usually a metal side cutting bit. like a drill bit with double flutes. LOL, yeah we cut aluminum on the table saw. Just have to go slow, and wear long sleeves and a facemask. Those metal flakes are hot!!
I got quite a bit done over the holiday weekend. Well exept for sunday which was spend recooperating from the new years party, But Monday I was back into the modding mood again. First thing I needed to do was make a faceplate with a slot for my slot load DVD drive. For some reason I bought a slim-line DVD from DFWDepot.com and thought that maybe I would need the space. Turns out I had plenty. So I built this nifty holder for it. It is basically a thin piece of .063 aluminum laminated to a piece of the red acrylic. I then cut the slot, sanded and then Painted it red with the Dupli-color anodizing paint. Next I bent an enclosure to hold the drive and attached it to the faceplate with Weld on. I then taped the drive to another piece of plex and also glued it into the enclosure with weld-on. The Tape will keep it there forever basically but allows me to take it out if I ever have to. I don't plan on ever doing that so hence the VHB tape. I guess I could have come up with some fancy way to keep it in there but I am simple and somewhat lazy at times. and this is what it will look like installed. I also got the back pieces finished. All sanded painted and clear coated. the bottom piece is painted white on the inside. I think I have decided to not put a plex cover on the back. I will leave it like this for a while till I make up my mind. Maybe if I add WCing I will put a red window/res in the back bottom. ok.....pant pant.. Then I mooved onto the top...whew. first thing I did was sand and polish the edges to the top to a nice shiny finish. Then I drilled the holes and began to mount it. Here you can see the red hex mesh that will be attached to the inside of the top. You can also see the first attempt at a back I/O plate. Been tearing peices off for Jigs. another angle: tommorow I will have to finish attaching it and polish it up. The its onto the side mesh. I am making some special lighting with a bunch of Red LED's for that section. Stay tuned....
And looking great EDIT: It seems those Red DD blocks are just special one-offs made. However, you could easily make your own tops
Home Depot or Lowes here has them. They will be locked up in the tools section and you will have to get someone to unlock them for you. They can be pricey. Shadowed_fury: Yeah I was thinking if I get those DD blocks I could easily make the top section or figure out something. I might just call them when I get closer to the end and see if we can work something out.
Horaaay Zapwizard to save the day. So I post my question to Zapy boy about touch switches (since he isn't reading my thread ) and he is like oh yeah. I have some chips at my house that will work for that. I will give you one they are like fifty cents. WHo knew? So I go over to "Casa De Zapies" and he looks through a mountain of chips that all look alike to me but some how he knows the difference and grabs one. He looks at a PDF schematic on the website http://www.qprox.com/products/qtouch.php and we head to the garage. We slap a couple of parts into a bread board and swap out some capacitors and walla. A ghetto chip is born. This is the chip Hot glued to a piece of plex. I am not that great with electrical work so Zap did most of it. I think I poked something with a stick at one point. They were his tools after all. :wink: but I think I could replicate it if I had too do it again. So here is the dealie. basically those copper squares taped to the plex will be: - 1. My Power switch and - 2. my DVD eject button. These have Double sided tape attached and will stick "stealthy like" to the inside of the red plex. So here is what I do. I route the wire through a hole and attach the coppper pad to the inside of the plex. Some how I mis-measured and drilled the second hole 1/8" lower than the first. This is ok though because unless you are underneath the case you cannot see the holes anyways. The red plex is also very dark and "Maroon Like" when it doesn't have a flash on it. So you can't see the pads either. After I have attached the pads I place the Chip, trim the wires and solder them on. You can see I already have my MB Power cord attached. (The blue and white on the right). The red and white cord going the other direction will attach to the PSU's constant 5v and ground. This will keep chip active even when the PC is off. Next I need to attach the DVD switch to the chip. I will do this shortly after I post this. I am to the point now where I need to put the HD (under the Fan controller) and everything else in the case. So I have to turn off this PC and move everything. I will update will pics of everything working shortly.
Making the chip is pretty easy. If you can read the schematics. The hardest part was finding the right capacater to make switch just the right sensitivity. There was no science to that part really. More like "this one? nope. this one? nope. This one almost works lets go one smaller...Yes." soldering inside the tiny space was a pain and I burnt my hand several times, but It wasn't difficult.
I have a LAN to go to on the 14th so I am going to try and get the Cube running even though it won't be completly finished. I still have a bunch of detail work and lighting on the inside. Not to mention the whole PSU thing. I either need to completly re-do my PCP&C 510 or I was actually thinking of getting one of those red Hyper Modular PSU. Though I haven't had time to research if they are any good. Speaking of detail work this is one of the things I have been working on. I am thinking I am going to make a lit plate like this behind the two front fans as well to help light up the fan grills. but I don't have a whole lot of time to play around so I started puttin the pieces in to see how she would run for the LAN. Puttint in the Drive cage and running the cables is a bit of a pain due to space, but not half as bad as a shuttle or my UTMod by any means. The pull out tray was a dream come true. Never has putting in parts been so easy. everything fit snugly but it did fit. the red lighting is gonna look pretty cool too. unfortunatley shortly into windows I get the dreaded BSOD. It was late and i was tired by the time I got to this point. So tonight I am going to look into it more. Booooo.
oh man that blue screen of death bites. thats like the most dreaded screen ever. lol. but the slide out try design does look very awesome. great job on the case so far.
hey hey good news. I got the HD working again. which means after a bit of maintenance I should be gaming tonight and checking for more bugs.
Looooooking goood! The draw idea is great, do you mind if I think about using the same method? I'm making a custom case and didn't wanna have the hassle of panels btw, i've got one of the hiper modular psu's - very good. silent.
