Scratch Build – In Progress Project: Der_Meister - custom alu case *Epilogue Nov 8th, 2007*

omg pimp town center

 

Looks like UV paint and blacklights to the un-trained eye!! Totaly sweet!

 

Video card support

Well, it’s about time for my ‘big’ holiday, I’m leaving this week-end for two weeks. But before I leave I want to finish most of the work on the support for the video card. It’s not the only thing I’ve been doing, I’ve also been working on the edges of most of the black alu pieces I made so far. Sanding them down with fine grits, preparing them for the final treatment. This because I’ve started to realize what a huge project I’ve got waiting for me at the end of the ride: sanding, polishing, clear coating all the parts.

But that is for later, the matter at hand is the support for the video card. Since it’ll have an Aqua-Computer 6800 block, it’ll probably bend from the weight. So it’s nice to support it in order to keep it straight. Of course I’ve seen the very nice solution that Nexxo made for it, but I’m doing something different. Main reason is that I want to keep it in line with the rest of the case and therefore it needs to cover up the wiring. It also needs to accommodate for the wiring in the way I want it to, you’ll get this later on.

Thinking how to make this suupport was one of the hardest tasks of all the planning and designing I did for this case. The final idea is only about two weeks old and I started with it last week. This goes to show that the planning and sketching process continues during a mod, it’s an ever-evolving process (my initial thoughts for the support were completely different).

First some sketches. I don’t have any sketches of the support in the case since I didn’t bother drawing out a decent sketch of the video card itself. I do have some rough squares etc I sketched out so I know where the support needs to be, but those are quite meaningless for you. So only two sketches of the support itself.
Here’s the support looking at it from the underside:


It’s quite a complex piece. It’ll be mounted to the panel that holds the mobotray, and you see that the piece that is mounted to that panel is a kind of ‘fork’. The big part (the actual support) will be mounted to this fork with 4 bolts, two in each ‘leg’ of the fork. So to take off the big part, I only need to unscrew these 4 bolts and don’t have to fiddle with the mounts on the mobo panel that will be much harder to reach.
The left side extends quite a bit, it’s too much at the moment and I will cut it to the right size when the time for it comes. This end will be supporting the waterblock.

Here’s a sketch looking at it from the other side:


There’s a whole construction ‘on top’ of the piece that supports the waterblock. This is done with the help of the very useful 15x15 alu corner-pieces I’ve been using before. The gap is where the end of the video card will be (slight overlap). My GF6800GT has two molexes for power, they will be covered by the gap in the sketch. So I will have a lot of space to hide the wiring for the video card and for the led on the waterblock. It may look like a big piece and a big waste of space, but you’ll see later on that it fits well into the case and that I need quite a bit of space for the wiring. And finally let’s be honest, a support as tiny as possible would look out of place in a case this size!

So, there were quite a few pieces to be made. Luckily it was nothing too special. The hardest were the two pieces that have a 45° corner, since they need to fit together as well as possible. Here are all the pieces:


Because I don’t have a lot more to show you, here are two pics of the hole I made in the biggest piece. This is needed for the wiring:




The readers among you that have been following this thread closely will start to see a pattern emerge and will maybe figure out how I’m going to handle most of the wiring. In the section of the case that will be visible through the side-window, I’m going to show the wiring instead of hiding it as much as possible. But it will not be plain wiring. In the past I already posted a pic that shows part of what I’m going to do. The rest will become clear after my holiday, since that’s the next step in this mod.

There will probably be a couple more pics before I leave!

 

Loving the aluminium framework - good job!

 

Vid card support continued

Well, I’m only hours away before I leave on vacation. Two whole weeks without any modding. How am I going to survive that?
On a more serious note, when I started this project I was planning on having it ready before this vacation…and we all know that failed. Oh well, can’t stop now right.

So before I leave, here are some more pics of the vid card support. Can’t talk too much, still a lot of stuff to care off before I leave.

I glued the supporting pieces to the bigger plates. Lots of clamps, glue everywhere, etc..


But everything turned out well. After removing the glue that spilled out and giving it all a light sanding:


And another:


I realised as well that you guys probably have no idea at all what I’m doing here with this support. My sketches in my previous post were clear about how it’ll look, but not about how it’s fitting in the case. And my explanation wasn’t too fantastic either.

Now, the following are only illustrative. The support is not in the right place, but as you see I used a leftover piece of alu bar to support it while I took the pics. The pics are just to give a better idea of what I’m going to do with the vid card support.

The ‘fork’ will be mounted like this:


And it will support the bigger part with bolts through the four holes you see in the previous pic:


I can remove the bigger part by taking out those four bolts. Will be quite handy cause I don’t have to reach all the way for the bolts that are used to mount the fork to the mobo panel.

Well, that’s it. See you in about two weeks!

 

hi guys,

just wanted to say: I'm baaaack!

I had a very nice holiday and I'm quite eager to start on the case again. I will be starting on the wiring -- this includes making holes to pass the wires through, making plexi panels and some other stuff.

However, I first need to sort out my holiday pics (hmmmm sweet Canon EOS 350d, I took 750-ish pics) and more importantly, make some sketches and diagrams of all the wiring and where I need to make cuts etc.

So....I don't think I'll have a lot of pics before the end of the week or next week.

See you soon!

 

Small text update:

it's damn hot here. It has been for about a month now and in my attick (where the modding takes place) it's well over 30 degrees Celcius. So I'm not in the mood for a lot of modding.

However, I've not been sitting still. Monday and Tuesday I made skechtes (on paper, about 12 pages of A4) of all the areas where I need wiring, and double checked that I had included all the necessary wires. Yesterday I withstood the heat and I spent about two hours measuring, estimating, trial fitting etc... of most wires. I now have an accurate idea where everything will go, how it will be lead from point a to point b, etc... I'm glad I did it.

This case will have no less then 47 different cables/probes/wires. Not including the water tubes! Some are easy, like the S-ATA cables. Some are complex, like the wire that will connect all the UV LEDS that lit up the outside UV blue plexi pieces.

I know have a good understanding and estimate on how many lights/leds/connectors I need for everything. Except for one thing: the inside lighting (apart from the CCFL's on the side). That is something I can only do when the rest of the lighting is finished so I can put it all in action and see where I need some extra punch or some white or blue to add accents, stuff like that.

Why am I posting this? Well, it might seem that everything I described here is trivial, but (for me at least) it is not. Until a couple of days ago a lot of the wiring was a blank spot in my head and on my modding sketches. Now I know how to do it, where to put it, I also know that at least two things will be very difficult to realize with the stock cables (like getting the 20-pin cable of the PSU to the mobo in the way I want it without having to use an extension thingie).
It's also no use just thinking about it, you actually need to draw it and also try it out with some old cables or other means of measurement. All in all, a very important step!

See you soon with some pics, if I don't melt that is!

 

Hi,
I dont know if u have mentioned it but are you going to paint it in the end and if so what color will you use?

 

no paint, just plain alu (and of course anodized alu and plexi)...

a small update is coming soon.

 

Cable Management & Wiring – Beginning

Time for a small update!
It’s still been hot here, and it’s festival season in Belgium, and perfect weather for some beers, … so you can probably understand my slow progress these days.

But, I do have a couple of pics for you. I’ve started with the holes I need to make around the case for the cable management. There are about 20 of them, some small and some larger. I already made 2 of them earlier (pictoral evidence somewhere in this thread). Now I’m working on the rest. Some pics (I had an hour and a half a couple of days ago).

These two pics are of one of the most important holes. Here all the cables from the PSU will plunge into the main cable channel. I need to see what the result with the cables looks like, but I’ll probably make a small cover for it from mesh or so (looking from the other side), to cover it up a bit.




The next three pics show almost all the openings I’ve cut in the ‘fake’ bottom piece that comes beneath the mainboard. Apart from one more hole that I need to make (bigger and more to the front, nothing to do with wires to the mainboard), this is all that will be needed and visible. The rest of this pieces will be nicely finished. I can do a lightly brushed finish like the rest of the case will be but I think that this piece would look very nice if it is polished.

The hole on the left lower side is for the cable leading to the back 120mm fan and there will also be a wire to the CCFL going through it. The three holes beneath the mainboard, from left to right, are for: audiocables from optical drives to the soundcard (yup I’m one of these prehistoric dudes that still uses these), cables to the internal usb-headers and of course power/reset/leds.






That’s it for now. This post was just to give you a general impression. I am going to hide most cable as much as possible. I’ve got the space for it in this big case.

More pics to come soon, the temperatures here are back to normal so… back to the attick for some good old modding!

 

You're not alone...

The project looks really good. I'm interested in how this turns out in the end as I got some inspiration for a new project I'm planning.

 

ive never seen the advantage of doing this cd drives dont even come with the cables any more

 

Cable Management & Wiring – Part Two

Finally an update! I’ve been really busy and I’ve been doing boring and repetitive stuff on the case, so that’s why it took a while. No interesting pics!

But now, I need to do something. My thread was dropping on the page, so time for action! J/k, I do have some stuff to show you.

The big (and only) news is that I’ve finished all the holes and openings I needed to make for the cable management, except one but that’s going to have to wait until later. I’m glad it’s done, most of the holes were pretty small and not that easy to file.

Instead of overloading you with pics of every piece showing each hole I cut, I’m just posting a global overview pic. Most of them are visible:


As you can see there’s something for everyone’s taste there…holes in 2mm alu, in 0.5mm alu, in black alu, in mesh. Small ones, larger ones, very large ones. Here’s another from a different angle:


Now, you may be wondering why I need all these holes, since the point was to hide the cables right? Well, I’m going to hide most of the wiring, but part of it will be sort of visible. You see, when you have a case this size and can hide most of the cables, there’s an awfully big space inside the case where there’s nothing going on.
So I started to think about how to make some action inside the case, keeping in line with the theme of the case. Rammstein, black and ‘silver’, plexi. Stage performances, bright lights. And cables, lots of them. Audio cables mostly. Hmmmm…

And then I came across a webshop of an electronics store nearby. These beauties were extremely attractively priced:


In case the pic isn’t clear enough, that’s a metal RCA-plug. I bought them with these black rings, but I also bought red and yellow ring versions. And of course the sockets to go with them. In all I ordered more than 50 pairs. They were dead cheap. Apparantly they were mispriced because a couple of weeks later I checked the webshop again and the prices were corrected. Lucky me!

Now, what to do with these…well, I’ll let the pics speak for themselves. That’s the plug&cool-tubing of Aqua-Computer by the way…










Isn’t that a pretty sight? I just love it! And I thought of a great way to mount them in the case…I think. I’m going to make small pieces of plexi (transparant), frost them, and mount the RCA sockets to them. And some white leds…
That’s what I’m going to do next: the plexi pieces. The only thing that I’m not sure about is whether they will be strong enough. The RCA-plugs need some good pushing to get them onto the sockets properly. So the plexi needs to be able to withstand some force. Some of the cables will make a bend, and the plexi needs to withstand the lateral forces as well. But it would look so good that I just need to try it.

Oh, there will be 14 of those RCA cables in the case. Most of them will start on the bottom panel assembly, making that look like the data/power centre of the case. There will be three ‘groups’. Six cables will go up to the optical bay (2 for power, 2 for the DVD switches and 2 for the DVD leds), three to the vid card (2 for power and 1 for leds) and the remaining five to the panel that holds the mainboard (and then pass through to the cable shaft, these are all cables for the lighting and the PsOne lcd).

It will become clearer when I have some more pics! See you soon…

 

sweet so far Jokkos. One suggestion. Take those pretty RCA jacks and solder an LED to them on the wire side. Sleeve them in a translucent tubing if you can find it. Maybe someone can point you in that direction as to who might have it. To power them just get the RCA plug and wire it up. Kind of like fiber optics but on a bigger scale also if the light doesnt diffuse all the way down try talcom powder in the tube(could do that with clear as well I think).

 

I like the Tygon tubing sleeves for them. As for the plexi i would recommend 3/8" or aluminum 1/4" for the main support and make sure that that piece is supported well.

 

Cable Management & Wiring – The Story Continues…

Well time for another small update. Music festival season is still going strong so there’s not much time for modding. The one evening I was at home…well I wasn’t, I went to install a Thermalright cooler and fan controller in a friend’s computer. But yesterday I had a few hours to spare and so I started on the plexi pieces that will hold the RCA sockets.

Drawing out the pieces, they all fit against a side of the panel. Sweet, that saves me quite a bit of filing because that edge is perfectly straight!


And another one, which also shows it’s always necessary to double check (see the lines I crossed out):


The result of my hard work…or at least the hard work of my jigsaw. Guess which pieces go together


I then spent a whole while filing, testfitting, filing, sanding edges,… I took no pics of that since it’s not exciting at all. But I did finish the mounting holes for one piece and test-fitted it. And I took some pics of that, to give you at least an idea what it will be in the end. ‘An idea’, because I won’t take the protective tape of the plexi until the RCA-holes are drilled.

So here is the piece on the right side of the bottom panel assembly. Five RCA-sockets will be housed there. There’s actually a bit too much room for that, initially I thought I would need six sockets and so I made the piece for those needs. It’s no problem though, just put everything a bit more apart.


This view from the back shows the plexi a bit better. I’m not afraid anymore it won’t be strong enough. You see, it’s cut from a left-over piece I had lying around and I was sure this was only 2mm thick. But I was wrong, it’s 3mm and that makes a very big difference strength-wise. By the way, this plexi has a protective foil over it and that’s what’s giving the blue tint:


Next up is mounting the other five pieces, drilling the 28(!) holes for the RCA-sockets and test-fitting it all. Will take me some time, since the next music festival starts on Sunday (in my home town!) and tomorrow’s all booked up as well. Oh well, see you as soon as possible!

 

Great craftsmanship on these parts. Keep up the great work man!

One question though, what are you using to adhere those little 90 angled pieces to the back of that thing? Is it J B Weld perhaps?

 

Very nice work on the aluminum, I think it will look really good when it's finished,

Quick Q, what are you doing your visulisation in?

Jimbo

 

Hey, thanks for the nice words. You are correct, that is JB Weld. Works great.

 

Also to you thanks for the nice words

I'm doing my sketch-work in SketchUp, like a lot of people here.