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

In the million years I've been on earth, I have NEVER been able to heat any plexi twice without breaking. I think it causes micro fractures when heated and these buggers multiply when reheated to make a cracks. my 2 cents.
John

 

So, You're and EMT who grabs onto hot things....

Eh, I've seen smarter people doing stupider stuff.
Not saying that you arent smart, and that you do stupid stuff.
I'll shut up now. ><

Anyways, it looks like a decent bracket for the hdd's. Can't wait to see it made!

 

lol, i thought so about the re-heating, but hey, it was practise anyway, so i thought i'd just slapt that thing back in there

 

Ok, i need help bad!

You all saw what i did to the poor fancontroller a little while back...
The gauages are in place and (hopefully) working, but i took the switches off. I am planning to make my own custom switchpanel, all switched mounted directly on the wooden desk. Here is a list of the switches i need:

• main power switch. Not a vandal switch, i want something with a little more "click". Preferrably round, lighted blue.
• reset button. like the power, but smaller
• CCFL toggle x2 (see picture)
• Volume regulator. (see pic)
• Fan speed regulator (x2) (see pic)

This is a close-up of the amp i'm using. I really like this style of switches.


Well, my question is, where do i find switches like this, and can i just slap them on the end of the wires that are already in place or are there a lot of electrical difficulties i need to overcome?

 

i'm back!

Hey people, guess what: i dusted off the dremel and started modding again!

The problems above are all sorted out. Infact, they became irrelevant.

First of all a small apology for being a vapourmodder . With the mod at 70% finished, i decided to build a testfit about a month ago. with my work demanding some more time, my girlfriend back from Colombia (and demanding more time too ) and the PC actually working, i wasn't really motivated to take it apart and finish the project.

But you know how it is... i got the Itch. So, after quenching my thirst for gaming a bit with some MTA: San Andreas, some Crysis and some Oblivion, i took the thing apart one friday afternoon for a weekend of modding.

Unfortunately, i don't have the pictures with me at the moment, so you'll have to wait till i get home. Also, no more overview shots for you untill the final gallery shoot! We need some suspension in the worklogs according to the sticky thread on top

What i can give you though is this preview i snapped in the morning with my mobile.


You are seeing the back of my new sidepanel, and a closeup of the PSU fitted on the bottomplate with all the wires in a testfit.
On the foreground one of the two handles i placed.

see ya tonight!

One more comment: When i started this project i was a bit sloppy in documenting the whole thing. I think there's pictures in 5 or 6 different sizes in here
From now on i'll be following a more guarded format. Pics are 640x480, and all topics are covered one by one. I'll see whay i can do to clean up earlier posts too.

 

Tough love on the main tray

Well, better late then never. As i said two days ago, i've restarted work on this project. As mentioned above, i have built the whole rig in a mockup fit, and stumbled upon a milion tiny issues to sort out. To get it all fixed, i started off by ordering some more kit, which should arrive this week. Most of it is cable extensions and splitters. Before i need those though, i need to give the main tray some tough love. I need holes for all the wires, fittings for the components, a new HDD bracket (will it ever end? ), some handles on the tray, a way to lift the tray up at the right angle, etc etc. To make matters worse, i still have no DVD drive holder, not on/off button, no USB hub, and only a faint idea about what to do about the fan- and lightcontrols.

In short, lots of fun to be had

Throughout the day, i'll be posting updates topic-by-topic.

Let's start where the above rant started. I'm gunna drill some holes in the main tray. First a fitting for the mobo:

I used a very small drillbit in the dremel and then a pair of pliers to screw in the standard mobo standoffs. Each of the 6 screws used to fit the mobo are actually 2 standing on top of eachother. This gives the mobo a nice lift, so i can route cables underneath and light it from the bottom. I did a testfit with that light, it's going to blow your mind. And no, i won't show the pics yet

Time to make some holes for all the cables.
In the end, i drilled 5 6mm, 5 14mm and one huge hole to route all the cables through.
Only one drilling went wrong, all the other ones turned out very neat. Ofcourse nobody cares about the neat ones, so here's the broken one:


Luckily, this is at the back of the tray, where the ATA roundcable will go down. The flaw will be hidden by the cable itself and obscured from view by the mobo. Afterall not too big a deal, but still, it's there.

The big hole is behind the PSU, and it'll have a grand total of 8 fat cables running through
Here's a pucture of the testfit i did. It's really tight, and i need to install the cables in a specific order, otherwise the connectors won't go through anymore, but the endresult is very pleasing:

This is looking exactly the way i want. It's almost as if it's one big component, and not cables. Did i mention i want to see zero cables in my case?
This also inspired me to take a little trip to the CPU cooler that has a particularly annoying cable sticking out of it. Here's an old pic i took a while back to remind you:

See that cable sticking out on the right? Well, i realized i could get that out of the way by simply putting the fan on upside down:

MUCH better. That cable has been annoying me from the very beginning.

As i said before, i'll post some more throughout the day, so stay tuned!

 

Cable management 201

After a month of not doing anything, i didn't start maiming my main tray right away. I started off with something much simpler to gain some confidence and get going: cables. As mentioned above, i want to eliminate them all, and that includes making the pieces that i cannot eliminate from view less ugly.

Roundcable

Let's start with the most ugly piece of PC kit i ever bought:

The ATA roundcable for dvd drive. The hidiousness is just epic. It's mildy UV-reactive, has loose covers for the connectors, badly applied tin foil wrap, and a positively vile whitish colour in daylight.
I mean... just look at it. This unit is sold as modding equipment!


To work!
First let's remove that rediculous UV-reactive cover:

Actually, the silver braiding below isn't that bad...
I removed the coating, and did some handiwork with black tape. Still not very good, but a good bit better anyway.


PSU cable

Next cable that was giving me headaches was the PSU main power cable. Because all the other cables need to be in the back, this one will need to be plugged into the front of the unit. I have two problems with it. It's revolting, and it's huge. First, let me explain why the "huge" is such a big problem for me. Here you can see it plugged into the PSU on the front:

As you can see, i'll have to place the PSU further back, or the cable will be sticking through my front screen. Here comes the problem: i can't place it further back

Here's why:

The PSU is already interfering with the DVI connectors. It's already pushing it back, any further backwards movement of the PSU would force me to twist the DVI cables into a few bends that will attract the eye. That's not happening.

So, i got a small carving knife and started to shave away a lot of the unneeded rubber on the power connector. Before:


And after:


As you can see, it won't win any beauty peagants, but it does save me some space by going straight down.

Next thing to focus on was the looks of that cable. I looked around at what i had to improve the situation and found a donor PCI bracket:


Snap!


After some dremel action (lots of action in fact, sparks and pieces of cutting disc were flying everywhere ) i had this:


Here's how that will work:


It's pressing the cable in the right pace, and obscures it from view at the same time. Not very amazing, but good enough for now. I might change it later if i end up not liking it.

Last but not least i added a removable wall plug on the other side so i can put the cable through a small hole. For my own safety, i decided to ONLY make this plug detachable, and not the other one


As always all comments are much appreceated

That's it for the cables, but i have more, so stay fresh!

 

Shiny Sidepanel and more

Ok, last post for today. The title promises a shiny new sidepanel, but you'll have to wait for that (or scroll down and spoil all your fun ).

PSU mounting

First, let's do some more small changes. One very important thing i need to get right is mounting the PSU to the main tray. Untill now i have only just placed it on there, but it's obvious a more definitive method is needed. It doesn't need to withstand many 8.5 earthquakes, but i'd like it to sit in one place at least

There aren't any mounting points on the bottom of the unit though. Maybe some heavy modding was needed? Let's open this puppy up.


Carefull inspection unveils 4 tiny screws that secure the main PCB on the backplate at these locations:


This gave me a great idea. I have taken about 10 ye olde machines apart lately as part of my other mod (tapedecks etc), and i had a whole bunch of screws lying around. What i did was replace the screws with longer ones:

The threads match exactly!

The screws are now four tiny little legs to lift the PSU slightly from the ground:


Man i love it when a plan comes together

From here it was very easy to just make 4 little holes in the main tray and put the PSU in there. The holes don't go all the way through, so the PSU can be picked up without any tools, but there's really no need to have it screwed down. Any other case can be picked up and taken away, but this is actually attached to my house (not even just the desk), which is not really made for picking up
A picture that shows the full effect:


Handles

Speaking of picking up, i do want to be able to install the main tray without having to grip it awkwardly from the side. I need some handles. They are not in any of the designs, which is more or less a flaw, but i really do need them.

*snap*

Handles!

Well, i'm glad you asked! (oh dear, i need to get out more )
I just used whatever came close. Like, a wall


The bend as near as makes no difference exactly what i was looking for.
Now let's fix that to the tray:

A hole, a washer ring, a screw, done! Simple solutions are always the best

The sweetest thing about those handles is they serve another purpose. You'll notice that they are uneven, one side being longer than the other. This solves another one of my problems. The main tray is now at a pefect angle:


New sidepanel

I was prettymuch "in the zone" at this point, and looking for the next thing to mod. The sidepanel caught my eye with it's poorly applied colour film, it's scratches and it's ugly wires, screwholes and fancasings. Next to it, i had this stuff laying around:

I had originally planned to useit as main tray, but when that plan was scrapped i never found a new use for this goodlooking mirror acrylic.

Now i have! First, i need to find my FECMU (Fresh Expert Circle Markup Utility). My girlfriend just calls it a piece of string with two screwdrivers... pah!


Out came the bandsaw, and i had me some nice perfectly round holes. First one:


Then more:


This time i decided against the use of screws to assemble the sidepanel, manily because screws are ugly. Doublesided tape cheesecake:


And we have ourselves a new sidepanel:



Phew. That's all for today. Please feel free to drop some comments, suggestions and questions to get some life back into this thread.
Mod on, and stay fresh!

 

Just one thing... If the sleeveing on that round cable is metal, you will want to re-cover it. The last thing you want is for it to short something out. (OT--CAN you pass a current through metallic mylar?)

 

mmm good point. It's sorta metallic-ish-like. I truely have no clue if it can hold a current. It does pass right by the pwr sw/reset/hdd led connectors on the mobo, so i will need to make sure. I really don't feel like running a system that randomly resets

thx for the tip

 

If it was mine it would burst into flames.

 

lol, sounds like you have either really bad experience or really bad karma

btw, i'm not really happy with the way the power chord looks right now. It's better then before, but it's still pretty much a disturbance of the whole look. I'm even thinking of modding the PSU so that i can connect it at the bottom. The only problem with that is that it would pretty much make the PSU useless should i ever wanna install it in a normal case for a LAN, or i'd have to make the mod reversible.

ANyone has a better idea?

 

I'm sure you can buy 90 Degree IEC Cables - Oooh! Like This one:


Not sure where you'd get them in Nijmegen - Media Markt maybe?

 

i know about those, i even have one lying around.

mine is still too long though. The one in the picture is going sideways, so that's not the one.
argh, who am i kidding... Those are all excuses. I just can't afford to spend much more money on this rig, so i need to do with what i have.

thx for the reply

 

Update 7-4: frontpanel with controls.

Sorry for the slow progress everyone, i'm having serious trouble finding the time to mod...

Anyway, today i did find the time to fabricate a nice frontpanel for the sidepanel (are you guys still with me? ).
First some further fabrication on the sidepanel, as seen here:


It still looks awesome, but there are two things wrong with it.
1: it's not strong enough to support the upper plank with the two monitors on it.
2: it's got a hole in the front. I'm not modding this whole thing to a level of cleansiness that my room has never reached just to have an open gap in the front!

Solution to problem 1: Angle-iron



You get the point, not much more to tell here. Basically i've made a frame to hold the stuff of aluminium, and that'll be carrying all the weight. Problem solved. *yawn*

Solution to problem 2: Build an elaborate frontpanel with all the controls of the case in there. On a sidenote, are headers in a post allowed to be this long, or does it look rediculous?

*ahem*

Like B.A. sais: let's get on with it. I'm making a 30mm wide frontpanel that will hold:

• 7-port power USB hub
• 2 fancontrol sliders
• huge volume knob
• power on/LED on toggle switch

The USB-hub i used. Not a bad-looking thing actually, almost a shame i had to hack it up


And here it is without the good-looking exterior:


You can clearly see that it just doesn't fit. That means we can make it fit
It was a real tight fit, eventually i decided i'm going to cut away some of the material from the bottom plank of my desk to accommodate for this hub.


Here is the piece i used as front panel marked out for 7 USB-holes:


Holes pre-drilled:


Since i dont have access to expensive laser equipment (mt. Envy might turn out to be a vulcano. damn you Cheapskate!), i'm having to do this the messy way: a dremel and a milling bit.


And done!


Next thing on the list is the 2 sliders, i forgot to take pics.
You'll see them later in this post anyway, so meh.

Next up is the volume control. It's actually the old knob for controlling the big 220mm Akasa sidefan.


But with a button i salvaged from an old broken tapedeck.


And a shot where it's installed:


Last but not least is a very special rocker switch i salvaged from the same tapedeck. It's momentary downwards, i'll use that as a power button. It's a 2-position rocker switch in the upward direction, i'll use that as case lights on/off.
It needs a very thin slot to move around in the panel. Hard to make with my primitive tools... but i found a solution:

A dremel disc that's almost completely filed down. It made a slot almost exactly short enough, and just a tiny bit too thin. Nothing that couldn't be helped with a simple knife

So... i can present to you



...



Drumroll...


...


My new front panel!




I'm afraid that's all i have. Sorry if it's a bit thin, but as said, i just can't find the time.
I dont wanna let the project die again like it did last month though. Keep an eye out for this thread, i will keep moving!

 

grrr.... the webshob Azerty, where i ordered the much needed long SATA cables and ACRyan toolkit for cable sleeving is dragging it's feet. I ordered 7 items, total 43 euros. One tiny cable is not in stock yet, so they are holding the delivery. It's been nearly 2 weeks now, while the delivery for that particular cable is set at 2-3 days. I'm in a mail convo with them now, i hope i can get the rest pre-delivered (not the right word, since it's already later then they claimed on their site by a week).

As if i'm not causing enough delay on my own!

I swear, if they are unhelpful in this i will wage war over this 3€ cable like it was Amy Winehouse's last gram of white!

Edit:
after some pushing over the phone they actually agreed to split the delivery and bear the extra costs.
gooooooooooooooo Azerty!

Expect a happy modding cabling update end of this week

 

I did some work yesterday, i'm very chuffed with the results.
I'll post the update tonight. For now, let's confuse you all a bit:


kudos and eternal fame for the first one to get the right answer. Start guessing boys and girls!

 

Its for hard drives, isn't it?

 

With the drive lying in the background i should have known it was too easy

But you'll notice that the drive won't fit in there...

The kudos is yours, eternal fame is still up for grabs

 

Microscope slides for the Groucho mustache virus?