Project Stealthlow - Complete & a few new photo shoots
Stealth merged with flow = Stealthlow = Project Stealthlow
Because it's going to be quiet & powerful with a great air flow layout.
Finally got the magic ingredients.
Funds
I sold a pile of my things to fund much of this project, so new system components for the finished project too, won't be for a while so I need to get saving, had a couple of extra things to sell thanks to everyone involved at bit-tech & Dennis publishing for the magazine spread on Project Air Cube, highly appreciated, those parts helped me buy a 12 inch disc sander which will get a lot of usage in my modding & covered the cost of the fans for this project & a little extra towards the components which I'll buy later :thumb:, I went crazy & bought a GTX 580 though but I can enjoy that in between working on this & logging, awesome card btw runs metro 2033 @ 1080p dx11 max settings smoothly & runs GTA IV excellent with awesome settings, 2 very demanding games out of the ones I have.
These are the fans I'll be using, the 80mm & 140mm are for replacements on my enermax galaxy 1kw & the 120mm ones are for the case.
Sleeving, this is a first attempt at doing a quality sleeving job, wanted to buy a psu & sleeving but couldn't afford both after splashing out on the GTX 580 so was split between buying a Corsair 850w 100% modular psu & MDPC sleeving from Nils, I opted for the sleeving
all black because I'm a beginer in this area of modding so wasn't sure how much I'd need so this first attempt should let me know what's needed for future cases. I'll be replacing the fans & sleeving my aging but trusty enermax galaxy 1kw psu & possibly give it a paint job too.
Layout
HDD air tunnel push/pull/pull out the back.
PSU fan facing down with vents that catch the excess air from the HDD fans.
A bombardment of low flowing air coming from the front & bottom of the motherboard.
Colour undecided until I figure out what hardware is going in, waiting to see next gen CPU's up next from Intel but I'm keen to see what the new AMD cpu will be too.
Updates
Had the materials sat in my room for about 2 weeks now but been busy tweaking the design & making a solid game plan for the project so I know exactly what I'm doing when I go to the garage, every other time I've done a case I spent heaps of time in the garage just pondering on what to do, not this time, being far more organised about it & will keep the work area clean after every session.
Idea
It all started with me wanting to remake my first scratch build which was based on the Lian-Li x2000 & was awfully planned & shoddily done as I was learning metal work & construction from scratch so was a thoroughly half arsed effort & was put together very fast but I definitely learnt a good bit from it so this remake has evolved massively imo I started doodling silly concepts & quickly came to the conclusion unconventional pc case shapes often equal wasted space or cramped space compared to a square type form like most cases although some people are doing a fine job of proving otherwise :thumb:, so I ended up making a curved front/top while keeping all the rest square, so this is my first go at a slightly unconventional shape to break out of the square box mode & to keep it so I learn something new on each case.
These were the first models that were presentable :hehe:.
Size & planning
The final design is definitely a tall case, 77.6mm taller than the Lian-Li PC-X2000F but it will be good for maintenance & cable management & have an excellent fan layout.
During each update I'll paint the aluminium pieces as being cut-out in grey & once the particular pieces have been completed I'll paint it blue like this, keeps it really well organised like a check list but more in depth & easier to know what stage I'm at on the project.
Also every piece has got to be done 100% perfectly accurate to my sketchup model for all this to work so no 2nd tries on this project, gulp
, ordered just enough materials, bad idea maybe, extra challenge definitely. But have planned heavily on the stages of the case so it should be pretty straight forward other than the acrylic curve, I haven't even done a simple acrylic bend before so if I'm careful & lucky I'll manage it, got a heat gun & a range of hard tubes so if I clamp them down good in key spots I should manage it ok I think, if not plan b to the rescue .
Almost every single bit will be DIY like my others, I've looked into anodising & no I'm not DIY'ing that, way to hazardous for my liking especially for big panels
. It's possible I'll paint or powder coat but I would like to get it all anodised ideally.
So since my last post on the concept I added structure supports, case feet, grills, mobo mounting holes, expansion card mounting holes, the slot piece for holding the HDD's in place & added simple vents for it to get the ambient air & also worked out a plan b in advance for if I fail or don't like the middle curved acrylic piece.
Had to scrap the full length acrylic piece as I was out by 11mm once I figured out how to accurately measure the curve, the bottom area will be easier to do, stronger frame, better looking & more functional like this.
Anyway, I've officially started, a tiny bit but still it's on.
First cuts & they went very nicely, I left about 1mm for error which I'll need to file & sand down to the exact spec, I really put the reciprocating air saw to the challenge by starting on the thickest sheet of 4mm, it took a while & was pretty deafening but got the base level & a few of the bits for the HDD cage mounts done, would have done much more but didn't get any sleep last night so went to make a coffee for a quick break & while I was doing that it hit me how totally shattered I am so need a rest else I'd probably mess up if I continued.
Looking forward to a fresh day after a good sleep to get stuck in on the other panels, just cutting out what is needed to do the bottom level & the hdd slot stand & cages & fan mounts to start with, then I can focus on the tricky part above.
Sorry about the huge splurge of text, hopefully I won't need to type too much on the updates & you can all just check the progress out with very brief details of how or what or why I done things like I do.
06-feb-2011 got sponsored for feet from Bill Owen
.
Stealth merged with flow = Stealthlow = Project Stealthlow
Because it's going to be quiet & powerful with a great air flow layout.
Finally got the magic ingredients
.
Funds
I sold a pile of my things to fund much of this project, so new system components for the finished project too
, won't be for a while so I need to get saving, had a couple of extra things to sell thanks to everyone involved at bit-tech & Dennis publishing for the magazine spread on Project Air Cube, highly appreciated, those parts helped me buy a 12 inch disc sander which will get a lot of usage in my modding & covered the cost of the fans for this project & a little extra towards the components which I'll buy later :thumb:, I went crazy & bought a GTX 580 though but I can enjoy that in between working on this & logging, awesome card btw runs metro 2033 @ 1080p dx11 max settings smoothly & runs GTA IV excellent with awesome settings, 2 very demanding games out of the ones I have.
These are the fans I'll be using, the 80mm & 140mm are for replacements on my enermax galaxy 1kw & the 120mm ones are for the case.
Sleeving, this is a first attempt at doing a quality sleeving job, wanted to buy a psu & sleeving but couldn't afford both after splashing out on the GTX 580 so was split between buying a Corsair 850w 100% modular psu & MDPC sleeving from Nils, I opted for the sleeving
all black because I'm a beginer in this area of modding so wasn't sure how much I'd need so this first attempt should let me know what's needed for future cases. I'll be replacing the fans & sleeving my aging but trusty enermax galaxy 1kw psu & possibly give it a paint job too.Layout
HDD air tunnel push/pull/pull out the back.
PSU fan facing down with vents that catch the excess air from the HDD fans.
A bombardment of low flowing air coming from the front & bottom of the motherboard.
Colour undecided until I figure out what hardware is going in, waiting to see next gen CPU's up next from Intel but I'm keen to see what the new AMD cpu will be too.
Updates
Had the materials sat in my room for about 2 weeks now but been busy tweaking the design & making a solid game plan for the project so I know exactly what I'm doing when I go to the garage, every other time I've done a case I spent heaps of time in the garage just pondering on what to do, not this time, being far more organised about it & will keep the work area clean after every session
.Idea
It all started with me wanting to remake my first scratch build which was based on the Lian-Li x2000 & was awfully planned & shoddily done as I was learning metal work & construction from scratch so was a thoroughly half arsed effort & was put together very fast but I definitely learnt a good bit from it so this remake has evolved massively imo I started doodling silly concepts & quickly came to the conclusion unconventional pc case shapes often equal wasted space or cramped space compared to a square type form like most cases although some people are doing a fine job of proving otherwise :thumb:, so I ended up making a curved front/top while keeping all the rest square, so this is my first go at a slightly unconventional shape to break out of the square box mode & to keep it so I learn something new on each case
.These were the first models that were presentable :hehe:.
Size & planning
The final design is definitely a tall case, 77.6mm taller than the Lian-Li PC-X2000F but it will be good for maintenance & cable management & have an excellent fan layout.
During each update I'll paint the aluminium pieces as being cut-out in grey & once the particular pieces have been completed I'll paint it blue like this, keeps it really well organised like a check list but more in depth & easier to know what stage I'm at on the project.
Also every piece has got to be done 100% perfectly accurate to my sketchup model for all this to work so no 2nd tries on this project, gulp
, ordered just enough materials, bad idea maybe, extra challenge definitely. But have planned heavily on the stages of the case so it should be pretty straight forward other than the acrylic curve, I haven't even done a simple acrylic bend before so if I'm careful & lucky I'll manage it, got a heat gun & a range of hard tubes so if I clamp them down good in key spots I should manage it ok I think, if not plan b to the rescue .Almost every single bit will be DIY like my others, I've looked into anodising & no I'm not DIY'ing that, way to hazardous for my liking especially for big panels
. It's possible I'll paint or powder coat but I would like to get it all anodised ideally.So since my last post on the concept I added structure supports, case feet, grills, mobo mounting holes, expansion card mounting holes, the slot piece for holding the HDD's in place & added simple vents for it to get the ambient air & also worked out a plan b in advance for if I fail or don't like the middle curved acrylic piece.
Had to scrap the full length acrylic piece as I was out by 11mm once I figured out how to accurately measure the curve, the bottom area will be easier to do, stronger frame, better looking & more functional like this.
Anyway, I've officially started
, a tiny bit but still it's on.First cuts & they went very nicely, I left about 1mm for error which I'll need to file & sand down to the exact spec, I really put the reciprocating air saw to the challenge by starting on the thickest sheet of 4mm, it took a while & was pretty deafening but got the base level & a few of the bits for the HDD cage mounts done, would have done much more but didn't get any sleep last night so went to make a coffee for a quick break & while I was doing that it hit me how totally shattered I am so need a rest else I'd probably mess up if I continued
.
Looking forward to a fresh day after a good sleep to get stuck in on the other panels
, just cutting out what is needed to do the bottom level & the hdd slot stand & cages & fan mounts to start with, then I can focus on the tricky part above.Sorry about the huge splurge of text, hopefully I won't need to type too much on the updates & you can all just check the progress out with very brief details of how or what or why I done things like I do.
06-feb-2011 got sponsored for feet from Bill Owen
.
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