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Case Mod - In Progress компьютер -- 2009.12.8 - structural assembly finished!

Discussion in 'Project Logs' started by IvanIvanovich, 1 Sep 2008.

  1. Coldon

    Coldon What's a Dremel?

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    ПОД НАПРЯЖЕНИЕМ - i'm bulgarian so this might be a bit incorrect, but i think it literally translates to under stress not over stressed :p
     
  2. Slatter

    Slatter Mesh Addict

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    I was just watching Hunt for Red October... Looking forward. Good Luck
     
  3. IvanIvanovich

    IvanIvanovich будет глотать вашу душу.

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    @coldon - i'm sure you're probably correct. i have been studying russian for maybe 4-5 weeks so i am sure to make many mistakes still. i am coming along so so on reading and writing. my oral comprehension though is terrible still. i have alot of work to do if i want to at least understand basic phrases when i go to visit.

    @sharn i am pretty sure the pico power i was looking at will work it is a 120watt version with 85 watts on the +12v. according to the specs sapphire provides on the card it requires 75 watts +12v so it should be good to go. if not then i am going to be building an itx project soon so i could use it for that if it fails.

    @the boy thanks, but unfortunately the rust effect is not to any skill of mine. just spray at it with a spray bottle and it does what it does. i am pleased with the result though.

    @slatter lol. hunt for red october... its a decent enough movie, but i never could comprehend why in the world they cast sean connery. its far fetched enough without having a scottish / soviet submarine commander. i mean seriously... why?

    so as you can see from the lack of uopdates i got nothing accomplished today. i ended up being called in to work, hey overtime though i guess. but it more or less ruined all of my plans for the day. so basically i can either 1. wait until next week, or 2. monday drop off the metal and some detailed measured plans of what needs to be done and go pick it up in a couple days.
    also i am debating about my hard disk. i crossed my fingers and switched my pc on to see if i could by some chance recover any of the data i hadn't saved and it booted into windows just fine. i got my back up done then proceeded to run no less than 6 hdd diagnostics on the thing and it passed all of them... so i'm not sure if there is anything wrong or not. it seems to be working fine as of right now and hasn't made any unusual noises all afternoon. i still have like a week left before my rma expires so i will monitor it and test some more perhaps. i hate sending things back and waiting to get things. still waiting for the atari 5.25 floppy drive i bought 3 weeks ago. still mulling over in my head how its going to connect to the main pc unit. esata port is easy, but i'm not sure what i am going to do to provide power 100%.

    one other thing: how do you change the title of the thread? i see others doing it, but i have looked all about and it is not obvious to me. i want to update the title to provide some more information (like when i update) etc.
     
    Last edited: 7 Sep 2008
  4. bigsharn

    bigsharn Officially demotivated

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    edit first post and go advanced:)


    I didn't know that til half way through Project AT-AT:p
     
  5. Slatter

    Slatter Mesh Addict

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    lmao
     
  6. IvanIvanovich

    IvanIvanovich будет глотать вашу душу.

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    thanks sharn. just what i was looking for! i updated the title to be a little more descriptive. sorry no updates. i've gotten myself all sidetracked now planning 2 other mods. one will be simple, the other will be a scratch build. i'm not going to give anything away. anyways, about THIS build. i've dropped off my metal to be bent to form up the top cover for the hard disks and the front cover. hopefully i will get them sometime towards the end of week or early next. my atari 5.25 floppy drive almost arrived today. i wasn't home for delivery so i have to go and pick it up from the post tomorrow. so plans to tear into dismantling it and seeing how the optical drive sits in it and so forth after work. i hope.
    to do:
    add some more coats of the photo luminescent paint to inside of case so it actually glows (apparently you aren't really supposed to use it on a black base coat... oops)
    make my hdd activity meter actually show activity instead of being buried full on.
    do some rusting and aging to the rear and inside of the case.
    get mesh and plexi for the side panel
    get the other hd4850 and axillary psu
    get watercooling bits
    decide once and for all if i want the switches and meters on the front or the side...
    theres probably some other stuff, but i don't know.
     
  7. Real McCoy

    Real McCoy I know what a Dremel is

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    a Russian girl knows what she is talking about

    hey guys! "Под напряжением" means "under tension", it is about electricity :)
     
  8. IvanIvanovich

    IvanIvanovich будет глотать вашу душу.

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    small update for today...
    got my atari 1050 external 5.25 floppy drive.
    [​IMG]
    here you can see the drive in comparison to a dvd
    [​IMG]
    an out of focus detail of the front
    [​IMG]
    the back. check out those old school serial ports, much larger than the now standard.
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    opened up. this thing is built like a tank. i bet it still works if i had anything to connect it to.
    [​IMG]
    the drive holding apparatus
    [​IMG]
    definitely plenty of room to work with here...
    [​IMG]
    this standoff will need to be cut off though
    [​IMG]
    the bezel is a little narrow, will need to file it out so the dvd will fit through. apparently 5.25 is bigger than it used to be.
    will start hacking away at it when i have some more time.
    also want to figure out some way to save the power switch and led thats on the front. it will be a cinch to fit in an esata port. still unsure about the power, but i guess i have a few options since theres plenty of room. will probably just go with a molex connector where the 2nd serial port would be.
    oh also... it appears that i was wrong about the hard drive. it actually seems that it is the video card. when i switched my computer on today the fan on the card was running at 100% which was the loud grinding sound i had heard before, and there was no video output. my guess is that it thinks its too hot or something, but i don't know why since it had been off for some time. am thinking it started acting up when i stopped using my air conditioner. the card is a great performer for the money, but the heat is out of hand on this series. 70c at idle is a bit much in my opinion. hits the 90's under load. i am certain that water cooling is called for and will probably solve the problem. i was looking at the dangerden 4850 blocks, but they might be a little out of my budget right now. any suggestions on something cheaper that will be as good? prefer a block that is full coverage for all of the ram etc, not just something for the gpu core.
     
    Last edited: 12 Sep 2008
  9. Slatter

    Slatter Mesh Addict

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    The Body of the DVD drive is 5.25. The front bezel was made slightly wider for asthetic purposes later on for all optical drives. One of the original single speeg or double speed CD Roms should fit fine as they were designed to be flushe with the front of the case.

    This gives you an opprtunity to mod the hell out of the DVD bezel :D
     
  10. The boy 4rm oz

    The boy 4rm oz Project: Elegant-Li

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    Nice work. Suits the mod perfectly.
     
  11. ry@n

    ry@n Minimodder

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    My god that thing is huge! As The boy said, fits the theme well and is going to look great when you "batter" it :D
     
  12. Htr-Labs

    Htr-Labs What's a Dremel?

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    -
     
    Last edited: 19 Dec 2016
  13. IvanIvanovich

    IvanIvanovich будет глотать вашу душу.

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    thanks for the nice comments all. yes it is rather large enclosure for the optical. its nearly a third the size of the computer case... i'm going to try and get a little modding done today since it's a rain day and work was cancelled. i keep looking at the atari enclosure and keep wishing i had a slot loading dvd drive so i could maybe use the floppy drive face... eh oh well i can't justify buying another dvd drive when this one works perfect. at least it already has somewhat of a retro feel to the design of the optical. oh don't worry i won't forget to put at least one hammer and sickle on the case somewhere. also been looking around to find a good image of some particular division insignia. am leaning either towards chemical or communications division at the moment. it's hard to track down any good images or actual insignia of those two however, perhaps i just am not looking in the right place. mostly i keep finding kgb or rifle troops insignia. those seem to be the most common. well anyway i'll post back later on if i manage to get anything accomplished.
    i was looking for insignia and found this one, which looks pretty neat.
    [​IMG]
    if i am correct it appears to be insignia for the cosmodrome missile launch site, but i think it is a current insignia not soviet as i believe the city was called leninsk during the cccp days.

    @ slatter i didn't know that. back in the early days of cd roms and gasp dvd drives if you were a kazillionaire i can't recall having any computers that had a visible bezel of its own. the drive was always naked behind the main front face of the case, so i guess i missed out on noticing it. i remember those tray caddy things you put the cd in and stuck it in the slot of the drive. i think i have one of those in a junk box someplace... possibly in storage with my intel dual slot a server board with 450mhz xeons and capacity for up to 256mb pc66 ecc ram... lol. hmn... all this is making me nostalgic.
     
    Last edited: 12 Sep 2008
  14. IvanIvanovich

    IvanIvanovich будет глотать вашу душу.

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    minor update 2008.9.12

    well i got a little bit done, but not very much. i spent most of the time searching the internets for some things i need. it looks like i found a winner for the external optical power problem http://www.frozencpu.com/products/6...10v_AC_to_12v_DC_Converter_w_4-Pin_Molex.html looks perfect for what i need, just wish it was half as much. also was looking around for waterblocks for hd4850 and i found some EK blocks that look pretty well made, but i am not terribly familiar with them. they are about $30 cheaper than the danger dens though. i priced out what i *want* for the water loop and it came out to nearly $600 with everything. i fell out of my chair. so expensive. i am sure i could find some cheaper components, i just priced out on frozencpu which i have ordered from many times. anyways on to what i accomplished...
    [​IMG]
    roughed up handles with some sandpaper, taking the chrome off and exposing the copper in spots, then applyed some oxidizer to age it.
    [​IMG]
    went to the flea market looking for anything useful, and found this... awesome. the next most useful thing they had today was some pci matrox and s3 videocards from like 1995... so yeah.
    [​IMG]
    the modding fuel for today.
    [​IMG]
    the soviet emblem applied to the control plate
    [​IMG]
    heres the control plate with the handles back on, you can see the tarnishing.
    [​IMG]
    another view
    [​IMG]
    attempted to tidy up the wiring some, still not final. the 50 year old resistors i had broke when i was fiddling with it, so i added more leds to voltage drop. once again, tested fine on my tester motherboard, still will not work proper on the ecs board that is in this project... i don't get it. it has to have something to do with this being raid... i'm convinced. maybe i will switch it to ide mode and see if it works to test my theory... i just hope it dosent destroy my array if i do so.
     
  15. bigsharn

    bigsharn Officially demotivated

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    I love that missile launch effect on the switch:) and good find on the hammer and sickle:p If I went to a fleamarket I'd come back with allsorts and completely miss the thing I was looking for
     
  16. IvanIvanovich

    IvanIvanovich будет глотать вашу душу.

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    hmn... i am really stumped on this hdd meter. it didn't work proper in ide mode either. i suppose the real reason is probably that the ecs board has more voltage output than it's supposed to off the led panel header. wish i had a voltmeter... perhaps i will borrow one from work on monday. it must be pretty high, since as i understand it i should already have about a 5v drop from having the leds wired in before the meter. oh well back to fiddling about with things.
     
  17. IvanIvanovich

    IvanIvanovich будет глотать вашу душу.

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    well i finally got that hdd meter mostly sorted. although it forced me to go to radioshack... i was desperate and didn't want to wait to order parts from a good supplier, so i made due with thier meager selection. in the end i have 2x 1k ohm 1volt resitors and 3x 560 ohm .5 volt resistors chained one after the next. thats alot of resistance. basically i got the biggest ones they had, then the next biggest and figured i would see what it did and add or subtract as necessary. they are terrible quality as i broke 2 of them just bending wire around them... although they did miraculously have some other bits i had been looking about for, although over priced, but i bought them anyways.
    well i also got about half of the external optical drive finished.
    [​IMG]
    disassembly... looks like theres a few bits i might be able to do *something* with. couple stepper motors and some betal bits and lot and lots of screws.
    [​IMG]
    sawed out that pesky standoff that was in the way from letting the top close.
    [​IMG]
    making sure it closes now...
    [​IMG]
    todays modding assisted by obolon!
    [​IMG]
    filing down the bezel so the thing will fit.
    [​IMG]
    almost... a little bit more
    [​IMG]
    yay it fits now, after filing off like a freaking mm on each side...
    [​IMG]
    a quite rough idea of how the esata port will be placed
    [​IMG]
    my cat ran off with the esata cable and chewed it up when i wasn't paying attention... i hope it will still work
    [​IMG]
    heres what it looks like all closed back up.
    [​IMG]
    would like to save the switch and led... thoughts? i would like them to actually function as intended also, ie turn the drive on or off, led lights up when its on...
    [​IMG]
    as you can see the meter is working now (hdd is the top one, power is the bottom and it is max on or 0 off, nothing to do about it i tried to add resistors but they do nothing.
    [​IMG]
    got connectors for custom power cable, this port will be accessable from outside of case to plug in stuff quick if need without having to open up case.
    [​IMG]
    they're the exact same as the ones on my hiper power supply.
    it would be finished if i had a soldering iron, but i couldn't be bothered to buy one yet, and i didn't feel like driving across town to borrow one...
    [​IMG]
    wired up this light i found when i was working. it was in a meter box for some reason... so i took it with me as i thought it would fit in with the style it lights up nice off the 12volt.

    to do:
    [​IMG]
    get this hooked up and mounted
    [​IMG]
    figure out if it is at all possible to wire these up to work with an azalia audio header...
    i had an old silverstone front panel with usb, firewire, audio but i tested it out and the audio is so terrible i can't use it. its an old ac97 connector, and while it "works" with azalia, it sounds like someone recorded the audio in an expressway tunnel from far away and added alot of distortion...
    plus it would be nice to have 1/4" plugs instead of the small ones.
    make the power cable, as mentioned above
    [​IMG]
    i sort of want to find a place to put these, but i'm not sure... too tacky? will it ruin the theme?
    still need to do the other stuff from my last to do list...
    just a thought... since the enclosure is so large, i was wondering if it would be worth it to get a sata port multiplier and mount a few hdds in there too. there is easily enough room... or perhaps just one and make it connect over ethernet? or maybe some other odd device of some sort like one of those micro amiga or apple II system boards?
     
    Last edited: 14 Sep 2008
  18. IvanIvanovich

    IvanIvanovich будет глотать вашу душу.

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    Fun With Cardboard

    so i had to create some new mock ups as the ones i gave the guy before got lost or something... since i didn't take a picture of the first ones, i did this time. so hopefully i will get the pieces made soon. i would be upset its taking so long if i was getting charged for it. anyways...
    [​IMG]
    heres more or less what the front is going to look like. the faint angled lines towards the top will be cut out for fan grill.
    [​IMG]
    more or less what the top will be like. theres alot of holes for ports etc on the top. i may be lazy and have them laser cut, but i don't really know if i want to pay for it...
    [​IMG]
    plan to cut out some ventilation for the hdds on the side of the top piece.
    [​IMG]
    represents a piece of metal to be bent that will go over the psu on the inside. making this to plan to mount the watercooling pump, nixie thermometer (if i can figure out how to make it), and pico psu
    [​IMG]
    it would be something like this

    i forgot to post these yesterday. heres some pictures of my wiring job for the meters. its all nice and heatshrinked and everything. i'm not sure about it still though. those resistors are so brittle, i am a little concerned that if it gets bent around they will break off. considering redoing the whole thing again, but put it on a bread board this time.
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]
    my cat. probably pondering on how fun it would be to chew the wiring...

    i am going to try and get some other things done today. i'll post back later if it happens.
     
  19. IvanIvanovich

    IvanIvanovich будет глотать вашу душу.

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    *#%!ing video card...

    so my hd 4850 is dead after an entire 4 weeks of operation. It now refuses to display any video output of any kind while the fan roars away at 150% making 200db of cacophonous racket. to top off my frustrations it seems that there is no option for me to rma this item on newegg where i purchased it (there is no tick box on the rma form for the item) so i have emailed them since they are closed today. I hope it is all some horrible mistake as i would MUCH prefer to rma it through them than have to deal with sapphire directly. Anyways... so i talked to the metal bending guy again today when i dropped off my plans again, and he said he would try and get it finished tomorrow... not holding my breath. I didn't get anything done today at all, asides from going to borrow a soldering iron. I did get for free though some keen ide hotswap bays out of some derelict server, although it has nothing to do with this project in any way. if i feel more relaxed later i might attempt at doing that power cable. we'll see.
     
  20. The boy 4rm oz

    The boy 4rm oz Project: Elegant-Li

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    Damn a dead graphics card always sucks mate. Bad luck.
     
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