Scratch Build – In Progress Project "Untitled", UPDATE FINALLY! 16/12/2010 Motherboardtray done

Looking great BearJew, Interesting concept for the HDD bay/mounting will be good to see how it turns out

 

Thanks

Yeah the HDD caddy is one of my more unique ideas lol. Should work well, if not I'll just stick another fan after it and before the full case motherboard to keep the case sufficiently cool lol.

Hope you enjoy reading and tbh dunno if caddy will get finished this week as I still got to get them blow holes sent off lol.

Cheers again for comment

 

HDD caddy 95% completed!!!

Hi again people. this is actually the second time I'm writing this as I had wrote it once and then clicked on hyperlink by accident and lost the whole update. so I decided to carry on with the HDD caddy as my packages hadn't arrived. This was a result of one of the items being out of stock and holding the order up. So I simply cancelled it and ordered it from a different web site. Both packages are coming Monday ^^.

So I left the HDD caddy with one window being cut out. I started by cutting the other out and then filing them both down. The filing is bit shocking tbh but It was an absolute mission to try and file without it bowing.



I then started the fun stuff, BENDING!!!! First I made the two initial bends to create the general shape of the caddy







After this was done I made two 1cm bends at the bottom of the caddy to make flaps, with which I can attach the caddy to the case. I haven’t decided whether to screw or rivet it yet, all depends if the case needs to be removable.





I marked out where the brackets needed to go and then cut out 6 brackets for the HDD's using the same 90 degree angle bar I used earlier on in the project. .





These are the brackets cut out on top of the drawing I did for the HDD caddy.

I then riveted the brackets on. However I had to rivet from inside the case to outside the case. This was because otherwise the end of the rivet would have stopped the HDD's going in. following this I bashed the rivet ends down to make the outside of the caddy look nice and tighten the fixing. Also as an unexpected result the heads of the rivets act like runners for the HDD's making them slide in nice and smoothly. Very nice



Then I simple repeated the process for the other two pairs.

[img]http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/7985/imag0110c.jpg





The HDD caddy is pretty much done now just need to make and install some stopping bars to strengthen the case and also stop the HDD's simple falling out the caddy when their pushed in.
I should also get my packages by next Tuesday meaning I'll receive;
the motherboard,
Power supply
2*140mm fans
1*80mm fan
Radiator (360)

So that's about it then but until next time keep modding and this is the total progress of the project

 

Cool!

Looking good so far can't wait to see how this turns out

 

Hey cheers for the comment.

Got an update 2moz as some of my packages came today. Not seen them yet but should be good ^^

 

Big Update!! New parts and Motherboard tray!!

Hey people. Not done an update for while simple because I’ve had no time, and when i Got time on Saturday I died for a day as a result of my migraine so....
On Tuesday a whole load of goodies arrived ^^.
First my sexy motherboard the asus rampage gene. I chose this board as it got excellent reviews and its micro-atx dimensions make my case a million times smaller.





Next came my awesome 360 ek radiator which just makes me water at the mouth. The build quality is just excellent. Going to flush it out still though just to make sure.




Got my enermax revolution 1020w as well. I love this thing although it does weight an absolute tonne. Came with a free enermax fan which has dancing leds, and lots extra cable attachments. Really can’t wait to get it plugged in.





Also got the rest of the fans I needed. Got two 140mm akasa white led fans and a 80mm revote white led fan.






Also got a Nesteq fanmax. These are awesome fan controllers, I got one on my current system and it gives you the power of 8 channels. Brilliant!!! So all my fans in the case will be accessible through one controller.




Finally I got a Samsung cd drive, not going to show u a pic as it’s not very exciting just thought I would get it in the order so I don’t pay two post and packages. ^^

To finish Tuesday off I measured out the 140mm and 80mm fan blades so I could finally send the front, back and top panels off to be punched. Here’s pic of them with the fan holes drawn in


Front Plate

Back Plate

Roof Plate

I then spent the rest of the day looking at my new parts.=p

As for Friday I started the motherboard tray which is going to vertically partition the top compartment. I designed this mainly as a way of creating a clean look to the case as well as hiding cables and ugly parts like the expansions.

So to start with I measured, drew, cut and filed out the basic rectangle. Totally forgot to picture this but you all know what it looks like. I then measured out the rectangle which will allow air from the top 140mm fan to blow into the rest of the top compartment.



I then jig sawed it out, was going to use an abra file but the sheet of aluminium was too large. Following this I filed the rectangle. I really wanted a clean edge to the rectangle as it’ll be very visible in the case. Therefore I created a little set up to file the edges perfectly. It basically involved lining a piece of right angled steel against the rectangle edge and then clamping them both to the workbench. Following this I simple filed down to the steel, leaving a perfectly straight filed edge. I know it’s cheating a little really but it needed to be perfect.


Picture of the set up.

I think you will agree that this had the desired effect. After all I had to do was simple clean the corners up and one perfectly smooth rectangle.



The next stage is always one of the best stages, bending. I started by measuring out the three faces (as there will be two bends in the sheet). I also added 2mm to two of the areas to account for the metal wasted in the bend. The bends both worked out perfectly although we did have to take the wooden base of to allow room for the second bend.


Here’s the first bend


Here’s the second bend.

Here’s the final motherboard tray. It fits the case perfect. The only add on needed were two little brackets to pull the tray and top compartment floor together. These brackets also gave a bit of extra strength in the fixing. For now I’m not riveting anything in until the case is done, as it’ll all need to come out for painting.




To finish Friday off I got some metal shears and cut out a couple of the fan grills that’ll be used in the case, from circle modders mesh. Think I’m going to spray these white for bit contrast in colour but not sure yet.




And that’s it really for the week. Got quite a lot done tbh and hoping next week to get the motherboard positioning and stand offs in. Also might start work on the side panels, getting them cut and filed.

Well until the next update keep reading, hope everyone’s enjoying the read and any questions feel free to ask away. Here’s couple picture with the motherboard tray clamped in, with mesh and the HDD caddy.

 

Update finally! Motherboard tray done

Hello again all. This is the first update in like two weeks, mainly as a result of several uni exams and reports all coming at once. Anyways over the last two weeks I haven’t been idle but simple not had enough to say in an update so I simple waited.

So the first thing that happened was my 5.25” expansion holder arrived with a selection of different M3 screws I ordered as well as some brass standoffs for the motherboard. I didn’t take any pictures of the screws or standoffs as I would imagine everyone gets the general idea what they look like =p. Here’s the expansion bracket though with the CD drive, Fan controller and memory card reader installed.



The memory card reader will also be shadowed on each side by a power and separate reset button, as well as having 3-4 flick switches below to control lighting.

Also as the thumb screws came I lined up a HDD in the caddy and marked the drilling points out.



After that I drilled the holes and tested a HDD in it. I then repeated the process until the HDD caddy was finished.


This was taken when I had only just done the first set holes, but now they’re all done.

All that’s needed now for the HDD caddy is to create the sliding mechanism what’ll allow the caddy to be simple slide into and out of the case. However that will be done once I’ve finished the motherboard tray.

Next I started the process of finishing the motherboard tray by drilling standoff holes, cable routing holes and holes for the mounting rivets. To start with I marked out where the standoffs needed to go.



I then drilled the standoff holes. I did drill one or two holes slightly off, however I didn’t realise this till later on so, next I drew out where the cable routing holes needed to be.




Following this I cut the holes out with an abrafile, which is basically a hack saw blade which cuts in all directions. They are brilliant!!! Although if you look you’ll see I had to just drill holes for the sata cut out as it was too fine to put the saw blade in.



After this I cleaned the holes up, which turned out great and just need some trim adding, once it arrives.



As I said earlier I did drill/mark a few standoff holes wrong. This is mainly as a result of me being fickle and not going on the net for the micro-atx details and just doing it by hand =p. However as a solution I decided to expand the holes. Following this I attached the motherboard and screwed the stand offs in, using the motherboard to hold the standoffs true in the larger holes. To keep the standoffs tight I then glued all the threads extruding out the back of the motherboard tray and screwed nuts on. After leaving the tray and motherboard in an anti-static bag for a day I removed the motherboard and now the standoffs are permanently fixed in the right position. So in the end I achieved what was needed and with a good quality finish however I did learn a valuable lesson, use the atx standards on the internet!!! =p.





When that disaster was finished lol, I had to cut a section out of the skeleton to allow the nuts on the back of two standoffs to sit flush with the frame. This was done easily and fitted first time, which was a nice change from the previous week.



I then drilled the rivet holes and attached the motherboard tray to the skeleton. I only used three rivets as the tray will need removing for paint. However the tray is surprisingly sturdy with only three rivets in so it should be concrete strong when there’s eight in it.

These are the final pics of where I’m roughly up too. Should be doing some more little modifications soon as well as starting the side windows. Until then keep modding people and as usual any questions at all feel free to ask away.

 

Looking good so far, coming along nicely ...I had problems with the standoff holes too, I think I'm gonna buy a crappy spares n repairs mobo off ebay to use as a template next time I do them rather than marking them out!

 

Great work! Keep it going!

Sub'd.

 

Nice Work!

 

Cheers for all the support guys and in relation to the stand offs, tell me about it lol. Next time I'll simple look at a micro-atx/atx standard or buy a cheap mobo tray lol.

Hopefully I should have an update soonish, however due to Christmas deliveries are getting veeeery slow and can't do much more until I get my front,back and roof plates =(. O well I might do bit cable braiding .

Cheers again people