Case Mod - In Progress *** PHINIX AURORA *** - 12/10/14 - Grand Finale !!! It is done...

Nifty ideas you have there

 

Very nice indeed, looking forward to the future updated.

 

They hold forever to be honest. I came up with this when I was building the Cube 5 years ago and it still works, after dozens of times tightening screws really hard. It is very durable. Once inside, it doesn't come out, works perfectly.

Cheers guys!
New update next weekend, hopefully, as long it won't rain and let me go outside

 

No snow, no rain and the sun is shining - get some more modding done!

Ok, I admit, it is remotely possible that the weather in Scotland is marginally different to what I am experiencing down here.

Great tip for fitting the inserts.

 

Saw bump and had to peek in, crossing fingers for no rain!

 

Looking good

 

Playing a lot of COD are we?

 

Thanks guys
Unfortunately last Sunday was horrible, was snowing almost whole day!
Saturday was taken by my daughter - we spent whole day playing, shopping and dining
We don't spend much time during the week, so that day was a family day. Weather was ok, wasn't raining, so I thought that Sunday will be also good for my outdoor work. I was wrong - it started to snow from the the very morning! So yes, I didn't do anything, I couldn't risk to damage my tools in that weather, so had to postpone my work again to the next weekend.

That is why my plan is strong - together with my wife we decided that this summer we will do some work on the backyard - that includes new fence and brand new garden shed - a big one, so I could do my modding in there!

Weeeell, just a little

 

Despite the horrible weather last weekend, something very nice happened to me
I picked up a nice package from post office - it came straight from Slovenia.
I'm pretty sure you guys know what company has their headquarters there!
Ljubljana - nice city, beautiful girls and best water blocks for all modders!
EKWB guys were so kind and sent me nickel/acetal GTX670 water block for my card + a nice backplate! That is not all! - this month in their production process there will be a nice little white acetal top pushed through and sent to me! Yep, soon I will get a nice white top to match my build!
Here's my new shiny block

 

Guys, I'm happy to show something new. New as brand new, like first on market new!
Well known from their air cooling solutions company - SCYTHE - kindly sent me their newly announced fan controller Kaze Station II !
That controller is so new, that is not yet even available in shops. I may be the first who got it!
Why I'm so happy to have this controller? Because it has everything that I was looking after - it's small - 3.5", so won't take up whole 5.25" slot, it has 2 USB 3.0 ports, headphones and microphone out sockets and two channels 1A each for controlling fans! That means I will be able to plug two fans to each channel!
My fans are 0.4A each, so I can easily control speeds of two radiator fans from one knob. Second one will be for top and rear fans.
Perfect solution - I was looking for something like that and couldn't find it - there is no other controller like this one on market - small size, USB3.0 and fan controller for 4 fans.
So, here it is:

 

Cool, but the picture on that package kills me. -classic! I guess adding flames would have made the wrong impression, but you can tell they wanted too.

 

They still make bay accessories for 3.5" bays?

 

Sunshine!!! Sunshine!!! Guys!! I have sunshine!!!!
I'm going out !!!

 

Looking good Phinix! I'm loving it! (I work at McDonald's, I know...)

 

wow, i actually caught a project log relatively early for once. Subbed!

 

It's more like lasers, Cheaps

Yes, and thank God they do - only big-ass TJ08 mods may use 5.25" stuff.
I'm more a "minimalisation" lover, so prefer small mods, small builds, where 3.5" is perfect.
I was so happy I found this one right after it was announced. It has perfect combination.

 

Cheers! (...and gimme a mac with fries ;D)

Thanks, I hope like slow paced projects, cause this one is not two weeks job

 

OK, so today I had a good weather! Yep, sun was shining whole day, so I had to go out and do some work on my little Aurora.

I spent about 4-5 hours, my back hurts, my fingers are swollen, but it was totally worth it

All was set and ready to action right after a breakfast!




I finally got to finish power cage. Before I only showed you guys a mockup made of all cut out pieces of aluminum and few acrylic stands.
So today I took all those aluminum walls and filed and polished them. I had to trim them a bit too, to fit them evenly with those stands.
Previously I had two tall stands ready with those brass inserts pushed in. I needed to finish up that third one, smallest, which was going to go in the back of the cage.

So I drilled holes in it, pushed those inserts using same technique as before and screwed it to the case.








Using small M3 screws, (all I had left, few are missing on photos, but I'll buy some more later, no worries) I screwed it all together, so after an hour of adjusting the edges and trimming all walls, power cage was ready






Inside the cage, from the back




...little stand looks good and keeps the whole structure very steady.




..and here is cage without top panel, so you can see both tall stands...








Last weekend, when it was raining and I couldn't do anything, I took a trip to B&Q and bought myself a nice 1m long L shape profile aluminum.
I cut it up today to few pieces.
They are not ready yet, they need some more work to be finished, but that I will do next weekend.
Small pieces will be a support for rear motherboard wall and radiator cage.
Those two long ones will be corners for rad cage - between them I'll put a nice mesh. In this part I'm going to mount radiator with fans, so you can imagine how it is all spread around the interior.








I also cut out the front of original interior of the case.
It was necessary cause radiator will stick out a bit to the front later on, when I mount it.
It just a rough cut, so please don't mind those "almost straight" edges




last thing to show are few bits I cut out today too.
First, thin long one, is a fill-up piece for motherboard. What exactly it does? See, my mobo has 244x220mm so it isn't exactly default mATX size - so I made this bit to fill up the gap between mobo and end of the mobo tray. I'll think of later what I'm going to do with this.. maybe a nice logo, or some cut outs to make it look more interesting.. will see..

3 rectangles are aluminum plates that go under each acrylic drive shelf - two for SSDs and one for HDD. These will be mounted under the opal 10mm thick acrylic "beds" and will be a support for LEDs - that I will show later, I'm sure you guys gonna like it I can only say right now that they will be like a "lighting panels" for each drive.
Last piece, big rectangle - is a radiator stand. You can see on those photos some middle lines drew on it - those are the lines where I will bend it. It will simply be a L shape stand for radiator, which will be screwed in to bottom of the case. Other end will be covering a radiator up to the edge of first fan. I hope that makes sense. Well, you will see that next weekend.

Here is all drew up and ready to be cut up




...and here are all cut out pieces, still rough edges, need some more looovin' from my file



Cool. So that is it for now. I hope you guys enjoyed those few photos from today's update.
If weather let me, next weekend I will do some more work on those rough pieces left today.
BUT - I also have something that will show you - a pretty big update on that drive cage, so STAY TUNED !!!

 

dont worry about being slow, slow paced projects show dedication, and patience

EDIT: not that fast paced ones dont

 

Glad to see you making progress. It doesn't have to be super fast it's not a race so we'll just sit back and enjoy the show.