I like it but might I suggest getting a bottle of acetone and smoothing out the edges on the cut plexi. It'll make it look pretty pimp.
The idea is to get all the pieces of the puzzle together and then sand/polish the aluminium and plexi so they are all level. Any idea where I can get acetone? What will it do to the aluminium?
looks awsome..i was on ebay the other day and saw one of those pc's 700 the guy wanted! looks like your off to a great start
Acetone can be had from a chemist, or from nail polish remover. It wont do anything to the aluminium at all.
First layer of the cake I cut the four pieces of the first layer of the cake at 45º angles so the corners look good. The weird looking piece is for the back, its shaped like that so the ends fit inside the side pieces. Once assembled you can barely tell the difference between the four corners. OK you can tell the difference, but only just. With the base and the cover/drive holder in position you can see the color pattern I'll get when it's done. Next up will be fitting the motherboard to the base and get the back i/os cut out.
Another update with the bottom layer almost done. I still have to file the alu to get the corners to fit properly. Looks like acetone will be perfect after sanding the whole thing, I'll get a smooth look on the plexi and the aluminium won't suffer. z4114 - Doesn't look uniform, but it's close enough.
I'm not sure yet, it's a bit scratched so I have to sand it down level, after that I have no idea what treatments I could apply on it, varnishing could do the trick. All I know is that I'm not going to paint it. Any unpricey suggestions will be helpful. I've looked around a workshops but no one will welder my alu if it was steel I could weld it my self. I'll stick to nuts and bolts.
I was wondering how you could weld alu, seeing as it's a very high temp metal and wont bond to a steel welding joint.
If you want to keep the aluminum color but still protect it from oxidation and minor scratching, I believe you can use automotive laquer paint. Another name for it is clear coat. I do not know for certain if the laquer will stick to the bare aluminum. Hopefully someone out there has tried it or knows what would happen. If not, I could test it myself, I should still have some leftover from and aging project.
Some work done I've been filing and cutting all day. Backports are almost done, I have to clean them up a bit more and cut the holes for LAN and power (both on the leftside). Also made two holders for the fans. The lonely one will be on the left side at the back and the others will be on the right side at the front. I have to file down the center to give all the possible air flow. They'll be bolted to the bottom aluminium Us. The rest of Us will have to be cut to make room for the fans. They are all 35mm fans. Finally I was going to start cutting the middle plexi aka "salami" so I ran a ruler over the aluminium pieces and started to mark out all the stuff that got in the way. The scribbled parts are what stands out but I'll probably cut along the line that surrounds it all. More work tomorrow .
I believe it's done with different welding equipment. z4114 - You got the right idea, keep the aluminium color but protect it. I thought varnishing would do the trick. It would be great if you did some testing although I will to see what people have done. God I love these cool smilies
Whilst checking the Google for information on how to paint clear coats on bare aluminum I ran across this site. It's not computer modding but the concept is the same. Since you want to keep your brushed alu look i believe you can skip right to step 5b, where you'll prep the piece for painting. Starts off with some Dupli-Color CP 199 Adhesion Promoter which I assume is like a clear primer, and then he tops it off with Dupli-Color DAL1695 Clear Lacquer. Then once the lacquer cures it should be polishable to give it a uniform look. I don't exactly know where MAD is but I think I remember it was Madrid Spain. I would guess that you dont have the AutoZone chain there, but any car part place that also sells car paint should be able to provide you with the stuff you need.
That looks nice, complicated, but probably worth it. I'll do some tests on spare aluminium to see if I can get a brushed aluminium look. Thanks for the link. I'm thinking of sanding all the panels (mounted) from left to right (or right to left but always in the same direccion) and once it looks good clear coat it a couple of times. We'll see what happens in the test, but that'll probably be next week.
Sounds good, I'll try it with just the clear coat, without the Adhesion Promoter to see if it can be bypassed and still acheive the same goal. I'll try to get some pictures up in a week after it all cures and gets buffed.
Holding it all together First of all, thanks to the guys that gave the worklog some stars. Now I have some pressure on me to do a good job. I finished cutting and filing all the pieces and then I began to mount the whole thing, but I ran into a bit of a problem. How do I put it all together. I hadn't thought about it until then. My first option was a 6cm bolt from top to bottom and a nut at the bottom. Easy to do but I'd have to cover the nuts in some way because they are ugly thing to have on the outside of the case, and I'd loose the symmetry. My second option, and the one I'll go for is a threaded bar cut to size, 8 bits of 6cm and then use blind nuts to hold it from top and bottom. Just in case I haven't got the right term for these nuts, here is a pic. These will also serve a legs for the case and it'll all still be symmetric. Tomorrow I'll get the bar and nuts so I can put it all together and see what it looks like.
Ooo, those dome nuts look very pretty. Brilliant idea of them being the case feet as well as the keeping it all together. Rock on bAdI!
Back to plan A Sorry for the lack of updates. I've been trying the hardware and have encountered a biiiig problem. Looks like the e-pc checks for firmware when it boots because it doesn't "see" the laptop hard disk. The hard disk is fine, works on a regular PC with a converter and it works on my laptop, that's what made me think it has a firmware protection of some sort or the 40gb are too much for the e-pc. Anyway, I'm back to plan A, using the old 10gb full size hdd. I can reuse some of the plexi I cut previously, can't say the same for the aluminium. I'll get to work on the old design and keep you updated.
