Case Mod - In Progress NZXT Lexa -Experimental Modyssey - June 5 - new CCFL, lighting question

Too slow with the replies.
My bad.

John

 

hey just found this log......things are lookin' pretty gd like!!

 

Not a problem John, I'll make allowances for you

Thanks Spenc259! Glad you like it.

 

Back to Work!

OK, I'm back to modding. As you may know I've been focusing on test prep, and on Wednesday finally took and passed the test. Now I can focus some more on this mod.
I've been stopping in, reading a few logs for a brain break, but have restricted myself from actual modding... but no more! Lots of planning and refitting happening behind the scenes however, so... Expect a few largish updates in the next week or so.

Black Friday
Black Friday, for the non-Americans, is a shopping holiday. Rather than spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on a big HDTV, game system, GTX280, or the like, I bought lots of tools! (Ok, I did buy a sata 1Tb HD, a router, and 2 sata dvd drives, but the rest went to tools... lotsa cheap tools... ) One of these days, I'll get my workshop (aka garage) setup perfectly.

My only in person purchase was at Ace Hardware where I picked up a little collapsible workbench. (only $10 after rebate!)

First thing I did today was set up the B&D workmate. It came with a bunch of parts, and not 1, but 2 instruction sheets. It was a little beat up fresh out of the box which was disappointing, but I wasn't expecting to keep it clean for long:


Putting it together was pretty easy, but I had a hard time with hammering the roll pins into the screw handles and rod. That took me as long as putting the rest of it together.
Nevertheless, it was soon enough assembled:


Soon after that, I stuck the scroll saw on:


I'd been staring at the computer case off and on the past few weeks, doing the "look, don't touch" thing, and had come to some conclusions on refitting it to improve the looks, as well as fix some problems I could see down the road. If I was a slick sketchup artist, I would be on that, with some beautiful 3d renders... but I'm not. So you'll have to settle for some pics, with hopefully clear explanations...
Of course, as always, I welcome your questions, suggestions and comments.

What I worked on mostly today were various plexi pieces.
I wanted some potential solutions for wire management:
What I came up with were some multi colored plexi sandwiches. mmm.... sandwiches...
One kind will be glued direct to existing plexi surfaces, while the other will be screwed in.
Basically what I will do is similar to what x06jsp did on Modularis Evolution with cable management. (and I'm sure many others)

I will have a suitably sized rectangle 3 or 4 layers wide, with suitably sized, drill holes going through the sides. I hope to nicely round all the edges of the holes, and light it from below. An option I'm leaning towards is to slice a thing bit from the top, a little bigger than the edge of the drilled circle. This will be to make it easy to add or remove cables later.

I cut a bunch of strips of white and uv green, as well as some of the tinted stuff and clear stuff I'd picked up as offcuts.
Setting up:

And a crappy pic:


Gluing is going on now, so I'll get some pics up once I've cleaned them up a bit.

Another problem I was thinking about was how to securely mount the plexi shroud piece to the case, so that it stays solid, rather than it is now.
Here's what I've come up with:

That's 3 layers of plexi between the fan and the plexi shroud. I'll be gluing them togther like that, with an UV LED wired through, and pointed to the cpu cooler/mobo fan shroud. There are rivet/screw holes from when I removed the support bar, and there's a rivet near the other end I can drill out and use for screw hole as well. I think the blocks glued to the underside of the shroud, and screwed into from the back.
This shelf will also support the topmost piece of the plexi shroud, which will cover the view of the psu and wires, etc.

I'm still thinking about frosting the plexi shroud to hide the psu and wiring, and am undecided. I've started testing on one piece, but that was the one I painted earlier, and it needs some more testing before I'm sure what it will look like. I tried some 320b, but it didn't look opaque enough on my quick test.

An alternate plan is using backing plexi, but I don't have large enough opaque pieces.
Plan C is making the Cabling and lighting a feature, and keeping it clear, and running the cables neatly and cleanly with some of these sandwiches ... mmm.... I would have to redo the PSU wiring, cause it's not all that nice looking near the psu. Then I might have to paint the PSU while I was at it... Plus, I should cut the wires to custom size. (You know how that road goes, I'm sure...) I did however, receive my package of goodies from Performance PCs, and in there was a new kit of uv blue sleeving. (among some other stuff.)
Nice safe packaging:

Contents laid out:



Replacement UV CCFL tube (forgot I'd ordered that!), heatshrink: blue kit, and yellow small size, and little fan sized uv blue molex plugs and connectors, and bunch of rubber fan mounts.
These last, I'm not too sure of, as I'm not sure if I just cut off the other ends that stick out. I didn't really think about what the outside will look like with them when I got them. I may just continue with the o-rings on the screw.

More for you later... It's now 1:52 am. I stopped modding around 12:30am, after realizing it was that late only by chance looking at the system tray clock on the pc! (Can you see why I didn't allow myself to mod while test-prepping?

 

I gotta get myself a router and a work bench for my next mod . Nice gear you got yourself there.

 

Progress and Planning

Thanks Oz, I'm happy with the gear. I wish i'd gotten more of the fan headers/molex connectors in UV blue, though. And I'm not sure what to do with the fan mounts, or if I'll like em. Anyone have experience with these? I've resleeved a couple wires, and the workbench has been put right into use. (as you'll soon see.)

The router I picked up used a month or so ago has been sitting in my garage, unused. I'm a little scared to fire it up, tbh, and don't have any bits for it either (convenient excuse, as the tool library has one there.) I've never seen one used, but think it would be great for plexi work (well any work.) I got a book out from the library to read up on it, and I'll be playing with it eventually...
I'm planning on making a new main workbench, with some scrap wood, so that's another project.... (Oh yeah, and the stand alone scroll saw/tablesaw holder, that's in design stage as well!) Is it a problem that I like adding new tools/skills to the workshop almost as much as I like the actual modding itself?

I was tempted to start off today's update with a pic of the finished project (well, finished as in 'I'm not doing any more to it tonight' type of "finished"), but now I'm thinking I should lead up to it cause if I give it away too easily, you might not respect me tomorrow. I know, BAD...

Anyways... today was working on the plexi pieces, and I'll also catch you up on more redesign elements. Like all days, it had its ups and downs, but more on that later.

So, I started with these, my cured sandwiches of yesterday:
The glue looked solid, and pretty even from what I could see, but the edges were all different widths. I haven’t gotten the knack of cutting a consistent straight line with the scroll saw, yet, so I mark 1/8in between edge lines, as you might have seen in the previous post. I find I cut straighter going between the lines, rather than trying to stay exactly on or to the side of a single line. For now, at least. But that meant I had to do some evening up of things before I could get to the shiny polishing goodness.

First up, I pulled the scroll saw out, and cut off the various overlap. This introduced other problems in a couple cases, like one errant blade turn onto the other side of the line, but it was faster than filing with my mini files, so I went for it, and was pleased with the results. It didn’t take too long, but wasn’t exactly quick.


Then, I put the new workmate to work on filing and sanding.
Fileing:

Note the marks (about 3-4 bigger/deeper scuffs on that edge. Some of that came from the scroll saw clean up.) 
That’s the biggest file I own, and was kicking ass at taking some shavings off, until it got too clogged. I cleaned it with an old toothbrush I had lying around, which turned out to be the one I used for cleaning oil from my bike. It worked out pretty well actually, as I ended up cleaning off most of the clogged stuff as well as the toothbrush. I lacked the foresight to hit up the tool library for some bigger ones, but will get that and a brush for it next visit.

Sanding:

After filing it down, I went at it with the 180grit dry treatment. I don’t know why I don’t have pics of this. I used the jig I’d made for 90degree, but it was already failing at that, so I was just sanding by eye and on the flat side like any flat piece of wood. Eventually under the combined forces of water, and wear and tear of sanding and clamping, it separated. Good riddance.

So, I went to the next level.

Took some old thing extruded acrylic sheet I’d had practiced on and found lacking, and covered the back side with painters tape and stripped the other side’s plastic sheet off. Place the dogs in position, and clamped (clump? ) it in, add dash of water, and sheet of 320b, and you have a great wet sanding location.

I went at it.:


I love the wet shiny look of plexi, don’t you?

So after a few rounds with 320b, they’re looking pretty nice. I shoulda cleaned em up a bit more before photographing but, hey, you’ll understand my rush, I hope





With the other bits I’ve made before:



HD Bay Progress:
I made some progress with the HD drive bay cover as well today, finally getting both pieces to a close enough fit to give you a better idea of how they’ll look (lacking sketchup skills, I had to actually do it to do that! ) The big problem holding things up was the unhiply non-square shape the bottom layer was in. I got a big framing square (I think that’s what they’re called, basically a huge flat metal rt angle.) and marked off the easiest edges that I could align to 90, and made my cuts to shape. It fits right in, flush with the shroud piece. I have to cut some spaces for the rivets and cable routing in the bottom, as well as shape the rearward side, and cut the all important HD hole.
Bottom Layer:

This will be down about a ¼” due to rivet relief.
Top Layer:



Intersection with PSU shroud:
I was a little too generous with the cutout on the top layer. I’m thinking to add a thin strip of uv green or clear to the bottom, and see how it looks like that. It should work.

Plan revists:
You may have noticed some blue tape on various parts of the case and plexi. These are new cuts, some planned for, and some due to necessity.

This one shows a few potential cuts: The oval on the floppy bay is for cables (HD and Power Bus. The tape on the 5.25 drive bay is potential location for the fan speed indicator leds. The tape on the top is where I’m going to cut the retaining piece for the top and drive bay cage off to allow me to slide the shroud cover in place. The pieces on the HD cover are just for rivet relief.


This one is a view down the drive cage shaft. I’m going to cut some more for cable routing at the blue tape. I gotta protect the cable edges here.


I was thinking of “hiding” the inverter behind the floppy bay on the other side. I say “hiding”, cause extragant plan B includes cutting a small window showing off the inverter and cable management. This would mean cutting this hole marked out on the white tape, as well as the other case side. I really don’t want to paint the exterior though.

Speaking of painting, I plan on redoing the back side:

I’m thinking brushed aluminum… what do you think?

Here’s what it looks like with the window on. And yes, I am thinking of replacing the window/fan combination.

The thing I was thinking was that most of the shroud cover will be hidden behind the case side. That opens up some other possibilities to me, rather than frosting the cover.

 

If your planning to hide PSU cables behind the mobo tray be careful, there is very little room. My side panel is bulging lol, and that's just from the 24pin ATX cable haha. Looking good though, nice work.

 

Thumbs Up

Thanks! Yeah, I tried hiding the sata power cables at one point back between the optical drive and case side, and it was tough. I'm not hiding anything between the tray and the side door. I'm going to use the space on the other side of the floppy bay, and the other wires are probably going to be shown off.

So today's update:
First off, I just have to give myself a thumbs up for my work today!


Ok that was really just an excuse to show off my sanding accident from yesterday. Somehow, I was in such a zone that I managed to sand off a bunch of my nail and the skin beneath, without noticing until much later!

To switch things up a bit, here are the results of this evening’s labors:


Can you tell which ones were polished?

Here’s a little light to help you see better:


What do you think now?
…
I’ll give you a little time now to make your guesses in a reply, and will show you how I got to this point.
I started with this:

(320b grit for all the faces)

Then I decided to try an experiment. I marked out halfway down one face, and polished with the polisher on one side, while leaving the other at 320.
The Polisher

Then the reverse side, I sanded to 400.

More on that later…

With the 400 grit wet-dry on its plexi and clamped to the workmate, I proceeded to sand, and to sand, and to sand… you get the picture.
(If not, here’s one for ya!)


This is what 320grit looks like when it’s trying to be sexy:

Mmm, Sexy Plexi!

After a few hours, I called timeout:


While they look pretty smooth and clear on PC, in reality they do have a lot of visible scratch grains running through (at least to me).
Polishing helps, but even after 400 I’m still seeing some scratches.

Experimental piece:
Here you can see the markings.

Here’s the half and half side:

Here’s the 400 side:

The part that was polished right after 320 looks pretty good. Better than the 400, but still with a few scratches in it.
I think I should have skipped the 400 and gone right to 600, and then polish.
I think Cheapskate said he polishes right after 400 and has a great finish… I might need to upgrade my polish and try it out.

The above was seriously hours of work. If I could save a few hours with a jump to polish step, I would like that A LOT! (plus I could save my fingernails.) Flame? I still have to give that a serious shot.

Oh yeah, I also cut out (sanded down with a GRT sanding drum and grindstone ) the rivet reliefs and few other pathways for cable mgmt and got the HDD cage covers fitted nicely. Not perfectly, but nicely. No pics as of yet. That will come in a later update.

I realized another difficulty while sizing the HD covers… well I should say remembered/refocused… I knew I would have to deal with it sometime, but it is now getting closer. I have a problem with the shroud cover, and I’m not able to sketchup it to show you… so words will have to suffice, unless I take a pic of my pad, and throw it up (which actually sounds like a good idea now… for later! ). I want to slide the shroud cover(what fits over the curved portion, and is in the top of the window) down the side of the case, inside the metal framing slides… This actually is not a problem. It’s a pretty good fit, especially once I chop that case piece off I was talking about. However, I want the lower end of the cover to basically enclose the floppy bay area, to have the top piece extend over the bay (showing the wires and attached and visible terminal strip), and CURVE at a 90deg to end perpendicular to the HDD bay covers. This one piece curve is what makes things hard. I may be able to flex it bit and fit it in, but I doubt it. I may have to trim it.


BTW, I mentioned my attempt at creating a proper right angle sanding jig which was an utter failure. Wanna see it? (In a Don’t Do This way)
Here’s the end result of that:

And for perspective, on the workmate:


Cheapskate gave some me some great ideas on finishing plexi, and as anyone who has seen his work knows, he gets great results (and who hasn’t should!)
It's in post 100 of this log actually.
This idea didn’t work for me, but that was my bad. His tip about sandpaper on a counter top has been put into play with excellent results! Thanks Cheapskate… I’ll make a better right angle jig soon.

So, you still wanna know if your guess on which pieces were polished were correct?


Really?


Ok, here goes:

The one on the right was half polished after 320, while the 2nd from the left (the green and white one) was polished completely after 400.

 

Those plexi blocks turned out great, nice work.

 

Thanks... Still gonna go further... 600 will be the next grit, and I'll try more polish vs flame at the different stages.

I gotta get my camera set up better. Anyone got tips? I have an casio exilim 7.1MP camera. I have a macro mode (the flower) amongst what they call "best shot" settings, and usually use that for closeups, as well as turning off the flash. The rest I let it do automatically. I have played with the various white balance options for different lighting conditions (the presets.) There are lots of other manual options I can try out, I just found what appears to be a focus mode selector, so I'll be trying that. Mmostly I half click to focus, and full click once focused, or what it thinks is focused.
Oh yeah, and I'm using a tripod mostly.

 

I have a Sony Cyber-shot DCS-W5 5.1MP Digital Camera. All I do is turn the flash off and enable macro. That's how I took my final pics for LEXA. If you use a well lit area you will have no trouble at all with these settings.

Also many people suggest a tripod for pin point accurate shots. I have never used a tripod because I find I have a quite steady hand from many years of rifle shooting .

 

I'd say use the vice in your workmate for a right angle, but don't use it to wetsand. The wood will get wet and the plywood will separate.

Those bits should go all the way to 600. I don't think 3 1/4" sheets qualify as an 'edge.'

Thanks for the rep, BTW.

 

Thanks for the comments & tips fellas.

I'm having a trouble with the "well-lit area" part of things . I work in the garage under flourescents, and in the dining rooms under a chandelier, and usually in the evening when it's dark. For the Money Shots, I'll definitely try to do it right.
There's no way my hands could hold this camera steady enough... I'm staying with the tripod!

That's what I was about to spend the next hour or so doing (the 600 grit bit, along with some flame trials.) I'm kinda beat today (what with all these long evenings of modding, and late nights project log updating ) so I wasn't planning on doing too much tonight. good point about the plywood in the workmate... I've already been soaking it pretty good, without thinking too much about it. I need to pick up some quality angles & sheet metal. I'm keeping my eyes peeled on craigslist!

What do you mean I don't have an edge? I'm edgy, man, and my 3 x 1/4in pieces are too!



No worries on the rep, Cheaps, you deserve it for sure!

Newegg's Black Friday order should arrive tomorrow at work(not much mod stuff in that one)... no tracking info as of yet from harbor freight. I went back to their site looking for milling bits, and they are not cheap...

 

Does your plexi ever just sit there and look at you?

You know you've been awake too many hours with not enough quality sleep when your plexi starts to look at you.


He's saying, "Where's my nose?"

...ahh...

teaser thumbnail (click for big, and try the fullscreen... you can see the minor defects glaring at you.)


Updates to come tomorrow.

 

December 3 - plexi pieces finishing

I think I'll give you the final results first... nah, I'll make you suffer, even if you don't read the words!

Last I told you update wise, I'd sanded to 400 on all edges. Last night I took it to 1500. (I was gonna go to 600 first, but didn't have any in the house.)The teaser pic in the above post was with one piece flame polished. Wanna guess which?

Better hurry.

The flame polishing seemed to work pretty well but I could still see some lines.

Today, I polished with my hard wheel and the light cleaning combo. It was looking a little scuffy still, so I switched to the soft wheel with the same polish. Still somewhat scuffy, but it should work. I think the polish/cleaner that came with this cheap kit may be too rough, and I should try some novus (or toothpaste.) There's another 2 sticks of that polish stuff, which I think are rougher still, I might have to try them out, but I think I need something else, and novus appears to be well recommended. I'm open to suggestions.

Last night I marked out the middle HD cover layer on UV green, using the bottom one as a template. Today, I cut it out roughly, and filed the important edges. (Since I'm going to have to shorten one dimension on all three HD cover pieces, I'm gonna try to do them all at once.) What do you think about gluing all the pieces together? I'm thinking not, so I can change up the colors layers easily down the line. Maybe the 2 UV greens.

I got the Newegg shipment in today... didn't take any pics, yet. The TB drive seems a little thicker than the drives I'm used to. No cables came with it or the DVD drives I got (OEM). Gotta go dig in the cable box to see if I have some around. Very excited to try out the new router (wireless, not a tool).

I'm still waiting for the tools from Harbor Freight to show up, but I've been told not to expect great haste on their part. I want to start cutting and drilling up the case holes, but wanted to have my new tools for that. We'll see. I still don't have a tracking number, and I ordered on Friday... maybe time to give em a call and ask about it.

Also, my friends from Freecycle came through for me today. I made 2 stops on my way home from work. One woman hooked me up with some nice fabric pieces to use as photo backdrops. You'll see one piece soon. Another guy gave away his old wireless G card. Since I'm still using B on my laptop, and my new router supports G (as well as N, A and B), I'm going for it! The old netgear card will be used with a mod down the road, I'm sure.

OK, enough blather... the pics are all you care about anyways, right you pervs?
Oops, sorry about the post with no pics, firefox doesn't like to copy from photobucket for some reason.
Sexi Plexi, here for your viewing pleasure:


After 1500 and polishing
(Backdrop courtesy of Laura & Freecycle. You rock, and thanks!)
(with flash on easy mode )


without flash


UV


UV

And less sexy, but still important, the HD cover middle layer:


For those that remembered to guess. It was the Clear-Green-Clear on the right in the teaser pic that was flame polished. (that was my desktop background for today, but these new UV shots are kicking em out!)

Also, I forgot to mention, but I was lazy last night, and only took the short faces to 400. You might be able to tell.

Any tips on face to face gluing to avoid those marks between layers?

 

WOW very shiny .

 

Nice going mate, looks like you are heving a lot of fun on your modyssey

Just letting you know i'm still watching and enjoying what i'm seeing

 

Thanks Oz and Xtrafresh! Glad to know you're still watching (are you reading too, or just checking out the pretty pics?)

I AM having fun, and definitely learning new stuff. I just wish I had a faster way to shape and finish the acrylic.

 

Harbor Freight

Just called Harbor Freight customer service to check on my order, since I'd gotten nothing beyond an order confirmation from them.

Apparently they've shipped out the order in 3 boxes, and one may be at my home today when I get there. Another's scheduled for a later date, and the 3rd tracking number I received over the phone shows nothing.
My CS specialist who answered the phone let me know that 3 of the items I'd ordered were backordered, and because the price was less than $10, cancelled. No notice! And one of those items was the scroll saw blades I was looking forward to getting.

I've sent an unhappy customer email to HF regarding their lack of communication, so we'll see what, if any, response I get.

 

You have officially been Cheapskated by HF. Can we have a "I Told You SO" Amen.

john with the local HF store 9 blocks away.