**** Phinix AURORA ****

[King4x4]

Freaking nice work ;O

Subbed for sure!

[Mr.Guvernment]

watching this one!

[phinix_mike]

Cheers guys!

A little add to the log today.
Last weekend, well, it rained again.... So I did a little work on those support bits.

I'm going to mount them using my old technique - brass inserts in acrylic bits.
I marked spots for drilling on each of them. One little M3 brass insert on top



So I drilled the holes, 14 in total, then pushed all those inserts into the holes...




..and as you guys remember my technique from Phinix Cube project, I used soldering iron to push those inserts into the acrylic.




All done, looks nice, doesn't it?









Cool, they really feel nice in hands, smooth and shiny.

Now, personal moment: just wanted to show what I got for my Name Day from my ladies - nice pair of headphones. Really great, sound is awesome, especially in games - I can hear sounds I never heard before playing on speakers. It is time to re-play all old games now

[felix_w]

Are those inserts special ? I mean, are they like the metal inserts used in laptops for bolting a metal bolt in a plastic part ? Something like helical fins on their outside to ensure they stay in the plastic when you bolt.

[Bill Owen]

the inserts are brilliant, I've noted them

[phinix_mike]

Are those inserts special ? I mean, are they like the metal inserts used in laptops for bolting a metal bolt in a plastic part ? Something like helical fins on their outside to ensure they stay in the plastic when you bolt.

the inserts are brilliant, I've noted them

Thanks guys. Inserts aren't anything special, just simple brass inserts with small fins/notches on outside walls to keep them steady. I use hot soldering iron to push them inside to "bite in" the plastic - as soon as they cool down, they cannot be pulled out, unless you break the acrylic

[phinix_mike]

Despite the horrible weather last weekend, something very nice happened to me
I picked up a nice package from post office - it came straight from Slovenia.
I'm pretty sure you guys know what company has their headquarters there!
Ljubljana - nice city, beautiful girls and best water blocks for all modders!
EKWB guys were so kind and sent me nickel/acetal GTX670 water block for my card + a nice backplate! That is not all! - this month in their production process there will be a nice little white acetal top pushed through and sent to me! Yep, soon I will get a nice white top to match my build!
Here's my new shiny block

[phinix_mike]

Guys, I'm happy to show something new. New as brand new, like first on market new!
Well known from their air cooling solutions company - SCYTHE - kindly sent me their newly announced fan controller Kaze Station II !
That controller is so new, that is not yet even available in shops. I may be the first who got it!
Why I'm so happy to have this controller? Because it has everything that I was looking after - it's small - 3.5", so won't take up whole 5.25" slot, it has 2 USB 3.0 ports, headphones and microphone out sockets and two channels 1A each for controlling fans! That means I will be able to plug two fans to each channel!
My fans are 0.4A each, so I can easily control speeds of two radiator fans from one knob. Second one will be for top and rear fans.
Perfect solution - I was looking for something like that and couldn't find it - there is no other controller like this one on market - small size, USB3.0 and fan controller for 4 fans.
So, here it is:

[Bill Owen]

Thanks guys. Inserts aren't anything special, just simple brass inserts with small fins/notches on outside walls to keep them steady. I use hot soldering iron to push them inside to "bite in" the plastic - as soon as they cool down, they cannot be pulled out, unless you break the acrylic

Ok, thats a good tip to know, Thanks Mike!

[Prozium]

Looking good, and that fan controller is one sweet looking piece of equipment.

[phinix_mike]

Cheers for comments guys!

OK, so today I had a good weather! Yep, sun was shining whole day, so I had to go out and do some work on my little Aurora.

I spent about 4-5 hours, my back hurts, my fingers are swollen, but it was totally worth it

All was set and ready to action right after a breakfast!




I finally got to finish power cage. Before I only showed you guys a mock-up made of all cut out pieces of aluminium and few acrylic stands.
So today I took all those aluminium walls and filed and polished them. I had to trim them a bit too, to fit them evenly with those stands.
Previously I had two tall stands ready with those brass inserts pushed in. I needed to finish up that third one, smallest, which was going to go in the back of the cage.

So I drilled holes in it, pushed those inserts using same technique as before and screwed it to the case.








Using small M3 screws, (all I had left, few are missing on photos, but I'll buy some more later, no worries) I screwed it all together, so after an hour of adjusting the edges and trimming all walls, power cage was ready






Inside the cage, from the back




...little stand looks good and keeps the whole structure very steady.




..and here is cage without top panel, so you can see both tall stands...








Last weekend, when it was raining and I couldn't do anything, I took a trip to B&Q and bought myself a nice 1m long L shape profile aluminum.
I cut it up today to few pieces.
They are not ready yet, they need some more work to be finished, but that I will do next weekend.
Small pieces will be a support for rear motherboard wall and radiator cage.
Those two long ones will be corners for rad cage - between them I'll put a nice mesh. In this part I'm going to mount radiator with fans, so you can imagine how it is all spread around the interior.








I also cut out the front of original interior of the case.
It was necessary cause radiator will stick out a bit to the front later on, when I mount it.
It just a rough cut, so please don't mind those "almost straight" edges




last thing to show are few bits I cut out today too.
First, thin long one, is a fill-up piece for motherboard. What exactly it does? See, my mobo has 244x220mm so it isn't exactly default mATX size - so I made this bit to fill up the gap between mobo and end of the mobo tray. I'll think of later what I'm going to do with this.. maybe a nice logo, or some cut outs to make it look more interesting.. will see..

3 rectangles are aluminum plates that go under each acrylic drive shelf - two for SSDs and one for HDD. These will be mounted under the opal 10mm thick acrylic "beds" and will be a support for LEDs - that I will show later, I'm sure you guys gonna like it I can only say right now that they will be like a "lighting panels" for each drive.
Last piece, big rectangle - is a radiator stand. You can see on those photos some middle lines drew on it - those are the lines where I will bend it. It will simply be a L shape stand for radiator, which will be screwed in to bottom of the case. Other end will be covering a radiator up to the edge of first fan. I hope that makes sense. Well, you will see that next weekend.

Here is all drew up and ready to be cut up




...and here are all cut out pieces, still rough edges, need some more looovin' from my file



Cool. So that is it for now. I hope you guys enjoyed those few photos from today's update.
If weather let me, next weekend I will do some more work on those rough pieces left today.
BUT:eeek: - I also have something that will show you - a pretty big update on that drive cage, so STAY TUNED !!! :thumb:

[Bill Owen]

coming along nice...I love your eye for the small details, Mike...

[UrbanSmooth]

Which ones are those?

[phinix_mike]

coming along nice...I love your eye for the small details, Mike...

Thanks Bill, I'm happy you like it
Lucky I don't have any deadline, so no need to rush with everything and have time to play with all the details
On the other hand, I don't have much time, totally weather dependant here in Glasgow

[phinix_mike]

Denon AH-D1100 - really nice, they sound great - I'm not an audiophile, but best headphones I ever had.

[UrbanSmooth]

Cool, what kind of music do you listen to? Do they have a nice low-end, can you feel the bass? In games, can you feel explosions, gunshots, collisions, etc?

I'm an audiophile and proud owner of Hifiman HE-400 headphones via an ASUS Xonar Essence STX PCIe sound card. Holla at ya boy!

[phinix_mike]

Cool, what kind of music do you listen to? Do they have a nice low-end, can you feel the bass? In games, can you feel explosions, gunshots, collisions, etc?

I'm an audiophile and proud owner of Hifiman HE-400 headphones via an ASUS Xonar Essence STX PCIe sound card. Holla at ya boy!

Well, I only use it on my on-board sound card, but it sounds good.
Low-end, high-middle - I don't know what that means

I hear all the stuff in game which I didn't hear before on speakers. I only played Dishonoured on them and it was awesome, all people walking around, foot steps, noises, all I could hear, brilliant

I listen to heavy metal and classic music. Perfect set
I tried some pop and hip hop music, bass was great at the beginning, now I think it settled a bit, but still hits me when on full volume. I think I'm a bit deaf cause even putting on full on my cell phone (Samsung SII) it isn't that loud...

[UrbanSmooth]

Sounds good, what sound card are you running off?

[phinix_mike]

Sounds good, what sound card are you running off?

Hey man, sorry for a late reply I terrible!
I use on board one - VIA VT2021.

[phinix_mike]

UPDATE

As you can see I'm not dead I was working on something on the side and didn't have time to play with my Aurora. This weekend I had few moments so wanted to do something that will show some colors of my project.

As I showed and did last time I was outside, enjoying good weather (in last few weeks it has been cold and snowing here in Glasgow) I had cut out some rectangles from aluminum. There were going to be support plates for LEDs under drive cage shelves.
So I decided to cut them in half, they were bit too big. Then I drilled holes in them - I wanted to mount them under shelves by screwing them to it.

I marked holes on them...




..then drilled and then matched those holes on acrylic shelves...



Then I drilled holes in acrylic and pushed those brass inserts into the holes.
You can see the pattern there - two 5cm LED strips go in the aluminum plate, then turn over and screw it to the acrylic shelf.




And here's the sandwich
LEDs will be soldered together later.




Now, I had these pieces cut from blue acrylic.
Those are the bits for "drive envelopes" Yes, everything need to have unique names
I needed two 7mm deep/tall envelopes for SSDs and one 9.5mm tall for 2.5" HDD.
Now, those two pieces with lots of holes are for ATX and PCIe cables, I will get back to those later



Big blue piece on goes on white first...
Two small pieces go on each side... small squares will keep drives in place.




Top piece goes on top




Here is a little mock-up of the envelope.




Next two photos is just me playing with colors
I was taking all pieces for a bath.. Time to do some wet sanding on all edges before I start gluing them together...







First gluing long bit... and rest of them, one after another...




Boom.. first envelope ready...






..and glued to the big white piece...










Few good minutes later.. all three shelves ready to go!
Maybe edges don't look perfect, but they're really ok.
I noticed my special acrylic glue become solid for some reason (was waiting in the box for 2 years, so maybe time did its job...). So I had to use super glue, which leaves a bit of bright stains under acrylic bits. But at the end it all looks good I say...




It was time to try out the taller one with some spare HDD...




Fits nicely... good job.. Looks ok. Happy days...:thumb:





That is all for now. Next time I will prepare radiator cage. Time to screw down the big boy and build it up with nice mesh.

Till next time:thumb:

[UrbanSmooth]

Nice update, those SSD holders look...dare I say it...cute.

Hey man, sorry for a late reply I terrible!
I use on board one - VIA VT2021.

Oucn, man, ever thought about getting a real sound card to power your headphones? The difference will be immense! I recommend the HT Omega Claro Halo for a PCI slot, and the ASUS Xonar Essence STX for a PCIe slot.

[Bill Owen]

Love the SSD trays Mike!

[tiborrr]

Mike, I havent forgot about you, check your email! :P

[Bill Owen]

Any new updates Mike?

[phinix_mike]

Hi Bill. I'm afraid nothing for now. After my birthday I got sick- first was flu that expanded to tongue silitis. So I was lying in a bed for 2 weeks. I have plans to do next step - finish drive cage. I did some work on but haven't done any photos to show. Radiator cover is almost done too. Need to find some time on weekend to finish those bits and make a nice update. Slowly this case is getting some new shapes:-)