Scratch Build Lean and Green - 20-Dec-12 - preview of next project & status update

[Waynio]

Design

Wanted a low power good capacity HTPC & looked at the range of available ones at retail that could hold what I want it to but thought I want something worthy enough to replace Stealthlow with so wanted to make it a dual system to use a lot less electric when I don't need the extra power of a normal system which is most of the time, I didn't think I'd manage making an ok looking dual system where they can still be used as completely separate rigs but I think I got there in the end & went much further, it does look top heavy but I have it figured out nicely & it will be very Heavy Bottom not the other way around & I still haven't designed the case feet, want to have a good idea of it's weight before I do those.

I added a porthole window where the psu cables come out from for giggles in an otherwise super neat system internally with interesting exterior from any angle & this dual system is also highly functional, everything is easily removable & the gaming rig can be removed & placed on alternative feet & the top of the HTPC can be replaced with a plain top or test bench rig very quickly, I know this design rocks for my PC wants with it being very modular but as always with my designs if anything lets it down it will be the style not appealing to many but it will brighten up my eyes each day if I manage to make it as good as I hope to .

I took another good final examination of the design before marking the materials & tweaked it a little more to perfect it & so it will support slightly higher mobo standoffs & give it a little more strength & a little extra on the looks.















Name
Lean & Green - Yes I would have chosen a better name for it but my mind goes nicely blank caught up in the detail when I look at the concept & only random words find their way out so I'm quite happy it has that effect on me where it leaves me kind of speechless, I considered the name of Heavy Bottom because of people saying it looks top heavy but gave it a miss lol .



Why
Needed another reason to do a good personal build & the how much does your rig cost to run blog on bit-tech caught my curiosity to go find out & it came to about £210 for the rig alone each year, I figured I could trim that down to about £60 per year with a better use of electric separating low performance needs to high performance wants & still be able to have a performance rig to enjoy when I want so totally managed to convince myself this was a good idea so got on with it .



System components

HTPC
ATX PSU, mini-ITX on board CPU/GPU 18w motherboard with hdmi & DVI, good low profile sound card, 4 HDD, 1 SSD, 1 full size optical, full size 140mm custom fan.

Gaming rig
ATX PSU, Full ATX motherboard, moderately overclocked quad core, 8GB RAM, high performance & quiet air cooler, 3 custom fans, good GPU, good sound card, full size optical, 1 ssd, 1 hdd.

Control of the systems, good quality cable splitters.



Materials

Aluminium 0.5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 10mm sheet/plate & some bars round ones, square ones & angled ones. Screws & precision DIY fittings .


Acrylic 3 & 5mm sheets, Black, Opal frosted, Brown tint. tensol 12 adhesive.

Wood 3 types, Cocobolo, Ebony & Maple. gorilla glue bought the wood as turning blanks & they come coated in wax.


Manual modding is my approach of choice still & no plans on changing after grinding through the difficult barely skilled wondering if I can make anything phase up to feeling pretty confident about my increasing skills phase but I'm always learning & know I always will be which is probably a big part of why I enjoy it so much & feeding the difficulty a few notches higher each time in some way is making me get pretty good at this .


Reason I am a week late on starting the thread is I've been waiting for deliveries & the last of them came today nearly 2 weeks after ordering them scroll saw blades, drill bits & a quality dormer tapping set so as long as I don't screw up anything I should be able to go at it until it's done but what are the chances of me getting through all this without screwing up, place your bets now .

First slice of progress, minimal but it's enough progress to warrant for the new thread .

Tackled the 3mm sheets first with them being the hardest to manage being so massive, really should have ordered smaller easier to manage sheets, d'oh, the small work bench is waaaaaay too small for the 1650x1000 sheet & the kitchen work top I used to use I found my dad made it into a fixed side table for the garage so had to improvise, quick look around & seen a bunch of beer packs used 5 or 6 12 packs of beer they made for an awesome make shift cutting table in fact they worked better than the work bench because of the even load of the packs spread out in the right places but it put a good bit of strain on the back from leaning over a lot & about an hour later of a jigsaw frenzy session they are to rough size within a 3mm safety measure ready for detailing, but when I marked the cut lines I forgot to make notes of which pieces are which so need to work that one out lol, should be easy enough & I'll cut up all the other sheets next, it's interesting how much I can do in a short time when going at it with a solid determined plan, I think the days of standing around for hours thinking what next? might be behind me .

Needed a map to get good use of the material cutting layout.


Nearly as tall as me.


After the 1 hour jigsaw frenzy, all the 3mm alu cut to rough size within a 3mm safety gap.


Shot of the wood ready & waiting to be worked.


I didn't take my ok camera to the garage though, it's too cold & would be bad for it & it was a quick get in there & get it done type task not faff about with a camera in the cold & was only me using a beer table lol which yeah I suppose would have made a good fun opening work shot really now I think of it sat in the warmth .

More tomorrow I hope .


-------------
23rd May 2012
Changes

The design has been a work in progress all along but I thought the first update would have been the final look of this, it's a big relatively complex design so it needed quite a bit more effort going into it so it would turn out as I want it to look & to function, I also chickened out of the wood work for fear of it being a big hassle with my tools & lack of experience of working wood & as you can see they are square 2 inch thick blocks of wood which I'd have to make slithers of to form panels so not exactly something for a wood work newb.

Here is how the design looks now with a side by side comparison.

[Waynio]

Reserved for final pictures

[Angel OD]

Come on, not you again...

Looking insanely promising, and you have sure proved your modding skills, so this will be one to follow for sure!

[Paslis]

I love the design mate and i cant wait to see the progress for this one.Following for sure.

[KidMod-Southpaw]

Hell yes- here we go again! Can't wait to get my HTPC mod going!
Can't wait for more Wayne!

[Waynio]

Originally Posted by Angel OD

Come on, not you again...

Looking insanely promising, and you have sure proved your modding skills, so this will be one to follow for sure!

I had to start another to stop me from rambling all over the place Thanks Angel, hopefully I'll be full of energy tomorrow & feeling like getting plenty done, my last project had many things holding me up so hoping for a nice clear run at this , pretty sure everything needed for doing this I now have so only things that might slow things down is me burning out now & then or life stuff but a clear run at this would be very nice .

Originally Posted by Paslis

I love the design mate and i cant wait to see the progress for this one.Following for sure.

Thank you Paslis appreciated & I'll try not to slack .

Originally Posted by KidMod-Southpaw

Hell yes- here we go again! Can't wait to get my HTPC mod going!
Can't wait for more Wayne!

Wooooo hooooooooo fun to start another one cheers mate & that raspberry pi gizmo looks pretty cool indeed, think it's more powerful than my first PC & the size of it .

[craig - toyoracer]

A great opening Wayne. Very original design and with all the open latice uptop it does not come across as heavy.

Good building and you have me watching.

[Metrodusa]

Looking forward to following this. I really looks promising.

[Gtek]

Hey Waynio, another crazy project in making. May I ask where did you get ebony from? I couldn't find any decent supplier.

[Waynio]

Originally Posted by craig - toyoracer

A great opening Wayne. Very original design and with all the open latice uptop it does not come across as heavy.

Good building and you have me watching.

Thanks Craig, think that was my best opening so far for a log I tell you though all that 3mm alu cut to size weighs a ton so I'll have to lighten it up a lot else it will need strong casters , I'll do my best to be frequent with the updates also .

Originally Posted by Metrodusa

Looking forward to following this. I really looks promising.

Thanks Metrodusa I'll give it my best .

Originally Posted by Gtek

Hey Waynio, another crazy project in making. May I ask where did you get ebony from? I couldn't find any decent supplier.

Cheers mate, should keep me very busy for a while .

Exotic solid woods are difficult to find online I spent days & days searching & imagine if I asked for some of them at local lumber yards they'd think I was crazy or something unless that's just a touch of ignorance from me .

The site I bought them from is http://www.turners-retreat.co.uk/aca...oodBlanks.html they have changed it so you need to register with them to be able to buy from them but they were good & quick on the delivery , hope that's good for you mate, I did have another good place to order from but lost the link .

[KidMod-Southpaw]

Why said I was doing a raspberry pi HTPC?
I'm doing a Gigabyte H55N HTPC mod and a raspberry pi coffee table mod!

I'm sorry to talk about myself, but I'm getting really excited at doing them and seeing another Wayne project gets me even more psyched up!

[quizz_kid]

YAY!! I´m so excited... This is one crazy project!! Btw Waynio, you don´t like using periods, do you?

[Waynio]

Originally Posted by KidMod-Southpaw

Why said I was doing a raspberry pi HTPC?
I'm doing a Gigabyte H55N HTPC mod and a raspberry pi coffee table mod!

I'm sorry to talk about myself, but I'm getting really excited at doing them and seeing another Wayne project gets me even more psyched up!

Coffee table mod sounds fun , just thought you was doing a htpc with the pi but remembered you said 2 mods , on the bit-tech article there was a video of it handling xbmc & 1080p video nicely, impressive little piece of tech I want to do a project with it myself maybe later in the year .

Originally Posted by quizz_kid

YAY!! I´m so excited... This is one crazy project!! Btw Waynio, you don´t like using periods, do you?

Good stuff, so am I in the middle of working out the best route to use the other unmanagable sheets, so many bits & needed to work out the needed lengths for curved pieces .

Periods as in breaks or eras of time periods , anyway I like both & Stealthlow completed in September so had a 4 month break from physical modding so feeling supercharged .

[quizz_kid]

Originally Posted by Waynio

Periods as in breaks or eras of time periods , anyway I like both & Stealthlow completed in September so had a 4 month break from physical modding so feeling supercharged .

Periods as in the dot at the end of a sentence But I´m glad you´re charged!!

[Waynio]

Originally Posted by quizz_kid

Periods as in the dot at the end of a sentence But I´m glad you´re charged!!

Ahh yeah my grammar is top notch in the awful sense I know not proud of it but not going to worry about it neither , I do often add periods or full stops immediately after a smilie though but my grammar has improved a tiny bit with posting on forums but probably no where near to a good standard .

Finally got all the 1mm & 2mm sheet marked up, took forever & not too late to get busy cutting .

[KidMod-Southpaw]

I've been flawless the whole time, that's why people like me.

[AK71]

Looks nice Waynio, very unusual design again! The renders do look a bit odd and top heavy but looking forward to how this turns out.

[peteski]

Looking forward to following this mate i missed the start of your last projrect .but glad i wont be missing this one

[AnG3L]

This is going to be a long and delightful journey as always my friend, the awesomeness I am going to experience I dont think will be good for my weak heart!!!! Now just do your thing buddy and I will go and get my jaw support mechanism!!!

[Waynio]

Originally Posted by KidMod-Southpaw

I've been flawless the whole time, that's why people like me.

Originally Posted by AK71

Looks nice Waynio, very unusual design again! The renders do look a bit odd and top heavy but looking forward to how this turns out.

Thanks AK71 odd is good as long as it functions right .

Originally Posted by peteski

Looking forward to following this mate i missed the start of your last projrect .but glad i wont be missing this one

Cheers peteski & enjoy the show mate .

Originally Posted by AnG3L

This is going to be a long and delightful journey as always my friend, the awesomeness I am going to experience I dont think will be good for my weak heart!!!! Now just do your thing buddy and I will go and get my jaw support mechanism!!!

Cheers Alex mate, not wrong about it being a long one that 10mm alu is tough to work but I'm getting through it .

Since first update of cutting all the 3mm sheet to size I have been busy, marked & cut the 1mm & 2mm sheet to size & made layouts ready for printing & sticking, worked out a good way to span big designs over multiple pages accurately when using an a-4 printer.

I print & stuck the 10mm plate designs for the HTPC which just about fit on an a-4 sheet & drilled the holes for scroll saw access & I believe I'm tackling the toughest part of the project as the first bit lol, not because of complexity but because of tough material, good grade 10mm alu is very flipping tough , my small 18TPI blades cut it well but takes ages & will be great for curve cuts so since I was cutting the outer edges of the HTPC sides & front first which are straight I put the cut up band saw blades to the job but still took countless hours, was up good & early & about 5pm called it a day after getting those pieces ready for the next phase of cutting the holes out.

The bigger stand sides I will do 1 at a time trying to get 1 done each day rather than be an idiot trying to do them both in 1 day lol & that is being optimistic, I will amaze myself if I get the holes cut out of the HTPC 10mm panels in 1 day tomorrow lol I said the scroll saw is like a manual laser cutter but boy oh boy it's a slow one for chunkier materials lol.

Pictures of the day.

All the sheet alu ready & waiting for detail & the sign of 10mm plate, need glue spray to get things done quicker & better so will get some on Wednesday.


10mm HTPC side panels & front panel printed & stuck.


The blades & drill bits which held the start off for a week.


Starting off with normal scroll saw blades at 18 TPI for thicker materials.


Switched over to the band saw blades for doing quicker straight cuts.


Each & every line I had to cut took a while & took a lot of concentration.





Sneaky peeky at the chop saw in the background & the thinnest slither I took off the 10mm plate .


My view all day today lol.


More soon .