SketchUp MNPCtech & Bit-Tech.net case design contest #5 - (Deadline moved to September 1st)

Found some time to get a little more done, im still not 100% sure where this is going, Ive only made the Bellows transparent so you can see the inside, its not as big as i thought but its not little either! W1000 x D800 x H900mm:

 

all of a suddenly i fell like i dont deserve to use my avatar

 

Just a note for 13eightyfour: Bellows are impossible to make so that the corners stay closed throughout the movement. That's why accordions have small leather diamons glued to the corners. They fold up inwards to make up for the lost area.

 

Yeah i see what you mean, As its only a design ill leave them as they are unless i get time to change them.

 

I'm getting down to modelling (the curse of not using sketchup ) then placing all the components, but after a bit of advice first.

How would you go about networking all 12 motherboards in my design? Here's the options as far as I see it:

- Running a network cable to each motherboard is an option, but the bundle of wires is getting rather large.
- If I use a mITX motherboard with dual lan ports, such as the Gigabyte H55N-USB3, then I could get away with running a single cable to each section (two motherboards) and connecting one motherboard through the other.
- I could do as above, except daisy chaining all the rendering motherboards (no idea if this is even possible?).
- Use a motherboard with built in wireless such as the Zotac boards and just use a wireless connection on everything except the server part of the build. The rendering boards are afterall only recieving a small amount of information about what job to render, then simply saving a .jpg to a shared folder, so not much load on the network.

I'm leaning towards the last option as it's the simplest method in terms of cable management. However I'm not sure how the wireless would cope with 10 adaptors so close to each other. Anyone have any idea if it would even work.

I could probably get away without thinking about this issue for such a competiton, but I like to design something that would be at least feasible if money allowed.

 

@1384 - Dude! Sweet. I like the ironwork legs. You will need to change the setup on the swing arm next to the pump-thing(?) It will hit the driveshaft on the cog the way you have it now. A quick fix would be to mount the mount the pulley and cog to an arm mounted between the two, and put the swing arm on the side closest to the case. -It'd look funkier too.

 

Im not quite sure what you mean? This is what the setup looks like from a different angle it doesnt catch, but the joint where the 2 shafts meet is slightly off centre, which im trying to change atm:

 

When the shaft rotates, the rod will jam against the axle.

 

Ahhh yes i see now! the axle didnt originally extend past the 'wheel'. I totally forgot about that when i started adding cogs 'n' stuff.

 

You could replace the rod with a belt and an offset cam. When the cam rotates the belt gets pulled tighter. Then you'd need a spring etc to return the bellows to position.

 

-Would have to be a pretty big cam... I still say detach from the center shaft and move the swing arm over to that side.


-The tubing isn't pretty, but it fits! -And no. you don't get a million barbs this time either. -Went with low-diameter tube to avoid polygon kinking. The big U-bend in the front needs to be longer for when the case is opened, but you get the basic idea.

-I left lots of room for big-bore tubing. This view also shows the funnel built into the res fillport.

 

Five days remaining! I've gotta get moving....

 

I'm out.. for real this time. wayyyyyy to many commitments Sorry guys!

 

Me too theres so much still to do im never going to get the time to get it remotely finished!

 

I won't have a final design to submit. After working 60+ hours the past 2 weeks and after my hard drive at home bit the big one, im stuck where I am. Ill see if I can at least finish some of the mounting in the 11th hour but no promises.

 

Bump back the deadline?
I'm OK with incomplete. just slap some floating components in place and yell, "fin!"

 

The PSU on my NAS has just died (I think), so for the moment I can't access my files. Although I'm ordering a replacement psu now so I should be back in a few days. I'll plug the drives into my pc tomorrow night and grab the files I need anyway.

I don't think I'll be totally finished by the deadline, but the basics will be there.

Edit: Not gonna get a chance to do anymore on my entry, and I'm not gonna be at my pc untill Monday at the earliest to get any other screenshots. The one I posted above will have to be my final one. I'll finish it off then for the render part of the comp.

 

If were only going to have 2-3 done by tomorrow id be OK pushing the deadline back (to the end of next month maybe?), I just want to make sure everyone would be OK with it. Let me know what you folks want to do!

 

i'll be able to participate if the deadline is moved to the end of next month

 

Sounds good to me. I wanna see some sh*t.