Project Perspex - Finished - *pic heavy*

[profqwerty]

Unfortuneatley I did not take pics of the earlier incarnations, but it's still far from finished!

A completely clear PC case. It's my DT A2 project, and will fit my present components (see sig for existing case!)



The components fitted are courtesy of our electronic dept + ch424, I'm just using them to model what it's going ot look like.



This shows how the mobo is fitted; the bolts are tightened to the outside panel, then go through a sheet of smoked acrylic for some reason (i might get rid of it). The nuts allow the height of the board to be adjusted and the angle it's at.



Sorry about pics on their side!
This is front/back - the mobo is inverted to let the power reach comfortably. It also gives a nice large area ontop of the tray, where the pump/reservoir will go.
The optical drives can be moved for/backwards and up/down to fit perfectly.
There will be a 120mm fan in that hole at the bottom.

Oh yes - the bolts are too long i know. There are 100's of those length in the stores, but none of the shorter ones that I need. I'm using those to hold it together for now, and they are only put a short way. I tried shortening a batch, but they looked crap, and tore the thread to shreds.

The bolts are mostly tapped into the acrylic (nothing broken yet touch wood!), but some (like on the CD drives) use nuts as well.

I managed to make a small bracket to hold the expansion cards



another side on view - clearer to see the mobo.



close up of the front - the front/back/top/bottom are from 12mm acrylic, so can cope with laod bearing better.
I cut several holes near the edge/corner of a piece of 12mm, and put a bolt through into a vice. bend is around, and the bolt sheared off without marking the acrylic - it's tough stuff!

The HDD holder bits are made by tapping holes into the base, and using long bolts to hold the HDDs up. rubber gromets go between the bolts and the HDDs to reduce vibration a bit.



another side on.

It's being made in our school workshop. There is a laser cutter, that with a little tweaking can be made to just about cut the 12mm acrylic (it's not meant to do more than 6mm .
I used the laser to cut the panels, and some of the holes. Through the 12mm the laser flared out as it was focussed to the centre of the acrylic. This made any holes cut end up oval shaped - not ideal!
However it is really useful to do holes in the middle of sheets, as they are perfectly accurate.

I designed the whole thing using the dimensions thread in 3d CAD (Ashlar-Vellum Cobalt - what the school uses), putting perhaps a little too much faith in the measurements!
I used that to generate the cutting lists etc.
Lately though i'm making it up as i go, as small things aren't so easy to model.

All the edge holes were drilled by hand with a simple jig, then tapped. I got fed up with the hand tap, and resorted to using the drill to hold the tap. Using plenty of oil/water lube kept the acrylic from fogging up, giving lovely clear holes the hard part is getting the swarf out without damaging the thread to much.

It's going to have the radiator mounted at the top, with the grill ontop of the case.


It's a long way from being finished, and I have essentially the next 3 weeks, so I'm open to any ideas for stuff to add. I suspect there will be an LCD on the front aswell.

I intend to make the majority out of the clear acrylic, and maybe use UV reactive for small parts.

Thanks for reading!
profqwerty

[kylelnsn]

Sweet, this is a nice lil project. will keep tuned.

nice one keep it up

[bumfluff]

Yeah, shame they don't do D&T in Scotland, just to be bloody minded they split it into three subjects: Technology, Craft And Design adn Graphic Communication.

C&D is the building one but it is nowhere near as complicated. I took technology but all that is is electronics, all theoretical. I did Graph Comm last year as well and that is just Technical Drawing and CAD work.

All the same, it looks awesome.

[kylelnsn]

at my school the dt teachers are gay! they dont let you use the machines, or let you do custom prjects, there all gay, so many lovely machines grr i wana use dem!

[profqwerty]

They're usually pretty cool about it....just keep quite and they don't notice lol!

[profqwerty]

Well, it's finished, so I guess this should be in the mod section, but as I've already started a (short) thread....


On a shelf in my room. Features:
virtually totally acrylic case
Watercooling of CPU, GPU, Nbridge
pump in near-perfect vibration mount
HDDs in vibration mounts at bottom
HDDs & PSU draw air through their own air tunnel at the bottom
UV lighting system



(uv pen courtesy of Thames Valley Police)
relay operated pump (a small leak made it go bang. luckily that blue box is fairly thick plastic (turned out a couple of drops had shorted across the copper stripboard!)
top CD drive has an acrylic lid (can see the cd's spinning!)
acrylic fronting on optical drives
LCD screen:
-controls UV and fans
-runs LCD smartie, so can do stats etc
custom fan grills
status lights on the front
virtually all the holes were hand drilled and tapped


The whole thing was designed with CAD before hand, then modified in the workshop. Specs in sig.

Main problems:
weight
strength of acrylic
scratches!
like an oven - needs good airflow
quite tight for room in the middle
some holes not drilled as accurately as I would have liked
rubber feet are designed to leave lovely black streaks on everything they touch

I hope to add some etched logos etc at some point - any ideas for graphics on the case?
Also there's a lot of real estate under the cd drives that needs developing.....

I'm happy to keep fiddling/adding stuff, so ideas are welcome!

[Axel]

whats that ress?

[Supra55]

Very well built for it being a clear case looks very sturdy.

[profqwerty]

It's an eheim (can't remember which one exactly), intergrated res/pump. VERY quite when sealed up on the vibro mounting.

It's certainly sturdy - it's 12mm acrlyic for the frame so does not bend (not always the best thing!)

[profqwerty]

pictures of the making of:


the school laser cutter - it's focused to a bit below the surface to make it go through the thicker acrylic. the acrylic is held off the metal bed with strategically placed supports - without them the plastic melts onto the metal!


the acrylic is held between two thick pieces of wood to support it. the jig is clamped ontop - it keeps the drill perpendicular to the acrylic and keeps the holes in the middle of the edge.


drilling into the acrylic


adding a bit of lube - keeps the side of the hole clear and the acrylic cool - without it just melts onto the drill and goes fuzzy.


checking the depth - they're mostly drilled to about 30mm including the jig. gives room for the tap - the school doesn't possess an M5 plug tap for some reason....


fill the drilled hole with lube ready for tapping


tapping the hole. wrist fell off after n holes, so used a drill instead - much quicker


finished hole - swarf is iompossible to get out, most holes with some in the bottom.


there is it! a neat hole intot he side of an acrylic sheet!


acrylic sheet on the line bender, i left the middle tray bit on too long and it melted through


a useful sheet bender which rests at 45 degrees...


using a bench clamp to make 90 degrees

[profqwerty]

rear shot plugged in


side shot


water pump with it's vibro mounting. the smoked acrylic is glued onto the reservoir, and it's suspended with some elastic bands (the water turned blue after a few hours of UVing)


GPU block.


random shot of the BT card and the USB header (with usb cable to the LCD)


in/out of the rad. i coudln't get hold of any right angle connectors (long story), so made some up. kind of a feature now


hdd mountings. the bolts tap into the base, and use rubber grommets into the acrylic.


pump switch. blue tape covers pump power + neon. the mains isneatly kept in its own little box. paid off during power up testing....


LCD controller board. the one ch424 did, kindly donated. it powers two fans and the UV system


rear without wires. there is a huage gap around the connectors etc, but that is what comes of guestimating.


back of blue box - can see the scorch marks


close up of power bits. i had to use long self tapping screws to hgold the psu in - couldn't find any proper long ones. I tried brazing a proper thread onto a longer bolt, but it didn't work (at all).

[profqwerty]

other side shot - all reversed with the inverted mobo mount


neat little piece which hold the cards securely


my A2-electronics project. it controls the fan speeds for the radiator from the water temperature. unfortunately did not realise it had fallen down until i hd uploaded the pics, but imagine it nicely square


messy!


rear shot of hdds, and all the power cables cramming through a tiny hole (guestimating again!)


my see-through cd drive. it works fine, and you can see the cds spinngin etc.


cd trays sticking out. three cos i don't hold much hope for the survival of the top one (no reason why though lol) 'stealthed'; smoked acrylic bolted to the fronts of the trays


the buttons - pressing the bolts bends the acrylic enough to press the buttons. v. pleased with these.


sort of close up of the buttons and lights on the front


front fan grill. provides (relatively) easy access to hdds. isn't qutie right - there's supposed to be a horizontal bar across the shelf, and the grill would extend up + down so it's square. never got round to it though (+ i think there wasn't any bar left)


cd rack. took aaagggges to get the folds right for the width. ended up making lots of bubbles and it having several ripples in it

[profqwerty]

top view - the top piece doesn't quite line up with the sides. i think mainly cos it was hand drilled, so there was PLENTY of room for error.


general view including the scrreen etc


mroe mess! back end of graphics card there. those fets get pretty hot without the air from the stock sink. i had to install a fan on the side of the case to dool them (good as it cools sbridge/board etc.)


cpu block in all its glory

(can anyone answer why the cpu might be running a game at 65C, where as the gpu (on the same water circuit) is only at 40C? i'm putting it down to poor cpu block performance....??)


northbridge block. i sutpidly ordered the sli version, with the wrong mobo mount, so i had to make a lovely one from acrylic. the bolts ont othe mobo are a bit dodgy - bolt drilled out down the centre, with an eyehook brazed inside,


plenty of real-estate there to fill


welcome to the jungle. i didn't want to cut the pipe and waste some, plus it took some of the stress out of it . also there is the inline thermistor for the radiator fans


psu shot there


nice front shot there - stealthed drives nicely shown


as it was on the desk not plugged in i tried to illuminate it with a 100% uv-b bulb. interesting to see the water additive does not react, although it does with uva


magic floating fan! afterthough fan blowing on gpu fets and giving a bit of airflow

that's all for now. hope to have more projects at some point.
anything that should/ciould be added do say (e.g. graphics/logos etc)

cheers,
profqwerty

[wbdog206]

looks great nice job.

[Qbank]

woow, nice job

[THEkorean]

wow.. that is a nice mod, all you have to do now is sleeve and organize those cables and it will be awesome