Scratch Build – In Progress Project: Cubeleon

Update 18

I have 32 pictures to show you guys, so I won't waste your time by talking about how busy I have been, and not just with the case At this pic I've drawn out a weird looking thingie:



Drilled, cut and partially bent:



Now you guys should know what it's meant for









It's a drain port! I can easily connect an extra piece of tubing to drain the loop. I still have to figure out how it will be connected to the rest of the loop, but that's because I haven't decided about the routing of the loop yet

We resume our trip through my modding process with the reservoir. I already showed the three sheets of plexi that would become the res, and at this pic I've cut away the largest part of the 10mm sheet:



This sheet of black plexi will be on top of the reservoir. As you can see, none of the edges will be visible



After the first joint (I'm dutch, but I mean the joint with glue and stuff ) the 5mm sheet is stuck to the 10mm. I also drilled a couple of holes to attach it to the case:



Added the third layer just for the picture:



That's pretty smouth, don't you think



This is how the end result will look, well without all off the tape ofcourse:



A reservoir would be useless if water couldn't flow in and out, so I will make two connections. The position of the first one was eyeballed, this will be the outlet:



I made two disks out of 25mm plexi. One of them is a little chipped, but that will not be visible. These disks will be an extension for the connections, so they will be easy to connect:



The disks have to go through two layers of aluminium, the first one is done here:



To mount it perfectly straight, the second one is drawn after the first hole was cut:



After finishing that one also, there's a hole in the top of the case



One more thing I had to do to these, I had to thread them:



I still have to find the position of the second connection, but that depends on how my ATI HD3650 will be cooled. If I water cool it, a simple GPU block will do because it uses only 35 watts and it's passively cooled right now. There just won't be enough airflow I think, so I might need your ideas on how to cool this thing.

The 25mm was not the only plexi I recieved, I also ordered some for the three windows The plexi for the biggest window is already mounted here. It's not cut totally straight, but I got it this way and I could still use it:



With all of the other stuff mounted on the side panel, it looks like this







Then I started wondering if black hex heads wouldn't give a far nicer result. I found a few bolts at work, so I tried it and really liked the result:



When I asked if I could order some through work the next day, they told me that they had a lot of them lying around somewhere. They were part of a wrong delivery and they wouldn't use them, so I could take them all home



A box that might just weigh something like 10kg and that was full of M2,5, M4, M6 and M8 bolts, modders heaven I still had to order some though, M4x6 for fixing alle of the panels:



The next day, I started talking about my birthday and that I wanted to ask a set of those nice hex tools with the round head. Well they also had some of those lying around and I could also take them home Some heads were cut off, but I don't really mind I have to think of another birthday gift now though



Then it was time to put some plexi in the two little windows. First, some filing along the edges:



I drilled the mounting holes in the alu first, and then drilling them through the taped down plexi. Worked fine



The left side now has two windows





The right side went a lot faster after that:



With black bolts



I really like the contrast between the alu and the black bolts and plexi. A lot of time and effort went into making these side panels, a lot. I hope that's visible We'll continue somewhere next week I think, when I finally have a few weeks of vacation

 

I love the reservoir/window. -oh, heck. I love the whole case!

 

awesome work man. those ball head hex tools are awesome, got screwdriver versions for working with hard to get to screws.

 

Man this is seriously taking shape now. Looking fantastic.

 

Thanks a lot guys Oreon, I'm planning to get some also, for M3 and M4 bolts probably. Would be a nice present for my birthday next month

 

Update 19

Concerning construction work I'm almost done, I just need to create the front! As you could have read, the plan was to implement the logo in the front twice. After some thinking, I concluded that it didn't match the look of the case. So I'm starting all over. This was the original idea:



And now, an empty canvas



On of the parts that will be mounted in the front is the fan controller, so I made a 3D model of it:



After a few hours of thinking and designing, it now looks like this:



In the center, two aluminium plates will be mounted (with plexi behind them ofcourse ). They match the top and side plates in dimensions. The fan controller can only be mounted in the lower part, I just don't know exactly where yet. To fill up the rest, I need to fiddle with some electronics, so more on that later. A custom power and reset button are needed also ofcourse The slots in the front will act as an intake, some of them that is. They are marked with a red line on the next pic:



A black aluminium sheet will be mounted with an offset to the front. Air can flow around this, and will be directed into the case. After they have passed the dust filter The radiator fans will be the outtakes.

Please let me know your ideas on the new front, I already like it better than the previous one. Maybe I'll engrave the logo in the top front plate, but I'll just have to see how it works out concerning space

 

That looks really great. Excellent sketches mate.

 

I'm not ready for a full update, but I just want to show you guys this pic:



With a BIG thanks to madwizard from gathering.tweakers.net, without him and his software and hardware skills, this wouldn't have been possible

 

Sweet.

 

That looks nice! Where do you get the software u are using for the 20x20 panel?

Keep it up!

 

The software is the easy part You can find it here.

 

looks realy nice, I realy like the front !!
but I don't realy see where your going to put the lcds.

 

Update 20

Now it's time for a real update With a lot of help from madwizard from a dutch forum, I was able to attach two 2x20 PLED displays to usb. Everyone is still using them boring lcd's, so I thought it was time for something new These are much easier to read thanks to the missing backlight. I really wanted them on usb, so I can plug these two pled's to one usb header on the motherboard. Otherwise I would need a separate parallel port card and route the two giant cables back into the case. Been there, done that, won't do it again.



Both of the displays are fed with information by two FT232R chips in bitbang modus. Now it doesn't work as a USB>RS232 converter, but it will act as a 4 bit parallel bus. Because all of these displays support 4 bit and 8 bit control, this is possible. To make the chip easier to mount, I first soldered it onto and adapter print. As you can see, it's kinda small



For now, I soldered the displays to a normal usb cable, but eventually they will be attached to this 8 core cable. It's black, it flat, it perrty The cable lacks shielding, but I will see how well it goes. The cable is about 25cm long, so I think it'll work.





On to the reservoir. Let's finish this baby Glued the first cylinder to the res:



The first hole for the cylinder was cut already, now the top has a second hole also:



To line up the two holes, I bolt the cylinder to the second sheet and mark it onto that same sheet.



And it works



This is how the top looks now:



Glued the second cylinder on the res to, and drilled and tapped the holes through the sheet of 5mm to. As you can see, the aluminium edges aren't visible





I don't want the water to go straight from the first connection to the second. So I needed the removed part of 10mm plexi:



After some cutting (and breaking my jigsaw, but it still has warranty ), sanding and gluing, I had a nice divider in the center of the res:



I still had to make a top for the res, it's his turn now I opted for two holes, so one can act as a fillport as the other one lets the air out. It should be easier after filling also, because I have a hole on the front and the back, and also one on the left and one the right. Good chance that all of the air will go into one of these corners.





I thought this was a pic of the finished res, but the divider is missing Anyway, just imagine that one mounted to. Most of the protection plastic is still on, and I'll leave it that way for now. I still have to check if it's watertight, but that isn't that hard. I don't think you'll have to wait long for the next update, because I managed to get a lot more work done the last few days. I just have to finish it, so stay tuned

 

That res looks cool. Nice work.

 

Thanks man. I noticed you're watching my log closely, so thanks for that also

 

No problem mate. When I find a mod that I think is awesome I check everyday lol.

 

Update 21

I guess the holidays are over, I've started with my premaster so I'm really busy. I was looking for a challenge, and I found it at the university But the school work isn't the only thing that has to be done, Cubeleon has to be finished to! There's a big competition here in the Netherlands in the end of November, so it's about time it gets finished.

August has been a good month for my modding, which resulted in more than 420.000 pictures shown in that month. That's amazing and I'm glad everyone is watching my logs closely

Time for pictures. On the right, the place for dvd drive can be seen. It's not sata unfortunately, but I came up with a way to route the flatcable in a neat way:





To be able to get to the mobo, I needed to make a cut in the frame. I just didn't feel like unmounting everything, this worked like a charm





The end result will be something like this, nice and neat:



To mount the drive, I made two brackets and bolted it together with a few M2 bolts:





The case will be filled with a few white leds. I bought two types, the one on the left is a little brighter, the one on the right has a wider angle.



The choice was easy, because the one on the right doesn't fit in the led fittings I have. And to quote Cheapskate, I went for the blinders



You guys have already seen this one, but I'm showing it again to show what I will be making next:



This is the partial design of the front, without the big logo's that I wanted to use earlier. I need some black alu behind the slots. Forgot to take pictures of the design and the cutting, you'll have to do it with this pic of the finished product:



Mounted, it should look something like this. The holes will be filled up with five leds, each in the center of a slot in the front



The second one was a little harder to make:



To break the cycle, I removed the tape already for once Both of the parts are mounted here:





The one on the left will act as an intake, so I needed a filter. I cut these pieces out of a flattened piece of a ACRyan Aluminio filter. The surface of the intake isn't very large, so a second one will be created soon. I also made another piece of black alu to direct the fresh air into the case:





Nothing is left standard in this case, so I need a unique power button also. I don't want to use the overused vandal resistant buttons, although they look nice in some cases. Then my eye fell on the black hex bolts that I got at my internship, so I started fiddling with two M8 bolts:





Drilling some holes to find out if the idea works:



And it does



Just one little problem. The bolts grinds along the aluminium, and that grinds off the black coat. That made me discard this idea, I went on with one I came up with a few years ago. I'll show it in the next update.

From the front of the case to the lower compartment. I still needed to make cable arrangements for the HDD's. These plexi drive bays were in my first update, that means they're made more than three years ago! To be able to cut holes for the cables, I started with mounting one of my hd's:





The last pic shows the problem, there is no space to use normal connectors so I need them to stick through the double wall. The advantage of this is that you won't be able to see one cable



First hole cut, through one bolt hole but that's no problem:



Right on the first time, that's how I like it



Same story for the top disk:



What do casemodders have with cats? Every log needs a few case-cat-pictures We have three walking around by now, but they never really stepped in my case. Until now








The case still needs to have a face, so it's about time to cut some parts for that:



Two times alu and two pieces of plexi were ordered by who?



To sand them to the same size, I bolted them together and held em to the disc sander:



Franklin already warned me that the finishing takes to most time, so I already started sanding the plexi parts. These ones are sanded up to 1000 grit already, needs some more:



The people organizing the contest needed a nice picture of my case, but I didn't even have a decent overview shot. So I grabbed some parts and bolted them to the case. It starts to look like a case now



I've already been busy with more parts for the front, and with finishing the 3D design for it. Much more soon

 

looking good.
taking shape nicely.

 

Finally some progress. She is looking beautiful my friend.

 

Thanks guys I've was able to get quite some work done this weekend, so another update soon