ouch, the details, the design, hand made... great great work, lot of inspiration in detail for the screws, the technic. it's awesome
I was going to stay out of this CNC vs Hand-Craft debate, though, I wanted to wiegh in, cause I did alot of hand fabricating in my Cases! CNC can provide a quick process for cutting out patterns and simple parts. CNC are expensive machines themselves and properly tooling them is even more expensive. There needs to be a Divison in the modding community over fully CNC projects and Hand-Crafted, though, I do love when Hand-Crafted projects hand ass to CNC projects!! The only creativity in CNC projects is the design of the parts, and the machine does all the work. The modder only has to put the pieces together because the design has already been CAD rendered. This is where Hand-Crafting is vasting different in one instance. Hand-Crafting can be CAD rendered before the build, let get that out of the way! When hand-crafting all the parts, they have to be cut and filed and it is usually in this process that re-design is done even if the design was solid to begin with. Working with the pieces constantly I would say, makes modders think creatively more, jus my opinion though. 98% of the community doesnt have the money for a CNC setup, which leaves them hand-crafting anyway Ask yourself this when having the CNC vs Hand-Craft debate: Who do you think is better G69T or Attlia?
The creativity of design is by far the most creative bit of any build anyway, unless you consider creative solutions to difficult hand-manufacturing problems - Attila cutting a file down with an angle-grinder - to be equivalent to the creativity of design. Even if you did, CNC creativity would also extend to the solutions you'd need to produce even the most basic parts; setting up a CNC machine for its tools and paths - let alone programming it and designing in such a way as to work to the machine's strengths - is an artform in and of itself and just as much a skill as proficiency with files and saws. Secondly, implying that the machine's labour somehow devalues the end product could equally be said to apply to milling machines, which are after all what most multi-axis CNC machines are, except hand-controlled. Oh, and when you get down to it, electric drills are just mechanized hand drills. And obviously, let's not lose sight of the fact that jigsaws, scrollsaws and bandsaws are really just hacksaws for lazy people. Custom PCBs? Pah! Real men make their circuits with breadboard. Don't forget all those cheats who buy pre-made case feet, waterblocks, radiators, motherboard trays - or, heresy of heresies - modify a pre-made case! The machine doesn't do 'all the work' any more than Attila's jigsaw and files do all the work on his masterpieces. Thirdly, your proposed distinction between builds that use CNC'd parts and builds that allegedly don't is artificial because how you make your product shouldn't affect the end product unless you want it to. You start with a design in your head - maybe it's complete, maybe it isn't. But you don't set out at the beginning to have misaligned parts and panel gaps as a consequence of your handiwork any more than you set out to have ugly machine marks as a consequence of your CNCing. If you want to make your products by hand, feel free, but I fail to see that going to the considerable effort of using more complex tooling to produce the design in your head is in any way less worthy than using hand tools instead. Ever tried to make a microchip by hand? CNCs can be more accurate at reproducing a design and therefore they can beat 'hand-made craftmanship' in efficiency, accuracy, reliability and repeatability (not originality, but that's down to the design they are reproducing). People enjoy hand-made craftsmanship for different reasons, like admiring the labour and skills necessary to produce the end product, and appreciate what an engineer could call flaws as 'uniqueness', which is subjective. Nobody on these forums - to my knowledge, and with the possible exception of craigbru's Draken - is making lots of identical copies, which is what is generally associated with CNC. When people here use CNC - just like G69T - they're making bespoke one-offs just like any hand-builder. tl;dr: CNC machines are tools, just like any other. People that use them are no more and no less creative than those that use less complicated tools, and the things they produce worth no more and no less as a result of their method of construction. As Attila says:
IMO, Cleveland216, you're completely wrong in that post. Proper design of parts and subsequent preparation and programming for milling on a 5 axis mill or router/waterjet cutter is much much harder than the preparation for hand fabrication. I am currently hand fabricating the interior chassis for my next mod and I have been using only a band saw, drill, fret-saw, and files to fabricate the panels to be formed into the case. I can say this: Yes it is challenging to make accurate and well finished cuts through sawing and filing, but there is a pitfall to all of it, you literally cannot reproduce the quality and accuracy of a CNC cut from a router or waterjet. Even with the best of the best and all the great attention to detail it just is never as good. clearly with hand fabrication you can adjust your design as you go, but to some that is not appealing. Even though I am currently doing a hand fab project, I feel like a complete sucker doing so because I have easy cheap access to a water jet. Unfortunately for me Attila has shut that option down for modders who want to be taken seriously for MOTY at this site. (Not that he meant to or has any malicious intent) EDIT: Sucker is the wrong word because the hand making of something is satisfying, but I am sure my main chassis piece that is taking me hours to finish, would have been complete and perfect in about 6 minutes inside the waterjet.
I couldn't have said better myself. 100% agree with you. And then we get down to my real issue with the animosity (or perceived animosity). People that use these tools that are available to them are immediately shut down by a fair amount of the community. Any project I could come up with, if the bulk was done on a CNC, wouldn't hold a torch to Attila's projects, simply due to the fact that mine wasn't done by hand. In the end, what does it matter? I don't have a home, nor do I have the space, time, or tools to spend days doing something by hand when I can get results 100x more accurate 100x faster. To me, the answer is obvious, but to others, it is seen as a cop-out. I don't understand, because I'm on the boat of "I'll do it any way I damn well please". Someone else has to convince me that I'm cheating.
Ok. Just trying to show the Build Process Distinction and the Division between Hand-Crafted and CNC milled. Its all in the Eye of the Beholder, at the end of the day. Remember Mill Paths are part of the Design work Never stated CNC or related machinery was easy! Like I said, a Divison needs to be created, in my opinion! In some instances, I dont see how a Hand-Crafted project can be compared to a CNC project and vice-versa! Its about the process than necessarily the visual look in this debate.
Not too sure if this discussion belongs in the Cor Leonis project log, but hey what do I know. It seems like a large enough topic to easily spawn it's own thread. Edit: Okay maybe I'm just upset that I saw a wall of text instead of aluminum.
Unfortunately, too true Achron. I was forced to invest hundreds of dollars into tools for hand fabrication (just to put myself into the winning equation) when the time on the waterjet would have cost me about 14 dollars for every single part to be cut.
If you can afford a computer, you can afford an nc machine of some kind. If you can afford a computer, you can afford a hack saw and a file. A poor craftsman blames his tools. Everyone on this forum is privileged compared to most of the world.
Holy crap! What's happened to my thread! OK, I'll just wrap this episode up by making a few points and then I hope these arguments can be continued elsewhere. I'll make my position a bit clearer; Most of you have seen my workshop. I have hundreds of tools there, many hundreds. I reach for the tool that I think will do the best job in the shortest possible time. Sometimes it's a trade off between the best quality/shortest time/least effort, though quality always wins out when a part will be prominent and visible. If I had a mill or a lathe or an automated router/mill in my workshop, I would, in a heart beat reach for one of those tools (yes they are tools like all the others). I have no aversion or philosophical objections to using anything at my disposal. I, personally, do not value hand made things above machine made or manufactured objects. I am always interested in the object itself, though, of course, being someone who likes to make things I do want to know how it was made. Now to address the concerns about 'hand made' being 'valued' more by some forum readers. My answer is simply 'get over it'. Everyone has their own opinions, likes and dislikes. Some people will walk a mile to get to a hand made 'thing' others couldn't care less. There really is no point crying about it (particularly in my project log ). One of the things you have to accept when starting a project log on a public forum is that not everyone will like what you are showing them. They may not like what you are making, they may not like 'how' you are making it, they may not like your name or your avatar, it just goes with the turf. I know for a fact that some forum readers think I'm crazy for making things the way I do (my family does ). The other thing I wish to say is that I hope my work is judged by the final product. The only evidence I have on this is that a lot of readers who don't ever go to the project forums vote in the MOTY contests, and I've been fortunate enough to win two of these. Surmising that only the final object was voted on. And that's all I have to say on the matter. @Nexxo. If you go back to the 1st post you'll notice that I did model this in sketchup and I didn't think of modelling the PCI extender their also. So working it all out in software would not prevent mishaps from occurring. I like to make a project log the way I like to read them, show me the thing when it's finished and let me wonder what the hell is going on in between. Ahem, now back to the project. I got the other two mounting blocks done today, so the 'frame' is ready. A bunch of pic's because I like how it turned out.
Wow, this is sooo awsome Attila I love the way you realize your projects! @discussion: Important are the ideas and how the finished product looks like. How to get a result fills you with pride, whether with CNC or with hand tools.
I have no idea what the finished product is gonna look like, but the frame looks very promising as always
Looks really good, Attila. However, got a quick question: The frame seems to become rather wide, so was it really necessary to use a PCI-E extension? I mean, had you moved the mobo tray 2-3 cm. back, it looks like there would have been room enough for the graphics card to sit normally? And, don't get me wrong, I do understand what you got going on here, looking at it from an aesthetical point of view - I just want to know IF there would have been room for the card to sit "normally" in there.
Love it but you do realise people are kicking up a debate because they are baffled as to how you are skilled enough to laugh at what's the need for cnc in modding, you should feel highly honored Attila mate . A thread should be made elsewhere though really if people really want to discuss cnc or hand, I don't I like both but I appreciate the hand made more, I just do, just like my favourite colour is blue, must be with it being far more industrial when cnc is used why I favour hand made more as it's made by a regular joe so means a bit more to me it has a far more personal touch, it's just where I'm coming from in modding, nothing serious & I'm sure there will be certain parts that will have to be specialist cut for some nice things that are in my mind as I honestly can't see any other way of it being done to a standard I'd be perfectly happy with, like the thin line cuts that stretch accross a panel that makes a u turn to make a flexible eject button I really like it but know it calls for advanced cutting to make it happen so I'll only call in the specialists for bits that just can't be done my way, I find little glitches & stuff that isn't quite perfect more charming or to have a bit of character of the reminder of being an imperfect human . But wow Attila is so incredibly harsh on himself to scrap pieces if theres like 1% or error anywhere, has to be keeping things to the highest standard I've ever seen in diy modding, truly amazing .
You are doing AMAZING work Attila. I'd take frame you have now as a finished computer case I can wait for the final product only for the fact that your project log is as epic as the project itself (and complete with arguing!) -TadZilla
Er. Yeah... that was me starting all that... sorry. Hey man, you don't understand. I got to know what you're working up to. I can't sleep. I can't concentrate. I keep wondering... I've got to know.
