Project: HYPERCUBE² 21/03/2005 PICTURES FROM CEBIT

[Joungne]

Hi all,

I'm building myself a cube case inspired on the movie "Hypercube". The project log is on my website, and i update it almost every day. Right now I'm on day 6 and I think its time to show the world what I'm dooing.

I dunno if I have to post the pictures here as well, If so pls tell me

here's my log : http://www.g-2.be/hyper

all comments and questions are welcome

greetz,

Joungne

[bullfrog]

Its ure project and everything but alot of people are to lazy to travel all the way to a different site so i think it better to post pics on log, it also say u have to in the rules or it will b moved.

[AnarKy]

Looking great m8. The cuts are nice and everything is looking good.

Good luck

[¿þŘΩĐĮĢΫ?]

mmmm i like the overall design of the case, keep up the good work

[Aa-chan]

That looks absolutely amazing . The amount of work and detail going into it is huge and it's already starting to take shape. I really want to see what's under the foil too .

Good Luck!

[Arkuden]

that looks awesome man. I dont mind traveling to a diff. site like that esp. since it is very organized and not bogged down with lots of comments and what not. I cant wait to see that thing finnished. Im hoping that someday ill be able to do a cube mod, they look like lots of fun

[Joungne]

10/07/2004

I got my plexi today :-). It has already been cut into the right shapes, but I need to cut a lot of holes in these panels so that is gonna be a daunting task. I'm gonna use different techniques for these cutouts : handsaw, jigsaw, drill... but I'll explain along the way...

So lets begin

Here you see all the plexi nicely arranged by type on my desk. I'm gonna use two types of plexi. The plain transparant one everybody knows and a frosted white plexi, thats a bit translucent and lets light trough. Its a pitty the sides of the panels arent polished (the company who deliverd them didnt had the time to do this because they were gooing on holiday for 3 weeks, and otherwise I had to wait for all this time. So I choose to get them like this and polish the sides myself.


First things first, lets measure the panels if they are correct ;-). This one should be 115 and as you can see its 115.1mm so pretty close. All the panels seemed to be perfectly cut. I only made a mistake in my drawing for the plexi, so seems like I'm gonna be cutting more then I expected.


Time for some first testings. I bought different types of sandingpaper to polish the plexi. First 400 grid, then 800 grid and at last a 1200 grid. You can find these types of sandingpaper atyour local paintstore. All these papers can be used "wet" and they work better that way. The water makes a kind of pasta from the plexi and that is used to polish it up.


Sanding down the plexi ;-)


keeping on sanding, its a timeconsuming task, but wel worth the effort


Here you can see a little the "pasta" I was talking about earlier, it really gets the plexi nice and flat. if your sanding down plexi you should use a straight base so the edge stays straight during sanding.


My first panel I have to cut out. I removed the plastic cover on the plexi (this is the frosted plexi) I hoped on plexi with paper on, but it came with plastic and comes off very easy


Then I covered it with large maskingtape and put the cutout shape on it.


Drilling time. I'm drilling with a metal bit on a very low speed, the slower the better. the hole is to fit my jigsaw in.


Cutting the panel with my trusty jigsaw ;-) (Also a small metal saw in it)


all done with the cutting and sanding it down to get a straight edge. Actually its quite easy to get a straigt line when cutting with a jigsaw, only don't go too fast otherwise the plexi will melt back together. Thats about it for today, tomorrow is another day ;-)

[Joungne]

11/07/2004

Day 2, time for some more cutting


A side panel ready with maskingtape waiting to get a center hole :-)


Drilling 2 holes for the jigsaw again



Cutting the corners as straight as possible, just one side at a time


the finished cutout, needs to be sanded



thats good enough, a fan has to be installed in the hole


with the fan, fits perfect


A few plates that are done, the one with the silver is a test, you'll see it again in a while. Thats it for today, didnt get much don, hopefully tomorrow I can do more

[Joungne]

13/07/2004

I got my INOX today, straight from the lasercut. I couldnt wait to unpack everything. So all the sides of the cube are in INOX with PLEXI, and because I wanted a very nice finnish, I opted for a lasercut. Inox is a very hard material and it would be very difficult to do all the cutting myself. Although I have to make some cuts for the mobo and a few holes for screws. But I hope I will be able to do it. The INOX is 2mm and has a brushed front. Right now the panels are covered with plastic foil. They told me I could remove it easily with "ACETON" So I'm gonna run to the shop tomorrow to get some. Now for the pictures :-)


All the panels lined up, at the left side you see the back (upper left corner) and the front with the slot for the DVDrom. The small pieces are some fangrills and some cover up panels for the middle square of the big panels, a panel for the LCD and one for the powerbutton. I also got the bolts for free :-) Thank you mister Stockbroeckx.


Some closeups


the panels look dirty, but thats where the laser burnt the plastic





I also got my Frame for the cube. Its made out of 15*15*3 mm aluminium U profiles welded togheter. They did a very good job on this. On my drawings I had no tolerance, so the frame had to be really precise. The outer dimension are 274*274mm and the inner dimension 244*244mm (the exact dimension of a mini atx mobo :-) After measuring it, they got it right with a tolerance of 0.5mm. In the picture you see how the plexipanel 244*244 fits nicely in the frame.


a sneak preview ;-)

[Joungne]

4/07/2004

Time to begin on the frame, I need some profiles on which the inside will rest. I bought some T profiles 15*15*2mm, cut them at the right hight and sanded them down.

So lets begin


This is the piece that needs to be fitted on to the frame


Measuring for the correct hight


To fit it on to the frame I'm using some heavy duty transparant glue.



I have to make sure its in the correct place the first time. When the glue hits the surface it sticks immediatly.


All four profiles have been cut and glued into place. Testfitting one of the inside panels


Looks like everything fits nicely. here you get an idea how the inside is gonna look, very roughly. All the cables, PSU, rheobus and other stuff will be in the middle box. The harddrives will be on the sides of this box in a vertical position.


Next thing on the list. The inside plates have to be cut. Masked them with tape, traced out the shapes and drilled holes to fit the jigsaw in.


Fine sanding the edges with my girlfriends nailpolish thingy. That thing does miracles. It really gets in the corners and its easy to get the edges straight. It took about 5 hours to get all the shapes out. I'll post a picture of the finished panel later.

[Joungne]

16/07/2004

Today I'm gonna put the inox panels ont the Alu frame. I especially asked to not make the holes for the screws in the Alu frame. I wanted it to do myself, so it's gonna be as precise as possible. For this I had to drill holes in the frame and tap the them so the screws turn in the frame. I found a drillbit that taps in 1 time. Look for the picture a little lower. The screws are M5 rvs 10mm, so I have to drill a 4mm hole and then tap it with the 5mm tapdrill.


Setting up the frame on my desk, it has to be firmly attached so it wont move. The top plate of inox already in place


Setting up the corners.



this is the 5mm tapdrill,I'm quite impressed by the way it works


The tapped hole in closeup with the bolt next to it


The bolt is a bit too long. sawing it off with a metal handsaw.


The top panel with all the bolts. I' m very pleased how it came out, every corner is exactly on the sides of the frame


notice the finished plexi panel in the middle ;-)

I thought I could do all the panels today, but time flies when you're having fun, I'll do the last panel tomorrow and gonna try the small fans to I guess. Hope they fit :-)

[piloux]

I subscribe to your thread , this is going to be awesome , keep up the good work

[Joungne]

17/07/2004

The toppanel goes up today, the fans and the switches of the Rheobus will be placed and checked. Think I have to drill out the holes for the switches a bit bigger, after measuring it seems they are 6.2mm and the holes only are 5mm :s


all the panels in place and the inside base plexiplate for the PSU and HD's




Time to look at the back fans, they will conduct the air out of the case. I choose the blue ice chipsetcoolers from coolermaster because they have a transparent 40mm fan on the heatsink. They are also lighted with blue leds, but I'll get to this later, because I want to change them to white.


the chipsetcoolers



Drilling the holes for the bolts a little bit bigger with a 5mm drillbit.


And it fits :-) (It looks very dirty, but this is only the plastic foil on the inox, cant wait to remove it actually)


the switches for the rheobus (10 in a row, above them there will be white 5mm leds with sockets)


Ok thats it for today, next thing on the list is the inside of the case. Have a few plexi plates to cut out. Hopefully I get some things by mail tomorrow. Still waiting on the sleeving from the US and my chaintech mobo (has to come from the netherlands)

[Joungne]

Ok guys, all the pics are online now :-)
hopefully you have cable or adsl ;-)

Gonna start modding again tomorrow

greetz,

Joungne

[mrplow]

[Nath]

The project looks great joungne! The accuracy and the precision (same thing i think) are absolutely amazing, i've never seen a modder specify something to less than a millimeter...

[hjertis]

Look SWEET!! wish I had the money to build me my own cube

[piloux]

I just see that you come from belgium

[Xenocide]

Wow looking amazing.

Can't wait for an update!

[Joungne]

Originally Posted by piloux

I just see that you come from belgium

hehe, jeps ben ook van Belgie, Gent meerbepaald, en jij?
Very nice case by the way, Actually you inspired me few months ago to start modding