Scratch Build – In Progress Hypno-Toad Rebuild--April 2012 quick repair and refit.

I don't have much. I've got a vacant house and I'm busy. (How does a 3 year-old get dirty handprints 7 feet up the wall? The little turd must have been Spider Man.)

-As if I hadn't tortured the power supply enough, I spliced in a line for the AC fan. Let me know if this will cause power surge problems, OK?

-I started making the front fanguard parts. Double sided tape is good for mounting the templates.

-drilled holes for the res wiring.

-and added some looms for the faceplate wiring. Currently I'm putting together a junction box for the LED wiring and cutting fanguard parts.

Thanks, DangerDen.

 

OK... Busy on a whole new level...4 vacancies!
Please forgive me for the update being small.

-I'm putting together a junction box for the led clusters. This will mount under the optical drive. I'm hollowing out two bits of 1/4" plastic.

-I made the green part slightly larger so I could fit side walls to it.

-I will be using fan connectors I picked up from Petra's Tech Shop. (Cheap shipping rules!) I have found that I can glue the connector to the black ABS, but it doesn't stick very well. I will need to fill in the entire rig with epoxy.

-Here's everything polished up with the side walls on. A 4-40 screw will hold it together and in place.

-I finally found someone who sells expansion bottles that are perfect for the coolant loop. Rockler had some that can fit the aquarium hose perfectly. Bloo will get one of these too.

-I finally got all the fan grill parts cut. It sucks that I can't use a router at 2 AM...

-I milled important edges, then glued the still rough parts together. I hope my guides survive the gluing process.

That's all I have right now.
Thanks again to Danger Den.


Edit: One more thing...I have decided to give futurlec another try. I think I might have been a little harsh on my previous order. I'm planning on building an LED chaser circuit, and they had all the parts I needed. I have to thank Cpemma for posting this link recently. I never would have found the info I needed without it.

 

cheapskate you have done it again This so cool and crazy at the same time it wins by award

 

Ha! Thanks.
Which part is crazy? The sh*t I did to the poor power supply?

 

nice mod,weird colors,i like the polished green plexi glass,looks fantastic.

 

Thanks. I like it too.


I got My order from Futurlec! My love/Hate relationship is back to 'tolerate'. Now I have only one problem,(besides a lack of time.) The chips sent with the order are much smaller than the ones used in the guide looked. They won't fit pre-drilled project board I ordered. I'm going to have fun soldering these. I can barely even read the print on the chip.

Edit: Me Stoopud! I ordered some of the chips in surface mount form. There's no way in hell I can solder these. I'm going to order some regular ones. It's not like I have time to work on this anyway.

 

A slow month for modding


-Here's the first lot of electronics. There's enough junk here to make 4 LED chasers, and 16 feet of ribbon cable. How far does my floppie go?

-This is the screw-up I made. The first set of chips are the normal mounts. The others are surface mount. I kinda glossed over the product names and missed the part that said 'smd'.
I have 8 chips I can't solder, or even see very well.

-I've been shaping the fanguard/handle-things in my free time. Here I set the bit to 1/8 inch above the vice, then positioned my marks using a 1/8" alu.

-I couldn't do the insides the same way, so I bought a drum sanding bit. This bit works great for freehand shaping.

-The plexi copies wouldn't overlap like the original handles would. I traced the original shape to fix this.

-The trimmed versions overlap.

-The new sander got a workout. I ground the 'handles' round with a 120 grit drum. I need to hand sand the imperfections out and drill mounting holes.
...That should take me another month.

Stimulate the economy and buy stuff! (From DangerDen.)

 

wow liking the grill and can't wait for them chasers to be seen working

 

I'm just making one!!!!!!! Dear God! I never even thought about running all 4 on one rig. That would be annoying. I'd have to change the name to 'battling seizure robot'. I think 20 ultrabrights on the front panel is enough.

 

lol love to see that in action you wound be having fits all over the place

 

My eyes already bug me. Adding 30 more blinking LEDs would kill me.

 

TEchno Party Case Mod ? You are making Stroboscope with those Ultra Bright Blinkig LEDs ? BTW Soldering SMDs isn't as hard as it looks

http://tangentsoft.net/elec/movies/tt03.html

there are many tutorials (normal soldering station will do it ) and of course good accuracy in hands (i was changing SMD LEDs in my old C25 siemens, few shots of vodka helped hands were accurate )

Greatz !

 

There's the problem- I shake a lot, and I can't really see them very well. It will be easier to just spend the extra $1.50 and get some more chips.
Thanks for the tutorial, though. -That dude's hands are friggen rock steady.

 

...Slow month...


-I got the guards sanded down smooth. Here they are at 150 grit.

-That's a much better looking test fit. they actually fit now.

-The day I did the holes for the led chaser, I was home because I wasn't feeling well. The PERFECTLY straight holes show just how out-of-it I was. I had to re-drill them because they weren't deep enough too. -What a space case...

-I drilled the holes I needed to mount the handle/guards.

-The new holes need a countersink on the inside so the screws can clear the fan. To get in there I needed to use this handy attachment someone moved out and left me. (Free tools rule!)

-I still had trouble with two holes that were behind the drive bay walls.

-They polished up nice. I had some trouble holding on to them while buffing. To polish the inside of the grooves I used Novus on some felt.

-Here's the whole front fan assembly...assembled.

-You can sort of see the antique diver's helmet-look I was going for here, right?

-What's this? I decided to do the holes for the pump top first before I cut it out of the rough block. If I screw it up, all that finishing will go to waste.

-I drilled the mounting holes out first. I had to stop at this point because my 8-32 tap is bent. -It really sucks because I've never used it before. I also drilled a tiny hole in the very center where the impeller well will be. This will help me later when milling out the well hole will destroy the spot where the mark is. It's important because the measurements I got from AngelOD use the center as reference.

-Hey! What da hell? Isn't 1 1/4" thick enough already? How many 3/4" layers am I adding?

-You see...The LEDs I'm wiring for the faceplate are in sets of 3, but I only need two sets of 4. I have 4 extra LEDs to light up stuff. The pump is a prime target. (prime...pump) Here I'm doing some prelim soldering for the bottom faceplate/pump cluster. That 16feet of ribbon cable is getting put to use here. It fits nicely in the black hose.

-I had to leave it like this for now because I don't have any big-ass black heatshrink. I'd also like to test it first.

-Remember kiddies: Measure twice, then cut the wrong mark and not notice how wrong it is in the process.

-I'm making these little bars to house the LED wiring for the front panel.

-My second order from futurlec arrived. I think I can officially take them off my sh*t list. I need to work out a circuit layout that can fit behind my power switch disc, and give me access to the mounting screws.


Show some love for my sponsor, DangerDen!!!!

 

woow woow woow now you've got my obeisance! Fan guard is ... my english is too poor to say that polish as well so i won;t say anything! thy kick A55! BTW - i have changed bad capacitors at my old Epox moBo, but no way that i could solder tiny smd's 1mm big. This tutorial is good but there is on the internet a better one! those people must be a rock solid or i don't know how they do it!
Good to see you moved a bit more with this case
Greatz!

 

Dude. Thats like totally awesome.

Like totally.

Dude.

 

Thanks. I'm glad someone likes it. It took a lot of d*mn work!
I don't see how they do it either. It also struck me I don't have anything to solder them TO.
The ONLY reason the mod has moved this month is because of BAD weather, or illness. I got stuck at a light in a storm a while back and almost got my van tipped over. 60mph side winds suck!
Edit: @Mankz - Dude!

 

sweetness just pure sweetness nothing else just pure sweetness keep it up cheapsakate

 

Thanks.
Dude...sweet...dude... I must appeal to the 'where's my car?' crowd.

 

That's probably better than the "Wild Hogs" crowd!
John