Scratch Build – In Progress Lean and Green - 15-12-14 - as complete as it's going to get

Thanks Blood even with drilling it to bits it was a hefty filing session lol.

I wanted to avoid doing any milling with the new drill press but did it very carefully this time going in 0.5mm steps or about that also checking for it getting hot but was OK, the drilling caused more heat & the filing took extra long with trying hard to not let it bend.
Hopefully won't need anymore bits milling & using layers should be enough from now, really appreciate the offer though Kier, bit-tech community is doing awesome.

BT community is awesome other than anonymous pesky star trolls pre judging awesome projects & doing it in spite even if they are awesome projects that are completed but I hope that stops, it's a crappy thing to do.

Uggugugug wheres me spinach thanks Squigly.

Thanks Fonne

Fairly small footprint but a bit of a skyscraper thanks Meelobee.

I'll have a go at making the first custom fan next so might not have an update today but hopefully tomorrow or the day after at the latest, making the hoop difficult to see the seam will be a fair challenge I think & need to be absolutely sure the fan blades don't go flying off.

Things to do on the HTPC.

Custom 140mm all aluminium custom fan.
Spindicator assembly basic mount shielded from potential shorts.
Filling gaps around the front.
Cable management holes.

The multi curve piece that tidies up the join between the HTPC & stand & gaming rig, I was struggling with working out how I'll make that work well but thanks to Attila doing what he did on his latest I have a good idea now to make a sturdy piece now, some solid material to give it a strong spine that slots in place, bit more design work for that.

 

Looks like you have been busy Thats some crazy work you have been doing....

 

Let me see if I read this right... You didn't use the cross slide and a mill bit to work the material down? Are you some kind of masochist? You could have milled down a little box in the middle and filed the edge material off at least.

 

Everyone has his or her own crazy fetish, for Waynio it's filing, loads of filing..

 

Wow, looking great!

 

This is madness!! Filing machine you are mate, your hands are now officially bigger than your legs! Mod on buddy!

 

Every time I look at this one, I'm blown away by the skills you display. Can't wait to see the finished product. Keep up the great work.

 

Was a bit thanks Sarakon.

I wanted to avoid doing any milling on the new drill press but did a tiny bit but going down 0.5mm at a time was taking forever, I'm faster at filing & that's with ancient files I should upgrade my most used ones really.

It beats doing weights because you burn fat away & make something nice at the same time, better use of energy I think.

Thanks Mosquito

Thanks Alex

Thanks avolla, I still think it's doable to meet the deadline.

The day after the filing session I just slouched about having a nice lazy day watching Fringe lol.

Day after that I went through the design making sure I have bits I'll need, ordered some more 3mm, 5mm, 6mm & 8mm aluminium round bar, will also need to order some 1mm, 2mm & 4mm sheet for the gaming rig but that's not immediately needed.

Right now picking out spray paints for colouring the fan blades of the plastic ones.

Also weighed up the cost to make the pedestal, for the aluminium, MDF, 2 different veneers & strong castors it's gonna cost £200 I could replace the veneers with a vinyl but hmmm, maple veneer & walnut would be very nice with the polished aluminium accents, the pedestal might happen this year but if not then possibly January to March 2013 the biggest "if" is if I can get the MDF here, it's a giant 1200mm x 2400mm x 18mm sheet & even if I have it delivered for £30 which is more than the sheet costs I'll still need someone to help me carry it around the back or turn the main road into a temporary workshop while I do a mad marking & cutting frenzy, too big to get through the house.

Ripped a fan apart to see how the heck I will fix the motor to the custom frames I'm making, simplest solution is to just cut the square frame off keeping the wire tucker since the custom panel for that is only 1mm aluminium so will have to make the fans 1mm deeper & I'll JB weld the fan motor & wire tucker to it so it should retain the good rigidity & paint the back ends of the fans so the completed fans won't be seen until I've got everything anodised but I'll be able to show a loose fit of them.

But now I'm going to order the paint & then continue the project.

 

Looking forward to seeing the fans come together... Sounds like it should be awesome!

Can you get half sheets of MDF anywhere? I know here I can usually get them in 4'x8' as full size, or 4'x4', 2'x4' 2'x2', and some places have 2'x8' as pre cut panels. It's usually cheaper for the full sheet, but not always the most practical.

Pedestal project in 2013... Pedestal NAS perhaps?

 

Sorry for leaving you hanging there Mosquito been working things out before I get to a point a couple of weeks away from the deadline where I am waiting for materials instead of getting on with this the pedestal could be modded to be a NAS sometime ahead, a bit about the MDF or plywood I mention in this planning update.


Pedestal
Pricing of MDF & plywood at local DIY stores is a bad joke unfortunately.

18mmx1220x2440mm MDF £18 or plywood £29 but I'd need a big van to transport it, this 1 piece covers what I need so this is an annoyance plus I'd rather use 25mm thick but they don't offer it.


6x 18mmx1220x606 £93 in MDF at £15.50 each & £221 in plywood at £36.82 each, plywood at half the size near £8 more expensive LMAO yeah that makes sense.


Veneer on top about £25 for each flavour so between £150 & £300 so too flipping much, so wood work is officially an insane choice of material for me.

So now I know I should just make an all aluminium version would be far cheaper & lighter weight too, flipping heck the amount of aluminium I could order for the cost of that basic wood LMAO, it's an absolute no brainer.

Bars & sheets of aluminium simply making the aluminium order a little bigger, biggest challenge will be making it not resonate any vibes but yeah it will be a lot cheaper than using sheet wood & veneer & instead of nice looking woods I'll just make it nice some other way, plus making it as a frame & covers it will be very highly moddable in the future, think it might actually be nicer too.

So I'll just work the design change to see what material I will need, add them to the order I was going to do for extra materials I need to complete Lean & green, get it ordered with some spare bits to hopefully cover extra bits I do making it up as I go so I won't have any delays running up to the deadline & get extremely busy, gonna need a new screw order too, there will be many used on the pedestal & it has to be as strong or stronger than the one I designed but it will be lighter.



Lean & green, main current topic.
Worked out a design to make the joining cover nice & sturdy between the 3 pieces, it's a mix of 15mm acrylic & 3mm & 5mm aluminium rods, the curve & bend panel won't be fully fixed on until it's been anodised though because it's fixing on permanently with JB weld but the cover piece will be removable, just the cover will be stuck to the frame support.


Ordered & received 5 shades of silver metallic, black metallic & green metallic, white plastic primer, white primer, 2 cans of clear & worked out the paint job I'll do on the plastic fan blades, the blades on the akasa venom are quite different to the ones pictured in the model & will be a bit of a challenge to do this nicely but very much worth the effort.

2 of the shades of silver seem really similar so I'll have to do a faint quick haze of the darker ones for 2 of them so they work as intended together.









I had to do this bit of extra planning ahead to make sure the materials are here & ready for when I get to later stages else I wouldn't have a chance of making the deadline, November is all out gogogogo, fun times, but don't worry about it being rushed & compromised, it won't be, just the volume knob of dedication is going to crank up to maximum, big difference between rushing things & just applying yourself properly.

 

Wood is indeed expensive mate and im sure aluminium will look awesome to. I hope you make the deadline keep on going.

 

Dang, that is quite expensive...

Design looks good though. Really like those fans

 

Real solid wood is but MDF & plywood should be cheaper than that lol, thank you Paslis I'll be digging deep to try & complete in time.

It is for MDF & plywood.
Thanks mate, hope I manage to do the fans like in the concept, will be a bit of a challenge I think with rattle cans but I'll make stencils in the hope I can do it right.

Sorted the design change to support all aluminium instead of wood stacking so now have a lot of hollow space so more difficult to make strong & get nice curves & bends, took me all day yesterday & thought what the heck can I do to make it work & then light bulbs started flickering.

Old vs new




Internal support & I might add an extra support near the front, I'll also make a few rod drilling jigs to speed up perfect rod drilling because only the top & bottom ones will be using countersunk screws, the rest will be grub screws.




Couple more shots.




Figured what I need to complete this & bit the bullet ordering the aluminium last night, I'm broke again lol, received the aluminium rods today which I ordered on Monday though so I can complete the HTPC & fans now but because I was at the computer until I passed out last night I need a bit more rest lying down for a few hours to recover.

But I'll be constantly pushing forward at it as soon as I recover from the natural hangover.

It's hard to believe but I still have some bits to design when I get to further stages of the gaming rig.

 

ooooohhhhh it will be... schweet

 

Thanks jokkos

This update will seem feeble I know but I've not been slacking, just not been in the workshop much.

Got the extra rods & cut them to size & made a template for placing them correctly in the front corners but with the rods being 3mm & not 2mm I had to change design a touch again else it just wouldn't work so instead of 4 2mm rods I changed it to 2 3mm rods, the rest is the same, think I prefer it with just 2 rods instead anyway.


Now with 2 3mm rods instead of 4 2mm rods.


Thought I'd see how junior hacksaw blades do on the scroll saw because they are a cheap alternative to band saw blades, snipping the ends off with the metal shears which only seem to get used for things like this, the hacksaw blades do the job of cutting 10mm aluminium but they are more prone to snapping if you push them hard unlike the band saw blades, none of those snapped so must be made of a better material or processed better but as long as I stick to the limit before they do snap they will be good, they do a cleaner cut though with being a finer TPI count.


Made a drilling jig for rods using a bit of scrap 10mm plate & bit of a 3mm flat bar, just place the rod to be drilled in the drill vice, plonk this on top, line up & just drill & get perfect results, my favorite DIY tool & it works brilliantly, all these drilling ideas spawned from AngelOD saying how to do nice straight tapping, I just seen more potential from the idea but I probably wouldn't have thought of this without him saying about it, I'll make it compatible for square bars too, will save me heaps of time on precision drilling.






Also while doing extra design time I accidentally seen it upside down & I like it, looks so crazy lol.




I could make this happen but the fan controller would be upside down & it has digital readings so ugh nah it won't happen now.

If it weren't for that though I could, I'd need to add more strength to the gamer rig & a few more supports inside the HTPC because the HTPC will far out weigh the weight of the gaming rig, I feel it's a mistake showing this but it looks more right & I do remember voigts saying to flip the stand upside down in the early stages of this project & heat rising would usually be a problem but everything is covered by a good flow of air.

I'll be sure to post some upside down pictures of the completed rig instead lol.

Now I will resume progress & found out I now have until 9th December which makes up for the extra design days I just spent.

 

I love this.. Can't wait to see it finished!!! GL man

 

Good lord! This is getting mental!

 

Thank you Phame

Cheers Kidmod but just to be clear I'm not making it upside down I'd kinda like to all of a sudden but I'd have to re make a few time consuming bits but I just thought it looked pretty cool when I seen it like that while tweaking the design & thought I'd show it.


Decided I should turn updates off while I get my head into getting this closer to complete but when changing my settings I seen I can change it to weekly so done that.

I'll catch up on what I missed later, I'll be too distracted by loads of awesome projects in progress otherwise.

 

Upside down is the new right way up your on a role with them updates...keep them coming

 

Maybe a stupid question, but why didn't you just use the milling bit for the entire job here?