--- r e f l e X i o n ---

[ShArKo]

Sweet dude, I'll be overhauling my Cosmos 1000, so I'll post pics when done.

Great!!! Maybe I post some new photos tonight!!!! My cel phone cam isn´t that bad

[Xion X2]

Xion X2

When you finish your work.......I want to see the photos in the Cosmos Thread that I created!!!!

Sure thing.. but... one step at a time. This build is a loooooooooooooooonnnnnngggg way from being finished. I'm a perfectionist in every sense of the word (or at least that's the impression that most get from me) and so am not going to rush things. Before I move onto the next stage, this stage has to be of the kind of quality I expect. In addition to designing custom panels, I'll also be designing a custom pump and drive mount for the inside as well as whatever is needed for pristine cable management. Several projects on the horizon of which this design stage is just one of. So sit back and enjoy the ride because we have a long (but fun) journey ahead of us.

Man, i like them both. I think I am leaning more toward the vertical letter, but I'm torn. The slight writting really does look cool.

I can't wait to see these when done.

Sheesh, it looks like I'm the only one at this point who's leaning toward the slanted font. The idea was to have it portray almost as an additional ring. Anyway.. decision not final on this one, either, at this point.

I'll be working over the weekend to try and finalize the design for both panels and will continue to post renders and look for feedback.

Breaking away from Max for a moment, here are some more hardware pics.

Here comes the RAID BRIGADE:

[Weevil]

Subscribed

Awesome.

[ShArKo]

ey Xion X2 here is the thread http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=229525 from Cosmos and Cosmos S. If you want, check the Cosmos case that are in that thread :p jejeje there's my Cosmos S in there......hope you like it

[W34513]

holy crap that's a lotta ssd's...

[millertime359]

The more i look, the more I think you should do the slanted one. That does look really cool.

[dingdong555]

Those SSD's probably cost more than my hardware! :O

[dro]

side panel ..... front face plate....raid brigade....awesome rendering
this looks like its going to be a mind blowing build to follow
consider me subscribed

[Xion X2]

Subscribed

Awesome.

ey Xion X2 here is the thread http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=229525 from Cosmos and Cosmos S. If you want, check the Cosmos case that are in that thread :p jejeje there's my Cosmos S in there......hope you like it

Ok, I'll have a look.

holy crap that's a lotta ssd's...

The more i look, the more I think you should do the slanted one. That does look really cool.

I'll have some complete renders up tonight of the final design of the panels. They're close to finished.

Those SSD's probably cost more than my hardware! :O

Nah, they're only the 30GB variation. I decided to sacrifice storage for speed in this case. 4 Vertex 30GB in Raid0 are much faster than 2 60GB or 2 120GB because of the extra cache and striping. I won't have need to store a lot on the drives as I'll be using a 1TB external HDD for backup.

side panel ..... front face plate....raid brigade....awesome rendering
this looks like its going to be a mind blowing build to follow
consider me subscribed

Thanks, mate!

Final panel designs to come later on tonight!

[Anemic]

Sweeeet! SSDs is my new favorite pice of hardware =)

[Xion X2]

Final panel designs should be up tonight. I ran into a few issues last night which is why they're still not up.

Just to give you guys an idea, here are some snapshots of the graphic editing in action. While I love the design, the side cut is composed of 315 vertices! I kid you not.. I've been staring at this stuff for so long that last night I had nightmares that I was drowning in a pool of vertices that I was connecting together.



Just the center itself is composed of 37 vertices. Here is a snapshot of all 315 of them in all their eye-squinting glory...



Makes you cross-eyed after a while trying to arrange each one for a perfectly smooth image.

[dualbrain]

+1
Nice project, nice guy, nice worklog

[Armitage]

Thats a lot of SSD's .

I like it so far. I can't wait to see idea > reality

[Xion X2]

+1
Nice project, nice guy, nice worklog

Thanks, Nils!

I like it so far. I can't wait to see idea > reality

Thanks, Armitage. Idea is slowly (pace of snail? sequoia growth rate?) morphing into reality.

Max hasn't wanted to cooperate lately. Okay, maybe it's user error. All I can say is never edit a 2-D object with 300+ vertices in the 3D window. I nearly tossed my renderbox out my 3rd-story window and into the street when I realized my side graphic was too deformed to get a clean cut on the side panel. So I spent about 4 hours tonight fixing it. Agh.

I know I promised completed side panels, but since I had to do some rework tonight I still don't have them. I do, however, have a couple of teasers that are very close to the final versions.

To those wondering when all the cutting/prepping/painting will start, I assure you that it will eventually. But because of the ambitious nature of this project, it's necessary that the design and layout is executed carefully. It'll all make sense later.

[Weevil]

B-i-t-c-h-i-n ^

[Mabyboi]

that side panel looks amazing! great job!

[Xion X2]

B-i-t-c-h-i-n ^

Thanks, Weevil. I agree.. I'm fairly happy with the design at this point. It won't change much. I should have the final side and front panels completed within the next few days.

that side panel looks amazing! great job!

Thanks.

Alright, time for an update. I know some of you are probably growing tired of renders and wondering to yourselves "when is this guy actually going to get his hands dirty?"

Tonight was pretty basic stuff, but I consider this the beginning of the building stage. The plan was to observe the structure and layout of the case and to strip it of much excess weight and bulk before taking measurements for the custom pump and drive mounts. So let's see what we have to work with.

The innards:



And the first thing I noticed, was...



Yuck. Those blue clips just have to go as they take away from the overall sleek look of the case.




Goodbye, Mr. Blue Clip. I hardly knew ye...


I have to say that Mr. Blue Clip looks a lot better lying on my workspace counter.. don't you agree?

Now that those are off, it's time to look inside the drive cage. But wait.. even before I got that far I noticed something that was eventually going to pose a problem.




That mesh cutout just isn't going to work. Notice how it's not lining up with the bottom bay section?


The XSPC RX240 is going to rest there in the bottom bay. I knew I'd be doing some cutting, obviously, to fit the two fan ducts. But what this is going to do is cause a bare, uncovered spot in the floor which I just can't have. One of the major objectives is to keep this build nice and tidy, so it looks as if a custom case floor may be in order. Hmmm.. more on that later.

So looking into the drive cage, once I made it past the initial horror of that awful mesh cut, I saw that it looked pretty clean. There was one resident that had to go, though.

Alright Mr. Drive Cage.. any last words? No? Didn't think so.




Aaah, nice and clean.. that's looking a lot better already. Except for that big ball of yarn/wires. Nils will be helping me out with that later.

Okay, speaking of wires.. I wanted to see how much space I had on hand to hide any excess wiring. I figure at least 20% of this build will rest on wire management as its impact on aesthetics cannot be overstated.



Ok.. I see we have a little bit of room over on the left behind the drive bay. What about to the right...



Yikes, that's not a lot of room to work with. Two positives to think about, though. One - the side panels on the Cosmos are thick and sturdy, so if the wires were sitting flush against the side then the panel probably wouldn't bow much if any at all. And two - there are a number of creative solutions for wiring. It just takes a little planning. More to come on that later, as well.



Well, she's all stripped down and feels like she's lost a good 10 lbs of excess weight and bulk. Now, perhaps, she can glance at herself in the mirror without running from her reflexion.

More to come, so stay tuned.

[Welshman666]

nice one man! once again great photography there!

[Lagaaja]

The custom sidepanel renders look really good, that's something that will work definately on this case

Altough I can't say the same from the frontpanel, it doesn't look as professional as the side does. Plain text is just boring for me, go for some stealthy looks and you'll be fine.

But hey, that's just whar I'm thinkin, keep up the good work!

[dingdong555]

Yet another great chapter!!

[aka_GK]

wow, nice pics
I love how the story line is coming

[Xion X2]

nice one man! once again great photography there!

Thanks, Welshman666. It's nice to see that all the time and effort I've put into photography over the last few months has paid off. I have to credit the guys in the 'Xtreme Photography' forum here for helping me choose a great, yet cost efficient, solution that helps produce studio quality (or close to it) shots. I think it's worked out really well, although I'll probably need a wide angle lens for some of the final build shots.

Yet another thing to spend money on.

The custom sidepanel renders look really good, that's something that will work definately on this case

Although I can't say the same from the frontpanel, it doesn't look as professional as the side does. Plain text is just boring for me, go for some stelthy looks and you'll be fine.

But hey, that's just whar I'm thinkin, keep up the good work!

Thanks for the feedback, Lagaaja.

I don't want to give away too much too early, but what you see in the concept renders doesn't fully represent what the final build will be like. The lettering will not be as simple as just drawn on the panel, if that's what you're thinking. You mentioned a "stealthy" look, so by your words I think you will be impressed with the final product.

Yet another great chapter!!

Thanks, dingdong555!

wow, nice pics
I love how the story line is coming

Thanks, aga_GK.

That's the idea is to document this as a story or a journey, so to speak, as I want everyone to enjoy following with me through the process. A journey to what I hope will be an epic build. 8)

And it doesn't hurt that keeping a worklog keeps my lazy butt off the couch and on a tighter schedule.

Cheers, all.. more to come later.

[shazza]

Loving it, Xion X2. You can do renders for the next month and it won't bother me - I am impressed by the abilities some of you guys have when it comes to visualizing and preparing your renders.

I'm tuned in for the next chapter ... the nice photography and your commentary make this a fun journey.

[Liderc]

Love the concept renders, looking forward to seeing them cut.

[Xion X2]

Loving it, Xion X2. You can do renders for the next month and it won't bother me - I am impressed by the abilities some of you guys have when it comes to visualizing and preparing your renders.

I'm tuned in for the next chapter ... the nice photography and your commentary make this a fun journey.

Very nice, thank you for the kind words, Shazza. I'm glad that you're enjoying the journey thus far. And we're just getting started. Lots of nice surprises in store for later.

Love the concept renders, looking forward to seeing them cut.

Thanks, Liderc. I too look forward to seeing them cut. Just to set the proper expectations, it will probably be a few weeks at least because I am still working on some design aspects of the project that impact the panel design. Once I work those out, she's off to the nearest waterjet I can find.

I'm getting more requests for renders, so those will be coming shortly. For right now, settle for a few more hardware pics?

One of these radiators will be going in the case, the RX240. I bought an RX120 and later decided that it probably wouldn't be enough for the loop I wanted to put together. These pictures turned out so well, though, that I just can't resist posting them even though the 120 doesn't represent a part that will be in the final build. The RX240 will definitely be going in, and I'll need to purchase another 240 to pair it with. One will be installed on the top of the case and one on the bottom. One for each dedicated loop.