Scratch Build – In Progress RTX scratchlog: done, but not final update

Sorry about the bad news teyber. Just because your parents are both psychologists,... it doesn't escape the fact that they are both human. Humans make mistakes. Thats what being humna is all about. There are people you will get along with,... there are people you wont. There are people you did get along with but now you dont. My parents got divorced when I was just about your age. I was strong. You need to be strong too. That fact that they still want to be a "family" for you tells me that they both love you very much dude. Atleast you have that. My father could give two s@#$s about me or my other siblings. As for your project,... don't let your situation keep you from working on it. It is something you want to do. You can't stop. If you stop working on it,... you might stop doing something else and then something else after that,... you have to keep going with whatever it is in life you do. Understand? Plus your doing a good job. We all would hate to see you stop,... so mush on little man!

 

Dude,... what color LEDs are you using and what resistor? Blue LEDs? What resistor are you using? According to

http://www.luxeonstar.com/resistor-calculator.php

Source Voltage = 12v
LED forward voltage = 3.4
LED operating current = 20

You need a standard 360ohm 1/4watt resistor
Resistor Color Code = Orange/Blue/Brown

Try that if you haven't already.

PSU+ +RES- +LED- +LED- +LED- -PSU

I dont know if the resistor has a pos or neg side.

 

thanks for the kind works tribal.

I went out and spent 3 hours soldering led's and i couldn't even get it to blinker. I was so discouraged...

so i needed a acomplishing feeling, and my acrilic zalman panel... lets face it and be honest here, o.k? it looked like crap. it was a good idea, and looked cool sitting on my desk, but it wasn't going to match. So i redid it, and i love it. I have a lot of metal laying aroudn from cutting bigger sheets into the size of my case, so i learned that when drilling(cutting too?) metal always use oil : rofl : wish i new that a lot earlier... I redrilled the holes, and for some reason covering it with 3 in 1 oil made me feel like i was operating a mill and i started fantasizing about using a cnc machine... idk why but the way the oil reacts to the spinning bit is really cool to me, and it leaves metal shavings that look like art. They are tiny, and long, and absolutely perfectly wrapped with no flaws....

So i drilled it, and test fitted it:

Shot with COOLPIX P4 at 2007-07-10
keep in mind i have not done any sanding whatesoever.

Shot with COOLPIX P4 at 2007-07-10

and here was the effect i was trying for with the acrilic, it completely glows and is awsome!!!

Shot with COOLPIX P4 at 2007-07-09

I am going to paint the faceplate black,(brushed texture), and i think its going to look truley amazing. The knobs, switches, and screws are all brushed silver, and then the paint is goign to be a opaque/ish black. As of now , it looks so cool! hard to explian, but it looks very contemporary... but then also reminds me of a old fashion radio... i love it, and it looks like something you would buy!

thanks for all your support guys, i plan to cut out the rest of the windows tomoro!(and hopefully they don't turn out as awfull as the last)

And guys, im so picky if something doesn't look right, tell me. Ill notice it when its too late and want to fix it. If i can't get that window to look better (by hours of filing) ill redo the side panel, don't worry about that...

so untill next time, late!

 

sorry, i didn't answer this as i took a while responding to the last post.

Using some high powered blue led's(like 4.5v or so, and i don't care if i blow them out i just want to learn): ( for the real case it will be blue, which i think is 3.1 or 3.3v?) and in a series, i bought a bunch of variety packs of different sizes, and have tried like 4 different resistors and ohm/watt resisters, no no avail. I mean it won't even turn on a little...

Tomoro, at my dads birthday with his aunts and uncles, im going to see my uncle who is very helpfull with computer stuff. Im going to have him help me solder and see if theres somthing wrong with my technique

thanks for checking in on my thread tribal it feels great to hear advice/complements/constructive criticism from a god like you

 

Sweet! Learned from your mistakes and it came out that much better! Thats cool. Now,... if your using 4.5v LEDs and you have 3 of them,... thats 13.5v need to power them. you only have 12v and you had a resistor in the loop. No way those would light up. Even if you ran them without the resistor. I'd run two of those 4.5v LEDs with a resistor. The normal blues are typically run at 3.4v. 3 of these and a resistor will work fine.

 

that re-drilled front panel looks nice

 

thats waht i did, i triend 2 4.5 on a 12v with a resister, then i switched to the 5v and ran one of the LED's with no resister to narrow down the problem, and it still didn't light up! somethign fishy here...

 

thanks! your the one who inspired me to re-do it!

 

Just make sure you have the right resistor in the loop. If one of those 4.5v LEDs dont light up at all on teh 5v then the LED is bad. Has to be.

 

Or there's no power. Get a meter. Seriously. $20 for a cheap meter. It will help tremendously!

 

Why not a parallel circuit? Then you don't have to worry about the amount of LED's and if one blows, you don't lose the whole thing. On a serial, if one LED blows, the whole thing is gone.

 

Thats not true. The whole thing would be a total of 3 LEDs. If you want want to run several LEDs, depending on the LED specs,... you run like 3 LEDs per series and then run several series in parralle. So if one LED goes, only the other two in that series will go.

 

Oh yeah, sorry, it's only been about 20 years since basic electronics class. I just admitted what an old turd I am.....LOL.

 

yeah, i plan on getting a meter...

Im going to chalk it up to a bad connection, as it was a molex to sata adapter that was really old and was under my bed. Also, i soldlered the (+) led end on top of the stripped 12v wire, rather then completely wrapping it around the 12v. Well, i think i can fix it, but im not in the mood today.


Shot with COOLPIX P4 at 2007-07-10
woke up at 8:00am(usually i wake up like 10 so big deal for me) so that i could get back to work.

Shot with COOLPIX P4 at 2007-07-10
please do not tell me that its still wavy, i havnt taken the file to it yet. but look at the corners, not perfect but a lot better i would say


~teyb

 

dude it's nice work I see the box not stret cut.. this is in the plans ?

other wish it's good work. Well done

 

wow man this is alot of 15 years old dude

wow this is a real example that no limit age for computers lovers man this is very good wowo nice work buddy

nice work really you have fancy hardware and tools.. most of us don't have them but well done and take care and good luck

 

thanks man!

i got the edges completely smoooooth... and finished cutting the other windows

im going to go get lunch, them take pics and post them k?

 

Shot with COOLPIX P4 at 2007-07-10
Here is the right side

Shot with COOLPIX P4 at 2007-07-10
the top

Shot with COOLPIX P4 at 2007-07-10
still not perfect but good enough.

Still needs some fine filing, but im very pleased!

and fyi,

im going to be redoing the RTX logo, and on the T of the hard drive racks, im go ing to redo that.

later
~teyb

 

buddy your project is really to me

 

you don't like it? what don't you like?