Scratch Build – Complete Project ATAACS - A Tiny All Aluminum CNC Server

This is really awesome , I mounted computers with the same hardware but I envy your skills and gear to make sexy thick aluminium parts as yours BTW, can you please mention the brand of these reversed risers ?

 

this heavy aluminium is insane dude...!!!

 

Thanks mate.

Riser is from Linkup.

 

Extra approval for drilling those tap holes by hand. I would have fixed the part lower in the vise, with a squared chunk of metal next to the hole area to align easier... and still drilled through the edge of the plate.

 

Well, I considered making a guide, since I have a couple of these M3 threads on the 5mm thick sides...but I was kinda lazy and so I just relied on my trusted helper for a steady hand

I ditched the countersunk screws for these holes though, because they are indeed unforgiving for tolerances...

 

Spend the entire day just to make one part...
Granted, this is the most complex one - which actually can't even be seen: the backplate.

Plenty of different milling ops. Since I still write my G-code by hand, this also takes ages. Far more than the actual milling itself.

Started off with pocketing and the cut-outs.




Then some more work on the I/O shield recess.




Then the drilling. 229 holes - 15:45 min.
That means my top, bottom and side panel will take 1:45h each, just for drilling




Finally the cuts on the opposite side. This required a decent amount of aligning and re-measuring the work piece, to match the coordinates.




But here it is.




I am actually surprised I have not messed it up halfway into the process.




Looks like I am finally getting there...

 

Ooof! That's PURTY.

 

Another day, another part

The front plate was a bit easier, but has some tricky features.
After the outer shape came the shoulders, where the panels rest against.




Making these 7mm deep pockets bears a great risk of snapping the 2mm endmill.
The top and bottom panel have two pegs that slide into these pockets, so no screws in the front for those parts.




The pocketing for the front cover had to be done in three separate steps, so I could bolt the part down, once the venting holes became visible.
Just sticky tape doesn't work. The part gets so hot, that you can barely touch it. The tape would become too soft under the heat...




Finally done.

 

The USB sockets rest on simple mobo standoffs.




Slowly getting there...

 

Awesome.
I've taken to gluing aluminum to MDF for fixing...with window caulking. You have to soak the MDF in water to get the part free, and it holds even when hosing the process with oil.
-Well, so far. I'm not milling as aggressively as you just were.

 

That's an interesting tip. I will remember that for the next project.

For this one I need to keep the wooden board on the bed, because I re-align the parts on the rear strip.
I milled that one straight, so all parts pushed against that strip are perfectly parallel to the X travel.
That is a great help when you work on 2 or even 3 sides of the part, because it minimizes the effort to find zero again.

For the pockets I take off 1,5 mm per pass with a 10 mm endmill and a rather slow feedrate of 300 mm/min.
I might vary this on the outer panels to 0,7 mm at 1000 mm/min.
Need to take off 7 mm, so 10 passes. They will have just straight paths taking material off, so G-Code writing is basically copy paste.

I will make a few test runs and see how badly the machine will rattle...

 

Here is what I mean. This part has machining on 3 sides. 5 in fact, if you count the tap holes on each face. But those I do free hand again, because I can't put the 300 mm part upright on the mill...
The part is just pushed against the rear shoulder and perfectly straight. Clamp down, find zero, good to go.

The clamping is somewhat ridiculous, but for the tap holes there is no lateral force on the part, so it is ok.

The double sided tape on the MDF will just be used for the 3rd side, the pocketing.

 

Cutting edge milling ops




I did that one in 2 stages, because the final 50 deg cut is the stretch on this machine. I did not want to do real cutting with this setup, just some "shaping" of the already cut 35 deg chamfer.
The design was actually 55 deg, but with that the control box would have hit the part...




On that chamfer the GPU can slide into the slot.



This is an after work work, final ops come tomorrow...

 

A completely superfluous and beefy bracket. Perfection.
You never said it was going to be a flight recorder.

 

Well, it kinda hides the cables, that will be tossed on that side
But that part is somewhat crazy indeed. I milled the 16mm down to 3mm




Not too great a milling job on the underside, but this will be hidden anyway.




What worked extremely well, however, was to fix this f..kup.
For whatever reason why I managed to program an extra hole in the G-code.
I turned a plug, slightly bigger than the 3mm hole, and pressed it in with green Loctite.
I did not mill that corner on the opposite side all the way down to the plug, and it held up fine.
After some sanding and buffing it is not visible anymore from a distance.

That gives me confidence for the 2000+ hole outer panels

 

With the two fan brackets, the inner frame is almost completed.



Still need to make the strut, which keeps the riser from touching the fan blades, the GPU fixing bracket and of course the front cover. After that only the panels are left.



The thing gets beefier with every additional part. Still I hesitate to do a drop test

 

Couldn't resist to make another test fit.
First I had to ditch the makeshift backplate I made at the time to block the ugly green PCB from sight.




That is tight. Unfortunately Noctua's fan frame design is different between the 92mm slim and 120mm slim.
On the 92mm fan the mounting holes have a 2-3mm deep bigger dia at the end, so a button head screw disappears completely in the frame.
On the 120mm fans this feature is missing. I have a 1mm clearance and the M3 socket head is 2mm in height
I will have to make a chamfer on these holes and use countersunk screws instead...




Otherwise the parts fit fine. Not a lot of room for cable management though.
I will probably shorten all cables to custom length.




The window side is nice and clean.
Although the M4000 isn't really an eye candy

 

Holly Sh*t... It's fabulous, gorgeous Dude.... And you do that with Excel...

I always know Excel was awesome (even if I don't know how to use it) but here, i've lost my tongue...

 

Thanks, mate.

Don't get me wrong. The design is made in CAD, not Excel of course.
I just haven't figured out how to make proper use of a CAM software yet.
So I write the G-code by hand. And here Excel comes in handy, since you can copy paste tool paths going deeper in the material, or adding even distances when drilling holes.
1000+ holes means 1000+ lines of code.

Most of the stuff I do (not computers, but my main hobby) is pretty straightforward.
Writing code manually is often faster than using a CAM software.

But it really has its limits and one fine day, I need to dig into this...

 

certainly the sexyest ITX frame ever, absolutely perfect, and nothing can contest with a chunky piece of aluminium machined with art...IMAO