Scratch Build – Complete ⭐ Spirit of Motion

I feel like it makes sense to work with convection too and pull air out the back of the case like you said. It sucks that the radiator will be pushing air out the front of the case too, but honestly the case is very very open so I think I will just have to see how temps look after running a bit.

I'll save advanced mode for the next build but thank you for the idea! Knowing that the ends will need to be straightened I printed the center slice a few millimetres oversized in its length to make up for the material I plan to remove. Hopefully I can straighten the ends and not need shims! Joining the three pieces is three more than I want to join since I'll have to bondo and smooth them to look like one. I'll let you know how this goes!

 

Wait a second I didn't notice that the radiators fans blow the air out , then in your configuration it's better if the top fan pulls air in, so you get an airflow that goes from back to front, and a bit more fresh air going to the radiator.
My bad, I assumed that the radiator was going to take air from the front.

Cheers

 

This is a little more picture heavy and word light. Time for the body work!

Like I said previously, I had to print the top in three separate pieces due to build volume limits. I had this creamy white color on hand so that is what I used. Black would have saved a little time since I would not have had to paint the underside black later on.

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I test fit the pieces to just see how cool it looks!

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One piece had a significant warp and a couple needed a light cleanup to be square so I decided to use the table saw. Using my crosscut sled I made a couple light passes on the faces to square them all up.

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It cut okay but there was some plastic the re-melted to the cut face. I taped down a sheet of 120 grit sandpaper to the table and sanded away any of the material that remained so that the pieces would sit completely flush with one another.

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I decided it would be best to glue the pieces together on the grill. This is because the spine fits in the groove pretty tightly. I don't want to be off the tiniest amount in my glue up and have to sand inside the groove to widen it so the piece fits back on.

I put a little tape on the areas that had a chance of getting superglue on them just to be safe. I also taped the front piece tight to the front of the grill so it was centered and sturdy.

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I really like using the small gel super glue tubes and I ended up using one complete tube for each of the slices. I then simply slid the 3D printed piece down the spine and pressed them together tightly for a little bit.

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Bondo time. Mixed some up on a piece of plastic, grabbed a soft squeegee, and put a modest layer over the entire surface as quickly as I could.

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I waited about 30 minutes and then hit the bondo with 120 grit sandpaper wrapped around a small wood block. I block sanded the bondo in a cross hatch pattern until I started touching through to the plastic.

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The print lines and seams were mostly gone now but I could feel a couple areas that were low when I ran my hand across the part. Sooooo..

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After the second coat of Bondo I block sanded the part again until I was happy and the part looked and felt great.

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I gave the part a quick wipe down with some diluted isopropyl alcohol and sprayed around 6 coats of primer probably with a couple minutes between each. A day later I wet sanded that primer with some finer sandpaper. Sanding the primer took out the remaining surface defects and couple pinholes that remained after the Bondo.

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Another wipe down with the alcohol and then I was spraying the red down. So fun to spray a flashy red on a curved part like this!

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On the second to last coat I blasted a little bug right out of the air and into my paint job of course.

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Surgical bug extraction, a final coat of red paint, and a few minutes later, it was clear top coating time. Like the sides, this had many coats so that I could have material to sand and polish after it dried. Around 5 heavy coats.

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A couple days later I took to wet sanding. Started with 1000 grit and then moved to 1500. After I was happy with that I buffed, polished, and waxed. I took some fun progress photos as I went.

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And of course I had to put it in the grill the moment I was done!

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Incredible!!!!

 

Nice work

 

Lovely. Congratulations for not getting a mosquito hawk in the paint. Those things love wet paint.

 

This is an amazing result! Would you say Bondo is the way to go or would you use something else in the future?

 

Thanks so much!

I would describe that bug almost as an innocent bystander! He flew through my spray and was launched into the paint job

For joining multiple pieces that create such a long straight edge, I would use Bondo every time. The piece is around 18" in length and your odds of seeing some amount of distortion (waviness) in the final clear coat is very high. For a more organic shape, or parts that do not consist of multiple printed pieces, I use high build primer with great results. Hope this helps and thank you for the compliment man. I enjoyed checking out your builds as well!

 

Thanks! I'll look into something like Bondo here in Sweden, it's good advice! And I'm also glad that you liked my builds

 

It's time for some wiring!

First up is the sata cables for the SSD and laptop optical drive. I also needed a slimline sata power cable for that ultra-slim laptop optical drive. I've never seen these before so I just picked an adapter up from a local computer store that I could modify and picked up two 36" sata cables also from there that I needed. Only needed like 22" but that is the way it goes sometimes.

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I cut the adapter in half since I only needed the slimline sata power. I just used a razor blade and it cut through easily. I then tested to make sure it plugged in nicely into the optical drive with the accompanying sata cable.

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I wanted to try using something other than paracord so I ordered MDPC-X sleeve sample packs from Titan Rig. They come completely unlabeled in baggies though and cost more than $7 each so ended up still needing to make an educated guess on some very similar red colors. A piece of tape on each with the color name would have been really appreciated! I got my sleeving and some materials in though from them and was really happy with the color. I used Italian Red and Blackest Black.

I've never sleeved a sata cable so I'm happy that it came out looking nice. I then ran those from the SSD and optical drive, through the 3D printed channel to the back of the case, below and behind the motherboard, and then out the top to plug into the mobo.

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Tackling the power for the SSD and optic drive was a little unique. I made a really short sata power cable and then took the slimline power wires from the sata connector. I simply soldered the wires from the slimline to the wires I had coming from the sata.

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I sleeved that and used some 3D printed combs in black to keep things tidy before installing the cables.

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I don't want a bunch of wires crossing over each other so I made up a CPU cable with enough length to stay low and go along the power supply side out of sight. It then neatly comes out to make a sweeping bend into the motherboard connector.

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GPU cables are super short and cute. Below is a picture of the first one I did.

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EVGA is generous with their cable lengths which is awesome but this case has very short cable runs for the most part. You can see in the picture below how even the motherboard cable had almost half the cable length removed.

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I ran out of the crimp connectors unfortunately so I ended up soldering some of the last wires I needed to do. I didn't like how busy this cable looked in this build with individually sleeved wires so I went with four bundles with an asymmetric pattern. I am SUPER happy with how it looks.

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I made another tiny power cable for the Corsair H115i that was not special but very fun to make haha

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I then installed the NVMe, riser cable, CPU, cooler, a temporary power switch, and for the first time tested the system.

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We booted and everything worked! I downloaded Forza and played for a little while to "test" the computer lol

I started by running a pair of wires for the power button to the back of the case. I used the same route as the sata cables. Behind the motherboard to the back bottom of the case. The wires were extra long for wherever I decided to put the switch.

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I saw a piece of equipment in a dumpster at work that the shipping department threw out because it had broken. It had the literal perfect power button on it so I salvaged that perfectly working button for this build! I made a little pouch to catch any potential debri that may fall into the case, taped the back of the case as well, and started drilling my hole.

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Just look at this bad button. It has a super satisfying click too! Win.

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simply stunning - this is amazing work, and I am impressed with your patience and hard work! I do like the back panel a lot, and actually like the idea of the CD/DVD drive there, as well as the power button - makes the rest of the case very clean and attractive!

 

One more questions - how do you like the PRUSA 3d printer? Has it been reliable and easy to use?

 

Thank you for the kind words!

The Prusa has been incredibly reliable if I'm honest. I'm using an older MK3 that was upgraded to a MK3S. I wish it was a little cheaper but the features and consistency really make it a nice machine.

 

Coming along beautifully. You got a sweet dumpster save to boot.
-You must be some kind of weirdo if you enjoy cable making, though.

 

Very good work with the paint job!

 

It is satisfying to see when you're done and I enjoy at least half of the work it takes!

 

Very nice work.

 

Thank you Doctor

 

Little update with some small modding of my first NVMe I've ever used which is pretty fun!

I wanted to put a heat sink on the 500GB, Samsung 970 EVO NVMe cause it looked kinda boring. I bought a very cheap heatsink that had a nice grill look that I knew would match the build style well.

I put it on the drive to test the fit and make sure it was all good first.

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That all went great and I only dropped the tiny screw like 14 times haha

I then took it back apart and using fine sandpaper and some water, sanded the black anodizing from the top of the heat sink. I sanded that very fine until I got a very fine brushed finish that contrasted sharply with the rest of the heatsink. I put that back together and the result was a fantastic improvement aesthetically!

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great idea! Where did you buy the heatsink, and did it already have the thermal tape?