Project - Air Cube v2

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Originally Posted by blueonblack

Getting there, no doubt. Will you be painting or otherwise decorating the front panels on the DVD drives?

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To be honest I have not give that any thought until you said about it :), I will have a go at making my own bezels but if it turns out poor then I will paint the bezels.

Thanks for feedback all :D.

Today I marked, cut, filed and sanded the left side panel, a basic window hole and a grill for the hdd fan.
I was thinking of having a window on both sides and the top but I remembered that I want a reflection thing going on through the main window so no need.

I started using my dremel and got 1 of the slots done and the dremel was toasty, so I put the dremel mandrel in my dads new rotary air tool and got the whole lot done and then done the curved bits with the dremel.

Thanks for comments m8s :), the rotary air tool was about £20 cheaper than my dremel brand new, the tool stays cool but the compressor sure gets hot but is safe.

And the polishing of the frame begins :).
1st time using the power buffer so had to practice a little and seem to have the hang of it now, it gets hot so I'm going to have to take regular breaks every 3 or 4 bars I do.
4 stage process, involving the green machine shown on 1st post, 1st sand any rough bits smooth, then use mop 1 and polish 1, then 2, then 3 and then I have a nice smooth decent polished frame, going to take a while to get done and will post an update once the whole frame is polished and not before.

Here is a few pics of the 1st bits done.

There is only 2 more structoral bits to make, a dual dvd drive holder for inside the case and case feet, I need to order a bit more aluminium thou for what I have in mind, but I can order a good sized flat bar while I'm at it for making custom sized bending pieces, the hdd cages are not going to be fixed to the case so I don't need to worry about them yet, they are going to sit on thick acoustic foam so no hdd vibes at all :).

Also because the countersunk rivets are pretty garbage and the current bolts have a tendancy to lose the socket easily I decided to order some good quality High tensile countersunk bolts and going to add washer springs and have the dome nuts ordered for the top bolts that stick out.

:D
Got the base done.

I just love how it can all be taken apart with ease and can just take the bars off 1 by 1, so glad I chose to use nuts & bolts this time.

I did not polish every single piece, only the pieces that would be seen.

On this pic with the back panel on, I had wet sanded the panel to be ultra smooth using 600 grit, 1200 grit, 2000 grit then I used the metal prep and mirror finish polishes and well it is a very poor look I think.

So decided to do it properly with the power buffer, I will be lucky to get 1 panel done per day as it overheats regular this pic only got to stage 2 of 3 of buffing but already shows a glimpse of what to expect, shame I can't make a cooling mod for it, it has no vent holes so could only cool the case which I doubt would make a difference.

:D Thanks for comments.

The dremel cooler I made, I modified again by bending and riveting the scrap from the window cut out so it could be used on the grinder and just plonked a weight on it and was nice and firmly in place, kept it nice and cool all day, was able to get all the inside panels done today, I borrowed a full face respirator for doing the polishing and still got covered in dust, had a fred flintstone beard of dust so I dread to know what it would do to you without a good respirator, it doesn't wash off skin easy neither, I doubt I will do polishing again unless I get a very good respirator and overalls etc, it is just plain nasty what it covers you in.

The filter was white before this shot so it must have kept most of it out.

The lower area I did not do completely as it would not be seen, the back panel was easily the hardest to do and still did not get it quite to the finish I wanted but it will do.

Thanks for comments m8s :)
Changed the pics to naked metal :).

Just a few more mid day pics, these will be the last pics and update before I paint the exterior panels, I was going to do them white but I would not mind doing a camo paint job, difficult to decide desert, forrest, snow or urban, forrest camo would go well with the fans, desert I'm not to sure about, but overall I think urban or snow camo would look awesome with the polish.

Doh!, why did I not think of taking the plastic off for this latest shoot :redface: :facepalm:, I should delete the last pics and get the plastic off and re do the pics :up:.

Snow camo or urban camo paint job, I don't know yet :?.

Decided = Urban :banana: and changed pics to naked alu :D.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DonT-FeaR

does that look like a duck to anyelse? lol looks wicked tho!

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LOL others have said this too and a 3 eyed monster head lol :D.

Thanks for good comments m8s and oooh an extra bar I see :D thanks.

I have changed my mind on the paint job quite a few times over the past few days so I'm just going to clean the case up where needed and wait until I have enough money for an ok air brush and some good paint, I really shouldn't rush the finish after the effort I've put in so far, besides maybe if I get rid of the blemishes and scratches by sanding it could look pretty good without paint, I'll have to put something on the polished side so it doesn't get messed up while I sand it, not risking wet sanding as it wil surely mess the polish up.

I still have to make a dvd drive piece so they can be secured to the case at the proper height, I'll make that today and get the psu stand set. And I'll have a try at making my own dvd bezels to give the front extension a nice uniform finish.

I sanded the panels ready for painting the other day and been deciding since which colour to paint it and got the feet made from a square tube cut to size and put them on the front and back so it goes along the width of the case, Nice and sturdy and it has a good gap between the surface and the case so I can easily pick it up now :).

Damn yellow lights lol, makes pictures look awful, must get white lights.

I got 30mm allen head countersunk bolts for the fans and they fit with the mesh panel perfect :).

There is a hairline beam of light coming through the top, the reason for the other hairline of light to the left is because I forgot to bolt up the top left one for the pics, I will be fixing an angle bar along the top to keep the top middle panel rigid for when I remove it and to block the hairline gap, I think I'll add a couple more bolts for the side panels too for extra rigidity for when I add and remove it, this is just with using 1 of the 2 cathodes they are sooo bright :).

This final shot is with the light from my monitor

And these are the colours I have picked out for deciding which one, I think it will be either olympic gold metalic or matisse blue, I might flip a coin for which one to go for :).

Next update will be the paint finish :).

I think any of the colours would have looked great, but wanted something somewhat less in your face and to be honest the very mild gold I think will look very well matched with the polish rather than a striking contrast.

Olympic gold is what I have gone for and will be painting it tomorrow after I make a hole for the cathode switch in the front panel.
The gent in the shop said he could do it with 1 can because of his 50 years experience, I believe him so I got 2 cans each of grey primer, olympic gold, clear coat and cost £26, he also told me of a good technique to really reduce wasted paint and some good tips, most helpful knowledgeable clerk I have ever dealt with, if he was not helpful & more of a corp shop I would have bought way too much and got no tips :).

1 of the gold paint tins was damaged, so I'm thinking of setting it up as is and get around to painting it at a later date when I have a spray gun and air brush gear, spray cans irritate me having to shake forever etc.

I'll have a picture update or 2 tomorrow :) I primed the panels today with 2 400ml cans for 5 panels and 3 angle bars, the technique the man told me about is good, but I did it a little different because I did not hang them up, I did them up against a board, the method he said to try was make a box out of the panels in an arch type way and do slowish long sweeping strokes, but I just did 2 at a time it was easier to set up, but I can see how it is a good method if it was set up correctly.

Also got a hole for mounting the cathode switch underneath the extension so the ugly switch will not be visible but very accessible.

Tomorrow I'm going back to the paint shop and possibly getting 3 x Glacier blue just to be safe for the main colour and something like the matisse blue for a faint haze over the glacier, or a completely unplanned colour that catches my eye :D and of course a couple of layers of clear which I already have for protection.

Also the man said screwed up paper kitchen towel is best instead of wet sanding, because even with 2000 grit it can easily be scratched, so I'll give it a try and hopefully it will work ok, I'm not going to ignore a man with a lifes experience (50 years doing and dealing paint) on something like this.

lol must be fait that the gold cans was damaged hehe :D.

Primed.

Colours I chose, Haze Blue was closest I could get to glacier blue, the matisse blue is going to be used for a quick haze spray.

All the paint on the panels are good except for the most prominent one being the front panel, I was stupid and did not take the front extension off when I painted it and do it seperately, oh well something had to go wrong but I'll put up with it, I'm glad I'm not too much of a perfectionist else it would take far too long to do

I'll hit it with a couple of coats of clear tomorrow :) and will clean up my current parts and add this little beauty for my main hdd on sunday :) and take some finished pics, then enjoy my new case :).

Thanks mates it looks ok from the angle I shot the pics at, other angles don't look so good, well they do but nowhere near perfect anyway :).

The paint in some areas is a little bitty and rough and for the clear I have used just over a can and half, I hope it looks ok when it has dried and cured a bit, really I should have put more work in to getting it smooth, kind of rushed it a bit like usual, but I'll accept the finish anyway, think I should get someone else to do the paint job in my future mods, I lack the patience and experience and quality paint and air brush and spray gun for painting, I'm just not all that good at finishing.

I got up at 7am, the plan was to do the clear coat and then go back to bed, not been getting much sleep the past few days so very tired.

But it was a pretty nice day so I used virtually 2 cans of clear, let it dry for an hour then put the panels in the sun and enjoyed the nice weather :).

I decided to build it back up at about 5pm and managed to get some shots of it in the sun, the polished bits will be cleaned up a bit for the final pics and I bought a touch up pen/brush thing which has primer, colour and clear of the same colour so I can colour the ends which are bare :).

I think it looks quite nice and I'm happy with how it turned out, other than the 2 or 3 oversprays I did and the lack of all round smoothness with the paint job.

Thank you DonT-FeaR & boy 4rm oz appreciated :).

Much more space than I thought, which means I could get a sata card and add at least 4 more hdd (if I needed lol), I'm going to get a sata card so I can ditch the ide dvd's I hate the bulky ide cable, it is annoying how this gigabyte p45-dq6 motherboard has 4 extra sata ports but can't be used for normal single drives.

The cable stash area is great, it is holding all the fan wires and the cathode inverter.

The ac ryan quad fan connectors are good but the leds on them always burn out straight away and give off a puff of smoke so I cut all the leds off :).

The silver lamptron switches there was a problem, the ring light one was fine but the dot one sounded awful when pressed and seemed faulty, so luckily I was originally going to put black switches with blue ring and blue dot so I put them in to replace them and to be honest they look much better :).

When I assembled the pc my sound card disapeared and would not pick up in device manager so I uninstalled the drivers and put it in the next pci slot and put the latest drivers on it and is fine now :).

I have ordered a skythe dual ssd 2.5 to 3.5 mounter and will give me the time to prepare my pc for it.

Also I thought I would see if there are any vibrations without thick accoustic foam, and there is no need for it, no vibes :).

On with the up and running pics.

Also I think I'm going to need to upgrade photobucket to pro for a short while the bandwidth is being chomped up fast, yesterday I had 3gb left out of 10gb, today 2gb :eek: lol.

Haha, cool front page, Thanks Oneslowz28 :up::D:up::banana:.

Thanks Datech and everyone who commented and kept me motivated, appreciated :).

I went and bought another OCZ 60gb summit to put in raid0, here is the bench I run earlier, Awesome performance, I'm amazed how much my pc was being held back, Used to get 50MB/S up to 100MB/S with normal hdd's, everything seems instant now.

And because I have had to let 2 500GB hdd's go to make room for the ssd's which take up the space of 1 hdd and with the extra height because of not needing the acoustic foam I could re design the front panel to be quite different, the extension was purely done so it could hold 2 hdd cages and full size optical drives but could now cope with 1 hdd cage so maybe soon I will re do the front panel.

Quick update, here is the temps, room temp at the time was 26c.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by blueonblack

Wow, I go away for a while and BAM! This thing is turning out beautifully. I love the part where you get the last screw (or bolt, or rivet, or piece of tape or bubble gum) in place, step back and it's a case. Excellent work, +rep.

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hehe :D, thanks blue and everyone else for comments, let me know what you think of this possible v3.

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I really like the air cube v2, but the size is a lot larger than it needs to be really.

Last night I was fairly low in spirit and was stressed out & I did not feel like gaming or watching anything but was wide awake so I decided to mess about with sketchup by making a more compact and complex air cube v3, and 6 or 7 hours later I have a rough model that is buildable, the main part that will need revising is the middle expansion card mem/cpu air tunnel seperator, the challenge with this one is much higher than my previous ones, also the new great Thermaltake VL30001N1Z Level 10 case inspired me a bit on this one, particulary the heightened area for the cpu cooler, I hope to buy an enermax revolution psu for this and finally get core i7 or even a good amd rig since it will be a complete system needed whichever I choose (mobo, cpu, mem).

Lower deck --- The HDD cage will hold 2 ssd's and 4 hdd's with a fan blowing over them all, a fan in the middle of the back exhausting, I'm going to mount the psu so the fan can take fresh air from the other side, the front will hold 2 optical drives stealthed, 2 illuminated vandel switches, polished trim here and there.

Main deck --- lian-li mobo tray, just above the expansion slots a 120mm fan exhausting the warmth up to a duct that will guide outside the back of the case, standard 120mm fan in the normal spot for the cpu, and 2 120mm fans at the front but with a panel dividing the expansion slot area and the mem/cpu area for good concentrated air flow, polished trim here and there.

Top panel --- Should be self explanatory from the pics I think, with polished trim here and there.

So I'm going to keep the best traits from my v1 and v2 and step up my design a few notches higher this time, the face is just for a laugh on this sneaky peak :D... or is it, maybe, maybe not lol.

I don't yet have all the materials (aluminium I need) but might get around to it in a month or 2, and when I do start I'll put updates on every couple of weeks to make sure they are quality updates rather than messy daily ones.

350mm x 350mm base
305mm at lowest area
391mm at highest area
combination of flat bars, angle bars, square bars, 1mm sheet for parts that need bends and 1.5mm or 2mm where there are no bends needed, I know I can do this, will just have to take my time on it to get it right.

Enjoy the funny pics :D Kryten with big eyes and a huge grin from red dwarf comes to mind, note the other little smillie face and think of the mouth as arms raising too lol

Heres a few pics before I added the silly face and extra angles.

Now I look at it and I'm well rested, looks like a sign of me losing the plot somewhat lol, but a lot of it should be good so here is a revised sensible version with heightened pci top for gpu power wires and a wrapped duct for the pci fan so there will not be any heat spots.

I know I said the v2 was going to be my last cube before trying a new form but I'm not 100% happy with the v2 mostly because of the top and sides with me not being able to bend them how I wanted and it became a 3 piece slide on cover, I still might re do the top and sides but with 1mm thick sheet instead so I can get nice sharp bends how I originally planned, dunno, if I can sort it out nicely I think I'll forget about a v3 for now and do something new.

:D Interesting good, bad or the ugly, or even insane, I already know the pics with the face are bad and ugly and maybe a little disturbing lol and should probably not have posted it, but I did and its staying there lol.

Sorry guys & gals for displaying my madness lol, not been 100% mentally sound for the last few months, please try to ignore the mental face, I don't know why I did that lol and then posted it as well shocking, definately a moment of madness for me, but I ended up changing it a bit to a good form I think, would like your opinions on the last batch of pics.

Now, why I have not been so good lately.

I have been really stressed with my brother, so quite mentally beat down, I don't know if any of you have heard of legal highs, there are many different types available and can be bought easily on the internet so it is a huge problem, some of theses legal highs are deadly, he has been messing with them for nearly 2 years in secret, I found out for definate about 6 months ago because of his highly irrational and very paranoid behaviour, but I knew something was not right with him for much longer, He had an appointment with a drug abuse team and they said they have never even heard of these legal highs, so thats shocking in itself since they have been around for more than 2 years, and said if its only every other day and not every day then it isn't really a problem lol what BS, I can't believe how a drug abuse team being paid is not clued up about what is out there.

Well he had some recently and fell down the stairs and had a fit, it was late at night and he was lucky my mum heard a bang else I don't know what would have happened to him, he has never had a fit in his life before at 34 and he fractured his spine, I did not even visit him I was so annoyed with him, 2 weeks later he is out of hospital with a brace and was told it could take up to 2 years before he recovers, he is very lucky he is not paralyzed.

1 day after being out of hospital he had some more which he had hidden, so he is surely addicted, all I can do is hope he does not have anything else, his stupidity has been driving me crazy even throughout when I was creating the air cube v2, would love to kick his ass but would not solve anything and I'd only feel bad with him already being in a bad way so its quite frustrating, I completely banned him from using my internet connection months ago, but he must have been carrying his pc to where my mums is and connecting the cable in the middle of the night, practically everything he says is lies, my mum & dad aren't doing so good and my brother is being an absolute idiot.

Sorry for the above, had to get it off my chest.

So yeah, I want to do a complex case that would be quite a challenge to keep me busy and sane and raise my modding xp for 2 to 4 months :).

Thanks Mark, my bro will get better as long as he stays off the crap from now on, I gave him the super cooled 360 and a wd high def media player loaded with goodies to keep him entertained while he recovers :), I just hope it keeps his mind off the crap.

Scrap the above sketchups, silly idea while I was not in such a good frame of mind, I'll create something completely different for my next case.
Good and interesting looks, cooling and function is what I want to aim for :D.

:) Thanks chaksq :santa::up:

It's been snowing quite a bit here in manchester, enough to make a massive snow man, it's been tempting lol, had a mad idea of making a giant snow man and rolling it into someones garden for a laugh but thought naa, but could imagine it lol :D, haven't seen that much snow in a while, especially coming up to christmas, there is a car parked in front of the house with a snow mans head sticking out of the roof with a hand waving, looked great last night lol, taken a pic of it today.

Wasn't as impressed with the temps as my original cube case, and been thinking what did I do wrong, what could be done to improve it without adding higher cfm fans?

Was thinking of cutting some holes in the mobo tray and adding fans to blow the bottom side of the mobo, but srapped that idea or at least put that idea on reserve.

As you all seen in the pics how much height the bottom deck had to spare, I have gotten around to re-doing some things.

I made a new hdd cage from scratch, 1st one I have made that is 100% spot on, it holds 5 hdd's or 2 ssd's and 4 hdd's, every single mounting hole lines up perfect and on both sides wow :D, so have quite a bit more space on the lower deck so now I'm working on a new front panel without the extension, keeping 3 fans for the top and having 1 optical drive and possibly a fan in the bottom front and rear, this of course means a new paint job, but i'll leave that until I get into air brushing.

I successfully used my holesaw for the front 3 fans but I really need a good variable speed drill with 13mm chuck, tried using cordless ones that have 10mm chucks and had to use an adaptor which makes it too big and clunky and was making the drills burn out, not permanently thou :), the drill press can take it but can't reach in far enough to do the holes where I want them, so switched over to a power drill which has 100% go and wobbles & no variable speed, managed to finnish the job but was rough as hell so until I get a good drill I'm better off sticking with my trusty dremel for fan holes, but I'll make do with this until I get an ok drill, the holes will be smoothed out today.

Going to put a panel with holes for the wires where the gaps are on the mid panel to keep the tripple fan air where I want it to go,

I would use a good fan controller but have had them fail on me in the past nearly killing my rig overnight, I woke up to scary high temps, so lucky nothing was damaged so don't have faith in them any more.

I'll post the pics of it finnished later if I get it done today.

Marked it all out & got all of it cut up.

Bolted it back on the frame, the mesh I had in front of the tripple fans did not fit, there was gaps either side because of using a hole saw which made the holes that little bit too big, the holesaw made a mess to be honest because I haven't got a decent drill to put it in, I have another spare sheet of aluminium so can go back and do it again, wouldn't take more than 3 hours with me having this new one as a template.

Here it is switched on.

And now, the reason I had a re-work, the temps, :)

This is at an ambient temp of 22c and is the same as my original air cube only with less noise and sturdier build, so I guess the bottom deck was suffering from a lack of breeze :).

The new paint job won't be until spring or even summer, still need to get an air brush kit, a range of colours and loads of practice so I can do something decent.

Merry christmas everyone. :santa::up:

And now with the lian-li dvd bezel attached to the drive and mounted inside properly :).

The little black box is a quick swappable external hdd.

That is all until I mod it further & re-paint it.

First of all sorry for keep bringing this project back from the dead, but there is unfinished business and I'm re-doing the front panel, after that there is just the paint job, promise :).

Got my reinforced cutting discs and extra mandrels from america woo hoo :banana:, got about 250 discs now, whenever I have a bit of cutting to do I'll pre-load 10 mandrels for quick change overs, so rather than fiddling around with changing discs I'll be able to really get stuck in whenever doing dremel work now :).

I've been itching to mod something for a bit now after checking out all the amazing mods going on :), wish I could afford to start a new project but I could brew up some designs in sketchup, can't seem to look through a load of worklogs without being inspired to do something myself :D.

I decided to have another shot at making a front panel, 3rd one now :D, the original one with the front extension was to allow for 2 hdd cages, I got around to getting bigger hdd's so I wouldn't need 2 cages, I wanted it to have the grills built into the panel but I fluffed it up and the last one was a rushed effort done badly with a holesaw but the added fan for the bottom improved system temps by at least 6c so it was worth re-doing the front, but because I did the fan hole so close to the dvd drive it had a very weak area that was very prone to bending between the 2, I wanted to fix this by raising the fan by 10mm and by doing built in grills instead of just a hole as I originally wanted, also the dvd hole was not as good as I wanted it to be so it all just made perfect sense to get this panel re-done with my moral being high again and having a spare sheet of aluminium :).

Wow, enough blah blah :D.

Got a standard fan grill and drew around the inside of the last wire and used a cd and a saucer as a guide to make a pretty basic pattern and used an exacto blade to cut out the holes.

I decided to do the cutting from the rear side as on my original front, the grills I did turned out better on the rear side.

Cut a new sheet of aluminium to size and added all the mounting holes, put masking tape on the areas I'll be cutting and taped the stencil in place & used a sharpy marker to print it on, for the switch holes I just drilled a hole and used a round file until they fit perfect.

60% of 1 of the grills.

Dremel work done on 1 of the grills, used 3/4 of 1 disc, 1 disc broke, 1/4 of another disc, so 90% done on 1 of the grills, started too late on this and with 3 more to go, thought I'd leave it until tomorrow and give the neighbors peace @ 6pm :).

I'll hopefully get the rest done tomorrow and have it installed on the cube with pictures :):up:.

Spent a lot longer than I anticipated on the dvd hole, but it is such a perfect fit for the lian-li bezel now, must be within a hairline of precision so was not wasted time.

The spirally type grill took a while to do too, had some hiccups with the printed guide coming loose tried my best to keep it clean dremel work for minimal filing to be done, being sleeping til lateish lately which is why this took a long time, didn't want to be making a racket driving the neighbors mad in the evenings, so now I just got the cleaning of the cuts to do with files and sanding.

1 thing I must fix is the roof, I think 1 of the joints somewhere in the frame must have been put in slightly wrong as the sides & top front left of the case piece don't sit perfect at the top as they did before I polished and painted it which is pretty much why I added a painted angle bar there to cover it lol I really should fix this hiccup.

Who knows, if I'm happy enough once I finish this panel and fix part of the frame I might add a window on the other side & jump into airbrush land and repaint the exterior, this case needs a nice finish and then I could see it as my 1st decent scratch build.

I know I added this project to the completed worklogs thread but with me being low on money to do a completely new project at the moment I figured I'd make the air cube a bit better.

I get the feeling there is 0 interest in this now? or are you all waiting to comment when it is finished with a new paint job, nonetheless, the updates will keep coming until it is final :).

:), Ah response Thank you cellsite60 :banana:.

OK, last update before I give it a new paint job but not sure when that might be (need to get an airbrush and some paint), hopefully soon :), actually there will be 1 more update with the panel installed, then nothing until it gets a lick of paint.

I did a little extra trimming with the dremal and then used a range of tiny files to get rid of any roughness and then went over the whole panel with 60 grit sand paper dry, then 240 wet, then 600 wet, here is the outcome.

Thank you again cellsite60 :).

:D, Even I didn't expect this update, was just meant to be with the new panel attatched to the case, but.

I went to file 2mm edge of excess panel off the top and side of the panel to make it a perfect fit, was going to just install it as is until I got around to buying an airbrush.

But I forgot about the extra can of paint which I used for a faint haze over the lighter blue and seen it sat on the shelf when I was tidying up with a can of primer and clear laquer so just thought why the hell not and cleaned the panel of any dust, oil or prints and primed it, then coloured it and then added the clear, all by the notes on the cans, so once it has dried & have it on the case and update a few more final pictures, then I can officially call this case closed & enjoy the refined case & enjoy everyone elses worklogs & look ahead to designing whatever good ideas come to mind in the future.

I very nearly forgot about the dvd bezel DOH!!!!, but luckily there was just enough paint for it :).

Wanna watch some paint dry lol :D.

Thanks for your comments again cellsite60, appreciated :).

And here we go, last pictures on this case I believe, borrowed a slightly better camera for these, woo hoo :) :banana:.

On this one my new 5870 peeks over :).

Was well worth re attempting the front :banana::banana::banana:.

Thanks again cellsite60 :).

LiTHiUM0XiD3, thanks, and the stages of a good build lol :D

blueonblack was absolutely right about the grills adding to noise though, must have added a good 5db on top of the plain holes to the case, Tried tollerating the noise difference for a couple of hours and didn't like it much :), too used to it being nice & quiet, so I went & dug out my old zalman zm mfc1 + fan controller and hooked all the front panel & side fans to it & lowered the speed a little and it's now the same noise as it were with plain circles while keeping a good flow of air going through, was considering doing volt mods but figured it be easier and cleaner just to use a fan controller, it's hidden inside the case and can catch some air flow so it shouldn't overheat and fail. Side effect of this is temps have gone up by 3c but thats not bad.

The spiral type grills are more restrictive than the ones in the middle so I can run the middle ones a bit faster than the spiral ones and noise stays the same so it's worked out good :).

Also fixed the top problem I had with it not sitting flush :banana:, I should probably replace the pictures.

Definately last pictures now because I fixed the top and to show the fan controller.

I bought some 10mm spacers and rubber washers to put between the front panel & fans so I could put the fan controller back in the box of parts and it really helped cut the extra noise from the air restriction, so back to decent temps and normal noise :banana:.

Can't really call this a new project, more of a part 2 :), I wanted a nice new unit for my consoles, pc & favourite games/dvds to be all in 1 space saving stack, had quite a few redesigns & settled for this one, seems my modding has overspilled into making furniture :D.

It's going to be a stand for the air cube on top, ps3 level below with great ventilation, a level below for my xbox 360, dvd storage below on the bottom 2 levels on both sides with a psu sat in the middle of level 2 for powering the xbox 360 & fans with room for control pads inbetween the dvds.

I'm also working on a new top & rear panel for the xbox 360 to accommodate for better cooling replacing the gpu heatsink for a 360 cpu heatsink & placing bga coolers on all chips with 120mm fan intake & exhaust & dvd drive relocation :).

This aluminium was for redoing the corners & bottom sides & back panel.

When doing my design over & over I figured I dont have to re do the corners & bottom sides but I still have good use for the sheet to reorientate the back panel a little, so the angle bars in this picture are not needed for the build, had a slight redesign after I made the order.
Here is the right side panel botch shots, they will be covered by the chunky angle bars that hold the air cube in place, this mod has spawned from the botched corners & price of delivery not being worth just doing the air cube.

This is the aluminium for the new build, I beleive if the frame is good & strong then there is no true need for expensive thick sheet, especially for what I'm making.

I was sat on this aluminium for over a week which is a 1st, I usually can't wait but I wanted to do this properly, I needed a tool for doing clean bar cuts at 45 degrees & 90 degrees.
Missed out on a bargain for a really good cut off saw at £100 it was worth £300 but because of very low money I had to get a much cheaper alternative, a manual cheapish £30 mitre saw, the build would have gone tragically wrong if I didn't :D.

Should have been 1 of the 1st tools I added to my collection when working with aluminium bars, it's proven to be a very awesome tool for this build :).

Finally the work begins woo hoo :D.

Friday
Got the angle bars for all levels cut to size, all 45 degree cuts.

Saturday
Got loads more cut to size, not much more to do other than a few more bars (but the thicker ones) & 6 thin sheets.

This is 1 of the basic levels

Got all bars cut to size today except for the main corner angle bars, want to get everything correct before I do them, so I'm just working on making the levels 1st.

Did a loose fit of all the levels & they are great, the bottom panel will be ultra strong, it looked pretty reasonable in google sketchup but in reality it does look a bit overkill, nonetheless it will be very strong indeed lol :D.

More updates soon :)

:) Thanks blue lol.
I got all the sheets cut to size today & made the new back panel, all was going very good until I attempted to do the mesh again, I failed miserably, didn't space them out enough so it was starting to look awful, should have stopped as soon as I seen the marks were too close, I will work a different vent into it, not to worry :), I'll up the pictures when I have a decent fix, design time for the rest of today & more dremel time tomorrow :D.

Cheers Jase, it's been on hold the past 3 days so I can get the rear aircube panel redone, heres the update on that.

Oh no's, done the spacing wrong by 3mm for the mesh, should have been every 9 or 10mm, should have stopped after the 1st hole & remade the grid to follow, but no I ended up with this & thinking I'd have to buy another sheet.

My dremel has been dying slowly lately & has now become useless, it was getting lateish so couldn't use the air dremel (very noisy) so I made a quick alternative for the design & drilled within the areas I wanted cutting out & done a ton of filing, even used a hacksaw blade pushing & pulling through the area to get it done lol, was thinking it's just too rough looking but carried on anyway, it could still use a little more smoothing out here & there but I think it's turned out not so bad, what do you all think?.

Be able to get back to the stack soon :banana:.

Thanks for feeback jase :up:.

This update covers the last few days.

With my dremel being useless now & the reinforced cutting discs having the wrong sized hole 1/8" making it a hassle to change discs because they also need aligning, I tried this other cutting air tool but couldn't see where I was cutting so put it away, this picture shows the new right side window & grill for the psu & also the 3mm higher motherboard tray, the flat bars are a temporary loose fix at the moment, they will be attached properly when it's time.

This shows the washers & 10mm spacers I used to cut down the noise from the restrictive front grills, I realised I only mentioned it in the log so heres a picture :).

I can get to work on a few other things while waiting for stuff to come, the new cooling & top & back for the xbox 360, the ps3 stand, paint the fans, trim the back panel & smooth out any rough spots & get it painted, so no excuse for not getting something done while I wait :).

Getting the feet off the air cube might be tough because I used araldite which sets like stone, it was the feet that introduced a little wonkyness to the case, seems it's sat correct on the right side & not on the left which is why there was a gap on the top left, can picture myself having to hammer & chissel them off so I can tap a solid bar for a good fit to existing bolts coming through the bottom.

I decided to do the xbox today, made a good bit of progress, spent near 12 hours on it, figured I'd keep the gpu heatsink so it will be about 130mm at it's highest point, got the basic functionality sorted on it, just need to make a nice cover for it all then the xbox is ready for painting, got the tap & tap wrench & it works a treat, used it for the rear fan mount, holds it nice & firm :), this was a rrod xbox I bought & fixed it had a 0020 error code & figured the only way it will stay fixed is if I boost the cooling, all of the long screws still have their place but I'm thinking of loosing the middle back one so I can create a duct for the rear fan, as you can see it's half in & half out. Ha, it just dawned on me while looking at the picture that I'll probably have to make a new hold down strip else it might not close, doh! :D.

More soon :).

:D Well here you go then, man I'm knackered lol, it's worth it though :).

Didn't get much done yesterday or today as the sun was too tempting to miss after a long winter :D.
Got the rear fan properly secured down while the xbox was properly closed, filed the corner supports of the rear fan so the strip of metal would fit closely for it to be well in place.

On this back shot I plan to get rid of all the internal mesh, fill in all the plastic mesh & create a nice hole for fan wires to come through & a little cut to size strip bent to get rid of the gap from the fan to the plastic xbox case so it doesn't look rough, I'm also going to fill in the dvd slot hole & keep the eject button functional, waiting for some velcro tape to secure the dvd drive down which will reduce dvd vibration, the actual dvd tray will be stealthed also.

Measured, marked & placed little angle bars in place & riveted them to the xbox shell & tapped a hole on them ready for fixing a cover which I'm still thinking about best way to do it.

Thought I'd try & make a 1 piece cover, 1st try at using my cut to smaller pieces steel flat bar from my 1st metal bender, tripple checked the required measurements & marked the sheet, ready for cutting the corners out, it's really a pretty good cheap method for cutting sheet metal, think I'll use this method quite often :)

Human jigsaw lol :D.

This is a shot with the cut up steel bar from my previous sheet metal bender, they are cut to size for making back pci/io pieces, still not tried making my own yet though.

Going good so far.

Woo hoo :D :banana:.

The edges will be smoothed & closed together, I just had enough for the day lol.

1 tiny detail I forgot to think about is the right side clip on piece, 1 of the upper slots will not be able to slot in, but I'll work something out for that & luckily it's not the important hdd side :).

More soon :up:.