Pink Waterputer

[CyberDruid]

PC Design Labs QV2E I built for my daughter.

This set is of the Case being prepped and powdercoated.


The case shipped direct from PC Design Laboratories unfinished.








Two things jumped out at me right away. The design and the hideous scratches all over the exterior.


This is a nightmare. Beautiful heavy gauge aluminum scoured with a coarse grinder...why?


Same here...the whole face has deep scratches all over it...


Crikey



Even the back was scoured...wherever the grinder could reach anyway...stupid stuff...

All that would have to be sanded out...what a mess. I asked for a raw aluminum case to powdercoat.


Case stripped for prep


Drilled the switch hole


After sanding


Much sanding


Much more sanding






Fabricated a clamping bracket for the radiator


One day turn around on the coat. Awesome service.








And ready for assembly.

[CyberDruid]

Now while the case was off the bench I tested out the HW.









But the case was ready in no time so it was time to install the gear.


Lots of it





























































Then time to fill and test again

[CyberDruid]

and finally in it's new home.

[dreamaxx]

Rofl, cute :p overkill? yes. Awesome? Hell yes!

[systemviper]

if the kids only knew what kind of race horses they be driving,

very sweet build, as always!

[Shlomo]

Oh man I wish I was that kid...

Too bad she doesn't realize the kind of pure unadulterated awesome that she is using.

[Kibbler]

ooooh jealous of the kid++

I cannot fathom why the surface would be "prepped" like that. I hope that's not common practice??

[exemay]

wow.... that case looks amazing!! i bet your kids are thrilled to bits with it

i love the attention to detail, the paint came up brilliantly considering the awful condition the case was in at the start.....all i could deduce is they where going for a ''brushed'' effect lol

if this case was in another colour id buy one.....very nice job

[Feklar]

I bet that was still fun and rewarding despite the extra sanding. Well done.

[perkam]

Considering what she's using it for, connecting a pink netbook to an LCD would have done the job just fine 0_o

Crazy attention to detail though 0_0 VERY well done

Perkam

[Brad8988]

Lol i was expecting her to be atleast 13 but fair play thats a nice thing to do for her

[matsjuw]

Really cool PC she has, that's one lucky girl lol.
Too bad about the extra sanding that had to be done, but from a distance it didn't really look all that bad, looked a bit hairy chaotic.

Maybe an idea for a case of mine later on.

[3Z3VH]

The pink turned out excellent ! I can't say I am a fan of the silver (fan grills/optical drive/fan controller) with it though. Also, considering the age of the child, is a fan controller even necessary ? I would think her playing with the knobs would become a problem, and she doesn't need it to be a high performance machine anyway. Internally limiting the speed of the fans to be quiet would have been fine.

Also, to those asking about the finish, I assume since it was ordered "unfinished" they not only did not paint it, but they didn't prep it either. It was most likely taken directly out of assembly, and never made it to the "polish and paint" side of their factory.

[matsjuw]

Maybe there aren't any fans attached to the lamptron and it's just there for aesthetics?
Didn't even notice the lamptron anymore, since everybody has a fan controller nowadays :P

[FlawleZ]

Stellar work man! Very impressive!

[bot@xs]

very nice build cyber, make that little girl proud

this picture ...

PRICELESS!!

no doubt it was worth the effort and even thou she probably does not know or understand what she just received, i am sure she appreciates it, if not now then some day.

[NaeKuh]

LOL...

Only if ur daughter knew exactly how hardcore her hardware was compared to the rest of the people her age... :P

[Armitage]

Hah great read.

As I was reading I was like "Hmm, wonder why he didn't pain the DVD Drive bezel". Then I saw your daughter and was like. OH, I had the complete wrong idea of how old she would be haha.

Awesome build.

Also: Do you think those scratches where on purpose? For looks. Seems like they were.

[rjkoneill]

greatest parent in the world tbh

[Rise]

hah, looks like someone is fishing for the world's greatest dad award

nice work CD

[CyberDruid]

About the scratches. The mesh insert in the front is welded into place by a total madman using way too much stick and too much heat. It warps the front panel. David (the go to guy at PCD) said he works over the front panel with a deadblow hammer and then the guys hit it all over with that goddam 36 grit angle grinder. Why? Hell if I know. There's no reason at all for there to be any grinding on the case except perhaps on the warped edges and that would be better addressed with an airfile. I don't buy the "hasn't made it to the paint and polish side yet" argument...it's just poor process control with guys doing stuff that actually detracts from the product. The amount of work those scratches create for any painter, factory or aftermarket, is obscene.

The front mesh could be welded with the tiniest of wire-feed welding...a few tacks is all it gets anyway...that would keep the front panel from freaking out and then save everyone the hassle of dealing with the mess the production line makes of it trying to hide that one problem spot.

Another thing I really could not quite understand about the layout is the huge amount of wasted space in the lower front of the case. That's where I would think a dual HDD rack would mount. But it's exactly too small to slip one in there...a dimension. Nor can it accomodate 120mm fans...it seems like a front mounted radiator would be the ticket. Or in lieu of that at least the option to mount a couple of drives on the floor of the case. I would think a slight increase in the overall dimensions is required.

The Side mounted HDD caddies are nifty but if you want to mount a fan or a rad you can't use them...again a little weird.

Another thing I would hope to see PCD add is a radiator mount. It makes no sense to mount the rad to the removable cover...that would make plumbing a nightmare. It didn't take much for me to fab up a rad mount for the chassis...but honestly why isn't it already there? The previous version did have a mount...but I don't think it worked all that well.

For about $300 shipped a case should not have so many problematic features. But I was always interested in the little "hutch" so I went for it. It's far from a perfect solution though.

[Armitage]

Ouch 300$ for it?

Now I understand your pain.

[LogAn'sRun]

great build, loved it!

[Kaldor]

Very nice build. Awesome overkill. Been thinking something similar using a Zotac ITX board for my 5yo son.

[voigts]

$300 for a case with those flaws is too much. It should have looked much better than that out of the box.

that being said, very nice themed build. The work of a true perfectionist.

When I started making wood cases for myself, my daughter got me to build one for her. She was in 4th grade at the time (now going into the 7th), and she had me bring the case in to show off to all of her classmates. The case I built her doesn't look anywhere near as slick as the one you built, but do you think she cares? No. What she remembers is that I made it for HER. Those thank you hugs are priceless!