Project: PCB - Completed September 24

What I'm thinking is "can actually kill you." If you are using mains power and that "double ended male" plug comes out of the back of your computer you have live wires exposed. There is a very good reason that extension leads (and appliances) have a male end and a female end.

Personally I think youd be better fitting one of these (click for larger) and runing the power into the powerstrip internally. You get the extra socket back and you don't risk killing yourself/others.


I don't think you've mentioned what you are using the power bar for. What are you using it for?

 

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Ill just rip one of those sockets out of a old PSU and use a normal PC power cable. Thanks for the idea. The power bar lets you hook up stuff (more computers, monitor, etc) without having to have a external powerbar handy. Sort of pointless, but has some funtionality.

 

The sanding continues.

I did come up with a little design for case feet that will protect my paint when the case is on its side being worked on. Tell me what you think of it.

 

genius idea with the side case feet.

 

I call copyright!

 

UPDATE

Project is sort of on hold for now, because I don't have room to paint in my house, and its very cold out, so I have to wait until around April to paint when its warmer outside. I did order some blowhole trim today from frozencpu.com ( http://www.frozencpu.com/mol-01.html ) and so that will go around the window, the front control panel, the laser top hole, and anywhere else that has a sharp edge on it.

 

UPDATE

I've been having some camera troubles recently. My camera won't work with the transfering software from HP, so I had to wait until the weekend to go to my dads and use his card reader. Im going to buy a card reader soon, so it won't be a problem for long. While Im waiting for warmer weather I will work on the top window design which I have to rethink, because there is not enough room between the CD ROM and the top of the case. So, here are the pictures.


^ The front panel with LEDs installed.


^The top and side panels after wet sanding with 320 grit sandpaper. Since I don't want a super mirror finish, which would show fingerprints and dirt easily, I am going for a nice smooth finish that is glossy, but not mirror, so I am not going to sand with more than 320 for primer and base and no more than 600 on the color coats.


^ The window side panel after sanding.


^Another picture of the front control panel. I realized that behind the panels all the wiring will be visible from through the window of the case, so I will put a piece of metal across the back of the 3 5.25' drive bays so that none of that will be visible except for the wires going out of it to stuff in the case.

This concludes the update for today. Feel free to make comments or suggestions.

 

Er... are the image links dead? Would love to see the case but it seems all the links are down.

 

Sorry, it seems the hosting site I am using (picpile.com) is currently down. The pics will return soon, I hope.

 

To see the pictures temporarily, click here.

*EDIT* Site is up and running, normal pics restored

 

Ok, I'm sorry I haven't posted recently, but I have been having problem after problem. It would seem that the site hosting my pictures has gone completely screwed, and I can't get in to upload any more, even though the ones I have hotlinked to right on this very page still work just fine. Its very confusing, and my emails can't get through to their support, so I am pretty much screwed with it. Sorry about the blurryness and sort of "double-vision" going on with the shots, my camera has no anti shake mechanism.


^ The windowed side panel with a few light coats of primer on it.


^ The front bezel with its primer.


^ The top panel with its primer.


^ The other side panel.


^ A close-up where you can see the problem I had with the bondo, it appears to have chipped a bit, and one hole has even broken through. Well, Live and learn I guess.


^ The chassis with its final coat of black.


^close-up


^ Another shot.

Please feel free to comment and critique. Sorry again for the blurryness of the pictures, I got a tripod so now hopefully they will be at least less shaky.

 

Not so perfect cuts, but good enough looks like you need some bondo, the paintjob looks great.

4 stars from me

 

Thanks!

Don't worry about the cuts, I have some blowhole moulding I bought that will cover up all those spots and make it look great. I would have filed them down more, but I just decided to use this moulding because it would vastly improve the look of the windows.

 

UPDATE

The past week has been crappy weather all around. Rain, then thunderstorms, then cold, then more rain. We are getting our April showers a bit late here. Luckily, today had low humidity, about 20 degrees, and sunny. Perfect painting weather.

Unfortunately I ran out of my grey primer, and luckily my dad had some brown primer around, so I have to to the rest of the priming in brown. I tested the primer out to make sure it wouldn't react with the grey, and it didn't, so yay! I then proceeded with the 2nd primer coating. Pictures are as follows:






^ The one side panel turned out perticularly nice, the picture doesn't do it justice one bit. The only visible flaw (of the many it had before) is the spot where the bondo popped through. I need to patch that hole, but I'm not sure how to yet. I can't really rebondo it, because it could just happen again. I put hot glue across the back of the rest of them, so they should hold in good.

Anyway, please post your comments and suggestions. Also, these updates will be more frequent now (providing I actually get some work done) because I bought a card reader, and now transfering pictures is a breeze compared to having to use the HP software, which I only used once I had lots of pictures from many days of work ready.

 

For patching that small hole you might want to use some fiber reinforced bondo. Or something like an epoxy (just be sure to have a rough metal surface for better bonding). Otherwise the primer seems to be doing its job well and keep up the good work.

 

What if I glued a small piece of metal behind the hole, filled the little 1mm deep hole wtih bondo, and then sanded it and primed it?

 

That could work aswell I guess =)
The paintjob is looking good so far.. keep up the good work

 

Thanks! The last (and first) time I painted a case it was a unprepped powdercoat surface and two coats of primer, no colour, no clear. But that was like three years ago. Lets just say, it didn't last very long.

 

Update

I did some wet sanding last night, just very lightly to get the roughness off the primer, and I noticed something I'm starting to worry about.



Sorry about the crap pic, my camera's macro function makes close up shots look WORSE! It must be broken.

Every time I sand the spots where I cut through the base coat and previous primer comes right off even after like 2 passes of very light sanding with well worn 600 grit paper. I can't figure out how to get the primer to stay when im sanding. Does anyone know how I can combat this problem?

The rest of the pictures:

 

Update

I put on a nice coat of green today, but I got started a bit late, and the bugs came out before I was done. Those little *******s messed up my paint pretty bad, so I'm not too happy about the footprints in it, but luckily it will be sanded off quickly. I didn't get the full coverage I wanted, so tomorrow or sometime I have to put down the rest earlier in the day. Meanwhile, I have to use tweezers to tear the legs of the bugs out of the paint. That will be buckets of fun. Heres the pictures


^ The paint isn't actually that bright, my camera just went to low light setting for these two pics.


^ The one panel you can see how its not fully covered.


^ This picture is closer to the actual colour, but the colour is a bit more green in real life. I'm happy with it so far.

Comments and suggestions welcome.