Dark Carbon

[rendermandan]

Bob, no worries. The fans are red led fans and the paint I'm using requires the surface that your painting to be shiny like aluminum or chrome. Its semi-transparent. But, tonight I painted part of the fan as you will see later in this update.

So some more bracket work. Here is a corner bracket to tie the front panel into the interior panels.

After these cured, I added a few bolts, and man that really stiffened things up!

I also started to epoxy on the corner brackets I made a few days ago. these will also give me a way to attach the top panel.

This shot shows how I had to trim the interior panel to make room for the bracket. You can also see how I scuffed up the surface of the CF Panel to give the epoxy something to bite.

next I worked on building the 120mm intake fan cover. Its similar to the exhaust fan cover, only bigger.

I also cut some modders mesh and painted it to dress up the interior. There will be the same on the exterior, but that will come much later.

I also had to thin down the rear exhaust fan some more to make room for 2 layers of modders mesh. One on each side of the fan.

I then painted the ugly sticker on the fan since it will be exposed to the back.
so I painted it black.

While I was at it, I painted the 120mm fan as well.

Then I simply glued it and clamped it in place.

I spend a little time cutting out the vents on the 3 panel sides. One of them has a rectangle to make room for a hot swappable hard drive bay. I went through 7 scroll saw blades to cut these 3 holes. Man CF is tough!!!

Here it is mocked up.

I also did a small amount of work on the electronics.
Here is the usb panel for the front. Notice it has 90deg. pins. well those will get in the way of the PSU, so I have to remove them and resolder straight pins on.

I also removed an power plug from an old PSU so I can mount it in the back panel.

Lastly I cut some more brackets for the 3 sides and glued them in place. Clamped them together and set them aside to cure. -But I forgot to take a pic.

Thats about all I got done this weekend.


I know this is all pretty repetitive right now. But when your building a case from scratch, and there are 8 sides to it, it tends to get repetitive...
Tomorrow I should be able to get the 3 remaining sides mounted to the case.

Later!

[rendermandan]

Thanks to everyone for their support on this!!!


Small update. I got the side panels mounted.

Here you can see all the clamps I used to hold everything together.

And here is a shot of the bottom brackets.

I decided to check the fit of the top panel with the shape of the octagon.
It came out pretty good. with the exception of a few sides that I had to make frome that sligtly thicker CF that I ordered.

The thicker sides also caused a few joints to not align perfectly.
YOu can see how the thickness makes the one panel stick out form the other on in these shots.

I'll have to figure some way to clean these up.

Now that the sides are done, I can proced to mount the top panel. cut and mount the bottom panel. I still have a lot of work to do on the side panels cutting holes for the radiator exhaust, holes for the Raptor Hard drives. etc.

FUN, FUN!!!

[rendermandan]

lol

Wow, give me a chance... LOL

Here you go.

Here is what came via Mr. Brown today!

I did some test fitting of the parts today. Looks like my radiator is a lot thicker than orginally planned. here is a shot showing one fan installed and where it will go. The case is standing on the side for easy of fitting.

And this shot shows how the inlet and outlet extend down into the bottom chamber of the case. So you won't see these tubes.

Those pictures only had one fan installed to see if it would fit. But I plan on using 2 fans.

You can kind of see where the hole is for the radiator that I planned for. It need be be a lot deeper.

I also mounted the rear fan.

Back of the case.

I made a few very small brackets to mount the side intake fan too.

You can barely see the brackets at the top inside of the fan case. They are mostly covered with the clamp.

I also needed to cut a small corner out of the back panel to allow for the hard drive swap bay. I decided to try a different method than using the scroll saw. the CF dulls the blades way too fast. so I decided to try some Diamond coated cutoff wheels! -Cut like a hot knife through butter!!!

Here is the small corner I cut out.

And here you can see the drive bay and why I had to cut the small corner out.

Bottom of the case.

I also took a shot with the drive removed. So you can see the drive cage.

Well, thats it for tonight.

[rendermandan]

:O wow man very nice..

i might get one of those dimond discs for my dremel but i heard the snap well shatter.... if you apply the wrong angle...

Well, I've only used it for a few cut so far with no trouble. I know the fiber disks willl shatter if you bend them but these have a metal disk for the base material so I don't know what will happen if they break. The packet came with 5 disk and the shaft for $3.00 from Harbor Freight. So they were really cheap. Here is the link http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=31501

[rendermandan]

Hey guys, Thanks again to everyone for their comments.


Here's my weekend update.

Last time I left you, I got the hot swappable hard drive in place, but not mounted. Well, I bent a few angles for some mounts. And this is the result.

I was able to get only one on this side. it will have to do.

I also made the opening for the radiator a little deeper. So now it fits!

I also started to work on the CF panel that will support the dvd and PSU.

This is how it will sit in the case.

I cut out the hole for the PSU to vent properly.

Then like the others, I made some aluminum mounts.

Here you can see the PSU in place.

Which brings me to this question. Do you think OCZ was planning on people mounting this PSU in a different room than the computer. Look at how long the wires are. HOLY COW!!! This is to say nothing about the number of wires. They are just way too long!

Lastly I started on the bottom of the case. I used a piece of 1/4" black plexi. and before anyone says anything, I know its not CF. I could not justify spending that kind of money on a piece that will never be seen. Its the bottom of the case!

A few chops later.

Then I simply marked and cut a hole for the PSU intake fan.

The last thing I did was make some brackets at each corner for the bottom to mount to.

thats it for now.

[rendermandan]

Sorry guys, I took a few days off to spend some time with the family for the holiday. Hope everyone else had a great Thanksgiving. (Those of you that celebrate it, that is.)

Here is a small update for you.

I got the bottom of the case mounted after drilling some holes and tapping them for some more cap head screws. -Man I'm using a lot of them.

I also took the side off the case that the radiator will vent though and cut the hole for the fan.

I also cut a piece of CF for the dvd mount on the other side. I still have to mount it though.

I then took a break from the case and decided to work on the feet for a little while. I started buy using a 2" dia. hole saw.

I cut out 8 blanks out of 1/4"t. black and 1/8"t. Flor. red plexi.

Here is a shot to compare the size between the bottom feet and the CF tubes I bought a long time ago.

I made a makeshift lathe out of a drill and some clamps and a block of wood for the tool rest. Not bad!

I rounded over the top corner.

Then while the piece was still in the chuck, I did some polishing.

here is the red plexi. I Beveled its edge.

Then I drilled the center hole out larger to make room for the bolt head.

All 8 of them. glued up.

This is what they look liked stacked together.

Then I hot glued some red led's onto the red plexi.

Added the CF tube.

And a resistor and soldered it up.

And here is the result. Not bad but not perfect. I wanted the red ring to glow evenly. Instead you can see through it too much. It looks kinda spotty. Keep in mind the red is not polished. It is sanded to give it a "Frosted" look. So I'm not sure what else I can do.

There will be 8 of these total for the feet of the case. I still have to build the others, but I want to make sure I get the glow right before I do the others.

Thats it for now.

[rendermandan]

Well, I thought about the el wire idea. I used it in Motorized Madness and after a while the High pitch whine that came from the 3 transformers was driving me batty, so I switched them off. Plus the el wire isn't as bright as I wanted. trust me, I have something cooked up for the lighting in this case.

And I'm glad that everyone liked the feet. However I did make a small change.
I remade the bottom of the case feet. -Yes Another 8 round blanks out of black and red plexi. But this time I didn't glue them together. I noticed on the one that I had glued that as soon as the two pieces were fused together, the red stopped "Glowing" having no air between the two pieces caused all the light to be absorbed by the black and having small bubbles in the glue is what was causing the "Spotty" look.

So after remaking the pieces and only gluing the very inside edge. (still strong enough!) I gave another one a test. And this is the result.

Before:

After:

I think everyone will agree. this is a much more uniform glow. It does have some hot spots, but its better than the first round.

Here is a bunch of them all wired up.

Here is what they look like on the bottom panel.

I also spend a little time today building the cover to go over the radiator and fans.

I would have gotten more done but I had to wait for some epoxy to dry.

Later.

[rendermandan]

look awsome... nice work... what voltage does each one run at??? i must of missed it

They all run at 12v. I used a 220 ohm resistor for 3 led's in each foot.

love those feet, look much better second time round

Just wondering tho, is it essential to glue them at all? could you not just drill the hole to the right size for the bolt and alow that to hold them in place like you want? just an idea, feel free to shoot it down in flames if you like :lol:

How dare you suggest that. LOL> Just kidding.

Actually I used only a slight amount of glue on the inside where the bolt hole is at that way it didn't wick out to the outside edge. I had to use some type of glue because the bolt head pulls against the red plexi, not the black. The hole in the black is large enough to fit around the bolt head. If the bolt head were to pull against the black, then it would stick out of the bottom of the foot. This way it is recessed inside the foot.

-I'm going to add some felt pads to the bottom to cover the bolt heads and so the feet don't scratch the table. Plus they make good vibration isolation.

Thanks though.

[rendermandan]

Ok, another update to keep you guys satisfied... LOL

In my last post, I was showing the radiator/fan assembly cover. Well, here it is finished and mounted. I added some modders mesh to match the intake fan on the other side. and the exhaust fan. I'll be using alot of that later on, on the bottom.

I also got all the case feet mounted and wired up.

here is a shot with the bottom mounted to the case.

This is the underside of the bottom. -Does that make sense?

Here is a shot with the flash on. The red glow is so bright you can still see it over the flash on the rear feet!

And here they are all lit up. -again, the board is upside down. I had to pull some power from Motorized Madness to test the lights. I destroyed my test psu for parts. Also, the color looks a little orange in the pictures, but trust me, they are a deep red color, just like I wanted!

Lastly I worked on the DVD mount. here are the two panels. You can see I cut slots in the panels so I can adjust the depth as needed if I ever change out equipment.

I set the lcd panel inplace just for fun.

Thats it for tonight.

[rendermandan]

Thanks again guys! It really is encouraging to see that so many people like the build.

I checked out the lcd display, and yes it is red. I need to come up with some custom logo or text though.