Thought i would share the making of my new creation with you guys, its nothing special but i thought it will come in handy for testing fans and cathodes etc.... Its a project box with a stripped down psu inside, the psu will be connected to terminals on the top of the box. Also integrated is an LED tester just for convenience and hey why not. I am going to be mounting an 80mm blue UV fan in the box lit up by a 4" UV cold cathode. Once all the holes are cut in the box i am either going to have the box chromed or colour anodised but i cant decide atm. Im used to cutting up large cases so this is a new thing for me to be working with something so small. First i will show you some of the bits i have chosen for this mod, then i will start showing you the work in action. This is the box that will house the psu and other components. This is the psu that is going to be stripped down and mounted inside the case. This is the UV blue fan that will be mounted on the top of the box. This is the terminal that is going to be used, a total of 3 will be used in this mod. There are more bits going to be used in this mod but i have not taken the pictures yet. I will add some more pictures tomorrow oops i mean later today :/ and keep updating as the mod progresses.
Subscribing allready. I hope this will evolve from a flashy LED focused unit into a super labaratorie power supply.
Now for the next update: I have stripped down the PSU as there is no point having a box in a box and taking up the extra needed space. The PSU was so easy to strip it was unreal, there were 3 screws on the outercasing that had to be removed then the whole top hinged over. On the inside there were 4 screws holding the board to the casing, there was also the added bonus of the power inlet and the fan being plug connections so all i had to do was unplug them. The next part of the mod was to mount the PSU in the new box, all i did was place the stripped PSU inside the new box and mark the holes with a pencil. I then drill the required holes and screwed in 4 brass motherboard mounts. I fixed the board onto the mounts to check that it it fitted ok, whilst it was mounted i marked out the position on the lid where the fan would be going. I decided that i did not want to just cut a circular hole but cut a grill into the box itself so that when it was chromed it was all one piece. After about 5 attempts i settled on a design, not the fanciest in the world but hey im happy with it. I got out the tools of my trade which were my trusty jigsaw with fine hss blade, my 18v Dewalt drill for drilling the starting position and my set of files. If this had been a thinner alu i would have cut it with a Dremel so that the alu would not buckle. But this box is thicker than the Maplins ones so i was ok. as you can see in the above picture i have cut out the grill and drilled the holes i wanted using a 3,4 and 5mm drill bit. Now it was just a case of filing down the edges. Once it was all filed i drilled the holes for the screws that will be mounting the fan. I also counter sunk the screws so that they sat flush with the box. The black screws are not the screws i am going to be using they are only there temp just to show you the fan mounted. Im quite happy with how it turned out but i cant wait for box to be chromed Thats it till later on when i work on the box, i will be cutting the hole for the power inlet and marking out the positions for the terminal connectors.
That is a nice idea, seen it before but not like you are doing, that cut out for the fan is cool. Looking forward to your finished product, I may have to make something similar as having a testing station is very handy indeed.
Right time for another update: I decided i wanted to do abit more to the bottom section of the box as i felt it was feeling a little left out. I masked off a section on the back of the box so that i could mark out the the position of the power input socket. You can see it is just a simple rectangular hole that the power socket can just clip in. The hole does not really need filing because the edge is partially covered by the socket but i thought i would give it a quick file just to remove any small burrs. You will see the connector a bit further on in the mod as it needs a small alteration. Now im going to move on to the rear vent: The reason for cutting a rear vent is that the fan which is mounted on the lid of the box blows inside the case so that air will need to exit the box somewhere. I covered the area which was going to be marked out with a bit more masking tape then i started to mark it all out the way i wanted it. I only wanted a series of holes as the back will not really be seen but it still had to look quite good. In the above picture you can see the vent all drilled out Just peeled back the masking tape so i can run my small rounded file in the holes to remove any burrs. Thats it for this update, next update i will be altering the power connector, drilling a hole for an LED to show you that the power is on. I am also thinking about putting a small window in the side of the box and integrating an LED tester into the window.
Since its not in your pc and running for great lengths of time - your fan grill is perfect! But I'd like to point out that applying something in a common use device (i.e. computer) would have problems such as increased noise / decreased airflow and dust collection. So now i've had my complaint - it's an excellent idea. I'm always in need of something like that. I should consider buying one. I came across a rather unusual power supply the other day... hmmm me thinks hehehe Post the finished pics - got any ideas for lighting? That is all --FearsomeMouse *EDIT* buying = building myself one
It's all good then... You know how dusty fans can be... some of the newbie modders overlook these things... sorry if it came across the wrong way Good luck with it! Post sum pics...! That is all... --FearsomeMouse
Nice idea there. I should really do that with one of the spare mATX supplies I have lying aroung. Might I suggest that you could stick on a 3pin fan headers (for pre-tailed tailed) fans maybe switched 0-5-7-12 on a rotory switch.
Don't worry guys i have not given up on this mod, the store has been really busy so not had the time to do much. I will try and do another update later tonight if i can find the time Carl
\o/ i finally found time to more on this project, i have been chopping the PSU about and cutting more holes in the box itself. I left off last time having cut the hole for the main power connector, because i moved the connector further away from the PSU i have had to do an alteration to it so that it would reach. Here you can see the short power connector that needs altering When i looked closely at the wires i was shocked to find bare wire showing, In a way im glad i had to lengthen the wire because i will be solving this problem at the same time. Here you can see the finished connector, i thought i might aswell add UV braiding to the wire as the box was going to contain a 4" UV cathode. The next thing i decided to do was start to chop the PSU about and thin out some of the wires that were not needed. Here you can see i just bunched all the cables together and shortened them to about 150mm long. In this picture you can see 4 wires, the 3 wires highlighted by the red arrow are not needed so i decided to unsolder them straight from the PCB. The green wire is needed but needs altering. You can see the green wire has been trimmed and stripped, the plan is to connect this green wire to one of the black wires so that the PSU will work without having to be connected to a motherboard. The large black and purple wire is also going to be unsoldered from the PCB. You can now see all the unwanted wire cut right back and sealed with some heatshrink, my camera is really wierd its a Kodak 5.0 mega pixel easyshare DX4530. It seems to love blue and always seems to make it look brighter than it actually is. I decided i wanted to keep 1 molex connector on the PSU so that i can use it to power the UV cold cathode inverter. I again decided to add a different colour uv reactive braiding and also add a UV reactive Orange molex connector as it will be seen through the window i have planned. I thought i would show you a quick sample of the molex lead under UV light. I decided i wanted to get the fan ready to connect to the PSU, to do this i had to alter the connector. The UV blue fan comes pre fitted with a 4pin molex connector and i wanted to run it from the 3 pin header that is on the PSU. What i did was to cut a 3pin connector and lead off an old fan as i did not have any new 3pin connectors. To avoid having a join in the lead i decided to unsolder the exising wires on the fan and re-solder the new leads to it. Here you can see the existing wires on the fan I needed to gain access to the wires somehow, all i did was to get my dremel and cut away a small bit of the plastic. Then i could solder the new leads to the fan. Now you can see the new wires soldered onto the fan. Well thats the end of this update check back soon to see the window cut into the box and the holes for the terminals cut. Carl
Nice work... I'm sure that when you start putting the window in and the cathode it will all come together some more. I'm suprised tho that you only left ONE molex connector - especially for a testing power supply when you're using that one to power the inverter. I thought that you would have housed a female and a male molex connector on the housing so that you could easily plug some stuff in and give it a whirl without having to power up the whole pc rig to do it...:doh: Especially when you want to check out some new stock or product that has arrived.?!? Either way, i have the upmost confidence you know what your doing. It's probably me just overlooking something stupid. ! I'm sure that all of these little bits will come together in the end. I look forward to reading your next post. Great work so far tho keep it up! Till next post... That is all... --FearsomeMouse
