Project Supersymmetry - update 11.09.2006

Okay. Here is the update folks.
Getting the bottom done was more work and a hell of a lot more time-consuming than I anticipated. A good six or seven hours of work went into this, and still it is all quite course and rough. I foresee a lot of sanding and grinding in my future

Anyhow. To get the bottom done I first had to do up some angle-bars. Measuring up and cutting them is easy enough and pretty straight-forward however, I still managed to fumble this a couple of times. Which of course added to the total time spent.

Here we have the first angle-bar marked and ready for cutting. Notice how my desk is remarkably uncluttered at this point



A close-up of the same thing. I am going for the quick and easy approach, knowing that I can rectify any - well, most at least - aesthetic issues at a later date.



I also needed to cut some off the edges to allow the angle-bars to accomodate the bars already holding the sides of the case together. Of course all these angle-bars will be joined together at some point, which will strengthen the structure further.



And then, of course, some trimming to the edge due to poor measuring.



Afterwards we have a nice and snug fit. That is one down, three more to go. By now I should think you get the idea; the quick and easy approach



Having learned from my previous fumbles with the measuring-tape I feel I should show you all the importance of double-checking. Cutting this bar 5mm too short would have proved catastrophic as this was the last of the angle-bar I had - and the hardware-store was now closed for the weekend. Luckily I re-checked it and was able to rectify the potential problem.



Repeat this process three more times and here are the results. Four rough-and-ready angle-bars. Now... where did I put that bottom plate?



After all this I had a celebratory glass of red wine and then started on the demanding and precise process of fastening the angle-bars to the sides of the case. I chose to screw it to the sides prior to the bottom in order to make positioning the latter easier. Sticking the bars to the sides were just a manner of clamping them to the edges of the sides, drilling holes, threading them and then screwing it all together.







After a lot(!) of clamping, measuring, positioning, drilling, threading and screwing ( pun intended) the angle-bars are finally mounted to the case.



Having slowly lost some of my faith in the 3mm of threads in all my threaded holes I have decided to do something about this. I had a lightbulb-moment at work today which I will implement as soon as the case is ready for it. This wil also get rid of all the nasty screw-ends protruding into the case at the moment. However, this is some time in the future.

Okay. So now I used the "walls" as a guide of how to position the bottom-plate as the bottom-plate were intentionally cut a little bit too large in order to give me some excess material to play with. You never know after all how these things turn out until you get to the point of actually putting it all together. Turned out that giving myself a couple of mm on each side was a good thing - just adds to the sanding needing to be done later.



Skipping ahead a little. After being satisfied with the positioning of the bottom-plate, and having clamped the bottom angle-bars to the bottom-plate, I removed the walls and started drilling and threading the bottom to the bars. This was done in much the same way as the sides, but with a lot more care and attention to precision. Having the bottom getting mounted crookedly would be nothing short of catastrophic at this point since there are limits to what can be rectified with sanding down.
Two of the sides are done at this point.



After this I re-mounted the walls and got the final two bottom angle-bars positioned and clamped down. Then I removed the walls once again and resumed drilling, threading and screwing them to the bottom-plate. Nearly there now.



Then, some time later, the bottom is ready to be mounted to the case. Looking quite good now, and at this point I had to call it a night as this was sunday and it was getting quite late. Here are two shots of the completed bottom-plate from the inside and the outside.





That is it for now. I am still eagerly awaiting the delivery of my new hardware which, as I said, have been postponed until the 22nd. This means I will not have it in hand until the 27th at the earliest taking postage into account. Oh well, the case will never get done in time for this of course, but still; new hardware is always welcome

 

So it has been a while.
I've been busy doing boring and somewhat uninteresting stuff like grinding and sanding edges and sticking nuts to the back of the holes so as to give the screws more threads to play with. I will show some photos of this as well of course.

In a few days I will post a semi-large update. Hopefully I will get the framework done, the middle-plate and a drive-cage or two. I also intend to do up some of the preliminary wiring.

However, first though I must prepare myself mentally for a job interview tomorrow - I am quite nervous as I really want this job. So, wish me luck everyone.

Also, to my frustration; the company I buy hardware from still have not been able to procure my CPU of choice. I just can't believe how hard those 5000+'es are to come by! Oh well, he who waits and all that.

Until the update, see you all.