Thanks for that info and the comment, BjD. I was using my compound mitre saw to cut the pieces, which I think is what was causing my problems. Guess I'll whip out the ol' Dremel! Keep up the good work.
This is a slightly delayed update from what I did last weekend, been busy As I left off last time, the top was rivetted in place on Friday. None of the pictures looked any good, plus theres not much to see anyway, so I'll carry right one with the next bit; mounting the motherbaord tray. First job was to make room for it on the back panel. The two upper triangular sections that secure the top to the rear needed a trim. Rear after the pieces have been trimmed. I thought it would be easier to trim these once in the case, how wrong I was... This 'shelf' was then added above the PSU panel. This gives something for the tray to sit on... ...and as this photo shows it gives something more solid to attach the tray to. These feet were added to the tray to give it a flat bottom The above 'feet' were added to get around the rivets protuding from the surface. They then rest on the shelf installed above. The next thing needed is some brackets to actually secure the tray in place. I'm using M5 screws, four of them, with rubber grommets, to mount the tray. These are the rear brackets Two pieces of angle attached to the front of the motherboard act as the front brackets. With the brackets in place on the tray, the next step was to get it in place in the case and drill some mounting holes. Tray clamped in place whilst the rear holes are drilled. First attempt at captive nuts. I wanted to use captive nuts on the case itself to make it easier to whip the tray in & out (no need to have a spanner on the nut), mainly because the nuts won't be too easy to get at once the rest of the system is in place. The above photo shows the first attempt using superglue. That didn't last long before one fell off. I tried soldering one in place on a test piece but that didn't seem to take. I'm now trying silicone sealant but its taking while to dry. If that doesn't work out I'll look into some proper metal adhesives. Tray attached by rear brackets, note the black rubber grommets under the screws. Next was to put in a support for the front of the tray (next post)
Support clamped in place. The support was then drilled top and bottom, but not yet rivetted. The position of the tray brackets was then marked on the support, these two parts were then removed and clamped together. The screw holes could then be drilled through both parts away from the case, no idea how I'd have got at them otherwise. The support was then cleaned up and rivetted in. These are the mounting holes on the tray They were taken out to 6mm and these grommets installed Time for a lunch break. Mmmmmmmmmm fattening... Tray installed (Im liking how it looks from this angle) Final job of the day was to mount another support opposite the one for the tray. These two then provide something to bolt the drives to.
Case looks great, good to see another custom built case being made, i had the same problem with mitre boxes making mine and made a jig to hold everything in place while i made the holes. Guido: I'm not sure if the dremel is the best idea, i'l use the compound mitrebox personally but only cut one angle at a time rather than doing the whole compound cut at once.
Too late Phat. I've already made the cuts, which you can see in my log. After getting done using the Dremel I remembered my miterbox. Oh well. Looking good, BjD!
The aim for this weekend was to build somewhere for the drives (optical and hard drives) to live. First job was to prepare the 5.25 drive cage. 5.25 bay mounting brackets These two pieces of angle were first cut to length. these then attach to the bottom of the 5.25 bay giving 4 nice strong areas to mount it to the rest of the case. Brackets on the cage Rivetted in place Next I cut 2 lengths of angle which the above mountings will attach to. These then needed to be rivetted to the case, the following pic shows me getting them in position, using some old drives in the cage to make sure it all lines up. Getting the cage mounted These grommets were installed in the holes between the bracket and cage Both drive 'shelves' firmly attached to the case Grommets were also added to the cage itself The cage could then be dropped into place. An M5 screw through both grommets with a nyloc on the end makes sure it isn't going anywhere The hard drive cooler featured previously mounts above this cage and is attached in roughly the same way. I cut a further two lengths to form the mountings on the case, and started marking out where they needed to go. I then realised with horror that with the hard drive brackets in place it was impossible to remove the 5.25 bay. After some headscratching I cut away some of the lower edge of the hard drive brackets, which then allows the 5.25 bay to be rotated through 90degrees and lifted out the front. Brackets in place with grommets in place and the aforementioned cutouts Drilling the mounting holes in the cooler The cooler dropped into place, it slides in through the side with some zigzagging to get the hose fittings past the support Another shot of the cooler in place Close up of the mountings, showing the grommets used on both pieces, and the cutouts to allow the drive cage below to be removed. Before packing everything away I put all the test parts in, along with an old PSU. The CDROM's will be stealthed, and some extra kit is planned for the other two bays.
The Easter hols really cut into the build which explains the big gap since the last update. Now all the major construction has been done all thats left is lots of little jobs, requiring a fair few bits and pieces to be bought and fitted. The first job as to correct some mistakes, when putting the rails in for the drives I forgot to space them out correctly. Whilst they fit they are at a slight angle, which would show up when fitting the side panels. This is becasue the rear support they are mounted to means the rear is narrower than the front, I should have fitted a 1.6 mm spacer tot he front mounting but got all carried away and forgot.... One of the spacers fitted After spending (wasting...) all that time redoing the job right, I then put some finishing touches to the motherboard tray. Handle to make removal/fitting that bit easier Main power input The power input is a fused and switched unit which forms the main power input for the whole case. The pump and PSU will draw power from this. Next up was to sort out the front of the case. First thing was a panel to cover the top part. Mounting lugs for the panel Top screws in place Bottom two drilled and screws fitted The two lower lugs could now be trimmed down a bit, giving a tad more room for kit on the panel This panel will be fitted with the fan controllers, power/reset switchs and temperature monitoring hardware, which is why its been screwed rather than rivetted in; makes it a lot easier to get at the electronic bits if something goes wrong.
May the 4th be with you! And with that, heres some photos from the weekend. I first carried on with the front panel, cutting out the holes necessary to put some gadgets in. I'd measured and laid the positions out on paper first so was reasonably confident it would all fit. First to be done was a cut-out for the 20x4 parallel LCD display. This was cut to the size of the screen, not the surround, so there isn't a black border visible around the LCD. Its attached with M3 screws. Test fitting the LCD On the flip side, the mounting hardware. The LCD has already had pin headers soldered in for the data cable, from when it was installed in my old case. Next was control switches for the fans, the usual micro toggle switches seen in many a mod. One thing I had found on other cases is that they have a tendency to get caught on things when moving cases around (ie in the boot of the car), and I was always worried about them getting damaged. One option was the fighter pilot sytle covers, but they're expensive and would have looked a bit ****. So, I decided to recess the switches into the case, heres how. One small Maplin aluminium box Fitted with 3 switches A hole is cut in the front panel I think you can see the plan here, the box is rivetted to the panel with some 2.5mm rivets, or will be once the rest is done.<P> Theres a lot of room left on the pnael, but not for long... All the holes drilled The rectangular holes on the left are for temperature displays; one each for the CPU, GPU and hard drives. The others are for power & reset switches, and fan speed controls. The panel was then cleaned up with some Brasso to get a nice finish and remove some scratches, and the hardware was fitted and tested. Testing the displays The temperatures sensors are self contained units with a molex for power and a sensor on about a foot of cable. The 3 toggle switches are for light control (on/off), case fan speed (variable/off/fixed) and radiator fan speed (variable/off/fixed). The fixed voltage will be 12V to give a full speed fan setting free of any speed control. The variable voltage will be supplied with a pulse width modulator which Im building now. The fans are suffering from low speed growl, if adjusting the PWM frequency doesn't fix it I'll use diodes to drop the voltage. Either way, the 2 knobs will adjust the speed level. Above these are some illuminated vandal resist switches for the power and reset switches. Next was a little job on the motherboard tray. All electrical connections (ie USB, access LED's) are to be collected together into one connector, making it that bit easier to remove the tray. So, I got some IDC headers and an old IDE cable and made up the motherboard end. Headers for the USB ports on the board Cable finished The larger header fits on the front panel IO header on the board. The other end will be brought to a connector that I have yet to decide where to place.
Next up was to sort out the reservoir for the water cooling system. I've gone for a res as it should help dampen the noise the pump makes, and I think it will make filling and bleeding a bit easier. The res itself is made up from this IP66 rated ABS box. The res, before... This is the perfect size for the Eheim 1048, and is waterproof having a nice rubber seal between lid and base. All it needs is some way of getting water in and out. Hole for water outlet Water from the pump will exit from the side, this hole now needs a barb attached and so needs tapping (no, not that kind of tapping... ) THAT kind of tap! This is a 3/8 BSP... ...and it fairly glides through the plastic Inner barb fitted... ..and the outer half How the pump fits into the equation The above kinda shows why the outlet is on the side. Getting the outlet onto the top (as had wanted to do originally) would need a hell of a bend which is not good for flow. Besides, coming out the side is much better for the connection to the rad. The pump is mounted by sandwiching it between the lid of the case with some foam.<P> The water has to get back in somehow, so some barbs on top were needed. Heres one, this time a 1/4 BSP tapped hole was needed. And heres another, the tape is to mark where the hole for pump power will go. I then tested the res for leaks. The joint at the lid didn't leak, which was good, but the barbs did. This was beacause I hadn't tightened them up 'proper tight' for fear of cracking the plastic, some PTFE will also be required I think. I would have tested again but there was evidence that the pump power connector was leaking. Closer inspection revealed that I had cracked it when assembling it, so a new one is required. In the meantime, the res went off to the paint shop (aka the kitchen) 4 coats of vinyl dye later Next was mounting it in the case. These two brackets will be glued to the res and allow it to be screwed to the case. You can see I'm using rubber grommets again in the joint. Res brackets 8 of these were cut to form the other end of the brackets. and heres how they go togther The bracket will be rivetted to the case floor once I have the position finalised. The nut is right up against the side to stop it spinning, hence no spanner is needed to get the res out. Most of the bracket to the right can be cut away methinks. Finally... Res in the case
The new PSU arrived for the case. I went for the Tagan EasyCon 580W which looks amazing, has more power than I need for now and has had some good reviews. It also comes with lots of little bits to play with, like zip ties, molex covers and a fancy power cable which made it even better. Despite its coolness, it caused problems as its about 25mm longer than the test PSU I've been using up to now. This meant the reservoir has to be mounted further back, meaning I lose the lower 5.25 bay as the barbs on top would foul any drive installed there (unless it was very short). A bit of a pain but theres no other way of mounting it. I don't have plans to put anything in there so its not a great loss. My main worry was that I had hoped to have room for some electronics in front of the res, they'll have to be relocated. Now the reservoir brackets could be attached to the case. First though, a few finishing touches were added to the reservoir lid. The power connector I broke has been replaced and a float sensor installed. The float is to give early warning of any water loss, assuming I don't notice large puddles forming on the floor that is. The brackets could now be attached to the case. Attaching these required some thought. Being so far toward the centre I couldn't clamp them in place to drill them for the rivets. I ended up having to temporarily super glue the brackets down, then drill through from the back. Each one was secured with a 4mm rivet. The above shows the clearance between the front of the PSU and the outlet on the res. It looks like a lot, but once you get power cables and the water outlet in it gets cramped. The water hose on the outlet has a tight turn, but its not enough to kink the hose. It'll connect to a bulkhead connector of some type below the motherboard. I plan on making the outlet barb a bit shorter, which should ease the turn radius. As a consequence of the new res position, the 5.25 bay couldn't be turned and slid out of the front. Instead, I trimmed more from the hard drive mounting rail and the bay brackets so it can slide out the side. Don't know why I didnt do it like that in the first place... 5.25 bay being slid in The next job was to finish off the panel for the front of the case, namely the covers for the 5.25 bays. The lower bay was the easiest, as its now an empty bay, so thats where I started. Lower bay panel being test fitted... ...and drilled Captive nuts added to the panel To secure the covers I use a couple of M5 screws, and captive nuts on the panel. I came across the nuts last week and they're just what I could have done with to mount the motherboard tray. They simply press in to a hole on the panel, I also use a touch of superglue to make sure they dont fall out. With that panel sorted I could move up, and to the two CDROM covers. As usual I'm stealthing the drives. First off was to sort out some way of getting at the buttons. This is what I came up with, the aluminium has plenty of flex in it to allow the button to be pressed. It just requires the drive to be positioned so that the button is just touching the panel. After a quick test that it worked I moved on the the rest of the cover. CDROM drive covers finished The covers are attached to the front of the drive tray. For now they're blu-tacked in place, when I install the drive for real I'll use hot glue. Theres a panel on the left to cover the slight gap there, and provide some symmetry in the screw placement. Finally there was the simple job of another blank cover for the top bay The completed front end panel work To finish the front off, the fan control knobs needed attaching properly. I've gone with PWM control as the fans seem ok with it after some fiddling, so I could mount the knobs to the potentiometers and mount them. I recessed the knobs into the case by a few mm so they don't stick out so much. To recess them the potentiometers were mounted to a length of angle which is then screwed to the top of the switch box. Another random job was to close up the gap between the motherboard tray and case frame at the back. A length of alu angle rivetted to the tray solved this Moving the case around was getting tricky, so I added two handles to the top of the case. They are screwed through the top of the case, and positioned as close to the sides as possible. Hopefully they'll take the weight of a loaded case without tearing out. To finish, I'm left with pondering how to mount this. This will contain a small power supply which will power the case lighting and flow/float sensors and associated alarms. This means I can check the water cooling is working properly without having the main system on.
neat, well planned case u got there cant wait to see it finished! what colour options u got if ur gonna paint it?
Still pondering the paint scheme, was initially going for a light blue, but Im now thinking black would look better. Im leaving the panels as they are and only painting the framework. I could, but that means I'd have to go buy one Seriously though, I want to try and avoid using a right angle if possible so as not to restrict the flow. Its an option though if it turns out to be needed.
Making the auxiliary power unit (as it has become known) was the next job to do. Its general location in the case was shown in the last update, so the next step was to sort out the mounting brackets and to sort out the hardware for the power supply itself. I decided to sort out the mounting of the hardware in the power supply first, then get it attached to the case. The supply itself is a very simple design. It will power the front panel lighting and the circuitry connected to the float sensor and flow sensor and some form of alarm system if either of those sensors should flag a failure. The design itself is one we covered in A-level electronics (many years ago...) and so it was something I was comfortable building. I've had some bad experiences with mains voltages in the past so stuck with what I knew and overcompensated on the component ratings, just to be on the safe side. The design uses a transformer to step the mains down to 12V RMS, then through a bridge rectifier to give ~17V DC, then a capacitor to smooth the supply so it doesn't drop below the the minimum needed for the voltage regulators. The regulators are 78xx series, one for the 12volt and one for 5volt, good for 2amps. The first part was mount that big 'ol transformer. Transformer with mounting brackets in early stages of construction. Uneccessary bits cut away Then the second part of the bracket is attached... ...and the same on the other side They were then rivetted to the bottom of the APU case Then the transformer can be screwed in place. With the transformer in place the mounting brackets could be attached to the bottom of the case. Three mounting points are being used, using brackets very similar to those used on the reservoir. Heres the brackets rivetted to the bottom of the APU case. and heres the brackets that attach to the main case. These brackets are made from trimmed down aluminium angle, again using those captive nuts and M5 screws. Case with bracketry screwed on. The APU case has rubber grommets for the screws to pass through, as I've used elsewhere. The main reason for using them here is that I can get away with some slight misalignment when attaching the brackets to the case.... Marking out where the brackets need to go Brackets attached, again 4mm rivets were used. The main AC power input connector was then fitted to the APU case. I'm using some rather spiffy shrouded terminal block connectors, which will be used for most of the AC connections in the case. It fits! Testing the power connector clears the main PSU I'll have to get some better pictures of thise connectors. Next was to mount the rectifier and regulators, both simply screwed to the casing. Bridge rectifier and regulators attached. Then this 'shelf' was added... ... to provide somewhere to put the capacitors. The caps are zip tied onto self adhesive zip-tie bases. They'll need a dab of glue though to stop them sliding vertically. With all the bits in place the last part was to wire them all together. After about an hour of of solder action With all the wiring in place, the mains power was hooked up, fingers crossed, and the juice turned on. Surprisingly, there were no loud bangs, smoke, fire or explosions, which makes a change. A quick test with the mulitmeter showed 5 and 12 volts being produced at the output. All that remains now is to add a power output connector and its complete
cheers for the clarification is that homebuilt PSU EMF sheilded (if you can ...) also did you put metal all around it so you cant electrocute yourself
