Project: the "Secret of the Ooze" (Finished!!!)

Could you tell me where you ordered those cubes from please

 

Good for you, but mo money... more modding

 

I got mine from FrozenCPU.com but Mountain Mods also have something similar.

 

Thanks alot

 

Finally got a little more work done on the case. It is an extremely slow process trying to juggle a full time job, writing reviews, eating, sleeping, and having a little fun. Slowly but surely this case is still coming together though!

First up is the handle I have chosen to mount on the top of the case. I found it at Home Depot but it only came in silver:



So I have to paint it gloss black:



Unfortunately just after the first coat went on, the wind blew the box over that was holding the freshly painted handle and it got dirt all over it. So I wiped off the dirt and let it dry. Just tonight I sanded it down and put another good coat of paint on and it looks MUUUUCH better. I think it will turn out very nice.

While the paint was drying, I killed the rest of my night by drilling the mounting holes for the drives:





The drives are secured with a motherboard standoff and then a screw through the bottom panel of the case in to the standoff...

 

Woo Hoo, another update for y'all!

Tonight I worked on a small, decorative, yet slightly functional piece for the top outside of the case. The handle will mount to this circular green piece, which will all be mounted to the top panel of the case.

First step was to find a circular template the right size...

BINGO! This paint can was perfect

The outline was traced, measurements made, and holes marked and ready for cutting and drilling:


Here is the piece all drilled and cut out:

I used a jig saw this time to cut it out and it worked very well. Cut through this 1/8" thick acrylic like a hot knife through butter with no chipping or cracking!!

The piece above looks pretty rough as it was just cut out with the jig saw. After a fun filled 30 minutes of filing, I finally have the nearly finished part!


The handle will be installed like so:

With the other six screws around the edges to hold it down and give it a more symmetrical look. The only thing left now is to sand down the edges really nice and drill the eight holes in the top panel of the case to mount the whole thing.

Progress is slow, but sure. Stay tuned!

 

Got some more work done tonight, I'll just let the pictures do most of the talking...









It's starting to finally come together a little!

 

Also got some work done on the optical drive tray stealthing covers...

 

Hehe

Yes that appears to be going up! Looking good dude. You have a very unique and characteristic face. Lol just felt like adding that. No disrespect meant in anyway.

 

Progress has been slow on this project because I'm done with all the relatively easy parts, so now most of what is left is fairly difficult. I did however still manage to get the slots for the optical drives and the 120mm front intake fan measurements outlined and ready to be cut on the front panel...

 

Hey. Real nice idea with the fan there..

 

Thanks JAxen

Well, tonight was both a failure and a success. A failure in the sense that I found my first real design flaw and the front panel now looks like poop. I realized that the way I orignally planned to make the optical drive tray stealth covers and the front panel would prettymuch requre me to have perfect cutting and shaping abilities (which I most definately don't have) or a CNC milling machine (also something I unfortunately do not have). So guess what happened? Yep, my less than perfect hand acrylic craftsmanship showed it's ugly face when I was making the cut outs on the front panel for the optical drive tray covers...


It started out ok. I got the holes in the corners drilled for the jig-saw and managed to get them roughly cut out.

But it was when I started filing that disaster struck...

I was just filing away like I had been for the 15 minutes prior trying to get the openings shaped just right for the drive bay covers and I was daydreaming and I accidentally filed a big cut right into the top right edge of the rounded end. DOH!

You can't really see it in the pictures, but if you look closely at the top slot, you can see that it is not shaped very well. I tried to correct the error but to no avail. Suprisingly, the bottom slot is very close to perfect, but the top one is crap.
Here is a closer pic:


Now for the good news...
Since this little mishap, I have realized my giant design flaw.
Trying to get just the drive tray cover shaped perfectly is hard enough, let alone trying to make a hole in the front panel in the perfect spot and the exact perfect size of the cover to fit in! There is too much perfection and accuracy involved to even be able to have a chance of doing something like this by hand with a jig-saw and files. What I needed to do is cut small rectangles with 90º corners in the front panel just big enough for the drive tray to slide through (without the cover or bezel). Then I attach the rounded green drive bay cover to the end of the tray with a slightly larger spacer on it to take up the space of the thickness of the front panel. That way the rounded green drive tray cover will actually stay on the ouside of the case covering up the entire rectangle in the front panel underneath. So when the drive is closed, there will be no gaps around the tray cover and the slot cut in the front panel. And the best part is that neither has to be perfect in order to look good! I just wish I had thought of this before I cut into the front panel!!

So I have successfully destroyed the front panel, but now have a new and improved design plan for the optical drives. That means that I will probably have to order another piece of acrylic (since I don't think I have a big enough piece of scrap), but I still have to get more acrylic for the case, as well as my next little project. So I guess it's not too bad; except for the fact that I will have to wait until I can save some more $$ and wait even longer to get it shipped here and re-cut and re-design everything. But in the mean time, I can start work on the rear panel. Hopefully This goes a little more smoothly...

 

Well, it was another frustrating night of successes and failures with the SOTO case.... :?

First, and foremost, I have oficially determined to never ever build another case completely out of acrylic again. The stuff is just too prone to accidents. Secondly, I am ditching the corner cubes as the primary frame of the case. They are all like 1mm off in one way or another and it is making trying to work with all the panels a total nightmare. Sometime this week I will get myself some aluminum angle to replace the corner cubes. I will drill and tap holes in the angle to line up with the holes already drilled in the acrylic side panels.

But determined to get something more out of the night, I started work on the PSU bracket...
Here we have the piece of aluminum (purchased for a few bucks at the hardware store) all masked off with the cuts marked and ready to be hacked up:


After swearing and fighting with the dremel and somehow breaking the shaft, I finally got something kindof cut out:

...pretty, ain't it??

But after some fun, fun filing, I got it to look a little more like it should:


And it fits!


I still have to design, drill, and cut the outsides of the bracket, sand it all down, and paint it gloss black after all is said and done but I'm happy with the progress so far.

 

Well, tonight was spent working on the new revision 2 frame...
This time I went with 3/4" aluminum angle and it cam in eight foot sections!

Not very friendly to the wallet though


Pieces of correct length were then cut and clamped in place on the edge of the panel for drilling:

This allowed me to perfectly align any and all holes drilled (unline with the corner cubes).

Then the holes in the aluminum frame were tapped for 6/32 screws...


And fastened to the panel:






Still much more cutting, filing, drilling, tapping, and screwing to be done. Sounds like a heck of a night don't it?!

 

Good idea on the aluminum.

 

Sweeet

 

I love this mod!!!

 

Hey, look what I found... Some more pictures I forgot to update you with!








I also ordered the rest of the flourescent green acrylic and a replacement piece of dark gray for the front panel. Hopefully work will resume again shortly. I know progress is S L O W, but good things come to those who wait

 

i too know how crappy it is to file just enough to screw up a part, i did it with several tubes for the rollcage of the formula SAE car i'm working on. then you waste that part and have to make it again when you're so close to having it perfect and finished.
i really like where this is going. that handle on top looks really good. keep it up, dont let it die after doing all of this work.

 

amazing project .
glad that you finally came to your senses and ditch those acrilc corners.
keep up the good work