Scratch Build – Complete Cygnus X1.

Hi all.,
Been thinking about this build for a while now, and while I had all sorts
of ideas I just couldn't settle on anything or much less get it down on
paper. I did however have a very good idea of how the internals would
be arranged and all the various parts and how they would fit together.
So rather than waste more time trying to arrive at an overall look for
the case, I decided to just start building and see what happens.
So I'll be starting on the inside and working out. No doubt some trial and
error will sort things out and hopefully I'll arrive at a decent looking, and
functional result.

All the components, that is everything, Motherboard, PSU, drives, front panel
switches and ports will be fixed to a central assembly that will slide on bearings
out of the case and onto the desk or other surface. The motherboard on one
side and drives on the other. The PSU will be mounted below.
It's probably best just to start, and although things may be a bit boring and
confusing at the start, hopefully this worklog will become more entertaining as
things progress.


First up I laid out the two halves of the main component support.
Two sheets of 1.6mm alloy.



Then it was time to cut out the first side (motherboard tray) with the jigsaw.



And this is it all cut out with openings for the various cables.



I cut well wide of the line just to be safe.



Then I filed down to the line.





And the first side is cut and filed.



Next the bend lines were aggressively scored.



And I started bending on my home made brake.



But then I realized that I should first mark and drill some holes for the motherboard standoffs,
and screws that fit this part to some square tube. Also the brake needed some modification
that could only be done at work, so the bending will have to wait.

So I drilled some and countersunk some and did some test fitting with an old broken motherboard.













While I was waiting to go to work, (and modify the brake) I decided to start on the other side.
Much the same as the first side.







The next day I completed the bends on the mobo tray with the now modified bending brake.







And that's all I've done so far.

 

Fantastic start mate. Excellent work so far.

 

that looks realy nice, can't wait for the next update !

 

yay! your back to mod!

 

I love home made tools! Could you show a couple pics of the bending brake by itself? Please?
John

 

i agree, so please do so, if you don't mind stealing some of your craftsmanship ideas

a very mouthwatering start, keep it up

 

Nice metalworking!

 

Looks nice so far i will definitely be watching this one

Josh

 

sweet.

 

Ditto on the brake pics. What did you have to modify about it?
Subscribed

 

The boy 4rm oz
Dark~3nergy
Burnout21
jhanlon303
n0cturnull
craigbru
x06jsp
wbdog206
Thanks!

Here are some pics of the brake.
I built this just for this project so it's only big enough to make the
bends I need. This is 600mm wide and can make bends 330mm wide
but there is no reason why you can't make one a bit wider.
I saw a couple of pics of this on various places on the net and as
you can see it is very basic and easy to make (but very effective).
This cost me nothing as I had most of the stuff already but if you
had to go and buy the stuff it would maybe cost $30 or so.
This is made from 3 pieces of 50x50x6mm steel angle, two heavy
hinges, and some nuts and bolts.
Although I had a friend do some welding and milling on this one it's not
absolutely necessary. You can make one with just a hacksaw a drill
and some files.

 

Nice work on the bending brake.

 

I had the edge of the clamp milled sharp and on a 15 degree incline because I
couldn't get a clean 90 degree bend.
But this is not necessary if you are willing to accept a larger radius bend.

 

Thanks for the quick answer and the pics! Didn't mean to distract you from the modding with pestering questions about your tools, but I love the ingenuity and craft of DIY, can't wait to see what comes next!

That's a fantastic tool. Do you think the metal frame off an adjustable bed frame would be strong enough, or do you need fairly thick angle iron for basic case materials (thin alum and steel)?

I can see from the great pics that it's basically 2 angle iron pieces joined by 2 strong hinges and attached via vice to a sturdy bench, with a third angled piece that can be dropped over the bolts and sheet to be bent to form the backstop (don't know the proper term). It looks like in your pic you have it backwards to highlight it more for us? The free flowing hinged one has got a good solid handle attached and bends to the backstop. Right?

That looks like a sweet workshop! And is that an anvil at the end of your workbench?

 

Very nice self-made tool. I want one too!

 

The boy 4rm oz
Frenkie
Thanks.

ModMinded:
I wouldn't use anything less than the steel I used here.
When bending 2mm alloy, you can really feel the strain on
the brake.
On the clamp, I started off using the corner because this had
a sharper edge, but now that one edge has been milled I use
this for the bends.

That's a piece of railway track.,
makes a great anvil.

 

After cutting and filing the second half (the drive side)
I started bending but after two bends I realized "we have a
problem".
One of the bends was too narrow to do in the bender, it didn't
matter how the piece was oriented, it just couldn't be done in the bender.



So after much head scratching, a couple of scotches, dropping a clamp on
my foot and a couple of more scotches I decided to pull the brake apart and
improvise a very haphazard solution that made a dog of a bend.





But after a severe beating with a mallet and block of wood, it submitted and
turned out OK.



The small fixing tabs on both pieces were bent using the bench vice.



The next job is to join these two pieces together using some 12mm square
tube. This is to join the pieces together, add some rigidity to the large flat
areas of each piece, and create a cavity between the two sides to run cables
through.
Because of the bending drama wasting two hours+ I didn't have time to finish
this but I still have one day off, so hopefully this can be done tomorrow.

 

brilliant work!

 

Funky design and good work so far! (no surprises here, seeing it's you making it)

Also be aware, I may pop by and steal the lovely Dual PC Mk3 if I come to Melbourne in January...

 

This is looking really good.