Project: A Cramped LanBoy; Minor Update Jan 31st 2007

This is the original front panel. It's gotta go!


I'm cutting plastic stock for a custom front panel. I dragged my father's workmate to my apartment.


I need to offset two pieces of the panels from each other. These will form a frame. The front of my chassis is very... holy. So in order to cover all of it up, I'm going to slap 3mm opaque blue acrylic. Then there's going to be 1/2" extruded acrylic frame standoff and a 3mm transparent blue panel cut to be exposed to the world.


Finished frame. It took way too long - I REALLY wish I had a miter saw - dremeling extruded acrylic is bothersome.

I stripped everything out of the computer again.

Asetek Antarctica waterblock installed.


Asetek VGA cooler on 9800 Pro


See, everything's on the shelf & caked in dust! This is what I get for leaving the case wide open and never reinstalling my front 120mm fan.

New toys, er, I mean tools: portable drill stand (for cutting into the plastic properly), 17 piece Milwaukee hole saw kit (yea, I know, now I've got duplicates, but it was $25 from amazon during a friday sale), a heat gun, a combination square (you can see it above), some reference books, ball pein hammer, prick punch, center punch, some sockets, tubing cutter, and some other odds and ends. One would think that I spend so much time accumulating parts, I'd get work done at a faster pace!

 

Awwwwwwww , a see dust
If its yout first modd , it look great , good work man .

 

Tis great indeed, looks very nice

 

oMG OMG OMG what is than SEXY nb cooler. i want it!

 

Silenx NB Cooler

It is indeed sleek and sexy! My old cooler had a fan, but with a hunk of copper this big, I made it passive. I have an Abit Max3, so I replaced the "OTES" 40mm cooler with the one that comes with the NB fan. It's a bit loud if a fan controller isn't used, so if you decide to get this cooler, scrap the fan unless you really need.

 

thats sexy

though it looks like a mini zalman, thats what i thought at first.

 

Did I drill the plastic (cast acrylic) wrongly?

I did some drilling today.

Centerpunched the plastic (with the protective paper still on), drilled through with a 5/64" drill, and then a 9/32" bit.

These are titanium coated bits meant for general purpose use. I clamped the plastic down pretty well, but upon going through with the 9/32 bit, I had some exit wounds. No major crackage, but the holes aren't exactly pretty. I went easy and slow.

Should I have put in another step between those two drill bits? It took a while to go through with two bits, I would have went nuts if I needed to go over them three times.

Ah well, I suppose that the screw heads will block some of them, and washers will block the other side so it's ok. Any suggestions?

Edit: Oh crap. The 1/2" frame that I spent so much time on... Can't use it. If I drill through it, there will be no way to get any of the debris out of the sealed tube. I think I thought of this before, but it hit me like a brick only now when I tried to drill it. Oh crap.

Edit2: Ok, so new plan... I'm going to cut channel to go across both vertical sides of the front panel. On the top and bottom there will be round tubing cut into 1/2" spacers, and maybe some shielding on top?

 

ive never had that kind of problem, i use high quality metal cutting bits though

and i usually go pretty fast.

it probably would have been better if you went with another bit size in between those two.

 

Oh well, I'll try that next time I guess. But in this case, I was drilling some 2 dozen or so holes per panel. Going over it twice and I had two panels = about 100 holes. I tried using my little drill pressing thingie but I couldn't secure my panels well on it so I used weights and my foot to press small oak beams over the panels. That way there was no upwards recoil when I broke through. Maybe the protective sheeting over the panels was a bit too weak and I should have used masking tape. Ah well. Back to the drilling board!

Edit: After all my work, I ended up with a crack in my transparent blue panel. Back to the drilling board in a few days.

 

fast rpm's on drill and slow through.. You said tat you werent too bothered wit orange peel on the insides, but as you have a window in the case, give it a few scrubs with fine grit sandpaper.. or, since the panels are alu, polish it..

 

Well, with everything being as busy as it was, I'm not ready to resume my work.

I tried implementing my WC loop in the system and my choice of parts last year was just not appropriate. Last year I went for the cheap options instead of the right options.

So, on the way is a 240mm Black Ice GT Stealth in red, a Swiftech 655, a Swiftech Micro Res, some new tubing, and another 120mm fan.

In the meantime, fabrication of the front panels has been hellish so I had to revise my strategies. I've now put my titanium coated pilot points on the side and am now using a step-bit.

I'm getting married and moving to a new apartment where my wife will move in with me, so my time table has been accelerated.

In the meantime, I've been distracted with work, wedding preparations, and mountain biking.

 

Failed front panel attempt.


Trial run aftermath.

I got incredibly frustrated with the setup. I don't like the dual exit ports. I don't like the push-connect aspect of the CPU block. I cannot find a place to mount my reservoir. I cannot easily mount the pump. I don't like the relay block that the pump has to connect to. The ugliness of the reservoir annoys me.

I tried saving money when I originally purchased these parts and now they'll likely sit in a parts bin forever.

On route: Swiftech 655 pump, Black Ice GT Stealth 240mm in red, Silverstone 120mm fan, 3 Yate Loons (just in case), a Swiftech Apogee GT, and GPU block, and a Swiftech micro res.

I still have a bottle of FluidXP from last year that I'm going to give a shot. Worst case scenario it'll much everything up and then I'm going to have to dismantle and rebuild everything.

*sigh*

 

I officially declare this project dead. D-E-D. ded.