Project - Air Cube v2

Thanks for comments m8s :)
Made a little more progress today
Got the side panels to fit so they can slide to the bottom they just need to be cut to size at the top and bent over.

Cut a sheet for the motherboard tray and aligned an old motherboard tray over it, aligned it how I wanted it and taped it together and pressed my perm marker through the holes and pci slits and it was ready for drilling, tapping and cutting.

From the front
Fromthefront.jpg


A bit closer front shot
Abitcloserfront.jpg


From the back
Fromtheback.jpg


Closer back shot
Closerback.jpg


Sliding slot for side panels
Slidingslot.jpg


Done the mounting holes and started on the pci slits
mountingholes.jpg


Almost done, just needs filing and tapping.
Almostdone.jpg


Needs filing with precision files
Needsfiling.jpg



Slight error in design to form, I made the little corner angle pieces smaller in my sketchup and left the angle pieces same dimensions as the main corner bars so the little bars stick out a bit, so I cut the bottom corners out of the panels, this shot is in close up and does not look bad unless you get very close to it.
Slighterror.jpg


I just got the idea whilst writing this to file the little angle pieces to be flush with the main angle pieces, But would have to order 2 new sheets of aluminium to fix this, Doh!, so I will have to put up with this for now and may as well do a no thrills design for it and when I get the 2 pieces and have filed down the angle pieces, then do a nice design on it.

Undecided if I'll get another 2 sheets, I might settle for this.
 
Tried using my cheap tapping kit, there was no size right for the standoffs, then tried drilling a hole slightly smaller than the standoffs and put the standoff in driver and let it make the thread, it worked for some and did not work for most others, then tried a bolt that had similar thread same problem, then tried some rivet nuts, the rivet nuts would have been ok but the thread did not start soon enough for the short thread on the standoffs so was in a pickle for a while until my dad mentioned about some square nuts he had, they worked a treat :).
scrap.jpg


WooHoo :) got them to mount with some square nuts on the other side.
standoffs1a.jpg

standoffs1b.jpg


Also got the front and back panels cut and filed to size and put a guide for where I can drill holes for mounting
frontpanel.jpg
 
maybe you could glue or even braze/solder the square nuts in place. as they may come loose with vibration or even when adding/removing mobos
 
This update is tiny but took a fair bit of effort to get right so here goes.

Luckily I had not cut the top ends of the side panels to size, so I went and took all the little angle bars off and filed them down so I could re do the side panels, I messed up twice so could only afford to make 1 more mistake, it took me hours to get it right because on my last chance I filed a little then fit the panel on over and over a whole load of times before it was just perfect, I'm just glad I progressed a tiny bit today so it was not a waste of time and effort :).

Had 3 chances to get it right from here and was getting worried I'd have to order more alu by my last chance.
side1a-1.jpg


This is how it looks from the inside.
littleangles.jpg


External, Just perfect imo.
side1c-1.jpg
 
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Jfan said:
Hmm nice project, I wonder if some of the fine metal mesh from this thread http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18023960 would come in handy for it
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subscribed :D can't wait to see how this go's, been thinking about making my own case for about 5 years now

as for the above, it should work well the medium version is just about perfect in term's of filtration / airflow loss with filtration being very good and airflow being also very good, i fitted it to the front of my HAF932 and made no difference to temps, will be fitting it to the side as well when i got over the problem of the colour, check the link under my sig for more info :D
 
great project :cool: did you change the size of the mobo tray? cause i would have made it a little bigger so it was flush with the rails where it ended if you know what i mean. nit picking really :p
 
~>Dg<~ said:
great project :cool: did you change the size of the mobo tray? cause i would have made it a little bigger so it was flush with the rails where it ended if you know what i mean. nit picking really :p
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Yeah, after I did it at that size I thought yep I should have done it same width as the bars, I could re do it but it would have to be 1mm thick sheet instead of 1.5mm, should have ordered a spare 1.5mm sheet, Doh!.
 
Got my new vandel switches blue ring and blue dot, ordered proper motherboard standoffs & screws, ordered countersunk rivets, ordered the other 6 akasa apaches, overclockers were out of stock :(, only other thing I will need to order is paint but I have some deciding to do and cutting on the panels before I get there, had a good day modding today :).

Rather than take the frame apart over and over I built up a platform from a crate, a load of beer, some planks of wood and a chopping board lol so I could use the drill press directly on the case, it worked flawless, saved a lot of messing about :D.
tempdrillpress.jpg


With side panels
sides.jpg


Top shot with all panels on, still yet to make the top panel :D
allpanels.jpg


Shot from front :D
allpanelsangle2.jpg
 
VortX :) It will be able to house 8 hdd's with good spacing, 2 cd drives, a long psu on the bottom shelf and when I eventually get enough for a couple of ssd's them too, the main deck is for absolute air cooling 3x120mm fans close to the motherboard blowing over the whole motherboard, could easily take the TRUE copper @ 2kg on it too, still only on the main fabrication part of this project, after that the modding begins :).

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Today I found out the hard way that my sheet metal folder can not bend 1.5mm sheet aluminium precisely, it bended on one end better than the other, I stupidly took it for granted that it would be fine.
messedtopa.jpg

messedtopb.jpg

So it kind of messes up the plan for the side panels also, I do have 4 x 750mm x 500mm x 1mm sheet aluminium and a couple of metres of angle bar and a couple of metres of flat bar.

So I cut the bent part off and filed it flat and will have to be screwed into the top of the frame or slotted on.
posstop.jpg

Or

I could make what I had planned (angle flap on each side and side panels with an angle to hold down the top) but with 1mm thick sheet as I know I can bend 1mm no problem.
The side panels I have an idea to attach an angle bar to the top and file it down so it has something to grip to pull the panels off and still keep the slight gap covered, thats for tomorrow.

The motherboard tray has turned out ok with the normal sized standoffs.
standoffdiff.jpg

tray.jpg

More tomorrow hopefully.
 
VortX said:
Im supprised your not water / phase cooling a project this big?
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I have tried water cooling before with a tripple thermochill radiator and d-tek fuzion water block with the quad nozzle with 1/2" tubing and a mcp655 pump and only got slightly better result from it like 3c difference and had me worried about leaks and maintanence.
I want to try and get a TRUE copper for this build :cool:.
phase cooling scares me :eek: lol.
 
waynio said:
I have tried water cooling before with a tripple thermochill radiator and d-tek fuzion water block with the quad nozzle with 1/2" tubing and a mcp655 pump and only got slightly better result from it like 3c difference and had me worried about leaks and maintanence.
I want to try and get a TRUE copper for this build :cool:.
phase cooling scares me :eek: lol.
Click to expand...

haha fair enough, if water cooling leakage scares you, there is always non-conductive coolent :)

As for phase cooling I know really nothing about it apart from its the mother of cooling (apart from liquid nitrogen , but thats not permanent)
 
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