Scratch Build – In Progress Project: Cubeleon

That sucks. Do you think they would let you submit the same system next year?

 

Yes, they will. The organisation actually offered that themselves.

 

Thanks for the support guys, I'll let you know when I have something to show again.

 

I'vwe found now this thread... sorry....
Good works, you're teaching me (and to us all) some interesting things, tnx a lot to share with us!

 

Hmm, anything yet?

 

Nice metalwork, great ideas, congratz!

Still waiting for some updates. I hope that you'll not give up on this project.

 

I haven't given it up yet, I've just been busy with a lot of other things. Will finish this one, I just don't know when yet.

 

Take your time, we are always here to see your works

 

Update 26

It was about the time that I posted an update, so here we are Back in november, I hoped this would be the final update, but things went a little different as I wasn't able to finish the case in time for the competition. A major setback, because I haven't done anything since. But now I will show all of the pics I took before, and some pics of how the case looks at this moment. Don't pay attention to the diversity of the pics though, I tried to present them in a logical order.

The CPU block needed a little extra polishing:



This GPU block has a UV blue top, but I definately don't want anything UV reactive in my case. So a touch of paint provided the solution:



The molex connector of the pump now also has wires for the powered usb hub



Those were the last parts of the water cooling that needed to be modded, so we'll continue with the power supply. Only a few millimeters of cabling are visible, but that's too much for me I used a few cables of my PSU to cut cables for a new ATX cable:



Cutting, stripping, crimping and soldering 24 cables



Time for some light in the case. Two leds to light up the rear of the case in case I need to fiddle with the cables:



I told you it would be chaos This is the custom cable for the HD's and the recessed switches in the back:



And back to the led's. The fancontroller didn't go through enough torturing yet, so I added some leds to light up the turning knobs:



This beam now also holds four leds, that will light up the front of the case:





A few cheap led holders make a all look good



Even more leds in the front, but these will enlight the pump and the hard disk compartment:



This is the naked frame, it has been a long time since the case looked like this You can see the four leds in the bottom of the picture:



The led strings will be connected to this piece of printboard, so it stays modular:





The case can hold up to four hard disks, but I only use two at the moment. So I used two 20 gig harddisks that I got from school. One even has his intestants removed, but I found out that didn't really make it a lot lighter I polished the tops and removed all of the stickers:



This actually is the third version of the dvd front, the first two were too smalle of cracked before they were finished:





For the finishing touch (God created the Dutch ) every visible piece of aluminium gets a nice sanding treatment:



This is the plate that is mounted on the inside of the front. The pump will also be mounted on this plate:



The piece of alu behind the two working hard disks:



And one of the most important pieces of the case, the front







After a lot of sanding, the compartment for the hard disks looks amazing:







After turning the case 180 degrees, the psu compartment is visible. All of the sanded and polished pieces are installed:





I really like the double reflection





This is the last picture I took back in novemter. At this testfitting the mobo fitted perfectly, that went a little different when I tried it again in the case



These are the pictures of how the case has been sitting around for a few months. All of the hardware in installed, including the water cooling. If only the reservoir hadn't leeked after multiple test runs, one of the reasons I didn't make it to the competition:







The second setback, the hard disks didn't fit I will have to make four new pieces of plexi for those:



At this pic, I mounted as much parts as possible. It looks great, it's just not finished. The inevitable cable mess started to appear, but that always happens when you try to hide every cable:



This will be last picture of the update of Cubeleon, and I have selected this with care The psu is in, the water cooling is mounted, the side panels are one. The missing bolts are the only error made on this side.



Once again a major update, with 38 pics. This update is written for the people that asked me about this case in the past few months. It felt really good when people want to know what the status is and want to see it finished, so thank you

I just have to show a few more pictures. Not of Cubeleon, but of some plexi I bought. I was able to buy 30 m2 of 3mm black and white plexi, and I'm selling most of it at the Dutch/Belgium site Samenkopen.net.

Two pics of the plexi with protective tape and one with the stuff peeled off:







The smooth side



The matte side:



A little light from the back makes it a little whiter already:





The nicest pics of all, these show the effect perfectly

 

Very nice Brinkz.
The area around the PSU is particularly cool.

 

Nice update.

 

Yay! Progress!

 

Nice and shiny, boxes are hard to work with! It looks like you got heaps of room but you end up only just fitting everything.

 

I am very glad to see you made some progress. The whole thing is looking very good, when you finally get around to completing it it will look awesome.

 

Thanks guys

That's exactly what's keeping me busy. When the water cooling is in, there's almost no space left to fasten a bolt or something.

 

I just read the whole tread. It kept me from working for school. (als ik buis is het jouw fout)
I was kind of too amazed to stop reading, but now i have to.
nice work.

 

Update 51

It's time for another update, a very secret one . The last one showed what I had done to make it ready for the competition, in this one I'll show you the big and smaller mistakes I had to fix to get it done. That's due partially to the fact that I've been working on this one for years and that the design wasn't done completely at the start.

Mistake #1 was made on the day before the competition. I wanted to make black sheets of alu to prevent people to look right into the ugly insides of the case. Because I was in a hurry back then, they were made too large. This pictures shows that, the alu has to be as high as the spacers, which it clearly is not.



The fix was pretty easy, as all I had to do was a little sanding. Because of the time pressure, I wasn't able to make a complete cover, so I'm doing it now



I'll be using these four strips of black aluminium to surround the before showed cover. At this pic I've already bent them, with space made for four led holders already:



And with the led holders glued in. I didn't have enough room to drill the holes, so I filed them from the sides and glued the holders in place:



And this is how they will be glued in place



The leds were up next:



Mistake #2, bolts could not be tightened in the four corners of the left side of the case:





Once again, a drop of glue did the trick, but that didn't cross my mind after an all-nighter back in november



Mistake #3; The corner profiles surrounding the motherboard didn't fit right, both parts didn't. This little bolt was the reason the first one didn't fit in:



A little design flaw, there was a bolt hole right under the radiator. No tool could reach that one, so I glued a shorter bolt in:



The other part didn't fit because it hit the connectors of the power and reset button. The sata cables made it a little harder also.







The problem with the switch cables was solved very easy. I grinded part of the angle bar away, that was enough for the connectors to sit there perfectly:



Mistake #4, although it's nothing major. Because I was a little careful, I made the IDE cable 10cm too long. So it had to be folded in the front of the case, and that's the one place that was packed already So I shortened the cable:



Finally, I did the one thing I was afraid to do, remove the water cooling and testing the hardware with air cooling. A lot of coolant has been dripping on the motherboard while installing, but hooray for mister Feser because all of the hardware worked perfectly Mistake #5 was that the reservoir leaked at one of the connections, so I had to remove all of the water cooling. This leaves a sad looking case, but I'm happy because most of the things I had to do are done already





I still have one question for you guys. Not about the design or something, but about my sata cables. I'm currently using 70cm black cables, but I could really use some AC Ryan 50cm black cables with one 90 degree connector. It's just too bad they don't sell em anymore Is there anyone (preferably in the Netherlands of Belgium or something) who has two of these lying around? I would really appreciate it if I could buy two Thanks in advance, and thanks for reading

 

Nice mod so far buddy great work! You can buy them (not AcRyans) to a store like Performance PC's juct click here. They ship worldwide.

 

Holy thread revival batman lol. Loving your work as always dude.

 

Good project, though there are some cuttings, which aren't straight. All over all I think you make a good job.

I like it, that you also show mistakes, who you made. That shows, if you work you make mistakes, that is the normal working process. Nobody ist perfect.

I like your project, because it remembered me on my old project. I had a similar idea and I also made many mistakes.