Scratch Build – Complete Fallout 4 ITX LAN PC

G'day everyone, long time lurker, first time poster here.

I hope I set this thread up right...

I'm Australian if the G'day wasn't a give away.
I've been doing little mods here and there to just about everything I own for the last 10 or so years and I decided I'd have a crack at making my first true scratchbuild.

How foolish I was.

Anyway.
The entire premise for this build was to use cheap second hand parts and scratch together a small build I could drag along to a lan party if I was somehow invited.

Being a bit of a Fallout fanboy, I'd bought the collectors edition of Fallout 4 which came with the Pip-Boy and the nice case.

“Case” I said to myself one day as I looked at it, then my mind wandered to my collection of spare PC components.

And I began my poorly thought out journey to build the first PC in a Fallout Collectible!

So I started with this.

Image courtesy of Cnet

And ended up doing this...




And then for some reason I thought this was a great idea...






That was not a good idea.
At all.

So I searched around on eBay and swapmeets and came across some nice ITX components!
And then began my first layout!

I blame my time playing Minecraft for the square flat layout, and I thank hot glue for all my rapid prototyping!











Those awful cutouts did come in handy for fiddling underneath the motherboard tray though...


After all the fiddling and wanton destruction thus far, I decided on a slightly different layout.
Just a teensy tweak.

Woo plastic welding!


A little fun making a backplate for a $50 R9 250


And an early progress picture of the new look!


Yay! Shoutout to Boddakers build The Rose
for the tilted layout inspiration!

I'll post some more progress when I've got all my images uploaded.

Cheers

 

So at the end of my first post, I left you all with the first picture of my second layout.
If I decide to torture myself to work with acrylic again, I'll probably invest in a heat strip for bends, and actual acrylic glue/solvent.
Epoxy is not fun after applying it on every joint multiple times.

The graphics card is supported!


At first it was just hot glue, but I glued in some aluminium angle that the PCIe extension bolts onto.

A little work making the IO shroud area


Green acrylic! I've been using scraps and pieces my grandfather had in the shed for probably decades, the paper doesn't like coming off very well.


And now we come to the best part, making it not look terrible!

Primer!


Clamping!


In the midst of all this progress, which has been going on for about 4 months now at this stage, I decided I wanted a nice fresh case.

So I bought one!


I didn't end up using the new one, I added it to my Fallout collection.

I've gotten quite clever at finding ways to clamp things.


Like using batteries!


I'll save my bodyworking pictures for my next update, till then!

 

Let's get straight into it.

Bodywork!


I do not recommend Rustoleum self priming paint if you intend to sand it again, I clogged so much sand paper almost immediately.
It looks really nice though.


Priming! This was after my first body work session.


And repeat..


Excuse my masterful photography skills :/






And then we come to today (Saturday the 19th) where I've finally decided to write the log for all this work.
I've done lots of painting today, and the photos look pretty final, but there's still a bit of work to go.

I need to find a nice way to run power in, and power out, as well as installing some magnets I've ordered to latch the top door closed.

I still need a couple of other finishing touches as well, but I'll post them in later updates.
Enjoy!

Totally not ruined... The side panel covers all this...


I went with this brown because it was the only flat brown at the hardware...
It looks nice though, a nice contrast.












While it still isn't perfect, I've learnt a lot on the way that I'll be using in my next projects I hope to start soon, and you can look forward to a more real time update on those!

I'm just about caught up to where we are at the moment, the next update should be the final product! (Construction wise)

Cheers!

 

You are going to need to resize your pictures or I'll have to delete your posts - the imgur 'large thumbnail' option is more than big enough - 12mp is far too big...

Thanks

GK

 

Sorry mate, still working out the whole posting thing.
Is there a different image tag I should use or just resize them all?

 

No worries - you seem to have sorted it. There isn't a different image tag to use within our forums so just select the imgur large thumbnail option (actually the url is exactly the same as before but has a letter L before the .jpg)

Build looks awesome btw Are you going to have intake and/or exhaust fans?

Cheers

 

I'm planning to have it open when it's running, and haven't had any issues so far.
Once I sort out an i5 and probably a 960 I'll have to reassess that.

The power supply in the bottom might need some ventilation once it's under load though.

 

Welcome to Fallout ITX week here at BT

I like the inclined mobo design, and will be watching to see where you go from here.

A bit of i5 action is always welcome...

 

It's the best week of the year haha
I wasn't very surprised to learn fallout 4 wouldn't run on my i3 I had lying about, just scored a 3470 for $50 which is pretty good.
960 might come soon, I'll have to see how my bills go!

 

i5 3470 is a good bit of kit, I have one at work on Z77 that does all the office stuff and Photoshop very nicely.
Save those $$$, bring on the 960.
If you wait long enough, you may end up buying the 1060

 

FalloutPC Log4

Alright, time for another update!
I've been flat out at work the last fortnight running all the outbound orders, so time for modding was in short supply, but I've finally finished (for now)!

So first things first, I have the power run into the case!


I also opened up the side cutout so I can access the IO a little easier.
It looks rough, but this will only be accessed for working on the PC.


I did a quick touch up spray inside to fix where the inside chassis had rubbed, and added some clear coat to give it a chance.


While I had the guts out, my HDMI panel mount extension had arrived, so I put that in across from the power inlet.
These will be the only visible ports on the system, I've got a wireless mouse and keyboard for it and the dongle hides inside behind the IO side panel.


I knew I needed to get rid of all the blue in there as it was clashing a bit with all the neutral browns, so I had my first crack at painting my heatspreaders!




While all this other excitement was happening I ended up cracking another joined edge, so I epoxied in an aluminium support, which for whatever reason holds better than acrylic to acrylic.


And I got another delivery!
I've had about a dozen this last fortnight...

My first Noctua cooler!


With my ram heat spreaders removed, I quickly discovered heat tape only works once, so I nicked down to Bunnings and grabbed myself an overpriced bottle of IPA and went to town on the left over adhesive.


Another delivery! My i5 3470 came, I won it on eBay for $52!
Wrapped with that.


And a teaser of my side decals



I've reapplied my heat spreaders to the ram which was a nightmare in itself, $60 spent buying the wrong thermal tapes late at night half asleep, I ended up layering 3 layers of .3mm thermal tape.
So far it's holding up so we'll see what happens..

I tried reapplying the Corsair stickers back on with double sided tape, but I'm still getting peeling so I'll have to see if I can order new ones or get some printed.

Also I forgot to take photos of the ram back together...

But, here is how it looked the other night after finishing all the main mods!


















So I did end up painting my 250s shroud to match for now, I will eventually upgrade to a better performing card.

Keep posted for some final pictures with the ram finished and hopefully a ballsier graphics card!
Cheers everyone

 

Best use of a stock Noctua tan fan ever. I really like this build. Wish I had one like it.

 

I'd be happy to build you one haha

 

That is so cool!

My only concern is ... where are the vents?

 

When it's running I leave the top open, I haven't had any heat issues with the power supply below yet.
It runs fanless until it takes a decent load, and I doubt I'll ever draw enough power from it to cause any heat issues.
If I do come across any I'll find a way to vent the bottom, or even put fans behind the 111 badges on the sides and route some air through it.

 

That came out pretty sweet. I like my rigs to be port-sluts, so they never come out that clean.
Turning the psu so it can pull air from under the mobo might be a good idea. The SFF fans are pretty quiet, so it could be going crazy down there without you knowing it.

 

I'm sure you could. I'm planning one last rig to play Elite on so I can focus on PT and OT and recovering from this hip replacement. But your work should be enough to get a company to toss you a video card. Wouldn't hurt to try.

 

Cheers for the input, I don't think it's worth shooting for any sponsorship when the builds pretty much done now Kayin.
I kept my ports as few as possible to save work haha, I do like a clean simple style though Cheaps.
Flipping the PSU isn't a bad idea though, I might look at doing that when I pull it apart next.
Maybe some custom cables could sneak their way in...

 

Your Pip-Boy build goes to prove that size isn't everything in PC modding. Fitting all that in the small case was a masterpiece. Well done mate - outstanding job!

 

So, instead of final photos, more work!

The power supply was a little warm below, so I'm taking your advice Cheapskate and flipping it and cutting a vent below the mobo.

I finally cleaned my workshop which made things a lot easier!



I started by actually measuring where the power supply fan sits and traced the area.



If you haven't made one of these, you really should.
It's the simplest tool and works wonders for tracing circles.



I realised after drawing on the chassis that I should have taped it...



Much better! I also changed the design a touch, 6mm strips.



While I was sweating over the idea of drilling more holes into the chassis, I started designing a cover plate for my rear IO.



Heyyyyy



I masked the headers and capacitors near it with electrical tape to keep it safe from shorts.
Also because I'm not using them.

Too late to go back now. I'll cut these out this weekend hopefully and file everything all purdy like.



And of course the drill plunged in too quickly and broke this section off again...



So I cut a quick piece of right angle aluminium and scuffed it up to glue behind for some reinforcment.



CLAMPS



And the next stage is priming and painting the IO cover and designing a decal to go over it.
I'm thinking a RobCo design might look cool...



Anyway, cheers for having a squiz, I'll have another update soon.

Also cable sleeving
I've got some nice plans for that!