Scratch Build – In Progress Project: Honeycomb - Completed - CustomPC Featured Mod Nov 2012

Still waiting for the Bitspower and EK gear to arrive. I've been on vacation but now I'm back and working hard.

I've started cutting the back panel.


I'm now filing it then I'll cut the fan holes. Lots of work but not much to show. More to come.

Cheers till next time.

 

Woe Is Me

So the hole saw is not working out. Nor is the drill press. It does not have the RPMs to cut the plexi with the hole saw.

Here it is all setup to be cut.




Then disaster happened. The arbor bit for the hole saw some how... snapped?

It wasn't cheap but yet it wasn't an expensive one. $15 Irwin brand which is a well known hardware brand.

So when the drill press stopped mid cut it torqued the whole panel and snapped a piece of it.




Its the back of the case so I am going to see if I can repair it. If I can great, if not, I have to order a new piece and spend another 20 hours working on it.

Cheers till next time.

 

Ouch, that stinks. I hope you find a good solution.
Maybe slice the whole panel in half vertically and then you just need to recreate half (in plexi or alu). Or, after gluing the broken piece, you could put thin strips of aluminum around the border of the back panel - it will cover the repair and add a different look...

good luck and keep modding!

 

You shouldn't need an arbor when everything is clamped down.

 

Front Panel

I have to get over breaking the back panel and work on the front. Since the hole saw isn't working out I'll have to do it all by hand. I will be going uber slow to make sure I get the best cut I can. There will be some flaws but that is to be expected when doing things by hand. So here we go.

The first holes that I made were 4 1/2". Well I needed a 5 1/2" hole for the 140mm fans. After remeasuring for the 5 1/2" holes, I noticed that 3 of them would not fit on the HDD side. So I down sized it by about 1/4" and they all fit perfectly. I used a compass to draw the circles.


I then started out cutting the 2 fan holes on the mobo side of the case.


Next was the center one of the HDD side.


I heard from someone that you should tape the bottom of your jigsaw so that you don't scratch the plexi and so it glides better. Well it worked like a charm for me.


One to go.


All done.


I also drilled out the Power and Reset switch holes.


Next I have to drill the holes for the screws.




Now to test fit some of the fans.




And the switches.


Looks good. They stick out a smidge so I'll have to sand the holes a bit more or something.


I'm using 8-32 x 1 1/2" Socket Head Cap Screws with 8-32 Hex nuts.



I also did a little brainstorming on the I/O covers. I didn't like the ones that came with the mobo tray so I thought I would try my skill at making my own from some MNPCTECH Modders Mesh.

Stock cover.


I straightened it out as much as I could.


And after a bit of cutting and bending.... I got this. And it fits perfectly.


How does it look?

I finally got in touch with Delvie's Plastics to order some more plexi since I broke the back panel. I also needed the hexagons laser cut and I needed a few sheets of orange for the 2 side panel windows.

I bought some Orange paint while I was home on vacation. Do you guys think a Orange mobo tray and I/O back plate would look good Orange? Or should I just paint the I/O covers Orange? I appreciate the feedback.

Cheers till next time.

 

Lamptron Goodies



Lamptron hooked me up with a few things.

2x 12" UV Cold Cathode Kits




FC5v2 4 channel Fan Controller




You can check out the review I did for Lamptron on the FC5v2 here.


Thanks again to Lamptron for helping out with this mod!

Cheers till next time.

 

Media Card Reader Cutout

Since its a 3 day weekend I will be trying to get as much done as I can. Here is what I did last night.

So the media card reader will be in the front plate of the mod. I didn't want to put it anywhere... traditional?

Drilled holes to fit the jig saw blade.


After cutting.


It actually was really straight when I first cut it but I had to widen it roughly 2-3mm so that the card reader would fit snugly. This took almost an hour because I didn't want to take too much off.

As you can see here. Nothing is holding it up. It fits perfectly.


Flush with the front panel.




That's it for today. More to come this weekend hopefully.

Cheers till then.

 

nice cut for a jigsaw !

 

Coming Together and Side Panel Design

Yesterday and today I worked on putting the top and bottom panels onto the case. I also worked on the design for the side panel window today.

First I measured where I wanted the holes to be for the bottom panel.


Then I drilled and tapped them.


I then drilled the holes for the case screws and for the case feet.


Attached the feet.




In order to do the top panel I had to temperamentally attach the side and front panels.


Marked where I need to drill.


Another good fit.




I decided that I wanted to paint the motherboard tray and I/O backplate orange so I took them apart.


Sprayed them with some self etching primer.


And now I am putting the orange on. I am doing light coats so that it looks even.


Now for the side panel. I didn't know how I was going to draw the hexagons so I experimented first.







It looks ok but after 3 or 4 of the hexagons, it wasn't square.


So now what? It took me awhile but I then figured out that I should measure the hexagon I cut out and just make a grid on the panel. IDK why I didn't think of that in the first place but oh well.

Progress shots.










Starting to form the window.


And finally with all 4 windows cut out. Through the 3 small ones on the right, you will be able to see the 2 reservoirs.



I think I will start cutting the side panel tonight. Hopefully I'll get the motherboard tray finished today or tomorrow.

Cheers till then.

 

Cutting the Mobo Side Panel

After I finished drawing up the side panel yesterday I started cutting it. It took me roughly 4 hours to do the 1 large window and 3 small ones. I wanted ever cut to be perfect because you can always take more off, you can never put it back.

When cutting windows plexi, first thing to do is drill out your corners so you have somewhere for you blade to go.


First one done.


Second.


And finally the third small window.


You can see how the edges are just a bit off. So here they are after filing for a good 30 minutes to get it perfect.








Next up is the large window. I had to drill lots of holes.




Done! Well... almost.


Using the technique that I do, You will still have most corners looking like this but that's OK. I take my jigsaw and clean up the corners with ease.

All done!


Here are some shots to show the edges. Remember, this is all done by hand so its only about 95-98% perfect. I might have to file 1 or 2 of the the sides again.








And here is what it looks like on the case.




This is only the 1st level of the side panel. There will be raised hexagons on the top, one orange with a black one on top. And behind the window cut out there will be Orange and then the clear piece. The Orange will have LED's behind it to give it some glow.

Since I have some clear plexi I figured I would cut that to size too and since I don't have a table saw or a laser cutter, I had to make my own.

Here I am using a level as my guide so that the line is perfectly straight.


Up close shot.


Not too bad.






And since I cut that piece off, I used it as my straight edge for the next cut.


Another good cut.




The line to the left is where the frame stops.


Here is what it looks like in comparison to the panel.


That's it for now. I'm still painting the mobo plate and I/O back plate. Until I receive more plexi all I can do is attach the front panel. I might find some other small things to do but nothing major.

Cheers till next time.

 

Nice work, but you really need to resize the pictures before uploading them, ~800x600 pixels is plenty, or use thumbnail links to the full size images; some of the pictures are 4000pix wide which is just silly ( not everyone has a 58" screen to view pictures on ).

 

Yeah that... that's actually what I was going to comment on just now

 

PM me how to do these "thumbnails" please.

 

hey! big pics me likey! (okok 4k IS silly...) but im at 24" 1920x1200, then 800x600 is even worse... cant see them thumbnails... =P

OT: seems like hex is the shape of the year quite a lot of design based on hexagons this year, not a bad ting because it's very modular and "changeable"

if you makes more sidepanels, use the ruler across your work and at more then one row at a time. (somewhat diagonally) will spare you bunch of time when you draw on the panel
+rep for the insane handcutting

 

I'm running a pair of 24" 1920x1200 monitors as well... the main issue for me is load time, and the fact that it takes 1.2GB of RAM to view the thread (I have 8GB total, but not the point).... Not to mention that the content inside of the forum is a fixed width, so regardless of whether or not you're on 1024x768 or 1920x1200 the forum is the same width

PM sent Fuganater

On topic though, I really like the work you've done here, it's looking very well done, and the details are looking quite nice

 

download photoscape - run all your pictures trough that and resize them.
1: it will decrease your upload time
2: it will decrease our download time

Nice work on the window though!

 

Ok ok... BTW I hate small pictures. You lose so much detail. But I will for the next update.

 

yea... i hate the fixed width... a screenshot of my browser looks just silly... >.< load time is not an issue for me cause i have a 100/10 connection, and you have the ram to use it

however 1600x should be a nice res, and would still ease your loadtime? a lot less pixels atleast... to see details in a 800x600 pic can be hard without zooming in a bit >.<

 

Looking good Fuganater this is one big case. When you use JB weld if you sand the alu down with dry rough wet & dry and then clean it with surgical spirits then apply the JB weld straight after the bond is miles stronger.

 

Really impressive work with that jigsaw