Case Mod - In Progress Project: Endorphin (Update 23/01)

Thanks man

 

Thats all looking damn nice.

 

Are the drives going to survive mounted upside down? I've read many times at different places that upside down is the only way to not mount a drive. On end or side is ok tho. Dunno it could be nothing but since I've read that so much, I've never done it. A dead SATA would make me a sad panda! Just throwing it out there and mod is looking great!

 

very nice job on the mounts for the feet.

 

HDD won't be affected by the orientation of the drive it does however look odd. It's been tested to death that normal 7200rpm desktop drives don't emit a high amount of heat and that heat doesn't effect the life of the drive as long as it's getting some amount of moving air so I would mount it the other direction, but it's your mod your choice.

 

Nice idea! It's all the details that count too

 

Question: is that a regular red acrylic sheet? I bought live edge version and it looks like kinda orange... only red in dark light..

http://www.sudhian.com/index.php?/forums/viewthread/98228/P135/

 

phinix, it's a regular piece of red plexi

Thanks for the comments guys

I've been busy with exams, lately, and i'm writing another on monday, but i've been modding too so you should have an update soon

 

Okay, update time.

I haven't been able to mod for a while due to some exams i was writing and an array of other stuff that really chowed my time. I have, however, been working for about a week on something else, which i'll post when it actually looks like something

I was also unable to carry on with Endorphin because i needed to have the casing (not the chassis, the shell) cut into three pieces, as opposed to the "U" shape it was in. My step dad told me he could have it done by a guy he knows, but after like 3 weeks of waiting i got sick of it. I couldn't carry on modding because i need the raddy fitted, which i can't do properly until the casing is in 3 pieces. And i can't do ANYTHING else until the raddy is fitted, so i was screwed.

Anyway, i got tired of waiting and started hunting for a place that could cut the shell for me. I needed it to be a perfect, thin cut, which is why i didn't do it myself. I went to 4 different laser cutting places, and even a frikken ENGINEERING place, nobody could cut it for me. Eventually i was sent to a laser cutting place in the CSIR. Their laser cutter is about the size of my garage. Madness i tell you.

So they cut it for me, and they did it for free too I just got it back from them now. Here are some photos:









Now i can FINALLY start modding again. I might actually have another update by tonight

While i'm posting, i wanna show you guys something. My last project, Epiphany, was published in the CustomPC, and i got an email from them last week with a link to the feature on the website. Check it out!

Okay, i think that's it for now. Keep your eyes open for an update very soon.

Thanks for taking the time to read my log.

God Bless

Ettienne

 

Those cuts look great - cant wait for the next update Dae

 

Wow that's an impressive cut

As a thank you you could link their website especially as they cut it free for you

 

A garage-sized laser...It wasn't some kind of doomsday device was it?
Congrats on getting published!

 

Thanks guys

@ completemadness: No point in posting a link to them, they're here in South Africa, and they're an industrial company. The likelyhood of anyone who would actually use them reading this is almost non-existant

Update!

I worked for about 3 hours today, on one single piece of plexi. To crown it all, i'm not even finished. Sometimes i wish i wasn't such a perfectionist :|

Anyway, i decided to start on the panel that will hold the raddy. I took another look at my sketches:







(these are updated sketches by the way, which i have yet to post. I will put them up once i'm done).

I thought that the sketches looked cool, but there was definitely something missing. After staring and staring, i found it. There just wasn't enough detail, there needed to be something more there. So, i set out to make a piece of plexi that would sit between the raddy and the side panel.

Please excuse the crap photos. The lighting in my modding room is just no good for decent photos. I'm gonna see if i can get a proper light up in that room.

So, i grabbed an off-cut piece of plexi i had lying around. This is the same as the red plexi that will be used throughout the mod:





Then my scroll saw had it's way and cut the plexi to size:





After a bit of sanding, i masked it up and made some markings:





Fan mounting holes, as well as fan holes made:





Then i made the two holes for the barbs on the raddy and test fitted:





After that, all that was left to do was round the corners and sand until i started crying:





I'm still not finished though. Tomorrow, i'll finish sanding it and i'll polish the edges. Once that's done, i'll make the relevant holes in the case's side panel. So i should have the raddy fitted by tomorrow. Keep an eye out for the updates

Enjoy the weekend guys.
God Bless

Ett

 

Another update!

I woke up and after playing this for about an hour, i decided to force myself away from my PC to go mod. lol.

So, when i finished off yesterday, i had sanded the plexi with 220, but not enough. So this morning, it was more 220, and then i just jumped straight to 1200. After the 1200, i used some 2000. After 2000, that plexi was so smooth

Here it is after the sanding:









Test fitted on the raddy:







After that, i polished the edges:









Wow it looks nice!

That's it for now guys.
God Bless
Ettienne

 

Such clean perspex work man. Very impressive.

 

very nice acrylic work

 

Thanks for the comments guys!

UPDATE!!!! WOOOOHOOOOOO!!!!!

Okay, so i finished that nice piece of plexi, now it was time for some side panel love. I masked it up and marked all the holes:





The two 114mm holes DONE.





The one on the left is about a millimeter to far to the left. The reason for this was that the panel was full of grilles and so on, and that made it SO difficult to drill holes where i wanted to. It was a frikken nightmare, i tell you.

The two holes done for the barbs:





And then, a couple of hours work, and VOILA, the fan grille:





Here's an idea of what the side panel is gonna look like:









I must admit, that looks seksy! So, next up is removing the paint on the panels and then i start work on either the top panel or the other side panel. I'm considering having the other side panel laser cut, because the window that i have planned is incredibly complex, and i simply can't screw up.

That's IT.

Enjoy the week

God Bless
Ettienne

 

You may remember i mentioned a few updates ago that the OTHER side panel was gonna be quite complex. Well, this is what this update is about. I grabbed the panel and jumped into Sketchup. After doing the sketches i realised that i would be an idiot to try and do it by hand, so laser cutting will have to do this one for me.

Okay, this is a basic idea of the side panel. The blocks you see are the panel's built in mesh grilles:





Now, if you have a look at where the window will be (the new additional block):





You'll see that if i ONLY make that square hole for the window, the panel is gonna look like crap because of the random half mesh grilles. Now i obviously needed to get around that. After a while, i had this basic idea:





And after an hour and a half of sketching, the result:





Let me explain what's going on there. The hole right at the top will be ventilation for the HDD, so that whole piece will be mesh. The BIG hole in the middle will be the window. This window will have to be quite thin too due to the size and space restrictions in the case, so i'll probably have a 1.5mm clear plexi window. Lastly, the long hole at the bottom will also be mesh. This one will server as air ventilation fo the board, and this way the fans on the raddy will have ample air to play with, and airflow over the board will be good, so i managed to nail two birds with one stone there.

I'll go and laser cut the plexi quickly tomorrow morning and send the side panel in for laser cutting as well. I think i'll work on the designs for the top panel tonight. I'm actually still not even sure what to do on top yet.

Just a little off topic here: I'm so frikken proud of myself. I wrote an exam today that i completely forgot about until 1am this morning, so i didn't study a thing, and out of the 60 odd guys that wrote the exam, only 6 passed, and i was one of them I only got 75.4% though, which i'm not proud of at all, but hey, i didn't study, so i obviously can't expect 95%.

Anyway, i'm gonna work on some sketches tonight, so there might just be another update later.

God Bless
Ettienne

 

that should be very good looking. it'd be nice to see it with the mesh modeled in there, but i can picture it well enough.

 

I've always been a fan of interesting window layouts and this is no exception. I think the combination of the mesh and acrylic windows will look great. However, it seems that you missed a couple of the corners when it came time to round them. Also, it seems that the widths of the different framing sections (I don't know what else to call them, "window borders", perhaps?) vary slightly. Specifically the top-right most vertical border seems a bit narrower than the one below it. Could be my eyes playing tricks on me but I figured it was worth mentioning.

Keep up the good work, I especially like the motherboard cover.