Project Stealthlow

[waynio]

Just been informed about acrylic can expand & contract under different temperatures which I didn't know .

 

[waynio]

Very nice project dude keep posting picture.Where did you get cable sleeves?Are they a good quality?

I went for the MDPC sleeving & yes it is excellent quality , the sleeving will be very close to the final posts of the project log though unless I can get a good PSU & don't have to carry on using the enermax galaxy .

Update .

Razzed through doing the fan holes & sanded the fans down just enough so they fit in the holders, the fan holders still require a bit more work & then sticking them together, then the fans can slide in & out, when I come to sticking them tomorrow I'll take a big fan with me so it blows the fumes well away from me.

 

[waynio]

That sucks that the acrylic's thickness is off - but shouldn't be that much hassle with the big sander you have. Would be a lot worse without it!

Looks like really nice clean holes from that hole-cutter. Are they pricy?

Yeah it seems it's a common thing with acrylic sheets not being precise thickness so it being out by 0.1mm is actually really good, but bad for the fan holders as it adds up to 0.5mm & even worse for the fans as I had to sand them down by 0.5mm but they are still fully functional .

The hole cutter is pretty cheap tool, think it set me back £14 on ebay, I find it far less aggressive than a hole saw but it's pretty scary how fast it spins even on the lowest speed of the press lol .

Think I'll make some jigs tomorrow to make the sticking process perfect.

 

[waynio]

That looks pretty cool glad it's shaping up nicely

And that is a cheap tool indeed.... seems well worth it for the precision holes you got!

kd

Thanks mate , the exhaustion has caught up with me & just woke up from a 14 hour sleep .
I think once I have these fan holders stuck together I'll sand them down so they all blend together seamlessly & then possibly polish them , it'd be good to get each bit at a time complete then put them in a box ready & waiting for assembly .

 

[waynio]

Update

A day just doesn't feel complete to me without making some progress & an update while creating something lol.

Decided to change the hdd cages a little for more air flow & this will make it less work too .

Cut out & marked the extra hdd cage piece I messed up the other day from the new sheet of 3mm aluminium, so I have some spare if anything else goes wrong on the smaller parts, still only have 1 shot at the mobo tray & side panels though so I'll have to be extremely careful doing those .

Woke up too late in the day to be using noisy tools but had a very long 14 hours sleep so I'll be up all night & all tomorrow so I'll try to get the hdd cages, hdd stand & fan holders completed tomorrow but can do some drilling as that's not noisy.

So here is the hdd cage pieces ready for drilling.

And drilled, still need to use this nice stepless cone drill bit so I can get a nicely rounded ends & so I can use the reciprocating saw on it, then file & sand.

And a quick test of the hdd mount holes, had to let them acclimatize to the warmer room, condensation aplenty .

Also with my brain not freezing up in the garage & being well rested I've had a chance to figure out how I'll make the multi layer curved front/top pieces & in theory it works excellent & is pretty simple to be honest so that's 1 less thing to be concerned about , I think the bulk of the hard work will be making the side panels.

 

[waynio]

@Diggsy Thanks mate .

@K@rl Thanks mate.

@Evil^ Not tried them yet, what's wrong with them?

@Tomcat825 Thanks mate

@ EniGmA1981 got nothing better to do so why not get stuck in .

@xxela1337 Yeah hehe .

The supercharge from the long sleep wore off by the time I was able to get busy today but still got a bit more done today, took just over 3 hours to do these.

And thought why not do a step by step picture update for a change.

Piece ready for drilling with big enough drill bit to let the saw inside.

Start & end points in.

Clamp & cut.

The finished cut with selection of files.

After the coarse file.

After medium file.

After round file.

After rough sanding unwanted marks off.

Another test fit.

Not sure if the reciprocating saw needs a new blade or because it was a hard piece to clamp properly but the cuts took ages & left a nasty mark on the pieces so I used the disc sander to level it all off so they just need wet sanding now.

 

[waynio]

Very interesting and looking good

Thanks .

Sheesh, very insignificant update here considering the time spent on it today .

Took all day to sand the hdd cage bits.
I have learnt not to use the reciprocating saw without good masking tape on to protect the surface & never to use the disc sander on surfaces, edges are fine but definitely not surfaces, creates way too much work & as you can see on the piece at the top it left quite a big scrape, I did wet sand them but when I cleaned all the crap off the water must have had a bad reaction with the aluminium & left blotchy stains so I dry sanded them with 240 grit.

I'm not happy with these to call them finished so I'll have to put another day into these pieces, all the inside edges are good though so at least I did something good on it today lol .

 

[waynio]

excellent stuff - looking good

Thanks mate .

I just put them together & they don't look as bad as I thought they were lol, sure they could use a little more sanding especially the one with the scar from the disc sander but yeah, not as bad as I first thought .

 

[waynio]

I don't know why but I felt like doing a little more so I cut all the rest of the bars for the lower part to rough size so they just need sanding down to precise size, then drilling & tapping, wanted to use the disc sander but was a tad too loud for 10pm.

 

[waynio]

great work cant wait to see more

Looks very nice. Hard drive cages are pure bling

Thanks guys .

Sheet I don't like tapping aluminium, managed 1 side for the angle bar & managed 1 of 2 taps on the other side, the 2nd tap the bolt just slips in & out, it's a very hit & miss thing for me & is prooving a real PITA on these hdd cages, I might use a high quality adhesive if it irritates me too much, but if I do I can say bye bye to anodising .

Anyway I think I'm at a point where I should step away from it until I get my sleep pattern straight & to relax a bit, turn off machine mode & become human again & so I don't have to worry about a noise curfew lol . 3 days max & I'll get get my sleep pattern straight & get the needed materials for making some jigs too.

 

[waynio]

looks like it coming along very nicely

Thanks mate .

Not an update, but a nice break through for me.

LOL, I just got an idea for drilling & tapping straight after saying I was going to have a little break.

I have used a cordless power drill before for doing some tapping but some how forgot about the success it was if done carefully, I also realised when using the drill press I didn't have the drill bit in far enough for it to drill exactly where I want.

So I thought I'd have a little practice/test with my usual 10/10 test to make sure something works , this time I made it 11/11 & they all came out absolutely perfect, so no need for a time out woo hoo , was really thinking I'm screwed when it comes to drilling even on a drill press, d'oh .

Only downside to this is now I can drill precisely where I want so none of this 0.5mm or even 1mm out annoyance I've been getting because of the drill bit not hitting the bullseye, so yeah I might remake the 4 hdd pieces, luckily the bases are spot on but the holes for the hdd mounts only just connect & is a struggle getting them to work right so I may re do these pieces, shame but I want perfection on all the function of this build, so no break yet .

 

[waynio]

Well its not focussing on one fan its all of them, they'll just not bother spinning on start up :/ my fan controller won't display they have stopped either because they weren't spinning in the first place (has an alarm if they do you see).

Idk mate I was probably just the unlucky one

Sounds crap mate, have you tried them hooked direct to the psu, I've had fan controllers go wonky on me before which is why I don't use them anymore, pretty scary when you leave the pc on overnight, wake up catch an iffy smell, touch the cpu heatsink & could cook breakfast on it , not fun.

If they work fine hooked straight to the psu then stick with that, my experience says fan controllers often fail but you are bound to come accross many who haven't had any issues with them, but for me every fan controller I have had failed & had about 5 ranging from the cheap to premium.

The fan controller you are using, what is it? but all the same try them hooked to your psu & see if they work ok & if not look into the warranty.

 

[waynio]

Can only multi quote 3 at a time lol.

Evil^ Thanks mate .

nice build, makes me wish i paid attention to technical drawing in school
thread subscribed

, I had no engineering lessons at all, it's just been heaps of trial & error to get where I am now so if I can do it, anyone can .

Nice to see another update!

Honestly, you seem to pretty much have project logs down to a Q! Reasonably often updates, good explanation and a reasonable number of pictures!

Absolutely loving it

kd

Thanks kd, no other way to do a project log & it's good to share how things can be done so anyone can take bits of ideas & come up with their own stuff once they learn & understand the basics .

haha 11 tests, sound almost as much as a perfectionist as me

This is an interesting build, will keep my eye on it.

Best to test methods before trying to apply them & thanks mate .

I tried doing these simple angle connections 3 times now & still not happy with the results & 1 more muck up & I'll run out of spare angle bar, I think it's the low grade of the aluminium sheet, when I tapped the bars which is a high grade quality the taps were perfect & strong, not so with the sheet So I'm going to skip trying to tap them again & use adhesive, I'll be sure to run some strength tests before I do though . I'll buy the adhesive tomorrow along with materials for making some jigs.

It kind of looks fairly acceptable but really it's gotta be better than how it is, a big part of the design is easy maintenance & if kept like this it could be a slight PITA maintenance .

Also came across a sweet way of painting aluminium in Darth Beavis's new lan rig which I'll be doing & keep the metal visible like anodising & it's simply candy paint straight onto the aluminium & clear coated so this is what I'll be doing for finishing & can do a good colour coordination this way too .

 

[waynio]

are you vibrating proofing the HD holder? If so what you using? Foam or something ?

The thickness of the aluminium & solidness of the build should kill vibrations .

LOL I did a mock put together to remind myself it is progressing dispite the hold up on a couple of simple pieces , the corner square bars aren't to precise size just yet, was like making a tower of cards .

I'm hoping to make some real progress tomorrow to make up for the lack of it the past few days .

 

[waynio]

LOL Thanks Gepetto, looked heli coils up after you mentioning them, but unsure if they would be good to fit inside a depth of 3mm, want to get a hold of a good machine tap really, been looking at spiral flute taps.

Staying up all night & starting early about 4 or 5am & get bits done that are quiet to do, then at about 8am if I'm done on the quiet bits move over to the noisier bits, want to get a good chunk of progress done today to make up for the lack of progress the past few days so I'm in for a long day, but after it I should have a nice update & have my sleep pattern fixed .

 

[waynio]

Wouldn't work as the bottom hdd screws in from the bottom mounts, anyway fixed them up good now & didn't have to touch no dirty adhesive .

OK I stayed up all night so I could make some progress & managed to make some woo hoo .

Filed a bevel on each of the fan holder pieces that come into contact with the fan blades because of having to slim the fan frames down by 0.5mm, these pieces still need a good bit of filing & sanding on them, then sticking together.

Then slimmed down all the bars to precise size & done another mock fit.

Then added the angle bars to the 2nd hdd cage so the hdd cages have turned out quite acceptable to be honest.

Marked up the bottom panel & 2nd panel for fixing the square bars to the 2nd panel, but first I tried doing the tapping with power drill thinking I've done it before & was ok, well the tap snapped first try lol, had to cut another piece & get it to precise size, switched to doing the tapping manual & very careful, did ok for 2 of them, then another one snapped, cheap taps, then another, then went to try a new tap & found it was the wrong pitch size so the screws didn't screw all the way in properly lol, so I'm left with a 2 legged panel until I can get a new tap which I just ordered a few, cheap taps again because they were the only ebay seller that offered express delivery, it's the only sure way to get deliveries on ebay at this time of year.

The ones I tapped successfully are very good, solid & perfectly in place wooooo .

So not much done but any progress is progress + I'll have my sleep pattern fixed after today even if it is temporary .

 

[waynio]

Just ordered a couple of milling bits, 1 for doing small cutouts & 1 so I can use nut rivets with a flange mounted flush no I don't have a mill, just a drill press, there was 1 more thing I was completely unsure about how to do, the bar slots for the fan mounts on the motherboard tray, so I'll be sure to get some practice in on doing what I want to do before actually doing it .
It's a far fetched idea milling on a drill press but it might work I guess people who do milling will probably say nooooo idiot but I enjoy a bit of trial & error .

 

[waynio]

Depends how clean it needs to look I guess - I recently found using the milling bit on a dremel was actually pretty effective!

Thanks for that info MP I'll experiment a bit to find the best way, it's for the motherboard fan mount bars, 3.2mm x 13mm. Ordered a 3mm milling bit & an 8mm milling bit, the 8mm is for making flanged nut rivets sit flush .

 

[waynio]

Got the fan holder pieces all stuck together & is a very very strong bond & since they are all together now I decided I'm going to make it so I can slip any standard 120mm fan in these holders as originally intended, none of this sanding down a fan frame nonsense, imagine the hassle of a simple fan change lol, also they all need a hefty sanding session to make them all blend together, unsure if I'll go for a polished finish or frosted finish.

Also I took over my desk fan to waft the nasty fumes well away from me this time, only problem with using a fan in below 0c temperatures is my hands were getting frozen lol, but thats way better than feeling awful from fumes .

I'm thinking enermax apolish fans would look amazing in these holders especially if I frost the edges & would also serve as the power light so if I use a vandal switch which is highly likely because I just really like them I could use the LED bit as hdd activity, not bothering with reset switches anymore & for power light I'll just use case lighting from now & onwards .

My bro would like some quiet case fans so I think I'll give him the 3 sanded fans for christmas hehe .

 

[waynio]

would be ok, but wont be anywhere near as accrate as a real mill

True, but if you clamped some aluminium angle as guide rails for the piece, set up the depth lock thingy and run it through slowly it may give reasonable results.

Yeah I'll have some experimenting & practice to do before I try it on the motherboard tray , not got the bits yet neither.

Awesome, the new taps came today & I didn't waste no time turning the 2 legged plate into the foundation base, so that's the first & second level fully attached & 2 of the square bars for the hdd platform, this is really starting to feel like good progress.

Done a couple of dummy fixes to show the hdd cages how they will be once fixed & with the front/top flat bars & front low piece loosely fitted, just couldn't be bothered doing more in the freeze today I'd end up naturally getting a cold .

Think I'll finish these off tomorrow.