Scratch Build – In Progress Project: Der_Meister - custom alu case *Epilogue Nov 8th, 2007*

yeah that was actually what I was thinking as well

 

Cable Management & Wiring – Work while still waiting for the LEDs

Time for another update. Just my luck, the shipping of my led order has been delayed for a couple of days. I made quite a few orders in the past at that store and everything was always in stock, now (why now? Noooooo!) there are a few items missing. So I’ll have to wait a bit longer. Oh well, there’s still enough stuff to do, so it’s no big deal. Sorry for the delay though, this means you’ll have to wait as well.

Here’s something to ease the pain
I did some stuff in the last days, didn’t have a lot of spare time so nothing much.

Something I don’t have pics off: sanding the edges of the black alu pieces. I’ve been working on this for a long while now, everytime I was in between bigger projects or had some time but didn’t want to work on whatever I was busy with at the time. Most of the black alu pieces are done. I plan on finishing all the mesh pieces and hopefully all the 0,5mm alu pieces as well before I actually get to the sanding phase. Shouldn’t be a problem. Anyway, no pics of this but trust me, it’s a lot of work that is already finished!


On to something else. You might recall that the 20-24 pin ATX line of my psu is just a bit too short to be able to lead it through the cable tunnel. At first I decided to lead it right next to the mainboard and make some sort of cover for it. But then I found a nice extension lead that is 20-24 pin adjustable and more importantly, has black connectors. Here it is in its virgin state:


Of course, those colored wires are just plain ugly. I had something that would do the trick but the ends of the wires would be visible a little bit. So I wanted them black and decided to vinyl dye the cable. Because all the wires are so close together and I didn’t want to spend hours on it, I thought at first to just spray the ends. But in the end I just painted everything thinking ‘you never know it works out fine’. Here it is after two coats, the last coat just sprayed on.


This didn’t work out well, just as I expected. Because there is lots of contact between the wires, as the paint dried it stuck some of them together. But when the cable is bended afterwards, they tear apart and the original color of the wire reappears. Nasty.

So I went ahead with plan A. I had a piece of wide heatshrink that was perfect in length and could just be slid over the 20-pin connector. So I took the 4 pins that I don’t need off (it’s a bit that slides off), that will be put out of sight. The heatshrink was only heated on the sides with a lighter so it shrunk just enough to be 100% certain never to creep over the connector by itself. Now I have a wide but thin cable that is perfect for where I want to put it. Very nice actually.



Something completely different. It’s not complete yet but it’s good news. Remember I ran into issues with the relocated leds for the optical drives? To put it short: I did the relocation with 3.3V leds but the optical drives only give something more than 2V. The led circuits of the drives also work differently so ‘the 5V trick’ that has been done by some people (Zapwizard’s guide for example) would only work on one drive. In order to have two similar leds, I chose the easy solution: I ordered some orange leds that have enough with that 2.2V that is on the led circuits of the optical drives. Unfortunately only orange and red leds (and clear ones as well but I didn’t find them at my regular stores) have enough with that kind of voltage. But…it works!

As you can see in the next two pics, to test it I just put a led in the connectors I soldered to the drives to attach the cable to the remote led. No resistors, no hassle. Woohoo!




The difference in intensity in the pics is due to the fact that the led in the pioneer drive (first pic) stays on for a while when a cd is loaded and read, while the led in the samsung (second pic) flickers. Hard to take a pic of that one at just the right moment.

Of course, my original choice for remote leds (sanded white ones, to give a diffuse light that isn’t blinding) was much more in line with the rest of the case than these ones.
But I’m going to try to do something about the orange ones, I’ve got 10 of them so I can ruin some *evil laugh*. I’ll start with sanding two so they give a diffuse light. But how to get the orange color to something more white or blue? Maybe some paint? Or something to stick over them? Or just leave it because the orange color is actually not bad at all?
Any experience / tips / suggestions on this are welcome!


The final bit of this update. I wrote in my previous update that I already drilled the holes for the UV leds. They will be wired mostly in series of 2 or 3. In total there’s 27 of them going in the front and top panel. Each series will be connected through terminal blocks to a main power line that starts from one of the rca sockets and runs up on the front panel and then to the back.

Since space is a bit tight here and there, I needed to think about the route for the main line. I’ve got it sorted out and I made the first bit of it. It’s still short at the moment, it will become pretty long with about 8 of these terminal block junctions along the way. The power line is UV blue wire (if it’s visible here and there when the lights are on, it’ll at least look like something):


This whole construction needs to be put against the case panels and stay there. Most likely I will try to stick the terminal blocks against the panels with some velcro or some double sided carpet tape. A small problem there: the blocks have all kinds of edging that make the contact area for tape very small. Nothing a Dremel can’t handle though…after a short treatment with the sanding attachment: all flat, also on the sides:


Normally I’ll finish this main line before the leds arrive. I also want to do some work on the white leds for the plexi pieces that hold the rca sockets. I have all the pieces for them except for the resistors. There’s also some sanding of black alu pieces left to do. And other stuff…
So I can keep busy until the mailman delivers my package (probably next Tuesday or Wednesday). See you soon!

 

great work exelent disgn what more to be said.
keep up the good work.

 

Big is better, I always say

 

thanks...


didn't have a lot of time in the week-end, I'll make a small update probably tomorrow.

the Leds I ordered still haven't been sent out to me

 

Great, it will be a monster case. I can"t wait to see the and.

 

Cable Management & Wiring – Work while still waiting for the LEDs

Hi all, another update.
Good news: the leds and resistors I ordered have been shipped! They should arrive at the end of this week. In the meantime, another update about some other things, though most of it is at least related to leds and wiring.


But first something else. I almost finished sanding the edges of the black alu pieces in this case. There are just two small pieces remaining which I’ll do later on since they’re in the case at the moment. I’m happy that that’s all done. I tried to take some pics of it but it was evening and bad lighting, so I’ll have to redo those later on. Nevertheless, here are a couple…I hope you see how the edges are nicely toned, same color overall, no scratches. I owe you guys some better pics though:







Okay, on to led-related stuff!
I had four spare white leds remaining from my original supply…and that is precisely what I need to light up the two biggest plexi pieces holding rca sockets. I have a single wired led that I made last week for the third plexi piece that will be lit.

Those four white leds go in two series of two leds, and the only thing I don’t have is the right resistors. But that’s just a small part in the total wiring that’s needed for them. So I decided to do as much as I could on it. When my order arrives, I only need to solder two resistors in the two series, solder two pieces of cable to those resistors, and that’ll be it. Will be nice to get some quick progress then!

Both pieces are similar, here are two pics of the led wiring on the first one. Nothing fancy. Since the pieces are a bit see-through, the wires need to stay out of sight. They’re roughly going around the outer edge of the plexi and once the led series are tested, will be secured with some hot glue here and there.


A shot from the other side, sorry it’s a bit blurry. The resistor will be soldered to the end of the black wire, then another piece of black wire will be connecting the resistor to the terminal block.



With the white leds finished as well as they can be right now, I continued building the main line for the UV leds. It has quite a long way to travel and there are terminal blocks to connect the UV led series to. So it’ll also be nice if that main line is already done when I start on those UV led series. It’s work that has to be done either way, so it’s not really a waste of time to do it before-hand.

I took a couple of pics of the line when it wasn’t too long yet, so you can distinguish some detail in the pics. The part you see in this pic runs right next to the logo panel and all the UV led series for this panel will be connected to the terminal blocks you see. The main line continues upwards from the left-most terminal block in the pic, past the plexi piece of the optical bay and Aquatube and then underneath the top panel of the case. There it goes past the plexi of the fillport and finally it arrives at the plexi of the radiator.


A close-up. The two wires are of course held more or less together because of the terminal blocks. To stop them from doing crazy things between the blocks (not that they really can do that because they’re only just long enough), I’ve put pieces of heatshrink over them. It looks nice and is better then my original plan (zip-ties).


That’s it for now. Tonight I’m finishing this main line. I’ll still have lots of time left (tomorrow as well), so I’ll need to find something else to do. Won’t be that hard. For example, I’m appealed by the idea of lighting the blue plexi in the window with some leds (the parts where the CCFL’s don’t reach) instead of adding two more CCFL’s. So I might setup something to test the effect of three leds. Got enough of those prewired ones lying around to do so. Or I might do something else…decisions decisions!

 

WOW . geart work man and your right MUCH better looking then those zip-ties

 

Intermezzo – bottom panel label design

Hi guys,

I’ve been working a bit on the design for the sticker that will go on the front of the bottom panel. Here’s what I came up with so far. A bit more info after the drawings.



Or the version without the blue glowing around the black circles.



The black circles are and lines are just to indicate where the holes for switches, leds, cuts for usb ports are. They will of course not be present in the final design, it’s just for easy reference. The black frame on the outer edges is something I think will look good, it’s to cover up the edges of the panel a bit (there are some hard-to-get-rid-off scratches and a few tiny JB Weld left-overs).

The blue lines idea is inspired by some Rammstein artwork, where the lines are red and the faces of the band members are also present. I would continue this line pattern in my Samurize lay-out on the Psone LCD, which is not too far above the bottom panel.

The glowing stuff around the switches will be much smaller on the panel, since the black circles indicate where the holes for the switches are. All the front parts of the switches are wider than those holes, so they will partially overlap the glowing bit.

Finally the text labels. The font used is the one that Rammstein used for their CD ‘Mutter’. All words are in German as you can see. In the middle there is ‘Rein’ (‘In’) and ‘Raus’ (‘Out’) next to the power and reset buttons. The 1 and 2 are for the optical drives. On both sides I just thought of single words in German that would make sense for what part of the lighting the respective switches control. The ones on the left mean ‘Window’ (CCFLs), ‘Outside’ (UV leds) and ‘Inside’ (other UV to get all the watertubing properly lit). The right ones are ‘Image’ (Psone LCD), ‘Text’ (two logo’s on the inside) and ‘Light’ (non UV-lighting on the inside).

What do you think? Any good? Also, better with or without the glowing effect around the switches?
Comments welcome! If you’ve got a better idea, don’t hesitate to tell me or to take one of these jpgs and release your awesome drawing talents!

 

The drawings look good.
If the switches are just switches, I wouldn't go for the glowing effect. If you use potentiometers, it's nice as you can increase the brightness the turn them up This would be a nice feature

You've wrote all text on the panel in uppercase letters except for 'ß'. This doesn't looks good and is often frowned upon. If you want all letters to be uppercase, then replace the 'ß' with 'SS'[0] as it looks better.

I hope this helps you a little bit

Philipp


[0] No allusion the Hitlers Schutzstaffel intended

 

Philipp

thanks for the 'SS' thing, I didn't know that it is often frowned upon. I'll change that before I do a test-print.

 

No problem

It's the only lowercase character which doesn't have a corresponding uppercase character

That's only a little detail, but that is what makes projects like this unique - attention to detail

 

well is it correct u want to use german for your switches? then tekst is wrong it's text

 

Cable Management & Wiring – Last update before the LED work

Before I tell you the good news, an update. Oh wait, that’s good news as well, right? Oh well, I might just as well tell you right away…there was a package in my mail box today, the LEDs are here. So I can finally start on wiring them up! That is for the next update though. Today I’ll bore you to death with other stuff, lol.

To start: I promised you some better pics of the finished edges of the black alu pieces, after sanding. Here they are:







I also finished the main line for the UV leds, and although I said in the previous update that a global pic of it would be too much, too little detail, etc…I just can’t resist the temptation. Here it is, next to it is a 50cm (18”) 3-pin cable for size reference. Jup, it’s pretty long.



Moving on with something of a problem-area. Problem because I don’t really know what to do with it. When designing the case, I just drew an opening on top of the cable tunnel to lead the psu cabling through. And I never really looked back at it. My plan was to make some sort of cover of some kind (out of mesh) that would more or less hide the cables. But now when the psu is in and the cables are attached to it, it’s suddenly quite a big thing. Moreover, not easy to make a cover, since that would obviously need some points where it can be attached.

The more I think of it, the more I think just to leave it uncovered. Then it would be like in these two pics (except for the line that hangs down, this will go to the back, it’s the 4-pin ATX cable):




The problem is that a few of the cables need to go into connectors that are far to the left on the psu. So those cables come out pretty far, as you can see in the last pic. A coverplate would need to come out almost as far as the psu comes. I thought about making something that can be attached to the side of the psu, but I think that wouldn’t look good.

So, what are your thoughts on this? Leave it open? Make a cover? How, what, where,…? Please give your ideas, I can really use them!!! With the side panel on, the cables are visible. They not high enough in the case to be invisible through the window.


The last part of this update: I also made a piece to bridge the gap that the plexi piece in the bottom panel made. Remember that the RCA cables I made were a bit too long and therefore I had to let the plexi pieces that holds the sockets have a gap. Well, this gap turned out to be almost exactly 3mm…which is the thickness of the plexi I’m using. So I made a piece of smoked plexi, that looks great!

Here are two pics after sanding and wetsanding and the polish for heavy scratches done. The only thing left to do was applying the polish for fine scratches. First pic is without flash, second with flash. Either way it’s hard to capture the real look.




And then a pic of the piece installed in its new home. Perfect fit, it also looks really nice!



That’s it for now. If you have a good idea for the problem I described above, please let me know. Comments on my designs in my previous post are also still very welcome. See you soon for some LED action!

 

You love my leet Fireworks Skillz.

 

hmm interesting, but I already have an inside logo planned

I'm going to keep this one in mind though, thanks a lot!!!

 

hi guys,

I've been doing a lot of work on the LEDs, and I've got some nice pics.
I wanted to do an update today, but don't have the time to write it.

also, because the really nice stuff will happen tonight (testing it), the update would have been only partial...

anyway, expect a mega-update soon

 

looking forward to another update, as for the cables, id definately say cover them up. even if you just cover up the connectors, you have RCA plugs everywhere but there.

great job and keep it up!

 

hmmm, I like what you've done with the RCA connectors, also agree with ^ above ^ you should cover them up with something, perhaps with one big black pipe (flexable conduit) taking them from the PSU to their destination. Like this stuff > Here

 

Cable Management & Wiring – LED work MEGA update part one

Okay, I’ve got good news and slightly bad news.
For once I’ll start with the good news: I’ve got tons of pics, and will do a MEGA update in no less than four posts/parts. There’s lots of cool pics coming up, I think you’ll be very impressed (I know I was).
However, the bad news: because of the amount of pics and because these days are so unexpectedly busy for me, I cannot make the whole update today. That means that the bling pics will have to wait one more day…a thousand times sorry.

Today’s update (two posts) will be mostly about making the led series, prepping everything. Tomorrow will be the action shots.

A bit off-topic, but this mega update could also be entitled: the one that shows how NOT to use a kitchen…lol.

So, the first part!
To start a very simple pic. The first thing I did when the leds arrived (besides from checking that everything was there) was completing the white led arrays. The only thing I needed to do was to solder a 270ohm resistor in both arrays. Here’s one, before covering it with heatshrink.


After testing them I hotglued the white leds into place, and also applied some hotglue to the wiring here and there so it is all fixed pretty well.


Here’s a pic while I was installing it. I did a short test after I mounted the first piece because there’s really NO room left there. First without the other pieces connected to it, and then with everything on. More pics of this coming tomorrow.



The white leds were in a way a general rehearsal for the UV ones. I never really worked with leds before, so all the ‘putting them in series’ stuff was new. It wasn’t until the white ones lit up that I was starting to believe I did everything right, right resistor and all.
I needed to make 11 series of UV leds, 6 series of 3 leds, 4 series of 2 leds and 1 ‘series’ of 1 led. So that was quite a bit of work. Let me spoil it a little: it all went without any problems!
That was however thanks to some good preparation and also constant ‘quality control’.

Let me explain what I mean by that previous sentence. Because I didn’t want to waste time soldering an array using a led that would prove to be not working (can always happen, there were close to 100 leds in my package), I made a led tester. Very easy, just soldered a 470ohm resistor to a 3-pin connector, the led pins could then be pushed into the connector. All this without shutting down the psu when changing leds.


I quickly tested all my UV leds with this tester, took me no more than 15 minutes (including making the tester). All the leds worked, so I knew in advance that if I soldered everything right, all the arrays would work. And they did.

Every time I finished an array, I put the ends of the wires into the pins of a molex and fired up the psu, how’s that for quality control. Note how simple this 3-led array is, compared to using 3 leds that are each separately wired for 12V usage. This means a lot less wiring for the UV leds, which is a good thing because it was still quite a challenge! When I finished the first three arrays I put them on the main line to test that as well, just to be sure the main line would do the trick. It did.


Before I forget, I wanted to post at least one pic of the work-in-progress…the ‘third hand’ tool is really indispensable for this kind of work:


Quality control also implies a lot of test fitting, more specifically after every single soldering operation:


And finally it means putting the finished arrays in the right order in a place where they cannot be accidentally damaged…like on top of the micro-wave oven.


I took me quite a while, but all the arrays where finished and they all worked right from the first time! I was quite happy about that!

Before I could start testing them, I needed to do two things: wait for a free evening because daylight shots don’t really do the lighting effects justice, and prepare the case for the testing as well.

I put on the outside plexi pieces together with their black alu covers.
Here’s the top with the radiator and fillport pieces:


And here’s the front with the optical bay and Aquatube piece:


Of course, there’s more to the front than that…the logo panel. This is so sweet that it deserves a separate post…on to part two!!!