Hi guys, new to bit-tech but active on other forums. Loving this site, especially the huge modding community that seems to be here so I thought I would post my ongoing build log and see what people think Basically I wanted to make my Rig into something a bit more unique and give myself a project to get into, hopefully finishing around the release of IB. Here is a quick model of the sort of thing I am going for, I have had enough of my tower sitting next to me on the desk and roaring in my ear so i'm going for a desk build. The two tower/leg parts are going to be where I house all the components and the fronts will be windowed, leaving the top solid. The desk is going to be water cooled partly because getting decent airflow would be a nightmare but mostly because I want it to be quiet and pretty The computer components will be in the left tower and the rad,res and pump in the right. This will all be made from 1 mm thick steel box section and sheet. The top will probably be MDF. Components: CPU: IB (will choose specific model after I see some benches) Mobo: Again waiting for benches. GPUs: Might see if I can get a gtx 580 cheap second hand as money is tight but may go for 680/7970 if I can afford it. HDD: Already have a 1TB seagate drive SSD: Probably an Intel 520. Soundcard: Already have Asus Xonar STX Monitor: Already have HP ZR24w (ZR30w or U3011 will probably remain dreams ) PSU: probably 1000W Enermax Platimax Watercooling parts: Pump: D5 Vario with bitspower top CPU block: XSPC Raystorm. GPU blocks: cant say yet Res: Custom acrylic res Tubing: Thinking of trying to do some rigid tubing for something a little different, perspex or copper. Fittings: Going to have to see how my perspex idea pans out. Rad: MO-RA3 pro 9x140 (I want this to be quiet as poss) fans: Noiseblocker PK2s probably. Mabey a couple of scythe GTs to give a little airflow around the components. Colour scheme is black, silver, hint of yellow perhaps. (If you are a 40K nerd like myself that would be Iron warriors colours essentially.) Steel delivered A borrowed Cebora 155 MIG welder. This is the first time ive ever tried welding so it will be an interesting learning experience, possibly a frustrating one but interesting none the less. Ive cut the box for the first of the towers, its all 45s for strength. All cut with a hack saw by hand, very tedious. My first attempt at welding, seems to have come out alright. The bottom section went together fine, only tacked the uprights so I can get them somewhere near square. It would seem the welder is too powerful for me to create continuous beads of weld even on the lowest setting so im just taking one next to the other. After a solid weekend of working this is what I have to show for myself. Ive put it next to my HAF-X to give you an idea of the amount of space I will have to work with in each of these towers. The welds have been grinded down on the sides so that I can get the sheet metal on nice and flush. It seems to be strong, it can take my weight so it looks like my welds are good enough. The first tower part seemed to go quite well so this time I have been a bit more thorough in my documentation of the process now that I know it works. Step 1 was to mark the 45s on the box section I had roughly cut to size. The compass finds its first use since secondary school as a scribe. Next a bit of cutting with the hacksaw, tried a few other tools but doing it by hand gave the most precise cut even if it did take forever. Squaring up a couple of lengths and clamping them in place. I found that the welder exerts a surprising amount of force and will move two parts apart slightly if they are not clamped. And then there were two. So next came making the sides, I tried cutting this with a grinder but it proved a bit unwieldy so I got some metal cutting blades for the jigsaw and used that instead. Here is the unreasonably large sheet of steel I bought After cutting it to size (750x2000 mm) I discovered that 1mm is quite thick for steel and that it wouldn't bend...So to rectify this I used the dremmel to score it to make bending easier. Magnet helped me tidy up the mess. With the metal scored I placed a frame on top and applied approximately one house mate's worth of weight to keep it in place. Next I used a piece of wood to get the bend to about 45 degrees. Then it was just a case of repeating on the other side, turning it over and applying as many clamps as humanly possible. This gave pretty good results, I didn't have access to a proper brake so for an improvised method i'm relatively happy. With the sides ready I started on a mount for the radiator, I worked out where I wanted it and welded some bits together to form a stand. I also made a top part to fit onto the mount, the rad screws to this, which in turn bolts to the frame. Here it is in position Next I made some brackets and welded them to the sides, these allow them to then be bolted to the frame with M4s. The left hand frame needed somewhere to mount the components so I made up a box that was welded into the front. The motherboard will be attached to this with the other components like HDD etc below. Cut some mesh to size and kinked it around the perimeter so it sits into a hole I cut for the rad vent in the side of the right tower. This was held in place with about a tube of aryldite. I also needed to cut out the front where the windows will be, I drilled the corners to allow the jigsaw in and clamped the level down to I had something straight to follow. Here's the two tower sections together with windows cut. Well that is all I have done so far, Ive left out a fair few of the intermediate steps to keep the length down but future updates will probably be a bit more detailed. So please let me know what you think. In re writing this from the original I may have left out the odd bit of information so if something doesn't make sense let me know I will try and add something each weekend when I get a chance to carry on with it. UPDATE: 08/04/2012 I was going to be a load of components this week but decided against it, going to just get everything all in one go when IB comes out. Firstly. Huston we have standoffs! I hope I have got my measurements right here as I didn't have a spare motherboard to use as a template... Next PAINTING, I have been mentioning this in every update for about a month but yes I have finally started. Go easy on me here as this is the first bit of spray painting I have ever done. So here is the bare metal, sanded with 400 grit to get rid of the rust. Next I put on a thin layer of acid etching primer to give the paint something to stick to. Next I put on a couple of coats of filler primer, the metal has a lot of small scratches and this did a great job of completely covering them. Its very...yellow... Front Side 2 I greatly look forward to sanding all of that down... It dawned on me the other day that I would need some air flow to keep the "dry" components cool so whilst the paint dried I started on a couple of holes for 120 mm fans. As i don't have a 115 mm hole saw and they are ~£30 I decided to go for the joining up drill holes method. First I marked out the outline for the hole on the component housing. The inner circle marks the position of my drill holes. I centre punched and drilled out some small holes to start with so that the bigger frill bit would sit in exactly the right place. Those with a keen eye for detail will note that there are two sizes of hole. My 2.5 mm drill bit pretty much exploded so I was forced to use a 3.5 mm. I guess that's what I get for spending 30p on drill bits... Forgot to take a picture of the next step but all I did was re-drill the holes with a 10mm bit so that at they touched the outer line at the very edge. After that I just joined them up with a hacksaw blade. After a bit of filing... At this juncture my camera became stuck in potato mode and refused to take a decent picture. However this is some mesh i pulled from an old case showing how the inside would look in an alternate, out of focus universe. Finally the outside with a fan in position. It fits nicely between the two layers of sheet as the box section is 25.4 mm across. Now I need to make the corresponding hole in the casing and repeat the process on the opposite side of the housing. The air flow is diagonally up from the bottom right to top left across the motherboard. I have a fair bit of free time this week so hopefully there will be plenty of updates with more painting and hole cutting. UPDATE: 16/04/2012 Carried on with the painted casing first, sanded it down with some 400 grit to get it nice and flat and filled in a couple of dents/scratches to make it lovely an smooth. Next I could finally put some colour coat on, the pictures show just after the third coat was applied. Also cut out the blow holes in the sides to match the ones in the housing. Pretty happy with how these have come out. Also filled some dents/scratches. Got a few other little bits done like some changes to the side panel mounting brackets to make the thing easier to take apart. Had a busy week though so not made massive progress, got to wait for the paint to cure before I can get on with sanding though so not a huge issue.
I give you HUGE props to working with STEEL! I worked with 304SS on my Triphane build and it is not easy stuff to work with. Very tough work material all around. This thing must be a TON in weight, lol! Cutting by Hand, that is epic! I used a disk cutting wheel on a 6" grinder to cut my 304SS. That was messy. I'm subscribed!
Yep its going to be an immense loop, if it ever leaks my house will flood....but yeah some rough calculations suggest the pump will be ok. I chose steel because im bored of workign with wood and fancied a challenge. I have learnt so much from doing this, really glad I did it. Welding isnt as hard as I thought it would be! I tried a cutting disk too but like you say it was messy and pretty much as slow as using the hacksaw so I soon gave up on it. The total weight of the steel when delivered was 75 Kg, if i take away off cuts and bits I havent used im probably in the region of 60 Kg at the moment. Adding in the components and top and im looking ~100 Kg all together. If it does need to move it will come apart into sections so I should be ok. Im putting valves in the loop so I can disconnect the two towers without draining the loop completely. It probably looks like a bit of a crazy design but this was never going to be practical so im just going all out on making it interesting and nuts rather than thinking about such things as the load capacity of my floor and what happens if it leaks
well if cooling is not a big problem have You thought about some damping? my mother kitchen sink from 1mm steel and sounds like a drum when one touch it... mine (same steel) has some rubber under the sink and sounds way different. if in Your desk will be some resonance - it would be PITA for ones ears
In terms of it resonating when I touch it it's surprisingly quiet. I think the fact that each of those sections weighs ~25-30 Kg empty helps damp out most of it. When I have the top on holding it rigid it shouldnt be too bad at all. The internal vibrations however are going to be a big factor in how quiet I can make this. I have been adding silicone washers where I can and pulling in the sheet as tight as possible. Everything mounted within it will need to be damped in one way or another if it vibrates. Ive got a system devised for how the Pump will go so that it is suspended. Its going to be a bit of a case of wait and see as well. I have the luxury of vast internal space so if I need to add layers of rubber/foam etc then it can be done. Hopefully I havent just made a giant drum :S
Nice just nice. Now days there is new mod type monster desktop cases. But I like huge cases. Your start is good so keep it going
Thank you, I will keep at it. Im hoping it will start to take shape a bit more rapidly now. A few more cut outs and some paint and it will look the part (hopefully).
the beast! =) one cool case =) like the metal skills! it aint worth doing it if you already know how to do it (says the guy who started three builds but havent finished one yet) =P
Thank you Yes I agree with you there, learning how to do all these things has been part of the experience. I have to finish this as im giving my little bro my old components and I will have nothing Are you working on any of those three or are they dead?
