Scratch Build – Complete Fallout 4 ITX LAN PC

An update!

Alright everyone, end of the last update I was gluing stuff back together and painting my IO cover.
I haven't taken pictures of the cover yet, but you'll have to take my word that it turned out well.

Body work is pretty straight forward.







I'm getting pretty good at using the stuff now, I'm sure half of this build is now body filler..

I started cutting out my vent slots with my dremel, but I was a bit worried I'd bugger it up because it's such an odd area to get to, so I slotted the centers and filled it all by hand.

This was after about half an hour or so.


Maybe three hours at this point.


Needle files are dangerous when you slip.
Repeatedly.


Yay! I was also re-gluing some areas that came loose with all the filing, and reinforced the IO backplate area by gluing a brad nail in to keep it solid.
It works ok.


This was the second attempt at painting, if you have a heater blowing on the paint as it come from the can, it tends to dry midair and look like dirt.
I'll actually use that technique if I want a dirt texture on a future project...


And after a few grits of wet sanding.
I love wet sanding.


And then moving onto another fancy part, a 2.5” drive enclosure/sled!

I decided on a dual drive setup, the SSD is enough for a LAN event and web surfing, but I had a few WD Blue hard drives from parted out laptops, so I decided on using a spare 750GB simply for the sake of it.


I'm not very good at taking photos of every step, so here is where the side rails are about to be drilled out.
I may have messed up my measurements the first time around, but no one will ever know.


Here you can see how it all goes together, the drives screw in from the sides and I left a tab for screwing to a small plate glued inside.




And here I've glued in a couple of acylic runners to hold the sled from sliding about.
They remain untested...


And now for a spur of the moment change of plans!
I'm patching the power cable cutouts in favour of running individual sleeved wires through, for that sweet aesthetic.

I had been thinking about sticking the aluminium strip on the top and running the wires through there, but it never sat well with me, I felt like it would put off the clean styling of the build,


So tonight I glued the aluminium behind the cutouts so I can body fill it a bit easier.
It'll probably be a pain when I'm drilling, but I might even pry it off once it's cured.


And here's the overly thick application of body filler as I left it an hour ago.
I'll come back tomorrow night and give it another application and start getting it flush.


Thanks for reading everyone, I was also nominated in the Case Modding Update for June so if you like my work and would like to throw me a vote, that would be mad.
Even getting nominated shot my spirits through the roof, so hopefully it's reflecting in my work.

Now the GTX 1060 has been released, I'm going to save for one of the ITX sized EVGA ones for the build.
I wonder if I'll get the chance to be the first to mod mine...

We'll find out, stay tuned for more!

 

I thought you were done and missed a bit.
Make sure to get a block of wood behind your drilling so it won't crack. It's usually that last bit when the bit starts to breach the bottom that causes cracking.
I love the squiggly tool box pictures.

 

That's a good idea, I'll have to make a bit to fit down to the top, and my tool drawers are actually an old makeup display haha.
Perks of working at a big beauty product warehouse!

 

Update 7! Armies for his Sleevies!

Alrighty everyone, back again with a little update!

I've finished up the body work on the cable passthrough, if anyone knows what the actual name for that is, please let me know..



You guys must be sick of sanding by now, I'm not far off.


And another coat of paint, I've probably done a dozen coats by now...


I quickly threw the standoffs and motherboard back on to measure where I need to drill my holes.
A ruler could have worked, but I'm more of an eyeball it guy.


And on the note of cables, I've started my sleeving finally!
It's been about three years since I last sleeved a PC but it comes back just like riding a bike!


8 pin CPU power all done up in mdpcX Vanilla Sands sleeving.


It's my first time using their sleeve and it's quite nice, I haven't tried paracord yet, and the last sleeving I used was the cheapest I could find on eBay... I spent all my money on hardware.

The 24 pin is almost finished, 4 wires left and I ran out of sleeve. I thought 10 meters would be plenty for such a small build!


While more is on the way from Singularity Computers (shoutout for doing great work and local distribution), I woke up early and started on a template/guide for drilling.


The more astute among you might realise there are only 22 holes marked, whoops.
In my defence I'm usually still hitting the snooze button when I made this.


And the sleeved wire fits through! Ignore the off coloured tip, this was a sacrificial piece for testing purposes only. Also don't cheap out on heatshrink.


4.5mm for anyone wondering.

That's all so far, it's too cold tonight to be out in the shed so I gave myself a night off.

The next things on the agenda are:

• Making up my 6 pin power cable for the GTX 1060 I haven't bought yet

• Install a 40mm Noctua fan in the hole I left in the case

• Tidy up of the inside of the chassis

• Final paint for the chassis and 1060.

I plan to get the holes drilled by the weekend so fingers crossed I don't bugger it up!

Thanks for reading!

 

Also if anyone wants to throw an ITX 1060 my way *wink wink*
Stupid important bills.

 

Very nice and fun buuild! Enjoy

 

Update 8, things are looking great!

Hello again everyone, another update.

I started drilling out the cable holes the other night, with some mixed results.
It's always interesting working on new techniques.

Tape the template in place and start drilling!


Well then, this was actually pretty funny at 11:30 at night.


Not worth stressing about so I threw in some more body filler after gluing it back into place.


Those holes are looking alright now, the bottom two holes took a chunk out when the guts fell out of it but won't be seen once the cables are through.


A quick coat of paint and it's looking a little tidier.
I'll give it all a final rub down and coat once it's all finalised.


Boy oh boy!


Whilst all this was going on I gave some of the motherboard a little paint to take some of the blue away.


I also ordered another Noctua fan for the build.
40mm fan for the cutout left in the side of the case itself.


The first plate I made had a chipout on the final screw hole, so I used it as a template and a sandwich plate to clamp everything in.


Getting the fan cables in from the side, under the chassis and back up to the motherboard is a bit of a hassle so I might end up using the extension as a flush mounted plug in the side that I can plug the fan into.

I'll give the plates a coat of paint soon and I'll probably paint the motherboard plugs black, the silver is a bit much with the silver RAM.

That concludes this update, I'll leave you with some mock up photos to keep you all excited!
I know I am!

 

Update9: Almost finished!

Evening all, another update on the progress I've been making over the past week.
Majority of the work is now complete and I'm just waiting on my EVGA GTX 1060 to be posted out.
We don't have much stock of any of the new range but I jumped in as soon as I saw an available preorder.
Also the EVGA was the first of the ITX form factor cards I saw so it must have been fate!

So, while that's on the way I've been adding some final touches to the build.

I added a fan extension to the chassis so I can get the 40mm Noctua side fan in and out a little easier, I had been running the cable through a slot in the chassis which was a hassle to line up and squeeze in.
This was the extension that came with the fan, the plug wasn't the right size though so I had to trim the alignment post to fit the fan.


I'll splice the wires into the unused molex plugs to the power supply.
5V should be plenty to move a little air without excess noise.

I also got the fan plates painted up and looking good. They have a dual function as they help lock the chassis into place so prying fingers can't get inside.





To help airflow below, I drilled a hole in the chassis to line up with an existing hole in the case.
It won't cause miracles, but it should be enough to get a little movement with the power supply now flipped.



The silver on the motherboard was too much, so I masked everything back off and had a quick go with some black. It turned out quite well and really makes the difference.





And my mdpcX sleeving arrived Monday, so the 24pin is now finished and I've run it through the motherboard tray.
I was super stressed that I might have wired it back up wrong but all is well and it's been running for a couple of days now while I've been testing it for heat and explosions.





And that's how we stand now until the 1060 arrives hopefully this coming week.
Once I've got that painted up I can make my sleeved cable for it and take it to some LAN events!
I'll sort out final photos soon and share them with you all.

I've got plenty more plans in the works so keep an eye out if you've been enjoying this project!

Cheers

 

Tools down, modding is done!

The modding is done!
Finally!

My EVGA GTX 1060 arrived this morning just before I left for work, so I've been antsy all day to tear it apart!
In all my excitement I didn't even get a photo of the card before I'd skinned it, so I took a quick snap of the shroud before I went in for paint.


And I went in with the usual brown. I wish I could have found a rattle can that matched the original case brown.
I'll look into a proper paint gun setup in the future.


I kept the protective film over the front details and the branding on the top so I could break up the brown a little bit.
I felt like it was a bit odd looking with the right side a single colour, so I went in with some silver to match it up.


And it turns out a dual slot card doesn't fit in a single slot cutout so I spent an hour or so filing and dremeling out the slot and lower aluminium support.


While paint was drying I quickly wired a female molex to the chassis fan header and shortened my molex cable for the power supply.
There are so many cables hidden in there...
Again I was to excited to stop for pictures :/

I quickly knocked out the 6 pin cable sleeving after dinner and hooked everything up and see if my card actually worked!


And she runs!
I'm calling this project complete for now, there are some little paint touch ups I'll get around to but for now I'm just glad to have it together and running.
It's been a blast of learning and experimenting to get to where I am now, and I'm super keen to start finalising plans on some of the future builds I've got planned.

All I know is consumer cases seem behind me now, once you scratch build it's hard to go back!

Stay tuned for some final photos everyone, I hope you've enjoyed the journey!



Where did the last 7 months of my life go...

 

I never got around to actually doing professional looking photos...
Whoops

I did however get a couple of nice pictures, and the systems been running beautifully since completion almost a year ago
I really need to find more time for my mods...





Cheers for reading!