Scratch Build – In Progress Project: Shattered Horizon. Update: 1/12/09 MOTM Nominee?! Ah! Must post pictures!

So… a project eh?
Shattered Horizon? Well, I had to call it something.

I admit it, I am a lurker, I just enjoy watching all these other cases evolve. So I thought I should maybe post up something of my own.

This project all begins with a radiator. Not just any radiator, but a huge ridiculously sized radiator. This huge ridiculously sized radiator in fact.



So, a 680mm long radiator. How do you possibly fit that into a regular case? You simply don’t. So a new case was in order. To the drawing board (er… sketchbook then CAD…)

After a while I had come up with this.




Seems pretty simple eh? Only 10 Fans on that Rad too…
Basic layout is M/B at the rear (as usual), Radiator in the top. There is going to be a Res in that middle open section, but as I haven’t worked out what it will look like, it is left out of that CAD. The front drivebays house space for 4 HDD, 1 DVD and a Mini-ITX board, as well as hiding an Eheim 1250 up the front.

The front is a single bent sheet of acrylic, which will have etched buttons, operating using QT113 touch sensor circuits. I am not convinced by that cutout, but I need air intake somehow… I might put some aluminium on the front to break it up a little. We will see.

The colour scheme is designed to conform to the new Gigabyte Ultra Durable boards. (kind of limiting my component choice… but they do have nice boards…)

So to the actual building. 20x20x1.5mm Aluminium EA was the material of choice, for the frame. Cut with my trusty mitre saw (I say trusty, but mean old…)

All my pretty frame bits.

With some fan attachment holes.

And the start of a frame.


I needed some Aluminium so I went out to my handy dandy local supplier. I didn’t really think it through, but 1200mm squares sounded like a good idea at the time. Damn those things were scary to drive with. I tied them to the roof fairly well, but I didn’t like it that much.
So, my huge pile of Aluminium… There is also some Acrylic and a thicker piece of Aluminium for the drive bays. The main body of the case will be 1.6mm Aluminium sheet.

Much more fun to transport were these, hard though they were to find.

Those are union fittings which, when combined with a pipe flarer allow me to turn my useless 3/8in copper pipe from the radiator into the much more useful this:

Look familiar? It should. That is a G1/4 thread for usual barbs.

Anyways, that is about all I have achieved thus far. More cutting is required.

Laz

 

nice design

looking forward to these

 

wow solid start mate good work

 

Impressive radiator and nice front
i' m waiting for to see how you 'll use etched buttons because i' am planning to use them in may next project.....

Nib

 

Very nice start, that radiator is huge!!

 

Thats some damn big radiator. Whats the size exactly. So i can guess the size of the case

 

@Nibbler: The buttons I am planning involve placing the electrode from a QT113 circuit behind etchings in the front. As to how I am going to do the etching, I am not sure... I might have to be very nice to an engraver... There is a big post about QT110 circuits in the modding forum, the QT113 is simply the newer version of the 110.

@BlackWhizz: The radiator is indeed huge. 680x200mm ish. The case is about 710x540x245mm in size.

Random things. I am expecting my Eheim 1250 and some more QT113 ICs sometime this week. Yey!

Update in a moment!

 

Work work work… But after work… Modding!

So I left you with just a frame, I decided that this frame needed some fairly basic things inside it, such as, say, a place for a mobo. So, I decided to start work on a motherboard tray. I started by salvaging some parts from an old cube case frame. This old cube case in fact.

From this I grabbed a back panel and the MB tray itself.


Now, I know they are not the nicest looking things, so rather than use them as my M/B tray, I used them as a template for creating a m/b tray out of nice blue acrylic. So, drill out, taps ready…

Test fit. I actually cut out a long enough slot at the back for up to 8 PCI brackets, in case I find myself in need of a double thickness graphics card in the bottom slot (not likely, but you never know…)

I didn’t have a spare ATX motherboard lying around, so an old mATX board tested. I just hope my outer holes are as accurate as the ones the mATX needed…
Then I cut the acrylic to size.

This next picture makes it look easy. I actually spent far too much time building a frame to support this.

The M/B tray is held on by long 5/32” bolts, simply because it meant that a) I didn’t have to change taps and b) I have a lot of spare computer screws around.
After this I set to work on the PSU cover plate that was in the initial plans. Lots of thinking and complaining happened as I found myself a little short of height, but I will survive. Drive bays will be next and I will just struggle there instead.
So, cover piece… My complex plans:

I usually work like this. Lots of CAD planning then when I get around to building I just scribble down the dimensions I need. Unfortunately this means I often need to walk backwards and forwards between the shed and my computer to check my dimensions.
So, I have to cut some of that huge Aluminium sheet. I bet I have a bigger straight edge than you.

Cut.

Then, using my complex bendy do-hickey combined with my equally complex measurey do-hickey…


I get this…


Anyways, now I am tired. Drive bays can start another day.

Laz

 

Nice work, the radiator is quiet huge. I like your styl of working

 

Thanks for the positive feedback thus far. I should be building drivebays right now, but I am feeling really lazy. Stupid uni sapping my desire to mod...

Laz

 

Rofl at ur straight edge... I once used a 3m piece of alumi angle to rule a 15cm line!

Yeah I really like the mod so far. Like the bendy do-hickey

Hehehe hickey

 

I meant to do work yesterday. I didn’t. I was tired. I meant to do a lot more work today, but eh. First, pseudo hardware pron. Today I got a box. It looked like this:

As was prophesised by the outside. Inside was an Eheim 1250. A not very sexy looking pump, but, highly reliable and silent, with nice flow characteristics.


I meant to make drivebay sides today, but somehow I just ended up preparing aluminium. Sand sand sand. First with 100grit to get rid of huge scratches. Then 280 grit to get some smoothness back, then 400 to remove an annoying mottling effect that was starting to appear. I very much respect people who can polish aluminium up to a mirror finish. Then again, I was going for a matte, brushed look, which I think I achieved somewhat. It is nice and soft looking at any rate.
Before:

After:


There will be more progress later… I promise.

Laz

 

nice start Laz!! Good to se that people still are using non commercial ver. of radiators at liquid cooling systems Mod ON!

BTW - i would rather use less but bigger fans with lover RPM to kill the noise

 

+1 for nonstandard radiator, that alone gets you subscribed. Is it from an air-conditioner?

 

Hey guys, thanks for the interest. Yeah, I think the radiator is from a decent size air conditioner, but I am really not sure. It was in that form when I stumbled across it. At the time I had no idea what it might be useful for, then it started to haunt me. I considered it way too large for a computer, but eh, here we are. I wonder if it actually has any cooling capacity, I know it will have high flow (hence the Eheim 1250) but the unfolded fins are a little worrying. We will have to see.

I know I have been promising to start making drive bays for a while, so I actually did it. This is a pretty small update, but I have my reasons for that. I did finish some more aluminium, getting my hands covered in aluminium dust as usual. So it goes.

Anyways, I cut myself a pair of drive bay sides out of some heavier aluminium. I think it is 2.5mm, but I haven’t measured. This is them. Note the pretty pretty maskingtape…


With those started, I figured I needed something to fill them with, so I started making some drive cages. Here is the plan:

Unfortunately, here is the results:

I ran completely out of Aluminium EA… I must have gone through 7-8 metres of this stuff so far. Oh well, I will pick up 3 more metres tomorrow. I probably won’t need that much more (crossed fingers). No matter anyway, it is cheap.

So, being slack…

Laz

 

lol ok cool cant wait to see more... gunna be sweet

 

I love your idea. Can't wait for an update.

 

@ DonT-FeaR
Thanks mate. I like your optimism. Lets hope it is indeed sweet.

@Steveo
Thanks as well, turns out that CADing something is all well and good, but actually building it forces all sorts of design revisions. I plan to stay pretty true to my idea, but there will be variations.

Anyways, it is update time!

 

I did say I would pick up some more aluminium. I didn’t have time to run out to my normal aluminium supplier (plus, I had no idea if they were open) so I did a quick run past a hardware store, only to discover that they only had 2m of aluminium EA. GYAH! Oh well, it is sufficient for what I am doing today, I can buy more later. This just means more trips, and more chances to be distracted and think ‘hmm… I wonder what I could do with a cordless reciprocating saw…’ (Not very much for case modding, but opens up a wonderful way to destroy things…).

So, I grabbed some aluminium, and also some nice strong metal bonding adhesive oh! and some long rivets! It was an exciting trip. The adhesive is for when I begin assembling the drive bay sides. In order to tie it in with the outsides, I want the drivebay sides to be seamless, which means no rivets or screws. Could be difficult, but we will see. The plan is to secure all my separate racks inside the drivebays with vertical thumbscrews through the support rail as opposed to horizontal thumbscrews through the drivebay sides. Let us hope that this adhesive is strong enough.

Anyways, building. Last time I left you I had run out of aluminium making hard drive rack bits. You saw the plan, which is almost exactly what I built. Those bits which I left you with hold the drives, so asides from needing a few more, I needed to have holes through which to secure the drives. Out with the drill and files and we get this. Four matched pairs of hard-drive securey bits (that is the technical term).

A little more aluminium and a lot of tricksy cutting got me to the test fitting point.

Sides and rails and all is done.

Now, at this point I had no idea if those rails would be able to support all the weight of 4 hard drives. I had not bothered to do any maths, I had just designed what I felt like. Rotational force could be dangerous. So, hoping and praying, I put together a bit of a test.

SUCCESS! Well… success with three drives, but the frame didn’t bend or twist at all, so I am pretty happy with it. It is simple, elegant and works pretty ok.

That was all for tonight, but I can sleep easy knowing that the ITX tray and CD tray are much easier.

Laz