As soon as I got my permission to start working, I went on a “shopping spree” and bought 24 feet of aluminium “L” square profile. Initially I wanted to work on milling blocks of 1 and 2 inch thick acrylic, after being much inspired by the MOD Men PC, but I could not find a manual milling machine to use. Hence we have to do it the way that I really dislike (the boring way): build a frame. My school’s mitre saw does not have the blade to cut aluminium, so I’ll have to cut and file the mitre joints by hand. At spearpoint! Visually they fit, but then again, remember doing it by hand is never as accurate as a one-shot slice by a saw. Hence I decided not to use screws to fit them together, but to glue the “tiers” together with my personal favorite: Devcon Plastic Steel Epoxy!! This stuff is amazing, it can even cure underwater! Okay so moving on, pre-fit without the adhesive first: Yep that’s the Lian Li Q6 atx motherboard tray. More updates soon! I’ll try to stay consistent, I promised the Head of Department that I’ll finish the frame within a week. Nitrixflare
@puresilver: I initially had a plan to mill parts to fit it like a jigsaw puzzle, but since i cant find a milling machine i'll just work on a frame and etc. the top i was thinking of making some design like a bicycle helmet: not sure how i'm going to do that though, since fibreglass is out of the question - i dont have any experience with that stuff and i probably cant buy any of that stuff in Singapore. @waynio: thanks dude! @shadow703793: heh don't worry, the packaging wrote it can support quite a few pounds, and besides, i trust this stuff with my pride XD
Minor update on frame building and idea generation So the gluing begins! I cut small triangles to glue into the corners to further reinforce the structure. These four pieces were initially the sides of the “box” but I realised due to miscalculations they are too short. (Fancy calling a 50cm tall frame, not case, short? LOL) Nevermind, it ain’t wasted, I cut them down further to use them as rails to mount 3 x 120mm fans on top I used a piece of blue foam to create a proper spacing while the epoxy cures. Prepping the drill press to drill the mounting holes for the 120mm fans. Apparently none of the templates I found on the internet worked. They claim “printing full scale” will work properly, yet when I measured them with a ruler none of them were 12 cm heh heh, so I did it the old way I built another one of this (without the fan rails) for the bottom, but I realised that due to not using a machine to cut the parts, the alignment for the side brackets are off. My technician told me the difference would not matter much, but we’ll see. Maybe I’ll have to rebuild the bottom tier with the sides aligned. --- Okay now time for some inspiration. I wanted to make the top of the case look like a bicycle helmet, but I don’t have any experience working with fibreglass, so that is out of my league. Instead, I decided to take a look at this: Making the panels pretty much like the head, with a side access, not sure whether I want to hinge the panel yet or not. So the idea is to build a box, attach it to a base pretty much like the robot’s neck with structural struts. The base, I was inspired by the following robot’s waist component: If you can zoom in you would see the framework, etc. Lastly this. Rifles? Yes, but no. I was thinking of paint details, much like the cartridge boxes’ printed text shown in the picture. These three images are credited to Aaron Beck, an artist for Weta workshop (the one that makes amazing movie models, such as those in District 9) Check out his blog for more amazing stuff! http://skul4aface.blogspot.com/ Little note: There will not be any progress on Monday since the computer vendor told me to pick up my laptop on Monday, yet I need to spend a good three four hours there to configure my laptop. Nitrixflare
Crash and burn Attaching the sides of the case. Yep, I was wrong. My epoxy failed. After three days the joints all broke apart. So it was time for plan B. I riveted the case together. Lots of them. I had some left over 1 inch thick acrylic * (read below) which I wanted to build two “pillars” to prop up the PSU tray, but it didn’t go very well due to the incredulously lousy properties of acrylic: Yep. It cracked. There goes a solid block to waste. In fact, I didn’t have a mill on hand so I used a scroll saw, I broke one blade, next using the coping saw to cut away the melted acrylic and loosen the blade cost me another broken blade. Literally, this stuff is exhaustive. So it was a bad idea. Time to rethink. Anyway improvisation, I decided to move on to the side rails for the 3 x 120mm intake fans. Could somebody just tell me, do you mount the filters in front of the intakes or behind the intakes? Done with the drilling. I should make myself a reference template soon, rather than ramming fan holes with the hand drill everytime. Anyway I got myself a sheet of 2 ft x 2ft aluminium that’s really thin for 12 dollars today. Yes, one thing, it’s expensive. I know that. Second, I wasted quite a bit of the sheet trying to build a harddrive cage. However there is one good thing about it though. It can be cut really easily. I mean, the store owner simply scored it with the penknife a few times and broke the piece. For me however, I chose to use a rolling cutter to score it and break it off on a bench vise. So like what I said previously, the harddrive cage failed so I tried something different, rivetting the rails to the back of the case. So literally, the whole thing is A thing. When I paint it the whole thing gets painted altogether. Covering the back with a sheet of aluminium does give the opportunity for some interesting painting ideas, though I couldn’t show the photo since the camera’s battery died just as I took the previous photo. Okay so on the course of this venture I’ve met with quite a bunch of problems. In fact, a lot of problems. First, acrylic stock material from Japan is in short order, right now I’ve been posed with the damned problem of acrylic trippling in price. What used to be 17 dollars for a sheet of 5mm thick 1m x 2m acrylic now costs 55 dollars. The price tag just gives me one more reason to hate working with acrylic. Plenty full of dust, melting extremely easy, breaking tools in the process, not really THAT impact resistant, and now the price tag is worse than aluminium. So in other words, you could say I did my project at a really wrong time. I had the budget for the old price tag, now I can’t do it. Also, the other problems I face, I need to finish this project in a week before school starts. I have absolutely no confidence that can be done. And I’m out of budget. Which seriously sucks. Anybody have an I/O serial board or switches to spare? Nitrixflare
Back at it again Okay I’m left with three days. The plan is to see how much I can do, then the rest, I’d either get bits done at home or wait till the school holidays to get it finished. So here’s the plate that covers the back. Calculating the numbers to make the harddrive locking bracket: Recently from dismantling some clothes hangers for the rifle range , I collected a bunch of M6 allen head screws with a long screw head, so I cut up the thread to reduce the length and used them as thumbscrews. (Cutting costs in a simple manner. They are black oxide, but slightly rusted, might consider painting them.) So here’s the bracket assembled in: Yep it works. I wanted to work on the power supply tray, I had the idea after dreaming for two hours on a lazy afternoon, but after building one tier it just looked wrong. Somewhat unpractical. So moving on, we’ll leave that lying around first. So leaving that aside, I went ahead to make a fan shroud, since I wanted the cold air from the topmost intake fan to stay around for a while before getting sucked out by the exhaust. I’m still using the standard 1.5mm thick aluminium sheet, but one of a stiffer grade. Drilled with four holes and screwed in with more of those screws: Lastly I attached a small piece of bracket to the motherboard tray so that I have more surface area to attach it to the face plate. Although I think it’s slightly blocking the motherboard I/O, I can’t be sure. I’ll have to fit a motherboard tomorrow to check. Nitrixflare
Rush time! Okay though four photos from this small little update might not say much, but in my honest opinion I think today was one of my most productive days. Today I brought in a motherboard for test-fitting, so I trimmed down the front bracket so that it isn’t blocking the motherboard I/O area anymore. I installed in the motherboard tray with ten m3 screws, reason being I don’t really trust metric 3, but it’s just for a peace of mind. Then I reduced the length of the screws and filed them down. Here’s the case inverted, test-fitting the CD-drive cage. I have to admit this is the first time that the bends worked out extremely accurately. I’ll upload more photos tomorrow, and probably get the front plate done, though I haven’t purchased the I/O serial circuit board, so I might do the power supply tray instead. Nitrixflare
Thank you! I have to admit the frame isn't entirely "square", so I'm trying to work around the panelling for the case.
The faster things go Another photo from yesterday: Tomorrow’s my last day. I realised that the nearer the deadline, the more progress I make. Strange eh? Taking time for granted I guess. I chose another piece of stiff grade aluminium and cut out the front plate. It’s bolted in but it’s not entirely complete as I’ve not purchased the power switches and front I/O board yet, so I’ll just leave it aside first. I also grinded down the corners slightly so that they’re not so deadly. Early work on the power supply tray: Yep it works. So I’m left with a bunch of problems. I don’t bother about the I/O or switches, I can take time to save up the money. Painting can be done back at home, it’s the fabrication that I’ve worried about. I don’t have ample equipment at home (though I have a hammer drill, cordless dremel and corded dremel), I can’t possibly have a sheet stamper and brake at home. I better pray that I am able to get access to these in the workshop in the polytechnic. Also another engineering problem: How do I go about constructing the power supply tray so that the structure is capable of supporting the entire top portion of the case? Oh well, crossing bridges as we get to them. Cheers Nitrixflare
So now I'm on my own Today was my last day working in secondary school. Unfortunately I didn't manage to finish rushing the project, although I pretty much expected that to happen. Anyway let's begin with today's little bit of detail: Finished the two tiers of the power supply undercarriage, and then I rivetted them together with the bigger variety of pop rivets; 5.5mm diameter rivets. Riveting the frame took 16 rivets. But it was a heck load of arm exercise. I wanted to lathe some support rods to prop up the top part, but as luck would have it, both lathes are not working! Anyway prefit: I have no actual idea how tall this thing is. All I know is that thing is taller than a full tower. The top part is 50cm tall. The bottom was 17cm (I think). So yeah. It's one heck of a height. Anyway I did paneling for the bottom: That's all for now. I've got to make use of my own resources to work about now, so I'm pretty sure from here on the progress is just gonna be slow. Hope I don't experience anymore problems with this. Nitrixflare
