Scratch Build – In Progress -= Epic =- Project Venom .:. Last progress before Im off to Japan!

Introduction:


A member of OCAU approached me about a custom build and I was kinda busy so I only accepted under the condition that I build most of the case with my laser cutter.

Sounds strange but I like designing on the computer and if I can bring my computer creations to life with a laser cutter in a unique way then thats awesome yeah?


The client basically wanted a cross between a Lianli and a silverstone TJ07, mixing those two in the blender wasn't that difficult.


After consulting, I came up with the final sketch.



After realising that I didnt actually have a process for producing cases from laser cutters, I decided to reorganise my room so I could actually design and cut whilst keeping my main computer functioning.



I got all the acrylic I needed and yes, I bought bulk!


The name of the case is venom and the client wanted a green that would suit his nvidia chipset and gfx, I happened to find a really nice one.




Ah cast acrylic, good stuff, the quality is amazing.




I got to work on the frame of the case, the grub screws managed to blend in fairly well and held the pieces together like glue in my test run.



Nice sturdy frame, spot the grub screws

To be honest, its all laser from here on in so ill be sticking into autocad in a big way till the new laser tube arrives. For anyone wondering, the case is 1cm wider than most lianli cases, its a 22cm wide case and that allows for a tiny bit more room for cable management which is always welcome.

Until next time.

 

Looks like your off to a good start.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRG1jTbPZbU

Prepping up the laser cutter, should get a fair bit of work done on this mod by the end of the week!

 

Looks like it's gonna be a sweet case

 

Buwahaha feel my enthusiasm,I was litterally was jumping around before. The excitement subsided somewhat whilst I waited for the laser to do its thing but wow, wow that thing took alot to get installed.

But it is, the installation is over so lets get a move on with this case yeah?


How was my day? pure awesome, absolute awesomeness. DHL came up with the goods and i got straight to work.


The 1/4 inch bsp taps came in as well for the custom res but who cares...WHEN YOU GOT A LASER! pew pew pew Yes, im excited.


After some test runs went well, I decided to cut the actual models ive been working on in autocad.


Besides some dust flying up from the cut, it was super clean.




And I jizzed - in my pants



More to come, Im making a video on youtube about the install and test cuts as well as the final product of course. Going to be an exciting week, plenty to cut!

 

Nice work dude. Laser cut for the win!

Can't wait to see more.

 

I will definately be keeping an eye on this. I mean, how many people have their own laser cutter!

Can I ask though, can they cut to a depth? Or is it always clean through? If they can go to a depth, how accurate can the cut be? I just have a few ideas sparking from looking through this thread....

 

Yeah it can cut depth but it takes a fair amount of messing around with to get the depth you want

Its accurate to .001mm (which I thought was pretty good)

 

Dude, you just made my day as I need something to cut to 1mm... Kudos and +rep to you good sir.

 

I'll be keeping an eye on this one. It looks very interesting.

I know a limited bit of Strine, but I'm not familiar with your exclamation when the new tube arrived. What does "pew, pew,pew" mean?

 

Well if you need to cut at depth you should get a cheap cnc, ebay has ones as cheap as 500 USD and they will pretty much do exactly what the laser does. The laser would cut a line at depth but if you say wanted to make a countersink hole with this thing or routing, better off with a cheap cnc.

Cheers for the rep

Pew pew pew. sounds like a laser haha, cmon!


Anyhow I did a run through of my test cuts and got some really neat footage of the laser in action. Check it out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVoZOUiJIAI

 

very nice footage indeed. Certainly seems to cut very fast.

I need to get some green acrylic cut down so as to have raised letter edges of a height of 1mm and the "inside" of the letters countersunk as well, so that it is just the edges of the letter proud of the rest of the piece. It's for a side panel logo I am looking to do on my Obsidian case.

 

I really don't see how this can be possible to manufacture. Maybe if the letters were molded with some liquid acrylic and then applied to the panel that would be less trouble.. you'd still need to produce a mold though, could be cnc'ed in mdf and then waxed ...

 

Well, if you change the power level of the laser and set it to raster, you can achieve a very shallow mark. All it really does is burn of a tiny amount of the surface. You could take your design and run the pattern over and over until you achieve the 1mm depth. Now, with this process the acrylic that is affected during the raster will look to have a 'frosted' effect. This could be reversed with some polishing.

As far as the countersinking, CNC would be the best for that.

 

By the time you raster a large area though, your laser tube would be goneskies (thats if your watercooling doesnt fail by then)

 

I don't know why I pictured embossed as in domed, but to do a straight edged emboss you could simply laser cut your letters in a 2nd layer of acrylic that you glue on top of the first.

 

Thanks for all that lads, but let's not go off-topic from Djayness awesome laser

 

Nah its all good, im all for whatever help you need, especially if its the difference between getting a cnc or a laser. To be honest, the laser is heaps of trouble to maintain, the beam path continually needs calibration after a days work.


But onwards!


Time for a new update and a new video, the video will come later.


Today was quite productive to say the least, I decided to start cutting out all the pieces required to fit into the laser.


Once that was done, I got straight to cutting out the side panels for the base.



Those side vents will be filled with black air filters to ensure that the computer stays dust free.


I wasnt quite happy with my first attempt at the motherboard I/O, the problem wasnt the cut per say, but the way I cut it. Basically the machine would get the file and cut half way through and once it had finished i had to recut so it went all the way through the acrylic.

Unfortunately, this left alot of melted acrylic around the cut meaning the edges just werent smooth, to get the pieces i had to snap them out. I re-programmed the machine to do a double pass on every line so this wouldnt happen.


That is...a really nice green




Nerds can love too Thats just an off piece btw, its not going to feature on his case lol


Onward! acrylic fabrication 101...


I did a triple pass on the V so i could pop it out, the V will be backplated black just to look awesome.


Mmmmm motherboard backplates....







The vid will be up later!

 

So very cool, nice work!

 

wow, thats pretty badass. How much was the laser cutter out of curiosity? I would love to get one of those...