Scratch Build – In Progress *** PHINIX CHIMERA *** - 07/11/16- final photos - COMPLETED !!!

Thanks man, happy to see you liking it

Cheers! Well, it's hard to say just now. Case itself shouldn't be that much heavy, definitely not as heavy as Nano Tower. I assume it shouldn't be more than 4kg.
I will put it on scales when ready

 

Time for another update.

I cut out a nice wee GPU wall, left a hole for power cables and attached small cubes, that Parvum kindly supplied me.








View from the top - drilled holes to mount this GPU wall.
Black line shows where the wall will be mounted below.




Here's a gpu wall pushed in. You can see the gap on the front of the case, between gpu wall edge and actual case edge. There is 7mm gap for front panel lighting. I will have to squeeze there some led strips to light up front panel.






Here are two L shape rods which will serve as motherboard mounting rods. To maximize air fow around motherboard I decided not to use full wall, just these two L shape rods.
I drilled holes and mounted those sweet little cubes.








Photo shoot outdoors
Some more photos of the whole thing I got so far.
Main frame, GPU wall and mobo rods, group shot










Fan hole...




I brought some spare fan to show how it's going to be mounted and how small the case actually is.
I haven't picked a fan I'm going to use there, probably Akasa Viper.









That is all for now.
Next steps would be:

• finish panel designs
• measure mobo position and mount those mobo rods

 

Looking good & love those block nuts.

 

Thanks mate

 

Time for new update.
This weekend I spent some time on motherboard mounting.
I got a dead ITX mobo from one of our fellow members and used it for aligning, fixing, mounting etc.
I simply didn't want to damage my sweet little MSI ACK mobo, so for manual handling during project I use a dead mobo

First had to align it with I/O in top panel...




Perfectly aligned hole... One from few I'm afraid.. it's really hard to align stuff in hands




Mobo on rails...




...aaaaand mounted.








You can see how much gap is left between mobo and GPU wall...




Here you can see I plugged in that PCIe flex extender.








I installed one more wee cube I got from Parvum.
Here you can see how this extender will be mounted - I will screw it down to these two cubes.




That would be all for now, stay tuned!

 

looking good.

 

Thanks Cheaps

 

Ahh, it's starting to take shape now. Very nice!

 

Back from the dead!

Yep! Chimera is alive and doing well It wasn't dying, it was just waiting for new bits to come over.

Parvum, one of my sponsors kindly cut out the following bits for me.

Most important is front panel - it has engraved name at the bottom and front window/hole with two acrylic elements, acid green and fluorescent yellow. Two different elements colliding - CHIMERA....








Here you can also see right and rear panel.
Left has huge hole for graphic card (will be covered with mesh), rear has small triangle holes on top, to let the hot air out passively.












Here are small aluminium bits - not glued yet, just to show the whole design.
I will first glue the clear acrylic sheet behind the front panel to the alu panel, then glue down those color acrylic bits, then at the end, will glue down those alu bits.














Obligatory artistic shots







Another update soon. "This weekend" soon, not "next 8 months" soon

 

Isn't Chimera a collision of three elements?

Looking forward to the weekend!

 

Well, aluminium is just a cover, but we can count it too

 

Very cool idea. This case has some very interesting design concepts and the approach of again mounting the GPU separately is unique. That front plate looks sweet. I've got an appreciation for scratch builds as it takes a lot of thought to make a scratch build work well.

I appreciate that your worklog has pictures of your actual work, not just pages of artsy fartsy pictures of hardware. I tire of looking at macro pictures of Bitspower fittings.

 

Thank you very much for your comment. Happy to see you like it - I am also a fan of scratch builds

First I had an idea of front panel - having different worlds clashing right there. Then I thought of acrylic - I never used acid green in my builds, but I always liked it as this was like one of first colors used in first modding projects we have seen, ages and ages ago. I also liked the brightness of yellow acrylic, so used it as a second part. I think overall final result is very satisfying.


Now, I have 2 ideas what to do with all the panels.

One is to add brush effect - I would use some 220 grit sand paper and run it on all panels to get this brushed effect.

Second idea is to dye the panels to achieve an effect similar to the one from last 2 photos - like a dark shades, shadows... I wonder if it's easy to do.
Waynio did that with his mod while back, but I don't think I would be able to do same thing.

 

I remember this, Midlag Crisis post #46/48 mentions a spray gun with the lacquer/die mix of choice.
Maybe you could get some advice from him for this? The effect he managed looked excellent.

 

Now we know that I won't be able to ask him about this, ever again...
It is trully sad that he is gone, I really going to miss him...

 

I spent some time last weekend and did few updates I planned for a long time.

First, I needed to arrange more space for PSU. I found out that one of mobo's frame is interfering with PSU space. So instead of wee cube I had to fabricate small angle bracket and cut out a bit of mobo frame.

This is the wee bracket...






Here is the trimmed mobo frame.






Frame trimmed and bracket crewed in.




Also, had to make a top PSU hole a bit wider, where the power cable plug goes in, PSU has this thick "collar", so needed to make some space for it.




Next, was to mount PCIe flexible extender. I used Parvum threaded cubes for this.
You can see at the top there is about 3mm gap between top panel and PCIe bracket - that is where graphics card rear bracket goes under...



...and last shot on whole case skeleton...

 

Another update.

There was a really nice weather today, so went out and did some work on Chimera.

I bought some 2mm clear plexi for front hole. I trimmed it to fit in the front hole, it will be a background for front panel design.




Here's behind a front panel. I think I will use double sided tape to mount it, so won't need to add more screws to the front...




Then I drilled holes for 4 screws that will hold the panel.




I put it on main frame to mark where I'm going to drill hole and later on thread them all.




This is the side panel, right side to be precise. This is a hole for graphic card cooling intake.




I decided to ditch one of the frame's pole - the one that come in the rear of graphic card's chamber.
Reason for this is to save more space for more space-demanding cards, that have huge coolers/cooler covers.
Instead I will use this angle alu profile, which will hold right and rear panel together.




Both panels here, marked and drilled...




..and screwed together.






Big hole will be covered with mesh. Here, needed to draw a bit to be cut out...




..some dremel action...




..and bit cut out.



Here is how it will look like. I think I'm gonna use rivets to mount it...




Now, last thing was to mark all up and drill holes in 3 main poles.
During the week I will sit down at home and thread all those holes.
12 holes in total... I don't really look forward to do that.. tapping those holes is always a pain...



That is all for now

 

What do you guys think, what kind of finish would fit perfectly for this build?

I'm thinking either brushing aluminum panels, or maybe anodising it, dark brown or copper color?

 

Why not both? Since the panels are flat they should be easy to brush really precise and then you can anodize it.

As for the colour.. it's a personal thing but I would probably go for the dark brown (if those are the only choices, otherwise dark purple to go with that lime acrylic ) since: a) copper colour and texture are really hard to simulate well and b) it's easier to blend in the darker shades than copper..

Whatever your choice may be I'm still looking forward to seeing it materialise!

 

Yep! I think I have an idea - I will brush it, rough lines, then I'm gonna spray paint it graphite color. After this I will slightly sand it down to get some of paint off, leaving darker lines. I hope that makes sense. I need to try it out this weekend on some scrap piece of alu to see how it's gonna look.