Project AloX ::UPDATE:: January 12 2006 -=new plans=-

Oh, by the way:

I also agreed with myself about the finish (especially the inox) I will give the case.
I'm going to give it a "electrolytic polish" treatment ...

Which should result in this:



So, it should give it a chromelike look, but not really as shiny like chrome.

greetings,

Dries

 

thats gonna look well cool nice work

 

there is a product called "IPS Weld-on 4" that is the absolute bomb for gluing plexi together. you can get weld-on 3 too, but it's a bit too fast. the process is simple - clamp or take your stuff together and then inject (w\ syringe) the weld-on into the joint. Capilliary action will pull the stuff in - it's good and stuck about 10 minutes later, and full strength w\in 24 to 48 hours.

 

:: UPDATE :: =>> August 1st 2005

Hi,

It's time for a new update!
It's ben quite silent on this thread the last week, but that doesn't mean no work is being done.
Since I have some new picture material at hand, I decided to make this little update.

I've been thinking and modding about the 120 mm fan on top of the case, which is ment to suck away all of the hot air produced inside the case...

First things first:

This is an aluminium milled piece that will contain the blue LED fan. This will be put on top of the plexi plate which is the lid of the casemod and the ring ensures that no cabling and no unfancy looking fan-plastic is visible!


Close-up on the milled corner (to make it smooth).


The back of the aluminium fan housing


The same with another point of view.


This is a test fan (real fan => blue LED 120 mm) with the corners cut off, so it fits the ring nicely. The blow area (with the blades) is EXACTLY the same size as the inner diameter of the ring ...(see next pic for a better view)


You see?


This is going to look great when it all comes together!


This is the hard plastic which is going to be milled to a cone shape (compare to CCFL cones of this mod) and should give a nice contrast with the rest of the metal work (maybe this will be alu too and not plastic, not sure really).
The reason of all this: see next pic...


So, the fan wiring will all go through a nice looking 'inox woven' tube. No cabling will be visible.


This is the first result of early works on the mobo stealth part.


Close-up on connections...


These long pieces will have to be shortened off course, not only for the aesthetic appeal, but also to not interfere with any motherboard components!


This is the LED housing for the LED 'running light'


One LED in place...


the back of the LED housing


A nice little setup of 2 LED housings. In total there will be 4. One at each side. That gives a total of 40 LEDs. Plus 12 (3 atr each corner) that shine downwards. The latter will be placed in the corners. So that's a final total of 52 LED's ... I can already smell the solder!


BTW: all metal work has been done in inox in this update, except for the alu ring ofcourse!

That's it for today, folks!

See ya next time...

greetings,
Dries

 

very nice but on the pictures it seems like the holes in the led panel aren`t 100% in a line

 

Well, when drilling the holes, the bit shuffled a bit over the inox.
I had to drill abit first to see where the hole would come. If that little hole is just a bit off the center the dig always wanted to go in that little digged hole. Really annoying stuff ...
So, some holes may not be exactly on one line, but the effect of that gets bigger because there is a reference line on the inox. I that line gets swiped out, the effect is very much gone really.
So if you close your eyes halfway and look again...the off centre effect should be gone.
I'm really not planning on bending and cutting etc. those plates once again all over .
I'm satisfied as it is now. Inox metalworking is really a pain in the *ss!
Drilling wood would be a lot easier, you know .

greetings,
Dries

 

yeah i know those problems during my practical training i had to work once with it and it was a real pain in the ass

 

looks good keep it up

 

w000000000, messa likes case ....
what would the total weight of the case be ?
I really like the design and so.
but I'm waiting for updates !!!!
Greetz,
Brubacker

 

.: UPDATE TIME :.

Hi,

It's time for a little update.
Lately work on the case is going a bit slow ...
I'm having troubles with exchanging fans I ordered and turned out not to be the right ones. But I hope I can arrange that this week ...
So, what's in this update then?

I have taken some shots of some nifty electronic stuff that will be put in the casemod, like the 10 channel-LED-controller and a strobo light .
I also made some shots of a plasma plate I bought on Ebay, which looks pretty cool when it activates on impulse of sound!

I also took some pictures of my motherboard (an Asus K8N-E DLX) with the freshly installed Zalman CNPS 7000BCu and ZM-NB32K northbridge cooler.

P.S.: The plasma plate will be put externally on a small case that will house the pneumatic pump and the PSU needed for the pump to work. I'm not going to hook the pump up on my Zalman 400W PSU since -at 12V- it draws some wicked 6 amperes , which is too much of a wattage boost for my Zalman to handle I think (72W isn't nothing, right?).
So I need to build my own "pump-dedicated" PSU. I also need to make a "valve-dedicated" PSU which does the job of delivering 24V DC. So, last week I mainly have been thinking about this kind of stuff.

I faced some problems with the valve. It needs DC instead of AC voltage. I hooked it up to a trafo which converts 230V AC (Belgian net) to 24V AC and it made a very weird clicking noise . So I need to make a small PSU which delivers 24V DC!

Here are the pictures:

FANtastic!

The strobo light which does up to 10 flashes per second ...


The 12V LED/light controller


The plasma plate in full action! Pretty neat he ...

The only truly dark place in the house during noon was my parents' bedroom. So I put the plate on a pillow to make it look like a moon behind the horizon !

The motherboard with all coolers installed.




2 shots of the Festo pneumatic valve which is going to be used in the mod.
Basically it works like this: air goes in => you enable 1 of 2 outlets => the air makes the pneumatic cylinder go up or down, depending on which outlet is used on the valve. (also to be seen more clearly on earlier SketchUp renders somewhere in my thread)



This week I'm hoping to have both 24V DC (valve) and 12V DC (pump) completed and having them in a test run .
Next work is milling some more fan housings for 40 mm fans (the ones taken from the BlueIce NB coolers ).

greetings,

Dries

 

www.bgmicro.com is your friend for electronics stuff on the cheap. I do not know if they'll do intl shipping, but it's worth a shot.

Nice update.

 

looking really good. I am a fan because its different then most other setups.
good work.

 

I am loving your metal work... It is sweet now only if i could find a shop to do thy same... and time...


if anyone has any and i mean any spare -TIME- please E-Mail it or fed-ex it to me asap...

 

:: UPDATE :: August 15 2005

Hi,

Today, it was modding day.
A relatively small step for a modder, but a great step in modding history...
Okay, just kidding...

Today I worked so far that I could make a test setup of the pneumatic opening sytem. Let's put the pressure on! ...

In the pictures below you see how the whole thing is hooked up. I've used a normal computer PSU which I saw suffering from the power sucked out by the pneumatic pump. 72W is a whloe bunch of power!

You see the LED-lifht channels all attached (still needs some more corner adjustments). The white envelopped part is the protective cover of the transparent blue acrylic plate.
You see the pneumatic cylinder (Festo rulez!) attached to the LED-channel at the back and on the other side attached to the acrylic plate. When the pump powers up, the air pressure is adjusted by some special "smoorventielen" (don't know what it is in English...). This makes for a slow and smoooooth movement! ...

The result is quite neat ...

The picture stills of all this is found below...









Comments are always welcome!

greetings,
Dries

 

Looking good, I guess its populair to build a case that is secure now a days. Guess if you dont find the button for the pneumatic stuff, it won't open at all?

 

Yes Indeed, if you don't have the right remote control, you can't power up the valves and pump !
You can't either just pull of the top cover, because the pressure is so high ...

 

sweet use of pneumatics! how fast does that piston slam the lid shut? that's plexi right? is there any danger of it cracking one day from the force of the pneumatics on the plastic?

 

The lid opens/closes in under 4 seconds...
The plexi is 8 mm thick, so it won't crack that easy !

 

we need a video with the piston working

that looks cool

 

Maybe its a cool idea to add some aluminium to the plexi top, like some kind of border around it.