Scratch Build – In Progress The best micro atx case ever to grace the world with its existence, filled with posibilities and opp

Time to get an update on those acrylic blocks!

So I went to FabLab yesterday to try out the ShopBot. I had some help from one of the employees with maneuvering the machine



The acrylic was taped to an MDF-plate using double sided tape. The MDF-plate was used to secure a plane surface for the machine.

First piece up was a window in 5 mm acrylic. I wanted to mill an edge, so I can make a gapless window in the sidepanel. Another reason was to test out the milling speed and the quality of the mill bits. I ended up ordering a 6 mm single-flute mill for the bigger cuts and a 2 mm single-flute mill for the o-ring channel and more precise pieces. After consulting the almighty p0Pe, I ended up buying mill bits made specific for acrylic due to giving a better finish.





Luckily everything worked out as expected, and the result was great



Onwards to the big slab






Here's also a short video of the machine at work


End result looked like this


Fast forward 2 hours of intimacy with sand paper and polishing oil, and it looked like this


And finally, "mounted" inside the case. I've said it before, but this is going to be epic


I still need to plan out the distroplate, but I wanted to test out my skills on the reservoir before I comitted to an even more complex piece. No need to worry about that any longer, so now it's back to the drawing board and start working that ruler and angle measurer.

 

An audience with da' Pope even. Looking more worthy of the title lately.
Something like a new pencil eraser will help you get in those corners to sand. In fact, I use drafting erasers for sanding blocks a lot.

 

You're far too kind Cheapskate

It helps when you're from the same country and you're Skype contacts with him. Makes things a lot easier

I'll have to look into that eraser trick, since the corners are not quite as I wanted them to be

 

It's time to bring this a summer update.

So... Examns are upon us at university, which is one of the reasons why I don't get any work done on this thing. Another reason is... Have you ever had a thing you wanted to buy? Say something like a 1080ti. It's something that's going to make you max out your credit limit, but you're willing to do it, and set lots of other stuff on halt for a while IF the right offer comes around.

I had one of those things. Now, when I'm not gaming, studying or modding, I like to work out. More specifically I do triathlon. My current triathlon bike is 9 years old, and it's beginning to show its signs of aging. For the longest time I've dreamt of one of those fancy new bikes with integrated this-and-that for improved comfort and aerodynamics, but I've never been able to afford it. Luckily I stumbled across something on Facebook.

Here's where my money went


It's a Giant Trinity Advanced Pro frame. It has some minor damages, but nothing serious and nothing that can't be fixed. With this, once it's restored, I can have myself a bike at a pricetag I wouldn't be able to afford for many years, even after graduating uni and getting a job. As I said, it means I've used up all my saved funds, which sadly also means I won't have any money to keep the mod going this side of the summer. I'll keep you guys updated once I'm back in business!

 

HALF of a used bike... Ow. Also, somewhere in Denmark, there's a $600 wheel chained to a pole.

 

As the druids in Warcraft III says: "I'm awake, I'm awake..."

Now that summer is over, I think it's time to start working on this project again. Since I'm still in the process of milling the second block, I had to attend to some detail working.

So... Originally I had this juicy Asus Maximus Gene VII board, which I planned to use for the PC. Turns out it's semi-broken, and to make matters worse, the guy who sold it to me already knew. It arrived with several bent pins, and one of them was so bent, that when I tried to replace it, it snapped. Also it can't run with any dual channel RAM. It won't boot with any memory in socket 1 or 2. It really sucks, especially because everything else works fine. It boots fine, runs steady and everything, but those damn memory sockets...

I ended up trading my Asus Z97i Plus board for a MSI Z97M Gaming, which will be used instead of the Asus Gene. Not a bad tradeoff, but it's still annoying having thrown almost 90£ out of the window. On the plus side, the MSI board has much less red accent, so I decided to work with that last night. First thing to do was mask off where I didn't want the blue colour.



The red thingies at the top of the motherboard could luckily be unscrewed from the heatsink, which made it a lot easier to work with. I'm using a paint marker.



Now the most difficult thing was the dragon logo, but I think in the end it worked out fine, and I can now present you with quite possible the only blue MSI Z97M Gaming motherboard.





I really like how it turned out. It's going to look amazing with the blue sleeve, and the blue LEDs from the Corsair Dominator Platinum kit.

Now, this wasn't the only thing I did last night. I've always dreamt of lapping my CPU. I don't think it'll net me that big of a performance boost, but since it's a platform I will probably replace within the next year, I thought what the heck. First thing to work with was the CPU block though. It's a XSPC RayStorm block, and it's around 6 years old, so if I ruin it, I think it has earnt its retirement.

Sanded it down with 400-800-1000-1500-2500 grit sandpaper and finished it off with some car polish. The car polish corroded the top layer of the block, which means it's not mirror shine finish, but it's still much more flat than before.




That's it for now. Hopefully it wont be too long before I can bring the next update

 

May I suggest a new top for the cpu block?

 

Still not dead! Still... Not... Dead!

One of my favorite mods, which never got finished, just got revived a few weeks ago. If he can continue his modding, then so can I after a 6 months break. This semester is much less packed with lectures, so I decided to get to finish things.

I've cut out a new motherboard tray - which actually fits inside the case, and I've made a few design tweaks. Most noteably I've added air vents to the bottom of the case, so it can now draw air in from the bottom, and I can have both radiators blowing air out. It'll give much more effective cooling capacity. Secondly I've added two USB 3 ports to the top, but more pictures of those later.

For now I'll just show a quick picture of how the motherboard tray looks coupled with the fans moving air inside the component space.




And also a rendering of how the distro plate will look



'till next time!

 

Welcome back.

 

Thank you very much! Sure feels great to be back working. I can't stop smiling whenever I look at my project so far

In my personal opinion, designing your own case is extremely fun. It's a lot of work, but at the same time you can tailor the case to whatever you want it to be. Sometimes it works out great, and you end up making something completely unique. Other times, you end up wasting a lot of time, because whatever you planned doesn't work out once put into production - I've had that happen a couple of times haha.

 

@MLyons - DOO IIIIT! Bit needs more staff builds... that actually finish.

@Vognen - Been there. It usually involves a phone call. "Dude, The motor's too slow."

 

I've made all my cases in 5 mm acrylic. It takes some extra planning, since you need to consider where you have your weight bearing components, but in my opinion that's easily outweighed by how easy it is to work with and how cheap it is

 

They make a thing that fuses layers together, you know. You can make it stronger than it needs to be. 90% of my stuff started out as 1/4" sheet.

 

Last week I finished the distro plate. It's a rather simple design, but because I wanted to do inverted motherboard, and that I don't have endless space, it put some constraints. I'm still very happy with the design though.



Sunday's going to be spent drilling and tapping all the screwholes.

 

That came out great.
Drill press... remember: Have something like MDF or particle board underneath to prevent cracking as the bit exits the back. Go slow with slow RPM. Use the peck technique and clean the bit channels out with a toothbrush each peck, and use a little water to keep the bit and hole cool. Keep it cool and the plastic will look better, and not start cracking a year from now. (At the distances you have those holes, a little crazing is harmless, but it will look better without it.)
I'm preachy as heck, but I know it's your first time at this.

 

No worries. It's really uncharted territory for me, so I'm just glad to soak up as much experience as possible. The fewer mistakes I make, the less are the chances I want to redo everything 6 months from now haha!

 

I've got a small update today in terms of work required, but a big one compared to impact. For the last year or so, I've really wanted to try and delid my CPU. Haswell are rather notorious for running hot, and despite me having a pretty decent CPU - it hits 4.8 GHz at 1.45v and 4.7 at 1.36 - I still wanted to see what impact it would have. Since I plan on upgrading to AMD Zen 2 in a half years time, I thought what the heck, and finally did it.

Todays patient


And todays remedy


Getting the silicone off was horrible, but in the end I got it all removed


I borrowed some of the misses nail polish to seal off the conductors



I got an almost 20 degrees temperature drop in RealBench. It's crazy! As said, I thought I had a pretty decent chip, but I'm still amazed at the temperature performance. Maybe I'll try and push for 4.8 GHz for my day-to-day OC now that temperatures won't be the same problem

 

Yesterday I asked on discord. "What's the most boring part about making your own acrylic parts, and why is it polishing?". I will NEVER be a fan of polishing. It's time-consuming, the amount of dust it produces, and the amount of different sandpaper sheets you need is just blergh...

It does look quite nice when you're done, but honestly I'd rather just buy an end mill and do finishing passes on the router.

I sanded out the distro plate, so here's a few pictures.










Remember the design changes I talked about? Well here's the newly added bottom intake, and the USB and power button on the top panel





Easter holiday is coming up, and I sincerely hope I can get a lot of work done during the time. Stay tuned!