Vault 76 by PEXON

pexonpcs · 18 Sep 2018 at 21:05

Hello!

Welcome to Vault 76.

Its been a while since I managed to find the time to squeeze in a build in between my manic worklife! Following off the back of my Vault 111 build, I want to continue the 'battle hardened' style, with actual damage, dinks, holes all the gory bits, not just vinyl stickers and paint.

This time around, something different and something to challenge my skills, I am going with a glorious N-CASE M1 v5.0 Massive thank you to Joshua and Dan SFF Lab for generiously providing the case and allowing me to 'distress' it!

First job was to get some work done on the case.... on to the fun stuff!!!

The M1 is absolutely STUNNING. The build quality is second to none, every panel is removable, the finish is spotless and all the accessories will allow me to have endless options for cooling, storage and GPU choice

Now, on to some distressing...

Rough dremelling on the front to get the Vault 76 text cut out, I will mount some clear, sanded acrylic to add some nice back glow to the front.

I felt the front needed breaking up a little, so I added some rough black spray paint on the front and sanded it back down and added some rough files cuts and acetone to loosen the still wet paint

Its not very Fallout-y, but I realllly like the red LED glow on the front, on Vault 111 I used blue and yellow as the dominant colours to contrast the black and silver, I am digging the red this time around though.

That it for the moment, I have the side panel window cut out and will finish the acrylic this weekend and add some vinyl decals with additional weathering too!

Thanks for looking.

Cheers,

James

LuckyBenski · 19 Sep 2018 at 01:59

Nice! I like the weathering and metallic effect - would love to try that out myself. I have experience with quite exotic finishes on wood as I've made guitars before. Some repair tasks involve quite creative colour work and aging/distressing of paint!

Might want to change the thread title to be Vault 76 as well

pexonpcs · 19 Sep 2018 at 09:43

I know! I can't change it

Vault 111 was my previous build and I was on auto pilot when starting the project log!

Thanks so much for your kind words

Matt O'Brien · 3 Oct 2018 at 17:18

pexonpcs said:
I know! I can't change it Vault 111 was my previous build and I was on auto pilot when starting the project log!

Thanks so much for your kind words

All you need do is ask

Distracted · 3 Oct 2018 at 21:04

I love that front lighting. I imagine it flickering as if the bulb is dying.

Great work, looking forward to the rest of the build.

alex crossland · 9 Oct 2018 at 22:40

Nice. I do like a theme build. When everything points to a central theme it all just seems to work.

pexonpcs · 11 Oct 2018 at 00:24

@Matt O'Brien LEGEND! Thanks so much!

Sorry for the lack of updates, work has gone mad!

Here is where I got to...

I managed to dig out a spare 60% aluminum keyboard case, so, matching Vault 76 keeb for this project too!

Whilst at Overclockers working on some cables for the epic 8 PACK Orion X-2, I picked up a new SFX PSU for the build, the sweet little Silverstone 500W.

I also knocked up a little IEC cable to connect the PSU to the rear of the case, using a new C14 connector

New window time. The superglue and the edge panel trimming has come out sweet. Forcing the glue to dry with a quick hit of Isopropyl caused some sweet off white patina.

With the front panel, I thought it would be sweet to light the sides to allow the light to bleed through, not so intensely, so I made up a quick little LED strip set up

Raw cool white

Black electrical tape on top 1/3rd and red electrical tape on bottom 2/3rds of the cool white LED strips. Quite like this.... Its red, blue, purple, could work well.... Now... How the HELL do I make them flicker

Thats all for now! Thanks so much for looking

LuckyBenski · 11 Oct 2018 at 01:11

I'll have a think about the flicker... Maybe using RF interference or an oscillator... Probably a chip that can do it already for candle style LED bulbs

UberGinge · 11 Oct 2018 at 09:58

Got room in there for some Nixie tubes to really sell the aesthetic?

Legend · 18 Oct 2018 at 11:52

Curious how you've created the effect with the LED strip? Is it addressable? How is it programmed?

LePhuronn · 14 Nov 2018 at 21:30

Legend said:
Curious how you've created the effect with the LED strip? Is it addressable? How is it programmed?

I thought he said it's white strips lit through black and red electrical tape?