Scratch Build – In Progress Project Air Cube v2

I bought some 10mm spacers and rubber washers to put between the front panel & fans so I could put the fan controller back in the box of parts and it really helped cut the extra noise from the air restriction .

Is there any way I could spread this log over 8 to 10 pages, takes too long to load .

 

Liking the look of this one mate

 

Thank you MugenUK .

There is a few other things I'd like to get done on the case.

1. replace the hollow square tube case feet with solid square bars polished.

2. Paint the fans, hopefully with an airbrush, I'm thinking a carribean blue or deep blue & white.

3. add a window on the right side.

Possible things I'll do.
4. make some led spotlights that can be switched on/off.

5. replace the 1/2" x 1/2" main corner angle bars with 1/2" x 3/4" ones.

Can't really say when these things will get done though as I keep blowing my spare cash on games .

 

Finally got around to buying an airbrush kit & basic colours so I can mix to get the colour I want, time to get heaps of practice in over the coming months , cheapo stuff until I get ok at it, then I'll consider getting a good airbrush.







After reading through Antony's How To Take Better Photographs Of Your Mod article.
Because I was quite impressed with my dads new cheapo kodak camera, I bought a higher model, a kodak z950 £140 cheapest I could find it in uk and it turned out the place I bought it from imports them so have been waiting since 17-feb & got it the other day, it is far superior to the olympus hand me down which had no manual controls I used throughout air cube v2 .
Had a good mess about with the different manual settings, plenty of controls, every control I would need, taken some pictures all indoors with bad lighting on purpose but used a tripod, I wanted to see if noise levels were good or bad in dimly lit places, I'm very happy with darkness in the pictures simply can't afford to jump into quality dslr land so this camera will do very nicely .
Anything I make in the future will be much better photographed, I'm going to make a nice big soft light box on the cheap & use a lamp or 2 with daylight bulbs & have a rotational platform to catch all angles.
I beleive it was Xion X2 with his perfect presentation in reflexion mostly that inspired me in taking the time to capture what I'm shooting as it should look, cheers Xion X2 .

I have to say though the compression when pictures get resized for forums on picture hosting sites lose a fair bit of detail.









First mini project for the airbrush is paint the fans, but not before I play some heavy rain , the demo was surprisingly great, really pulls you in, an evolved fahrenheight game, nice , only got a ps3 for it's exclusives and not been a bit disapointed with it.
Completed it with all positive outcomes, best & most unique game I have played in a while, I hear you can really change the outcomes from all actions made through the game so I'll play through this many times making mistakes on purpose .



I'm having a possibly silly idea of making a big gaming stack system to hold my supercooled xbox 360 with a real psu instead of power brick, then the ps3 cooled from underneath when needed during long gaming sessions and my pc on the top, these are rough sketchups without panels, just the frames.







The stack would measure just short of a metre high.

 

Air cube part 2

Can't really call this a new project, more of a part 2 , I wanted a nice new unit for my consoles, pc & favourite games/dvds to be all in 1 space saving stack, had quite a few redesigns & settled for this one, seems my modding has overspilled into making furniture .

It's going to be a stand for the air cube on top, ps3 level below with great ventilation, a level below for my xbox 360, dvd storage below on the bottom 2 levels on both sides with a psu sat in the middle of level 2 for powering the xbox 360 & fans with room for control pads inbetween the dvds.


























I'm also working on a new top & rear panel for the xbox 360 to accommodate for better cooling replacing the gpu heatsink for a 360 cpu heatsink & placing bga coolers on all chips with 120mm fan intake & exhaust & dvd drive relocation .

 

This aluminium was for redoing the corners & bottom sides & back panel.


When doing my design over & over I figured I dont have to re do the corners & bottom sides but I still have good use for the sheet to reorientate the back panel a little, so the angle bars in this picture are not needed for the build, had a slight redesign after I made the order.
Here is the right side panel botch shots, they will be covered by the chunky angle bars that hold the air cube in place, this mod has spawned from the botched corners & price of delivery not being worth just doing the air cube.




This is the aluminium for the new build, I beleive if the frame is good & strong then there is no true need for expensive thick sheet, especially for what I'm making.


I was sat on this aluminium for over a week which is a 1st, I usually can't wait but I wanted to do this properly, I needed a tool for doing clean bar cuts at 45 degrees & 90 degrees.
Missed out on a bargain for a really good cut off saw at £100 it was worth £300 but because of very low money I had to get a much cheaper alternative, a manual cheapish £30 mitre saw, the build would have gone tragically wrong if I didn't .



Should have been 1 of the 1st tools I added to my collection when working with aluminium bars, it's proven to be a very awesome tool for this build .

Finally the work begins woo hoo .

Friday
Got the angle bars for all levels cut to size, all 45 degree cuts.




Saturday
Got loads more cut to size, not much more to do other than a few more bars (but the thicker ones) & 6 thin sheets.





This is 1 of the basic levels


Got all bars cut to size today except for the main corner angle bars, want to get everything correct before I do them, so I'm just working on making the levels 1st.




Did a loose fit of all the levels & they are great, the bottom panel will be ultra strong, it looked pretty reasonable in google sketchup but in reality it does look a bit overkill, nonetheless it will be very strong indeed lol .





More updates soon

 

The stack has been on hold the past 3 days so I can get the rear aircube panel redone, heres the update on that.

Oh no's, done the spacing wrong by 3mm for the mesh, should have been every 9 or 10mm, should have stopped after the 1st hole & remade the grid to follow, but no I ended up with this & thinking I'd have to buy another sheet.


My dremel has been dying slowly lately & has now become useless, it was getting lateish so couldn't use the air dremel (very noisy) so I made a quick alternative for the design & drilled within the areas I wanted cutting out & done a ton of filing, even used a hacksaw blade pushing & pulling through the area to get it done lol, was thinking it's just too rough looking but carried on anyway, it could still use a little more smoothing out here & there but I think it's turned out not so bad, what do you all think?.

 

This update covers the last few days.

With my dremel being useless now & the reinforced cutting discs having the wrong sized hole 1/8" making it a hassle to change discs because they also need aligning, I tried this other cutting air tool but couldn't see where I was cutting so put it away, this picture shows the new right side window & grill for the psu & also the 3mm higher motherboard tray, the flat bars are a temporary loose fix at the moment, they will be attached properly when it's time.









This shows the washers & 10mm spacers I used to cut down the noise from the restrictive front grills, I realised I only mentioned it in the log so heres a picture .




I can get to work on a few other things while waiting for stuff to come, the new cooling & top & back for the xbox 360, the ps3 stand, paint the fans, trim the back panel & smooth out any rough spots & get it painted, so no excuse for not getting something done while I wait .

Getting the feet off the air cube might be tough because I used araldite which sets like stone, it was the feet that introduced a little wonkyness to the case, seems it's sat correct on the right side & not on the left which is why there was a gap on the top left, can picture myself having to hammer & chissel them off so I can tap a solid bar for a good fit to existing bolts coming through the bottom.

I decided to do the xbox today, made a good bit of progress, spent near 12 hours on it, figured I'd keep the gpu heatsink so it will be about 130mm at it's highest point, got the basic functionality sorted on it, just need to make a nice cover for it all then the xbox is ready for painting, got the tap & tap wrench & it works a treat, used it for the rear fan mount, holds it nice & firm , this was a rrod xbox I bought & fixed it had a 0020 error code & figured the only way it will stay fixed is if I boost the cooling, all of the long screws still have their place but I'm thinking of loosing the middle back one so I can create a duct for the rear fan, as you can see it's half in & half out. Ha, it just dawned on me while looking at the picture that I'll probably have to make a new hold down strip else it might not close, doh! .





























More to come soon .

 

Vey very nice idea and concept my friend, I admire the amount of work and the trial and error process which improves you and the build! Mod on man!

 

Thanks for the compliment AnG3L , mod on I will .

Didn't get much done yesterday or today as the sun was too tempting to miss after a long grey winter .
Got the rear fan properly secured down while the xbox was properly closed, filed the corner supports of the rear fan so the strip of metal would fit closely for it to be well in place.


On this back shot I plan to get rid of all the internal mesh, fill in all the plastic mesh & create a nice hole for fan wires to come through & a little cut to size strip bent to get rid of the gap from the fan to the plastic xbox case so it doesn't look rough, I'm also going to fill in the dvd slot hole & keep the eject button functional, waiting for some velcro tape to secure the dvd drive down which will reduce dvd vibration, the actual dvd tray will be stealthed also.

Measured, marked & placed little angle bars in place & riveted them to the xbox shell & tapped a hole on them ready for fixing a cover which I'm still thinking about best way to do it.









Thought I'd try & make a 1 piece cover, 1st try at using my cut to smaller pieces steel flat bar from my 1st metal bender, tripple checked the required measurements & marked the sheet, ready for cutting the corners out, it's really a pretty good cheap method for cutting sheet metal, think I'll use this method quite often


Human jigsaw lol .




This is a shot with the cut up steel bar from my previous sheet metal bender, they are cut to size for making back pci/io pieces, still not tried making my own yet though.






Going good so far.




Woo hoo :banana:.










The edges will be smoothed & closed together, I just had enough for the day lol.

1 tiny detail I forgot to think about is the right side clip on piece, 1 of the upper slots will not be able to slot in, but I'll work something out for that & luckily it's not the important hdd side .

More soon .

 

Didn't get anything done from tuesday to friday, here's why.
My bro has been severely stressing me out so needed a time out, but spring is definately helping speed up recovery with some nice blue skys & sunshine, long grey winters make you really appreciate a nice blue sky & some warmth .
I have come to a firm conclusion that many people who say they are bored should rephrase it to I'm a boring person, time to change lol .

Right, now my excuse for no updates is out of the way, onwards with the project woo hoo .

I have tried out the upgraded cooling on the 360 without the casings though within that time, main 2 fans blowing on the components, rear fan pulling air out, played some gta iv for 10 minutes, turned off put my hand on the gpu heatsink, was nice & cool , did same on cpu & it was very hot to touch.
So I flipped the cpu fan over to take air away from it & had the rear fan blowing in, both gpu & cpu run nice & cool to the touch after half an hour of gta iv mayhem so I'll make a duct to guide air out of the side & put an easy to remove & clean dust filter on the back to minimise the need for clean outs.

So it's looking like a very good anti rrod fix so far , concernig the cooling layout it's a good thing I had a little downtime else it would have been done wrong, I'll take the 2 temperature sensors from my 1st 360 mod & place them on this new mod so I will be able to see if the fans start failing + it might make it look a little better .

I would do a cooling mod on my new ps3 but it is still under warranty so that is why I'm just doing a ventalation mod outside of it which I hope will be enough for it's longevity, it does get pretty warm sat on a desk but a good flow of air passing above & below it should help.

Here's what I got done over the weekend, should be back on track with regular progress from now .

The 360 is coming along ok .




Whilst I was without a dremel, I started drilling, filing & sawing to get things done, silly me I tried the same technique for the air cube right side panel & ended up putting it aside until my cutting discs with the correct 1/16" hole in the middle arrived.

Well, got the cutting discs , I cut along the lines I marked out perfectly, filed & sanded all the edges, thought jobs a gooden, pulled all the masking tape off & the drill holes left a bit of a mess on the psu grill, yes it could have been patched up with body filler but I prefer not to use it so I filed away settling for some wonky lines instead, I'll mask around the grill & give it a quick spray of matisse blue & spray some into a pot & use a fine brush to do all the bare edges.










The other window will be removed so I can get the white double sided mounting tape cleaned off & replaced with clear mounting tape.

Thats all for now, more soon .

 

Ahh, think I'm coming together again, a few said I should do a scratch build 360 case, I had pretty firm plans on just modding the 360 with scraps I had lying around to keep it's original functionality & to cost nothing other than the fans, the last week I just didn't know how to carry on (head was scrambled) so kept putting it off, so I sat down & started designing a completely custom 360 case, kept my mind busy for hours & it seems to have done the trick to get me back in the mood for continuing, had to get some new body filler (the activator had burst out of it's tube & become useless while in storage), wanted to carry on for hours more but had to call it a day though because of noisy filing, don't want to irritate any neighbors in the evening with my hobby .

The back side is coming together, cut out the internal mesh, used little pieces of sheet aluminium held on the inside of the exterior mesh & filled over the holes & sanded down, have made the filler strip template but can't do it until tomorrow (the air dremel is noisy) & had some more filing to do on the internal metal chassis which resonates a loud racket, so I hope to get all the body work & air ducts done tomorrow, then I can put it aside until I paint it & can continue with the stack, woo hoo I found my mojo baby, yeahh lol.





I'm feeling good again so more soon .

 

its gonna be nice!

 

Cool.
Add a cap and you'll have a Darth Vader-esque case. Well, that was my first thought after seeing the "snout" like extension you made for the optical drives. :up:

 

Thank you BlackWhizz & journeyer, yeah the black & white does remind me of storm trooper colour theme style lol .

Lol, I thought I'd get all the xbox body work done today, but only got the front gap between the metal cover & xbox filled & sanded & made the gap cover at the back, still, it's steady progress , it looks like there is a gap still but that is just perm marker from a guide I made on the filler to form a nice smooth edge, used 60 grit, 240, 600 sand paper.









Needed a bit more filler.




I don't know when the body work will be fully done on this xbox, could be tomorrow or the day after if I keep at it like the past couple of days.

I'll just keep posting at the end of the day when any progress happens .

 

Only done the face plate today (started too late), I trimmed the original dvd bezel so it was 1 or 2mm thick, placed maksking tape over the front of the face plate, lay the trimmed bezel in place & slapped some body filler over it, sanded, then flipped it over & covered the gaps for the bezel & sanded smooth.









The top piece is going to need a bit of work on it before it looks a bit nicer but it'll come together, just had a slack day lol .

More soon .

 

Got a bit more done today, the xbox is nearly finished .

Xbox 360
Filled & sanded the inside & outside corners of the top piece.
Made a quick & simple air duct to blow out of the side, still undecided if the rear fan will bring air in or out.











The back could do with some filler so it all sits nice & flat all around, I'll get that done tomorrow, I'll also trim the flat bars out of the way of the side hole.







It's getting very close to being ready for painting .

Air cube
LOL, the temps are better with the exterior panels on rather than off , just thought I'd take a pic of the air cube with the new panel on , the onboard led lights only come on when starting up the pc & are quite subtle but good looking, I like them, there is a green, orange & red light which has given me an idea to use some leds on both sides of the case to be different colours, the 5870 pretty much splits the case into 2 halves so I think it'll look quite decent if placed in the right spots.



More soon .

 

Update
Put a good layer of filler on the back & smoothed out, the top piece is laid flat now & cut the flat bars lower to be unseen.











Decided ac ryan meshx is the right stuff for the side duct hole, it's very unrestrictive so would be perfect for it, thought about doing my own grill but the meshx would be better, once I have a mesh sorted for the hole it should be ready for painting & then I can move on with the stack, after a couple of days for a break .

Doing the xbox the way I have has given me more appreciation for case mods, scratch builds are more straight forward because you are the one who designed it so you know exactly how it should all go together, it requires a lot of adapting with a ready made case so I believe it can take just as much effort to do a good looking mod, case mod appreciation +10 .

The ps3 is going to look too normal amongst the 360 & air cube, I'd love to at least give it a paint job but that warranty is stopping me, for now .

More soon, Can't do nothing more on the xbox until tuesday but I could make a start on the levels of the stack if I feel up for it.

 

The stack.
The makeshift table was not flat enough for putting a jig on & getting this stack made, luckily my dad had a kitchen work top doing nothing, so we took the clamping piece off the rough makeshift table & put it on the kitchen top, so now I have a nice table to work on .



Made a square jig, I cut the wood to precise sizes of the angle bars so I needed 4 hands to make it 100% square, my dad helped me on this, it would have taken ages to do on my own & might not have been 100% square, anyway the jig is perfect so I'll be able to do my marking spot on when I start on this stack.



This is the bottom level piece, it's the chunkiest level of them all, I wanted it to be well grounded .













More soon .

 

Decided to do the part I was dreading the most, removing the air cubes feet which I stuck on with araldite.



I removed the araldite by using my heat gun on all the exposed bits for a few seconds & then scraped it off, then heated the whole bar & levered it off, it all went nice & smoothly .



Polished up the original polish so it looks all fresh again .



With the old feet taken off the sides & top fit perfect.



cut, filed & polished some new ones from solid square aluminium bar & decided to use mounting tape to attach the new feet.





With the new feet on the sides & top fit perfect, so glad .



Looks pretty sweet .



Finally cleared up the garage so it isn't like a game of twister any more, it was getting ridiculas lol .

Got the ac ryan meshx, got it installed on the xbox (used my glue gun), where the rivets are hanging out I want to tap the holes so it is properly secured in place & so it can be disassembled easy, once I get that done it is time for painting it.



More soon .