Project: Rapture

[tk421storm]

http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/1300/rapturej.jpg

Hey all,

I'm (probably foolishly) embarking on my first mod project, and it's a doozy. I want something steampunk, but with the art-deco stylings of Bioshock. I love the art-deco designs, and the homebuilt feeling of all the techs in that game, and it seems like a great way to learn everything I can about it all...

...or to fail miserably...

Anyway, an ulterior motive for this whole plan is to find a fun, interesting way for my dad to pass on his fantastic handyman skills to me. He's done it all at one point or another, and though he will have a lot to learn (or re-learn) about electricity, plumbing and metalworking, we're both perfectionists and we relish a good challenge.

I'm not really sure where to start! I've been collecting parts and pieces, should I post images of the parts or start with a rough diagram/design? The design is maleable based on the quality of the parts and any ideas I come across.

Anyway, any advice/ideas/links for any similar projects would be greatly appreciated!

-Mike

[Luke122]

Welcome to TBCS!

You'll find a huge assortment of Bioshock junkies here, and steampunk addicts alike. :) I think it's a great idea to make a mod a "father/son" project; you can learn from him while using those new skills to do something you love, and he gets to pass on his knowledge to you!

*Edit* I should also add that we love pictures, even if they are just sketches of ideas, so feel free to post lots!

[tk421storm]

Oh god, it's so embarrassing to draw things free-hand... especially when I make my living as a graphic designer..... (I swear I am not a 12 year old :)

Anyway, I wanted to throw this up while I still have access to the work scanner, though my chicken scratch handwriting may be illegible. I'll throw up some pictures of the elements I've got at home later tonight/tomorrow so you can get a better idea for the materials and aesthetics.

http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/7766/schematic.jpg

[jdbnsn]

Welcome to TBCS! We do indeed love to see father and son projects and have had a few in the past. Those sketches are perfectly fine for the info you are trying to relay, don't worry about perfection in your concept drawings.

[Mach]

Welcome and congrats on the great idea! I'm a sucker for a steampunk mod so I'll be interested in seeing more. As jdbnsn said, don't worry about perfection at the concept phase...later though, we'll be watching ;)

[Drum Thumper]

Welcome aboard! I too am a sucker for the steampunk (even though you couldn't tell it by my mods). I'm watchin this one...

[DonT-FeaR]

/\ same... setting up camp.... marshmellows anyone...

[tk421storm]

I have a couple of questions for the experts:

1) Does it make sense to start from a regular case and mod it from there? If I were braver (and more experienced) I think I would get better results building it from scratch, but I feel like the added headache of trying to fit everything to ATX specs + the mounts for the components might make it pretty difficult.

2) This project'll be water cooled (partly because of the added heat there will be from the wood/metal paneling, and partly DUH it's steampunk :glasses:), and I want to use both the regular stock water cooling materials for the inside (plastic-based) and some copper piping/flourishes for the outside. I read somewhere deep on the interwebs that mixing materals is a no-no - is that true?

3) Can anyone point me to a good metal cutting/bending tutorial?

Thanks so much for the encouragement everyone :)

[Luke122]

1. Yes and no.. you might have the best luck with using a motherboard tray from a standard case, and then building the rest yourself, but it really comes down to what method you are most comfortable with.

2. Mixing materials can be dangerous, but mostly it's to do with mixing metals. Plastic + copper is fine.. copper + aluminum = bad. :)

3. I think someone posted just the thing you are looking for the other day.. tips and tricks I think it was called?

[SXRguyinMA]

I'm excited to see how this turns out :up:

[tk421storm]

OK, as per the metal mixing - I've got a set of two copper (i believe) radiators for the top, but I have some brass joints/pipes/valve and an awesome oiler to be used for the resevoir. What kind of problem will this cause?

For water cooling, does it make sense to have a "panic" button, as in, if I hear dripping, see sparks, etc, an easily-accessible button that immediately shuts power off to the PSU?

[SXRguyinMA]

just use non-conductive coolant. I've got thermaltake green coolant in mine. accidentally spilled some on my video card when I was changing the coolant one day, wiped it off the best I could. still works fine :up:

[blueonblack]

I myself have never been able to mod an existing case. I've had to do like Luke suggested and start with a motherboard tray from a case and build around it. You can use other pieces from the case also, like the drive cages for the optical and hard drives. But that really varies by the person doing the work. Give each method some thought as it applies to this build and decide which will work better. Can you find a case with the space and layout you want?

Either way, the concept looks great. :)

[tk421storm]

Non-conductive fluid? What a great time to be alive. :)

Yeah, we'll see what we end up starting with. I picked up two cheapo cases today (two in case we accidentally trash the first one :) ) so we'll probably start with them and see how far we can get. My dad could build anything out of wood, but he doesn't have any experience with the inner workings of a computer so I figured we should at least have the settings available for him to mess around with.

Who knows, maybe half-way through he'll feel comfortable enough to build one from scratch. But there are definitely some pieces, such as the HDD bay, that we can salvage.

[Mach]

From the old idea file, hopefully this gives you some ideas. For the power on, a key is a cool idea. I've always thought it'd be interesting to have a knife switch or a plunger/detonator like below to power on the pc.

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_UdQdiSb7gT4/SHSzkBTv1rI/AAAAAAAABwQ/izT7WwLx97s/s400/0360_1_lg.jpg

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_UdQdiSb7gT4/Sa4qXwMPoBI/AAAAAAAADuE/6emC4N83NlY/s800/MVC-244F.JPG

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_UdQdiSb7gT4/SHJ_d9m3NtI/AAAAAAAABk8/IR43OFQ9MK0/s800/Untitled%20-%201.jpg

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_UdQdiSb7gT4/SHSzbPQR2ZI/AAAAAAAABo8/NcungzSjj8w/s400/edison1.jpg

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_UdQdiSb7gT4/SHSzm4BVtQI/AAAAAAAABzw/o8ms4GVhZQo/s400/497015.JPG

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_UdQdiSb7gT4/SHJ_iCn6KUI/AAAAAAAABl8/AjyS_LIZuUA/s800/4315_1.JPG

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_UdQdiSb7gT4/RwXFoTaVBhI/AAAAAAAAA7I/TYmjO0gGU78/s400/14eo0.jpg

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_UdQdiSb7gT4/SHJ_-yXpkuI/AAAAAAAABm8/w12B4lU18Es/s400/original.jpg

[PartyLikeARockstar]

I have to admit that when I saw the name rapture, i had visions of a religious based case mod, but was pleasantly surprised when the assumption turned out wrong. Welcome, and another subcription here.

[tk421storm]

Oh man, those pics are great. Once I get all the stuff I've been collecting into the workshop I'll start photo-documenting it all.

[DonT-FeaR]

that person whom made a tut the other day would be me... thanks for reminding me ill do some more :)

link is

http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/forum/showthread.php?p=233079#post233079

not done and havent gone over pipes yet..

[The boy 4rm oz]

I love the whole steampunk/Bioshock style. You should really check out Filimon's steampunk work and even blueonblack's current mod, should really help you with the theme. slamma also did a Bioshock themed mod last year which won him a case mod comp, very nice mod. Check em out.

[tk421storm]

Oh, I've been checking out all the great mods on this site. The aging on that bioshock mod was fantastic, but I'm not quite sure that's the way I want to go. I'm leaning more towards something like that first picture Mach posted, with the wood paneling.

I love what Filimon did with gauges and covers, I'll have to incorporate something like that in mine.

[madd0ct0r]

subbed. heh. I think you're going to get ahead of me a bit...

[tk421storm]

Had some time to work, still in the preliminary design stages. It's gone a little less steampunk but more art deco, which doesn't bother me too much.


http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/9098/schematic01.jpg
http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/552/schematic02.jpg
http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/8886/schematic03.jpg

Nothing is colored or shaded yet, but it incorporates the big "flourish" elements of the build. The biggest of these is the front fan, which would be much larger than the case frame.
http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/7125/img2520.jpg
http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/4044/img2521h.jpg

One of the first challenges will be to get that thing running - it's a boat propeller and is definitely heavy. A compromise will be, since it's water-cooled, to have it rotate slowly more as a nice touch than an actual fan.

The other flourishes are the steam whistle which sticks out in the back upper right, and the reservoir for the water cooling system which is embedded on the left side and is actually an "oiler" from hobby steam engines.

http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/4233/img2525.jpg
http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/4862/img2519.jpg
http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/4812/img2522.jpg

All the other random pieces I've collected recently to get my mind straight. Some of which I'll use, some I won't. Now that it's gone a bit more art-deco some of them may be too techy or brassy, we'll have to see.


The first step will be to start messing around with the case frame we've got and start building the wood for the sides, and playing with the fan. I'm pretty excited so far, but that's probably because we haven't run into any roadblocks yet :)

[Mach]

Love the stash. I'll have to take a shot of mine and see if there's anything that fits into your designs.

How big is the fan cage? I've got two old brass fans that might work better than the propeller depending on the cage size.

The heater core fins look pretty tight. You're going to need some serious fans to move air through them.

[The boy 4rm oz]

The design looks pretty interesting. Hope it turns out for you.

[DonT-FeaR]

very nice haul... gunna be good man ... nice start

[tk421storm]

The heater core fins do indeed look pretty tight - which seems odd, as its designed for a water-cooled system but looks like it will indeed be hard to run air through them. I'm planning to rip off the aluminum case to make it look fully coppery, so hopefully that will help with airflow.

The fan case is 14 1/4" OD, with about a 13 3/4" ID.

[jdbnsn]

I think it will work fine so long as you have a good breeze moving through it.

[madd0ct0r]

Don't forget you can run water at high pressure and velocity comparativley.
I think that propeller may need bump starting each time...

[tk421storm]

Yeah, the more I think about how heavy it is that's probably going to be the case. Plus, I'd be pretty worried about running it at any speed that would move air - what if my axle ain't as strong as I think, and the cat's in the room......

So, maybe it'll be a slow-moving, industrial-looking fan blade. It's a really nice looking piece, so I'd hate to have to give up on it.

This brings the issue of airflow up. Since I'm going watercooling it's not as huge an issue as usual, but it's still important for the components I don't plan on watercooling (drives, possibly northbridge).

A typical PSU fan blows air out, correct? In my current design, I've got the two radiators on top with the plan to put the fans for them underneath. Is it bad to have them blowing air from inside the case through the radiators? I would have them pull air through, but wouldn't that be markedly less efficient?

Maybe behind the big fake fan in the front I can stick some regular case fans pulling air in - hidden, of course :)

[SXRguyinMA]

I think that fan is best suited for a decoration piece. maybe hook it to a 12v motor with some kind of reduction drive so it'll spin slowly.As its a boat prop, its designed to "screw" through water, whereas an airplane prop is designed like a wing - to create a high and low pressue side and move cause movement. With that water-based blade design, it'll throw the air more outwards from the center than forward or back, so the actual air movement wont be very much at all.

on another note, the fans will be fine pushing air through the rads. I have a single 120mm rad inside the case, with the fan pulling air from the case and pushing it through the rad then out the back of the case. it works wonderfully :up:

:EDIT: heres a link (http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Propeller)with some neat info :D

[tk421storm]

Oh man, my knowledge in marine science was definitely lacking. I had always assumed that fans and props worked on the same principle - but I can see now that's not the case.

No matter! It'll probably be easier (and safer for the cat) to run the prop at a nice slow visually-pleasing speed and stick some tiny quiet fans in behind it.

[Luke122]

+1 vote for reducer and 12v motor on the prop. 30-40 rpm would look great on that thing. :D

[SXRguyinMA]

I was thinkin more like 20ish, give it a nice slow speed, like those big industrial fanss you always see in movies that are going wicked slow :D

[tk421storm]

So I'm browsing around Servocity on the interwebs, trying to figure this all out. I haven't dealt with motors since those halcyon model-train filled elementary school afternoons.

If the prop weighs about 6.5 pounds (102 oz) if I buy one of their motors with a torque of that or greater, it will be able to start the prop spinning from standing still? Or is it more complicated than that?

Anyone with motor experience, esp in this kind of situation, I'd love some help :)

[Drum Thumper]

I think Luke is on the right track. I've got a bit of electrical motor experience, but that was back in high school. I should also mention that those days were 14 years ago...

[SXRguyinMA]

it depends on your drivetrain setup as well. say you've got a 2in diameter pulley on the prop and a 1" on the motor (connected with a belt or chain), you'd need half of what you'd need if it were direct drive.

look into Legos as well, all sorts of neat chains and gears :up:
http://www.active-robots.com/products/mindstorms4schools/lego-spares/technic/chainlink-500.jpg

http://www.texbrick.com/ideas/gears/crawl_gears_t.jpg

you can see the chain and gear setup on Johnny 5's arms here :D
http://www.makezine.com/blog/JN5_v3_main.jpg

[SXRguyinMA]

the lego motors are 9v though, but I'm sure that can be taken care of with a resistor or two, even more resistance to say 6v and turn it slower. I know for a fact the motors will spin with almost dead batteries, although not very fast lol

http://www.nd.edu/~englearn/lego/gears.gif

and a neat link (http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.robotroom.com/Joystick/LegoMotor.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.robotroom.com/Joystick4.html&usg=__Dsayy3Qn8rYNo-bYkZIARz1DP_4=&h=304&w=350&sz=20&hl=en&start=4&um=1&tbnid=WMP_GIEgqJePbM:&tbnh=104&tbnw=120&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dlego%2Bmotor%2Bvoltage%26hl%3Den%26rl s%3Dcom.microsoft:en-US%26um%3D1)

http://www.robotroom.com/Joystick/LegoMotor.jpg

[tk421storm]

Haha that is a neat link. Ok, I think I've got a handle on it now. I'm not gonna be ready to build the frame for it until the computer frame is finished, so I might be getting ahead of myself, but it's nice to be prepared.

[nevermind1534]

There's also K'nex

[Mach]

EAQujArQzxo

[DonT-FeaR]

yeah lego should do the job :)

[The boy 4rm oz]

Ah LEGO dacta, used that a lot at school. Depending how heavy that prop is I don't think the motor will move it. They are 9v motors but are quite weak, they have trouble proppeling LEGO cars sometimes.

[madd0ct0r]

Silly idea, but could you mount the propeller inside a circle and have it rolled by the motors?
It'll give you less stress then the central axle and possibly less friction too.

[tk421storm]

That's a really interesting idea doctor! I'll definitely have to think about that one. Right now my plan is to have the fan exposed outside the case with only a thin metal decorative circle around it, so there may not be room for a big enough wheel, but i'm sure I could gear it up somehow.

I am worried about Lego/knex as they probably don't have the umph to move the heavy thing.

[SXRguyinMA]

well the new style lego motors (the one in the pic I showed) are pretty torquey, and if you run the right gear reduction it should be fine

[Luke122]

How about a totally different track.. get a 200mm or bigger case fan, paint it bronze, and use a fan controller to turn it waaaay down..?

[tk421storm]

Well, I'm a pretty big fan of the propeller idea, and the fact that it's such a big part of the front of the case. I mean, if we're talking real steampunk technology in there, there's gotta be a furnace with steam pipes inside - the fan needs to be HUGE to keep my FPS on crysis up :)

[gamer_from_aust]

This is going to be a huge case! looks good.

[DonT-FeaR]

yeah the lego motors are weak but could work but might not

[tk421storm]

Had some time to work on it this weekend, here's our update:

We're still just trying to figure out the best way to do it all. We're going to build a scratch prototype first out of cheap plywood, so we can be sure we know how to do it before we go with the nice wood.

We started by building the 4" base it will end up sitting on. Since this will be obscured by wood and such, this will also be used in the final.



http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/546/img2526.jpg
http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/592/img2527.jpg


The original plan called for 90 degree corners on the front verticals; when using the tools we have to cut 45 degree joints, this is the quality cut we got:



http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/1285/img2529.jpg


So, luckily we're quite creative (especially when confronted with challenges to our lack of skill ;), and we've decided to use the router and make the corners rounded rather than 90 degrees. It'll still look nice and prevent us from having to buy an expensive new saw.

I've been working on building this awesome Knight Rider LED Mod (http://www.bit-tech.net/modding/2002/06/22/knight_rider/1) for the HDD lights (yellow flickering in front of red solid=furnace lights) but I'm not quite ready to show my embarrassing soldering job just yet.

[The boy 4rm oz]

If you used a piece of pine instead of particle board it wouldn't splinter like that. A router will work fine.

[tk421storm]

Yeah, we realized the splintering was partly due to the fact that it was cheap, cheap plywood. But we also don't have a table saw that's large enough to comfortably cut the side pieces, so we're reduced to using our hand-held disc saws and clamped t-squares to get our cuts, and that's pretty in-exact. The fear of making a splinter or two in the final nice wood steered us towards the router solution.

[DonT-FeaR]

oh cool base... that looks huge

[madd0ct0r]

so wherể's the pic òf the inlaid brass?

[tk421storm]

Lol don't get so far ahead of me! It's gonna be a while before I can really try out that idea - I'm gonna spend some more time saturday working with the prototype.

[tk421storm]

More prototype working - we've really figured out how to cut nice, smooth cuts with our existing equipment, which is going to save us a lot of time, money and headaches when we switch to the nice, expensive wood.

Since this is still just a prototype, I'm not being exhaustive with the documentation.

http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/5646/97342840.jpg
Upside-down, attaching the side pieces to the base.

http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/4610/61376739.jpg
Right-side up, with the top piece attached. The top piece was a bit warped, so it made routing it more difficult. We need to be careful not to buy a warped piece for the final top.

http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/5333/51063485.jpg
We'll be sticking the power supply in the base, to separate it from the computer. This allows more room on top (where the power supply normally is mounted on this case) for the piping and water-cooling accessories. We'll drill some holes in the bottom of the case as well, so it can pull air through the bottom of the case and out the back of the base.

http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/1576/16015409.jpg
The main personality pieces, scale shot. The round circular fan housing will probably need to be painted, and we're not sure how well the chrome hood ornament is going to look, but we can paint the fan housing and omit the hood ornament if neccesary. Luckily those decisions don't need to be made until we're done building/sanding/staining.

Unpictured: I've continued to work on my HDD circuit, and we bought a shaft to build the decorative front fan with.

[The boy 4rm oz]

Looking mighty fine. I can't wait to see the front fan mounted ;).

[DonT-FeaR]

gunna look sweet i love wooden cases :)

[Remy]

This is definitely lookin good. You have to use that hood ornament though. Keep up the good work!

[madd0ct0r]

could you mount the hood ornament on the top of the propellar's frame?

[DonT-FeaR]

/\ yeah that would look hell cool..... nice idea dude

[tk421storm]

That is a good idea! However, the hood ornament is really long, like 13 inches. But we could prb drill a hole......

Gears are turning! Pun intended.

[tk421storm]

More work!

http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/8515/46780595.jpg
The hole cut into the side for access. This will be covered by the two exterior "wings" that will slide into an l-shaped bracket on the bottom and be clipped somehow on top. More on that next week.
http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/8438/55894799.jpg
Making sure the hole is big enough to get a motherboard in - room to spare.
http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/286/97202612.jpg
A front view shot, with the first wing placed.
http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/2637/98243164.jpg
Same, side view.
http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/7017/58159829.jpg
This is why we make a prototype!! We didn't think about that until it was too late - we have to take the curve of the wing into account when cutting the hole.
http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/6036/64591223.jpg
Glued and setting. By next weekend we'll have the whole wing glued together so we can work on attaching it to the case.

[The boy 4rm oz]

It's coming together nicely, you are making real progress.

[DonT-FeaR]

yeah its looking great

[madd0ct0r]

And this is just the prototype. git.

[madd0ct0r]

where in the world are you?

Cos I've an old 24V drill motor that should have enough torque to shift that propeller.

[tk421storm]

Lol I'm still around, somewhere! Unfortunately I haven't been good about photo-documenting the past few days of work, but we're definitely moving forward. We've got the sides fully up on the prototype and are working on the fan blade and the housing itself. Hopefully when I get some work done next weekend I'll have some photos to share.

[The boy 4rm oz]

I think he was asking where you live so he could send you the motor.