Project: ProtoHype - 23 may

**The_Gnu** · 06-02-2010, 03:48 PM

Originally Posted by alphadog009

looks good! i like the backplate for the bottom part but was wondering how you were gonna hide the cables cuz i see no holes through the plate but im probably being an idiot and missing something.... or you probably just have a better idea.

thanks.. na your not an idiot, it's just me that havn't realy decided where to place the holes yet. There will be holes somewhere for shure. At the moment im thinking of routing the cables down through the bottom of the chassi and through one of those alu profiles. Hard to describe but it will come clear eventually.

Originally Posted by h20xide

still says 23- may here too mate

No clue

But this build is certainly coming together very nicely

Thanks mate

**imersa** · 06-12-2010, 05:42 AM

Looks like this could be stunning! keep it up! more updates!

**The_Gnu** · 06-29-2010, 10:46 AM

Originally Posted by imersa

Looks like this could be stunning! keep it up! more updates!

thanks

*EDIT: oops.. managed to mix the pictures with the last update, so here are the real pictures

it is time to improve the rigidity of the case. Especially the part where the DVD-drive and the harddrives + harddriveblocks will be mounted. This is mainly becasue I reallised that there will be some serious weight and stress on some of the parts and I want to make shure that it alls stays stable

Finally, there is some milling.
But first I need some material. This is the two aluminium squareblocks I purchased for this build. The dimentions are 20x200x1000mm and 10x200x1000mm and almost all of it will be used in this build.

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Some of the 10mm alu was cut..

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Clamped in the vice and the milling could begin.

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First milling session is done.

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Test fitting the support brackets...

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..and realised that I need some room for some connections.
Wha that board's for?.. well you'll have to wait and see if you can't figure it out by your self..

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The groove is taking shape.

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Drilled some holes on the other support brackets as well and some adjustments with the mill

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Now there is enough room for the connections..

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Rivet in place from the backside

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This is how I cut the pannels. Using a jigsaw annd an alu ruller.

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As I predicted, there was some nasty gap between the pannel and the motheroard tray (to the right in the picture). Even though it probably won't be vissible once the Motherboard is mounted, I can't stand the knowledge of it being there.

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Fabricated a small part from an L-alu part using the mill. I thought for shure it would bend in the middle but I managed to pull it of. The reason it is black is because I't was intended for another use and since the whole case will be black, it won't matter.

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This is how it will be mounted..with rivets.

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Test fitting the panel

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now thats better..

Drilled some holes and did some taping and here the plate is testfitted using m3 hex-bolts. Those hex-bolts stand out cuite a lot and they are only there temporarely. Will change them to some flat head screws.

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there you go.

**geoffsthaboss** · 06-29-2010, 01:03 PM

i smell a mdpc in the works...

**callen_1** · 06-29-2010, 01:59 PM

More brilliant work! Are those mills relatively easy to use?? it looks like you can do so much cool stuff with them!!

The fix for the gap in the mobo tray turned out fantastic too

**The_Gnu** · 06-30-2010, 02:14 PM

Originally Posted by geoffsthaboss

i smell a mdpc in the works...

Thanks mate

Originally Posted by callen_1

More brilliant work! Are those mills relatively easy to use?? it looks like you can do so much cool stuff with them!!

The fix for the gap in the mobo tray turned out fantastic too

Thanks, Yeah these mills are easy to use. The precission is very great and your fingers are kept safe

. There is also the possibility to mod most mills to your own desires, like DIY digital read outs. Only bad thing about these mills that exept the cost for the mill itself, you need a lot of tools and acessories to be able to do a large variety of stuff. What you can do and how precise it is, is often limited by the acessories. Another drawback with my mill is the belt drive, it takes a lot of time to change the speed. a mill with gearbox is better but often more expensive.

God luck

**The_Gnu** · 08-17-2010, 03:38 PM

okay, sorry for my abcense but I have to say I don't feel too enthusiastic to keep posting updates while the title of my log still says 23 may. I've tried to contact moderators but with no luck. Anyone know of a moderator that might be worth sending a PM?

Well heres the next update.

This is the part Im about to fabricate next, it is the top (and bottom) of the case as you probably already figured out.

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This is how the finished parts hopefully will look. It's a quite advanced shape, atleast I think so. Since I don't have acess to a CNC, the rounded surfaces will be a pain in the ass to fabricate

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This is the profile of the bars and the support for them. The bottom of the bars and the support might look a little bit unnecessarily complex. The reason for this is that there will be alumium mesh added between the rods and this will probably make it a little bit more easy to install. There is also the airflow in mind. The support will probably still see some modifications to ease the fabrication, if you know of any, please let me know since I'm still learning.

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This is how I intendt on creating the curve. Milling the parts in a stair patern and then even out the curved surface by hand with a file. This is the only solution I have to the problem at the moment, please let me know if you got a better one that will save me some elbow grease.
I was thinking of fabricating my own cutter with the desired radius but I would need to fabricate 3 different ones and also a tool to create them.

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Picked up some aluminium square rods last week. The thickness is 20mm and it was delivered in 6 X 1m lengts.

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The first thing to do was to cut them all down to 50cm lengts.

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At this point I'm starting to realise how much this case will weigh...a lot

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Since the rods are 20mm square, I need to mill them down 2mm since I want them to be 18 mm. I could have bought 18mm square rods from the beginning but since (half) of these rods will be on the top of the case and very vissible, I wan't them to be perfect. There is almost always some dents or large scratches from the metal supplier and therefore I prefer to have some excess material.
Btw this is one of the mills at school that I finally have acess to, not my own. This one is much larger and there is a lot of nice tools. Like this facemill.

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I also discovered a second vice wich helped me speed up the facemilling process a lot, since there is a total of 24 sides that need to be treated.

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I ran out of time and had to stop after half of the pieces where done. This is what I got so far.

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See ya

**The_Gnu** · 08-31-2010, 01:37 PM

Hello
I have had some alignment problems with the mill im currently using at school and therefore the toprods have ended up taking longer to fabricate than estimated. For that reason I have also started the work on some other parts of the project to speed up the process a bit. This is the work currently done on the top rods

all 12 rods and 24 sides are facemilled and ready for the rough milling.

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Here is the first rod taking shape. Each step has a different depth to create the a rough shape of the desired radius.

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This is suposed to bee one of the underside of the rods. Managed to screw it upp a bit because the previously mentioned alignment problems with the vices. Think I managed to save it though.

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The work on the toprods are on hold untill I manage to solve the problems with the vices.
Therefore I started working on the HD-blocks that are a lot less problematic to fabricate.

This is the plan for the HD blocks. Two solid Alu blocks that will cool up to three hard drives. The water will enter the top block and continue on to the second block through a single tube and then exit the second block through 6 separate tubes.

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Layout of the top block. The middle "plate" is supposed to be a plexi window to add to the geekyness. There will also be a thin sheat of rubber to (hopefully) make it leak proof.

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Sideview of the top block, here you can see the chanel structure

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Bottom block, with chanel structure.

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Time for fabrication.
First of I need some thick pieces of alu. These are 160x20mm and cut with an angle grinder

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Using an endmill to trimm the edges and make it the right dimentions.

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**The_Gnu** · 09-09-2010, 02:53 PM

So... my work with the HD blocks continues
I discovered that the two alupieces I've previously cut were not totaly flat. They had a slight curve on them and therefore needed some treatment. The curve was from the manufacturing process so if you plan on buying anything like this, it's a good thing not to buy the exact dimension since this seems to be quite common. I used the 4-jaw chuck, on the lathe wich alows me to attach non cirkular workpieces.

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Have to make shure to keep those fingers out of the way.

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Here you can se the curve of the pieces. The center part is beeing romeved first while the edges are left untouched and this is because the curve.

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After some passes the piece is nice and flat. Flipped it over an did the same on the other side.

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To bad they will probably not stay this shiny during the rest of the working. Well...will probably have to redo the surface once finished.

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Here I'm starting to drill the channels in one of the blocks. They will be threaded with M8 threads later and therefore I used a 7mm drill. 6,8 is the optimal drill for this thread but I didn't have that one so this will have to do. The depth of the holes are 60mm.

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Flipped the pieces over and started to drill the holes for the HD mounting. I used a 4mm drill to drill all the way through.

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For those of you thinking of doing somethings similar, the long distance between the holes are 101,6 mm which is standard for 3,5" HDD.

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Here I use a 8,5 mm drill to make room for the head of the HD mounting screws. These holes are not drilled all the way through.

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Time to start threading with the M8 tap. The alu piece with a hole in it is the guid tool I made to make shure the thread starts taping at a 90degree angle.

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Also did some edge chamfering of the holes to give it a nicer look. Here you can se that the large hole is not all the way through since it leaves 2mm in the bottom to make the screws pop out enough on the mounting side.

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There is still the largest intake hole, some mounting holes and surface treating left to do but you get the idea.

**eclypse** · 09-09-2010, 03:12 PM

I wana move into your house!

**Fyrelith** · 09-09-2010, 03:55 PM

WOW, amazing work here! Keep it up, I am looking forward to the updates.

**OC Maximus** · 09-09-2010, 04:26 PM

Now here is something that merits a WOW! Thanks for the update!

OCM

**Jokester_wild** · 09-09-2010, 07:24 PM

holy cow, awesome!

**The_Gnu** · 09-10-2010, 10:05 AM

Originally Posted by eclypse

I wana move into your house!

Haha no you don't. I live in a small apartment far away from the tools unfortunately. Some work you see is done at my mums house (my tools though) and the larger machines you might see in some updates are from my schools workshop.

Originally Posted by Fyrelith

WOW, amazing work here! Keep it up, I am looking forward to the updates.

Originally Posted by OC Maximus

Now here is something that merits a WOW! Thanks for the update!

OCM

Originally Posted by Jokester_wild

holy cow, awesome!

Thanks a lot guys.. Hope you'll like the rest aswell :P

**Zeus** · 09-10-2010, 11:33 AM

Wowsers! Looking good!!

**ScottALot** · 09-10-2010, 12:57 PM

Very clean cuts you got there.

**The_Gnu** · 09-11-2010, 01:29 AM

Originally Posted by Zeus

Wowsers! Looking good!!

Thanks

Originally Posted by ScottALot

Very clean cuts you got there.

Thanks..I try my best. I Meassure 2-3 times before cutting to to avoid misshaps, but that still doesn't prevent some misstakes from happening :S

**Lagaaja** · 09-11-2010, 05:47 AM

Insane.

Subscribed.

**ScottALot** · 09-11-2010, 07:45 AM

Originally Posted by The_Gnu

Thanks..I try my best. I Meassure 2-3 times before cutting to to avoid misshaps, but that still doesn't prevent some misstakes from happening :S

Measure twice, cut once!

**The_Gnu** · 09-11-2010, 11:19 AM

Originally Posted by Lagaaja

Insane.

Subscribed.

Nice.. thanks

Originally Posted by ScottALot

Measure twice, cut once!

Ehm..yeah I wish twice was enough

**rocket733** · 09-11-2010, 07:47 PM

Looking nice, keep up the good work

**The_Gnu** · 09-12-2010, 03:52 AM

Originally Posted by rocket733

Looking nice, keep up the good work

Thanks. I'll try

With one of the Hd-blocks almost done, its time to start the work on the next one. This one will be a little bit more of a challenge than the previous one since it will require a lid with a leakproof sealing. The plan is to seal it with a rubber gasket but I've been told that an O-ring seal is better. However using an o-ring on this block would require a total makeover of the block since ther isn't enough room (as you'll see in the pics later). I decided to give the rubber gasket a shot and see if it's possible. If its not.. well I'll have to redo it.

First of I cutt a slot with a 6mm endmill. This is to make things a little bit easier for the final 8mm mill. The slot was made in several steps to get to the desired depth of 10mm.

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Here I've milled the slot again with a 8mm end mill.

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When milling slots that is as wide as the cutter, one of the sides tend to get a nice finish, while the other side gets pretty rough. This is because of the milling direction. To get a nice finish on both sides, I milled it over once again while taking a very small cut about 0,05mm of the rough edge. This left the nice side untouched and smoothed out the rough side. If you look closely you can se the fine line between the rough and smooth surface right on the left of the mill.

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Drilling 2,5mm holes that for the M3 threads

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Again.. my little taping tool to keep the holes at a 90deg angle.

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All M3 threads done. Here you can se that there is almost no space left to fit an O-ring as I mentioned eralier. Lets just hope I can get it sealed enough with the rubber gasket. I'm afraid it might be a bit tricky...but hey. it's worth a shot.

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Here I'm drilling the internal channels for the whater to pass through.

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This shot you better enjoy because I was doing the drilling while taking a picture and it almost messed up the whole part. The drill managed to slip a little bit in the beginning and created some ugly marks by the top of the hole as you can se in the last photo of this post.. I was seriously thinking of redoing the whole part because of that, but I swallowed my pride and perfectionism and decided it will have to do.

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Drilling some mounting holes, similar to the ones on the previous block.

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And there you have it... the two blocks together. I still got the water in/out channels left to drill on both of them.

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Here you can see the drillslip mark I was talking about. Third hole from the top on the left piece....Gaah it hurts to know that it's there.

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**The_Gnu** · 09-23-2010, 10:43 AM

I have been trying to fabricate the top for the HD block. The hardest part was, as expected, to create the rubber gasket and make it able to provide a leakproof seal. I first tried by cutting a gasket from a sheat of rubber but soon abandoned that idea to try the luck with silicone. The silicone was also hard to use since I would need to be able to remove the silicone once set, and that wasn't easy without destroying the silicone. This ended up with a leaking seal and I decided to give another shot at cutting a rubber gasket. The second time it turned out much better and this is the method I'm sticking with at the moment. I still have to hard test it for leeks while applying real pressure since I've only been testing it with the pressure my lungs are able to produce

.

Anyway... Here are the pictures of the last parts for the HD blocks in the making.
Sorry for the crapy quality of the first 4 pictures. I forgot my real camera at home and had to use the "light identifier" also known as "camera" on my nokia 5310.

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I couldn't keep myself from modding the screws just a tiny bit. Gave them a treatment in the lathe to make them a littlebit smaller and give them a more edgy look.

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Had to do some test fitting with some old harddrives. Fits like a glove but dang this thing turned out heavy

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There you have it... the HD blocks are done, (apart from the finishing surface treatment later on). Now it's time to work on the rest of the build.

/GNU

**ScottALot** · 09-23-2010, 11:42 AM

go ahead and watercool the psu while you're at it!

**The_Gnu** · 09-23-2010, 12:07 PM

Originally Posted by ScottALot

go ahead and watercool the psu while you're at it!

Actually, I did some tests regarding that yesterday. Either heatpipe or watercooling was my thoughts but it turns out that one of the heatsinks of the PSU is live (240V). Therefore I think I'll leave the modding of the PSU. But maybe I'll give it a try if I can figure something out or find a PSU without live heatsinks.

Thread: Project: ProtoHype - 23 may

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