Project - Air Cube v2

[waynio]

Cheers rhysduck, will do .

Only done the face plate today (started too late), I trimmed the original dvd bezel so it was 1 or 2mm thick, placed maksking tape over the front of the face plate, lay the trimmed bezel in place & slapped some body filler over it, sanded, then flipped it over & covered the gaps for the bezel & sanded smooth.

The top piece is going to need a bit of work on it before it looks a bit nicer but it'll come together, just had a slack day lol .

More soon .

 

[Arthalen]

This is great stuff, Waynio! Keep it up!

Its really interesting to read about the metal fabrication, and the bodyworkgoing into the XBox. Looking forward to seeing the finished thing !

PS Have some stars

 

[waynio]

Thank you Arthalen.

Xbox 360
Filled & sanded the inside & outside corners of the top piece.
Made a quick & simple air duct to blow out of the side, still undecided if the rear fan will bring air in or out.

The back could do with some filler so it all sits nice & flat all around, I'll get that done tomorrow, I'll also trim the flat bars out of the way of the side hole.

It's getting very close to being ready for painting .

Air cube
LOL, the temps are better with the exterior panels on rather than off , just thought I'd take a pic of the air cube with the new panel on , the onboard led lights only come on when starting up the pc & are quite subtle but good looking, I like them, there is a green, orange & red light which has given me an idea to use some leds on both sides of the case to be different colours, the 5870 pretty much splits the case into 2 halves so I think it'll look quite decent if placed in the right spots.

More soon .

 

[rhysduck]

Loving the Air Cube
That's a real nice window feature you have there looking into the CPU cooler. very nice

 

[waynio]

Thank you rhysduck, I thought it would be a good feature when I had the side panels off a while ago.
things to do on the air cube.
change the case feet
paint the rear panel
paint the fans
replace window & mount a new 1 for the new side
braid the psu the keep your warranty & easy way lol, you'll see .
add a few leds that won't be distracting but good looking

Update
Put a good layer of filler on the back & smoothed out, the top piece is laid flat now & cut the flat bars lower to be unseen.

Decided ac ryan meshx is the right stuff for the side duct hole, it's very unrestrictive so would be perfect for it, thought about doing my own grill but the meshx would be better, once I have a mesh sorted for the hole it should be ready for painting & then I can move on with the stack, after a couple of days for a break .

Doing the xbox the way I have has given me more appreciation for case mods, scratch builds are more straight forward because you are the one who designed it so you know exactly how it should all go together, it requires a lot of adapting with a ready made case so I believe it can take just as much effort to do a good looking mod, case mod appreciation +10 .

The ps3 is going to look too normal amongst the 360 & air cube, I'd love to at least give it a paint job but that warranty is stopping me, for now .

More soon, Can't do nothing more on the xbox until tuesday but I could make a start on the levels of the stack if I feel up for it.

 

[rhysduck]

Still reading and enjoying Wayne
That xbox is going to weigh a ton It's heavy enough at stock!
Really looking forward to the outcome of that Aircube - It makes me want to buy a new case and get started on my own! I really should get my build log up

 

[waynio]

I'll weigh the green 4 life 360 & post the comparison once it's done to a stock xbox , I don't think it'll be much of a difference to be honest, just the size difference really.

The stack.
The makeshift table was not flat enough for putting a jig on & getting this stack made, luckily my dad had a kitchen work top doing nothing, so we took the clamping piece off the rough makeshift table & put it on the kitchen top, so now I have a nice table to work on .

Made a square jig, I cut the wood to precise sizes of the angle bars so I needed 4 hands to make it 100% square, my dad helped me on this, it would have taken ages to do on my own & might not have been 100% square, anyway the jig is perfect so I'll be able to do my marking spot on when I start on this stack.

This is the bottom level piece, it's the chunkiest level of them all, I wanted it to be well grounded .

More soon .

 

[waynio]

Decided to do the part I was dreading the most, removing the air cubes feet which I stuck on with araldite.

I removed the araldite by using my heat gun on all the exposed bits for a few seconds & then scraped it off, then heated the whole bar & levered it off, it all went nice & smoothly .

Polished up the original polish so it looks all fresh again .

With the old feet taken off the sides & top fit perfect.

cut, filed & polished some new ones from solid square aluminium bar & decided to use mounting tape to attach the new feet.

With the new feet on the sides & top fit perfect, so glad .

Looks pretty sweet .

Finally cleared up the garage so it isn't like a game of twister any more, it was getting ridiculas lol .

Got the ac ryan meshx, got it installed on the xbox (used my glue gun), where the rivets are hanging out I want to tap the holes so it is properly secured in place & so it can be disassembled easy, once I get that done it is time for painting it.

More soon .

 

[rhysduck]

I do like that Air Cube case Waynio - very nice Can't wait to see it filled up!

Xbox case coming along nicely too - looks 100x better now its more or less together and sanded
What are the bolts sticking out at the bottom of the xbox for?

I really should put my spare xbox case to good use

 

[waynio]

Thanks rhysduck
I'm in the middle of painting the case fans right now, the frames are going to be dark metalic blue, the blades are going to be ice metallic blue, I just put a few spare fans in the air cube so I can use the pc while they get painted lol was getting withdrawals from the pc .

The bolts sticking out are just rivets holding the fan frame in place, I dropped my drill & the drill bit for doing a hole ready for tapping snapped so I'm waiting for the delivery of a couple of new ones so I can get the mounting holes re done & tapped, this is why I'm doing the fans now, it's been useful having a few things on the go .

 

[waynio]

Time to sort the ugly brown & green fans out, the fan blades pop off easily.

I looked around the house for something that could quickly cover the fans motors & found spice jar covers to be a perfect fit .

Primer

Shot to show the spice covers doing their job .

I cut a load of circles from card board & stuck the sharp end of a rivet through the centre & popped them onto the fan blade.

The fan blade colour was not as light as I was hoping, originally wanted a close to white ice blue so this is way off that plan but I'll settle for it, not putting more paint on the blades, anyway, much better than brown/green, got the frame colour exactly how I wanted it at least.

Now, I need to make my mind up if I'm going to paint the internal panels or not, & if I am what colour, so I'll put that bit off until I'm sure.

I'll take some better pictures of the fans when I have some good daylight.

 

[rhysduck]

Those fans are seriously sexy!
I don't think my Sharkoon fans come apart like...

 

[waynio]

Those fans are seriously sexy!
I don't think my Sharkoon fans come apart like...

They have turned out nice eh.
hehe, had to delete some smilies to fit all this in.

This is how how my pc has been the past few days while I've been painting, had it functioning purely for media & internet.

Spent a bit of time sanding all the work on the back panel & it's all nice & smooth now, painted both sides too.

The front panel needed the countersinks to be a little deeper so the bolts sit flush, painted the rear of the panel too.

Painted the back expansion/io piece.

Here is a better shot of the hdd cage I made, the ssd can slip in the top space just perfect .

The blue gigabyte motherboard goes really well with the fans & back panel & the braided cables you can see are extensions (got them for pcie, 8 pin atx, main atx, I would rather buy them like that than void my warranty, especially with a decent psu (they cost too much to void them), the sata cables could do with being swapped out or even braided, I would love to shorten the psu cables because they are way too long but I can tidy them into the front right corner just about, got rid of the rounded ide cable, it is supposed to be clear but it had turned nicoteenish lol, the flat ide cable routes better anyway.

withgpu

I think the back looks better than the front now lol.

Everything is done on the front, back & insides, I'm going to come up with an alternative for the right side grill, either make the bars slimmer or get another sheet, then all thats needed is the left window removing to clean up the white mounting tape & replace with clear mounting tape, then the air cube v2 is complete, still waiting for my drill bits to arrive before I can do anything else, so I'm having a few days off from it.

 

[johnny sublime]

get some water in there

 

[waynio]

get some water in there

It's very doable with the extra space above the motherboard but the temps are perfect so absolutely no need, I don't really understand people in fairly cool climates doing water cooling, if I lived somewhere warm I would definately do water cooling with tecs or something more extreme .

Just look at these temps & tell me water cooling is worth doing .

I spent a little extra time getting my overclock just perfect .

 

[johnny sublime]

its when you push the clocks to the max that will be when you need water

 

[johnny sublime]

any logs to your previous build logs

 

[waynio]

any logs to your previous build logs

Sure .

I have tried water cooling before with a Thermochill PA120.3 radiator & d-tek fusion block but wasn't much impressed to be honest, only a few degrees better than air & taken up much more space, if it was all passive & silent then that would be fantastic & a good reason to go with water like Monkey Puzzles incredible Project: Hush!, such an awesome water cooled case, I think thats the way to go if water cooling .

My previous builds

My 1st case was awful but sturdy & my 1st attempt at working with metal I learned a lot from it, was inspired by the Lian Li TYR PC-X2000, but wasn't inspired to buy 1 at the price, I refer to it as frankencase , ultra rough design turned into ultra rough case lol.

My 2nd case was pretty good but a bit flimsy, was made antirely with 1mm sheet aluminium, the cooling was great with this form of case which is why I wanted to make a better version, hence Air Cube v2 .

My 1st xbox 360 cooling mod, I started off with just cutting a blow hole on the right side very shortly after buying it at release, I knew it had bad cooling design, not much later I decided to install high end pc heatsinks, it is a 1st gen xbox 360 & is still very much alive & kicking .

heaps of trial & error along the way but have found if you plan the design accurately & realistically it all goes so much smoother & take your time marking bits, hiccups do happen but if they didn't then there would be nothing valuable learned .
I've only just recently started doing a more thorough project log, & even got an ok camera to make it better.

The threads should be here on overclockers somewhere but it's easier to just post these.

frankencase
http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/forum/showthread.php?t=17731
Air cube beta
http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/forum/showthread.php?t=17732
xbox 360 supercooled mod
http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/forum/showthread.php?t=17886

 

[Monkey Puzzle]

Wow - hadn't seen it painted. Looking very slick - nice colour as well.

 

[johnny sublime]

is that a true cooler on the xbox