Scratch Build – In Progress Project: Blue Horizon - "MOTY" Nominee

Uncanny mod mate! I especially like the HDD tray, that is one very clever system!
Death to vibration noise! No to resonance! long live silent computers!!!

 

Nice job on the HDD cage very creative keep up the good work.

 

Thanks The_Gnu , I try my best

Cheers rak500 , I'm trying to get it completely silent while idle (internet browsing, word e.t.c) and only have the fan on during games an other processor intensive stuff.

Thanks Mechh69, will do


Next up is the dust filter for the front of the HDD cage, I cut out the mesh and foam then milled out a frame:







I then JB welded the mesh into the frame:



I then moved onto the angle barbs for the watercooling system. I started by drilling a pilot hole into a fake ice cube using a carbide ball end mill:





I then drilled the pilot hole out to 12mm:



I then used an even larger end mill to drill a small hole for the rubber O ring:



I then tapped the holes:



And here's the result:









I then repeated the process another 9 times:



The barbs I'm actually gonna use are smaller than these ones but theses pics will give you an idea of how it will look:











And in UV light:

 

Cool idea!

 

Thanks robi09


Next up is my experiment for covering the HDD cage and CD/DVD drives. I started by milling a channel into some 3mm acrylic I had cut out:





I then clamped it down and used a hot air gun to bend the acrylic:







I then used a Jigsaw to roughly cut out two strips of 1mm alu, I then milled the sides down to make them perfectly straight:





I then bent the alu strip around the acrylic and glued it in place with the polyurethane liquid rubber and painted the back of the acrylic in florescent blue paint, unfortunately the valve on the spray can broke so I'm waiting for the replacement to finish the other acrylic:

The dodgy effect on the side is just from the camera



I then had a company laser cut and etch a side panel window, I then double sided sticky taped it to my desk while I put JB weld all around the edge:







This will be illuminated blue:



I was also gonna have done the PSU this week but I was sent a faulty one and they've now run out of stock

So I moved onto the front panel I/O MB connectors. I started off by pulling the pins out some MSI connector blocks:



I then milled them down to half their size:





And bent the pins into right angles:





Then JB welded them into place:



Then cut the pins down with scissors:





Next up I soldered some wires on:





Then sprayed on a thick coat of rubber paint to insulate them:



They then slot onto the tiny pins on the back of the motherboard, and their just the right size so they will be pressed onto the board as its screwed to the MB tray:

 

Thats an awesome idea!! Having the cables plugged into the back of the motherboard is slick!

 

Ok, that is just awesome... not the prettiest, but hidden so who cares!

 

Thanks sebpruniz and Mosquito , yeah it's not much to look at and they wont be seen and it means I can easily change motherboards, unlike if I had soldered wires on.

 

Seriously....

When I initially started reading this log when you started, I thought "meh, nice ideas, looks fugly..."

Pretty much every update I have to scrape my damn jaw off the ground for seeing the innovation, design, ability in fabrication and general ingenuity that you display with your work. Kudos to you sir.

 

Awesome, awesome, awesome!

Really?

Ok, pretty obvious that you were going to do that, considering the case name and all, but perhaps a slight variance would be nice/ironic at this place? How 'bout just illuminating it green, or maybe just white if you're not feeling too bold?

 

Once again, I find myself with router envy. Well, something to put on my xmas list...

 

damn thats nice....

 

I missed the last update some how, nice dust filter piece & love those angle pieces you made, nice engraving on the window & then OMG that wire work really kicks ass , lost track of how many awesome touches have gone into this +rep .

Oh & looking forward to seeing what the bent acrylic with alu insert is for . edit oh I went & looked back to see, a cover, nice .

 

I remember seeing a mod a while back here where a guy connected the ATX power from behind like that, i can't remember what happened and if it was safe.

Probably will be with those pins as there isn't much amperage running through.

 

lol, thanks ZiiP

Thanks Nutman , I haven't got any green led but a preview of blue and white is below.

Cheers monkeyfun, Razarach & Waynio

Yeah should be fine as the pins are made by MSI so I presume they can more than cope with the amperage of USB and audio I/O.

All the barbs arrived today:



I need everyone's opinion on two things , first up what do you think of the cover panels, if you imagine them backlit and without the duct tape:







That green tape is to keep the door panel shut as I've yet to get round to making a magnet spacer to keep it in the correct place. I'm thinking of doing the PSU in a similar blue acrylic shell just to make it so the inside isn't just all silver, what do you think??


And finally the choice of white:



Or blue light:



??

 

1) Back-lit the covers may be a bit heavy on the eye.

2) I would say blue light for the side panel (pic is broken ey)

 

Fixed , I'm planning on using only 5v with a big resistor on the LED's to give a faint glow in beams coming straight from the led, like the light strips with their bright spots, I've put LED's on one of the panels:

 

Really nice idea with the connectors on the backside, just make shure you mirror them correctly but you've probably already thought of that.

Btw.. whats the name of that rubber paint?

Fantastic build that is a pure joy to follow.

 

Yep that looks amazing!

 

Covers look good & it HAS to be blue surely even though the white does look very good so I'd say in blue or white for the engraving it'll look excellent.