Rise of the triad, The 2014 Area 51

[ALXAndy]

I feel your pain dude. Many years ago I bought an Area 51 ALX case that was missing the IO board. It's where all of the LEDs connect up to. Basically they come in on two 24 pin ribbons and plug directly into this board.. Any way, I decided I wanted two of the few possible colours so I ended up wiring up around 20 or so LEDs so that I could switch them between purple and green.

It took me about three days lmao. Worked though !

I don't usually mind soldering. It's pretty relaxing like braiding and I can just put on some music and kick back and just go into repetition mode

 

[ALXAndy]

BTW just a quick note. You will notice that I am using what Alienware call "Alien Caret". It's hieroglyphics but does have a symbol per letter of the alphabet.



It will help to translate the messages and labels. First one is easy, the SSD. Yes, I do have a sense of humour

 

[ALXAndy]

OK so today's main log. I was quite fortuitous to discover that anything you design in millimeters in Photoshop are spat out at the exact size of design when taken into the plotter software. This was a huge discovery, because it meant I could have things on the PC in realtime knowing exactly what they would look like and best of all, I would be able to design whole pieces and then cut the graphics separately.

So here was the procedure I followed today. First of all I scanned in the panel I wanted to do some design on.



And lifted it as a layer making a new background in green. You'll find green is the best colour to use for this (they use it making movies and games also).



I then cut away everything leaving the shape in place.



So now I had my shape. I then added a colour overlay.



OK so now it's black.



Only problem is because it's a scan it's been flipped. So I flipped it both horizontally and vertically.






I then needed the exact dimensions. To get the width I did this.



For the height I simply measured from the bottom to the highest part. Now to turn it around.



And it looks as it should. I then began the design process.



And where I am up to.



And because it's in scale I can design it nice and big (to get the small details in nice and sharp) then at the end resize every layer and throw them at the plotter.

 

[ALXAndy]

OK so prep has begun. I spent a couple of hours last night sanding. Still got another couple of hours to do but I am getting there slowly.



Nothing terribly exciting really. Just lots of work. Any way, I placed a ton of orders recently for modding parts I needed for the project. This was one of them.



It arrived this morning. Then I dug into my wire bin (yes I actually have a huge plastic container filled with wires lol) and found these.. The Area 51 needs a single Molex to power up the internal light controller and so on and I chopped it off so it was nice and tidy



Which among the pile was these.



So I had the parts I needed all along and could have done this days ago /facepalm. Any way I did need to harvest some male pins.



I then set about making some wire lengths.



And set about soldering the loom.



It's nothing terribly exciting. Just two 5v + lines and two 5v - lines for the switch LEDs (they light up) and then a switched 5v line for the SSD UFO and a switched 12v line for the floor pan cathodes. I want to be able to switch off all of the internal LEDs and lights as there's no point in running them with the case closed.

 

[ALXAndy]

Ugh. Very.Warm.

I did manage to finish the prep on the top panel though. It's all sanded, filled, sanded again and then smoothed down for pre primer.



Unfortunately this is where it ended. I was simply too sweaty to continue. I think I've done all of the jobs that don't require anything physical too. Maybe I will just continue on with the decal work and then eventually get fed up and just get up and walk to the sea and go in for a bit.

 

[Cenedd]

Definitely! Took the day off (I was working all weekend) and too wife and child to the sea. Nice but packed with other people - unsurprisingly!

Panel is coming along nicely. Sleeved cables look good.
My RGB LEDs turned up yesterday and I wired one up to test. Turns out it's not the same pinout as others (and none provided) so I've got blue and green swapped at least I found out after one!

 

[Roverno]

No idea how you managed anything in heat like this. Nice work though

 

[ALXAndy]

No idea how you managed anything in heat like this. Nice work though

I took the gear into the kitchen and set up a washing up bowl I'd bought for wet sanding and started at it. I think I lasted about 40 mins before realising I had better stop.

Not done a sausage since. Hoping it cools down a bit later as I'm still not happy with the side panel. There's a scar along the edge from the Dremel and I want it gone.

Definitely! Took the day off (I was working all weekend) and too wife and child to the sea. Nice but packed with other people - unsurprisingly!

Panel is coming along nicely. Sleeved cables look good.
My RGB LEDs turned up yesterday and I wired one up to test. Turns out it's not the same pinout as others (and none provided) so I've got blue and green swapped at least I found out after one!

For the time being I live literally 100ft from the beach. The winters are torturous but we get payback *IF* summer is good. A couple of years ago it was just immense !

We're going to be leaving soon though (landlady selling up) which sucks but at the same time it's a blessing. Honestly, living that close to mother nature during the winter really sucks.

 

[ALXAndy]

Good afternoon all. This will be a picture-less update but an important one all the same. So basically I got the build to the point where I only had prep left to do. I managed to knock out nearly all of the prep before the heat hit but as soon as it did I just ended up a sweaty mess within minutes of starting so I decided to take a couple of days off to relax, sit in front of a fan etc. However, I have been beavering away creating watch lists and so on of everything I will need to finish the project. The list has grown quite long, but I thought I would share it with you guys so you would know what you needed if the need arose.

OK, so here is what I need. I will be ordering them later tonight and expect them to arrive next week. Once they do I will be staying with my mother so I can use her garden.

Heat shrink. I need this to complete the loom for the lighting and switches ETC.



OK now painting supplies. I figured I would list these and explain what they do as Dice said he wanted me to run through the paint process. First of all you obviously need sand paper, filler etc but there are a few other things that are important. Once you have prepped your parts (sanded and cleaned in soapy water) you then need to clean them with alcohol before you paint. This removes any hand oils, hand cream, soap deposits etc.



Now on metal and so on you can use an acetone based cleaner like "pre paint" but sadly that will just eat plastic so you need to use alcohol instead. I will be using these cloths.



Not the cheap Ebay "lint free" cloths. Whilst most of them are nearly lint free there's no such thing as an absolutely 100% free lint cloth. So once the panel or part has been wiped down you need these.



Tack cloths. Basically sticky cloths that will remove anything that is left after cleaning (like lint, ants, small flies ) but yeah, they remove anything that may sit in the paint.

Paint.



I have some but I want a big one just in case. I highly recommend Montana Black or Gold (not the colour the type) for painting out of a rattle can. Most other paints are just thin cheap rubbish.

I will also need primer.

OK, other supplies. Plotter blades.



I converted my plotter to use these blades ages ago, as a single original blade costs more than three of these. You need a new holder but once you've got that out of the way these blades are far cheaper. I also need a new soldering sponge.



OK. I am not so happy with my cable combs. They are fragile and break easy and they are clear not black. So I am ordering this set.



Which can do this.



Which is much better for me

I will be doing some prep later (hopefully the last) and will update as and when

 

[implosiveturnip]

Just read the whole log from the beginning and I cannot wait to see the outcome. It looks an immense amount of work! Keep it up

 

[ALXAndy]

Just read the whole log from the beginning and I cannot wait to see the outcome. It looks an immense amount of work! Keep it up

Thanks I appreciate that I think it's one of those things where all of the good stuff all happens in one day, the day you put it all back together

 

[implosiveturnip]

It's the best way really, like instead of watching a T.V series piecemeal week-in-week-out you just binge on the whole thing in a day or two, left feeling satisfied yet in a slight daze!

 

[ALXAndy]

It's the best way really, like instead of watching a T.V series piecemeal week-in-week-out you just binge on the whole thing in a day or two, left feeling satisfied yet in a slight daze!

hahaha that made me laugh

Sadly since starting the project my hands have flared up in eczema and have gotten so bad that all I can do is smother them in cream that means I shouldn't be prepping as I would leave oils all over the place

However I can do other things for now. I needed a couple of SATA cables but really wanted these.



They're Bitfenix Alchemy blue SATA cables. Sadly they seem to be out of stock everywhere in the UK and Cable Mod do not make them in blue (yet?). So I was looking at £20 each and I need two for the project Whilst I was humming and harring about whether I should really spend £40 on two SATA cables Tom at OC3D said he would check his garage and see what he had lying about. A week later and -



I am super super happy, Tom, you're a leg'

 

[ALXAndy]

OK so even though my hands are bad atm I still got some stuff done firstly I spent about four hours doing nothing but graphics. These are pretty much all done now.



The very small ones are in envelopes so they don't get lost

Second job of the day was to relocate the boot SSD.



Which I then covered.



And set up.



I really like the way they look.

 

[ALXAndy]

Good morning all I did some thinking whilst lying in bed last night about how I am going to power up the two SSDs without it looking like bum. Basically on a SATA run the final end plug looks OK but I would have had to use the one down too, now that I decided to display both SSDs and not just the one. This is a problem because those loops don't look very nice. So I had a think and decided that I was going to ask Shakmods to make me up two Molex-end SATA cables. What I mean by end SATA is that the end plug is sometimes different to the rest, looking nicer and sticking out straight.

However, I soon found these for £3.50 each.



As it goes it turns out to be a blessing and will reduce cable mess. Instead of having a Molex run hidden under the panel for the lighting, switch gear etc *and* a SATA run now I can just use the Molex run meaning there will be less wires

 

[ALXAndy]

SATA port cover.

If there is one thing I hate about motherboards (other than how the 24 pin socket is located, oh and the 8 pin ETC) it's SATA ports. They look honking, no matter how nice your cables are. I guess with 6 completely matching cables without the silver clips things would look OKish but I have 2 different cables. So, I decided a while back I wanted to do a SATA port cover but I wasn't sure how I would do it. Problem is I usually attach everything with double sided foam tape but if I do that how do I access the ports if I need to?

So faced with that problem (and another, right next to the SATA ports is a header that sticks up by about 10mm) I decided to make it in two pieces. One piece will be permanently fixed to the ports themselves and the other piece would be a main cover. So I marked things out.



I also marked out the second of the SSD plinths and cut that today too. OK so here are the pieces cut.



Then I taped up all three and put them over some tissue as plastic weld tends to ruin anything it touches.



So now they are all welded together. I then marked it out.



And then flipped it upside down and marked the exact same markings on the bottom.



Then stuck the holder down with double sided tape to keep it in place for drilling.




OK, so here are the pieces all prepared and sanded etc. I also edge polished the SSD plinth.



And the finished SATA cover ready for paint.



Basically the black block will be secured to the SATA ports, then I just screw on the cover

 

[ALXAndy]

Hand made, hand bent.

OK so it was time to do the cover for the fet cooling on the motherboard. This has been annoying the crap out of me ever since I bought the rig. I guess Alienware did it to save money but it's not very pretty.

So one potato pic coming up.



OK so as you can see it's kinda like unfinished alu. It looks like it may be removable, but sadly to get to it I would need to remove the mobo including the cooling so I couldn't be arsed doing that. Far too much for something I can just remake. OK so the story goes like this. Ages and ages ago I bought a sheet of 2mm alu so that I could fashion a removable cover that I could then paint and put some graphics on. Something, anything just to cover that silver lump. However, given my hatred of working with alu and a Dremel I put it off for nearly a year before deciding it was time to do it.

So first up I planned it.



You will note I added some masking tape to get decent markings onto. I then marked it out and realised I had one of my measurements wrong. Remember, measure as many times as you need to (more than twice if need be) and then cut. So as you can see I changed the size at the last moment



OK so then I needed to stick a piece of card against the side of the fin thing and then make a piece of cardboard that I could use as a "stop" when it came time to bend.



Then I figured that two would probably be better than one.



OK sadly the progress stops there, for a couple of reasons. Firstly I absolutely hate cutting aluminium. With a Dremel the best cutting bit to use is a reinforced disc but that doesn't make it easy. It skids, it jams, it makes a horrible mess of fine black powder and I was not about to take my brand new (and a little bit expensive) mobile phone into the workshop as I didn't want it getting buggered. My new phone takes much better pics than my old camera but I did consider using that but sadly the battery was flat and it takes all day to charge.

For those of you wanting to do something like this yourself here is how I did it. Firstly obviously you need to measure everything up and get the angles you need etc. Then map it down onto a piece of metal.

However, given I used no specialist tools to bend it I will explain how I managed it with just my hands. Once I had cut out the piece (and used the Dremel to partially tidy the edges so I didn't slice my hand open on it) I then turned it over and marked the bend like again, in reverse. Then I simply used the Dremel and common sense to score into the alu underneath so that it A. Removed material giving room for the bend and B. Would make it easier to bend.

To bend it I simply cracked out my work bench (you know? the old Black and Decker workbench type affair) and then clamped the piece into the bench so I could use my body weight to bend the alu. I then placed the cardboard bits onto the bench and held them up so I knew where to stop.

And the end result is this.



It hasn't been prepped yet because obviously it's different and needs prepping differently but once I'm done filing ETC the only major difference is that I need to use different primer for it before putting on any paint.

 

[ALXAndy]

More madness

As I mentioned earlier in the build log I really wanted to go for detail. So that means pretty much that I would like some really fine details on the build as well as just the boxes and covers.

So I was walking down the hallway earlier and spotted this in one of my junk boxes (fans, wiring, fan grills etc).



Now I have a lot of fans. And I mean, a lot. Some were from rigs I no longer own (or no longer even exist) and some were for projects that never got started and so on. This is a Xigmatek one way 120mm fan that I picked up in a sale for about £3. I remember ordering about five of them with big plans and ended up only using a few for a few weeks. You see fan, I see nose cone....

Let me explain. There's a guy on one of the forums I visit called Nexxo. Nexxo is building a rig called Metaversa 02 : Ada. It's a Steam Punk build but christ, it's good. He has a lathe and many machines and has slowly been building his vision for what feels like forever. As an example of this here are what his fans look like with nose cones that he has machined using a lathe and some brass.




I like it. However, I ain't kidding myself. I don't have the machinery nor the knowledge of how to use them so I won't be making parts like that. I did think about contacting some one and asking if they could make one for me (in fact that was a white lie, I did contact some one but he doesn't have a lathe). Any way, he suggested that I just use a drill or Dremel to machine the part. I did know what he meant thankfully so I decided to begin.

OK so first I needed to turn the fan over in order to get the blades out.



And bugger, it's a sealed unit There are a few things you will find here. Firstly you find a soft rubber plug that comes out easily. Secondly you find nothing at all and can see the split washers holding the fan on and thirdly you find this, a plastic welded solid plug. It's a real pain to get them out and I tried cutting it out first with a razor blade but the edges just snapped off. After a bit of wrestling and some brute force I got this.



OK, so now I can get access to the split washer. Thankfully they used cheap glue and it snapped out pretty easy, phew. Then I removed the split washer and pulled the fan blades out.



And then I got out something I bought ages ago that I ended up not even using, a fully adjustable chuck for my rotary tool. I initially bought this thing to make it easier to switch bits and use different sized drill bits etc but it ended up being perfect for the job.



OK now sadly this is where it got really messy. However it basically involved me going into the workshop (the kitchen ) and very carefully removing as much of the blade material as I could without damaging the cone (which didn't happen and I created a couple of cut scars). However, once I had done cutting and grinding off as much of the blades as I could I then bolted the bugger into the end of my Dremel using the chuck (which tightens at the bottom which was handy because otherwise I would not have been able to get to it to do it up !) and then slowly introduced the sandpaper to it.

I started off with a piece of alu based cloth and then slowly moved down the grade of the sandpaper to shape the nose cone. After about 30 mins (and then 30 mins of tidying it up, jesus it made a mess !) I had this (note I have put some filler into the dremel scars)



I was pretty darn pleased with myself considering I had never attempted any such thing before ! Any way, after the filler had set (took a while it's very humid in here today) I had this.



Which is pretty much ready to be primed and painted. However, I don't think I'm done yet. I've had another idea I want to implement that should take me a couple of hours to do

 

[Cenedd]

A Dremel is annoyingly ineffective at blunting the edges of aluminium sheet. Someone on the forums mentioned a debuting tool so I bought a cheap Silverline effort and it's so much easier. Probably too late to be of help but I thought I'd mention it.

Nose cone's looking interesting. Tell us more....when it's not too hot to work!

 

[ALXAndy]

I doubt I will be using any more alu on this project. For everything else I can use acrylic, but obviously the bend line on a piece of metal is far more attractive than plastic which can sometimes "camel hump" along the bend. Plus alu is much thinner so far more suitable for covering heatsinks

The nose cone will be for the bottom intake fan. Right now it's still one of the old fans that are making their way out, but when the build is finished there will be another Eloop fan down there. Sadly it's on intake so you don't get to see the true beauty of bionic fans so I decided to dress it up a little. The nose cone (that nice shiny plastic thing) should just be one part but I have not decided yet what else I want to add to it. It will all depend on what sort of parts I can machine with nothing but a Dremel and a drill I guess

If I posted all of the ideas I've had and the fails I've made along the way the log would probably be twice the size it already is