Scratch Build – Complete Project - PowerCore - Completed

What an INSANE welldoing WORK

 

Nice work on the Bridgeport, way to make use of the tilting head. Mine is just a glorified drill press mostly, never actually used the tilting head. Did you just eyeball the z depth when cutting the angles? seems like every stepover would require a new z depth. knuckle roughing endmills are great, low cutter force and small chips. I use them whenever I can.

 

Incredibly satisfying seeing that done to a chunk of alu

 

Thanks everyone

Yeah the bridgeports are incredibley usefull/versatile for manual work, yeah each step over was eyeballed on the Z axis, I very very slowly raised the table until I saw the finest of scratches from the milling bit, then locked it there.

Sorry about the long wait, I dont no where the time goes these days, I blink and its been a week lol.

I've milled off the sides and end of the back panel:







Then milled the hole for the power button:





I then sanded the panel down with an orbital sander but the forgot to take a pic of it before the next step.
I rented a capacitor discharge Spot Welder from www.taylor-studwelding.com:



I couldnt get in to all the areas I needed threaded studs with the big gun, so I also rented this mini gun that goes into the end of the big one:





I then folder a bit of copy to prevent the earth clamps from putting dents into the alu:



I tried a few, then found the best technique was to press a blunt center punch into the alu to make a very shallow dent, that the little pip on the bottom of the stud just about sits into, then give it a quick sand:



I also spent hours marking out all these spots to put the studs onto, then welded them all on:



You get a fair amount of splatter, but it should come off in fine sand/bead blasting if I protect the threads. These are M3 threaded studs:





Next up I've started making the new water junction blocks of the outer coolant pipe section. I'm going to have to scrap the cast ones I did, since I found castings dont anodise very well, and colour wise your stuck with grey.

I got a face mill as the old one was slightly bent and all the carbide bits didnt actually touch the work peice:


and then another three:

Works a treat

Also got a new machine vise from RDG Tools, as the parts kept slipping with the old vise:





Also got a chamfering bit for the front edges:


I made 4 of these:


I then used the belt sander to curve the edges, I still need to finish it by hand sanding to match the chamfer:



These will fit in the case like so:



I should get these blocks completed this weekend.

 

NEAT!
So that's what those weird studs are. I had a bunch of those in a big bucket of random bolts.

 

Back for another update
I've come to the conclusion that those DIYINHK DDC pwm coolant pump boards are crap, this thing is sooo loud now. I thought I had messed up somehow but after reading online it seems that these boards are just noisy af. Sooo I'm gonna have to get another acrylic piece CNC'd and use the standard control board I think.

Anyway I finished off the bevelled edges on the new water junction blocks with a small file:



After tapping the holes, these are ready and waiting for the final surface finishing at the end of the build. I think I might chrome plate them:




I had to drill a hole all the way through from the side to connect all the holes, then I'll make some plugs to screw into the ends to seal off this side hole. The tapping was done straight after the drilling with the tap in the milling machine, and the gears in neutral so I could manually turn it, so as to get the tap dead centre.




I then spent most of this weekend milling out the bar mounts for each heatsink. Two of the mounts will also be the mounts for the back panel as well:




Wasn't great using the chuck for the 4mm ball end mill, but the collet has arrived now for next time




This weekend I'll mill the tops at an angle to fit the case.

 

picture of beauty

 

Damn seeing all that milling work by you and cheaps makes me want to get my cnc from storage also. Truly awesome work. Cant get any more custom then this!

 

It's not normal to praise someone for making a bracket, but...

 

Thanks guys

Sorry only a small update, as I've pretty much reached the end of the manual work I can do at this stage, and works been so busy I've not had chance to find companies that can do the rest of the CNC and laser cutting/etching work.

After a ton of small adjustments here and there, I've finally managed to get the rads to fit perfectly. I wanted to get the mounts to sit perfectly as I'm planning on have a bit of thermal paste between the rads and the case, to essentially use the rads and the entire case itself as surface area to get rid of the heat:






I've also started playing around with different fans. I tried a PS3 blower fan first, and man those things are powerful on full way over the top of what this needs I think, so I took the blower fan of a GTX 970 and cut the fins off:


I then 3d printed a 140mm blower fan blades peice:




It works surprisingly well and it very quiet on low speeds so hopefully this will do the trick, I've always got the ps3 blower fan if I need the extra power.

 

This passive Will be crasily, awesomly, gorgeous !
I think you'll be the mod of the century !

 

OMG!!! This is really very cool!

 

Looking beautiful. The fact that we can print our own fans now is hilarious.

 

Sorry about the looong wait for a update, combination of being ill, and spending weeks trying to get the 3d model to match the shell for CNC'ing the tops, and also trying to find a CNC company that doesnt charge really high prices and actually responds to emails and calls was surprisingly difficult! In the end I found one based in China: https://www.rapiddirect.com/ they gave quotes very fast, and responded to every question within an hour (during their work hours), and they gave a rapid turn around and delivery to the UK. All the following parts came to USD 898.50, which given the complexity I thought was pretty good

Before I sent off the files for CNC I needed to make sure the 3D model would exactly match the shell, given it was made by bending aluminium sheet, and its complex shape, to the eye it looks perfect, but there a slight variations which would mean the CNC'd tops wouldnt fit flush with the edge all the way around. My first idea was to use a robot arm and trace around the perimeter of the shell:




but unfortunately for some reason it didnt work out that accurate, even though when the path was re-traced on the arm to looked perfect. So I resorted to getting an A3 scan of the end of the shell, and using that as a canvas to draw on in Fusion360, I then 3D printed out a template from the model, then adjusted the 3D model based on how it fit, and repeated, over and over and over until it matched perfectly:



I then sent the model to RapidDirect and they have sent back these impressive quality parts:








The raw finish of the CNC is very smooth too, so there shouldnt be much sanding to do. The tabs on the inside I'll need to mill down a little though, as I forgot to account for the raised stub at the base of the threaded studs, so they dont quite fit on the case perfectly at the moment.

I've also had the pump housing re-done as well, so I can use a normal DDC, because I made the original one in a mirror image




I'm amazed how smooth they got this downward slope, with barely any rounded edges at the bottom:

So thats all ready for polishing

I also had an aluminum impeller made as well for the pump, rather than the 3D Printed one I had before:



And then finally, I've completed the 3D model of the fan base, and attached it:




I'm just waiting on a quote now to laser cut and bend all the internal panels I need out of sheet aluminium.

 

Total ...

 

The top cover look awesome!

 

Dayumn! When you update... Beautiful.
Also, robot? Welding bot? Why does this gent not have a spindle attachment? Why is he even there in the first place?

 

Thanks both

This fella is a plasma cutting robot, and unfortunately not sturdy enough for milling metal, it could probably handle plastic or wax though.

 

Amazing and impressive!

 

This thread is more like an education classroom.
Unbelievable what we can take from this. Man, you are amazing...