Project Stealthlow

[waynio]

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 .

 

[waynio]

Thanks Sayso .

Thanks GoogalyMoogaly , I'll hook all 11 fans up to a quiet PSU to test how loud it is, should be quiet though as they are rated @ 11db but we all know it amplifies when a load are used together so I'll test it, the 10 akasa apache fans in the air cube are pretty quiet & they kick a much higher air flow so hoping these will be much more quiet.

Thanks kd yeah I use sketchup for my models, very useful app & free, fair bit to be learnt in it but it's worth learning especially for scratch builds .

Thanks Devrij

Thanks EdGey I'll need a bit .

 

[waynio]

Subbed

Looking forward to this Waynio. I've been trying to learn sketchup myself and it's proving a bit of a pain in the bum.

Love the look of the case, I wasn't too sure about the pattern on the side panels but it suddenly dawned on me that it all looks very art deco, and as such it works.

Did you decide on the front yet?

edit: sorry just seen there's a plan A and a plan B

Thanks Dubs , actually theres a plan a, b & c now hehe .

fan noise is base level plus 3db per fan.
41db is loud (well to me anyway) but as you say should be quiter that the apache's
And less that graphic card @ 100%

Looking forward to how this one progresses, as I've enjoy your other work logs

Thanks for the info shadow , should be nice & quiet then since most of the fans will be deep in the case .

Following this thread, looks awesome already!

Thanks Basill .

 

[waynio]

Intrigued is an understatement, suscribed!
Good luck with it and can't wait

Thanks.

 

[waynio]

Wow Converted the 1000x1000x3mm & 500x250x3mm sheet to the sizes I need them at so they are ready for the detail adding to them , don't know how long it took to mark up correctly but it took much longer than cutting it all & I'm glad I bought a good few sharpies, with the cold it was making them useless pretty fast, should be able to do all the rest of the marking indoors with the sheets being smaller, this is what's left of the sheets.

Before the cut-up.

Started cutting (point of no return ).

Here's the pieces ready for details.

And to think I was never going to use this tool, it seriously kicks booty .

And here's the status of what's done & needs to be done, grey indicates cut to size & bits that are done will eventually be painted blue, seems a good way to tell what percentage it's complete .

 

[waynio]

Wow, that's a lot of metal! Looking forward to seeing more. I would have thought the sharpies are too thick to mark and cut accurately though?

Yeah, sure is , the sharpies are dual use, one end is regular sharpie, the other is ultra fine 0.4mm tip .
So say a sheet is 38.4mm or something I'm marking up to the outer mm so mark at 39mm & I'll use the sanding disc I bought to take it down to the precise amount checking regular with the calipers .

And woo hoo for the christmas theme, nice .

 

[waynio]

@ Tealc - Thanks mate

@gary996 - Sure is , I'll get to that when I'm at the right stage but will involve hard tubes positioned in the right spots, clamps & a heat gun .

@GoogalyMoogaly - wow 70db sounds high & yeah I hope it's quiet too , I'll wire them all up to a psu & see what they are like all running together, I don't have a db checking device though so I'll just have to go off my ears so hopefully it'll be nice & quiet as it's a key feature of the case .

@Nelson Santos - Thanks .

@booyaka - Thanks .

@xxela1337 - Neither can I , thanks & yeah I've caught the perfectionism bug for sure now lol .

Only thing slowing the pace down now is my sleep pattern sometimes goes out of sync like last night, didn't get to sleep til 5am so woke up late but I'll get the rest of the marking done with the rest of today & start the cutting tomorrow, marking takes longer than cutting for getting the initial sized pieces.

 

[waynio]

Subscribed

Thanks .

Having spent the last god knows how long going through your Air Cube V2 project log, I must say I'm looking forward to this one all the more!

Just out of interest, what components are you going to be running in this?

kd

Thanks KD Kind of undecided I like the look of gigabytes upcoming p67-ud7 motherboard & the next gen CPU's, but honestly Intel irritate me with them not settling down to a certain socket type so I am very intersted in seeing what AMD have coming up as they seem to be able to make their mind up , I miss the days of buying a motherboard & being able to upgrade rather than a full system lol .

 

[waynio]

Thanks randal24 .

I was a little worried I wouldn't be able to cut the acrylic without cracking it up, just put it on a lower pressure & it works fine so I'll have another update later . Also having a little time out to warm back up lol, pretty cold out there .

 

[waynio]

Got all the marking up done yesterday .

And here's what I just finished .

Cut the pci/IO pieces & the hdd fan holders to size.

I coloured the cut to size bits for the acrylic white on the checklist.

Tomorrow I'll hopefully put the disc sander to use & get the aluminium & acrylic slimmed down to the precise sizes needed, then they will be ready for marking up again for details .

 

[waynio]

And not much to comment on really I know, but all is going to plan so far . But wow so many edges to smooth off & polish that'll be fun LOL .

 

[waynio]

Woooo, package from Nils Germany & with his funky personalised drawings on, awesome , can't say I know another shop that does anything like this .

Anyway molex pin removal tool, crimping tool & nice stack of fan/atx pins which came with the crimp tool, 9 sata power through, 6 sata power ends, 150 pre-cut heat shrink, sata heat shrink, 2 lots of each sized cable management clips, 40 metres of small sleeving, 10 metres of sata sleeving & an example of a good crimp.

Just gutted I didn't order a 1 metre sample of all the other colours, something I really should have done D'oh, he did put a sample of grey & red though .

All of this won't be used for quite a while yet but it's here & ready for when I get to the sleeving stage of the mod which will be near the end of the mod.

Here is the disc sander , super awesome tool.

Here is the mess it created after slimming down all the acrylic & aluminium pieces to the precise size .

And here is the aluminium & acrylic to perfect size ready for adding details but still need to polish the edges of the acrylic .

Also ran the unigine heaven benchmark 2.1 with the GTX 580 & wow it really out performed the 5870's in crossfire which I just switched from, I knew it would be good though after trying out metro 2033 with it being able to run maxed with dx11 & physx & was very playable, the 580 is not as long as the 5870 also, really amazing GPU honestly if the 480 was this good at launch I wouldn't have bothered with the 5870, not seen temps go higher than 70c & it runs quieter too, brilliant GPU & I'm enjoying Two Worlds 2 at the moment in-between the project & logging, the game looks & plays amazing .
Here are the Heaven results, ran it default 1080p no tessellation, default, default extreme tessellation, default extreme tessellation + 8AA & it performs awesome & all this was run on a p45 motherboard with q9650 @ 4ghz & 8gb ddr2 @900mhz so with even better system specs should perform even better.

Up next, polish the edges of the acrylic arrrrrrgh lol.

 

[waynio]

Really quick progress mate - keep it up. That's a lot of stuff from Nils - didn't realise he did pre-cut heatshrink - should make everything look neat and line up nicely.

Envious at your tools - I'm currently trying to finish off half-thickness cuts into 1.5mm aluminium sheet with a stanley knife! Still waiting on delivery of dremel cutting discs. Bloody snow.

It does seem to be coming along rather fast lol but then again no detail has been started yet , I would have got the regular heat shrink but they were on offer so thought why not it'll save some time , it'll be tough making the wire work as neat as Murder mod style especially with 6 hdd, ssd, optical but I'll try .

A stanly knife wow , files are good & then a little sanding to make it smooth .

Do you buy official brand dremel discs Monkey because you can buy miles cheaper but just as good reinforced cutting discs mate, they are made in China lol but they really are just as good as official very expensive ones got about 200 for £30 with included shipping from America, came accross them on ebay, it saved me tons on discs, on average they take a week to 2 weeks to arrive but just be sure you get the ones with 1/16" hole else they will fly off all the time lol.

 

[waynio]

Little hold up

Semi bad news semi because it's already in the process of being resolved .

Here's my first set back.

The drill press really isn't up to the accuracy challenge, marked the hdd mounting holes, took it to the drill press very carefully aligned it, plunged in still being careful but it still wandered off & was a good 1 to 2mm away from where I tried to drill, I've had it with this drill press lol it's just not accurate, my dad got it off someone a fair while ago & only started getting any use when I did my last project, honestly it's like a 1 in 4 chance of getting the holes where you want them, I'd have been much better off using a normal drill.

I knew I should have got a new one a bit ago oh well.

Just ordered a cheap clarke one, I'm sure it'll do better than the one which has been wonky for so long, also had to order another sheet of 3mm aluminium so I can redo the part but to my surprise I found some much cheaper than the place I get it from usually, I only need 145mm x 108mm as well, just wasn't quite enough spare.

Anyway while I wait for these very much needed bits I'll get the acrylic edges polished up, but damn I was gutted when I seen how bad the accuracy was, was hoping to get the hdd cages done today but can't do anything that requires accurate drill holes so with a bit of luck I'll have the new drill press on tuesday if snow & ice dosen't hold things up .

 

[waynio]

Yeah I do think something has gone on it, wrecked 1 of 4 pieces & there was way too much luck involved on the drilling I did on air cube.
I've just been used to not needing to punch the aluminium when I started using a drill press but I'll do as you said & if I get 10 out of 10 holes correct on the damaged piece then I'll know for sure that I was too hasty in buying a new one so possibly a big old face palm coming up lol, but then again I could probably do with having a new one as i'm pretty sure it's past it's best, thanks for the reminder about punching though Monkey, I'll give it a try now .

 

[waynio]

3 out of 10 were ok so I made the right decision to order a new one, relief, but because the garage is so unorganised a vice of all things fell off the heavily cluttered work top & straight onto my foot, hopefully I've got off lightly with just a nasty bruise but damn it's a good thing I had 3 pairs of socks on lol , the cold saved my foot, flipping hurt though, thought for sure I busted something up bad .

 

[waynio]

Can not wait to see this when complete, Loved the aircube

Thank you.

Looks really good Waynio, out of interest what do you use to mock up your sketches?

Thanks mate, I use google sketchup nice & free & plenty good enough to design good stuff .

Update time .

Here's pictures of the edges after cutting & using the disc sander.

Couple of action shots while I was doing the 240 grit, I found switching between these 2 grip styles kept my hands functional for longer.

And the mess & result from many hours on 240 grit.

Then did 600 grit, then 1200, could go & do the 2000 & polish but feel there is no need, now all thats left to do with these pieces is when I get the new drill press cut fan holes in all the big pieces, sand inside the hole & start sticking them all together with the clear acrylic adhesive, then that's all the hdd fan holders made, I'm going with light, dark, light, dark, light

Holy sheet an entire day of wet sanding 6:30am to 6pm so I think I'll have no problem getting to sleep tonight, feel like I've been doing the twist dance all day lol .

 

[waynio]

Gotta admire talented people like yourself. Subbed.

Thanks mate .
Today I'll mostly be waiting for deliveries but if they come early I'll get something done today .

 

[waynio]

This looks real sweet. Gonna be great when its done!

Edit: ****, thats a lot of wet n dry work! I normally give up after 20 mins with it

Thanks mate.

wow, looking like its going to be a great build keep us updated!

Surely will & thanks .

Update

I put the tensol 12 acrylic adhesive I bought to work, holy crap, nasty toxic fumes come from it, I was on the edge of not using it because it's so bad but made sure the front garage door & the other door was wide open & wrapped a thick towel around my face & got on with sticking the little pieces together, I used an art brush to apply it, my heart was beating way faster than normal & felt a little shaky (might have been because of the cold though), awful adhesive, I should have a quality respirator but they cost too much for one that offers genuine protection.

And here they are stuck together.

They are a bit wonky so I'll need to sand them all down to be level with each other, yay more sanding, also mucked up by filing down all the middle pieces instead of just the 3 for the fan wires , but luckily they won't be seen thanks to the flat bar which covers the bottom area phew .

Just made a nasty discovery.
The 5mm sheets of acrylic are more like 4.9mm so all the fan holders are out by 0.5mm which is bad as the fan holders don't connect to each other now, so my only option is to sand down the bottom 3 fans by 0.5mm how s*** is that, so yeah this means anything I'm making with the 5mm sheet is not going to be correct thanks to the bad materials, the hdd fan holders is bad enough but I was going to make my own pci/io piece too, but might just about get away with 0.2mm error from the material, but holy sheet this isn't good , I can only guess they measure the materials with the protective backing .

Here is the new drill press with my hole cutter attached, I find it to be better & cleaner cutting than a hole saw .

 

[waynio]

Read the warnings dude - "use in a well ventilated area"!

Good updates, keep em coming.

Oh I did that & then I browsed the net for information about how bad it is which is the main bit that was putting me off , but the thought of drilling & tapping I figured it would look a tiny bit messy so went for the adhesive .

But damn I'm going to have to sand the fans down by 0.5mm because of the sheets that were supposed to be 5mm turned out to be 4.9mm .