PROJECT: The Cube (101)

[theshoeshineman]

http://img361.imageshack.us/img361/8466/cubeqf3.gif

Hi,
Welcome to my first mod project! As I am climbing a steep learning curve this project will undoubtedly change over time. However in the meantime I have modified this message to list the material and tools I have been useing as I believe this will be very useful.

Description
This is an aluminium case made into a cube shape with the rough dimensions of 270x270x270mm.

Please note this list is ever growing!!

Case Material
1 x 900 x 900mm sheet of aluminium
4 x 1400mm x 12mm x12mm L shaped angle bars
1 x 1000mm x 10mm U shaped bar
4 x Soft rubber feet (from Antec 3480 case)
1 x motherboard tray (from Antec 3480 case)
1 x back panel (from Antec 3480 case)
1 x Front port usb and audio connectors (from Antec 3480 case)
1 x Box of 100 Rivets
1 x Hard Drive Holder

Case Items
1 x Pioneer Slim DVD Drive
1 x 120mm 3 speed fan (from Antec 3480 case)
1 x 380watt Antec power supply (from Antec 3480 case)
2 x Red/Black Sata data cables
1 x Motherboard (ASUS P5KPL-CM)
1 x Intel Dual Core E5200
1 x DDR800 2gig Kingston

Still To Get
* Switches (undecided)
* Hard drive (I have a few laying about just not picked it out yet)
* LED's (I have purchesed RGB LED's but may just use Red Led's).

Tools Used
* Jig Saw (used a fair bit)
* Hack Saw (used a fair bit)
* Files (used a fair bit)
* Drill (used a fair bit)

The case will fit the micro-ATX format motherboard. The power supply and hard drive bay will also be standard size; however I will be installing a slimline notebook dvd burner as there is NO chance of fitting a full size one in there nicely.

http://img78.imageshack.us/img78/4282/thecubejz8.jpg

The front of the case will have 2 x USB, firewire and a mic/speaker port. There will also be a 120mm fan taking in air. I was hoping to put a 120mm fan at the back however I can't fit it in so I'm rekuctantly settling for a 80mm. The red line you can see going around the case is in actual fact a 1cm groove.

As I'm going up a steep learning curve this project could change quite significantly along the way possibly involving things such as anodizing, back lighting and penguins. But I guess we will have to wait and see!

[theshoeshineman]

Chapter 1:

Logically, on paper, I could get my head around the design pretty well. Unfortunately I couldn't figure out how the back panel and motherboard tray was going to fit into the picture and how it would restrict me in terms of space within the computer.

I found 3 old computers but they were all pretty much useless for scrapping parts off of so I looked into purchasing a motherboard tray for my project. Forums suggested a lan-li one however getting it locally was pretty much impossible and it was going to cost me a bit anyway which is when I spotted the Antec 3480 case.
http://www.productwiki.com/upload/images/antec_nsk3480-150-150.jpg
This case isn't too bad looking and could look quite sexy with a touch of modding however my heart (ok mainly my head) was set on building my own so I went and bought it.

This wasn't just a willy-nilly buy! I did infact research into the case to see what exactly I could get out of it and try to get my moneys worth.
http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/2811/dsc5867hh8.jpg
Overall I was pretty pleased with my haul which includes:

1 x 380w Power Supply
1 x Back Plate
1 x Motherboard tray
3 x Good quality reusable ties
2 x Hard drive mounts
1 x 120mm, 3 speed fan
4 x low profile soft rubber feet
1 x CPU air-intake (not usable for this project)
1 x Power and hard drive lights
1 x 120mm fan grill
2 x 80mm fan grills


The case was very easy to dismantle, the only disapointing fact was that the front panel consists of 4 different layers!!! With the switches and lights all on different layers and were all pretty much glued in making the switches themselves non usable for my case! Ohwell.

One plesant supprise is that while the motherboard tray was riveted in. It can easily be modified and made into a removable tray which is not what I originally intended or thought I would be able to easily do.

This is half my bits and pieces taken care of!

[theshoeshineman]

Chapter 2:

I currently live in a small 2 bedroom unit. Luckally there are carports dividing all the units which means I can make a bit more noise than if I lived in attached apartments. I did start off using a jigsaw but I found doing it with a hack saw to be quieter and easier! This workbench is brilliant and I got it half price too!! WOOWOO!

Mum's look away NOW!!

http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/4851/dsc5869xh0.jpg

I've started on the all important frame. At the moment it is stuck together with double sided tape and I still need to file them down exactly to size. I can then drill out some holes and screw it all together (it will eventually be riveted).

http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/7474/dsc5874fc0.jpg

After this is done then I'll be working on how to implement the removable motherboard tray. While for obvious reasons it's not going to be fixed, I need to know exactly where this is going to sit so I can start doing the back panel.

[DonT-FeaR]

cool... this is gunna be sweet i hope... loving the design

[The boy 4rm oz]

I told ya I would check out ya mod ;). I really love the design, very original and unusual. I can't wait to see how this turns out. +rep

*EDIT*
After some thought I think it would look best, everyone does black and red, why not white and red. Great contrast and IMO the cube would look better white.

[DonT-FeaR]

yea i agree but its already painted

[The boy 4rm oz]

yea i agree but its already painted

Already painted???

[mittelmeier]

Really great idea for a build. I'm looking forward to seeing this one. I think it would look better white and red but if it's already painted that's a lot of extra work.

[DonT-FeaR]

lol?? i was thinking bout the renders :) i really am a giddy goat... lol it crowd ftw

[theshoeshineman]

Chapter 3: The big booboo!

First of all thanks for the comments :) Very much appreciated! I also agree, the white case would look great infact probably better! My original design was actually white, the only thing is that I have a scanner, printer, monitor, wacom tablet, external hard drive keyboard and mouse that are all black/grey and I don't really want to "mod" all them. The only thing white actually is my Boston Acoustic speakers... and well they are more that offwhite bone colour.

Now... onto my stuffup!

Basically when working out what dimensions to cut the rods for the frame I took into account the thickness of the aluminium which added upto 6mm on each side.

Being my first mod, I erred onto the side of caution and only deducted 2mm thinking I could always file down the extra 4. (that was a week ago)

Today before drilling the holes I re-checked the dimensions with the ones I wrote down and they were bang on! YAY! So I drilled all the holes and put it together with screws... not so perfect but good enough. I then unscrewed it all and riveted everything together.

I then went to add the U shaped groove onto the front of the frame however it was 4mm too short! I then realised that the dimensions I double checked everything with were my "err on the side of caution" measurements and not the proper lengths that they should have been resulting in my frame being 4mm too big on pretty much all sides!!

I have a few options:

1) Just increase the dimensions of the panels by 4mm as I havn't cut them yet. I will just have to go out and buy another aluminium U channel to redo the front section with but it will give me a bit more space inside to play. Probably the easiest option but my case is going to be larger than planed. (set me back half a day)

2) I drill out the rivets and file everything down to the correct size. (4mm off the end). This will also mean that I will have to redrill some of the holes which will undoubtidly touch the other holes and look really messy. A bit more difficult than option 1, but it will get everything back to my original blueprint. (set me back a day)

3) Go out and buy some more aluminium and give it all another go. This will cost me the most amount of cash and will take me pretty much back to the start but should give me the best end result. (set me back 3 days)

Hmmm decisions decisions

[DonT-FeaR]

more space is always welcome in mods... trust me... option 1 i would say..

[The boy 4rm oz]

Go with option 1. There are always unseen issues while modding. Just make the panels slightly larger than they have to be. I always make everything a few mm bigger than I should, just to be safe.

[theshoeshineman]

Chapter 4:

I have decided to choose option 1 (as suggested) unfortunately I havn't made much progress past couple of days. However I have made a professional molex removal tool simply by removing the guts out of a crappy pen.

http://img354.imageshack.us/img354/7729/image007uy0.jpg

I then put some heatshrink over a sata power cable. Those sata power connectors are a b***h! Almost impossible to seperate without breaking the tiny little tabs on the side.

I tested the heatshrink on a couple of cables. One I heated with a heatgun, the other left as is. I actually like it better when I don't use heat on the heatshrink.

I think I'll wait til I have the case done before I work on tidying up the power supply cables.

I wanted to use black heatshrink and red connectors, only I can't find red sata power connectors so I might do it the other way around (red heatsrhink & black connectors) as I have a heap of red sata data cables.

[DonT-FeaR]

oh nice idea :) this will look sweet

[The boy 4rm oz]

I tried the pen trick once but all the pens I had were to big lol. I gave in and got a $5 molex pin pusher, says it only works on male pins but you can get it to work on both.

[theshoeshineman]

Chapter 5:

I used one of the sides of the Antec case that I destroyed to cut out the bottom as it has a grill cut into it which will make a nice vent.

I also chopped down the Antec motherboard tray to fit into the case.

Both of these pieces seemed to be made of steel and I used the default blade that came with the jigsaw and I'll tell you now... I STRUGGLED!

I havn't finished with these pieces but I'm leaving them for now until I am 100% sure where I want everything to sit.

So I have moved onto drawing out and cutting the sides! I must say I was quite scared to do this as I struggled a lot so far to do 5 basic cuts!

http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/1870/drawsidesvu1.jpg

This time I went out and bought some blades specifically for cutting aluminium. I am lucky I did as when I got back I noticed one of the teeth on the existing blade had broken off.

I procded to cut the sides. I'm not sure if it was the fact that I was now cutting aluminium and not steel or if it was the fact that I had the correct blade but it was like slicing through butter and I had far greater control over the jigsaw making my cuts far more accurate!

http://img238.imageshack.us/img238/6940/sidesin6.jpg

My difficulty now is bending the tabs. While I have been able to make a basic break with my bench to bend some of the sides I can't seem to bend the others as they are all getting in the way of each other!

Not sure what to do hmmm....

Note: YES! I do realise I should have filed down the sides first and probably cut out the switch holes and fan hole before bending it all!! But I'm very impatient to see results and it made for a better photo :P

[The boy 4rm oz]

It's looking good but yeah you probably should have cut/drilled the holes before making the bends lol ;).

[DonT-FeaR]

looks pretty sweet nice work man.. keep it up

[theshoeshineman]

Chapter 6
http://img369.imageshack.us/img369/605/dsc5881wu6.jpg

I went out and purchased a smaller PSU. While the bigger one would have fitted I want as much space inside the case just incase I want to add other things such as graphics cards or water cooling.

http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/7872/21464070ts7.jpg

Here is the mounting I done for it. Thanks to the people who reasured me that this support would be enough as it worked great! :banana:

[theshoeshineman]

Chapter 7

Here is the motherboard and PSU mounted onto the back panel.

http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/9603/dsc5884es0.jpg

In the next two pictures I have mounted it inside the frame. You can also see the support for the psu as mentioned in the last post

http://img361.imageshack.us/img361/6696/dsc5886qz5.jpg

http://img244.imageshack.us/img244/1371/dsc5889tb9.jpg

Here is the back panel. I cut out holes for the motherboard and the PSU. There is room for a 80 or 90mm fan but I will leave it for now as I will not be overclocking this PC. (In my opinion the less fans the better)

http://img56.imageshack.us/img56/3738/dsc5893ja7.jpg

Here is a dry run testing all the equipment. At the moment I am having trouble with the slot load notebook dvd drive but other than that it is working fine.

http://img56.imageshack.us/img56/5261/dsc5895ox3.jpg

You can also see in the picture above the lower half of the side panels on the case. I have drilled a 19mm hole at the front for a power switch and I need to work out how to best attach this panel to the frame.

The top half still needs quite a bit of work as I need to mount the dvd drive and front usb/audio ports onto it.

[The boy 4rm oz]

Coming together really well mate. Sorry to hear you are having some problems with the slot load drive. I hope you can fix it.

[theshoeshineman]

At first I thought I must need an OS installed before I could get it to work. So I attached a full sized IDE drive and installed windows but it still isn't working :(

I can't find any similar issues when googling either (will eject but won't load)

Worse case scenario is that it is the notebook to SATA converter which would need to be sent back interstate and were talking a good 3 week turn around.

If it's the dvd drive itself it's not so bad as thats just down the street from my work.

Unfortunately I don't have a laptop or any means by which to test what is going on (or not going on for that matter).

I might take both in to where I got the notebook slot dvd drive and get them to test it with a different drive and if it does the same thing then I know it's the notebook to sata converter.

For now I'm just taking out my frustration on some bubble wrap *pop* *pop* *pop*

[The boy 4rm oz]

Do you have a spare PC you can try it on or try a mates?

[theshoeshineman]

Yeah I have a spare PC, but I don't have a spare notebook dvd drive.

The fact that the unit is getting power and it is telling the computer what it is says to me it is very unlikely to be the notebook to sata converter. So I'll just take the player back on Monday and get it swapped over.

[The boy 4rm oz]

Yeah it does sound like the converter. Unless there are some drivers you need to install?

[theshoeshineman]

Well I just took the DVD drive back and had it tested and it's working fine. So that just leaves the Notebook to SATA converter from Darkwire.

They are located in Melbourne so hopefully the delay won't be too lengthy (being that time of year and all)

[EvilNeverDies]

My slot loading drive had a bad converter first time round that shorted on the drive itself and started a small fire :eek:

[theshoeshineman]

Chapter 8

Well it's time to get back to work after a nice break down at the Grampians in Vic. Here are a couple of the photos I took.

http://img61.imageshack.us/img61/3199/dsc6935gr6.jpg http://img107.imageshack.us/img107/3996/dsc7563kg9.jpg
http://img103.imageshack.us/img103/2640/dsc6949jz5.jpg http://img107.imageshack.us/img107/2426/dsc7164wd9.jpg

Before the holidays I sent back my faulty notebook to SATA converter back to Darkwire. About a week later I sent them an email asking what as happening and they said they had given me a refund as soon as they got it so I told them that I still needed one and if they could clarify if it was a faulty converter as I would buy another. Otherwise it just didn't work with the pioneer slot DVD drives.

I checked my email after the holidays and I had no reply so I've ordered one from overseas for the same price. I have also ordered a switch and a rubber fan noise dampener and I think something else too hmm that will be my surprise I guess.

I took a look at grills for the front of my case as I want to keep it very clean and tidy. There were a couple that were ok but I couldn't find anything slim line and sleek looking so I decided when I cut out the hole I'll cut out my own grill.

This is the design I will be using, it's nothing fancy, pretty much your typical blade style grill. The shaded in areas will be the areas cut out.
http://img65.imageshack.us/img65/6797/dsc8037tq6.jpg
The first two holes shouldn't be too hard to do, even with a jig saw. I am a bit worried however doing the last hole as the aluminium is very flexable when it's that thin and I'm a bit worried that if I don't put enough presure on it when cutting the cut will be quite messy. But if I put too much preasure then I will crease the aluminium.

[The boy 4rm oz]

The Grampians is a very nice part of Australia, I have been there myself once.

Cool fan grill design.

[theshoeshineman]

Chapter 10

Ok so I've had a couple of hours to work on it... Here are some of my latest pics. Basically I've roughly cut out the holes for the front to use as a guide as I need to cut into the frame so I can mount the drives.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3297/3198991622_24942a7037.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3105/3198145037_8fcf8b769a.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3414/3198992010_fd2663d890.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3266/3198145165_37e95d61a2.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3308/3198145231_6e1dbc4586.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3396/3198145311_e537b93a7d.jpg

Still unsure how to best mount the top so it looks neat.

[The boy 4rm oz]

That's looking quite good mate, keep it up.

[Kumo]

The edge between top and bottom , will be lighted?

[theshoeshineman]

The slot/groove that goes around the case will bit lit up with red LED's (3 or 4 on each side).

I will probably attach a small dial somewhere so I can adjust how much the groove glows.

[Fuganater]

Lookin' good. /sub

[theshoeshineman]

Chapter 11 : Gratuitous Alien Nudity

Havn't progressed much but I have now pretty much got everything to finish of the case to a point where I can pretty much call it finished.

Even though I want to add lighting and paint the case I'll probably leave that for another time.

I'm still not sure how to mount the fan onto the fron't as I would rather not have 4 screws pokeing out the front. This means adding some sort of mount inside which shouldn't be to hard but could be a bit fiddly and I want it to be stable and not add any noise vibration!

The generic brand illuminated vandal proof switch

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3088/3215228720_b7cf2825a4.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/the_shoeshine_man/3215228720/)

We all love Gratuitous Alien Nudity

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3321/3215228834_edf5d2585a.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/the_shoeshine_man/3215228834/)

You will be pleased to know that the DVD drive is now working!

Steel knead it (Bog)

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3432/3215228928_f328a6e094.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/the_shoeshine_man/3215228928/)

I'll use this to fill any imperfections, dents, poor-cuts, scratches etc.

The steel knead it was a few dollars more than the general purpouse one but it was silver, the same colour as the case. I didn't care that it was stronger as it makes no difference in this application but I thought having it silver might be useful as I won't be painting it straight away.

[The boy 4rm oz]

It turned out pretty well. I can't wait to see it painted.

[theshoeshineman]

Well still got to mount the fan, dvd drive, hard drive and front ports before I can say it's done. But I just need to find the time to do that.

Oh yeah and make a top for it.

[DonT-FeaR]

wow thats really cool

[theshoeshineman]

Ok so I havn't done any updates for a while but thats not to say I haven't been working on the case either. Well ok that would be more or less true but it still is an active project of mine.

Since my last post I have pretty much mounted the DVD drive. Except it doesn't look as nice as what I'd like.

I've attached the floor of the case and put on little rubber feet.

Yesterday I found out that my supplier at work actually has el-wire. So i decided to get a pack to light up the groove in my case and it arrived this morning.

Apart from a REALLY REALLY ANNOYING high pitch tone comeing out from the inverter it looks great. Not sure what to do about that high pitch sound though. Might have to invest in some sound dampening material to cover the inverter??

http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/3121/dsc9002w.jpg
(excuse the bad photo)

I have also been looking for a nice square laser cut grill for my fan on the front. The jigsawed one I did just doesn't have a very nice finish. The trouble is I've been struggling to find one in Australia that will suit this case. I don't want skulls, pentagrams or game logos. I just want a nice one like this one at gammods (which is sold out :( :( :( )
http://www.gammods.com.au/store/images/mnpctech/BilletgrillWb2.gif

[The boy 4rm oz]

Yeah GAM Mods is the only stockist of "more mature" modding products in Australia, every other place sells the blingy ricer styled modding parts. Get in contact with Greig at GAM Mods, he is a really nice guy, helped me out a lot with my radiator. He ordered it in for me then shipped it out to me before he received payment.