Scratch Build – In Progress Fresh Fusion: 30-11: Do the GPU Shuffle!

The shape of that hard disk bracket is really cool

 

ahhh the HDD's are floating in the air! well at least the pic makes it look that way! hehe

 

25-01-08: Raising the desing a level or two

Wow, has it been that long already? I'm on page two! This is not a way to finish a mod

Ofcourse i haven't been ssitting around. Besides being extremely busy with work and taking the best possible care of my girlfriend before she leaves the country for a couple of months, i'm working on putting the finishing touches on my design.

No pictures or sketchup previews this time, sorry for that, but my darling laptop died on me, and still hasn't come back from repairs.

Here is what i came up with so far:

Left hand module

I'll extend a number of devices to te left hand side of my desk, just around the corner so to speak. That is almost 50cm away from all the action of the actual PC.

• Coolermaster Musketeer 1 LLC-U02 multifunction panels
• Two DVD-drives
• I/O panel
• power/reset switches

The two disk drives will be mounted underneath, hidden as much as possible while still being reachable, and not annoying my knee when they open.
The rest of those things will be to a point just before utter destruction, and then fitted in the desk itself. I'll make fitting holes for each and every single element. Especially the brutally cool Coolermaster Musketeer 1 LLC-U02 multifunction panel will own:

Look, analoge, gauges! The three gauges display fan speed, volume and temperature. The first two can be regulated.
I'll take the thing apart, and mount it vertically inside the desk. If all goes well, all you can see are the three gauges and two switches sticking out of the desk on the left, about 50cm away from the PC itself.
I'm going to use those vandal-proof switches for power/reset buttons, they too will be placed directly in the desk and will get their own hole
The I/O panel still needs some clever thinking. I might make it easy for myself and just mount it underneath the desk like the DVD drives. A better solution would be to have some kind of fold-away panlel in the desk, with the I/O behind it.

Inside the case

For the two fans on the right side of the case i decided against the lightscribe revoltecs. They are just too flashy for me, and they are red. Instead, i'll get two sunbeamtech anodised fans.
.
A similar fan will replace the one that is currently inside the PSU, to give the PSU a finished look and some light inside.

For lighting the case, i'm going to use two 30cm CCFL lights. I'll mount them to the back and top of the inside, so with any luck you wont see the lights, only the goodies inside the case.

Underneath the mobo i'll mount one or two 10cm CCFLs, to give it that floating on light UFO effect. Combined with the mirror, it's going to look

The Akasa 220mm fan will be mounted on it's own mirror, and placed at the maximum angle i can fit it in the avalable space. That should be about 30 degrees. Together with the HDD bracket, it will make for an overall pleasing shape of the PC like this: \______/
The space below the mirror that would become visible will get a black finish on the faceplate. In this black surface i'll etch the X-Fresh Fusion logo.

The HDD bracket will be redesigned completely. I'll keep that one a surprise, i think i can build that this weekend. Keep a close eye on this therad, you wont be disappointed!

The PSU will be mounted directly to the mirror plate. I'm planning on using simple velcrow band. Why make something harder then it needs to be, right?

In the four corners of the case i'll add plexi pillars for some support. If it goes well, they should be hardly visible though.

The desk itself

I have put this off for far too long. The desk itself also needs to be either updated or rebuilt for this mod to really look good. I've found a website that sells mohogany stickering. I'll use it on the entire desk, both top and bottom layer. Hopefully, it'll look like hi-tech and oldschool are blended together in a sweet mix.

I'll also need a good edge-trim. That won't be too much trouble i think.

I hope you guys enjoyed reading this dry dry piece of text. Next post i promise to provide some pictures and some actual modding.

as always, any and all comments and suggestions are appreceated

 

hmm, those plans are making me want an (picture)update even more!

 

Suspended HDD bracket

A saturday, sweet! time to get some stuff done

Sping Winter Cleaning
My girlfriend was getting a bit annoyed with all the mess. So, i had a litle cleanup. The only proper way of doing it is a very basic movement, you all know it:

• Get everything out
• push everything back in

You want pictures of the chaos you say? Fine, you get pictures!

Before:







Everything to the table:

and empty the table:


And everything back in:





Ok, with that done, i wanted to relax a bit. The weather was nice, so i went out and drove around a bit to buy me the sticker for the desk:


This will be the color of the two plates. I may end up not liking it, so maybe i'll have to ditch it later and resort to paint... ah well.

New bracket
Ok, here is what i had in mind for the new HDD bracket:
The old one had one big problem. I had no way to mount it to the mirror without making it look very ugly.
The comment by Burnout21 got me thinking. The HDD's should be really floating!

So i designed a bracket that i can easily fit to the top plate. Well, designed... i just started making it without thinking really

Anyway, here we go:
Paper cutout and trace the lines on plexi


Make 2 of them:


I bought some threaded wire to connect everything. First, i cut it to size.
Sparks! W00t!!! i never knew taking a dremel to metal was so awesome!


After that excitement, i needed some holes in the brackets so i could fix them together.
You all know they need to line up. There's only one way to do that, so the picture below is boring and abundant...


Here we see the threaded wire bolted into the plexi. This was a bit of a hassle. I brought the wrong bolts
So i needed two pairs of pliers to brute force those babies on. I cannot be stopped!


So, here we are, satisfaction!


And i can put the HDD in there perfectly!


Right, but what good does it do?
Well, i can make a bracket like this for every HDD. These brackets can be hanged from the ceiling of the 'case' very simply. They will hang like so:



A bit more explanation:

I'll make a slot in the ceiling that fits the latch exactly. Two metal hooks (the kind you screw in) will be bent open to support both threadwires. I can simply hook the trays in there and drop a HDD in it. It will be kept in place by it's own weight, and it's toolfree. I'll add some rubber to the bracket and the ceiling to dampen vibration and noise, and i'm done

Tomorrow i'll go do some more building. I might even take the desk apart

I hope you liked this update. Comments please!

 

Are you gonna use some "U" channel rubber to line the acrylic edge that the hdd sits on? If not, there will be significant noise! If you use the U channel and mount the brackets to the case using rubber insulation then all should be very quiet

 

yup, that's the idea

 

ah i like this idea, really cool, keep it up

 

Mate!! Niiiiice work! keep it up!

 

I'm bringing my girlfriend to the airport on friday. This means that until then, i'm busy with... ummm... well, i'm busy

On a brighter note, i ordered all the parts i need.

2 Aerocool Turbine 2000 120mm fans. (yeah, i changed my mind, these things look better)
2 30cm ccfl lights
1 10cm ccfl light
1 multifunction panel (see pic above)
some cables and assorted stuff.

i can't wait till it all arrives. You'll hear from me after the weekend.

 

Some superb ideas in here. I cant wait to see the finished item. I am sure this is inspirational to many people.

 

hey guys, sorry for the downtime, but i'm back!

There are some major updates coming up today and tomorrow. But first i have a little question:

I want to do some testfitting of the various light i bought (oh yes, there will be light!). How do i power the lights without having to build a complete setup?

I mean i want to put the PSU on the power, connect the CCFL to it using the molex, with no other components attached. Will that work?

 

Hi there Xtrafresh, I see that your project is going great.

I can't wait to see what good idea that you come up with next. Those HD brackets look awsome.

Also and i'm very happy for you that you finally get a taste of the goodness of working with that dremel! Aaahhh - the mix of knowing that you are chopping and cutting (actually sort of destroying stuff) and out of it comes a creation - a personal creation. Aaahhhh the first times its almost a rush.

Well, back to the practicallity of modding, and dealing with power. Some of the new psu's can be tricked into starting by shorting two wires.
Be warned though, if the load is not big enough you may blow the supply.

I like to use the old AT style PSU for simple testing, as they are designed to be able to run without a load, though they also work best with a small load like a diskdrive or such.

For other testing I would recommend a wall-wart I think they are called. You know the ones that give you a voltage and 300mA-1Amp of power.

I also have a switchmode 5V and 12V supply from a 3.5" external USB case that I use from time to time.
The cheapest HD USB cases I have found are some €20-25, so you might consider getting one just for the power supply. Here is a link to where I got mine: link (sorry site is in danish).

 

more more more more!!!!

 

Udate 8-2: building building building

Ok, here we go, i've been dremeling and cutting and grinding for two days, so get ready for a mega-update!
Lots of little things have been done. That's what this post is for. Aside from that, there's two more posts coming up for some bigger and more constructive work. Stay tuned!

Oh, and before i start, i'd like to apologise for the terrible pictures. My gf took the only decent camera with her, so i'm stuck with using my mobile

First, i received some stuff i ordered
You are seeing:
2x 10cm CCFL blue
2x 30cm CCFL blue
Above are the cables for the two, including PCI-bracket with on/off switch.
Lower left you see a strong 3-way laser LED.
And ofc some roundcable.


So, with all the toys in the house, and my girlfriend off to colombia waah it was time for me to start tearing things apart.
The first thing that came off was the upper board, to receive the fake wood sticker. It's actually looking a LOT better then i thought!



Another thing that was needed is a big hole for air intake. Here it is!

I used a cheap jigsaw that we had lying around from laying the floor

Next up was a long groove for the front panel to fit into. I didn't have any proper tools for it, so i grabbed the dremel and the bit that came closest to resembling something useful:

See the black edge? Well, it's supposed to be pink like the rest, but the wood was literally burning away under this violence! At one point i even had a little flame

Anyway, it worked, i have my groove:


That's the first bit, stay tuned for the two more interesting updates

 

update 8-2: Side panel

Aside from the stuff in the post above, i also received two Aerocool Turbine 2000 120mm fans. With those in stock, i got to work on building the sidepanel. This was not as easy as i thought. Anyway, here goes!

First, i used the etch & break method to get two plexi panels of 18x31 cm.
Next, i need to cut out the holes for the air to pass through. Finding something with the right diameter was hard, but the lid of a jar of jam finally worked:


I was lucky. My mother-in-law had this baby sitting around in the hallway. I guess doing your social duty pays off

Now this thing is not top-quality, far from it in fact, but it came free, and it does exactly what i need it to do: cutting in circles!

Well, circles.... actually this is more of a round-ish blob-shape, but for my purposes it'll do for now!

Out came the blue tinting foil, and i had another battle with that crap. The result in the picture may look OK, but in fact it isn't. It took me 3 tries to get it this good though.


The result is a feast for the eyes though. Those turbine fans look even better in real life then they do in the pictures, and i can't wait to fire them up. There's 4 blue LED's in each one.

I couldn't resist doing another mockup after making that sidepanel:


Anyway, the struggle with the blue film made me decide to drop the film alltogether. I'll keep going for now, but when i'm finished i'll order some blue plexi and replace where needed.

More coming, stay tuned, i saved the best for last

 

update 8-2: Multi-panel

As said, i saved the best for last. I also received my Coolermaster Musketeer 1. here it is in it's natural state:

erm... zomg!
OK, i may not have been the friendliest user this thing has ever had
For what i have planned, we need to mod this thing to an inch of it's life. As with all modding, that means taking it apart all the way. Sorry mate

There were some things i liked, some things i didn't like when opening this thing up.
The two sliding controllers are really flimsy, and will not last 5 minutes being used by me. The good thing is they can be removed completely. I was kinda worried that they would be glued, welded or integrated in the front-panel, but they were actually just a few switches on the end of a wire, held in place by the slot they occupied. *remove*
Now i had this:


Another thing i disliked at first was the fact that that white cover is needed. It guides the light from the leds into the gauges, so i really cant dump the thing. However, it's sticking out too much in the front. Tally-ho my trusty dremel!

Left one is done, the right one is saying his last (futile) prayer

With those two protrusions out of the way, we can take a look at the way this thing will be mounted on the desk. It will be underneath, so no fancy brackets here, just two pieces of plexi. Take a look at the unbended part:

And ofcourse you noticed the advanced modding equipment standing at the ready. I was cheeky enough to steal projectW's ironing bending method I also have a little addition of my own: the baking paper prevented the molten plexi from sticking to the iron, so i could heat the plexi a lot further.

Here's the two pieced taped together for drilling:


And here is the way they fit the panel's casing.


So far, so good, but there's still a lot to be done. Look:

The casing of the panel needs a haircut almost as badly as i do

Let's go to the balcony for this. Cutting alu smells to high heavens, and i don't want to put the poor cat through all that.


I don't have any pictures of the cutting itself, but i do have one of what it did to my cutting blades:

For all the flimsy build quality of this panel, the Musketeer is surely living in a strong house! I used up three dremel-brand heavy-duty cutting disks to the threads, and broke a fourth.

Anyway, after those fireworks it looked like this:


Time to turn our attention to the desk. We need three perfectly spaced, perfectly measured holes. All i had to do it with was the dremel and the cheap jigsaw i mentioned two posts back:

Each hole, i drilled enough holed with the dremel for the jig to fit in there, and started doing my magic. See those bendy lines in the space where the third hole is going to be? That's how i managed to cut out a square using the jig alone

After that it took me about 30 more minutes to gradually grind and tweak the holes so that the panel would fit. Eventually, i got it right, and screwed the panel on there:


Flipped it back over, and enjoyed the view. I could't stop taking pictures, but i won't bore you with more then two:



Ok, one more just because i like this pic so much!


I will leave you all with that, but rest assured, there will be MUCH MUCH more to see tomorrow

 

that is freakin awesome.. you need a set of raptor hard drives to put in that rack

 

true, true

i have one problem though...

 

AH! The empty pocket FLU. I think we all have experienced this once or twice. Historically not fatal, just miserable to live through. It is better to have money and no mod than to have mod and no money. Hope you recover soon.
John