Scratch Build – In Progress Passive NUC "Bum Muffin" -There, I named it. May 15-final pics on page 4

@Cheapskate

Will do (maybe hiatus?)

Darkened

 

Looking pretty good, if with an odd name.

Do you by chance supply hammers for the Hammer Bros. in Super mario?

 

Thanks. @Dark@Dark - Noooo.
As you might have guessed from the above, I've finished and have to drag some pics off the camera still.

-I put the mobo back on the sink so I could get the I/O plate glued in the right position. I left a lot of play in this area for that. At this point everything is only taped together.

-Next I did one of the front brackets. Here you can see only half is glued. I didn't want to go wild with the solvent and glue the screw-on plate to it as well.

-The first bracket was leftover from the first NUC case build. I had to mill some more square to do the other corners.

-Once I traced the screw holes on the bracket, I drilled and tapped them.

-OOps, I was on a roll and missed some pics. I drilled out a conveniently placed hole for one of the HD plate mounts and countersunk it.

-Once both the front brackets were "tacked" in place, I flipped the front down and glued them completely.

-I put this part in the mill and shaved off enough to clear the bulge in the HD plate.

-Remember that 120mm fan cutout I was getting 1/4" material from? I've gotten a lot of parts out of it.

-Sooo many parts. I got five of these little 1/2" brackets out of it. They will join the metal to plastic.

 

I didnt know it was a spark plug gapping kit, I just know of those as a feeler gauge =D Nice work cheaps! Skills to pay the bills with the mills brotha! Cant wait to see this come together!

 

YES! That's the name I couldn't come up with. Thanks!
Maybe my Chinese knife decorated with the words "Folding pocket knife" makes more sense now. We wouldn't lose the name for stuff if we followed the Chinese an labeled everything.

-I'mma gonna to label my spoons!

 

Bum Muffin, love the new name.

 

-Just something I pulled out of my.... hat.



-Those little square things ended up in places like this. Once glued down, I traced the holes onto the aluminum.

-Then I drilled and tapped the marks to fit 4-40 screws.

-I had two mounting points for the HD plate at this time. While the sink was off, I flipped her over to work on the other two points.

-I was blasting through things pretty quick at this point. I decided drill press milling was faster than booting up the real mill. Here I'm boring a notch to fit around some of the junk on the inside of the HD plate.

-glued in position.

-Now... It seems like every project has that ONE PART. You know, The one that gets all the crazy genes? This is that part. Clamping it in the mill to shave off the spot to clear the hump in the HD plate was bad enough, but here I had to drill the very edge of that block I just glued.
Just look at the wacky b*stard... It isn't even finished here.

-Somehow I managed to drill and tap that and not break it.

 

Nice progress, Cheaps. It will look great when it's done.

 

Thanks -It is done.
I whipped out the enclosure in a day or so. Now I have to spread the log out a bit. It's nice when you don't have to polish anything.

 

Looks nice bro!

 

Yay he´s at it again As always a pleasure to watch and follow.
Working the mill by hand? I think there are some stories to tell

 

Thanks.
@Matiss -Don't believe anything Nexxo tells you.

 

I may go to hell for the following post.


-Putting all those holes for airflow in the bottom had one downside. They need to be up off the desk to work. I have some of this 2" angle extrusion, though...

-Just added a little countersink here.

-Now it screws right into the heatsink assembly. -Doubt it will change the temps much.

-Here's a sneak peek of what I have at this point. I still have some label stickum here.

-And that's the front.

-A little size comparison next to the original NUC enclosure. I can guarantee it weighs twice as much with 1/2 an inch of metal.


Now, put on some funky music for the heat sink assembly:

-"Hey, baby. You are looking pretty hot over there! How about we get together and be cooooollll?

-"Oh, my! Tee hee!"

-"Ahh! Sorry! That's never happened before!"

-"Hey, Looks like you two are getting COOL. Mind if I join in?"

-"Oh, my! Tee hee!"

-"HEY! What the hell, Man?!?!

 

I fear the previous post was too freaky for anyone to comment on.
Anyway -Penultimate post cheese:


-So the enclosure is almost done, and the board's back in. I read here that these SSDs get hot. I figured I'd play with adding a little heat sink.

-I just happen to have a fan-shaped chunk from the mill controller box handy.

-Gotta wire some stuff up too. You can see the pocket In the face that exposes the clear layers here.

-OK, There's a sink for the top chips, but what about the underside?

-***. That's what I thought. There's stuff on the bottom, and there's only .04" space between the parts.

-It just happens that the chip mounting plate for the original Xeon heatsink has a big hole milled in it, and that bit of metal is .035" thick.

-Meanwhile, I have this sad joker of an extension cable. I figured this would work better for the internal USB header.

- At least it can plug into itself now.

-That big space over the mobo is perfect for a port. With the magic of glue and scissors, (well, a drill and a file,) it was finished.

-Also meanwhile also: I have that gap in the metal plate that needs filled...

-I had to chop a bit of the inside to pass around the offset plate mount.

-Dusty, but you get the point.

-Also meanwhile also meanwhile, I'm back to the USB port?

-I have a fist full of those old optical audio cables. It turns out they are the same as .01" connectors, just a different housing and wire connector. I figured I'd use a few here for the USB. Tray is another found item, so don't give me any crap. -While were at it, you might like my wire anchor. The alligator clip is held from the underside by a hard drive magnet.

-Meanwhile, meanwhile meanwhile also: (Hey this is a lot easier than sorting my pics.) I cut out that thin bit of metal and bent it -on purpose.

-Right. So at this point the LEDs are powered by half a usb header, the rest went to the female plug, and the SSD has a heatsink secured by...hot glue. I just hope the SSD doesn't get TOO hot, or there will be SPARKS!.
You can see here that the enclosure hides my WIFI dongle like a proper gentleman should. Now if I could stop taking pictures and posting my dongle on the internet...

-Better angle of my time bomb HD.
That's it until I get some final pics.

-On a side note: I finally retired garage tool rack 1.0. The PVC was too brittle to hold 50-odd pounds of tools. No clue where the ViewMaster disc came from.

-The new version is much sturdier. The components are a metal milk crate and the basket from a metal shopping cart. -Once again, you never know what you will find in a vacant house. That's a 2" jaw crescent wrench in the back, so I'd say it's MUCH sturdier.

 

There was me feeling good for recilying bits in my latest project and then I read this... master recicler at work you are Cheaps! Loving that guetto CNC, keep thinking about getting one, and then I remember I have to learn how to use it and puts me right off :S, anyhow, thanks for a great read

 

Nothing wrong with getting your geek freak on. I just think it got a bit lost in the chaos of the forum changeover. Still, I can appreciate a bit of hard core modding porn.

 

Shame on anyone who cant

 

Mom I am telling everyone on the internet my BUM MUFFIN is just about done!
In fact I am showing them pictures of it!

 

Dat rack...

The ghetto-ness of this is just brilliant Cheaps, nothing like making something useful out what was once a pile of "junk".

 

Thanks.
@Maki - Best use of bolt cutters ever. Metal basket weaving 101. But let's be honest; sometimes the junk is pretty quality stuff for junk. How often do you find HALF of a Safeway cart?
@Hukkel -Don't tell mom. This will be our little secret.
@Luciel - Mostly it's getting it set to work smoothly. Mine came with some pretty good instructions on tuning and setup. Once you get a set of speeds that work for you, it's just a lot of punching in numbers.
-Oh, right... You might need to learn CAD and some CAM.