Project - Air Cube v2

[waynio]

Complete for real this time. Continued

Continued.

Back to the weight of this thing.

Air cube v2 fully loaded = 42 lbs
Stack with psu & fans = 27.4 lbs
Xbox 360 = 8.4 lbs
PS3 = 8.4 lbs
Total = 86.2 lbs without dvd's/games

And thats it, I've decided not to sand the front grills to a perfect finish which I know I could given an extra couple of days, but if I wanted it 100% perfect I would have had it done by a machine for me, I don't want or need to compete with a lifeless machine lol, I like the fact it is a little rough here & there, keeps it completely unique . I'm leaving the slightly rustic cuts so it remains an average joe made piece.

So thanks for showing an interest in this project & peace out & mod on all until my next unplanned mod , I definately had an all you can eat buffet of modding for the time being, I'm absolutely stuffed lol .

 

[Riggy]

Well I've just spent about an hour and half going through this post... at work. My boss is going to kill me when he finds out I haven't done the work I was suppose too

Very good work there waynio. I admire the patience you have and the motivation you hold to complete such a project. I really enjoy reading these type of threads. Inspires me to start my own project, if only I had the money

Again, well done mate!

 

[waynio]

My modding journey so far, a recap & finale - Part 1 of 3.

Sorry about that Riggy & sorry for taking near a month to reply , but thanks for taking the time to coment m8 appreciated .

My modding journey so far, a recap & finale - Part 1 of 3.

The reason I jumped in at the deep end doing scratch builds is because every single case I ever bought I found it could do with some cooling mods doing to them so I thought why not just make my own, tried cad programs & couldn't take to them, then I found google sketchup & were soon making models that I knew were possible to do in reality with my tool set, hail google sketchup, without it unprofessional people like me might not have gotten into designing & building our own cases/stuff.

I started off just doing it for functionality but after hanging around tbcs & bit-tech for a bit & seeing everyone elses mods I started coming around to appreciate the fine attention to detail people were putting in & started seeing it all as high quality modern art that I could highly appreciate because it's functional as well as great looking, more & more modders are raising the bar of excellence so I thought I should put more effort into the looks also, but still I put form & function 1st, looks 2nd, looks take longer to achieve.

So, it all started from just doing blow holes in pre-made cases & wire management holes with a dremel, I remember it being tricky to handle but with more practice it makes near perfect & then with files & sanding can make perfect, not laser perfect but human imperfect perfect lol .

I like to make a premium case for the price of a mid range case which is another part of why I don't go the machined route & powder coat/custom paint route, I have to say though it would be a total buzz to use a bigger budget so I could rule out tool restrictions in designs.

----------------------------------
My tool set - for anyone wanting to know

I'm quite lucky as I only had to buy the bits that say "woo hoo" next to them.

A work space of about 5 foot by 8 foot, gets like a game of twister in the thick of modding lol.

Manual tools
Small but useful work bench
4 Quick clamps woo hoo
5 C clamps
6 squares woo hoo
Rulers woo hoo
Good range of files
60, 240, 600, 1200, 2000 grit sand paper woo hoo
Vice
Cheap sheet metal folder woo hoo
Hammers/mallets
Wrench tapper woo hoo
Manual mitre saw woo hoo
Hack saw blades
Pop rivet gun
Rivet nut gun that I haven't found a use for "yet" woo hoo
Various drill bits, countersink bit woo hoo
Razers

Power tools
Chomped my way through 5 dremels woo hoo, no more, they die too easy & cost too much to keep replacing.
Bench grinder adapted to use polishing mops & modified to keep cool
Drill press
Cordless power drill & 2 batteries
Cordless sheet metal shears woo hoo
Hot air gun woo hoo
Air compressor that needs a new gasket which is hard to find so I'm going to use gasket high temp silicone or make one.
Air dremel, an absolute breath of fresh air compaired to dremel.
Air gun - perfect for cleaning solid dust from a pc to make like new.
----------------------------------

Picture time with brief discriptions.

Badly planned & executed 1st case, was trying to mimmick the Lian-Li X2000 when it hit the news, mine had some flaws & looked pretty awful in comparison lol , but I like the fact that my 1st case was this horrible as I really feel I have progressed nicely + I think I did the 1st 1 over a couple of weeks.

When I got a cheap sheet metal folder, my 2nd case made entirely with sheet aluminium & a bit of body filler & pop rivets, it cools all the components really well but lacked strength & was made pretty fast.

Latest which I am very happy with I started using a drill press & combined some of what I learned from my 1st & 2nd case & added some new tricks, spent a couple of months last year making it, then got back to it from feb to the completed project now, I intend to make a low power media pc before I make a completely new gaming case to fill the spot on top of the stack.

Went from this pile of raw goodies.

To this

Mobo tray by me, pci/io piece from a lian li case which is the only bit not made by me in this build.

Did this but at the time I was planning on polishing the whole case & the cuts were not clean enough so scrapped the grills.

Shiny, polishing bars is pretty easy, it's polishing large sheets that is more difficult.

To this

To this

And finally got around to painting the akasa apache fans to fit the colours .

Decided to have another go at doing the front panel with built in grills.

CONTINUED:

 

[waynio]

My modding journey so far, a recap & finale - Part 2 of 3

My modding journey so far, a recap & finale - Part 2 of 3

& finally to this

Then I wanted my pc & consoles all in 1 place so I made this .

To this

Then 4 of these.

& this bottom level.

To this

To this

Also made a cooling mod for the xbox 360.

Which leads to the finally new in use shots. Whilst doing this recap post I remembered saying I'll leave the front grills rough, but that wasn't the only imperfection, there were bits I had to touch up with paint & they didn't match perfectly, so I thought with this definately being my last post I would go ahead & get this front panel finished off properly to a good standard & present these final pics.

CONTINUED:

 

[waynio]

My modding journey so far, a recap & finale - Part 3 of 3

My modding journey so far, a recap & finale - Part 3 of 3

And the latest pictures of the Air Cube with properly finished front panel, a days worth of sanding & a new coat of paint.

Before

After

With stack left view + flash

With stack left view no flash

With stack right view + flash

With stack right view no flash

There might be more pictures coming soon "if" I'm successful in making a big light box that aids in better pictures , got all the materials, just need to make it.

And that wraps it up , thanks to all for viewing, feedback & motivation to make it look nice, mod on all .

 

[G-Dubs]

Simply stunning waynio

Mod on.

 

[Stickman]

Beautiful work. Liking it very much.

About you saying you prefer the back to the front on the Air Cube v2... do you think it's because of the visible heads on the fan fixing screws? It looks like you're a perfectionist so I hope I don't open up too much of a can of worms here but... I can't help but wonder if the front panel would look cleaner without those heads showing? Maybe if bolts were permanently fixed to the rear of a front panel, so that the fans could just be slid onto with some nuts to hold them in place or such... Imagine how clean and simple the front panel could look?

Just a thought.

 

[waynio]

Cheers G-Dubs .

Stickman, thanks m8, I always appreciate feedback & you just given me an idea for whatever mod I do next, a slip on cover, like what I did with the xbox 360 mod , but one that slots into place firmly.
I'm happier with the front now I've sanded the grills smooth, they were slightly rough cuts before, perfectly rounded & smooth now , modding is an awesome learning curve, the more practice you get the better you get with each mod .

Even thought of doing a project blackout mod & only use manual tools, no power tools just for a challenge mod .

 

[Stickman]

No probs.

 

[Gepetto]

That is awesome to see, especially all summed up on one page like that! The work you have put into it is incredible, and to have pulled it off is something a lot of people would, no doubt, have failed to do.

So, hat's off to you! Brilliant!

On a personal note, I would have had only one design of fan grill on the front, or perhaps even left it as per the back, as the fans look amazing! Wandering fingers might render that invalid though!

 

[waynio]

Thanks Gepetto , figured it was a nice time saver for anyone wanting to check it out, some worklogs I have viewed can take all day to look & read through.

It did cross my mind to do a minimal none air restrictive stretched out grill, seen it done by someone else & it looked really nice.
The grill at the back could have spread over the entire back panel & been fine with the cpu cooler being in a push/pull fan setup, if I put my hand where the big vent is above the pci expansions a very good breeze comes through just as good as where the rear fan is.

The main problem with making a grill at the front like the ones I done is it makes the fans quite a bit louder because of the air restriction, to get around this I used soft chunky washers & 10mm spacers which makes the same noise as plain circles only it is very fiddly to mount the fans, but I could buy 15mm threaded spacers & stick them in the gap of the fans frame which would make it just as easy as a normal case fan mounting.

I could use this new front panel as a template to make new fronts if I want, infact that is something I would do if I ever decided to sell it so the user has a choice.

 

[waynio]

Damnit I was carrying on calling it finished prematurely, newb modder mistake, sorry, possibly 5 times now, I should change my name to Waynidoh .

I think I'm catching the perfectionist virus (bad for me, good for viewers ), I was fixing up a few things I didn't like much on the internals for the bottom level which I admittedly half arsely done originally, upper level is great, just the lower deck is a mess of wires & things that could've been done a bit better.

Made a new internal side fan mount, cut some solid square bar to the depth of the inside, smoothed the edges, used 2 flat bars to mount the fan & added another square bar with 45 degree cuts, used araldite adhesive to stick it to the bar, much nicer than the last one & doesn't resonate any vibrations & has a good weight to it so it doesn't fall over.

I was going to drill vent holes into the hdd cage but scrapped the idea (was unable to use the drill press without a lot of messing making a custom platform which I done a few times throughout this mod) & instead just sanded & painted it lol .

Made & installed mounting brakets for the optical drive at last.

Replaced the misfit yellow sata cables for black akasa round sata 3 cables, much neater.

The power wires are far too long for this case, I'd have to make custom power cables for everything to be really tidy, but for this time I'll just go mad with cable ties , at least the flat bars for the middle level will come in useful for cable ties, a flukey cable management feature there .

Ordered a 360mm x 120mm x 10mm & 120mm x 120mm sheet of polycarbonate to replace the feeble fiddly standoffs for the front fans, they were causing annoying faint vibrations, so I traced the mounting holes from the front panel & cut circles to make a perfect one piece standoff that will not cause vibrations & it works really nice.

One main outstanding thing I have learnt from doing an effort inducing mod is it would definately be best to have a running pc so I don't end up putting the system in too early & calling it finished, so when I get around to upgrading my complete system I won't be selling my current parts, I'll instead build a temp pc, then I could do a mod & keep working on it without long breaks, but it will be quite some time before I can afford a new system & new materials, possibly a year off, but theres nothing stopping me from designing new cases.

Only thing that could wrap this log up now is when or if I get my light box made to get some good quality pictures of the Air cube & stack.

Spent a good chunk of the day cable tidying, used over 40 cable ties & sleeved an ide cable lol .

Ok more than enough blah blah, it's picture time woo hoo .

Project comlpete, 6th times the charm lol .

 

[waynio]

I just keep on getting little ideas to improve this case, this 1 was worth doing.

With the summer rising ambient temps quite a bit, the low cfm of the akasa apache's were struggling to maintain nice motherboard temps, I like to keep it at 30c so I've been using a house cooling fan right next to the open case, it lowered temps by 10c & even while gaming it kept the motherboard temps just as it were at idle.
So today I grabbed 1 of my spare fans, plugged it in & tested to find the sweet spot to keep temps low during the summer, didn't take long to find, so I made fan mounting holes on the top left support flat bar & screwed it in, it's only supported on half of the fans mount holes, but it's good & not vibrating, this mod now holds 10 case fans.

Heres the mod I done today.

This capture was made on a cool night with cool ambient temps recently without the extra mod.

This capture was done just now on a warm day after a gaming session.

Anyone think I should make it permanent or just for seasonal, if I make it permanent I will make a simple grill for the top panel & a cover & switch for turning it on when needed & get another apache & paint it, the top panel could use a re-coat of paint anyway, the front edge is a little scuffed.

 

[waynio]

Decided to make it permanent , I mean if it produces temps like this in summer, it'll be crazy cool come winter .

DeadP1xel suggested a window grill over on bit-tech, so I took measurements of the workable area for the top panel & got messing with sketchup.
Coudn't do an inside window/grill (not enough clearence).

So I could mount a window/grill above & make a small frame around it, hmmmm.

Or as above but without a frame & instead a bevelled edge like this quick sketchup I just done, with threaded holes for attaching from underneath, the square is just there for measurement purposes if I go ahead & do this. Also the blue panel represents what surface I have to work with.

I'm setting wednesday as my dead line for finishing this top piece .

 

[waynio]

I have an update on the project .

Was going to wait until I got the plastic sheet, but thought why not just get stuck in on the metal work, I really miss not being able to use a dremel , was the hardest window mod ever lol, took all day to do this, just finished sanding at 8pm.
Masked up & marked up, drilled & countersunk all the mounting holes, then drilled opening holes so I could get the hacksaw blade in & went human jigsaw on it, hours later the pieces fell out, then had a ton of filing & sanding to do, but at least all the edges are nice & smooth now & ready for painting , I'll try to get that done tomorrow, need primer.
Perfectly on schedule to get this done by wednesday still woo hoo .

Next & final update hopefully either tuesday or wednesday night .

 

[PaulGreyhead]

You just can't stop, can you?

 

[waynio]

Oh I know, guess this is what can happen when you only design the frame & evolve the rest lol, but really, this plastic cover on the top IS going to be the cherry on the cake.
"If" I can refrain from doing any LED mods , the front 1 piece spacers I made, I frosted them & can't help but think they might look awesome with some multi coloured LED's plugged into them as the light would spread throughout the standoff giving a nice soft light, arrrrgh, stop it, idea after idea, it'll never end lmao.
No, I'm going to have to draw the line at the plastic top .

 

[PaulGreyhead]

Do the LED's on the standoff. They'll look great lit up.
You might as well, you've come this far

 

[waynio]

Arrrgh, no I must refrain , I wreckon it would look good but really, I need to draw the line & call it finished for real now , LED features for future mods when I get ok at it, not this .

 

[waynio]

Arrrgh, no I must refrain , I wreckon it would look good but really, I need to draw the line & call it finished for real now , LED features for future mods when I get ok at it, not this .

Well that didn't hold .

Today I ordered the bits needed & thought why not, less than a tenner for the LED bits.

Got paint, pre-wired blue & green LED's to experiment, a pre-wired molex power rocker switch, the piece of plastic & another apache fan ordered, hopefully have it all tomorrow, the plastic is gonna require a lot of work, lots of filing & sanding awaits me. The switch is for turning the LED's on/off (yet to decide where it will go) & the apache to keep it all in uniform, that'll be 10 apache fans then lol, should have asked akasa to sponsor me, the fans cost more than the case materials minus the paint .