MODS PLEASE LOCK - MOVED TO NEW FORUM :D!!!

Wow. Unremarkably clean. Even with the few problems oyu have edured, I happen to like the ways you fixed them. The plexi idea was great! Why not dress up the mess? lol Great man, keep it up! I'm following this closely!

 

wooow-eee!

 

I like everything you've done, up to the idea about the magnet strips. Eventually, the adhesive comes off, and then you'll have something similar to the residue left by electrical tape left behind on your plexi. My suggestion would be to get a few slightly more powerful magnets, instead of the strips. Otherwise, it looks awesome!

Adam

 

I'm sorry if I missed it, but what model VFD is that? It's really nice, and so is the rest of the case. The front is really coming along great. Keep up the good work.

 

@Cheap Mod Wannabee (what a nick!), @330td, @kickarse: Thank you!

I'm not quite sure I get your tone... unremarkably clean? that sounds negative... which is fine. And the plexi idea took some time to come around, and then took a vacation for 6 months before It got executed!

@Firehed: wooooooooooooot is what I said

You're right there. and I did think about that, and was thinking about using a solvent glue to bond them on better. I'd love to use some rare earth magnets embedded in the plexi frame, but I'm not sure if I've got the room to embed them. A trip to rat shack to check out the magnets is in order... thx for the idea.

@qinx: that's a noritake GU128x64 (128x64 pixels, from the 800A family)

 

The only thing with that, is that rare earth magnets tend to be quite strong, and actually can mess your HDDs up. I was just suggesting something along the lines of cheap magnets you could buy at someplace like Staples.

 

update is what I need. All your update ar belong to us. Dont make me hound you from two diferent forums for updates...

 

outstanding modding

 

"Movement!"
Yeah, like in the alien movies... just when you think there's nothing around, there looks like there's nothing around, and all is calm, a blip on the tactical scanner appears. In this case, the blip is this meager update.

Front Panel Glue-Up

After thinking about it for a good long while, I decided that using goop to glue the bottom outer plate to the base frame (to augment the set screw fasteners) wasn't such a bad idea. Off I went...

Off the front of the box, set screws removed.


Wiping down the surface with a tack-cloth



Goop! (Plumbers and all the other varieties, it's basically all the same.) This stuff is nice and sticky and should bond the front together no-problem.


Goop Applied


Parts mated together... at which point I put the set screws back in so that everything lines up A-OK.


Cover in a rag, wood blocks to distrubte the weight, and weights plus some extra 'liquid' weight.


The whole thing stuck together just fine, but you'll have to wait till I get the set screw holes bondo'd shut and the whole thing shot with automotive (lacquer) primer before I show it again.


Front Ports

Before when I sleeved and extended the front panel firewire and USB I never dyed the parts. Zittware's "Dye Everything" attitudte motivated me to go back and dye it black.

Taped up and ready for dye


All dyed up


This part got scrapped
Basically, I messed up. I milled the slots for the front port holder too big, and it ended up looking like butt. I tried to put some of mnpctech's famous rubber moulding around it to clean it up, but the bend radius was too tight. The part got scrapped, and I'm also scrapping the front panel headphone jacks... I never work on this beast with headphones, nor do I ever plug a microphone in. I originally put it in there for completeness' sake, but I've decided to scrap that idea.








To put a long story short as to the lack of progress, I've been extremely busy at work on several fronts (replacing our wired infrtastructure, rolling out wireless, moving to a different backup software, and training new workstudy) and haven't felt like doing much once I get home. hopefully that'll change.

Till next time...

Edit: Fixed Image tag locations... doah!

 

Looks good star.

Hopefully you will have time to update more.

 

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Part I: Refinement

Pilot holes drilled prior to dremel action


Front panel I/O fitted - ditched the headphone/mic jack. Useless for me. Trust me, as I don't say this often, it looks better than it looks. Powdercoating will remedy a lot of the uneven-ness in the color.


Part II: Bezel paint prep

Before everything can get painted with toyota carbon blue metallic, it has to get primered, and something has to be done about the holes created by the setscrews holding the front bezel plate together with the rear bezel plate. First things first, sanded with 400 grit so the plastikote high-build flexible primer sticks... what can I say, the stuff rocks!


A bit hazy, but it's a good thing -- the primer needs to stick.


Bondo'd set screw holes - soon to disappear.


Closeup, as well as bondo on the seam between the front and back plate.


Hanging for easy access to paint everything. Tip: don't paint outside after dark, the bugs like the light, which is near your work, and get their dumb asses stuck in the primer. they can be plucked out with a fine set of tweezers, and the mark they leave can be sanded out easily in the primer. Still, avoid it if you can. PS: Tiki torches don't work on them.


All dry, 2nd coat of high build.


Orange peel anyone? -- easily taken care of.


A bit of a drip, can be sanded out.


Smoooth...


...and just barely reflective after a 400 grit wetsand (I can't tell you how long this took, jeeze!). Primer, wetsand, primer, wetsand, primer....


Part DCLXVI: Don't anger the bandsaw

Oops!

Done while cuting a new pump mount from 3/4" 6061 Aluminum. Crap! Fortunately, it didn't whack me in the face, hands, or other parts of my body when it snapped.

 

Part III: Radeon 9800 Pro + AC Twinplex

Since I'm going over to small-bore stuff to cool my additional components, I ditched the danger den VGA block in favor of an AquaComputer Twinplex. The mounting hardware is non-standard, primarly due to the fact that AC's supplied (well, I bought it used -- Thanks Dr. Fibbles!) was a bit small for my taste. The mount is standard operating procedure: threaded rod with a bolt on one end and a thumbscrew on the other, and a few washers here and there to prevent the PCB from shorting out. Sexy, aint it?


Mounting close-up.


Part IV: Hybrid System 4-way splitter, part 1.

With me taking the direction I decided to go, which is a hybrid system with a Storm/G5 waterblock at the core (requires high flow)... I couldn't use the small-bore stuff without causing a lot of pressure drop. The solution: 4 parallel loops split off after the CPU, with the knowledge that each sub-loop is roughly equally restrictive, and flow balance shouldn't be much of an issue (and I have a solution if it is) And how would I know about flow imbalance? You'd have to ask Zittware about that. On to the show!

This unassuming, freshly cut (by bloody hacksaw, thank you - see DCLXVI above) and freshly sanded on the belt sander with 220 grit to true up the edges, will serve as a splitter. 1/2" tubing in, 4x6mm ID tubing (Plug and cool for you AC folks) out. Once again, thanks to Dr. Fibbles for hooking me up with the fittings.


The bit used to pilot the plug-and-cool holes.


judging out the spacing a bit...


The block drilled out, 1/2" in the top, 4x1/2 (for G1/4 thread) for the plug and cools (aka instant tube fittings)


Threading the end with 1/4 NPT. The key here is to go in a bit, then back out to clear the tap's teeth of debris. All in all it took me half an hour to get the NPT tap in. the taper is what makes it a bitch, it keeps getting tighter and there for harder to turn the tap as you go in. But, my ratchet with a 5/16" socket holding the tap did the trick.


And w\ fitting (stolen off my maze 4 waterblock, hehe!)


Same thing, but G1/4 thread this time... aka BSPP. Much, much thanks to scopEDog for splitting an order of these.


Rigged for the old blow-hard test - passed with flying colors, no leaks.


And partially polished - just the end (it was 12:02 last night, had to stop, esp since I had network gear swap to do at 8AM the next morning -- You ever think you could get $180K of gear into a $2000 car? you can.)


That's it for now. The splitter needs to be polished, the pump mount finished, parts and tubing ordered from www.mcmaster.com. I can't wait to unleash the Storm!

 

Looks awsome star, Keep up the good work.

 

Wonderful design work; I cant beleive Ive gone this long without seeing this work

 

nice, very nice

 

Will that spliter work. Im just curious because i would think all teh water would just go out the last hole. All the other holes would be shortchanged. I may be wrong but when i think about water flow i think of path of less resistance and easiest path. Wait how will you be mounting that.

 

Nice work

 

I think it works similar to electricity and resistance. Water should flow proportionally to the resistance down each path. With sufficient flow from the pump there should be enough to go around... in theory.

In practice I'll wait and see how it pans out, as I'm considering a similar solution to tidy up the tubing in my case.

 

looks great, you have skill.

 

Finally a project that takes as long to finish as mine... But damn, it's worth it. That just looks more spectacular by the minute! Can't wait to see that cooling loop finished! I can't stop shouting! I'm just so excited!