Scratch Build – In Progress Création n°3 // ITX Bamboo HTPC- 30.01.3015 - Update 6 (and MOTM nominee)

Création n°3 - Update 1.
Discovery time
- DJ Bonobo, "Kiara" in Black Sand -

Hello everybody :salut:

I know, I have a very bad habit : never finishing what i begin. This is true for almost everything (except with love, but it does not really matter for what we are doing here). But, good news : 2013 will be a great year, I decided so. It's starting very good : a new job (I'm now a journalist), I finished to build my new desk, I have new motivations, new needs, to put it in a nutshell, I'm a new man. (Yes, really).

Création n°3 aims to embody all that good stuffs. The project was born, as it often does, in the TGV between Paris and Bordeaux (or between Bordeaux and Paris, I can't remember). I really wanted a computer easy to build, easy to assemble, but that is neither trite nor simplistic. In other words, it must have the face and representative of the philosophy that I needed when it comes to computer design. The materials were easy to identify: aluminum, acrylic and bamboo, the same materials that I used to build my desk. The shape was also very easy: having fallen in love with an 500x300mm aluminum plate so I quickly decided that Creation n°3 will be a cube of 300x300x300mm on a 200mm stand (or substantially the same dimensions as a BitFenix Prodigy).

With an immoderate taste for micro-ATX and Germanic (or Scandinavian)design [I know there is no relation], it was necessary that everything is in perfect order. So I needed an intense brainstroming session to determine an architecture allowing me to get a micro-ATX motherboard, an ATX PSU, five HDD, one SSD, a gaming graphic card (even if I don't play) and a complete watercooling setup (with one 240 and one 120 radiators). Additional requirements: hide the maximum cables (it will be difficult), have no visible screws (that is not earned), use only raw materials (i.e. no paint or vinyl or stickers), and for me to finish well handicaps, make it extremely quiet. Anyway, I designed a computer. And I hope it will work.

Unusual digression for once, I laser-cutted my pieces, because I needed maximum precision (and also because I'm tired of being attacked by my neighbor whenever I wanna play with my jigsaw).


1. Creation of the spine

• Originally, this piece was supposed to be machined from a single block of aluminum (by 300x500mm, thickness of 20mm). As it proved too complicated (or too expensive), I had to rethink what I had in my mind. This leds me to the creation of a "sandwich" made of 5mm aluminum + 10mm acrylic + 5mm aluminum (for a total of 20mm ). The idea is to get all the cables in the plexiglass and use the two aluminum plates to hide them. On these two aluminum plates (extremely rigid and solid) the components will be fixed, with MB + GPU + RAM + CPU on the right side, with watercooling setup + SSD + HDDs + PSU on the left side. Note that the left and right are set arbitrarily since Création n° 3 has no front, no back, so neither right nor left.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  And now it's sandwich time, to check if everything is all right :
  
  
  
  
  
  Cheating with a laser cutter was not such a bad idea
  
  
  
  
  
  

2. Motherboard fitting

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  The holes of the aluminium part seem to be well in front of the MB's holes. I'm reassured, I will not have spent hours making me blind with Sketchup and specifications in vain. Because it's pretty stressful to take all measures and virtualize them in my small brain without having the physical products on hand to confirm. Pfffiou. :rofl:
  
  Final little bonus: the inevitable photo of Corsair Dominator (since it would appear that in workblog this is a mandatory step):
  
  

And voila. Well, it's not so bad at all (you have the right to think otherwise).
But there is much, much ... much more work to do.

Thank you for stopping by, and see you soon

 

Wow, Thats some sweet looking motherboard plate !

 

That looks amazing. Keep up the good work.

 

Very sexy.
-Someone has their laser dialed in perfectly. I've heard it's a pain to cut 10mm, especially in little strips like that.

 

this will probably look like a boss... can't wait to see more

 

Thanks a lot for your nice words and for appreciating
I hope everything will turn fine.

As a small teaser, this is the parts I'm working on. They are laser cutted (again), but I made a mistaka of 0,01mm that I will need to file down by hand (again...). Guess what this will be used for :

 

If everything will be as cool as the motherboard tray, this will be EPIC. Stay on it!
Awesome work.

 

nice made with those alu plates and the arcylic plate in the middle for the cables.. love to see more

i really cant see waht the last picture is used for? either the "case" for a foot for the MB tray?

 

hurry up i want to see more
SUBBED !

 

Just took another look at the motherboard tray photos. Specifically the one below.



The top piece of aluminum almost looked like it was floating for a moment.

 

Création n°3 - Update 2.
Aluminium memory
- Archive, "Hatchet" in With us until you're dead -

Hello Bit-Tech !

Today is sunday (even if I'm still looking for a little bit of sun today, but... well, it's irelevant). So, today is sunday, and sunday is update day. Tadaam ! It's time to show you a little bit of my progress on Creation n°3 :

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Before going further, a little cleaning is required. The pieces already look nice and clean out of the laser cutter, but we are enough careful enough. For degreasing and general cleaning, I use the hard way : gasoline C (since I did not have acetone), small lint-free cloths that I had from when I was playing around with epoxy , nitrile gloves (you can never be too careful) and, of course, a mask to avoid inhaling the fumes.

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Even for aluminium "out of the factory", I think it still really dirty Oo
For the rest, I tinker with my wedges remains of aluminum brackets ... With the return of the great buddy epoxy. : D

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And voila ! As it is a slow setting epoxy glue, I put it all in press for the night, hoping not to have bad surprises tomorrow.
After drying for 12 hours :

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Now, it is to remove the traces of glue and scratches on aluminum it's time to make a little bit of dry sainding with 60, 120 and 240 paper grit :

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I honestly did not know what to expect, but in my humble opinion, this is pretty good. I love the matte finish that gives to the aluminum and the "hand brushed aspect". This contrasts with the "too perfect" aspect of laser cutting.

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And if aluminium dust is too dirty, youre shower is your best friend :

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And voila !

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This is awesome.

 

nice made with those HDD and SSD brackets how are the things going to be put together ?

inside a case or like a test bench ?

 

amazing

 

Very impressive indeed.
I love the HDD/SSD bays.

You are going to fix the HDD/SSD with screw to the bays or it will be just plug n play ?

 

Thanks a lot Wayne & dreps

Inside a case : nope.
Like a test bench : nope.
Screws : nope Screws are ugly.

Plug'n play is very close to the final solution, but I won't show it until I've finish everything. For two simple reasons : teasing (that's a good first reason), and because I still haven't decide if I will anodise the aluminium parts... Everything is so tightly adjust that I can't step back and change my mind after. So, let's wait for another update. Stay tunned

 

Awesome!

I wish I could do things like this.

 

Love those little caddys!

 

Questions:

Are there any clamps to be used to keep the cables secure while placing the final plate?
or
Does the routing intentionally take up additional slack to leave a near-taut cable?

 

hâte de voir la suite