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 .

 

[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.

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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.
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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 .

 

[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 .

 

[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 .

 

[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 .

 

[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 .

 

[waynio]

Got the 6mm plastic, paint, fan & immediately got started masking, measuring & marking.

Messed up badly on the drilling of the plastic piece though, did it all spot on 4mm into the 6mm thick sheet, but should have used 2.5mm drill bit for the m3 thread but used 3mm by accident (I blame it on 1st thing of the day eyes half shut modding), not to worry I ordered some m4 bolts & if I'm lucky I'll have them tomorrow fingers crossed, it can & will be fixed . I'm not rushing it but I am working extra hard to get it done for tomorrow my birthday .

Used the bench grinder to give the edges a curved bevel as good as I could & used a file to clean up edges.

Got 60, 240, 600, 1200, 2000 grit sanding over 5 or 6 hours & a nasty blister on my thumb, damn it was hot .

Got the air cubes cover sanded & primed & both sides of the fan.

Got the metallic matisse blue on & a coat of clear & half of the the fan coloured & clear coated & a late night colouring & clearing of the other side hopefully.

Going to do the grill on the plastic sheet tomorrow, unsure to do lines or holes or even both.

 

[waynio]

Cheers Paul .

Sweet, the m4 bolts, drill bits & switch came, so I should get the top piece finished today but the LED's haven't arrived yet so no front spacer light today.
I finished painting the fan last night so it had plenty of time for it to dry & installed it today.
I think the cardboard piece I put over the fan while painting it must have wiped the fans lubrication away so I just ordered some sewing machine oil, some of the other fans are in a similar way so I'll be oiling them all for good measure they are giving off a faint flickering noise & it must be fixed .

Right, time to make the mounting holes a little bigger for the new bolts, then I will spend most of the day doing the grill & hopefully have it installed by tonight if I really put my back into it .

 

[waynio]

Cheers G-Dubs, hopefully I'll have the LED's tomorrow .

Ok, see what you all think of this :neutral:.

Had a rough nights sleep as I fell asleep at the pc & had an auto shut down, 1 minute I was watching a show, next I woke up 9am lol so wasn't in best form for today.

The day of modding started fine, marked a grill to cut & went to work on it.

I'm unsure if it worked out well, when I went to enlarge the middle mount hole it went all the way through which was bad. I gave up on doing the grill, my files were barely doing anything on the 6mm plastic so as a result I had to cut a bigger than normal hole to get past where I was trying to do a grill (the new hole cutter is awesome though ), also some spray managed to get under a bit of the masking , but there was a good layer of clear on it so I should be able to fix that pretty easily.

Good points, it made the cover more rigid & have better temps than before the extra fan mod, theres virtually always a way to fix things up, window on the outside was either not a good idea or I just fluffed up over & over or I'm tired & not thinking straight.

I honestly don't know if this extra mod is good or bad or inbetween, but do know there are some things I could do to fix it up if I'm correct in thinking it's not looking right, but if it's good then I'll just need to fix the extra large vent hole (easy fix).

I really don't know what to make of this top piece which is why I'm including quite a few shots of it to see what you all think, designed it quick & made it quick within 3 days so it's such a drastic change from what it was, could do with as many opinions as possible please.

Again I could do with as many opinions as possible please.

 

[waynio]

Thanks G-Dubs & Paul, I removed the plastic top piece though, it was the extra large hole that wrecked it for me

Just so you all know, I'm having a small time out, I managed to remove the plastic piece I think it was a bit of a wreck when I failed doing a grill & then made the hole to cut out what went wrong, it was hellish to get the bolts out too, all of the allen head sockets lost the sockets so had to use mole grips for all of them (lucky there was something to grip), It's off now, there was a moment where I thought I messed it up completely.

I did some more testing with the extra fan & found an even better spot to place it, looks better & cools better, pretty much just above the bottom side fan so the left side panel will require an extra vent which will probably be the most difficult part to do with it already having a window there.

Set myself a realistic goal of having the top & side done by the time Mafia II releases which is 27-aug (game I'm most looking forward to this year ) I'll probably have it done way before that date but gives me a chance to step back & really think this out & do this properly .

I'll try & save the next update for when it's finished .

 

[waynio]

Lol that was a small time out .

Was going to make my last update my final but delivery delays so why not a quicky before the finished pics .

Ok so here's the new top, made a frame from 20mmx3mm & 40mmx3mm flat bars to cover up the mounting holes from the previous plastic top piece, painted them same colour as the fan frames, stuck them down with 2 part araldite epoxy resin, put my left over ac-ryan mesh x to use, barely had enough to do this, painted it the same colour as the fan blades, for the time being the mesh is held in with scotch mounting tape & for the finishing touch 2 3mm thick windows that slip into the 2 vents in the top making for a flush fit, the top windows can easily be removed just by poking through from underneath & lifting out, the side panels needed a means of getting fresh air so I went with the mesh on both sides so the entire case is awesomely air cooled & very well ventilated.

Excuse the nasty surroundings, my room is like a bin at the moment lol .

Here is the new revised placement of the extra fan, I stuck a 1/2 inch angle bar to a 40mmx3mm flat bar for extra support & stuck the flat bar to a middle level flar bar, it's a very close fit for the fan mount but is just perfect, honestly amazed at the temperatures now.

Re-made the front spacers & added 5mm LED holes, 8 LED's for the tripple mount, 4 LED's for the single mount & going with blue & green, waiting for the extra LED's (tested it with 2 green LED's & it looks good glad I went for it .

Still waiting for sewing machine oil so I can fix the fans, must have wiped whatever lubrication was on them off when I painted them all.

All in all this is mighty close to finished & I'm far happier with the new top, can't wait to get all the fans lubricated & install the new front lit up spacers & call it finished.

 

[waynio]

Me Likey

Yes me too. Mesh does look good on the top like that.

Acrylic and LEDs go together so well.

Yeah .

Me too. The mesh and new top look great.

Thanks for voting to go with extra LED's, definately better .

Still got the other half of the LED's to come tomorrow, once I place them where I want them, I'll work out the wires so it all uses 1 molex for each spacer instead of 6 & so it can be switched on/off, yet to figure out where to put the switch, here's some daytime & night time pre final shots .

Day

Night

Another thing kind of off topic but, my razer lycosa keyboard has been playing up by blacking out for a second now & again so I dug deep & ordered a steel series 7g, looks a great no nonsense quality keyboard, the lycosa had issues with the media control panel not long after buying it, I fixed that by snipping the connections to the boards internals & now randomly blacking out making me miss letters in words now & again not even a year old, so after looking at gaming boards they were all overpriced gimmicky nonsense types, the roccat valo v2 would have been a good choice if it weren't for the extra 100 macro keys lol, the logitech g19 needs ac power for the bling it carries, thought there were no good gaming keyboards anymore & then read up about the 7g & my mind was made up almost instantly so should have it soon woo hoo .

 

[waynio]

It's kinda northern lightsish but static .

Got the extra LED's today but need to wait for braiding supplies because all the LED's have piled up the wires so I'm going to modify them all to be nice & neat so with luck I'll have them tomorrow.