Midlag Crisis Story behind the name, my main current project is called Lean & Green or LAG for short, I was midway through & I had a hissy fit over something stupid which made my progress come to an emergency stop so had a little timeout to regain my sense, or at least some of it could call the project anything since I never have it in writing on my projects, great story... But I’m using this one to get me right back in motion to continue LAG straight after this. It’s a small practical HTPC I'm making for my dad as a present, he's in Australia until the 8th of February & I aim to have this project completed well before then. It holds an SFX PSU, mini-ITX mobo with support for regular height expansion card, Internal IR receiver, Internal 3.5" e-sata HDD dock which can be switched on/off & 1 3.5" HDD & 1 SSD & 1 140mm custom fan, 1 of the parts of the custom frame is the front panel too, got all the hardware covered already & this is my first rig without an optical drive. Some concept shots. The internal custom e-sata HDD dock has a sliding piece which 3 rods guide it so it goes forward/back nice & straight that has enough room to free the drive & then the HDD clips in/out of place with it's own little side panel for quick access. After making it all printer ready. The only material I had to buy was the 2mm panel & an acrylic tube with 16mm ID for the marble power button, everything else is scraps. Cut into manageable pieces. Drilled. Cut & undressed after a nicely productive 10 hours, so that's the front, back, top, bottom, both sides, mobo tray & most of the HDD dock pieces & back IO piece but all the acyrlic bits need the adhesive before I can complete them. Also cut some acrylic pieces but I can't find my tensol 12 adhesive so I'll have to order a new bottle & get it on Tuesday but this lets me complete everything else in the meantime. This project should be a quickie. Feels good to have done some modding after such a big timeout, I'll do more tomorrow.
Holy cats! I'm glad I saw the link tot his in your other project log! Though I may have gotten to it eventually, going through the unread threads... It's going to be sweet, as always.
Thanks Pranja I've a feeling I'll want it for myself. But it should look good where it's going. Figured it best to do that, probably be a fly by project at this rate. Thanks quizz, I don't think I could stop modding if I wanted to now lol. Just needed a nice break from it. I might add a small handle to the HDD dock panel, that panel has zero space for mesh & considering the holes don't look good with the HDD right up to them I might make a plain panel for it. Thanks biojellywobbles, it's my first SFF & I'm enjoying the fact it won't take an age to make. Cheers B, I'm on a mission again. Thanks jamsand, yeah I like doing custom frames now, bit cooler than plastic frames. 3MM day doing the PSU support bars, HDD dock slide system & extra trim bits for the front fan & wow what an awesome mess, I intend to clean up very soon. Drilled & cut, peeled the templates off with messy glue left on the aluminium, I only stick them on the protective stuff if it's laser film because that doesn't come loose & when pulling it off it comes off in 1 piece showing perfect surface, wish all sheet aluminium sellers used laser film. Wiped them all with thinners on a sponge because tissue leaves loads of fluffy bits difficult to get off & gave them all a wash & assembled to see what it looks like, also put a 16mm marble in place but. I thought why doesn't the rear 3mm panel have symmetrical curves, what the heck went wrong? looked at my design again & yep, I some how forgot to mirror the left side to the right side for that piece so they are odd, oh well lol had to have a hiccup somewhere, not doing another unless it bugs me & I find myself waiting for the adhesive delivery & I get bored. This was a job for my big countersink bit, lot better than filing for these marble button holes. Another bit of the 3mm stuff, part of the HDD dock piece that lets me slot the drive in place, works perfect, the plates fixed to the bottom panel are tapped but I need to shorten the 6mm screws & where I put the thin piece mounted to the HDD will let me dunk it into normal HDD docks. Up to 16 hours in now, yes I'm measuring how long this one takes me for a change, started late on this progress though, 7PM until 1AM. More soon.
Your Dad's a lucky chap. I wonder if I could coax my son into making me something (other than a mess to clear up).
You my friend, you are seriously addicted to modding!!! Nice to see you again buddy with another project!! Keep on going!!!
A change is as good as a rest, as they say, good to see you back and using that damn scroll saw again (not much envious of that 30" beast ) Your fan designs and marble buttons are becoming a real trademark of your builds, it's great when a design works so well that you want to use it on future builds and you know that it will work and can usually make them quicker when you've made a few, lovely work as usual
Thanks morgansk, it's tolerance pay for doing the same lol. Thanks dream. I am a bit thanks Alex, good to have you subscribing mate & will do. Thanks Shiny. Just hope it doesn't accidentally turn into a Get a Life type project where it was intended to be a quick project but took a lot longer to cram obscene awesomeness into it, I'm hoping for no more than a week to do this but waiting on deliveries if anything will be what delays it. The saw is a beauty but still requires a fair bit of patience depending on what I'm doing, I can do up to 2mm 1 handed now which is nice being able to eat a sandwich while cutting pieces lol. The solid IO pieces, marble buttons & custom fan frames are going to be a must have thing in all my scratch builds now & I like the way I have this fan mounted, gives more internal space while making a plain flat panel pop out to give it a more interesting look, won't be the last time I do that neither. Thanks Canard. Thanks Mosquito. That homer grill, I want to try it just to see if I can do it without it warping all over the place, it's definitely an extreme challenge if I go for the 1mm thick lines, 2mm I believe I could do but 1mm I'd like to find out. 1mm Day & I skipped posting last night. Drilling with a clamped aluminium flat bar with 3mm holes pre drilled into it for perfect targeting. Cutting. Peeled, just need the 4 rod pieces & to fix a fan inside to complete this fan. IO pieces but they are twins, they shouldn't be, the main rear IO hole is meant to have a 2mm smaller diameter to the acrylic & external hole, so even with printing your designs, the same old rule applies of measure before marking lol, I'll re-make the wrongly done piece along with the wonky curve front 3mm piece & also make very sure I take off the wrong acrylic guide & put the right one on, that would have made a time consuming mistake. Back to 2 of the 3mm strips I cut & drilled on last session, had to drill mill 1mm depth for the SSD tray so it sits flush to the strips, it's not perfect but not bad at all considering it's not a mill. Didn't take shots of me bending the strips but I placed them in the vice & used a chunky piece of aluminium to bend them to shape so the bits I wanted to stay straight stayed straight, slight problem with the bends though, in the design they are more of a round curve rather than sharp bends so it's about 1 to 2mm stretched out too long, I'll work it out though & the bends line up with the guide I printed, I'll just have to extend the screw holes on 1 end into a line & grind some of the end down or relocate the front mount points to the right distance & grind the excess off. Not sure how long sank into this session, didn't keep tabs on it so I'd have to take a wild guess, call it 5 hours lol which brings me up to 21 so far, probably another 20 if including the design part & so far I'll be re-making 2 pieces which I'll include on my next session along with the bar pieces & acrylic sticking because the adhesive came today, had to order some 5mm aluminium rod though so hopefully that will get here this week. Ordered some bits for experimenting with surface finishing too, may or may not work out how I'd love it to but I'll post my findings either way when I try it out on scraps, if it works though it'll be a pretty sweet addition for finishing choices in modding for people on a budget &/or don't like to outsource.
Thanks dream, printing the design helps a lot too on saving on manual marking time, used to take me ages doing that, less chance of marking mistakes too if properly done. Yep that was a strong enough hint for me to know what you was on about. Cheaps already did it. I had no idea a Varbel switch was done in 2007. Wish you'd have told me. As long as it was fun for you I don't mind. Thanks quizz I think they have lost their charm for me already, think I did too many now lol.
