orange, but the green looks fab, far surpasses me in what I could have done. Props.