Project: Serverama - Frame finishing - 9th Oct

Amazing work there mate, I hope it's finished soon.

Seen as you got so many drive bays and your not planning to fill them (that would be overkill now wiuldn't it?!) I think it'd look cool if you filled some empty bays some old/broken hdds that would be thrown out or sold very cheap, so it'd look like yoou had PETABYTES of storage

 

don't know what you've got planned on the lighting front - but it could be quite cool to have a dual colour LED by each hard drive bay that goes, say, green when the hard drive is in and active and red when it isn't. they could even be tri-colour and change for HD access.

and one question - what exactly are you going to be doing that much storage?

 

Everything here is Alu except for the mobo tray which was scavanged fmr an old case. I was going to buy a Lian Li one fmr a PC60 or similar, but cant find them for sale in the uk anywhere. found aplace in the Us which sell the tray for $30 (about £18), but postage from California is $50 + what ever customs decide to do. As a result i'll stick with my steel tray

 

right, quick update as im in the middel o working on the case today . Ive got a load of pics which i'll update with later and explain what ive done. But for now something to ponder over. The front door has turned out to be a lot more window than frame compared to what i expected. As such its easily big enough for some sort of etch. I was thinking having "Serverama" running fromt top left to bottom right, on an angle in some chunky font but the bit i havent decided on yet is the scheme. Etched text with a clear back ground to see the drive, or etched background with clear letters.

I'm probably going to try and etch or sand blast the back sealing plate as well as its got a lot of very slight marks in the plexi . the front also has these marks but its only a sheet at the moment, so i can easily get another on done and use this as a temporary piece for layout and contruction.

Answer on a post (card) to the usual thread

 

an old school teletype sorta font is what I'm imagining...

 

Najs work .

 

NOOOO! No etching! Keep the clean look!

 

Aye, that or some heavy block type, im undecided but thats a little way off yet

Why not? the windows is nice but it does show up some of the untidy edges inside the case, so the etch/frosting will give a nice cover to some of it with a half descent design and draw the eye away

Anyway, update time


the case so far. with the plexi cut and test fitted inside.


Here the front plexe and inner plexi to she the tiny indent needed around the side supports in the case.


The plexi in place. obviously


How the whole piece looks in place, the verdict, good!


The top o the plexi is pretty much flush with the top of the HD Rack mounting brackets so it should give a nice seal.


Top view of the plexi and side join, actually quite annoying to make, ensuring that the indent wasnt too big and allowed the plexi to rattle. The plexi itself will be held with brackets to the vertical HD Rack members.

Next attention turned to the doors as they need a fair bit of work.


I tested the brushed look on the middle of one of the door pieces to see what it should look like when done and it should look good when all the door and frame are brushed with the other panels in a natural finish.


The door pieces were clamped together and had a 9mm hole drilled for the jigsaw blade, i was going to use the small saw i used before on the side panels, but it wasnt sufficient for cutting the 1/8" alu. It also got clogged with alu as it cut and took a cpl minutes to un clog every 2 ", so i got bored and used the jigsaw to even the plates up.

The jigsaw's great, i reccomend a jigsaw with a reciprocatting blade for ANY metal cutting work, it makes for a much smoother cut and i went through the 16" cut along the side of this piece in about a minute flat. Almost felt like the saw had to be forcibly slowed as it could have gone quicker.


After cutting the two sides from the hole, the saw made light work of carving a space to turn the blade round and keep going.


The middle sections as i said before were much bigger then i imagined (i dont know why) but they were the rught size frames for the door, hence the etching question).


The two piece got filled down and i brushed one of the piece as a test, which came out well.


The front door plexi was stuck in and aligned to get a rough idea of the looks.


the plexi sandwich in all its glory, mmmm plexi....


the edges of the plastic cover got scored around and removed to show where the metal covered when not assembled.


After i'd finished work i put the sides on the case to see the fit properly between the sides and the plexi inside.


The fit on the whole is fairly good but still needs some sealing to make a full seal, although this may be ok.


The work for today done, with the door almost in place on a bit of wood.

Next i need some bolts to use on the hinges to fix the door, but im not sure what sizes i can get or how i'm going to fix them in place, got a couple of idea so far that i'll go into later.

The toher thing i need to find out is how to protect brushed or natural finish on alu. any ideas?

 

Good job mate

glad you liked my idea with the door and the seal at the back.

i would definatly do an etch but i would have it run dwn the left side of the front door. (sideways). i agree that a big chunky font would suit best. how thick is that plexi, i was thinking that you could mount a few 3mm LED in the bottom of the door and light the etch up really well.

good luck

Endoxus

 

hmm, interesting idea about the etch, might lookingot that. I'll probably go with it tbh, it'll be a lot easier to mark out and actually do than going across at an angle.

The plex is only 2mm thick so i cant light it up, i've thought about getting some 4mm plexi but the only place i can find which does 4mm plexi, protected on both sides with film is B&Q. and a 2'x4' sheet is £22. and thats the smallest they do . but im still going to try and find somewhere else.

I've got some bolts for the door now so i'll be making some progress this week hopefully, going to check my local diy place again for some better plexi tomorrow. should be another update soon

 

Update coming tommorow now, uploaded some more pictures and ive noticed a fatal flaw in a test piece of plexi i did. The flaw being my lack of any ability to draw 2D block letters such as 'a' and 'e'

Having spent ages on 'e' i foolishly assumed everything was going well and promply marked out and slaved over the 2 a's in Rama making them look right
but accidently made them backwards

so its looks a bit wrong, but you get the idea

I'll update yesterdays work tomorrow with todays in a big update.

 

Right then, as promised an update It's all door work from a couple days ago but i have done more and that'kll be updated later today.

I had to go and buy the plexi for £20 from B&Q as my local place wou'dnt do anything any smaller and theirs was £40/sheet


I relocated to the garden while cutting the plexi as i dont particularly want cianide poisoning . the jigsaw has a handy reciprocating feature so the blade cuts much more smoothly and doesnt break out the edges.


The old piece got used as a template for the new one and they're *roughly* the same size the new one is actually slightly larger than the old one but not by more than 1/16", so its not a problem.


As a test i used the old piece to test the logo position and style on the Masking tape.


With the logo laid out (yes yes, i know, the a's are backwards, damn ) i started cutting out the letters out to test the 'etch'


All the letters cut out and this was about when i realised what i had done wrong with the letters The knife actually scores a little way into the plexi when it trims the masking tape whihc outlines the letters nicely and seperates the vertical lines between letters nicely.


The 'etch' done with a sanding block (im still debating how to do it on the final piece) looks wuite good and theres a noticable difference which i wasnt sure about when i was doing it.


All the tape removed, the photos a bit dodgy as i had to try and stop the camera focusing on the door behind without using manual focusing as that'd need my other hand


The metal frame got taped on to see what it looks like, i got the door mounted later so i'll put those pics up later today hopefully.

 

looks great!

 

I like the "A"'s that way, keep them that way

 

Awesome mate,

That was exactly what i ment with the etch.

An idea,

you can get 3mm LEDs and sand them down a little so they fit in the 2mm plexi, then you can get the etch lit up. have you considered a window in the top with two windowed Hdd's in the top?

Good Luck

Endoxus

 

The top 2 bays are going to be used to house the electronics, including the power buttons (which i forgot about ), i cant fit it all in the 1" space above it in the frame.

The 4mm plexi should cope with the LED's ok, the only question (not having bothered with windows or lighting before) with the etch light up a pale blue and give the whole winodw a very slight tint? or will the window still remain clear? The TIR of the plexi should be enough to keep it clear (which'd be preferable) i'd have thought but as i say, im not sure.

I'm going to try and upload the pics i didnt get around to doing before. Perhaps an update, honest

 

right, eventually managed to upload the pics from the most recent work, should be doing more this week too.


The door needs to be drilled from the back so holding the inner frame in place was a pain.


The problem was holding the frame securely and stopping it moving away from the hinge when drilled.


The quick clamps weren't enough so a couple of hefty G clamps and replaced them and the the quick clamps held the pieces together.


I found some M3 bolts with cross head fittings rather than flat head which i had before, the head itself was slightly smaller as well so it sat in the hinge better.


The bolts are shorter too so i may be able to get away without vutting them down, although i think they may still be a bit long.


The inner door frame in place looks good but it has to come off again to do the plexi.


To make the holes in the plexi i thought about marking then drilling them all with a smaller bit then gradually getting bigger but as ive made mistake sin the past, i just clamped together and drilled through


The plexi needed holes drilling which were bigger than the M3 nuts which were approximatly 6mm OD. This was still a slightly tight fit but meant the nuts wouldnt turn in the holes and thus would give a better hold in the plexi.


The door partially assembled and fitted. Looks good so far, need to do the etch at some point soon before i fit the outer frame.


The door works and opens slightly beyond 180 degrees.


Turns out i do still need to cut the bolts down but not by much then i can epoxy the front on and build the frae to cover the edges.

Thats the plan for this week anyway. Etch, frame and surround. Wether it gets done or not is a different matter

 

Looks great man. I love the etch. Sorry if I missed this, but what is this thing weighing now?

 

Looks awesome dude! This thing is going to be a beast!

 

Nice ! *Subscribed*