Scratch Build – In Progress Project :: Kaiten X [08-17] Light Port Madness

its looking good so far keep it up :up:

 

Looking good and nice with an update.

 

Looking hawt there!

 

nice work on the find...surprising what some people use for certain things...(to me acrylic is like g0d-send) Gonna keep an eye on this one...keep up the good work

 

Great! It's good to see you back at this. It looks like a very promising project

 

oh looks class man, going to be watching this

 

Greetings Bit-Tech!

Yes, this project is being resurrected from the dead! Zombie case mods walk among us...

After making some initial progress I shelved it due to several problems. My life in general had taking some weird turns, coupled with a disintegrating relationship and general struggles building it in a 2 bedroom apartment.

Flash forward to a bit over a year later to this summer, it all fell apart. I lost my job at the start of January, and my twisted journey led to me moving to a whole new state in June after I could fight no more, financially and mentally.

As messed up as it has all been, I am finally now getting back to some normalcy in my life, restarting and resurrecting things on my backburner and getting back to my passions, which are music, and building computers. Past issues of hobby-unfriendly lady friends surreal life are gone now, and I have a new shop space and a new job now. I have no more excuses.

I have wanted so bad to dust it off and finish Kaiten X. I loved the design and have so far envisioned what it would look like sitting on my desk for the past 1.5 years. So, I am going to make it a reality now!

That was all a bit personal, but I feel I owe it to you who followed this so far an explanation of what happened.

I reconstructed the original log the best I could, though some images are missing now I think, my appologies for that. More or less this will be the start of a new log, but some of the original is still relevant.

Let us get back to it, shall we?



My first act was to cut out two new front and end plates. The reason mainly was to start with fresh acrylic, which is the same Amber/Orange as before. The original sheet I found in the back of an industrial complex had some kind of chemical sprayed on it or was outside too long, so the paper was damn near impossible to get off without wrecking the piece. Plus, I made a couple mistakes on the originals as well I was not content to live with.



The original mobo tray was shortened, I have a new idea about the drive arrangement.



This is what Kaiten X is so far, so it is about where we left it off

I intend to make some significant progress in the coming weeks, as my work is only part time, so these projects to me are invaluable to keep me busy, plus it is just damn time I got this one on its way.

I will be doing this one along side my other project in the works, Project :: SSC

Thanks all,

-Breach

 

Interesting shaped case I shall be watching
None rectangular (cuboid?) cases intrigue me, and this one is no exception. Looking great so far

 

Cool, welcome back - sounds like you deserve (and maybe need) some modding time... and I like the concept of this case!

 

Great work there
sorry to here about your troubles.
glad to see your life is getting better

 

cranking in the motherboard stand-off's like you described has only just caused stresses to build up and cracks will start to form, especailly once the motherboard is screwed down.

Other than that, love the case design!

 

@ Azayles Thanks! After seeing the Pype case I had not thought about using an X shaped configuration, which really is just two crossed rectangles I suppose. Thought it would be an interesting shape to work with. It is actually pretty efficient so far, which I would not have thought so

@murtoz Thank you much, I definitely have a need to finish these kinds of things now, as I finally have the freedom to

@Hovisloaf Thank you, it is indeed getting better, hopefully 2010 has the same vibe

@Burnout21 You are indeed correct, the only reason I think I did that was the lack of a proper thread tap which I have since gotten, I will be addressing the mobo standoffs in this very post Thanks for the kind words

Back Plate

To start off, I cut out a hole for the motherboard backplane in the rear plate



Measure twice, cut once...if you are lucky



I will be using these with the acrylic, special acrylic drills! These are vital when working with plastic, the long tip actually scrapes away the material instead of trying to cut through it, which will usually crack it.







Slow and steady with the Jigsaw using the green acrylic blades, little filing should finish it up





A little test fit with the mobo tray led to a preview of the effect I am after with the whole piece. I like where this is going

Motherboard Standoffs

As Burnout21 pointed out, my method of installing the motherboard standoffs was not that great of an idea, adding stress to the acrylic that could crack it.





I started by tapping each with my 6/32 tap, same as most motherboard standoffs.

But after this, a test fit of my dead mobo revealed that these were not spaced well...



So instead, I drilled each hole bigger, and will mount the board with long screws.

I decided I want to use a motherboard cover of some kind, so having the studs will make it easy to mount it later



Looking a little more computer-ish

Making a Stand

Now for something a little more fun - making Kaiten X stand on its own for the first time



I used my coping saw (and some WD-40) I chopped out a bracket from an aluminum L beam











Lots of measuring, drilling, cutting, filing, etc, the back end is able to stand up!

The same procedure was done for the front plate-





Then, something amazing happened -







She lives!

 

Mounting the Radiator Support

Now for the Radiator Support



Using the same L aluminum to make some basic brackets on both ends





The harder part was actually making sure the spacing was right so the eventual top cover would slip over the radiator. You can also see where I think the DDC pump will go too. Its going to get cramped in there!

From here-


To here -









Merry X mas everyone! I hope you were all good boys and girls

-Breach

 

I finally sat down today and decided on a final logo for Kaiten X, what do you think?





The font is called Concelian Jet, one of my favorites

The work continues, I should have another update soon!



-Breach

 

Italicize the 'X' as well, or at least have the 'X' match the angle of the word 'Kaiten'. It looks sort of goofy being straight with everything else having a slant. Other than that, sick mod man .

 

That actually looks pretty professional, like a sports logo or something. Top work

 

Thanks Achron! Yeah I think you are right, something looks funny there with the angles. The X was based on a Gothic font, I will have to try and match the text to it.

Thanks! I will never claim to be a Photoshop pro, I suppose I know enough to be dangerous though

I did play around a bit with the text, I arrived at just straightening the Concelian Jet part of it, which is already Italicized that way by default, and made the X smaller, I think it looks better, yeah? -

 

I personally prefer the italicised text and the normal logo over the normal text and smaller logo.

My two "pence"

 

Here it is the other way, even more Italicized to match the angle of the X, a compromise of both ideas.

I am guessing overall I will use mostly the X logo itself without any words on the case itself, but you never know. Thanks for your input Azayles!

 

Now THAT looks spotty dog
And you're most welcome