Project: Plasma Cannon

Sponsored by

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Hi guys got some good news got some shiny stuff on its way from my sponsor aquacomputer. Really looking forward to that!

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But while we wait for that stuff lets carry on with the case the panelling for the back of the case needs doing but first a slight modification originally this was just going to be a loop for a carry strap but have altered it into a full handle. Simple template and cut out on the jigsaw and filed down to be smooth.

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Add a brass plate top to give it the golden colour. Tempted to do an under plate for it but it will never be seen.

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And fitted (left out the brass top to tray and reduce the chance of it being scratched)

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Now for the fancy laser cut aluminium logo to be fitted and bent round the back panel securing it the same way as the underside.

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Automated centre punch to make sure when drilling by hand I don’t slip and misalign the hole. and a pair of tiny angle bar to help the very top point hold together tightly.

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Phew all the panelling done but now the last stage on it was to create a centre support bar this will also hold some of the plating in place and provide some extra strength to the thin panelling. Made out of leftover 30mm box aluminium with some leftover aluminium chunks milled down on one side so that don’t collide with the internal structure.

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Two blocks were stuffed in the ends and brazed in place. Tapped and bolted in place

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Back on with the side panels

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IO Port

This is where all the cables are going to enter or connected to the case.

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The two triangular blocks that were in the previous post are now drilled and tapped ready for the cover.

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And a slot cut with a 2mm end mill to allow for the ports plate.

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Simple layout of the basic ports (left to right) IEC Power, Power to stand, Relay to chillier + USB, All other cables (feed through this into the back of the motherboard). It will be a bit fiddly to plug in at times but this isn’t a case that’s going to be constantly connected and disconnected.

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Cut out and Tested for fit the IEC Connector came from a very old PSU that I don’t think works (well doesn’t any more :P) . The ICE connector is a low profile one so that helped big time with the short height available here.

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The 1.5mm Plate was a little flimsy especially with pushing the IEC cable in So I strengthen it by attaching 2 strips of angle bar.

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All fitted together. At a later stage I may even put a brass engraved plate on this to give it a bit more character.

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Bit of a short post but I didn’t want to ramble on too much as a lot of the work involved with this project you have already seen in previous posts and I’m sure some are eager to move on :p
 
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Hi guys. Got some bad news and some good news.. bad news first the motor on my scroll saw has blown up in a cloud of smoke so this next stage is going to be a little delayed till I can get a replacement. But the good news is the aqua computer parts have arrived! Whooo :eek: :D for now this is just a quick snapshot and I will talk you through each part as I get onto those stages.

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Now onto the next stage

Fuel Cells / Cooling Towers

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Someone with a bit more warhamer 40k knowledge then me may be able to correct me on this but here goes anyway on the top and base of the plasma cannon there are two umm what I think are meant be fuel cells on one of my early designs there were just going to be aluminium tubes for show. But then I started thinking I may as well use them for something first of all was looking around for a suitable radiator but couldn’t find one that would suit the design bit of a dead end. So started to look down the route of peltier chillier on there so I can knock the water temperature down a few degrees by chance I stumbled across theses round heat sinks that would suit the design. This is a bit of a experiment but why not try it out

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First step was to bulk them out a bit as they looked a little puny on their own. Despite their main issue that they weren’t that popular because most of the time they didn’t fit into most pc cases. To bulk them out I plan to add 3 aluminium rings onto them one at the very top the next in the middle and one on the base connecting it to the water block and Peltier

Cutting and drilling the first Ring

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Now this is were my motor failed on my scroll saw so just one and a half rings done :(

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Test Fit

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Cleaned up and fits snugly also hiding the ends of the heat pipes (maybe will improve the cooling of the tower if I put some thermal paste in there. Well only a little bit)

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The centre of the heat sink contains what they call a squirrel cage fan (don’t ask me how it got that name!) basically it sucks air in from the top and base and then blows it out from the sides in all directions.

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As my scroll saw is dead thought I may as well take this opportunity to do some work on the fan. “Warranty void if removed” 1st what a silly place to put that on the cable. And secondly this is coming off by the time I’m done with it thermal take won’t even recognise this as one of their products.

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There is the standard 3 pin power connector and a small variable resistor on a cable to adjust the speed. As the speed is going to be controlled elsewhere this isn’t needed so I de-soldered it.

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Turn it on and see if it still works.. Nice soft red glow from the fan.

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But as a look from the top I see something odd and this is on both heat sinks. There’s a missing LED! (green Arrow) from this picture you can see the empty space and just make out the solder points. That sucks I wonder why it was left out making it on the cheap? Miscalculated the power requirements? Poor quality? Not sure if anyone knows please post in a reply I’m in two minds to fit a addition LED or leave it as it is. For sure now im going to have to make a brass plate to cover this up as if you look down from the top it sticks out like a sore thumb.

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This is where I will fit in place one of the cooling towers and the other between the two grips.

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Hopefully won’t be too long till a replacement motor arrives and I can finish this stage. Things to do are get all the rings done after that I plan to get the heat sinks brass plated and the rings themselves painted Red just like the rest of the case.

Started doing the motherboard housing but will soon be getting back to the towers once that motor arrives

Two Short Aluminium strips to hold LEDs and the plastic sheets in place

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Nice Light blue frosted panels for the plasma chamber/ Motherboard housing

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Cya later Guys
 
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Thanks dude :D

Here is another shot i left out its the middle and lower rings for the fuel cells. and also one of the waterblocks and peltier chiller units. Hopefully this motor wont take too long to arrive so I can get theses cut out

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Hi guys Sorry for the long delay but now back up and running with a new scroll saw motor! But I have been doing a lot of other bits and pieces this post is a big one over 100 images!

New motor for my scroll saw bit of a pain that the old one blew.

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Excellent back up and working

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In the mean time I had to mill down the one side of the base panel to allow for the heat pipes as I don’t have a lathe style vice I have to improvise by drilling two large holes and bolting the piece down to the milling bed.

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Then cutting out the inner and outer parts.. Why didn't I cut down the outside to the line? Well theses parts are the insides from the barrel ends

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Then had to flip the piece over and mill the other side to make sure there was plenty of clearance for all the parts that are going inside

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Two deep channels for the pettier and extra long to account for the power cables

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And then finally the Aqua computer gold/brass Kryos water block on top. Now I have slightly miscalculated the size of the water block its massive! So the fixing holes are very close to the edge and I will need to make some new steel arms as theses are way too big.

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The middle ring was cut and ground down then fitted just with 2 bolts and washers to allow a little bit of room so it looked the same as the top pieces. As you can see I had to make the middle piece a strange shape due to the heat pipes being in the way. Originally I wanted to take all the fins off but I’m sure this would have damaged the heat sink.

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Finished part... well at least till I get it painted the additional rings will be red this has almost doubled the weight of the heat sink but I think it was worth it especially if you compare them side by side. What do you guys think?

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Bulked up a lot.

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Almost Doubled the weight.

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Still has the nice red glow

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Now the next Stage

The Plasma Chamber

This is the cover for the motherboard and will also be the focus for the main lighting system.

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First thing was to drill all the holes along the aluminium strips shown in the last post and make sure they were suitable for the LEDS then this strip was bolted down to the case sides to give me a base I could work on when aligning the plastic

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The last post showed you 3 Main sheets of frosted blue 5mm Perspex. Next stage once I had done a little trimming to get the side panels just right I needed to use a 90 degree tool to make the join. To do this I rigged up my mill with a simple jig so I could slide the sheet gradually past the spilling tool to get a good cut.

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It was a bit touch and go at places but I was happy with the end result.

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Little test fit

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Looking good still plenty of room for a full sized motherboard

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The top was then cut and gone though the same processes only difference the top has a 45degree cut at both sides so made it very tricky to get a good edge to slide up to. But in the end managed it though i did have to redo my jig.

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I felt this was a good time for a slight design change the top panel wasn’t as stable as I would have liked it and I felt that one of the side stripes connecting the barrel to the back of the case was in the way of view of the motherboard so I decided to add an extra aluminium bar on the top. One end was bent and taped so it could be fixed into the barrel end.

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The other end had 2 bolts drilled into it and then into the box section that supported the upper part. (sorry the bar image in missing)

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The final result

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and the mess afterwards

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Off with the side panel

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Now the panels were in it was time to make sure this panel wasn’t going to go anyway while I fixed remain parts on. So I cut down 4 strips of 12mm aluminium angle and milled then ends smooth.

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Brazed these onto the inner side panel along with the LED holder strip

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Nice braze

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Then I undid the clamp... Doh! Note to self remove the price label before heating the aluminium to approximately 700 Degrees as there was very little left of it. No worries this cleaned up with a little white spirit and scrubbing.

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Back on the case

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Then I had to cut down all the small stripes of plastic a total of 36 in the end luckily only just about fitted on the sheet I ordered which is a really nice clear florescent blue plastic this should make the edges glow when light is applied.

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Slightly ironic clamping material to a broken saw to cut them by hand... ( was before I had replaced the motor)

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All cut up and waiting to be finished.

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Each one had to be put in the mill to be cleaned up you can see here the ugly hack saw marks

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As you can see they cleaned up really well just after a single pass on the mill with a standard 10mm end mill. I think I'm going to leave them like that and not bother flame polishing them hopefully the light should bounce around inside the strip.

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Some time later...

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A simple Test Pieces See how the edges glow slightly

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Then it was a matter of carefully trimming them down one by one with the 90 degree tool.

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Im sure many of you are expecting me to use plastic Weld Cement or something simulare to fix theses parts together. But a single slip of buble and ruin not only the small strip the big sheet too and I wasn’t going to risk that! So I found out this little gem Scotch Double Sided clear tape and its 19mm wide most of the parts are 18mm wide can’t get much better than that.

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Very carefully making sure the area was clear of any plastic waster or metal waste that could get caught between the adhesive. I applied the first strip then trimmed away and excess with a knife.

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Success!

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Now onto the other end that was mostly the same apart from the top piece as this had the overhang from the barrel so had to be milled down to a set sise and parts of the sides had the chamfer removed.

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I used some electrically tape to mark down the are this part needed to be fixed and used multiples strips of tape.

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Starting to look really nice

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And another inside view also showing the top aluminium bar in place.

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At this point i took the panels off and hammered down the aluminium strips at the back to give a clamping effect so they wouldn't move.

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Humm my plan with the tape worked but there was still some air bubble in there hopefully once im done i can run a heavy object over them to squeeze out any leftover air.

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The final three strips!

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And then it was done hopefully i can take out those annoying air bubbles but then again a friend suggested it kind of looked like a plasma flow effect.

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Not done yet guys!

As it’s been almost 3 weeks since my last post thought I would give you a sneak peak at some of the electronics going in enjoy. Both theses parts are from my sponsor aqua computer thanks guys! At the moment I’m just going to show you the fitting of these parts later on will be the wiring and setup.

Say hello to the Aqua computer multiswitch this will be controlling most of the internal lighting and some of the special led status LEDS.

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Even though the face plate is very nice brushed aluminium i am planning to get rid of it as i don’t really have any standard bays in this project. So off comes the sides and the face plate.

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But this face plate makes a perfect drill guide so I stuck it on with a few strips of the double sided tape (little too much actually was a nightmare to get off once I was done). Now if you look closely you can see the 4 corner holes are slightly out of position as when I got the aluminium panels laser cut I couldn’t fix a diagram showing theses positions for the multiswitch so I crossed my fingers and used the aquaero positions. Luckily I wasn’t too far out and will cover up the hole with a slightly larger bolt in all four corners.

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Re-drilled the corners carefully then added some bolts to make sure the guide didn’t move. Time to get out the Tiny drill bits. Is it just me or dose anyone else whisper “please don’t break, please don’t break” to tiny drill bits?

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There’s light at the end of the tunnel

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When the case gets its final polish this will look a lot better as some of the marks are slightly distracting (and I need to fix in the bigger bots). Between the LEDs and switches i hope to make some little vinyl symbols that will represent what the switch is for the number 1- 8 make it hard to tell what they do. Has anyone out there got a vinyl printer/cutter that is capable of doing images apx 8mm square? Or something similar.

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Next item on the other side of the case is the main controller that will control all water-cooling devises, all fans and acts as a home theatre interface. This is the Aquaero XT

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There is 3 layers of circuit boards for the fitting I am mostly interested in the outer display at the moment.

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Very carefully peel off the steel cover as this is not needed.

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Then I realise something is a little odd looks like they have slightly changed the design of the face plate it doesn’t match my designs. After a little research I found the two models.

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Aqua computer please shield your eyes! I’m sure this voids my warranty on it and wouldn’t recommend doing this. This piece needs to come off as it wouldn’t fit into the gap I made but won’t be a problem as I can use some clear plastic to protect the infa-red lenses

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A snug fit but has got a slight recess of 2mm and I want to make sure this wont effect the lower buttons.

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Also had to cut down some bolts to get the correct fit.

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So hocked it up to my current PC a coolermaster stacker 830, rocking some really old GTX 295 but still going strong. You can also get a good idea of size of this plasma cannon case.

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All working well buttons functioning well even with the slight recess time to play with remote.It works really well.

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So guys that’s it for now and should have some more for you soon. Take care and feel free to reply with your thoughts :D
 
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