Scratch Build – Complete Project - PowerCore - Completed

Thanks both

This took me longer to figure out than I care to admit lol, but eventually managed to clamp the top panels in a way that I could trim down the mounting tabs a bit:


All the bits arrived from the laser cutters too




These are the trays for the Motherboard, HDD, and Graphics card



Next up was a hellish amount of polishing, this must have taken me about 18 hours all together, as I had to start off with 80 grit sand paper to get out the deep dents in the aluminium where the bends were, and a few deep scratches. I started off with an orbital sander and discs from 80 - 800 grit, then swapped over to foam sanding discs with WD-40, then finally a polishing disc for a polishing grinder and the brown metal polishing compound.



For the tricky to reach spots I used a multitool with the sanding head


Then I stuck some foam to the blade attachment (Didnt work without the foam from the pic above), and stuck some wet and dry to get the areas I couldnt fit the normal sanding head in.



And here's the result, its still needs a final polish to remove some of the streaks but its almost there






Try to imagine it in a dark gun metal grey like the trash can Macs, once I get it anodised

I've also tested the fan, I printed with one first


However the part right behind the fan motor turned into a speaker for the vibration unfortunately, so I've tweaked the design to this now:


Im going to have to make it out of aluminium for the real thing though, as this isnt rigid enough, for efficiency I've made the blades of the fan very close to the housing, so any flex in the fan mount is very bad. The mount is held with bolts and those little rubber mounts you get for drone controllers.

I then gave the aluminium a quick sand (ill probably bead blast them for the final finish. I also glued some fabric to the edges of the 3d printed sides so it slides into the bottom of the case for nicely. I'll probably paint the rest of the visible parts of the prints:


And brass thread inserts for the mounting screws:





Here is it in the bottom of the case:

 

Nope. You have to leave it shiny and beautiful.

 

what a work ...stunning design and execution

 

I see it, I love it, but... cannot believe this is real. Awesome work!

 

What a bloody fingerprint magnet. Give it a dull matt black paint finish, mate...

No seriously, I cannot believe those where the same parts
Awesome work

 

All polished is absolutely stunning!

 

Not in the post-covid extra sanitary hand washing era. As long as he's not milling and oily, or chalked up from playing billiards, he's good.
...He may end up with a d*ck print on it if any modding/milling enthusiasts find where he lives, though.

 

Better not to show off at a LAN party

 

Thanks all

I think it would be a crime to cover up all this alu that took this much effort to create lol

haha


I've finished the polishing of the case shell and top now, however the anodisers are concerned about being able to get an even black tint across both the sheet, and milled parts, soooooo, I think I'm gonna get it clear lacquered instead, with a "candy" tint to keep the mirror effect but have a black tint. I found this lacquer online: https://www.cerakote.co.uk/shop/cerakote-coatings/performance-clears/clear-aluminium-mc-5100/
Which seems to be super tough, sticks to polished aluminium, and a company near me sprays it, they've not tinted it before though, so I'm currently waiting for them to test tinting it, before they give me a price.

Anyway onto the build....

I managed to find an arbour for polishing wheels that fits my grinder, so this made things alot easier to finish the polishing:


Next up was sanding and polishing the blades for the vents in the top and bottom in each corner:




I then realised all the hex's I had laser cut all had a little bit sticking out so I had to file them all off, took ages:


I then sticky taped them to a peice of wood, then sanded and polished them:


I then glued them all to a 1mm polycarbonate sheet, along with the rest of the panel and using a 3d printed holder to get them centered. Each of these will be cut off this sheet later. The battery was to press the hex part out of the 3d print holder:


That was then set aside, while I modded some G1/4 plugs:





I'll need to probably chemically strip off the plating and paint on these, and get them re-chromed to protect the aluminium.

It passed the pressure test



I also found these sweet fitting from Barrow, that have RGB leds built into the compression fitting, which Ill be using with these water function blocks:


I then polished and hand bent the 1mm alu panels that go behind the tubes on the outside of the case:




For the backlight, I thought about using a Tv backlight, but it didnt have the light spreading ability I was looking for unfortunately:



So I've had to resort to tablet LCD back light sheets:



I wore gloves for this as the sheets mark very easily:


They are made of multiple different sheets of plastic that act like, light diffusers, and polarizing filters, which means you can shine light into a small area, and it spreads the light very evenly:



I glued, and taped the edges onto the back of the panel, I'll probably stick some fabric or something on the back as well to cover it all:




This is how it will look, for this test its just a small RGB strip on one side, when its complete it will be a strip on both sides, and it will be the length of the whole side:




Now I need to find more broken tablet screens lol

And the final part to the update. I've had the water distro block for the gpu 3D Printed via HP Multi Jet Fusion, so its water/air tight:




I then tapped the holes, and milled flat the surfaces:


Then sanded it all smooth:


The O-ring channel is a bit tight, but it should still do the job once its compressed:



Looks like the o-ring works, and I pressure tested, all ok :

 

euh.... 3D printing a distribution block...
That's next level

 

Beautiful! Love the 10,000 rpm buffing wheel. Did you get any gunk on the ceiling?
I've been really curious about the HP printers since we started farming out prints for mods. Dare I ask how much that print cost? I have a sneaking suspicion that it was very pricey.

 

I try my best

Haha, mostly all over me lol, works well though. Its variable speed though thankfully, so had it on about half.
Its not too bad a price I thought, it was £66.16 including VAT and delivery, from https://lancashire3d.uk/, so not too crazy like if I had used metal printing.

 

Great idea, excellent workmanship and amazing quality of the material processing! Watching the birth of a masterpiece.

 

Thanks

Finally got an update, I tried for a quite a while to find a company within 150 miles that would black chrome plate aluminium, as a one off but I had to give up the end. I then tried various black chrome paints, and tints but I wasnt happy with any that I found. So its pains me to say it, but after all that polishing I've ended up with just going for a super glossy polished black paint. Not what I originally wanted however I think its still turned out very nice.

I also got back the rest of the inner parts which have been ceramic coated with Cerakote. Sorry about the fuzzy pictures of these black ones, my phone camera didnt like it.

 

Dang. Even if that paint isn't what you wanted initially, I think it looks great!

 

Amazing work! Took some time to find my jaw on the floor

 

You're back! -And it looks incredible. We've hit the 're-purpose the soft blanket and several towels' phase of the build.
Also, you will need to start wearing clothes when photographing the case now. I always hate that phase of my builds.

 

Thanks both

haha that gave me a good laugh. Either that or strategic with the poses hehe.

 

Hi all
This will hopefully be the penultimate update if things go well, the assembly has started.

When I had to revert to getting all the parts sprayed black I had to break off all the heatsink front panel aluminium hexs from the acrylic, so they could be sprayed without painting the acrylic behind it:


I then chopped up more of those Surface Pro back lights to sticky tape to the back of these panels, however annoyingly I forgot to take a picture, but you get the idea from the previous light panels I did, I then stuck LED strips down the edges:



then added the heatsinks:


Next up I glued in the magnets that will keep the top panel vents in place, so they can be easily removed for cleaning (there will be filter foam on the inner side soon):


and finally we get some computer hardware in this thing:
Specs are Zotac 3070 Twin Edge with waterblock, 16gb ram, Ryzen 7 5800x, 1tb NVME SSD under the heatsink and a 500gb one on the back, 4tb HDD,
Gigabyte B550 I AORUS PRO AX motherboard, 600W Corsair SF600 SFX PSU



Then lots and lots of wiring:




Tape on the PSU as I almost dropped a bolt in it lol. The HDD is mounted using a rubber pad on the screw side, and an O ring on the other so the vibration is dampened.


JB welded, and super glued some small HDMI/Display port extenders to the GPU IO plate:



Installed here, and also connected up the Cooler Master MasterAccessories RGB Fan Controller:


More wiring for more RGB I also changed the 3d printed brackets that hold the RGB panel in behind the coolant pipes to some bracket/strip combos that I could attach the RGB strips to:



And with the computer component tray installed:



Its all a very tight fit, barely any spare space expect a bit on the left and right, there fittings where a pain to get on, but just about managed with some log pliers. My measurements of lining up the SLI waterblock extender fittings seems to have been spot on as well


I messed up on the fan 3d prints and it doesn't quite fit once the heatsinks are in, doh. So I'm re-printing all those bits now. Also printing the RGB surround for the pump. I've pressure tested the whole system without the pump and its all good thank god, so once these new prints are done, I should be able to complete the assembly then. I'll have to get the DSLR out and see if I can figure out how to get some decent pictures of the finished computer with it being mirror black.

 

That's so tight fit ... this is some serious engineering really impressive, without mentioning the beauty of the rig