I'd keep your eye on that acrylic, it looks like a gorilla tried to nick off with some of it. I hope you gave it what for. Cheeky monkey This looks epic, I'm keeping a close eye on this
At last, back to the build! It's been a good while since I've worked on the Neutron project, work has been crazy and home life equally as busy. Anyhoo, I managed at last to get a weekend free to fight off the gorillas from steeling my stuff and crack on with the build. First task was to tackle the main Aluminium bend for the front/top piece of the case. I used the same technique I applied in my TRON build when doing bending the acrylic, this time however there was no heat gun just the "Mallet of Persuasion" and some brute force. Had to make up a new mdf mould to get the required 50mm radius. Next up was cutting, filing and sanding some bars, the side and base panels of Alu. And finally for today cut the back panel to size and the GPU intake vent hole, then file and sanding. My arm was about ready to drop off due to the filing and sanding so stopped there and quickly taped up the progress for a sneak peek at the final product. A lot more to follow tomorrow.
Beautiful work on this Andy how thick & wide is the curve panel you did? looked a fair thickness & those clamps managed to hold it down to my surprise, curve looks perfect mate, congrats.
I bought 4mm and 3mm thick sheets with the hope of bending the 4mm but as suspected it was too tough to bend so the bend you see in the photos is 3mm thick, 120mm wide, 500 long with a 50mm bend radius. Will be cutting this straight down the middle with the jigsaw and dremmel (thought best to do this after bending to ensure both pieces are of the same bend to avoid misalignments).
Getting there! Had a wee bit of time over the past week to work on the case again and have made a reasonable amount of progress, still a good bit off from the finished product but a step i the right direction at least. I started off with marking and cutting the 20mm Alu bar for the front bracing of the side and front panels to the base. It took an age to cut and file by hand but got there in the end. Had to cut out to clear clashes for the MB I/O plate and curve the piece in the center for the light tape to bend round. Received my latest order - MSI GTX 670. Considerably cheaper than the 680 stock but the same performance Marked out and cut the 4mm base plate for the MB I/O and GFX card. Then clamped, drilled and tapped the 20mm bar to the base plate. Cut and drilled a small bracket for the two SDDs. Drilled and tapped the MB standoffs. Time for a quick test fit Clamped, drilled and tapped the curved piece to the case and then cut and filed to size. Drilling out the power switch was a pain as the largest bit I had was 10mm and the switch was 16mm dia, spent a good 30 min filing it out to suit... Had a LAN session organized for the Saturday, so quickly put it all together and took a few shots the system as taster of the final look. Still have a lot of filing and sanding to go before applying the body filler and spraying. About to place an order for the crimping tool to shorten all the cables. Also going to change the red acrylic and light tape for blue (be as well running with the blue theme of the GFX, MB and SSD internals). P.S. despite having cut out the acrylic fan guard frames by hand, I'm not too happy with the rough edges and am looking to get these cut by laser professionally. Any recommendation for a good place to get this done and rough costs for that sort of service? Will be back soonish with another update.
Would appear that the server is only showing some of the pics and filled in the blanks with previous uploaded images. Hopefully the server will update soon and the photos on the log too.
Well you got that curve just right Andy. I didn't notice how small this was till the last pic. Nice work.
Thanks Attila! As predicted the 4mm Alu was very tough to work with and couldn't get close to the bend I was looking for and had to revert to the 3mm sheet which was a lot easier. Wont be cutting that groove down the edge for the acrylic to slot in, instead going to router a lip on the acrylic and glue the lip to the bent pieces of Alu, from the outside it should look no different once sanded down and flame polished to match the curve of the Alu. Fingers crossed! It's a little cramped in there just now, but shortening the cables should neaten things up. The case is on it's side for now but will be an even smaller foot print when upped on its stand. (Currently reviewing the design for the stand as it was going to be a 4mm thick bent sheet, from the past attempt I know I cant get that bend with the tools I have... ) Anyone recommend a good, cheap place (in UK) to laser cut and router a couple of small acrylic panels?
Case Colour Have been reviewing the colour scheme and have short listed two options. I have no idea which one to go for. Please vote which one I should go with or a different scheme, open to suggestions. (would like to keep the blue light tape strip down the center to match the innards). Cheers Andy
I am loving this build! and i definitely prefer the black and blue colour scheme. Just one question? will the new base support the structure? The PSU is at the top and the heaviest component and having the support on just one side just seems a little too risky? (but then i dont really know what that base block will be made out of and how it will be attached)
I meant to comment the other day when you did a nice big update, this is speeding along a lot faster than I thought it might like how compact you managed to get this, looks good & strong too, super compressed awesomeness. I'd vote for Blue & white, looks more striking the case stand looks sweet too. For CNC maybe ask Editor22 if he can help, here is his latest log, from there you could contact him. http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=235773
I use Arunfabs/Cirrus for laser cutting Cirrus: http://cirrus-laser.co.uk/ ArunFabs: http://www.arunfabs.co.uk/ Give either a bell on what you need, I'm sure they can help Great project so far man. I love the way you have your hardware setup. I'd be interested to see your idle/load temps when it's all up and running at stock speeds
Thanks! Yeah the all black design looks good, just wasn't sure on the blue light tape with it. Also bought some black carbon fibre effect vinyl sheet which I was thinking in using too. The block is 2" Alu and the stand base plate is 4mm thick. Just arrived in the post today: The bulk of the weight is shown below. The PSU is quite light and the 2" block is quite heavy so should be more bottom heavy and balance out. The block will be both glued with liquid metal adhesive (as good as welding) and 6 off M3 screws to the stand base plate and another 6 screws to the case base plate. Cheers Waynio, it is pretty toit After owning a monster of a Cosmos I vowed never again and go to the other extreme. Tried various orientations of components and for a gaming work horse this is as small as I could get it. Will do a comparative shot of this Vs the Cosmos in the final pics to show the difference. The blue light tape does seem to go better with the white and looks cleaner, but the black does look meaner. hmmm Good call, will drop him a message, cheers! Thank'n you! Will post the system temps and benchmarks with the photos etc on the final post. If anyone is using this MB with I guess any cooler with a back plate, be warned that the plate (certainly for the Big Shuriken) clashes with the plastic spring clip for the chipset heatsink - every time you tighten the cooler screws, it pops out the clip. Had to cut a notch into the back plate in the end! Found an old image for the original design, quite like the colour scheme so tried it out: Is it any better than the other two schemes?
It is pretty heavy stuff and as I found out today, a joy to work with... Looking like the Black & Blue option is going to be the one to go with. Today's progress - Cut the block to length... by hand (too thick for a Jigsaw), my hand was feeling it by the end. Then to cut down the length diagonally. Took me 20minutes to get this far: And another 50minutes to get this far: Took me over 2 hours to saw through the piece (and that was with a brand new blade too!). My arm was about hanging off by the end of it. The prospect of then having to file it did not appeal A further 45 minutes was spent just filing it flat before I could begin filing out the curve. My arm is still pulsing and almost ready to explode so calling it a day there. Will return to carving out the curve and cutting the slant to each end tomorrow.... Time for a shower and stiff drink!
Wow that's just insanely beautiful :O Your last one as well. I just love how precise you are. A real artist... I'd love to borrow your brain for a few months
Dude thickest I've cut through was 2 inch alu round bar before, that was a ba***** & was a ba***** to cut straight with a hacksaw doing what your doing & managing it nicely, that is some flipping hardcore desire to make a sweet case base, hope your arm & hand recovers fast, I know you won't be BSing about it pulsing. Modding like that who the heck needs a gym. Awesome session there.
That is insane cutting through that thick alu, I would probably cry a 1/4 way in and make my dad do it. Great work.
