Scratch Build – In Progress [bit-tech/Intel NUC competition] The Face Case

It looks like you're using the clear plastic sheet that hardware stores like B&Q sell. This isn't actually acrylic (perspex), but clear polystyrene, and is horrible to work with in my experience.

I'd recommend getting some better quality acrylic sheet. If you're in the UK, Trent Plastics is a great supplier, or even have a look at ebay, and you'll probably be able to get a load of small sheets (150x150mm or similar) for very little money. You'll find the finish you can achieve will be much better.

Looking good regardless.

 

That was just for testing, I'm going to buy some acrylic sheet to do the real thing with

 

Good to hear. Like I said, have a look on ebay for some small sheets, it can work out a huge amount cheaper than buying a large single sheet.

Look forward to seeing this progress, it's a nice design.

 

Another great option for sourcing plastic is The Plastic People. They have a good range of acrylics and offer a cut to size option with a scaling cost calculator, meaning a small-ish piece costs peanuts. They also ship very quickly and reliably, often had sheets arrive the next day from them.

 

A bench grinder is like a giant dremel. It's a great cheat. I mark off the inner edge of my bevels so I don't over do them. I'd also save the last sanding pass for the assembled ball.

 

A FREE NUC! You're a lucky guy. I wanted to enter this competition, but I'm knee-deep in a build. I'm glad you were able to get one. I love the design, can't wait to see how it turns out.

 

This is a pretty poor update after seeing the progress Waynio is making! But anyway, I've just bought the acrylic, spacers, and bolts.

I've done some playing about with threading acrylic too without going all the way through, pretty tricky when you only have 5mm to play with, so i've come up with a cunning plan on how to screw the bolts to the face. Proper update should be coming later in the week!

 

Nice way to make bevels & polish them up, the face plate turned out excellent.

If it's relevant to the project then it's not a poor update & there is 7 to 8 weeks left I think.

 

You might want to post a pic or two, even if it's nothing progress-wise, it still would count as one of your required updates. -(I'm teaching someone to cheat?)

 

Quick update!

A few of my bits turned up, still waiting for the plastic.

Bolts and spacers!


My plan for fixing the bolts to the front face, has changed from screwing into the plastic, to threading some spacers and fixing those to the front to screw in to. I bought two different center hole size spacers, ones with 6mm holes for the bolts to go through and 5mm hole ones for the bolts to thread into.
May have to buy some more 5mm ones as they are an ugly yellowy white colour, or I may just spray them all.

Gave it a quick test go.

Tapping the spacer!


Attaching the spacer to a piece of plastic. I did this with super glue, which held up pretty well, I also tried drilling a shallow hole in the plastic to locate and give the spacer extra purchase, worked even better. So probably going to go with that method, not a fan of gluing things together, but it's done the trick and looks tidy.



Bolt in!


I picked up a scroll saw today too as I think it will come in handy for machining out the i/o panel on the back and my holes on the front!

Oh I did some drawings for my aluminium guy (aka, my uncle) so hopefully I'll know shortly whether he can whip one up for me.

I made this in powerpoint so it's not the best ( I should really learn how to use sketchup). My brother is currently making some proper drawings for it in autocad.

 

Proper update time!

I've made some pretty good progress this week cutting out the proper plastic, big thanks to my brother for whipping the designs up in autocad so I could print them out to scale and use them as templates.

Pictures!

The plastic sheet.. I cut off a small corner to play about with on my newly acquired scroll saw, I cut out a nice little name tag, unfortunately no picture of it.



Printed out designs and a stick of glue!


I could probably have got these a bit closer together..


My work station. That's definitely not a pair of mole grips holding the saw in place.




One down, too many to go.


I ended up doing three on the scrollsaw(only thing I had), then decided that was taking too long, so went to my dads and jigsawed the rest out, just using the scrollsaw to do the semi circles at the top and bottom.





Holes drilled. I went back on my plan to stick some spacers to the front face and decided to drill a shallow hole and tap it. This was possible now with the thicker plastic the acrylic also seems to melt less easily than the plastic I used for my testing, which helped drilling the shallow holes not to distort the front.



Assembly test time!


I may have to get some longer bolts as they currently only just poke out the final spacers, they may be ok once the protective layers are off the plastic. I'm tempted to get some stainless bolts instead too as i'm not loving the black ones.


And it's together :O




It was getting a bit dark when I took these so the quality isn't great.. might need to charge up my proper camera




That's it for today.

Next plans are to cut out the rest of the holes, put the bevel on each piece and try a test fit of the hardware!

 

Awesome tiny orange NUC.
Nice to see some excellent progress spks.

 

Traffic cone orange!
I'll admit I'm a user of the threshold technique too. -Only I use my patio door. The way to the garage is dank and treacherous...

 

Took some better quality pictures this morning so you can see how rough my edges are

 

D'oh double post!

 

Looking good spks,

I'm guessing you're in for an entertaining time sanding those edges down, I'd have been tempted to cut out panels for the spaces too and sand them down as a complete ball.

 

More progress today!

Things done.
-Holes cut out.
-Test fit of the NUC

I'm pretty happy with the fit of the NUC the front usb looks like it'll line up nicely, have spotted that the power supply hole on the back though isn't quite in the right spot and it's a bit big, but it's useable, semi tempted to redo the back piece, but think i'll hold off for now. Realising now that maybe a round hole would have been better for the power too!

Pictures!







Checking alignment


It fits! just need to cut out a bit on the back of the front USB port hole to make the front fit on properly


That's my eye not a USB port!

 

Looking good.

 

Wow! It lookslike the absolutely perfect case for the NUC. It's quite impressive how small it is...

 

Thanks guys! Think i'm gonna end up cutting out the back piece again as my measurements for the inputs weren't particularly good, probably should have checked that before cutting it out!