Scratch Build – In Progress Lean and Green - 15-12-14 - as complete as it's going to get

Thanks Sarakon, yeah Christmas was OK but to have been awesome I think I'd have had to have gone to Australia with my dad, I think it was the thought of the crazy long flights that put me off mostly, I'm bad enough on a 1 hour car trip, I just get so incredibly bored traveling sat down with nothing to do lol.

My dad isn't even a simpsons fan he does find it funny yeah but he rarely watches it, was kinda thinking of switching it round now & then for lols to see if he'd mention it & just keep on randomly doing it lol, that is a nice thing about these custom fans though, fully modular, pretty sweet.

Yeah, dust, not had a dusting since putting it to use so that's well over a year.

But I think that's pretty good considering there are no filters.

Ugh, I keep giving myself a slap in the hope it makes me snap out of this semi depression I'm currently stuck in, I know once I get back onto it I'll be steaming on but I just got to throw myself into it & hope I like it when I do but those tiny should be easy steps are the hardest when your workflow falls off a cliff.

I will be onto it soon though, I know it.

Awesome new year everyone.

 

I know it well and I think it happens to most people regardless of what the build is, I've had it when building/restoring bikes as well as PC's, you get into the routine of just cruising along doing the repetitive stuff when you kind of just "trance it" and it can then be hard to break out of that mindset and go up a gear especially if you've had a break.

I'm sure you've been there before in previous builds and you know you will get over it, when I feel like that I often just mess around with some other parts rather than just try and resume working from exactly where I left off, I try and find something to get the enthusiasm going again even if it's just wiring up some fans or lights and seeing something working and making some noise, anything that brings some life to the build and reminds you what it's all about and why you started it.

I just spent about six hours making up some new wiring for the front panel connections, two mobo's, two lots of PW-SW, PW-LED, etc, and braided it all then thought, nope, don't like it, started again and did a better job in half the time, go figure
I also fired up both mobo's for the first time and that gave me a real boost to get it finished, now I have to make a stand for the grinder I converted to a polisher and get polishing all the ally.
If you need polishing mops, spindle adaptors to convert grinders to polishers, etc have a look here if you've not already found them, I bought a kit from them and converted an old grinder for polishing.



Rather than try and go straight back to working the long hours you were doing before just set a goal of working for an hour or doing something that won't take long, that way you don't put yourself under pressure, I find this often works and before you know it your back into the routine and enjoying it again, the day will come when you suddenly realize there's no more to do, it's finished...now I can go gaming for a few months and appreciate all the hard work, my new build is going to feel the wrath of a prolonged "Skyrim" fest it won't forget in a hurry

 

Got some polishing kit, I like the satinising mops to do a styled brush finish but they grind down fast, can make some nice effects though.

I am gagging to have some hefty gaming sessions so I'll be pushing on pretty fierce now.

It does happen sometimes though where you just lose the will to continue, that happened after me getting annoyed, last night at midnight while viewing some projects I just got the urge to get making stuff again, had to wait for that strong urge, it came.

Side project here.
http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?p=3267686#post3267686

How long till it gets star trolled.

 

I was hoping for an update to this one, but I guess a new project log is ok too

Totally agree, I haven't done anything in a while (haven't finished the one I started a while ago), but just recently I have gotten the itch to build a new case for a revamp of my file server... I have other expenses I have to take care of first, though

 

A satin finish would be nice and with all the parts you have to put a finish on it will save a huge amount of time and work, I've polished a lot of stuff over the years, mainly bike parts, but I've started polishing the case panels for my build and some are proving a pain to do because they are big and you can't polish the whole side in one sweep in one direction you have to turn the panel to polish the whole area and you end up with polishing marks going in different directions which are tricky to smooth out, SATIN, WHY DIDN'T I GO SATIN

 

Long time since an update on this but it's patching up a fundamental design flaw lol.

Polishing all those panels is a heck of a mission, I love satinising mops, they make nice quick work, polishing is nice but I'll reserve it for trim bits only, would drive me crazy otherwise.
I found the same problem your having with having to turn doing it in multiple directions, if I was to try it again on panels I'd make a custom upside down mount for the grinder so there is no restriction of movement & can do same direction along the whole panel.



Re made all the motherboard trays overnight, seems I didn't account for the extra 1mm allowance for the motherboard IO shield so had to squeeze motherboards into place, they are good now, done it for Midlag Crisis & both systems in Lean & Green, also added a light line for the PCI/IO piece on the ATX mobo tray.




















This goes back to paused now.

Been stocking up on new hard drives too, would have stung me so much if I bought them altogether so I bought 1 whenever I could afford 1, got the last 1 the other day, the HTPC in this will now have 14TB of storage, bought Hitachi Touro external USB3 drives, they have 5400RPM cool spin drives inside them, got 3 4 TB ones & a 2TB one, I'll have to hack them open voiding the warranty but I'll get a pile of spare parts & I saved £80 on each one vs the OEM drives.

 

Saved 80 pounds on EACH??????

 

I know, pretty crazy saving, £140 for external usb 3 ones vs £220 for OEM ones & get a load of useful spare parts so could make a bunch of usb 3 HDD docks & sell them.

------

This bit is in reference to some alternative anodising method I discovered.
Someone pointed out drip pans, I gave it a little more thought, they seem a good idea but even in that small source pan I lost about 15mm of water to condensation so a 1 inch deep large pan would quickly lose depth & no way would I use that in the kitchen unless I wanted to be murdered when I cover the kitchen in dye lol.

Seen a huge aluminium casserole pan though, it's a bit expensive I suppose @ £70 with shipping but it would fit anything from lean & green in there plus it has a nice lid to prevent condensation needing me to top up regular.

I won't dedicate to buying that though until I can be sure I have the process perfected.

 

LAG by name LAG by nature.



I grouped many of the pictures together trimming from near 1000 to below 100 in 8 updates which I'll do 1 per day & already started new progress on it so I can seamlessly move over to current progress & I'll post this everywhere I post that was interested as a recap to properly resurrect this project.



Design play for a modular dual PC to cut back my power usage, yup it's heavily detailed but I wanted something that lights my eyes up whenever I look at it, low power for when I don't need it which is most of the time & power system for when I do, will save £200 off the electric bill per year which sadly so far I've missed out on £400 which could have paid for the ps4 I want to do a case for, that's the downside to knowing what I'd have saved & taking a year break from this one while I do another project to help get my mind recalibrated.




Coupling section.




HTPC




ATX system




Altogether with pedestal which I'll make 2 draws shorter for mystery reasons which you'll see eventually.




Materials, some of the bars was 4m long so had to cut them in half on the stairs so I could move them to the cellar, this load weighed a lot especially the 10mm plate.




I worked the project going from most difficult or time consuming working my way through to the easier stuff so the project would get easier instead of harder, this is the 10mm aluminium plates & I realised how much I had ahead of me so I just had to try & switch my mind off while I did it as if I was sleep walking (modding), which helped.




Turbo speed video of 1 of the coupling pieces being cut.




These ATX system side panels took ages to do.








Back HTPC panel.






Back ATX panel.






Front ATX panel.




Group hug & stack o parts.

 

Lovely work mate.

Wish I had access to tools like that, could let some ideas run loose.

Again, those panels look downright awesome!

 

Oh dear god.
You have done sooo much work with those..

Respect!

I really want see what is coming next.

 

Oh yeah! Stunning stuff Wayne Everytime I see your work I tell myself I should really get a saw like that.

Can't wait to see this build come together!

 

Thanks mate, who knows, if Sanders modwithme gets successful enough it might spread further afield enabling a lot more people to have access to better tools than what I have along with knowledgeable modders, sounds like a modders playground to me or even a modders gym, awesome idea.

Thanks Nikozii, it's the progress done so far in highly concentrated updates as a recap with having a year off from this one so these 6 updates are a bit on the good side, figured it was better to do this than start a new thread, I pushed it off topic myself with rambling on about unimportant things, I trimmed it from 8 to 6 updates which gives me time to continue as if I never took a break, only the updates won't be so packed out or as frequent.

Thanks Meelobee & congrats on the MOTM, the saw makes quick work of 1mm 2mm even 3mm if it's not heavily detailed but I really wouldn't want to do those ATX side panels again, I was dreaming of scroll sawing it was that bad lol.

 

Started printing my designs using an a4 printer so had to precisely cut & join the templates, huge time saver & produces highly accurate templates, I use sticker sheets because glue spray didn't work too good for me.




Parts for the ATX PSU section.




Remake of the ATX front panel to support a fan controller.




New fan controller panel.




How it will look.




The ATX PSU section curve pieces which will have rods going through the holes.




More ATX PSU section panels.








Switcharoo of the PSU fan guard because the stock one made it too high & I wanted to test how difficult the fan grill would be to make, practice that turned into a part of the project, won't be seen though.




Wasn't going to make feet for it, felt no need to but with many saying it's top heavy I designed & made funky feet based on a flying squirrel but not just any flying squirrel, mighty flying squirrel that will hold up a heavy load.

The parts all interconnect making them really strong, also used rods for holding pieces in place, aluminium dowel rods.
















Recap #2 of 6 complete.

 

Thought I lready posted this one.


HTPC little front power switch section with a lot of detail in multiple layers.






HTPC side detail panels.








Pattern panels to friction fit into the coupling piece.




First I made them a perfect fit.




Then cut the patterns out.






Put in place.




How they look with the extra detailed pieces.






Loose fit.



3 more to go before regular progress.

 

No wonder you were dreaming of your scroll saw, you must have spent days working on these panels. Looking absolutely fabulous!

 

Congratulations for the great job, it really is a masterpiece

 

wow, just stunning, beautiful design... say MOTM nomination, if not winner..

 

Was doing far too much in too short a time & in far from good conditions, just wouldn't stop until I completed each particular piece, doing it like that really progressed things but also didn't do me much good really but I think it was worth it.
Thanks Boorach.

Still a way to go yet Marcos but thanks mate.

Was already in one Z0DIAX, can't remember if I placed 2nd or 3rd but it was just a stack of parts at the time, just happened to do a loose fit & maybe people thought it was close ish to complete.
Thanks though mate.

 

Dropped the ball on the daily updates, dermatitis has come back due to prematurely stopping applying the ointment but I hope it goes away ASAP & I will try to not let it prevent me from making new progress.

Luxury jumbo power switch because I had to use my pinky to switch Stealthlow on (16mm vandal switch) big 40mm ball based on how vandal switches work, I wanted it to sit flush through the layers so had to countersink the insides of the layers with files.






Designed & made a bunch of replacement fan controller knobs because the stock ones were plasticky & boring plus I wanted to see if I could even make them with being so small.












Made the rear IO/expansion motherboard tray pieces for the ATX & the mini-ITX with low profile expansion card size, drilled expansion card mounts & used hot soldering iron to sink brass thread inserts into the holes.


These motherboard trays were remakes, previous ones were 1mm off with not accounting for the IO shield that comes with motherboards.




The assembly for the marble button.




Fixing the button assembly in place & fixing more panels together.




Squigly on bit-tech pointed out the spindicator LED mod to me & Riekmaharg2 on bit-tech really helped me by making the electronics part of the Spindicator leaving the LED soldering to me, I'm a total newb on electronics but seem to be good & happy with that fact other than knowing a large chunk of my imagination is untapped potential so I blag myself I'm happy about being an electronics newb, it works somehow.




Simplified the wiring a bit by making a copper washer I drilled holes for the negative pegs of the LED's to go through & I later caked liquid electrical tape over it all making it look real messy but insulated it all to prevent short circuits, cut a bunch of acrylic discs & pasted transparent vinyl's to them so I can select the colour with whatever looks best which I won't know for sure until final assembly.




Spindicator in action.






Few videos of it made with a kodak pointy shoot with 720p high fuzzyness, not high definition want to upgrade my canon eos 1000d to a 550d so I can shoot nice clear video because videos can say a lot without saying a word & I like that a lot.






Made a case for the spindicator electronics which only just fits in next to the HTPC PSU.




2 more to go.