--- r e f l e X i o n ---

[msmrx57]

You know when I first saw the first picture (of the polished lexan edge) I thought it was of a rectangular cardboard box because I couldn't see the lexan at all lol. That is a very smooth edge.

Keep up the awesome work, it's looking great.

Ditto! That's a great job on polishing plexi. :up:

[Xion X2]

Loving this project! :up: Take some Rep

Thanks, Trace!


You know when I first saw the first picture (of the polished lexan edge) I thought it was of a rectangular cardboard box because I couldn't see the lexan at all lol. That is a very smooth edge.

Keep up the awesome work, it's looking great.

Excellent! That's the effect that I'm going for. :)


I still can't believe you haven't received oodles of rep for this project. so, I will throw some more at you! awesome project.

Thanks, billygoat!


Ditto! That's a great job on polishing plexi. :up:

Thanks! msmrx57!

Ok, I'm headed out for a short bike ride this morning and then over to my shop for a full day of modding. Wish me luck! Hope everyone has a great weekend. :)

[TheGreatSatan]

That looks fine indeed. +rep

[Waynio]

Some very nice progress since I last checked in on this, keep it up Xion :up:, Awesome work :).

[Couch3ater]

--is suffering from update withdrawals-- SPLEEEEEE!

[Welches]

Been following this one, I have a coolermaster cosmos 1000 that I really wish looked half as beautiful as what you have done to this cosmos.

+rep!

[diluzio91]

We want more pc pron!! updates plzzz

[Twigsoffury]

daayyyyuuummmmmnnn.... lol


I've noticed rabbit wheels clear up polycarbonate edges pretty good, not as seemless as you've done, but it might take alot of the initial polishing/sanding off.

but damn man, one hell of a chassis.

[Snowman]

daayyyyuuummmmmnnn.... lol


I've noticed rabbit wheels clear up polycarbonate edges pretty good, not as seemless as you've done, but it might take alot of the initial polishing/sanding off.

but damn man, one hell of a chassis.

for some reason the first line has my imagining a dremel powered R32 hahaha.. or a cottontail spinning uncontrollable on an ez lock dremel mandrel

[Xion X2]

Thanks to all of you guys. I truly appreciate each and every compliment.

Things have been slow as of late, but I should have an update by the weekend. :)

[Couch3ater]

Thanks to all of you guys. I truly appreciate each and every compliment.

Things have been slow as of late, but I should have an update by the weekend. :)

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE! I swear, I'm not on speed.... <_<; Maybe?

[StormRider]

no updates?
http://www.majhost.com/gallery/DarkRonin03/Boardz/nooo.jpg

[artoodeeto]

dude...that was a "cheep" shot... :D

[Couch3ater]

Puns like that won't fly around here... O.o

[StormRider]

oh, post the bad puns on tweeter, why don't ya:D

[artoodeeto]

these quotes will be a real feather in Xion's cap...

[StormRider]

now give us an update before the other birds of that feather flock together

[diluzio91]

before some of us fly the coop

[The boy 4rm oz]

or fly south for the winter

[raistnox]

other bad bird pun...

[SXRguyinMA]

come on my chicks are going to hatch before your next update!

[StormRider]

stop counting them!
but maybe we should open a shelter for all these bad puns:facepalm:
update, why do oyu abandon us in our time of need?!?!

[Xion X2]

A little birdie told me that you guys were anxiously awaiting an update, so I just wanted to fly in for a moment and say that there should be another one soon.

[The boy 4rm oz]

And that was the icing on the cake right there lol.

Can't wait for an update.

[artoodeeto]

yeah, it's not like we were trying to "pun"-ish you for not updating.... :P

[diluzio91]

we just thought it was a little punny

[Couch3ater]

Seriously, this so far off base it's not even sane. We've been talking like a bunch of wing-nuts around here lately. UPDATE PLEASE.

=D

[StormRider]

well we are all wing nuts. but I didn't use the pic so we could start a pun-war. so sorry about going OT. >__<'
anyway, after seeing how the rest of the projects are moving along, I really wanna see where this one is going

[Welches]

Gasp! Updates?



p.s.

I like birds :D

[Couch3ater]

Lol, the puns were totally acceptable. I just like making terrible ones. ^_^

[Xion X2]

yeah, it's not like we were trying to "pun"-ish you for not updating.... :P

Me and a friend of mine at work laughed when we saw them yesterday, so it's all good. He was the one who told me to look over here as he follows each one of my work logs. He was the "birdie." :D

In fact, I looked right at him and said: "It's time for me to get back to work." :D

On a serious note, I do thank you guys for your enthusiasm and continued support. Believe me when I say that it does help. It sort of eases the pressure of me sometimes feeling like it's me against the world in finishing this project. Reading all the supportive words from people inspires me to keep going.

Thanks, everyone. I've reserved time to work on refleXion over the weekend and hope to have an update soon. :up:

[artoodeeto]

you know, one other thing that helps the enthusiasm, at least for me in my worklog - I've noticed that people really do read it, even if they're not always commenting. Typically if I post a question or an idea and ask for feedback, I get it very quickly. I've looked on several different forum sites, and I think aside from bit-tech this one seems to be by far the most active. Haven't posted anything on bit-tech, so I'm not sure exactly how it compares to here. I know if you're looking for overall enthusiasm, TBCS can't be beat! Looking forward to updates on this one!

[StormRider]

Me and a friend of mine at work laughed when we saw them yesterday, so it's all good. He was the one who told me to look over here as he follows each one of my work logs. He was the "birdie." :D

In fact, I looked right at him and said: "It's time for me to get back to work." :D

On a serious note, I do thank you guys for your enthusiasm and continued support. Believe me when I say that it does help. It sort of eases the pressure of me sometimes feeling like it's me against the world in finishing this project. Reading all the supportive words from people inspires me to keep going.

Thanks, everyone. I've reserved time to work on refleXion over the weekend and hope to have an update soon. :up:
Yay Incoming update!
looks like I don't have to resort to the Pun-zers:D

[LiTHiUM0XiD3]

well we are all wing nuts.

speak for yourself... im a lock washer :)

[Couch3ater]

speak for yourself... im a lock washer :)

Compression Fitting? =D

[Okele]

Hey! who said you chould fall to the second page? Get back up there.

[Couch3ater]

LUL! Shameless bumping!

[thephreak99]

Truly great work there! +rep Inspiring me to start modding again. (Just need a workshop)

[Xion X2]

Hello, TBCS. :)

I just wanted to provide a status update since I've been away for a while.

There's no "pretty" way to put this, so I'll just say it.

First off, refleXion is still in progress. I am not delaying or discontinuing the build, although it's become clear that my timeframe of end of May isn't going to happen. It's looking more like end of June or possibly July.

With that said, the reason things have been delayed is because I've ran into some financial difficulties that have caused me to change the path of the build a bit by downgrading some parts. I'll be documenting what's been changed as soon as the new parts come in.

Let me just say that the core theme of refleXion hasn't changed, and I truly feel that after it's complete (and it WILL be completed, eventually) that this change won't detract from the identity of the build at all. In fact, my belief is that this change will actually improve the overall aesthetics (I will be explaining how when the new parts get here) by quite a bit. This, however, was not the sole motivation for the change in parts.

Will the build be a little less 'epic' after this change in relation to hardware? Probably. But sometimes, sacrifices must be made based on real life circumstances, and I simply don't have the budget at this time to keep dumping as much money into refleXion as I have for the past 4, 5, 6 months.

Lastly, this "change" in hardware is only going to delay things by a week or so beyond the original timeline, so there won't be a waiting game that seems to extend on forever. I'm hoping that everything will go off to paint by end of June.

I'm headed to the beach over the weekend and so I won't have time to work on the build much. Because of this, I'm going to share my last update which was never posted since there's been a famine of updates lately. The update doesn't show as much progress as I would like, but it will clue you guys into some of the latest work that's been done. I'll try to have this on here tonight. If not, some time tomorrow.

-Michael

[x88x]

Sorry to hear about your financial problems. I hope you get those worked out without issue.

[The boy 4rm oz]

Good to hear from you. I say take your time. For my LEXA build I set a time frame of around about 3-4 months, 16 months later it was complete, you can't rush these things. As for the hardware changes, as long as your happy and you believe the components are worth the purchase then who are we to criticize your choices.

[Xion X2]

Ok, I have a whooole lot of pictures.

As many may recall, the shelving tactic I've decided to go with for the Zero-G chamber (custom SSD drive and water pump mounting bay) will be constructed with dovetailed Lexan.

To cut the dovetails, I use a combination of a handheld router and template guide. But before starting, I needed to set the depth of the cut at the router bit. I can't remember the exact depth of the cut that I decided to go with for these shelves, but it seems like it was around 4mm (?) It was very shallow, as the Lexan is strong enough that you don't need that deep a groove for a strong bond.

Measuring the depth of the groove cut or "dado" cut as is the correct technical term for it:

http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/3582/dsc01240001.jpg (http://img19.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc01240001.jpg)

And then setting the router bit depth:

http://img535.imageshack.us/img535/169/dsc01270001.jpg (http://img535.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc01270001.jpg)

http://img412.imageshack.us/img412/7425/dsc01280001.jpg (http://img412.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc01280001.jpg)

That depth will be for cutting the groove or "dado" for the lip or "tenon" of the shelf to slide in.

Cutting some Lexan on the table saw:

http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/9326/dsc01330001.jpg (http://img243.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc01330001.jpg)

And I'll slide the unsanded shelf into my dovetail jig:

http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/2368/dsc02390001.jpg (http://img3.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc02390001.jpg)

You can see how rough the edges are after the saw. These have to be sanded out with my Black & Decker power sander.

http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/806/dsc02430001.jpg (http://img62.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc02430001.jpg)

The power sander is good for getting the teeth marks out of the Lexan, as you can see. I use a rough 120, 220 on the power sander and then jump up to 400 grit on the sanding block and then wet sand the rest of the way home.

http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/7495/dsc02890001.jpg (http://img228.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc02890001.jpg)

http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/5682/dsc03040001.jpg (http://img401.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc03040001.jpg)

http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/8373/dsc03060001.jpg (http://img88.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc03060001.jpg)

As you can see, the jig really comes in handy by allowing me to clamp the shelf in a vertical position while I sand and polish the edge. A belt sander would work better, but they're quite expensive when compared with other seemingly more complex tools, and so I haven't dropped the cash down for one yet.

After some wet sanding all the way to 3000-grit, this is what you get:

http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/701/dsc03090001.jpg (http://img261.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc03090001.jpg)

http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/7818/dsc03100001.jpg (http://img204.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc03100001.jpg)

This stuff right here doesn't hurt, either. It seems to layer a gloss over the wet sanded edge to give it just a little more 'shine':

http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/4378/dsc03350001.jpg (http://img25.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc03350001.jpg)


Next, it was time to mark the drill holes for the shelves. To do this, I'll use the same method that I used with the shelf brackets before by placing wooden blocks underneath to level small increments at a time, only this time I'm not using brackets. I'll be drilling and tapping directly into the shelves.

For this procedure, 'Lil', my microscopic little leveling pal, makes another cameo appearance. :)

http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/3609/dsc03200001.jpg (http://img100.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc03200001.jpg)

http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/264/dsc03250001.jpg (http://img101.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc03250001.jpg)

http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/1123/dsc03280001.jpg (http://img27.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc03280001.jpg)

(You can never have enough Irwin clamps. I have 8 of them and STILL run out occasionally...)

http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/5977/dsc03290001.jpg (http://img64.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc03290001.jpg)


After this, I did something stupid. Instead of clamping the shelves down and drilling straight into them from the outside shell, I decided to mark them with a sharpie. Although this seemed like a good idea at the time, it would cost me later.

Anyway, I marked the drill holes once I had the shelves level and began to drill them:

http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/7469/dsc03370001.jpg (http://img199.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc03370001.jpg)

This wasn't as easy as it could've been. My press didn't sit high enough for me to use the attached base as a platform since the shelf had to be sitting vertical to drill into the sides, so I had to move it to the side and just use a vice clamp and several spring clamps to hold the vice clamp down as a drilling platform:

http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/7717/dsc03380001.jpg (http://img8.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc03380001.jpg)

http://img535.imageshack.us/img535/1615/dsc03410001.jpg (http://img535.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc03410001.jpg)

"Lil" makes another appearance as he helps me level the shelf so that I'm drilling down at an exact 90-degree angle. This way, when I screw into the shelf from the outside shell, the screw and screwhole will align (theoretically, anyway..)

http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/1188/dsc03420001.jpg (http://img231.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc03420001.jpg)

A few scuffs that I'll have to sand back out. This stuff scratches sooo easily. :rolleyes:

http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/8531/dsc03430001.jpg (http://img526.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc03430001.jpg)

Then I began to tap the holes. I'd never done this before and was expecting it to be a pain. But it was actually very easy.

http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/1324/dsc03460001.jpg (http://img687.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc03460001.jpg)

And I'm using MDPC black oxide screws into the shelves. I can't remember the exact size of these.. 6/32, perhaps?

http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/4469/dsc03480001.jpg (http://img228.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc03480001.jpg)

And here, the bottom shelf, is how these look when mounted inside the chamber shell. Look better without brackets, I think.

http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/3928/dsc03490001.jpg (http://img256.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc03490001.jpg)

The top shelf was still sitting on the installed bracket from before. I think the bottom looks much better.

http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/5006/dsc03500001.jpg (http://img28.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc03500001.jpg)
http://img121.imageshack.us/img121/452/dsc03510001.jpg (http://img121.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc03510001.jpg)

I haven't figured out a way to hide the screw threads yet. I thought about using an overlaying bracket, but then that would seem to defeat the purpose of not using brackets in the first place.

I could try drilling shorter on the shelf as I went too far with this one. Could probably back it off by 1/8" or so.

One more thing that some of you may notice is that the pumps now line up with the windows perfectly while resting on top of the shelves (no recess cut needed, as before.) This will clean up the look a bit as I wasn't really crazy about having to recess the shelves for the pumps.

http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/3655/dsc03570001.jpg (http://img143.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc03570001.jpg)

That's it for now. Thanks for looking.. and for your patience as I know that things have been progressing slower than usual. Hope to have more soon.

[StormRider]

ZOMG! UPDATE!!!:eek:

[The boy 4rm oz]

Seriously slick work :D.

[Starlite KNight]

Update please and thankies! :)

[Snowman]

Update please and thankies! :)

seconded

[Techno_Savage]

I have just joined and was prompted to go to this project by a friend....
words cannot describe the AWESOME that has just been laid before me,
I am in AWE and bow before your might!
+rep to you "Sir Master Modder"
+rep to the one that brought me here!

[Waynio]

:( Thought their was an update on this, hope alls well Xion, I've missed updates on this awesome mod.

[TheMainMan]

This is definitely one of my favourite projects on this site and that says a lot! I'm a sucker for a clean, detailed build and every update you don't disappoint. The tapped shelf looks great!