Project: Hutch, a Qmicra v2 gets naked...

[craigbru]

Nice placement of the fan controller, looks really clean.

/\ agreed

Thanks guys!

[craigbru]

Believe it or not, finding a location to mount the pump, was one of the most difficult decisions I had to make. I tried multiple locations, but none of them really felt right. It didn't help that the pump location was entirely dependent on where I was going to mount the hard drives. In fact, one of the biggest requirements for modding this case, was that I have room to hold four 3.5" hard drives. While that alone left me several options, not all of them were ideal. I had to be aware of airflow, ease of access, and aesthetics. Much thought was put in to a workable solution, and I'm happy to say that I've found one.

So, where does that leave the pump? Well, this case will only have one optical drive. That left the lower two drive bays empty. This provided the perfect spot to place a pump. In this location it will make for clean routing of the tubing, and thanks to a planned shroud over the center section of the case, invisible as well.

Here is the planned pump mounting location.

Next, I needed to slightly modify the existing slots to match the mounting holes.

All bolted up!

With the mount in place, it's obvious that I need to do a little more modification to provide clearance for the Bitspower fitting.

A little quick work with the dremel.

All mounted!

Up next, the hard drive mounts...

[x88x]

Nice to see another update

Looks good, and seamless, as usual. I love how you always manage to merge your designs with the original in such a way that it almost looks stock laser-cut when you're done. I'm interested what you're gonna do with the HDD mounts, since it looks like right now the hose is gonna be running through two of the original mounts.

+rep because your work deserves far more

[The boy 4rm oz]

Nice work on the pump mount mate, excellent use of space.

[craigbru]

Nice to see another update

Looks good, and seamless, as usual. I love how you always manage to merge your designs with the original in such a way that it almost looks stock laser-cut when you're done. I'm interested what you're gonna do with the HDD mounts, since it looks like right now the hose is gonna be running through two of the original mounts.

+rep because your work deserves far more

Thanks mate! Clean and fairly stock are the goals here! I want the case to be modded, without looking completely modded.

The post covering the hard drives is inbound...

Nice work on the pump mount mate, excellent use of space.

Thanks man. Besides being one of the best spots for a pump, it just works with the layout very well too.

[craigbru]

As I mentioned in my previous post, finding a great spot for the pump and multiple hard drives was a challenge. I manged to get it worked out, and with the pump mounted, I could move on to the hard drive mounts.

There will be room for 4 hard drives total, in two different locations. What you are about to see, are the drives that will be mounted below the center support section in the case.

I decided to use a channel type mount. What you see here is a piece of aluminum channel cut and bent. You'll have to forgive the lack of few pictures here. When I was live streaming this part, I forgot to grab the camera...

In each of the channels, I've placed some rubber 'U' molding. This will act to dampen vibration.

Here are the approximate locations for the channels. Due to the way I wanted to mount these, bolts or rivets wasn't going to cut it. I decided to break out the torch and HTS-2000. The channels were brazed in to place. I was live streaming during this portion as well, hence the lack of in progress pictures.

The braze..

Next up, I needed to make brackets to mount to the hard drives. These brackets will slide in to the channels.

I drilled a few holes, and mounted the drive...

And finally, the drive mounted in place.

Next I'll be working on the remaining two hard drive mounts, as well as a custom shroud to cover the center section of the case. Stay tuned!

[mDust]

You're a pro.

Stay tuned!

You don't have to tell me twice.

[The boy 4rm oz]

Really like the HDD bracket mounting, really well thought out.

[x88x]

Very nice. I like the HDD mounts...I might just have to steal that idea...

[DonT-FeaR]

looks great man! i like it