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Scratch Build – In Progress Shelfuter - Computer in a Shelf 19th Jan

Discussion in 'Project Logs' started by j-a-c-o-b, 23 Jan 2013.

  1. j-a-c-o-b

    j-a-c-o-b What's a Dremel?

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    Shelfuter

    Shelfuter is my first mod pretty much, you can't really class a side panel mod a mod because of how easy it is. but anyways.

    I do have some joinery experience of course, and a step dad who works with stainless steel anyways pics below

    [​IMG]

    Ok, the wood here is just simple chipboard, When I built the shelving I wasn't particularly going for anything fancy. So I will be putting wood at the back there and to the right all the way to the bottom of the shelf, I don't fancy showing much of the wall.

    [​IMG]

    I will be covering over the screws you can see to the left. I will possibly get my step dad to make me a mobo tray as well as pci slots and the I/O. but we'll see

    [​IMG]

    I will fill in the gap at the far bottom right as well. and cover the screws over. I aim not to have any visible screws



    [​IMG]

    So your aware, The shelf to the right is also exactly the same as it is to the left of the TV, it's an absolute mirror image apart from the shelf to the left being 2 cm smaller in width. I just haven't included it in the picture for some reason

    So yeah, dimensions.

    height: just under 640mm
    depth: a foot, just over 300 mm
    width: just under 400mm

    So I have a fair amount of room to play with.

    Part 1 will be putting my hardware in (hardware below)

    • GA 970A-DS3
    • AMD FX 6200
    • 2x4GB Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1600MHz
    • Powercool 550W PSU (might change)
    • AMD 5750 GPU (changing for a 7950)
    • 90GB Corsair Force GT 90GB SSD
    • 1TB HDD, 320GB HDD
    • Noctua fans

    Part 2 will be watercooling it, although the watercooling part will be split into 2 parts as well

    • BlockNot so sure, I quite like the Koolance stuff, as it would match my white and black theme seems there blocks are a black/silver sort of colour. The EK supremacy is also an option, would go for the nickel plated plexi verion.
    • Rad 360 alphacool Monsta Rad, possibly the white version
    • Fittings Going to go for the Matte Black fittings or the deluxe white from Bitspower.
    • Coolant Will go with blue coolant
    • Tube Tubing will be blue
    • Pump/Res DCP 4.0 Set

    Thats pretty much it

    Constructive criticism welcome :)

    Thanks

    J-a-c-o-b

    A big thanks goes to Noctua for the discounts!

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: 19 Mar 2013
  2. j-a-c-o-b

    j-a-c-o-b What's a Dremel?

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    Update: 21nd

    When I went to a mates house to get an old case, I was lucky to find he had a case with a removable motherboard tray, which has made things so so so much easier. Brought it home and gave it a wash, smelt of smoke a bit, I think I might spray this as well, because it's got a few scratches and I'd prefer a matte black finish.

    [​IMG]

    Yesterday a lot of progress was made with the shelfuter. I purchased a 600mm by 12mm by 1200mm MDF board (tried to find something better but this will be strong enough.) Bought two long pieces of wood, not MDF board, got some natural stuff for this. It's 1.8 meters by 35mm by 35mm. Also got some hinges, a door handly thing and a padlock (only because it looks epic and when locking it, it sounds awesome).

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    I cut a piece from the MDF board to make the door, It fits in the door space literally millimetre perfect. I also cut another bit of wood to screw the hinges to. The screws that came with the hinges are about 2mm too long, so I'll use a spacer or 2 to fix that.

    [​IMG]

    I had a huge amount of trouble getting that out after getting it in

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    I realised earlier that this was kinda unnecessary, but the door has already being cut down a bit to compensate. It doesn't matter too much to me though honestly. To fit the MDF board in, I had to cut part of the chipboard that supports the top right, I cut like 2cm off it to fit in on. I'm not actually using that PSU there btw.

    After this I then cut some more MDF board to put to the back of the shelf. This again ended up being millimetre perfect as usual. I then realised I was routing cables behind this, (which I discovered would be VERY VERY difficult to do once it comes to building the PC). I decided I'd get the long piece of wood, and cut two 40cm bits to go to the top and bottom.

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    This has left a big 3cm behind the wood for cables, should be enough, may even route tubing behind here its so big. I don't quite know why but it looks a fair bit bent, It would be because of how tight it was, this shouldn't be a problem.

    [​IMG]

    Here it is with it screwed together and back in place.

    After this, I realised the distance between the PSU and where the door would sit was like 9cm. So I cut another bit from the wood so I could slot the PSU into it and also not have the wires hanging out as they are now.

    More updates to come later today (this was all from yesterday)
     
  3. j-a-c-o-b

    j-a-c-o-b What's a Dremel?

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    Update: 22nd

    Below is the PSU in place with the cutout for the 24pin and the 4pin to be hidden behind the wood out of site.

    [​IMG]

    I found this old HDD cage from an old case. This no doubt will be sprayed matte black. A hole will be cut at the back just behind the HDDs for the HDDs. You can also see the new wood for the hinges, this stuff is working so much better

    [​IMG]

    Here is the door from the front, I'm not too happy about having the hinges visible, it could of being done where the hinges are on the inside, but the screws I used were slightly too big, and came out about 2mm on the wood. I'd prefer for the screws to poke out on the inside rather than the outside. So that's why you can see the hinges. You can also see my drawing for the window, the section at the bottom will be mesh, there only the PSU and HDDs (not SSD) to be seen here which aren't too interesting to me. There will also be a mesh section at the top. In the middle will be the window which will have the entire motherboard visible.

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: 1 Mar 2013
  4. Ream

    Ream What's a Dremel?

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    you can decorate the front of the door and that way the hinges wont stick out to badly, maybe cover with some sheet aluminium with a hole cut for the window.
     
  5. j-a-c-o-b

    j-a-c-o-b What's a Dremel?

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    I was considering just splashing some paint on the entire shelving, I think a bit of Ali might not work well, looks wise. Thanks for the suggestion :)

    Tomorrow, I will be cutting out the window/mesh for the door, also will be spraying the mobo tray and the HDD cage matte black
     
  6. j-a-c-o-b

    j-a-c-o-b What's a Dremel?

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    Updates to come today, this post will be edited
     
  7. j-a-c-o-b

    j-a-c-o-b What's a Dremel?

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    Update:

    It's being a while, apologies for that, Ah well, a new update is here finally. I've cut the door out, cut holes for cabling, cut a hole for the power cable, cut out the I/O and PCI area from the wood, attached the mobo tray to the wall and mounted my SSD. All I need now is a 4/8 pin extension and a 24 pin extension.

    Here is what the door looked like when I first cut into it.

    [​IMG]

    Here is the door once sanded down and cut to the right sizes. I originally was gonna have rounded corners, but it was a tad difficult and my cuts were not too accurate because of the crappy jigsaw.

    [​IMG]

    Here is a pic of where I drilled a hole for the HDD cables.

    [​IMG]

    This is a really crappy hole I made for me to be able to power up the PSU with the power cable and that.

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    Here is my drawing where I cut the I/O and PCI bit out.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    Here it is, all in, motherboard, cpu cooler, ram and the HDDs. Looks pretty smart to me. There are four screws on the I/O PCI at each corner, which keeps it very very secure to the wood there.

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    Muwhahaha, my SSD has legs :D. Nah, thats going on the wall just like that, inspired by TTLs SSD mounting idea in Orca. It probably won't work quite as well, but hey.

    [​IMG]

    I knew it, SSD mounting was a bit of a fail, only the top two screws are in, I deleted a photo of my 24 pin cutout and my 4/8 pin cutout by mistake. here is the SSD cable cutout with the SSD mounted and also fully cabled, will be getting black sleeving for all the cables there.

    [​IMG]
     
  8. j-a-c-o-b

    j-a-c-o-b What's a Dremel?

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    It has been a while, my apologies for that. I've been very busy at university, I still am to be fair.

    As you can see, the HDD cage has now being painted Matt Black. Believe it or not the motherboard tray has been painted Chrome. It was an idea from a friend so it would be reflective in the LEDs, but the chrome doesn't fit with the matt black. I do quite like the reflectiveness, but finger marks and various scratches are much more visible up close. This actually happened several days ago, the motherboard tray has now being sprayed matt black and is currently drying as I'm writing this update.

    [​IMG]

    I've also now put in the extra support. I'm not so sure it will of made much difference, it does still sag a bit, but I'm expecting it really simply to sag no more than it is already.

    [​IMG]

    Got me paint ready, the colours are very very close indeed. The entire shelving is going to be painted in this colour. The Noctua fan frame seems to be almost the same colour, which is good. It pretty much means I won't have to spray the fans, which I'd like to avoid.

    If your wondering, I broke two of the blades, then decided to brake the rest, then I took the brown bit of entirely.

    [​IMG]
     
  9. j-a-c-o-b

    j-a-c-o-b What's a Dremel?

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    Here is the pic of the motherboard tray now.

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    [​IMG]

    I have also now made a cover for the PSU to hide the cables and the PSU.

    [​IMG]

    Still needs sanding

    [​IMG]

    I found it very hard to cable things so I've cut out a big bit behind the motherboard tray to be able to cable things before putting the motherboard tray, it would still be somewhat difficult to cable, but not as hard.

    [​IMG]

    Now I needed to bring the sander out. Everything was sanded down to a decent level. Now we are ready for painting. In the photo, I used a different paint, it's the same colour, but satin rather than gloss. Anyways, the photo below is after 2 coats, with the second drying. No undercoat was used, can said it didn't need it. Bullshiiiit!

    [​IMG]

    It looked better after 4 coats, but still not perfect now. Needs a good sand as well

    [​IMG]
     
  10. Dk_vr

    Dk_vr What's a Dremel?

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    Great idea and good job mate.
    I hope we will finish it done soon :)
     
  11. spolsh

    spolsh Multimodder

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    Coming on a treat. Only thing that stands out to me is : How does the PSU airflow work ? I've probably just missed that in the thread, but it looks almost totally enclosed.
     
  12. j-a-c-o-b

    j-a-c-o-b What's a Dremel?

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    Thank you very much, I hope so too :)

    Ah, no you hadn't missed it, I completely forgot about it. I suppose I ought to drill a hole similar to that of the hard drive wiring, but bigger, along with some sort of dust filter.

    Again, thanks for pointing that out :)

    A big thanks goes to Noctua for the discounts, they can expect an order from me of two NF-A15 PWMs and some sort of CPU cooler sooner or later

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: 21 Feb 2013
  13. j-a-c-o-b

    j-a-c-o-b What's a Dremel?

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    To be fair guys, not a right lot has happened with relation to the build itself, it's more like additional features to my workspace. Anyways, on with the update. All that has really happened is I scratched the paint off with a small knife (no heat gun sadly) and put a small (very) cover of pva glue and then added some white primer to be safe.

    Dunno if you lot ever say my crappy monitor that I had on top of my wardrobe, well this is it again, just wall mounted instead. It's fine for daily use, my 22in 1080p TV is what I use for gaming.

    [​IMG]

    I dropped my HDD cage, I absolutely almost **** myself, because I found it 2 days after it happened. I was sanding away and it vibrated off the shelf, hit the bed post and hit the floor, when it came to finding the HDDs, 2 days later, I found them on the floor.

    So I quickly hooked everything up, roughly and found they were alright, which was hugely lucky I think.

    [​IMG]

    About 3 weeks ago, I took an A3 piece of paper and decided to make an exact size of a 360 monsta rad and this is what it would look like, without the fans. The actual height from the wood is just under 130mm. So it wouldn't fit in push pull, but bare in mind I'd have to take a jigsaw to the roof to get the hot air out and the wood is 10mm thick. so in the end I'll have just under 10mm gap between the wood and fans. The reason I want it above the wood there is so I can hide tubing behind the wood to the pump which will go between the PSU and the HDDs (see a previous picture about this). Not only that, but at the front of the shelving it is 39cm in width, but at the back, it is 41cm in width.

    [​IMG]

    Here is the picture after the pva glue and the primer.

    [​IMG]
     
  14. j-a-c-o-b

    j-a-c-o-b What's a Dremel?

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    Update!

    Right, now I have all the painting finally sorted. Anyways I will start from the primer on the door. I've being doing the work in the garage by the way.

    [​IMG]

    Here is the rest after having a primer coat. It has being sitting there with a primer for more than a week when the photo was taken, that is why it looks a bit beaten.

    [​IMG]

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    Right then, all painting done, I decided to do two lots of primer and satin to get a better finish and it certainly paid off.

    [​IMG]

    Installation, step 1

    [​IMG]

    Step 2

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    Then the PCI wood bit, screw them all together, put the backplate/wood thing in, then screw the door on and finally all the components.

    Also, I decided to sort out the cutout for the PSU.

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    and then everything in

    [​IMG]

    Seems you've seen it a fair amount I didn't bother to put the board and psu etc in and have a photo up on here.

    I also ordered £87.01 worth of stuff from SpecialTech.

    • Pulse Modding Premium 360 Radiator Grill
    • Phobya LED-Flexlight HighDensity 30cm Blue : 36x SMD LEDs
    • Lamptron 16mm Silverline Vandal Resistant Illuminated Latching Switch Silver : Blue LED Ring
    • Silverstone CP08 500mm SATA III Cable with 1 x 90 Degree Connector : CP08
    • NZXT 30cm SATA II Premium Sleeved Cable White : CBW-SATA-11D X2
    • NZXT 20cm Molex to 2 x SATA Premium Sleeved Cable White : CBW-42SATA
    • Pulse Modding 400 x 400 x 3mm Acrylic Sheet : Clear
    • Phobya 300mm 4 Pin Molex Sleeved Extension Cable : Black X3
    • Lamptron 300mm Vandal Resistant Illuminated Switch Connection Cable
    • Silverstone PP07 300mm 24 Pin ATX Power Supply Extension Cable Black : PP07-MBB
    • Silverstone PP07 300mm 8 Pin EPS 12v (4+4) Extension Cable Black : PP07-EPS8B
    • Silverstone Aeroslots Vented PCI Slot Covers 4 Pack : Nickel Coated Black
     
  15. Mosquito

    Mosquito Just 'Plane' Crazy

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    Interesting idea, but man that last round of pictures are a little excessive :lol:
     
  16. j-a-c-o-b

    j-a-c-o-b What's a Dremel?

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    On Tuesday the 9th April, a package arrived for me which had all of the above for the project.

    [​IMG]

    which contained the following

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    I did take pictures of the majority of things I bought, but I had to put this one up here because of how well it has worked out.

    [​IMG]

    I was very very happy with the quality of the 360 rad grill, the sturdyness and the power coat is exceptional.

    [​IMG]

    The switch was a tad hard to figure out, I couldn't understand the sheet of paper about size A5 which had a diagram of what means on and off, thats all that was on it.

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    I am also impressed with the sleeved cables from Silverstone, the quality of them compared to the sleeving on the power supply is outstanding, same goes for the NZXT cables I bought.

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    Annoyingly, I scratched the acrylic a bit, to the point where it was way to visible, soooo, I made it much much worse :p and I'm going to make it even worse still.

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    Here is a picture of the HDD cage, everything from here was in. If you look carefully, below the SSD that same cable is there, which you would of thought I'd of changed, your right I am, I just hadn't put it in yet, I found the cable in currys so I went to get it after college one day.

    [​IMG]

    Looking to the top.

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    Radiator grill in. At first I wanted to cut a hole in it, instead the right side of the rad grill is in contact with the wall so I can easily fit a radiator IF I end up watercooling

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    I had to take a picture of it in the dark, it does indeed look great and I'm happy with the result so far.

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    There aren't too many things to do apart from the watercooling part.

    So far, I have recently run into two problems, one of which is the worse problem there could be.Moving house the next problem is my FX-6200 is heading towards Silicone heaven. I have a sheet of stainless steel mesh to go in at the bottom, I need to drill a 15mm hole for the switch on the bottom of the wood the door is attached to and then a 80 by 80mm hole for the rear fan. I also need to purchase Noctua fans for the rad grill and the rear. Then it's water cooling time, IF it seems that I won't have the time I'll stick an NH-D14 in there.

    Until next time, which could be the last time, thanks for reading.
     
  17. TheP

    TheP What's a Dremel?

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    Good build so far.

    Well, like you said moving house will be a pain with such an stationary pc case.
    And you said the other solution already.....watercooling would be the best way in such a more or less closed up case.
    I planned also a pc in a shelf (to be precise it was an old pc stand) and first ideas where sole air-cooling. But as planning went on I realised it will be to closed for effective air cooling.
    So graphics and cpu cooled by water and two big fans for the rest.
    Should be cool enough even in summer :brrr:

    Wish you good luck to prevent your cpu from burning
     

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