G-gnome's Orac³ - Part 2

i am just a beginner at modding like u but have no where near the skill or patience that u must have very awsome job man i love it i want to steal u r ideas ! lol but then agian that is what modding is all about

 

one of the nicest cases EVER
cant wait to see what it looks like when the parts are in and everythings finished, beautifull, just beautifull!

 

Hi Wreth,

Welcome to the forums and thanks for your post! Nice to see a fellow Aussie taking an interest. I can't wait to see it finished either - I have about 3 weeks off starting in about 7 days and am going to mod 24/7 to hopefully finish the project.

I'll have only a very small update this week - mainly because the modding I have been doing is all the little 'tidy-up' stuff and wiring up lots and lots and lots of cables and plugs so not very interesting (plus busy with work). I have always hoped to finish something completely then do an update on it so I am reluctant to post half-finished things. It's looking better and better as I go though so hopefully the updates will be worth the wait.

 

aha! sounds like someone will be putting the school holidays to good use, instead of watching the footy like everyone else does!

g-gnome, one thing I am keen to know. Do you think of a cool bit that you want for ORAC first and then go and find a part to fit that description or vice versa? Let me be a little clearer: do you wander into RS and say "oooh that would be a good x for y" or do you dream up an idea and then walk into RS and say "find me this!". it's just that walking around Jaycar and browsing the RS and DSE catalogues is completely confusing sometimes to find useful things - does it really take to know what you're looking for to make finding stuff in these huge places?

regards,
mence

 

Normally it's both,

I always have the picture in my head of what I want the case to look like and then have to spend ages looking through places (mostly websites and suppliers more than retail stores) to find the thing I need to achieve my idea. Often during this process (and at other times when just wandering) I see something interesting and start trying to think of ways it could be modded/used in a mod - I call it walking around with my Mod-coloured Glasses on - I can spend hours just wandering through K-Mart thinking hard and watching the store detective following me suspiciously ("No, no, it's ok I'm a modder!"- "Ahhh, that explains everything, sorry to have bothered you sir..." ) I'm sure most people on these forums can relate to this.

So the final product is usually 80-90% what was planned and 10-20% stuff I come up with as I am working on it. I try to stick to my plans and if I see something awesome I could use for a mod I'll save it for the next one as you can risk wrecking your theme by bringing in too much extra clutter.

Just my 2 cents (or pence if you like *nods to UK cousins*).

 

So youve got a set of those glasses too, cant help myself when out shopping, I end up looking at stuff and thinking I could mod that.

 

i get the exact same problem lol

 

im dieing for an update man

 

That's a good idea - most of the issues I've come up against so far in my modding has been a overflow of ideas - "ooh that's a cool idea let's put that in there or there or there" and things get a little crazy. I guess you just gotta do one thing at a time, huh.

 

it's all been said but, really that is the most original and perfectly executed mod.

I love all the retro chroming.



Steve

the answer to the q below is that its the two junction boxes with the glowing divider...ain't it

 

Absolutely Amazing. No words can describe how great this looks. You really have some talent.

How are you going to cram the hd holder, pump, and radiator in there without making it look too cluttered?

So, what exactly is your avatar a picture of??? Something you have not shared with thousands and thousands of people viewing this log every day???

Its really looking unbelieveable, keep up the good work!

 

Thanks for the nice comment QuickOrbit. You'll have to wait and see how I fit all the components in

My Av is a (sneak preview) pic from my second update - so well spotted. I have sent off the pics to RTT to upload to the server and will post the update as soon as he lets me know they are up. How long this will take = unsure.

It's only a tiny update as I have a lot of half finished pieces and won't post pics of these until they are finished.

Cheers

 

whoaaaaaaaaaa

Great Job, I love the color scheme... clear, gree, chrome

 

It looks like G-gnome has done some more wiring

 

Me sits here clicking "refresh" waiting for this much anticipated update

Darkside.

 

Darkside you are not the only one.

G-gnome, we can't wait!

 

It’s (Minor) Update Time…

Well spotted Raid51

The news is good and bad:

The Bad News - I haven't been able to do much work on the case this past week so only have a few pictures to show you. I apologise in advance for the anti-climax, but just wanted to let you know I am still alive and the project is still ticking over.

I have done quite a bit more than this on some 'other' things , but as I like to only post pics of finished mods (followed by a how-I-did-it), I'll include those in a later (fuller) update. I have included a section on my fan controller even though the rear cover I made is off being chromed (ready next week).

The Good News - I have about 3 weeks off starting mid-next week so will be modding 24/7 to get the project nearly finished. I can't wait!

Anyway ...

Cabling

Here's where the cabling really starts to take shape. I want to follow on from the original Orac and have lots of cables twisting and writhing throughout the case - like a big electronic brain. It wasn't easy to imagine from the log so far just how it is going to look but it's slowly starting to come together.



Almost all the Jack plugs are now wired up and you can see the effect with the forest of cables coming from the junction box.



Just a few cables ... I still have to add the (now fixed) fan controller - this has 8 cables coming out the back of it. I have ordered some chrome plug-wire separators that should control things a bit.



The fish-tank air hose and the Techflex sleeving work really well together.



I wired up the inline jack plugs that will be extending the fan cables from the PSU to the fanbus.




Eventually these all have to be plugged in somewhere



I ran into a few problems with a couple of the plugs being faulty and had to use a multimeter to test every plug and cable during the wiring. It took something like 8 hours to wire these (and the switch) cables. With the testing I had to cut and feed all the wires and techflex, heatshrink the wire joins and heatshrink around the bare plug before the cover went on. As the Techflex has to be inched onto each pair of wires it took ages. Also, the wire is 28AWG so very fine and fiddly to work with (I needed tweezers a lot of the time to feed it through the contacts or grab the ends). My best investment is becoming my 'extra hands' stand with it's crocodile clips!

 

Wow dude. this is looking better by the day. dont wanna sell it to me do ya??

 

Front Switches


I got busy during the week and wired up my front switches. It did require a bit of thought as I had to somehow disguise/hide the bare wire connections and make everything fit with the themes.

Four of the switches required both sets of contacts wired up - 'normally off' to a cable for the LED controllers and 'normally on', via the junction box, back to indicator LEDs over each switch. When the switch is pressed two things will happen: The LED will wink out to let you know you have pressed the switch and the LED controller will cycle to the next of 10 lighting/scanning patterns. The remaining two switches are power and reset and only require the one cable running to the motherboard. Notice I have wired these to jack plugs rather than the normal pin header plugs? More on that in later updates.



I wired them up as shown (note this is the reset switch so only the one cable) and then proceeded to add layers of heatshrink. I used a black marker pen to cover the white text on the heatshrink and applied it so it would face down and be invisible (the marker will stop you seeing any writing reflected in the acrylic at the bottom of the case). I also carefully measured and cut the respective layers to the same length to ensure an identical appearance once applied.



A base layer to hold things.



A top layer to hide it all. The top layer extends out from the back of the plug and neatens the cables as well as providing a lot of strength to the whole assembly.



With the 4 switches that will have 2 cables coming off them, I wired the first cable offset from the centre so that the second could be wired up next to it and thus have the 2 cables centred nicely coming off the back of the switch. Looks much better.





These were clipped onto the front switches. The heatshrink fits perfectly around the clips.



The Power/Reset switches had one more layer added to close off a gap due to the heatshrink from the switch being a little large for a single cable. To balance things I decided to locate my power/reset in the centre of the switch panel and the LED switches either side. I plan on creating a range of small graphics later to label the front switches (minimalist, modern and set behind the green plexi).



LEDs were wired up and inserted in their chrome holders. Two green (Pow/Reset) and four white (LED controllers).






The whole effect fits in with my theme and I was really happy with how the back of the switches looks.

Not having had Vandal switches on anything before I sat there pressing away just listening to the tiny click over and over grinning stupidly until I was physically dragged away Nooooooo......give me one more minute....pleeeeze...!. I have to admit they are a nice switch (once again, I think I need to get out more ).

 

outstanding more more cant wait till next week!!!1