Scratch Build – In Progress Project : Zotac ITX Rebox -12th Feb - Completed - MOTM nominee

Your work with acrylic is very good, I'm jealous... help me build a plate I'm gonna need for my build haha

 

Awesome acrylic work. Cant wait next update...

 

Cool idea with the foam cutter. I will have to keep that in mind, for future projects.
I guess the bends are more precise using this method?
However, it's looking realy promising.
Keep it up

 

Looks good so far - I'd like to see other colors myself (for purchase )

 

sorry my bad

 

Thanks for the comments

Thanks The_Gnu . The strip heater works really well . The acrylic bends exactly where you want it to . Much better than the heat gun .... sort of like the difference between and chainsaw and a scalpel only it's quicker too , about 45 secs for the 2mm . So more like a petrol powered scalpel ......

I was going to do different coloured side panels as I can cut them myself and I've got a few different colours .... do you think that is enough or would you like to see different coloured covers too ?

 

Can you give more details of the strip heater? Just the voltage, current and type of wire

 

sorry 1st post x 3 >.<

 

hey nice work on the bender. details ect how to make one? been looking around for one
also nice work on the case ( and your last cases ) ill be watching this thread for more updates from you should be good

 

Now I'm not 100 percent on all this but .... The transformer I'm using says 30 volts and 2 amps the wire is about .5mm in diameter so I think it's 24 swg , it's NiChrome wire . You can buy it on ebay .

If you look on the pictures you can see that although the wire is about 1300mm long one of the electrical connections is adjustable so you can fine tune the temperature . Moving that connection a couple of inches makes a noticeable difference . Hope that helps

Today's progress ....

Now I'm a bit more certain about where I'm going with this I started on an accurate template for the base .



First proper go at a base .





Made a jig to hold everything square while gluing the sides on .



Bit of weight to hold everything steady .



Sides stuck



And a trial fit with the old top .



Now I know I said I wanted to keep the front face clean but now that I look at it I rather like the white edge of the top showing .....

 

beautifully done.

my plexi never turns out that precise when bending it.

 

Wow that is really good!

 

You make it look so easy to bend acrylic! Thanks for the details - I think it's mainly the current that matters, so as long as whatever I use can supply 2A I should be fine

 

Now if you could make something that could fit a mATX system, I'd be interested. I'd be curious as to how much that would cost to get shipped over to the states.

 

Very nicely done - nice and clean.

 

yeah thanks ill have a lookies around for some wire ect.. how do you think 12v 20amp would do?
more amp/volts? do you think..
also do you think it would damage/hurt the psu? sorry if to many questions
was thinking of like a voltage control/psu ( build both from local ele. store )

nice work ( again ) like the colors

 

wish i had that much skill!

 

when do these go on sale ??
nice clean work

 

Thanks ! .... the strip heater helps a lot .

Cheers Razer

I'm not sure I'm making it look that easy it's taken me about 25 attempts to get this far and it's still not 100%

Re the transformer etc ... tbh I've got just enough knowledge of things electrical to get myself into trouble All I can really say is that my transformer is 30V and 2A but before I took the power supply apart to check the transformer ( I built it about 15 years ago so was a little vague on it's spec ) I measured the resistance of the wire and came up with about 7 ohms . Using V=IR I come up with about 4A seems high to me . I checked what the resistance of NiChrome wire is and it's supposed to be about 100 microhms per cm so for the length of wire I'm using about 10 ohms or 3A . See what I mean ..... just enough to get myself into trouble

I don't think the design would scale up to mATX . I mean to be honest it's a simple box no support for a psu , I don't think the 2mm would be rigid enough at that size , nothing for hdds , no real way to fit an expansion card etc . By the time you've sorted all those thing out the case costs more than a high end ali case . There is someone on here who makes cnc perspex cases , I can't remember his user name but I think he's based in Australia ? They are very very nice .

To ship this case to the USA would be about £15

Hi Liighthead ..... see my reply to Fredcompany and just to say it again I'm really not sure

The strip heater is really simple . Just a bit of wire held in tension some how . I made the tensioning bolts but a simple spring or even a bit of bungee cord would do it . Fit all to a base and make something to support the acrylic above the wire

You probably do

If the costs for the laser cutting work out , sometime in the new year . If you are that keen I might have a 'pre-production' one sooner ( still likely to be in the new year though )

 

with all the time in the world i couldnt get quality like that!