Scratch Build – In Progress artifact, cooling installed

Did you not clear coat them before polishing?
Always clear coat paintwork otherwise the paint will get damaged easly.

BTW Nice work there.

 

Assembled the frame!

@AJB2K3: I did clear coat them, 3 coats of the Halfords stuff that went with the paint I used, didn't show that happening as it's quite dull Thanks for the praise

Well, I've had a bad few days with things not going well and breaking and fabrication not working, but I have now assembled the frame and am starting to install components. So, to recap what I've done:
Firstly, got the frame glued together. I had to use lots of epoxy (the white gunk) but most of it won't even be visible when I've finished, so oh well, it's not perfect, but life goes on


Next, spent a very long time getting the motherboard tray together. It's made form acrylic, which I hate working with, but I had it lying around, so I went for it. The first piece I tried to score and snap, which didn't work because I couldn't get a clean edge, so I got the trusty jigsaw out. By clamping a piece of wood the right distance from the cut, the jigsaw foot will sit firmly against it and you will get a very straight cut, which is nice:


Drilled and taped holes in the tray and mounted it on rails:


And there's the baby sitting there, all ready. It's an Asus P5K-VM for the following reasons: micro-ATX formfactor, passive cooling, onboard coaxial SPDIF output, new chipset which support quad core:


Moving on, I did a lot more gluing and setting epoxy in the right places and generally fiddling and this was the result:


All ready to install the other mounting hardware and then get started on the outer skin.

One last photo which I'm going to leave enigmatic:

More of him and his friends tomorrow

 

sexy heatpipes

 

ya very nice heatpipes how did u do that??

 

The heatpipes are built by HFX for their silent media centre cases (link), but I figured I could use them in my own case. They're all nickel plated copper which looks very nice indeed and weighs a ton. The central square at the top will be connected to a Scythe Ninja heatsink and the two side squares to the edges of the case. Between them, they should passively cool the processor

 

very cool, i love to see cases which aren't simply a box, but a unique design - awesome work so far. i like the alien characters and the cooling system is looking very promising

 

Thanks, I figured if you are building a case from scratch, making it a box is a bit of a waste.

Today I built the mounting for the heatsinks:


Tomorrow my sister and brother in law are going to help cut out the side panels and I'm going to do some little jobs and work on the mounting for the hard drive, graphics card and Sunbeam Lightbus. I think the sunbeam is quiet ugly, and definitely doesn't fit the theme. I don't want to void the warranty, and I want it to be accessible, so I going to mount it very sneakily indeed. Let's just say I'll only use one screw on each side

Scan has finally tested the PSU that was faulty (which went back 2 weeks ago...) and so a replacement will arrive on Monday or Tuesday I guess. Annoying, because I could do with working on the mounting for it, but hey-ho. Not sure how the PSU mounting will work since it may need to hang out of the back of the case Maybe it will sit on a little shelf instead of being suspended in space.

Quick question, does anyone know where I can get 25 to 35 mm long M4 bolts in the UK, in a hurry (i.e. a shop, not mail order)? I live in Hertfordshire if it's not a chain.

 

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=35776
about the heat gun, im not sure if you have it fugured out but i have that and it works like a charm.

 

Cheers Tyber, but I managed to bend the acrylic with a blow torch. Only problem with that is acrylic is flammable and it seems there is a only a narrow window between "hot enough to be soft" and "oh crap, it's on fire". A bucket of water nearby is recommended

 

man thats looking sweet
have you tried ur local independant car spares shop for the bolts? my local one has shedloads of bolts an stuff in small cases behind the counter.just an idea

 

Looks really nice!!! Can you post more pics of the frame from different angles/showing the inside?

Like a lot the idea of going passive cooling ...

GL.

 

That's so nice idea and work! GO on buddy that's look nice, I like that thing I don't know what the hell it is! go on

 

Big day

@khanage0, cheers, I shall go and investigate, I know just the sort of shop you mean. Meanwhile, I've ordered some more bolts from namrick in case I can't find any
@razzta010, I just hope the passive cooling works Just for you, I've tried to take some different angled shots to get a better idea of the shape of the whole case
@ComputerKing, Thanks for you constant encouragement

Today was a big day of modding, I'm knackered, but this is good as I have just 6 days to go before this case must be finished! My brother-in-law and sister came and helped this afternoon which was great. My brother in law cut out the 3 side panels I need urgently as you can see below:


Ta-da:


Thanks Matt! My sister helped me hold stuff and mount some of the components, always useful to have an extra pair of hands!

First up, I mounted the lightbus. As I was saying yesterday, I wanted it to be accessible, but not obtrusive, because it doesn't fit the theme, and probably wouldn't however it was modded. So, I decided it would have to be mounted on a hinge and hide most of the time. Firstly, because the case is quite cramped at the bottom, I made a small non-vendor approved modification:


There was now room for it to swing, so I stuck a stiff wire through the screw holes and epoxied it in place (I hope it's the right place!) Thus it can swing quite freely:

Now you see it​

Now you don't​

I still need to sort out a catch for this. Anyone know where I can get a push in latchy thing, where you push it in and it locks, and push it again and it unlocks and pops out?

Next, I got the hard drive installed. I'm not that happy with the mounting for this, but I am running out of time, and space in the bottom of the case, so I figured this would do:


The rail sits at the bottom of the case and the drive silencer sits nearly vertical between the bottom of the case and the motherboard tray. From outside, it looks like:


Then we got the motherboard and wifi and gfx cards in:


The gfx card is a silent 8600GTS by MSI, because they make silent nvidia cards. The wifi is asus, because I read it works on Vista 64-bit - find out soon!

From the front, the case looks like this:

And this:


I've put in the IDE cable because the cards run over the top of it due to the risers.

Because of the odd shape of the case, I don't really have a standard way to support the cards, so I improvised:


Insulated one piece of metal with electrical tape, tap a hole in the frame and Bob's your mother's brother:


All done for today! Tomorrow I start on the outer panels and working out how to fit an I/O shield.

 

ooh looks good, what happend to the heatpipes?

 

Do you mean one of those magnetic cabinet door holders like on stereo systems?
The ones that hold the glass doors with the press release.
I bought some in a hardware store together with some hinges..............

Alan

 

Very nice project.

 

Thank you all for your kind comments, have been inspiring me to work hard
I've had a very busy few days working on the mod, so I haven't been keeping this up to date. Time to make amends methinks. Firstly, I have just 2 modding days remaining, so everything is getting a little hectic! I've now started painting all the final parts and working on fitting the final components into place, so here we go.

Sunday: Didn't get much done, but test fitted and filed down the newly cut panels, which are looking good:


Monday: Cut the vent grilles in the panels. I'm not that happy with these, mainly because it didn't occur to me to drill a pilot hole until I had done several of the 8mm holes, which then of course are not in line:


However, with lots of filing, they're looking pretty good:


Also, filed lots of other bits and pieces:

Filing is very tedious

I also painted the clip from the heatsink as clear plastic is a little dull, so sprayed it purple in keeping with the theme:


Tuesday: Didn't get a lot done today, just cut the windows for the mesh and did some more test fittings and markings:


Wednesday: Cut the front panel today and got that looking nice. Holes are for DVD drive, power button and 2 usb ports:


As a final step before painting, I bent the panels the ghetto method. This doesn't look so great, so I'm a bit but hopefully once they're painted they'll look nice:


Finally, got everything sanded and washed so it's ready to paint:

 

nice work
could u tell me wher u got that thig to put your gafx card on its side i have a htpc case thats not very tail i think that could be just the thing i need thakn u

 

Much as I hate to do it mate, I think the entire forum should be jumping on you telling you to redo these and do 'em right first time!

Its the least we should do after the hell we put Teyber through for doing the exact same thing.


Other than that though, Awesome looking mod. Love the cooling, its definitely the piece de resistance of the mod, that idea that says 'wtf thats a great idea, like Oracs shower hoses, or G-nomes liberal use of hex head screws in general.

 

Very original project , it seems one of the strange build you can see in Halo or Halo2 (1 vote for your work ) !!!!
The window make me crazy keep on modding Robin


Ciao Kappa