Scratch Build – In Progress Kustom PC Mawds: Tarantula

The Design: Some final tweaks still need to be made.
designed in simple and free Sketchup.

















Materials :- high quality wood ply. and some bits of acrylic with metallic round hole mesh inserts.

A package arrives:


Lots of HDD cages!



some new tools required for the job. A jigsaw, some c-clamps and an assortment of blades.


Trying out the jigsaw:

i like it.


Page: http://www.facebook.com/kustompcmawds
(c)Sayan Das

 

Not big enough, IMO. Are you going to be able to fit everything in?

 

sarcasm detected...
starting procedure to construct witty answer.

process failed. minimum smartness requirement not fulfilled.

 

The Donor Case:
Rosewill Blackhawk Ultra. A previous window mod had been done my me on this; links in the signature.


Stripping It Down
1. Fans, hdd easy removes, and a kilometer of wires; along with the top and front.


2.oops some fans still left.


much better

3. After a drilling out the rivets, and a lot of fisticuffs with the drive cage:
sans drive bays


and the drive bays.

The easy mount mechanism of the drive bays will be integrated into the drive bays of the build.
The 5.25" drive bays will remain as is.

4. So many screws and fixings.

yes thats an egg carton. those are handy for storing different types of screws temporarily.

 

After complete disassembly, my hands were too filthy to take pictures, sorry for that. Anyways, went straight to cleaning.
1. Rubber grommets cleaned and dried


2. Fans were too filthy and need acetone to clean, which i didnt have enough off, so stored away for laters


3. Case disassembled, cleaned and stored away for then night


thats it for today. 4hours put in so far, so good.

 

Extracting the Front IO
The front IO and the HDD easy dock will be salvaged and implemented into the new chassis.

1. Removing the front bezel:
Behold, a front bezel from the back side


Look at that mess of wires, and how they are cramped into that little place.



3. Getting rid of the removeable wiring.

At first glance it would seem that the whole square outlined bit is a separate unit and should lift off after bending away the mesh tabs.
however rosewill decided it to be best to glue the whole thing in place. This means i have to do a ton more work and rape the are around the bits i want to salvage.


4. De-mesh & de-filter



5. Cutting out the square bit.
Now, i wasnt completely sure that the hdd dock wont be useable so i first cut out the whole thing, the cut had to be 3d and include the top of the front bezel completely since the top had some mounting places for the PCB and would require precision cutting, that will not be possible on the cumbersome bezel itself.


6. Lift off!


7. Rough cleaning the edges:
Here i remove the mounting places and some reinforcements. Couldnt get a cutting disc in there, so i just sheared them off with pliers.



8. Extracting I/O
I realised salvaging the hdd dock wont be possible and could save either the dock or the I/O, since the latter was more important, the dock got destroyed for its sake..
Extracted


9. Finishing off with filing and cleaning.
a lot of filing and a quick clean with a wet brush did the trick


Thats a lot of work done; but i managed to do it all in 2hours putting the total time at 6hours.

 

So this is a combination computer case and wind tunnel? Holy crap, all those fans!

 

I thought it was a desk design, at first.... (is it a desk?)

 

Whole idea of your desk is good.
But don't you think adding that much of fans will not make the desk a dust sucking machine, specially you can see that just three fans in ur previous window mod have made the case full of dust.

Any plan of using good fan filters?
I am seeing no provision of fan filters in your desk design.

What material r u planning to use for this desk?
Will you craft it by your own or will outsource it ?

 

to answer all the questions.....
there are a lot of fans... but most of them are for rads... this is a dual pc build now.
there will be two eATX systems in it.
now the fans will be all silent fans and hence the need for so many. also high density mdf is being used.

fan filters will be used. metal mesh. and will cover the intakes.
i am yet to fetch the second case, so cant even finish design

 

no updates here, but been busy at work nevertheless.

went and brought second donor case. a Lian Li


after a trip to the chop shop



salvaging the power buttons wont be easy. they were two part to remove from the upper bezel, and the buttons itself pressed on these buttons on the pcb which is a fixed distance away. unnecessary complications


here is the motherboard and PCIe plate extracted.

used a heavy duty drill. was pretty easy to dismantle this case. time spent 3hours.



the rosy mobo plate isnt as simple as this. there are two extra extensions on the top and bottom of the plate where the other side panel would slide and lock into. these were unnecessary and also used up more space. I had already accounted cutting this in my design to make the mobo sit good at 60mm from the top.
and so on with the chopping.

the circular magnet helps collecting the iron dust and reduces the dirt in my room drastically.



Cut and filed:

Final bit of filing will be done when putting it into the case.

Hopefully i can start the woodwork tomorrow. probably will start with the left side.

 

So it is NOT a desk correct?

 

not really. more like it will be on top of a already existing desk.
so a desk minus the legs.

 

started woodwork.

the setup.

the top left piece of aluminium channel is clamped too the left . the wood is there to prevent the long channel from slipping under the smaller channel. i would be forcing left on the channel as i saw.

cut out the piece for the left side.



not bad for the first time using a jigsaw eh? used a speed wood blade for this.


652x326


1.5hrs

total time 12.5hours

 

Fan holes drawn onto the side.


testing with fans


rough cut with the jigsaw. i can now do direct cuts with it


after a bit of filing




3 hours.
total 15.5 hours.

 

with practice and making a fine cut along the line with a sharpie, and a higher tpi blade its possible to eliminate chipping even on the top surface.

this is right after the cut.

i have cut really close to the line. Only the starting bit at the drill hole is a bit off. I will be finishing that off later as well with the jigsaw itself, but a different blade.

The hole cut and finished off with jigsaw. Nothing else has been done to it. Will be using sandpaper to smooth it later.


All holes cut and about to be finished with a different blade


Finished with the jigsaw and filed/sanded down:

this is the view from the outside.

2.5hours.

total 18 hours.

 

moar work!

as always. click the

measured around some limits and other things to check how much i need to leave for the wires. 30mm should be plenty since there is loads of place to route around.
then had to decide if the io sheild and pcie part would go from the inside or the outside. had to be inside since outside would make putting in pcie cards very complicated.

drew the out and drilled starting holes for cutting with the jigsaw.



rough cut:-

the left bottom hole is for aligning the io and PCIe bracket part of the motherboard to the motherboard tray. this needed to be done since the i/o part would be fixed permanently onto the left face where as the motherboard tray will be removable by velcro/screws.


checking fits. this face is on the inside of the chassis.



checking fit from the other side




now that it all fits. time to finish/smooth it off with a bit of sanding. this face is the outside face



time to mark out the fan holes for the final time. i got a recent drill bit kit of varying diameters. this is how i used a 4mm one to mark out the holes.




checking it with the rad in the position it will be mounted.



holes were final so time to counter sink them a bit.

this needed to be done since there will be a mesh over the intake fans. also looks cleaner.



finally:-



one side done 5 more to go!

time taken for this 1.5hours. total time:- 19.5hours

 

what up? time for a big-little update.

Started working on the HDD cage assembly. if you refer to the design, these are stacks of 3 lian li 3x 5.25" -> 4x 3.5" drive +2 ssd +fan converters.
First off, disassembled the cages as it would not take the force of working because of the non hardened aluminium used in the essential bits.
then lay them flat and started riveting them together in lap riveted joints. i used some 1mm aluminium that i hand brushed for the overlapping pieces.

three done

did this to both sides.



after finishinf:-




closer view of the delicious brushed aluminium finish.





the ends will be capped off with square aluminium pieces, salvaged from the lian li side panel(s). Then the easy mount mechanism from the rose will will be split and applied to four corners of this. This will allow the 3 bays to come off the cabinet together.

time spent : 4hours.
not been able to exert fully today. food poisoning :s

total time spent 23.5hours.

 

I know its been a long time since the last update (20days :O) but been busy with college, exams, job interviews. never the less.. the job was going on in the bg, just didnt have enough time to update.

Some changes were made to the plans for the HDD cages. the lian li cages were of bad soft aluminium. so they had no strength to even hold their own weight. Initial plan was to cut out from the lian li side panels and stick them on but the aluminium is very thin soft there, so i cut out a piece from the rosewill. 2mm solid steel. this was gonna add too much weight so this idea was scrapped too. Finally i decided to fashion two braces out of 1mm thick hard good aluminium.

Because of the busy schedule i forgot to take pics of the brace forming process. In short: 1st i cut 4 pieces to exact size 20mm by 140mm. then straightened out the hard bends etc out of them all, bunched them together and clamped them b/w two pieces of scrap wood from the project. 2nd A bit of the aluminium was handing out, which i used to heat it on a cooking gas burner and let it cool slowly within the wood. This would soften the aluminium and the force from the clamps will make them dead straight. 3rd i checked their sizes a final time and filed down the rough edges. 4th and final i sanded and gave them that brushed finish. the last step put some surface hardness back. This aluminium hardens itself automatically at ambient temp.


I prepped the hdd cage sides by cleaning them with alcohol. With the help of two clamps and rubber based glue, i glued and clamped one of the braces on to the hdd cage as below. Used my fully functioning hdd to get the correct distance. As usual clicking images will show larger resolution.



After the glue has cured over 8 hours, i take the clamps off, mark drill locations and drill and rivet them. The rivets are offset to a side for allowing the easy mount mechanism which will come later after the aluminium has plenty of time to harden.
Here you can see one setting next to a completed one i made earlier



close up:



weight test. each clamp weighs 1kg.



After that i went and bought more wood for the top side. Then cut the top side to size, and cut out its acrylic window. The wood from this was enough to make the right side which i will work on now.

Template for fan holes 120mm.



Marking out the holes on the right face


Marked out the second mobo i/o position and scoured along lines with a cutter to reduce splintering at the edge.



Started drill holes for the jigsaw blades with a hand drill thats around 20years older than me. yes thats right.

HDF wood was too hard to finish drilling large holes with hand.


Holes finished off with a power drill



Started branch out cuts with a curve cutting blade for the jigsaw. This will help accomodate the larger final finishing bade



This special blade is a finishing blade. Notice the filing marks on the sides as well as the high TPI. I will use this to cut all the holes as well as do the final finishing.

This is one badass blade.


Fan holes cut out with jigsaw, only the bits at the corners holding the cut outs in place. I will leave them in place for now as they add structural stability when i will cut the long mobo tray hole. WIthout them the vibrations from the jigsaw would damage the wood fibre or even jam up the blade and end in a bloody mess.



All holes cut. Time to pop the rest out gently, and by that i mean with a hammer.



After the cutouts have been removed

the starting points for the cuts need finishing along with some tid bits here and there.


After finishing off with the jigsaw:-

Might look ok. but this is the inside face which will be covered by fans rads and not visible.... So hows the outer face lets see....

looks decent. Still i did some final hand finishing with a sanding block and a file.

Drilling out fan holes and final right side after completion.

 

Wow, that's thing's huge! Progress is looking good too, should be interesting to see how it turns out.