Thanks! Boy is she ever looking forward to it. We've had a copy of Sims2 for over a month now...and she can't play it till her computers done! Though I have to admit, she's been quite patient.
That's great! I seem to have a few tools lying around as well Good Luck on your project (have you got a log going?)
Used too, but i scraped it cuz i wanted to do a little something more with my PC. So now i'm back at the drawing board.
Update 11/1 Well, today I got some work done. A bit of a frustrating day, with a lot of detail work. Today's goal was to finish the DVD installation & get a good start on the HD install. Let's see how I did. The rails are done and the DVD installed with temporary screws. Here is the rough cut (out of a block of 3/8" plexi) eject button in place. Shaped a bit more with the dremel drum sander, and marked were it breaches the bezel. Filed and sanded to it's final shape, test fitted. On to the activity indicator. Filed and sanded, ready to install. Activity indicator in place. Had to use black shrink tube to compensate for a too large hole. Inside of bezel. That shrink tube comes in handy, slipped a couple of thin pieces on the eject button so it won't fall out. Hot glued some thin strips of mouse pad around the edges, to help seal the edges. Starting to cut the bolts to size, that will attach the DVD to the rails. Hardware for the rails. The rubber pieces are grommets cut in half, they go inside the finishing washers. Well during the "I'm done let's see if it works" phase, the activity LED was green...that had to change. Much better. Everything tests out. I did change out the mouse pad sealers, the original method was pushing out the bezel. On to the HD... Here's most of the parts. I'm using parts of a "pull-out" drive enclosure from an old RAID tower. This allowed me to keep my drive bay width all the same. Here's one of the original drives from the RAID tower. Here's the top and bottom covers, these need some adjustment. My first use of a nibbler, slow but sure and no deformed metal. Some sanding, filing, measuring, grinding, drilling, filing, bolt reduction...later and I've got one (more or less) flush mounted screw and 3 more to go. This plate is mounted to the bottom of the drive. Progress to date. Man, this stuff takes forever. It didn't help that tonight was Holloween with all the interruptions. It didn't help either that last night (Sat night) was our big halloween bash and I "celebrated" quite enthusiastically Hey does anybody know of a way I can polish up the area inside the rectangles on this nice bit of aluminum? The wire wheel on the dremel can't touch the corners. Questions, comments and most especially advise are always welcome!
Lookin' good. I hope those sunglasses are your daughter's or wife's. How secure is that eject button? Are you doing something to hold it place? Keep it up.
The sunglasses were my Dads from back in the 60's. They just happened to be handy down in the basement. I'm not happy with the eject button, been thinking about it all day today. The two pieces of shrink, now prevent the button from falling out the front, but once you take the bezel away...it falls. I don't like how it looks from the front, don't like seeing the edges of the hole it's in. May work on a replacement this week, got an idea in mind. Most of this stuff is "DAYG" (Design As You Go) with materials at hand...end result is you end up making stuff a couple of times before your happy...or at least willing to live with it. I'll keep plugging along.
Your project continues to look great. One question though, does the pink look more umm pink in real life, or is it actually somewhat mixed orange, as it appears on my screen? BTW, Just a word of advise, don't touch the bolts once you've reduced them Some late night modding (Not advised) gave me the scars to help myself remember not to touch them Oh well. -Brad
Yea, the pink looks more pinkish with the protective stuff taken off. In addition I'm backing the pexi with used dryer sheets to heighten its pinkishness (see #1 for example). 1) late night modding is a given. 2) Mistakes and misjudgments do happen. 3) I have some nice shiny patches of skin on my fingertips. Thanks for the warning! Alas, I've done this several times already (slow learner). I've found adding 2 or 3 nuts to the bolt before cutting not only give you more material to clamp to, but also make damn fine heat sinks...allowing the bolt to cool faster.
Thanks! She'll like it even better when it's done Yea, I haven't noticed many others of our kind on here. I'm not quite sure what that means
My project is on a similar line of DAYG. Some unique (in a good way of course) results can be obtained. With the eject button, why don't you have a ridge around the middle of the button. Then mount something to the back of the bezel for the button to pass through - but can move forward and back a little. That way it can't fall either forward OR back and stays put when the case front is removed.
Yes, some unique results can occur. It's actually quite fun and challenging to DAYG, but boy is it a slow process (at least for me). Fortunately I have 3 hours in the car everyday to mull things over. My god man! Your ESP abilities are eery Thats pretty much what I decided what to do. I also want to have the button light up in time with the activity indicator...my I wonder how I'll do that?
/me puts on his aluminium foil hat to activate his "special pusichick powers" ummmmmm LED wired in parallel/series inserted into the side of the button? Actually, when I first saw the eject button I thought you were going to make it the activity indicator (dual purpose). Then I saw the other LED and thought ohhhhhh. It'll still look good. Keep it up. I want to see more.
Whew, it was just a fluke...thank god. Actually I have another method in mind (though that was my first thought). I'll wait to implement it, cause I want to let the idea stew for awhile. Plus, I can't keep doing that...redoing stuff over and over, I have to get this project done!! I had hoped that once in place these components were done, but I've already decided that once everything is in place (and working), I'm going to tear it all out again, give the skeleton another coat of paint, polish everything up, make a few tweeks and do a white glove install for final. Does that seem absurd? This weekend for more, hope to finish the HD mod/install and start on completing my home made anti-tamper switch. Plus, I'm unhappy with the holes for my fan intake, I may want to change these out and go with a mesh like substance instead of the poorly drilled plexi holes (this affects the HD fan gaurd as well).
Then your really going to Love this one when it's done. It's all about pink, with just enough black and white to provide contrast and shiny stuff to reflect the pinkishness everywere. But of course all done in a "tastefully" way
My daughter has casually informed me that she has subscribed to bit-tech! I'm floored. Unknown to me she has been following this log all along (I gave her the link when I started). WOW! I'm trying to convince her to post, her nic will be obvious Chime in anytime daughter, your input is the most important. Should I change out the eject button, or just keep plowing along?
