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

Discussion in 'Project Logs' started by jokkos, 20 Mar 2006.

  1. jokkos

    jokkos too busy to mod *sigh*

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    I’m baaack …

    I started the assembly of the back portion of the bottom panel. First thing was to connect the two pieces I already made. I cannot simply glue them together because I need to be able to take the bent one off. I need this to have access to the wiring and stuff.
    So I just drilled holes and tapped them.
    [​IMG]

    It fits like a glove. Actually not completely, there is a slight edge. I’ve filed it down a bit and now it looks very nice (but the pics don’t do that justice):
    [​IMG]

    This is where it will be located:
    [​IMG]

    Don’t worry, there is going to be a roof as well ;-)

    Remember all those corner pieces I made? Well, first I taped some of them to the panels, to mark holes to mount them.
    [​IMG]

    Here that job is done, and its mounted to the pump plate:
    [​IMG]

    Speaking of the pump, I also made the mounting holes for it. The rubber silencers to mount it (standard Eheim kit) are M4 threaded, so I also tapped these holes.
    [​IMG]

    I’m using the ‘FMJ housing’ of Aqua-Computer for the pump. This is an encasing that blocks the magnetism the pump generates, in case it’s put close to hard drives for example. I’m not using it for that though. First of all, I think it takes some pump noise away. But actually it was orginally intended for looks. In my first versions of the sketches, there was no back portion to the bottom panel so the pump would have been visible through the window if I didn’t use the FMJ.

    I mount it like this: underneath the FMJ’s lower part are the rubber washers I’m using throughout the case, and then there’s the Eheim parts. Double vibration damping…yeah baby.
    [​IMG]

    Here it is with the pump inside. This is of course the backside:
    [​IMG]

    And the top/front. This FMJ is finished quite nicely, I’ve seen pics from others that are not so nice. There are some modders that have it chromed. Since mine won’t be visible, I’m keeping it this way.
    [​IMG]

    I still needed to make the hole in the bent piece; it wasn’t easy because of the bend.
    After cutting:
    [​IMG]

    After filing, which was not the best 40 minutes of my life:
    [​IMG]

    Now that that was all done, I could proceed to glue most of the corner pieces in position. Only one glueing operation left!
    [​IMG]

    Next post will show the rest of this assembly…see you soon.
     
    Last edited: 22 Aug 2011
  2. Klekkus

    Klekkus What's a Dremel?

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    Nice pump house ;)
     
  3. stevehp

    stevehp What's a Dremel?

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    OT: Great now the logs will be filled up with comments now I can't tell what page an update is on and if the thread title is bolded because the author posted or if someone said "hey that looks cool". Oh well....
     
  4. jokkos

    jokkos too busy to mod *sigh*

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    Finally, the last part of the bottom panel assembly. This project has taken a long time and a lot of fabrication work, small pieces, etc etc.
    I’m glad it’s more or less done!

    I made the top piece for the assembly. Since it was quite a non-standard shape, I made a test-piece for it first from thick paper.
    [​IMG]

    Like I said, not really a standard shape:
    [​IMG]

    Fast forward past cutting, filing, fine-tuning. It all went okay, here’s a pic when it was nearly finished:
    [​IMG]

    The final result:
    [​IMG]

    And here it is mounted. Even though I had every hole perfectly marked and prepared for the drilling, I managed to screw one of them up. That is to say, I drilled one in the wrong place. Very funny, the markings were in the right place, somehow there must have been another one in the place I drilled.
    [​IMG]

    Here’s a blurry close-up. Because this was not an easy piece to make, I don’t feel like making another one. I’m going to hide that hole, somehow. There will probably be a sticker on the top piece anyway, so I’ll try to make it so that it extends over the hole. Or something like that. Worries worries…
    [​IMG]

    Let this be another fine example of why you should always check everything twice before drilling or cutting!

    The next pic will mean nothing to you. I’m including it since it’s the glueing of the last bits on this assembly. Woohoo!
    [​IMG]

    After it was all dry, I assembled the pieces again. Notice the new corner pieces on the top panel…
    [​IMG]

    …which serve a purpose of course. Because of my big window in the side panel, I partially need to cover the side of the bottom assembly. In case you haven’t read all my babbling in the previous posts, there will be a lot of wiring there and some lighting. I need to hide it somewhat. Not completely, I still want access to the most important wires without having to disassemble the whole thing.

    The partial side cover is a piece of 0,5mm thick alu.
    [​IMG]

    Here it is in place.
    [​IMG]

    Well, that concludes my current work on this section of the case. It is not entirely finished though. Things that need to be done on this later on and when I’ll be doing this:
    - cutting a hole in the top piece (cable management)
    - some plexi work (cable management)
    - covering all the gaps etc by attaching silencing material or tape to the inside of the pieces (finishing stages)
    - attaching two stickers I need to make to be able to distinguish the wires (finishing stages)
    - a lot of soldering etc (wiring)

    I think some of you will have realised by now that I will not do regular wiring…for the others that didn’t think so far ahead…now you know it :rock:
    Sneak preview (pic taken on a dark winter evening):
    [​IMG]

    Now that I finished the bottom panel, I’m quite happy. Before I came up with this assembly, I had absolutely no good plan about the front lower section of the case. There’s a lot going on down there and I didn’t know how to handle it, because most of it is better left out of sight. There’s the adapter for the PSone LCD, which is quite bulky but for which I’ve got the perfect place. There’s a lot of wiring, from the switches etc of the front panel. There’s the pump, etc etc. But the bottom panel assembly solves it all. Especially when I make a piece of alu to put next to it so that the whole lower front of the case is covered up…will be sweet!

    Time to go, see you soon!
     
    Last edited: 22 Aug 2011
  5. Koradhil

    Koradhil What's a Dremel?

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    This project is awesome :D I've been working on a self-built case as well but decided to drop it for the moment (money shortage plus I don't like the current build quality so I'm starting all over again.. sometime). This project makes me want to get back to work on that project. Unfortunately I don't have the funds right now and I've probalbly got a project for CoolerMaster coming up so I don't have time either..
    Either way, good luck with your project !
    Trouwens, waarom duitse tekst op de voorkant als je zelf Vlaming bent? Hmm.. Rammstein dus.
     
    Last edited: 11 May 2006
  6. Jado

    Jado What's a Dremel?

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    Another big Rammstein-fan from Belgium here!
    (atm, I'm listening to Reise, Reise :rock: )
    And that's looking wonderful, I'm very curious how the case will end.
    Make me happy! :thumb:
     
  7. jokkos

    jokkos too busy to mod *sigh*

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    Some loose ends

    With the bottom panel out of the way, the time has come for the logo panel as it is the last thing to do on the front panel of the case. Or not quite. There are two ‘loose ends’ I want to handle first. It are two small projects that I’m not looking forward to. Because I needed some creativity. And some bending. Some very precise bending.

    So, in between the very long bottom panel project and the not so long logo panel project, I decided to finally tie up the two loose ends. Let’s mod!


    First loose end: backside of the PSone LCD

    Why?
    1) the backside of the LCD is a vulnerable pcb so it could use some protection.
    2) there are two small pcb’s for the cabling (one for power and one for s-video), which are both attached to the main pcb with a short cable. Both of them have stuff sticking out, they are not handy to position let alone making sure they stay in position.

    So, in order to do something about this, I decided to make a coverplate out of the AC Ryan MeshX. It makes sure that the heat that is generated by the LCD can escape and makes an effective protection. I also found a good way to position the two small pcb’s and connect the wires to them without much hassle.

    Here’s what the installed LCD lookes like now that the bottom panel is in. The top edge of this serves as a handy place to put the small pcb’s of the LCD. I will use two-sided tape to secure them. As you can see, I also put tape around the pcb’s because they’re not insulated. It’s crappy I know, but temporary.
    [​IMG]

    And here’s the cover pretty much finished:
    [​IMG]

    Yup, the stuff you saw in the previous pic is all behind it.
    Once I have the right bolts, I can put it on so it makes no contact with the pcb of the LCD. I like the look of it, it’s much tidier.
    The bends in the lower part leave enough room to put the small pcb’s and the power and s-video wires, but it’s tight enough to keep them from sliding out.


    Second loose end: PSU support

    Why?
    1) As you may recall, the backside of the case consists of two panels. The PSU is attached to the top one, and that’s the only thing. When the PSU needs to come out, I simply unscrew the whole panel. Now, because the PSU is close to the lower edge of that panel and because it weighs more than 2kgs, it bends the panel out a little. I foresaw this and I planned on making a support from the start.
    2) I don’t like the look of the PSU just ‘hanging there’, just as I didn’t like the look of the Aquatube without the support I made for it. But as you can read in 1), the PSU support is more necessary than the Aquatube one.

    First a sketch of what I had in mind:
    [​IMG]

    Making a support might seem easy, but this one is not. There are some limitations!
    First of all, there’s only one bar of the case frame in reach. The rad is in the way of the other one, and that would make one very very long support anyway, so that was not an option from the start. The second end of the support will have to be attached to the mainboard panel. Second, the PSU has a 140mm fan, so that means there’s only little room next to it.

    Here’s the piece I need to cut out all marked out (lower edge of the panel you see in the pic). This is 365 (!) mm long and 5 mm wide (10mm at the ends).
    [​IMG]

    I tried to make a good close-up pic of the backside of the case without the PSU support. This one is the best I could get out of my camera. On the edge between the panels you can see how the panel that holds the PSU comes out compared to the panel below it.
    [​IMG]

    The biggest worry I had with this loose end, is that the support would be too fragile to keep the PSU in its normal place. It’s only a couple of mm’s wide, and that is a whole lot of PSU weight to tame.

    Filing down this piece was also not easy at all. So narrow…but I succeeded.

    The last challenge was to get its mounting holes exactly right, so it would put the PSU in the right position. Furthermore, because the PSU generates a bit of vibrations, I have to be able to put something on the support later that will dampen them. Some thick tape or something like that.

    Keeping all this in mind, I’m very pleased I can show you this next pic. I’ve got only one word for it actually: boo-yah!!!
    [​IMG]

    Before you ask it: yep it puts the PSU right where it needs to be. I will add some anti-vibration stuff later on. Oh, and I do need to do something about all those labels and stickers on the PSU as well.

    This concludes the two loose ends that have been bugging me for so long. Great!
    Next time, starting on the logo panel…bye bye.
     
    Last edited: 22 Aug 2011
  8. jokkos

    jokkos too busy to mod *sigh*

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    Logo panel – part one

    Time for another project with some bling to it.

    I thought a lot about how to make a nice logo panel, to fill the right side of the front panel of the case. I made a lot of quick drawings on paper, of which only a few made it to Sketchup. I finally settled for a logo panel that will mix the looks of the case window in the side panel, and the front. That is, it’s going to be:
    1) a combination of smoked and blue UV plexi (side panel);
    2) with a sticker (the logos) and some mesh (front panel);
    3) and it will not be very eye-catching when the UV lights are not on, yet very much with UV on.
    Or better, I hope I can get it to be like this!

    First a sketch:
    [​IMG]

    This is one of the first times that the sketch isn’t better than words to show what I want to do. You see, I made the ‘Der_Meister’ and ‘R+’ logo in Photoshop and when I import it in Sketchup it changes the transparant sections to white/grey . Maybe I can change this but I didn’t put my time into it.

    To be clear, in the sketch you can only see the smoked plexi, and the label I will stick to its backside. The white/grey in ‘Der_Meister’ and ‘R+’ is transparant, behind it will be UV blue plexi. The three rectangular white/grey sections are also transparant, behind them will be mesh.

    The idea is that when the UV lights are off, there isn’t much to be seen. The smoked plexi makes the mesh all dark and one can hardly see anything of the logos. When UV lights are on, the smoked panel becomes almost transparant. The mesh will be much more visible (ideally also more grey) and the logos will glow in blue. I hope I can achieve this effect!

    To the pics!

    The first pic is just to give an idea of the location and size of the logo panel. It’s the last project on the front panel of the case…it better since there’s not much of it left, heh.
    [​IMG]

    After the normal procedure, here it is all finished. It’s about 27cm high and 8,5 cm wide.
    [​IMG]

    From this you can probably understand that it wasn’t easy to make a nice logo. The panel is much higher than it is wide, and this gave some harsh size constraints. That’s why ‘Der_Meister’ is written on two lines: the font cannot be stretched (mostly because of the letter ‘t’ which is a + sign in Rammstein-font) and it would have been a lot smaller if I put eveything on one line. The ‘R+’ logo was easier since that’s square.

    Next step was making the smoked plexi panel. If you remember my pics of the side panel of the case, this one looks a lot darker. That’s because there’s tape on it, and the sides are not polished but roughed up from the filing and sanding.
    [​IMG]

    Here it is all done. I’m not going to use a CCFL with this panel, but I will put some UV leds in the smoked and blue plexi pieces. I hope that will be enough, the pieces will need to be roughed up to diffuse the UV light.
    [​IMG]

    Speaking of the UV blue plexi pieces, here they are. Not much to see, huh.
    [​IMG]

    And to be complete, here are the three mesh pieces that go between the UV blue ones.
    [​IMG]

    Here everything is laid out. This is the backside of the logo panel, the mesh and UV pieces are on top of the smoked plexi piece. Everything fits well!
    [​IMG]

    Look at that nice black edge of the smoked plexi…
    [​IMG]

    To end this post, I want to show you the final part of this panel: the logos. I first wanted to cut them in a piece of alu, but that would have been a lot of work, a bit crazy actually. So I made them in Photoshop and eventually joined them together in one big design. Here is the logo printed on a clear adhesive sheet. It’s inverted since it will be put on the back of the smoked plexi piece. The smoked plexi is wider and higher than the opening in the front panel of the case, the black edges will be only partially visible (about 5mm). It will hopefully add a nice black edge even when the UV lights are on. ‘Hopefully’, because I think it won’t be entirely black. There’s a slight glow through it. If it’s not too bad when lighted, it’s okay for me though.
    [​IMG]

    A close-up of the ‘Der_Meister’- part. Since it was a font, the lines that aren’t straight were heavily pixelated. I corrected this as much as possible. I’m quite sure it will look okay on the panel.
    [​IMG]

    That’s it for part one, next time some pics about mounting and some testing with UV light (even though I haven’t got my UV leds yet, so I’m hoping the lazer leds or CCFL I’ve got lying around will do the trick).
     
    Last edited: 22 Aug 2011
  9. Rocket733

    Rocket733 Austerity - It's the only way

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    Nice work with the front panel and fabrication of the case so far. The front logo should be aweomse when it's finished.
     
  10. jokkos

    jokkos too busy to mod *sigh*

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    logo panel – part two

    Phase two of the logo panel. Sadly, there is need for a third phase, more on this soon.

    After all the pieces were done and I made sure they were okay with the print of the label that I made, I could start with the mounting. This is going to be a bit different in this project than what I usually do. There’s only very little space on the sides of the logo panel, so the smoked plexi piece is only a bit wider than the hole in the case (5mm on each side – too small for a bolt). I can only use bolts above and below the cut in the front panel, which gives the same look as for the bottom panel, so that’s okay. All the rest of the pieces will be attached to eachother and to the case with double sided tape. I think all will be well since after all, there are still four bolts to hold the smoked plexi in place!

    Making the four holes, I made sure they’re in line with the ones of the bottom panel so it looks natural.
    [​IMG]

    And the smoked plexi mounted. I threaded the holes in the plexi, but since there are mesh pieces behind it I’ll need nuts as well. The plexi is a bit loose in the middle but as I said I will use a bit of tape to make sure it’s connected to the front panel.
    [​IMG]

    After this, I needed to drill two holes in the top and lower mesh piece as well, to get them to slide over the bolts. This isn’t really easy, since the mesh obviously has holes already and they tend to be in the wrong place so you need to drill away the bit between two holes. Very tedious, I just drill a small hole and then use the high speed cutter of the dremel to widen it.

    Here’s the result, the blue UV pieces and middle mesh piece are also laid out on the smoked piece.
    [​IMG]

    I then removed the tape from the plexi pieces and tried the effect with UV light. To light this panel I want to put some leds in the smoked and blue plexi pieces. A CCFL would give too much side-effect and I have very little space to put one (I would need to put two in, one above the panel and one below it, 10cm would be the max. I can cramp in). Besides, I don’t like the stories about their inverters.
    So, leds it is. I need to drill holes in the plexi and glue the leds in. One problem: I didn’t buy UV leds yet. They’re coming soon, but I also want to finish most of the metalwork before I start on lighting, wiring, soldering.

    Anyway, I tried to test the lighting with one of the CCFL’s I’m using for the window and with some UV laser leds. But that didn’t amount to much, since they’re obviously outside the plexi pieces and I’m going to put leds ‘inside’ those pieces. So I can’t really show you guys the test shots I promised. I thought it would at least give some effect, but my plexi parts were not polished enough to let much light in.

    A couple of pics without UV to finish this post and also this project. I will of course get back to it later on, when I have the leds and I’m testing the lighting.

    Here’s the backside of the smoked plexi. I sanded it with 1200 grit, so I get some diffusion of the UV leds. Also, I think this will make the label stick better, make it look more natural. It doesn’t really show from the other side.
    [​IMG]

    I also sanded the UV blue plexi parts, they need to have a mean glow with UV leds.

    At least, the effect without lighting is exactly what I had in mind. Here are all the pieces, after sanding, looking from the frontside. So underneath the smoked plexi are the mesh and UV blue pieces. They hardly show at all, and there was enough light in the room. So that’s nice.
    If you look well, you see a slight blue glow from the edges of the blue pieces on the right side of the smoked plexi.
    [​IMG]

    And another to prove that everything is there.
    [​IMG]

    That’s all for now. Sorry I couldn’t show any UV testing pics, that’s one I owe you guys.
    See you soon!
     
    Last edited: 22 Aug 2011
  11. HighWire

    HighWire What's a Dremel?

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    Nice project jokkos!!

    Its good to see some belgium modders ;)

    (Altijd leuk om een deftige belgische modder aan het werk te zien :D)
     
  12. jokkos

    jokkos too busy to mod *sigh*

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    Short trip – later on: Case-fans

    There are only a few projects remaining on the outside of the case. Three to be exact:
    1) case-fans
    2) case-feet
    3) a small hole in the lower case panel for two cables that need to go outside (s-video for LCD screen and a power cable)

    Since project 2 and 3 both have to do with the lower case panel, I’m starting with the case-fan project. Now, I don’t think that’s new stuff or very exciting for all the modders here, so I’ll keep this one short :thumb:

    However, I’m going away on a short trip. I’ll be gone for four days on a hiking trip. So, no updates until the beginning of next week. But as a warming up, here’s some stuff about the start of the case-fan project…

    I’m putting in two case-fans, one 120mm to put some airflow over the motherboard and an 80mm to keep the HDD’s at a reasonable temp. Here’s a sketch, both fans are going in the lower back panel:
    [​IMG]

    As you can see in the sketch, it’s all going to be pretty tight. I didn’t want to overdo the width of the case, so I didn’t compromise here.

    Here are the fans after a visit from dr. jigsaw. I’m going for an octogonal shape since I don’t have holesaws and I didn’t really feel like buying them just for these cuts.
    [​IMG]

    And I’m afraid that’s it until I get back from my trip…

    But there’s something really important I haven’t posted yet! It seems it’s a must for a serious project log…cats! Problem: I don’t have a cat. But there are a lot of them in my neighbourhood. So here are two – crappy pics I know, I need to get myself a decent camera.
    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]


    See you next week!
     
    Last edited: 22 Aug 2011
  13. ReFredzRate

    ReFredzRate Relix Headshot!!

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    You're wrong... You need to get yourself a CAT, not a CAMERA ;) j/k

    Nice project mate, love the metal works.
     
  14. Claas M

    Claas M What's a Dremel?

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    Looks very nice..but those pump houses are- imho- useless.
    I hope u aren't using such 3/4" hoses or so?
     
  15. jokkos

    jokkos too busy to mod *sigh*

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    the pump house is just there to give some extra silencing.

    I'm going to use Innovatek 10/8 UV blue tubing.

    edit: update coming soon. I just got back from my hiking trip and I'm preparing the pics and text.
     
  16. jokkos

    jokkos too busy to mod *sigh*

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    Case fans

    I’m back, so it’s time for an update on the case-fan project.

    Let’s pick up where we left off: here are the fan holes after filing and sanding the edges:
    [​IMG]

    The next things I kept in mind and used are all pretty basic and covered in other mods, so I’ll keep this short:
    - I include a silencing rubber between the fans and the case panel to reduce vibrations and noise of the fans;
    - on the outside I use aluminium fan filters, they keep out dust since both fans suck air into the case, and moreover they are in line with the rest of the case because they’re black
    - finally, instead of regular fan screws I use my M5 bolts to mount the fans. The fan holes are 4,3mm, which is the size of the drill that is used to make holes that are threaded for M5 bolts. So it’s just a matter of threading those fan holes, simple!

    Some pics about this.
    First, because there’s always a difference between theory and practice, I verified the mounting with a broken 80mm fan. It works like a charm. Here’s what it looks like both from the outside and the inside:
    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    The 120mm fan was a bit more difficult, it’s an aluminium fan and the holes are a bit different. All came out well though, except that I filed the bottom edge of the opening for it a bit too far, so it comes lower than what the aluminium filter covers. Not much, but it’s visible. Oh well, nothing a bit of tape or something like that can’t solve.

    Then on to the final mounting and some pics on that. This was pretty straightforward. I drilled out the mounting holes of the aluminium filters with a 6mm drill. Here’s the result:

    [​IMG]

    And a closer look at the 120mm with the 80mm in the background:
    [​IMG]
    I’m quite happy with this look.

    Next update: case-feet! And a big custom case like this deserves some nice custom feet, right?
     
    Last edited: 22 Aug 2011
  17. Klekkus

    Klekkus What's a Dremel?

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    Nice fans and filters :love: I got custom feets :p
     
  18. jokkos

    jokkos too busy to mod *sigh*

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    Case-feet – part one

    Finally: the last thing to do on the outside panels of this case. It’s about time!

    So, with a case of this size, that will also have a considerable weight, there’s the issue of suitable feet for it. Imo one cannot just put standard feet beneath it, or speaker feet or something like that. The hifi-equipment-like feet of the CM Stacker came to mind, but they were also put aside.
    There were some issues to keep in mind: this case is wider than a normal case and to reach its backside, I need to pull it forward on the desk over its edge (this last thing is also true for my current case). These two issues resulted in me wanting to add 5 feet to the case instead of 4 (one in the middle, so it keeps the case in the right position when I pull it over the edge of my desk). A last issue is that the feet need to have some height, since I have the M5 bolts on the lower case panel and they are 5mm high. Of course I don’t want to scratch up my whole desk because the feet can’t lift the case high enough.

    For the original plan of this mod, I bought some Noiseblocker casefeet. They are thick, quite firm and should hold 40kgs. Nevertheless I can squeeze them to 4-5mm of thickness, which is too thin for the M5 bolts. So I needed to add some more height. Of course it had to look good as well, in theme with the rest of the case etc. And then I came up with this:

    [​IMG]

    And from the side:
    [​IMG]

    The feet is made up of three pieces: a piece of black alu, which is mounted to the case with two bolts. Beneath this, a piece of UV blue plexi, and finally a Noiseblocker foot. The alu and plexi together are 5mm thick and already give enough clearance for all the bolts on the case. I’m going to use low profile bolts to mount the feet to the case, the ones in the sketch are just illustrative.

    And here’s how the 5 feet will be positioned. I don’t have many options here because of the bolts that are already in the case panel, but imo this simple lay-out works well:
    [​IMG]

    I started with the aluminium parts. By now I have enough leftovers to cut the five pieces out of. I made a paper mock-up for easy marking of the edges and the middle point of the mounting holes. Then some drilling, sawing, filing, sanding and here they are:
    [​IMG]

    Next thing is the mounting of those five pieces, and also cutting the other thing left to do on the outside (the aformentioned small hole to guide two cables through). However, since there’s a lot of work on the plexi pieces and I don’t like to work very long at them at once, I started on those first. Here they are right after sawing, I’ll post a finished pic once I’m done with them:
    [​IMG]


    Not much to see there, I know, but I’ve got to fill this update with something, heh. That’s it, see you in a couple of days (busy week-end again for me, no modding time *sigh*)
     
    Last edited: 22 Aug 2011
  19. jokkos

    jokkos too busy to mod *sigh*

    Joined:
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    Case-feet – part two

    Okay, I left off last time with a pic of the plexi parts after sawing. They’re still not completely finished!

    But I didn’t sit still, I worked on the mounting holes for the feet and the cable management hole in the lower case panel.

    Here it is while I was drilling the holes. The feet go in those rectangular areas you can see. You can also see how close the middle foot is to one of the holes for an M5 bolt.
    [​IMG]

    And a bit closer, the marked small rectangle is the cable management hole. Since I was drawing and drilling on the case panel anyway, I quickly made this hole as well. No big work since it’s only 3cm wide and 2cm high.
    [​IMG]

    Everything went well, nice and easy work this is. A good change from all the more difficult stuff on the front panel of the case. Here’s the result: the five alu pieces are mounted.
    [​IMG]

    And another one, sorry for the bad lighting:
    [​IMG]

    Because a few of the plexi parts are already completely filed (not sanded though), I could make a quick mock-up. Remember that the actual foot (they’re called ‘Silent PC Fundament II’ incase you’re wondering) will be quite compressed from the case weight, the proportions should be okay. I like it a lot!
    [​IMG]

    Two quick pics of the cable management hole: the first showing that it will be tucked away beside the back-left foot and the second showing the finished hole.
    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    Next time some pics of the completed plexi parts. Maybe I will add a UV led in each foot so they light up together with all the outside plexi pieces on the case. I’m not sure about it yet. Anyway, if I would do that I need to drill a hole in the alu parts and plexi parts, put leds in, etc. SO the casefeet project will be put on hold once the plexi parts are polished. Final assembly of the feet will have to wait until I sort out the lighting.

    Now, a question for you guys. I’ve always attached my plexi to metal with bolts, so this is the first time I have to do it in another way. What would be the best way? Can this be done with JB Weld? Otherwise I could hot-glue them or I could use strong two-sided tape. Help on this is very welcome!!
     
    Last edited: 22 Aug 2011
  20. Guest-23315

    Guest-23315 Guest

    surely there is some sort of glue... or cement
     

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