Scratch Build – In Progress The "OMG Jipa is actually building something"-case - Wet Christmas

Take your tools with you so you can finish it there!

 

Can't even take the case with me as I'm taking a train to Helsinki. Gonna be hellish enough to take the stupid cat with me.

 

Despite the inevitable failure of getting this case done in time and with me to ASM, I've still soldiered on during the last few days. I've also got some progress done, but mainly it's just been a matter of "that's not gone well" and "OUCH! *** ****** ******** ****************".

Anyway for your viewing pleasure, I've also taken some pictures


By jipaargh at 2010-08-03

Drilling holes to 36 cm tall pieces with a drill press that can only handle ~20 cm tall proved to be a bit of a problem. My flatmate also has a battery drill, but I didn't really feel like using that as I'd never get the hole anywhere straight enough.



Surprisingly enough the more difficult holes went pretty smoothly, but then I absolutely screwed up with the PSU mount pieces You just know you're doing something wrong when you find yourself using a hammer to drive a M3 screw into a block of aluminum with a snapped drill bit in there somewhere.



The PSU-mount turned out surprisingly well, considering at this stage my index finger was held together with some hockey tape I didn't feel like trying my luck with the rest of the fingers, so I didn't dare filing it awfully smooth. Yet.



After all the pain and misery I got the mount in place and now it's possible to even mount the PSU! I could make a feature list of the case;

Materials: aluminum, acryl, steel, blood
Weight: about 3 kg. Maybe.
Size: depends on the day and how bent it is
PSU: standard ATX
Hard drives: yeah just throw them in there
Motherboard: oh cock I knew I'd forgot something!

(may contain traces of fingertips)



And here it is as of now. I'm actually surprised how far I've already got it done. If I could take it with me to Assembly and keep working at it there, I might be able to get it done this week. Anyway tomorrow I'm off to Helsinki, so that's it for now.

And remember to keep the feedback coming. I know all of you have atleast once felt like mocking someones' work, and now is the time, I can take it.

EDIT: And would it be time to move this to project logs?

 

Nice work, keep it up
I thought I'd mention one thing, you could bulk up a bit. No need to waste any money on a gym, you can just do lots of pushups a couple of times a week. If you elevate your feet, such as up on a chair, you'll be bench pressing close to your full body weight Or maybe you've grown since that photo was taken?

 

Haha thanks for the heads-up, I've always been quite skinny, but over last year I've picked up closer to 10 kg extra and as I'm very much into this sorta stuff, I'm fit enough for an average geek



EDIT: being a family forum I'll save the topless hotness for PM

 

Breaking news everybody, I'm taking it with me after all. Gonna be an absolute nightmare to carry everything (+ the damn cat), but gonna try anyway.

 

That's the spirit!

 

A few things...
-Where did you get a PINK drill press? Is there a Barbie shop tools line now?
-Someone needs to send Jipa a new hammer.
-Case looks good. Are you going to add a cable to keep the hinges from hyper-extending?
-Wait... The cat goes too?

 

Have been working on the case for two days now, and got some nice progress (you know it's nicer to work with dremel when there are no neighbours to care about). I also added some new details to the design, too bad I'm yet to have a stable WLAN-connection and time to edit and upload some pictures.

No damage to me or others caused so far, woooooot.

 

That's quite the set up! I'll be watching this with interest.

 

Ok finally had time to find a socket for the charger and a place where the WLAN even remotely works. So on with some piccys! Clearly it's damn hard to take pics of myself doing things, so you'll have to wait for proof of actual work for later, but here are some of the ideas illustrated.

All have already been patented and until someone comes and gives me some form of caffeinated drink I'll stick to my rights!


By jipaargh at 2010-08-06

The first thing yesterday was to start easy and finish the PSU-plate. Nothing much here, but I have to say I've never spent so long making two holes! Making round holes of the right size to 2 mm aluminum sheet using only dremel turned out to be a bit tricky.



Today I continued taking easy and made a power connector-switch-header-thing for the vandal proof switch. I had no idea how long the cable needs to be, but as I only had the cable sleeved kindly donated me by the CM Excalibur fan the lenght was easy to choose. The fans don't need long cables so losing the sleeve isn't a problem.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

After this I ran out of little things, so I really needed to get cracking. The first major thing was to mess around with various bits and try if I could hide the cables for the lights inside the 9 mm acryl. Seemed to work, but just to make sure I killed atleast two hours by engaving the trenches.



Then I suddenly changed my mind and decided to get something done. So I made the front panel. The pieces are currently held in place with bits of tape, but I quite like this initial idea and we may also see it in the finished version.



Then I made some dividers, one dividing floor and one wall. The PSU will be separated to its own chamber, maybe with the HDD so it won't feel itself lonely. The bottom part will hide the fans, as illustrated by this masterful photo.



The fan sitting in there is one of the two Excaliburs I got from some lucky draw or something. If someone wants to see his own brand of fan here, please throw me a PM. You may also throw me a PM if you want a really rude answer to stupid question or just generally feel annoingly happy.

The dividing wall will not only look superb but also add some much needed integrity to the overall design. (with the panel in place there are atleast some chances of having the case stay in the same shape for more than half a minute)



And to finish off here's one of our desks. In the middle it's the masterpieces, behind that there's Javerh's Seawolf and in front/left there's Japala's iPhone-fridge. (Yeah just don't ask ME about that one).

I also got something else done today, and will still keep working. I just had to sit down for a bit after the pizza Oh also the covering plastics have come off from the aluminum parts, they aren't hugely scratched!

 

Damn! This means I have to whip up some kind of an update when I get home!

The front panels still look like the doors of the toilets around the Hartwall Arena.

 

I've been wondering with the color choices. The mesh is black, panels anodized and corner profiles pure aluminum, the ends are dark acryl. The mesh needs to be painted anyway so it being black isn't necessarily the final choice of color.

Any ideas? I'm thinking of painting the mesh and the profiles with the same color, leaving the panels anodized and the acryl as-is, though probably sanded.

Also ASM is over, but I'm gonna stay in Helsinki for another couple of days, so no work will be done on the case.

 

Assembly aftermath

After sleeping a long night the Assembly is really gone and forgotten, but the case remains and the project is going strong. Here are the promised photos as I finally had time to edit and upload some of them. As it turns out the damn Photoshop CS2 can't open Canon 40D raws so these pics are still edited from the thumbnails, sorry about the quality



The front panel acryl is so scratched and the cut isn't quite as perfect as the rest of the case I figured it would make sense to just hide it. Here's the idea I have so far, pieces of aluminum. The design isn't final, they are only held in place with double-sided tape so far, and clearly come with the protective plastic. Under that it's the same anodized finish as the other panels. The door action is actually very smooth on the front, still work to do on the rear...



Then I attacked the profiles. While making the case in a hurry, I saved time by not protecting the profiles for scratches, so there were LOTS of scratches of various sizes. The profiles also had a kinda brushed finish, which I didn't like. But for this the Dremel was great, I used the sanding roll for the larger scratches and the sponge-esque sanding/polishing wheel for the smaller stuff.



And here's how it looks now. Well not now, as I had to pack it into the bag again. The design is truly excellent as I can take it apart and pack into very small space in a matter of minutes. Dunno how well this will work with the components inside, though

Over and out, leave feedback or a monster will eat you at night.

 

oh dear god, Jipa is modding?! (just messing ) Subbed!

 

Haha indeed.

And in case some clueless noobie doesn't know what's so funny, I've been very active on the modding-section for ages and come up with a new case plan (and sketches) once in about every eight minutes. Anyway I haven't built ANYTHING in ages.

Some of my earlier work from Eons ago;



Wooden case that never got finished. And a dog I barely remember we used to have some time the last millenium.




The case mod where the goal was to make it ugly. Done in massive hurry, which caused it to turn out even uglier than meant.



And then the masterpiece, the --



Back in 2005 that was actually quite a fresh idea. Also I was 16. Enough with the excuses, just sue me if they are offensively ugly, atleast the NAAC came with more imagination than most mods (just show me a case that has before or since had a motorized web cam AND a peltier-fridge for lan drinks)

 

NO, I have NOT trashed the whole project, I just stayed in Helsinki after Assembly and after getting back to Tampere have been busy re-running all the graphic card benchmarks.. Also the living room has been full of my flat mates' ghetto blaster project, so I figured I'll just wait for him to finish before spreading out all the tools and parts for this project again.

I swear I still am going to get it done

 

I swear, I was going to plan something exactly like this a month back... Now I won't be original.

Good luck though!

 

Hahah this is such a great log! I love how you improvise everything. And your comments to your work... hilarious Thank you for a fun read-through, and NOW, don't let your mate stay in your way! You need to continue modding and to entertain me!

 

Cute ball of fur with a nose attached to it.
I like how you overlapped the elements on the door. (I won't be able to say 'top' or 'side' until we find out how you will orient this. -So for now it's the 'overlapped bit'.)