Scratch Build – In Progress Project Stealthlow - Completed - preview of project next

LoL Thanks Cuzza , I think the steady hand comes from when I used to use a dremel a lot.

Thank you.

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Woooo, package from Nils Germany & with his funky personalised drawings on, awesome , can't say I know another shop that does anything like this .


Anyway molex pin removal tool, crimping tool & nice stack of fan/atx pins which came with the crimp tool, 9 sata power through, 6 sata power ends, 150 pre-cut heat shrink, sata heat shrink, 2 lots of each sized cable management clips, 40 metres of small sleeving, 10 metres of sata sleeving & an example of a good crimp.









Just gutted I didn't order a 1 metre sample of all the other colours, something I really should have done D'oh, he did put a sample of grey & red though .

All of this won't be used for quite a while yet but it's here & ready for when I get to the sleeving stage of the mod which will be near the end of the mod.

Here is the disc sander , super awesome tool.



Here is the mess it created after slimming down all the acrylic & aluminium pieces to the precise size .



And here is the aluminium & acrylic to perfect size ready for adding details but still need to polish the edges of the acrylic .


Also ran the unigine heaven benchmark 2.1 with the GTX 580 & wow it really out performed the 5870's in crossfire which I just switched from, I knew it would be good though after trying out metro 2033 with it being able to run maxed with dx11 & physx & was very playable, the 580 is not as long as the 5870 also, really amazing GPU honestly if the 480 was this good at launch I wouldn't have bothered with the 5870, not seen temps go higher than 70c & it runs quieter too, brilliant GPU & I'm enjoying Two Worlds 2 at the moment in-between the project & logging, the game looks & plays amazing .
Here are the Heaven results, ran it default 1080p no tessellation, default, default extreme tessellation, default extreme tessellation + 8AA & it performs awesome & all this was run on a p45 motherboard with q9650 @ 4ghz & 8gb ddr2 @900mhz so with even better system specs should perform even better.









Up next, polish the edges of the acrylic arrrrrrgh lol.

 

Ooooow. Loads of goodies

 

OMG buddy this is a marvellous design I really love it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Awesome hardware too and I am subbed thats for sure also +rep for epicness!!! Moar pls!

 

Also get 5 stars for a fantastic start!!

 

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Thank you AnG3L that made me smile & needed that lol .

Thanks again bud .

But semi bad news . semi because it's already in the process of being resolved .

Here's my first set back.

The drill press really isn't up to the accuracy challenge, marked the hdd mounting holes, took it to the drill press very carefully aligned it, plunged in still being careful but it still wandered off & was a good 1 to 2mm away from where I tried to drill, I've had it with this drill press lol it's just not accurate, my dad got it off someone a fair while ago & only started getting any use when I did my last project, honestly it's like a 1 in 4 chance of getting the holes where you want them, I'd have been much better off using a normal drill.

I knew I should have got a new one a bit ago oh well.

Just ordered a cheap clarke one, I'm sure it'll do better than the one which has been wonky for so long, also had to order another sheet of 3mm aluminium so I can redo the part but to my surprise I found some much cheaper than the place I get it from usually, I only need 145mm x 108mm as well, just wasn't quite enough spare.

Anyway while I wait for these very much needed bits I'll get the acrylic edges polished up, but damn I was gutted when I seen how bad the accuracy was, was hoping to get the hdd cages done today but can't do anything that requires accurate drill holes so with a bit of luck I'll have the new drill press on tuesday if snow & ice dosen't hold things up.

 

Wow this looks like its going to be an EPIC build

 

You can always use a hand drill and start with the smallest drill bit or punch the hole with a big needle and do it slowly bit after bit.

 

very very nice design

 

Thanks Skorchio I'll try to match or even make better than the concept

Got a new drill press & a little more 3mm aluminium sheet on the way .

Had an accident earlier, today I was going to make the hdd cages but the drill press is playing up & I messed up 1 of the 4 pieces & later went back to check out the drill press, a loose vice fell off the work top & straight onto my foot when I went for a double check, should have left it til tomorrow, knackered from lack of sleep, hurt like crazy lol but I'm just hoping there is no real damage, can move my toes ok & can walk so both good signs , but it just doesn't feel right, here's hoping it's just a bad bruise.

Anyway I'll get progress pictures up of the polishing when I start tomorrow, thinking of getting a bunch of 5 at a time & sanding them like I would if I lap a heatsink, move up in grit & eventually pollish it off with a soft mop on the bench grinder, the disc sander will mostly be used for getting straight clean edges straight after cuts also great for bevels & angles & I'm sure many other things.

Might have the new drill press on Tuesday if there's no delivery problems with the snow/ice, but yeah I'll be getting back onto the smoothing & polishing of the acrylic tomorrow .

 

looking good

looks like some good planning, looking forward to it all coming together.

nice one

 

Nice Disk Grinder u have there, Also Nice sleeving !

Nothing beats MDPC sleeving

 

Thank you dralix .

Thank you zukomonitor .

Sure is & yeah I agree MDPC sleeving rocks .

Update time .

Here's pictures of the edges after cutting & using the disc sander.





Couple of action shots while I was doing the 240 grit, I found switching between these 2 grip styles kept my hands functional for longer.





And the mess & result from many hours on 240 grit.





Then did 600 grit, then 1200, could go & do the 2000 & polish but feel there is no need, now all thats left to do with these pieces is when I get the new drill press cut fan holes in all the big pieces, sand inside the hole & start sticking them all together with the clear acrylic adhesive, then that's all the hdd fan holders made, I'm going with light, dark, light, dark, light





Holy sheet an entire day of wet sanding 6:30am to 6pm so I think I'll have no problem getting to sleep tonight, feel like I've been doing the twist dance all day lol .

 

are your hands still moving! lol

dedication and attention to detail there!!!

I take it your going to be using the solvent type weld/glue ? thats gonna be painstaking...... but will look great!

 

Wow, thats some hard work. Just checking, would a belt sander or something like that help get this done easier and faster?

 

Thought I'd be dreaming about sanding LOL .
I'll be using Tensol 12, here's the read up on it:
Tensol 12 is a single component cement used to bond acrylic to acrylic. The adhesive provides a clear bond with gap filling properties.

Thanks mate & come to think of it yes a belt sander would be great to have too for what I've done so far but the disc sander is very versatile with it's uses, just requires a bit more work .

 

Nice Plexi work, can well appreciate the effort it must have taken to sand down the pieces, and thats a lot of pieces!!! Doing a good job so far . You must have been buzzing from the fumes that came off the acrylic after all that wet sanding ! Looking forward to see how this is all going to be pieced together!

 

Thanks Andy & also thanks everyone for rating this 5 stars, appreciated .
But no fumes at all from the wet sanding .

I put the tensol 12 acrylic adhesive I bought to work, holy crap, nasty toxic fumes come from it, I was on the edge of not using it because it's so bad but made sure the front garage door & the other door was wide open & wrapped a thick towel around my face & got on with sticking the little pieces together, I used an art brush to apply it, my heart was beating way faster than normal & felt a little shaky (might have been because of the cold though), awful adhesive, I should have a quality respirator but they cost too much for one that offers genuine protection.





And here they are stuck together.


They are a bit wonky so I'll need to sand them all down to be level with each other, yay more sanding, also mucked up by filing down all the middle pieces instead of just the 3 for the fan wires , but luckily they won't be seen thanks to the flat bar which covers the bottom area phew .



Just made a nasty discovery.
The 5mm sheets of acrylic are more like 4.9mm so all the fan holders are out by 0.5mm which is bad as the fan holders don't connect to each other now, so my only option is to sand down the bottom 3 fans by 0.5mm how s*** is that, so yeah this means anything I'm making with the 5mm sheet is not going to be correct thanks to the bad materials, the hdd fan holders is bad enough but I was going to make my own pci/io piece too, but might just about get away with 0.2mm error from the material, but holy sheet this isn't good , I can only guess they measure the materials with the protective backing .



Here is the new drill press with my hole cutter attached, I find it to be better & cleaner cutting than a hole saw .

 

Just been informed about acrylic can expand & contract under different temperatures which I didn't know .

 

Jesus H Christ .That's some serious sanding session, you ain't going to be knocking one out tonight I may have a mask that'll do the job of keeping the nasty sh*t at bay in the van. It's brand new. if I remember tomorrow I'll have a look for it and send it to you.

 

Wow many thanks for the super generous offer Jeff, but don't worry about it mate, wasn't the sanding that was bad it was the fumes from the tensol 12 acrylic adhesive, proper harsh fumes, so something I wouldn't want to do often, hell no, shame their isn't an equally stong glue that doesn't have such a nasty pong & ill effects, when working with that stuff I rush to get it done & get away from it ASAP .

Update .

Razzed through doing the fan holes & sanded the fans down just enough so they fit in the holders, the fan holders still require a bit more work & then sticking them together, then the fans can slide in & out.