Scratch Build Project Oh no! Not another one! - 27.09.2012 - status update

[Journeyer]

Originally Posted by Cheapskate

Pyrex SLI tubing. -You clever bugger. You should try to do your cutting of that stuff wet. Glass dust is lethal, and it prevents surprise heat cracking.
If you could find someone to resin impregnate the oak, you could treat it like plastic. Too crazy?

Well, cutting the jug did leave me feeling confident regarding glass cutting. So rest assured, there will be more use of glass in this project - much more. I might try cutting it wet though because, as you said, that glass dust is nasty stuff and it gets everywhere. I wear one of these masks while cutting though:



I should have thought of having the oak impregnated before I routed out the area to fit the acrylic inlays. Crap. But, now that they are fitted I'll just run with what I've got, though that was a good idea. I'll consider doing that depending on how successful I am at sealing the reservoir. Apparently silicone doesn't stick well to acrylic, so I need to find some special stuff to do that with ... or just use "Chemical Metal" and hope it doesn't look too bad...

Originally Posted by kelmannen

did you have any luck with the plumber store? they should have it..

Yes and no. They did have some panel mount fittings, but not in the correct dimensions. So I ended up ordering the Alphacool ones. They should get here by the end of this week if the tracking information is correct.

Originally Posted by whatsthatnoise

Thank you very much! Now enough of the distraction, keep on modding.

No problem. Hopefully it'll stay up a while longer this time.
And yes, I am very much back at work modding. I had planned on bringing an update today, but considering what lies in wait for me at the post office today I think I will wait and instead make the update a really good one in a couple of days.

Thank you all for your encouragement.

[Journeyer]

It's time for an update.
I got a good bit of work done over these last few days, and while the weather still has not permitted me to do any routing on the bottom plate I have been able to do some other pieces.

These pieces are both decorative and functional, and they are made from oak.

I marked out the shape I needed on a piece of oak, routed out the section in the middle and then cut the shape rough followed by a couple of hours of intensive filing to get the shape right.



It looks a bit rough, and this is mostly due to the fact that routing oak is a bit of a pita. Anyhow, this will not be visible so it doesn't really matter. Additionally I do not want the finished article to look manufactured - I want it to look like something Dr. Hans von Teuffelkopf built in his lab.

You may also notice that there is a slight lip just below the main surface of the piece. This lip is meant to seat a brass inlay, and I proceeded to cut, file and fit that one next.





There we go. It fits quite snugly, and I have to pry it off with a thin screwdriver so I may not have to fasten it when this is done. Time will tell.

Next I routed out some sections to seat the hinges:



This came out a bit rougher than intended due to a slip with the router that I had to fix as best as I could. It doesn't matter all that much as this will not be visible either, but I would have liked to have it turn out a bit better. Anyhow, I will work with what I've got.

Now I had to put the piece aside to work on some other items. You may remember that i bought a few 3.5mm brass rods, and I do have an intended purpose for them. I will hint at it by showing you this:



I threaded a couple of rods for M3 threads just to see how it would work, and it works beautifully.

I also received some electronics components;



Those are 10nF capacitors.



A few Hex Schmitt logic chips.



Some miniature PCB buttons.



And some SMD P-channel FETs.

Well, time to get the soldering iron and get on with soldering some circuits.

I started with doing the control panel.



Trying to get it as clean and ordered as I can, and though this particular circuit isn't the most challenging it's still nice to have it turn out like this.





It was now time to fit it to its housing:



It's a good fit.
Now I had a problem. How would I make sure that all the buttons fit nicely through aligned holes in the brass inlay? The missus had the solution; use an ink pad on the buttons, press the brass inlay against the buttons and voila - nicely aligned drillpoints.

It turned out OK. Not perfect, but close enough. A couple of the holes required a little bit of filing to make it fit, but all in all I am happy with the result.



Next; engraving:



I practiced my engraving for a good while before having at the real thing, but the engraver still behaved somewhat unpredictable. Still, for a bit of freehand engraving I guess it is OK.

I still had more circuits to build though, so now came the time to get started. I needed to build some latches, so I promptly set about building the first one:



I am happy with the result. The circuit is neat and ordered, though there is a problem. It works - sort of - it just doesn't latch. I encountered a bunch of problems while building this first latch; first I burned a couple of transistors because I had the pinout wrong (turns out it's a good idea to read the datasheets before starting to put it together), and when the circuit was finished I couldn't figure out why it wouldn't latch.

Eventually though, my attention focused on the logic chips. I didn't think to check them at first because I figured the electronics warehouse would surely know to send me the correct ones. However, it turned out that they didn't. I ordered a bunch of Hex schmitt inverters, but they sent me Hex schmitt triggers. So, as I have soldered some of them I can't send them back and have them replaced. Instead I will register a new order for Hex schmitt inverters today, along with a breadboard and some more resistors. After all, this pile could surely be bigger:



So, as much as I would have loved to show you some nice functional circuits today I can't. We shall have to wait until the proper logic chips have arrived. There is also another major piece of electronics I will have to build in the near future that I for one am really looking forward to. The quite special thermometers will need to be built, and they are currently being held up in customs. In the meantime however, I spent yesterday evening smoothing out the oak pieces I made these last few days.

Hours of filing and sanding resulted in this:











The pieces are now very smooth, and it's almost an erotic sensation to run my fingers over them now. I sanded them up to 600 grit, and I am considering going up to 1000 if the end result might be worth the effort.

That's it for now, but I do have one more thing to show you...



Look at that gorgeous sheet of brass that finally got delivered. I can't wait to start cutting into it! And tonight I think I will get my chance...

Until next time; thank you for watching, and take care.
Ta-ta.

[Journeyer]

As I finished off last time I left you with a tantalising picture of a lovely sheet of brass that I was anxious to start cutting to pieces.

And so it begins...

In order to complete the motherboard area I needed to make and install a motherboard tray. I could, of course, just have fastened the motherboard standoffs directly to the bottom plate, but I wanted the brass tray so I decided to make it.



Oh no! What have I done to that gorgeous brass sheet?

Brass cuts quite easily, but filing it is a pain in the proverbial hind quarters. It's not that it is particularly hard or resistant to shaping, it's the problem that it tends to clog the files so that they have to be cleaned often. Thankfully I've got a nice selection of wire brushes which make it a breeze, and after a while I had a nicely sized, filed and deburred brass mobo tray. It was time for a test fit (please ignore the gap between the tray and the backplate. I've just stuck the rear panel in there for test fitting - nothing is fastened).







Obviously I also had to check how it would look with some hardware in place; time to get the stand-in parts...





Looks good in my opinion.
I mentioned earlier that I intended to recess the brass tray into the bottom plate, so now followed two hours of careful routing to shave 1mm of material out of the motherboard tray area. I did not stop to take photos during this process - I just wanted to finish it! And finish it I did. After a bit of sanding to even out some irregularities, here's the result:



And with the mobo tray in place:





Originally I was somewhat unsure as to how I would secure the tray in place, but now I think I will simply screw it down with some nicely countersunk brass screws.

Aligning motherboard fastening holes for the standoffs came next, and this was not fun. I knew that a slight misalignment meant a hole that might be unusable, PCI... slots not aligned with the backplate and so on. In the end I managed to get it done having made just two horribly misaligned holes (which I will use to secure the tray).



I will, however, need to get some longer standoffs (or make my own) as the ones I'm using to test the alignment are about 2-3mm too short. This is a simple problem to fix though, so I'm not fussed about it.

Yesterday evening I also received two packages...

First were the awaited Noctua fans.
They are lovely, and their colour scheme should fit in nicely with my theme. Many thanks to Noctua again for helping me out with a generous discount on these lovely fans - I shall give them a test run as soon as I get some more electronics done. Feast your eyes on the Noctua NF-P14 FLX:







Later came the UPS guy to deliver these lovely little things...



The Alphacool panel mount fittings! Hooray!
Now I could continue working on the reservoir, so I took it apart, sanded the oak pieces first with 280 grit and then with 600 grit to get them really smooth. Next I drilled out the center hole with a 20mm drillbit, inserted the Alphacool fittings and put the whole thing back together.







As soon as I find some silicone (or something else) that will stick to acrylic, and is waterproof, I will seal the tank, polish the brass tubes and leak test it.

That's what I've gotten done since the last time, so for now; thank you for watching, take care.

Ta-ta.

[Journeyer]

July has certainly been a busy month despite being off work for three weeks for my summer vacation. I spent the majority of my vacation sanding down and levelling our full 260 square meters of two tiered terrace and connecting staircase. Then I restained the whole thing followed by cleaning and repainting the exterior of our house, gazebo and workshed. It was time to do it, but it was quite work intensive and is still not entirely finished. Some trim panels and corners still need painting, and I also need to paint the base concrete wall.

And as we have also been entertaining guests for a large portion of the vacation I have not, as you may understand, been able to work on this project as much as I would have liked. But still, I do have an update to show you.

I will start by showing you the thermometers that finally got delivered.
They were delivered in pieces, so I would have to assemble them. Pour red wine, heat up the soldering iron and get to work...



A pile of components ready to be assembled into, in my opinion, very attractive thermometers.



Some ICs...



And a couple of PCBs.
And now I suspect you understand what kind of thermometers these are. Both can handle two inputs which is all that I need. So let's start assembling them...











A couple of hours later I had two fully assembled circuits ready to be mounted to the desk. The tubes are still missing as they had to be shipped separately with a delivery time of 1 to 6 weeks. It has now been five weeks and I am still waiting, though the supplyer has assured me that they were shipped. The tubes will not be mounted to the PCBs, but will instead be connected to it via wires to a remote location.

The PCBs will be mounted at the corner panels as such...





Unfortunately I had, to my own surprise, not taken any pictures showing how it looks when the panels are put back onto the desk. I will include this in my next update.

Next I did some more work on the rear panel.
Having completed the vent for the radiator I proceeded to fix some brass mesh to the vent cutout, and I used a scrap piece of oak to squeeze the mesh into the edges to make the mesh as flush as possible.







Next I finally found some silicone that would stick to both glass and acrylic, and thus I proceeded to seal the tank in preparation for leak testing.



Filling the tank with tap water stained with green food dye - 2.5dl.



And this is 5dl - as much as I can fill without a closed system and a pump.



You may also notice that I have started to apply varnish to the oak pieces - this is after two layers, and I will do four layers in total while sanding with 1500 grit between each layer.





Turned out that there was a leak in the tank on the lower part of one of the fittings. This prompted me to cover the internal portion of the fittings with clear, chemical and water resistand resin, and I should be ready for another round of leak testing tonight.

Meanwhile I started to work on the mounting mechanisms for the drives. They will be affixed to the side panels using hand made brass screws made from 3.5mm brass rod.





Above shows the mounted optical drive (a stand-in drive that still reads discs but refuses to write). I'm debating wether or not to make more screws for the optical drive, or if two is enough. Two are enough to hold it firmly in place, but I'm unsure if it would look better with more...



And next came the HDDs, though I have as of yet only made screws for one. The two drives will sit side-by-side, and I may decide to hide a mechanical drive underneath the optical for storage. We'll see.



And the above picture shows how the mounting screws looks like from outside sitting flush with the panels. Also, the dome nuts in the picture holds one of the thermometers in place. I'm not entirely sure if the dome nuts should stay, even though I quite like them. What do you think?

And lastly I continued to work on the control panel.
I soldered signal wires to all the buttons, cut a slot for the wires in the brass inlay and routed a slot into the front panel of the desk to let the wires through.



The wires will obviously be sleeved, and I will make my own internal connection block to connect the signal wires from the control panel to the internal system. Expect to see this in my next update.



I have also finished the varnishing of the oak pieces, and you can see the reflection in the above picture. Also, the screw holes at the top are for a brass ball latch that will secure the cover to the front panel.



And there we see how the wires sprout from the slot in the front panel.

That's all I have for now, but yesterday I did start to work on my custom connection block which will be made from oak ... *sigh*. I have also finally decided on a plan for internal wiring, and I have gone away from my original idea to route wire channels into the desk plate.

Until next time; thank you for watching and take care.
Ta-ta.

[dream1]

Hm,mm i think your case mod is realy cool

[Journeyer]

Thank you very much.

It is coming along nicely, but some parts take a long time to make. And when adding time for sanding and varnishing a single part can take several days as the varnish has to dry for 24 hours for each layer. Still, it is getting closer to staining time - just a few more oak pieces to make first, and then of course I have to make the housing for the PSU. And yes, I still need to get the fittings...

Hopefully I can complete it by the end of August, though that might be very optimistic.

[Journeyer]

Minor status update today; the tank is leak free and good to go.

[Journeyer]

Another minor status update: I just received confirmation that the switches that Apem so generously would sponsor me with are on their way. I will need to step up my progress on this project now as those switches will probably be among the last parts to go into this due to their position in the desk. Even though I do work on it pretty much every night, some parts just take so long to make. Still, my next update will be a big one I think, and it will be soon.

Again; big thanks to Apem for supplying me with those switches. I don't know what I would have used if they hadn't.

[Journeyer]

Okay, time for another update.
Real life obligations have, unfortunately, a tendency to impinge on doing work on the project from time to time, so as a result I haven't gotten as much done as I would have liked. Still, I do think I have some good stuff to show off.

A while back, when I was busy constructing the frame and panels, you may have noticed the PSU connector poking through the rear panel. Obviously I couldn't leave it like that, and thus now had come the time to hide it away. But first I had to install a master power switch, solder some wires and sleeve them.



Next I started on the cover. This is a design that I have thought about extensively, and it is one that will be repeated throughout the structure of the desk. We start with a piece of oak (again with the oak... it's still hard to work with, but I'm getting more proficient at it). As is common I outlined the piece to be cut - I actually used the classic little grey alien head as a template since I found it had an ideal shape for my purposes.



Next came the routing. This time around the routing is easier as I bought a bunch of new router bits. The old ones I used previously were, quite simply, worn out, explaining my troubles with routing oak earlier. It's still hard, but at least the router does its work now. Earlier I also cut the same design from a piece of 8mm acrylic, but I did not take any pictures during that process.



After cutting the piece from the oak plate I repeated the process, this time routing out the entirety of the internal section resulting in three pieces that I later glued together. Then, after an agonizing amount of filing and sanding (and a bit of drilling) I had this piece:





It was still not finished, but I had to test it. So here goes...
Let there be light:



And with the lights off...



Excellent! I'm quite pleased.
But, there were still a good bit of filing (and some drilling) left to do, so I had at it again, and here is the end result:







Since these pictures were taken I have also varnished the piece with 4 coats of varnish, and while I was certain that I had taken pictures of the finished article unfortunately I had not. So, I will include some pictures of the finished and varnished piece in my next update. I am quite pleased with it.

As I mentioned this design using two pieces of oak sandwiching a slice of acrylic is a design that will repeat throughout the structure. So I also made a few other pieces in the same way. These are made to hold groups of wires running along the internal surface. I did not take pictures as I made these - they are made in the exact same way as the PSU-cover, and I will need to make at least five more... oh joy.

Here's one...



And now there are two. I also routed a groove into the internal surface to string some other wires along, as well as something else...



The acrylic insert is flush with the internal surface, and again ... let there be light:







I'm quite pleased with this, and I'm looking forward to completing a few more sections. I still have two more wire holders not yet mounted, and hopefully I can have at them tonight.

A result of my decision to make a good portion of the internal wiring part of the main design resulted in having to move the tank from its original position. I decided to place it here (and as you can see my work area is getting increasingly messy...):



I finally got the tubes for my thermometers, and thus I had to start building the temperature display area. Here it is, and I have also soldered two tubes and mounted them in the location they will sit. I don't know why this picture turned out so foggy, but it was an exceedingly hot day which may have been a contributing factor.





That's all I have to show you today - apart from this guy that I had to remove from its chosen residence in the kids' playhouse. Quite a large spider for Norway, but not quite large enough to have a health bar...



And finally, the switches Apem so generously sponsored me with arrived this friday. They're lovely little things, and I'm really anxious to try them out. They will need a 5V power source however, so I will need to rig something to supply them with continuous power. I will think of something.



Thank you again Apem for your generosity.



That's all for now.
Thanks for watching, your comments are welcome.

Ta-ta.

[crashy1984]

hello Journeyer,

nice work log did you have here.
I like work logs, where whole pieces of furniture can be turned into PC... nice work!

PS: is it possible to upload the SkechUp file again for the I/O Backplate?

Thanks a lot!

[dietje1908]

very nice lighting . Your woodworking skills are exellent , i dont have the patience for that . looking forward to more updates :-)

[Journeyer]

Originally Posted by dietje1908

very nice lighting . Your woodworking skills are exellent , i dont have the patience for that . looking forward to more updates :-)

Thank you so much.
I don't feel that my woodworking skills qualify for the word "excellent", but it is my work and I am quite proud of what I have accomplished so far. And I am getting better at it, so yes; thank you.

[Journeyer]

This is not dead, but it has been slightly delayed.
The delay is due to me being pestered by real life that involved a week and a half of two year old twins with explosive diarrhoea with included high temperatures and all the trimmings. After this I managed to do something horrible to my back, and this crippled me for about a week which in turn put the project on hold. The latest is that my son had another asthma episode due to another infection. Today he is back in kindergarden, but now his sister has got pneumonia... Great stuff.

In spite of all this I have been able to get a few things done here and there on the project, and I will be posting an update in the coming week(s) depending on how soon I can remake the part that I screwed up a couple of nights ago...

[Sky_wolf]

Do you think it possible to up lode the backplate template again