Project - Air Cube v2

[waynio]

Thanks Rhys, No wife/gf yet , just don't get about enough, Yeah I am 1 of the few modders that has actually got too much time on my hands, was having too much idle time so modding helps fill a bit of a void in my life & keeps me productive & learning, I enjoy getting through the trial & error too, could never sit around watching daytime tv or evening tv come to think of it lol think I'd go crazy fast .
I see modders with healthy finances to do epic builds & have good ideas but lack the spare time with their busy lives but still manage to squeeze an hour or 2 a few times a week, I'm the opposite, plenty of time so could almost go all day every day, but really low money, but don't drink or have nights out so manage to do this instead, a holiday is way overdue though .

I can assure you though that once the LED cabling is sorted it's finished, I wanted to get everything some steps closer to perfect because it may be featured in a magazine & I didn't want it to appear in the magazine & then I go & change it again, this was the extra motivation which brought it back on track to perk it up .

Hopefully for any upcoming mods I do I can gain some sponsorship, it would massively help me to carry on making new cases, theres only so many times I feel ok switching my ddr2 based hardware from case to case before I want to upgrade , I only jumped over to ddr2 just before ddr3 showed up.

If you do want to mod your nice clean CM690 practice a fair bit on something else of low value until you are confident with your abilities, I think all modders start off pretty bad unless they have some kind of experience in making/designing things or start off with plenty of patience, planning, determination. When I started I rushed my cases tripping up all over the place, was crap on google sketchup so couldn't make any solid plans to follow, 1st build took about a week, 2nd one took about 2 to 4 weeks, latest from start to finish took a year but had big lenghthy breaks from it so if I compressed all the work time on it it would probably boil down to about 2 weeks solid work, maybe not even that much time.

People who say tools are an issue, just take a look at oldnewb over on bit-tech, the things he can do with an average jigsaw, drill, files is just truly amazing .

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Back to the mod, I've thought of the perfect place to put the light switch, underneath the case at the front left area, there is a nice empty space there that'll do fine as a stealth switch .

Also good news, fixed the air compressor, just needed to make a new gasket .

 

[waynio]

Thank you saayinla .

Woo hoo, all main work finished, but yeah you guessed it theres still more to come lol (most unprofessional worklog ever).

Had a problem with compacting the pre-made LED cables combining green & blue LED's to use 1 molex passthrough, the green ones were wired funny compared to the blue ones so had to do them seperate so the front lights use 4 molex passthroughs, originally had it all nicely heatshrinked & sleeved for the first 2 times, then lost the will to sleeve them properly & instead used thin strips of gaffer tape wrapped around them & used my glue gun to stick the cables to the plastic spacer so at least it's tidy wires, just not pretty looking like sleeving is , next time I'm playing with LED's I'll be making them myself, still got to make it so the lights can be switched on/off.

I removed the meshx, like I said earlier the panels I cut barely fit so if looked at a cirtain angle I can see small gaps so it's not a perfect fit, also tested if temps were affected with solid covers for the sides & they were not so I have some 0.7mm sheet aluminium spare & since the air compressor is back up & running good I'm thinking of doing some designs for grills to fit inside where the mesh was & then stick a window behind them, need to think up a nice design first though, want it so you can still clearly see the insides which the meshx failed on imo so I'm chomping at the bit to do some dremel work after struggling with human jigsaw method lol .

On with the latest pictures without the mesh & side windows & LED's done & plain windows in the top for now until I make the new grills , night & day pics.

Can't wait to get busy with the air dremel again.

 

[waynio]

You change your mind more often than a woman!

This is what happens when you only design the basic frame & make everything else up as you go along lol.

Woo hoo the new keyboard came but is that a home key I see missing.

then an 8 key

then a hash key with the missing keys in the box.

They plugged back on easy , decent sturdy board, nice keys, no silly touch sensitive panels just a straight up good board.

I've always ditched palm rests from keyboards but with the height of this board it actually makes it better so it went back on & here is the design I'm going to do for the side grills & mini ones for the top, the nice thing about these grills is I'm taking zero risk in damaging the already made panels so no pressure I'll hopefully have at least the side windows done & smoothed out today will be a joy to do on 0.7mm sheet, maybe an update later .

 

[waynio]

Lol, didn't even get around to do any dremel work, but did cut pieces to size, masked up & drawn the pattern on, the thin lines are what will be staying the rest is what I'll cut out.

Sides

Top pieces

This new keyboard is ultra sensitive, only bad thing about it is the small backspace which I should soon get used to, other than that it's perfect .

 

[waynio]

I like the designs, look great.

Thanks m8 .

Awesome thread waynio ... epic case and tower!

I wish I could get motivation like you. I just give up way to easily!

Thanks mattbill .
It all started with doing rough blow holes & windows & mutated into doing stuff like this lol

A little step closer to finished .

Refined part of 1 of the panels design (was a little off, fixed).

Cut the most difficult incisions to keep it all accurate to the drawing so the rest will be easier to do.

First piece out .

Some more.

All out, now time for a little filing & then a good sanding session, the sanding will be the most time consuming.

Messy

Clean

Ready for filing then sanding .

Started late today so only got this far, took just over an hour to get the dremel work done on 1 of them don't want to be making much noise past 6pm, I'll try to start at 10am tomorrow & get the other 3 done, the side panels are done with 0.7mm sheet so were nice & easy but run out of 0.7mm so the top panels will be done with 1mm.

Colour wise, I'm thinking ice blue for these panels .

 

[waynio]

Well, got up bright & early with full intent to get the new panels done, just smoothing the edges of 1 of them took near 3 hours , then I went to work on the next panel, made a couple of incisions then the cutting disc got stuck & when I freed it the mandrel screw top snapped off & have no spares arrrrrgh delayed by a mandrel typical lol , bit gutted but these things happen.

But I did a test fit of the one I made, still needs a little work on it as noted in the picture & the surface needs a good sanding but I'll save surface finishing till last .

 

[waynio]

Thanks K@rl, it has crossed my mind & your right, I'll get onto that once I finish the last few parts .

My dad bought a couple of new air tools just before the gasket blew & he reminded me about them & suggested to try it out on some scrap so I did & wow I'm very impressed, bye bye dremel days lol no more metal dust in my face & no need for steaming up hard to see through glasses .

I don't know the name of the tool but it's cross between a jigsaw & small hacksaw & prooved relatively easy to cut out complex shapes, the 0.7mm sheet didn't go to well though so I might re-do the side panel.
I had to learn how to use it, it's like a dremel but you need to lean way over the piece your working with so you can clearly see where your cutting but cuts far far easier, after the side panel I had it sussed, I mostly needed to clamp the work piece down better to minimise vibrations, this new tool will be absolutely awesome for thick materials as the 1mm sheet came out very nice & will need minimal cleaning up, also the blade is still good & sharp after doing these 3 panels, on with the pics .

This was the 0.7mm one which came out quite badly before I had the technique & clamping sussed.

The wavey strip above the workpiece was my practice to see if I could follow the lines & could fairly easily .

On with the 1mm sheet which went quite perfectly .

I think I'll have to throw the 0.7mm sheet, it needs a lot of cleaning up & is bent all over the place, tried whacking it into shape with a mallet but it's still not so good, I'll try a couple more things to fix it but not worried about having to do a new one now I know how to do this .

 

[waynio]

From reading through the entire build it doubt it will never be finished .... just one more thing here... and there...

Great job and an interesting read - very well documented too.

Thanks mate , not surprising I'm hearing that a lot though but it will get the finished seal very soon (before Mafia II release) & will stay finished but it sure has had a lot of changes .

It's called a high speed saw (I think!). Used for cutting body panels and the like on cars and stuff. Really good for cutting plastic too.
Grills are looking good.

Thanks Paul, when I said no more dremel I was a bit hasty, sitting here looking at the front grills I highly doubt I could do that with the saw but the saw will replace quite a bit of what I do with a dremel especially for simplish cuts like what I just done.

I have a couple of new pictures showing the new grills overlapped, my bro says I should do it, but I'm not so sure about it especially the double the work bit lol takes a fair bit of effort to make all edges really smooth, I'll get them up in a mo .

 

[waynio]

Standard intended piece which still needs smoothing out

Double overlapped piece

The thought of the effort is making me cringe already, possibly 3 hours to smooth each piece about 25min to cut each piece, so possibly a couple of days solid cutting & sanding , suppose I could spread it out over a week.

 

[waynio]

Certainly a lot more effort but it's growing on me & I have plenty of time to get them done, the doubled up grill could make some good light effects too, Just checked if I'll be able to do it for the sides with the new fan taking up space & I can (only just).
Now I just need to make sure I have enough scrap to do it, get the drawings done & get to work on them 8 long grueling sanding sessions ahead of me .

 

[waynio]

Finished doing the rough cuts of the side panels yesterday, today I started at about 3pm but smoothed off all 4 of the panels edges, finished at 11pm, had about 4 little smoke breaks, thought it would have taken days to do them but got really stuck in on them .

Pictures showing original simple plan of how I might have them & doubled up, I must admit the doubled up ones do look good but I only have a little 1mm & 1.5mm sheet spare now so it'll be a mix of the 2 thicknesses, anyway if I was to double them all up I now know I could do it within 2 days if I don't slack .

I'll get some temp installed pics up tomorrow .

 

[waynio]

Gotta agree it looks much better overlapped.

Yeah, had multiple votes for doubled up & after getting them smoothed off I fully agree .

It's just so BIG!

Yep , another part of the reason why I made a stack tower to go with it to turn it into a great space saver .

Some night & day shots with the new panels temporarily installed 1 layer type. I think I will give the double layered style a shot so plan for today is cut the sheets to size, trace the already made panels instead of draw them, cut them out, tomorrow tons of filing & sanding lol.

Pic time just to show what it'd look like as single layer, I will do the double layer .

I likle this nightshot best .

To be honest though I was quite impressed with how these looked when I installed them so should look even better when doubled up .

 

[waynio]

@Perry, I don't think I can change the name of it now, but I could class the old standard Air cube as a scratch build & this as a case mod lol , not a bad name for it though mate an avatar forest .

@Paul, Be able to fully tell tomorrow after I get some new night pics, they all need painting still & if I go the double layer route I'll do 2 tone colours, either 2 shades of blue or a green & a blue.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention I painted the fan bolt heads when I made the second spacer ice blue , I got a strip of blue tack, pushed them through in a line, masked the threads, scuffed the heads, cleaned, primed, coloured, cleared.

Rather than make the extra panels, I just took the ones I made & stuck them together with mounting tape & stuck them in, here are the daylight shots, I'll do night ones later .

I do like the top ones but not so sure about the side ones.

Also replaced my old & tatty alarm clock.

With this beaut, tells time, temperature & date, I'm going to make an angled platform for it, until then I'll use stacks of 2p's lol.

 

[waynio]

Ok, just taken the night shots but I'm unsure if I like them or not whereas the single I thought it looked fine straight away, wow I just don't know , but can picture them looking good once painted.

 

[waynio]

Thanks TB & Paul, the case is almost done, once I have these panels made, painted & attached I'll be contacting the guy who wants to feature it in a mag to let him know it's finished , I just couldn't let it be featured knowing it could have been improved a bit here & there .

I admit the double layer looked good, but it disguised the pattern too much so since I'm yet to do the extra layer panels I thought I'd do a pattern that flows with the original ones, they could go above or below the originals, whichever looks best & sticking with the colours of the fans frame & blades, also decided to remake 1 of the top panels as it weren't as good as the other.

So I have 5 panels to cut & sand, if I push myself I'll have the panels cut today & the sanding done tomorrow, but having said that the new patterns are less complex so should be a little easier.

Here is the side & top panel laid over what I'm going to do.

 

[waynio]

Wowee got them all cut out, got really stuck in again so just need sanding smooth now .
Started about 3pm finished at 7pm, not bad for 5 panels .

Ooooh, just noticed project log section, nice .

 

[waynio]

Hehe Thanks timciren .

Here we go .

Overslept until 3pm lol must have been knackered from all the cutting, had a few cappuccinos & started sanding at 4pm, had 2 smokie breaks & finished at 11pm, wolfed down a bowl of broccoli & beef pasta then had to use the flash to take the sanded pics.
Need to put an order in for the paint all the local auto shops only seem to stock 1 of each colour & often don't have what I want.

Once I have these painted I have a mammoth task of cleaning the garage & my dads bikes lol .

The reason for the black panels is I searched around the house & found some 1mm thick black anodised sheet I had left over from the prototype air cube.

 

[waynio]

3PM! Lazy bum

They're looking good.

LOL I know & thanks .

Done a test fit for while I wait for the paint, should look sweet once painted ice blue & dark steel blue, both metallics.

Good thing I did a test fit, a little more needs filing down on the inside edges of the side grills.

 

[waynio]

@Deschutes No need to say sorry m8, guess it's a bit of a marmite style , the mesh was ok but visually couldn't see the insides very well & the panels of mesh only just covered the window holes so when viewed at cirtain angles I could see gaps so it was probably that what driven me to do the layer grills, should look much better once painted.

@OCD-OC The skill comes purely from watching tutorials on how to use it, inspiration from other modders showing what they can do with a dremel & plenty of practice & the will to try complex cuts , Bill Owen said in 1 of his tutorials if you can master doing circles with the dremel then you should be able to cut whatever you want & I agree. I was shabby with a dremel at first , anyone could get as good or far better than what I have done with practice so don't doubt yourself , but always wear safety glasses when doing dremel work.

Got the excess borders filed & sanded down, so just waiting for the paint to arrive now .

 

[waynio]

Just a status update this one.

Just a status update this one.

Got the paint yesterday, the layer panels were already prepped so primed, sanded, coloured, cleared them all, went to install them today & had a couple of face palm moments :facepalm:.

I put the side panels in the wrong way round, but carried on taking pictures then thought midway through taking the pics all the effort I've put into this & I'm doing that lol so took them off & put them on the right way & heres the other face palm moment, I painted the wrong sides of the secondry layer on the sides so the patterns didn't line up as planned, very glad I ordered 2 of each colour, whipped them off & painted the other sides, should be good to go tomorrow lol .

The difference in the 2 shades of blue isn't much to be honest but still looks good, I think the only way I'm going to get pictures done to do it justice is if I make a cheapo photo boothe, the light in my room makes my photography & the case look shoddy & with it being finished I want to get as good of quality pictures as possible with my camera to finish this log off .

Bit the bullet & just ordered the ingredients for a cheapo makeshift photo boothe.
3 light fittings which can clip onto things
3 daylight bulbs
a clothes line
a plain white shower curtain
a big piece of black fabric & white fabric to see which is best looking.
£46 all ordered so should hopefully have some sweet finished pictures incoming by next week .
I could post some pictures tomorrow but I'd rather post good quality pics once I have the boothe made , it's about time I upped the photo quality .