Scratch Build – In Progress Project Little Rascal Mini-ITX Gaming PC *Update 24/04/08*

Update time

Well this week has been eventful in more ways than i would of liked. I started work on sanding down the pieces i had already cut (HDD, PSU, Rad Caddies and the PSU Backplate)

I managed to get a jigsaw and sander for like £12 off ebay brand new due to a company going bust, i thought this was a steal and now ill get to see how both of them fair up. Im hoping it will cut down a lot of the build time, but i also know there will be fidly bits which ill have to do by hand with my trusty assortment of files and some hand sanding (note im not using my hand to sand metal )



Heres the sander, and the assortment of sandpaper in various different grit grades to test and see what type of finish i want on the panels, as im still not sure if i want a brushed aluminium, smooth solid colour or mirror finish.

So it was time to start the long and arduous task of filing and sanding and sanding and more sanding. The original cuts were near enough spot on apart from a slightly slant on one of the sides of the hdd caddy, which you dont notice until youve been told about it. (like then , and its noticable in 1 pic especially) Though there were still a lot of loose bits which obviously needed to go to get the clean line look i am aiming for.




(note that these pictures were still taken whilst the filing and sanding was being done)

I noticed though that i was going to have to get my dremel involved for some cutting action to clean up the slant on the caddy, as there was a bit too much to sand or file away. (Dremel Discs were lost in the production of this picture)



1 and a bit sheets of sandpaper and 30mins later, it was looking a lot cleaner then it had done an hour before. There are times though where im a bit anal about things being 100% perfect, but i started this project knowing that not everything would go to plan.



This is how it turned out, though this isnt completely sanded down as im plan to attack it with some of the finer sandpaper later on to get it looking near enough perfect. I just needed it to be cut and clean enough so that i could get on with the next bit for the caddy....... the bending.

I was lucky enough to be able to nab a decent* bending brake off ebay brand new, not long after christmas. Ive been waiting a while to be able to test it out and see what its like, as its possibly one of the most critical tools that ill be using throughout the build.

If some of you out there dont know what a bending brake is, well its a bit of hardware that helps you bend metal. What you do is you sandwich the metal between 2 clamps and pull up a plate that bends it.

So now that the caddy was quite tidy, it was time to line it up, clamp it down and bend some metal



As you can see here its all lined up and partially bent..... but some of you might notice a slight problem. Lets highlight it...



Yup thats right, mother-humping slippage. My worst nightmare. Its not too bad as i thought it had bent most of the way i can just hammer the rest over a sturdy edge of a thick table or something, that is exactly what i done and had no problems correcting the problem.

However, i tried it again last night on the other side, and once again it slipped. I done it this time with 4 clamps whichy were hammered shut to make sure they were tight and it still didnt bend properly. I want to try it with a part that isnt lip to bend, though im obviously worried that it could seriously screw it up and ill have to completely redo that bit.

Im wondering if its my clamps that theyre not holding right, but to be honest 4 should do the job. Im going to see if i can nab 2 big chunkier clamps from work today, and if that doesnt work im going to have to rethink the folding part of the mod as at the moment its making me cry deep down

Though on the upside......... Christmas has come early \o/
Got into work and look what was waiting for me....



Time for the giddy like a child nerdy unboxing



So what did it contain i here you ask. Well its not any components as of yet but it is some of the watercooling setup




Well thats it for today. Yes i know not the update some were hoping it would be (myself included) but sadly that would be down to the brake. Im hoping to be able to slave on with a lot of stuff this weekend, and hopefully that will include bending.

Hope you guys are enjoying this mod at the moment and please feel free to leave comments.

Btw when the hell is this thread getting moved to Project Logs. Its getting beyond a joke now :S

Until next time.

 

Cheers to the admin who moved this over.

Thanks

Smallish update later tonight

 

Nice to see some progress !
keep up the good work !

btw. sorry if you've already said it, but will side panel be polished or painted ?

 

Dark Energy: Polished, but not to mirror finish, though im still undecided on this.

**************

Good evening everyone.

Once again its update time, though its only a small update this time, but one i think most of you would want

Well after my bending brake went tits up and wanted to annoy me more than bend the stuff i wanted bent (not gays were hurt in the making of this pun ;D). Well yesterday i worked around it, though i was annoyed as i know it wouldnt get me the accuracy i wanted, but then it was better than nothing.


The white on it is toliet roll which stuck to it after i gave it a good clean as it had so much gunk on it)

Then today a kind gentleman name Pseudonym over at overclock3d.net suggested another work around

.... so i decided to give it a go. Sadly it didnt goto plan and when i was modding the bending brake one of my drill bits decided it didnt want to help me out.



Though i slaved on and managed to get it done and dusted



As you might notice, i didnt have any dowels, but i did have carpentry drill bits that i didnt think would be able to help me with this mod at all.




Thanks again Pseudonym, was a fantastic idea that got this mod back on track

Now that i had the bending brake up and running, i decided to carry on with the work that was meant to be done. I didnt have much time to do things as im a bit pushed for time today, though the hdd caddy is now finished with regards to the bending Here are the screenies.








I was going to post this the other day, but was a bit worried with doing too many updates

So i was at work the other day and the delivery man came in and asked for me and geek Nick broke out and a huge cheesey smile was on my face as i knew what had arrived. I shall shut up now and let the pictures do the talking.











Yup it arrived, and its even smaller than i thought it would be. Im in compelte awe of this motherboard and cant wait until its up and running in its new home.

Anyway guys, until next time, i must shoot. Feel free to leave comments or questions .

Regards

 

I have been looking to see if you could use the mini PCI slot for a sound card, which would be quite cool. You can get PCI>mini PCI converters so you would think you could go the other way too, but I can't see anything.

Also, the Wikipedia article says you can get mini PCI sound card, though I have yet to find one! Rather disappointing really, but I think it was worth looking

Anyway, I love how this is going. Good luck with the rest of it!

Edit: wooo I have found something. It just looks worse than the integrated sound
http://www.commell.com.tw/Product/Peripheral/MiniPCI/MP-878S.HTM

Edit2: You can get cards with vga&lan. This seems rather odd really as they are rather different! I suppose there must be a market for them though!

 

Nice looking board you've got there Nix...

 

Cupboard: Ive for the Mini-ITX running that the sound on it is really good. RealtekHD is soo nice.

Craig: cheers, i need the case to go with it atm.

****** Update Time ******

Well, things still arent going to plan and im not completely happy at the moment. I am thinking about ordering some more aluminium and doing some parts again thanks to the way my bending break works (or doesnt work).

The HDD Caddy worked fine, no problems with it, but im having severe problems with bending short pieces, and some of the caddies and mounts are quite short. Sadly im having to resort to bending myself which isnt the best or easiest way of doing it.



Ive never done so much hammering in my life. Im thinking of remaking them but bending them before i cut, and then dremel it. That way i know im going to get nice accurate bends. I was able to get it to bend thouggh, but had to remove some of the structural wings which i put on just to boost structural integrity.



Considering the amount of hammering done, i think it turned out ok. Yet it has taken a bit of a beating on some bits:



This wont be seen unless you are purposely looking for it, but still.... i know its there so its going to bug the living crap out of me. Sometimes i hate being a perfectionist and a modder, its fantastic when it goes to plan, but if it doesnt i kinda go off the rails.



As you can see (and expect) its not smooth thanks to the amount of hammering required and im really not happy with it

Though, do not despair. There will be an even better update tonight or late tomorrow morning

Regards

 

did you not use a block of scrap wood to soften the blows?

 

My metal bending guide should help out with the manual bending.

all looking good so far

 

Iwog: Yes a block of wood, then metal then hammered it with the mallet in between but it wasnt bending it at all. With the block of wood i was hammering for 10mins and it got to a point and just wouldnt go further.

Guardian: You dont have to lie to me, the PSU Caddy has to be redone, thankfully id have to do it again anyway as the dimensions of the psu arent as Seasonic say on their website.

 

Any updates?