Lean and Green - modular dual PC scratch build

Re made all the motherboard trays overnight, seems I didn't account for the extra 1mm allowance for the motherboard IO shield so had to squeeze motherboards into place, they are good now, done it for Midlag Crisis & both systems in Lean & Green, also added a light line for the PCI/IO piece on the ATX mobo tray. :)

This goes back to paused now. :D

Been stocking up on new hard drives too, would have stung me so much if I bought them altogether so I bought 1 whenever I could afford 1, got the last 1 the other day, the HTPC in this will now have 14TB of storage, bought Hitachi Touro external USB3 drives, they have 5400RPM cool spin drives inside them, got 3 4 TB ones & a 2TB one, I'll have to hack them open voiding the warranty but I'll get a pile of spare parts & I saved £80 on each one vs the OEM drives. :)

LAG by name LAG by nature. :D:up:



I grouped many of the pictures together trimming from near 1000 to below 100 in 8 updates which I'll do 1 per day & already started new progress on it so I can seamlessly move over to current progress & I'll post this everywhere I post that was interested as a recap to properly resurrect this project.



Design play for a modular dual PC to cut back my power usage, yup it's heavily detailed but I wanted something that lights my eyes up whenever I look at it, :) low power for when I don't need it which is most of the time & power system for when I do, will save £200 off the electric bill per year which sadly so far I've missed out on £400 which could have paid for the ps4 I want to do a case for, that's the downside to knowing what I'd have saved & taking a year break from this one while I do another project to help get my mind recalibrated. :)

Coupling section.

HTPC

ATX system

Altogether with pedestal which I'll make 2 draws shorter for mystery reasons which you'll see eventually. :D

Materials, some of the bars was 4m long so had to cut them in half on the stairs so I could move them to the cellar, this load weighed a lot especially the 10mm plate.

I worked the project going from most difficult or time consuming working my way through to the easier stuff so the project would get easier instead of harder, this is the 10mm aluminium plates & I realised how much I had ahead of me so I just had to try & switch my mind off while I did it as if I was sleep walking (modding), which helped. :D

Turbo speed video of 1 of the coupling pieces being cut.




These ATX system side panels took ages to do.

Back HTPC panel.

Back ATX panel.

Front ATX panel.

Group hug & stack o parts. :D

Awesome more progress on this :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Stonerboy779

Awesome more progress on this :D

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Only a year later lol. :D
Still really don't know how much longer it will go on for but piece by piece it will form together. :up:

Started printing my designs using an a4 printer so had to precisely cut & join the templates, huge time saver & produces highly accurate templates, I use sticker sheets because glue spray didn't work too good for me.

Parts for the ATX PSU section.

Remake of the ATX front panel to support a fan controller.

New fan controller panel.

How it will look.

The ATX PSU section curve pieces which will have rods going through the holes.

More ATX PSU section panels.

Switcharoo of the PSU fan guard because the stock one made it too high & I wanted to test how difficult the fan grill would be to make, practice that turned into a part of the project, won't be seen though.

Wasn't going to make feet for it, felt no need to but with many saying it's top heavy I designed & made funky feet based on a flying squirrel but not just any flying squirrel, mighty flying squirrel that will hold up a heavy load. :D

The parts all interconnect making them really strong, also used rods for holding pieces in place, aluminium dowel rods.

Recap 2 of 6 complete (cut it back to 6 instead of 8).

HTPC little front power switch section with a lot of detail in multiple layers.

HTPC side detail panels.

Pattern panels to friction fit into the coupling piece.

First I made them a perfect fit.

Then cut the patterns out.

Put in place.

How they look with the extra detailed pieces.

Loose fit.

3 more to go before regular progress.

Dropped the ball on the daily updates, dermatitis has come back due to prematurely stopping applying the ointment but I hope it goes away ASAP & I will try to not let it prevent me from making new progress.

Luxury jumbo power switch because I had to use my pinky to switch Stealthlow on (16mm vandal switch) big 40mm ball based on how vandal switches work, :D I wanted it to sit flush through the layers so had to countersink the insides of the layers with files.

Designed & made a bunch of replacement fan controller knobs because the stock ones were plasticky & boring plus I wanted to see if I could even make them with being so small. :D

Made the rear IO/expansion motherboard tray pieces for the ATX & the mini-ITX with low profile expansion card size, drilled expansion card mounts & used hot soldering iron to sink brass thread inserts into the holes.

These motherboard trays were remakes, previous ones were 1mm off with not accounting for the IO shield that comes with motherboards.

The assembly for the marble button.

Fixing the button assembly in place & fixing more panels together.

Squigly on bit-tech pointed out the spindicator LED mod to me & Riekmaharg2 on bit-tech really helped me by making the electronics part of the Spindicator leaving the LED soldering to me, I'm a total newb on electronics but seem to be good & happy with that fact other than knowing a large chunk of my imagination is untapped potential so I blag myself I'm happy about being an electronics newb, it works somehow. :D

Simplified the wiring a bit by making a copper washer I drilled holes for the negative pegs of the LED's to go through & I later caked liquid electrical tape over it all making it look real messy but insulated it all to prevent short circuits, cut a bunch of acrylic discs & pasted transparent vinyl's to them so I can select the colour with whatever looks best which I won't know for sure until final assembly.

Spindicator in action.

Few videos of it made with a kodak pointy shoot with 720p high fuzzyness, not high definition :D want to upgrade my canon eos 1000d to a 550d so I can shoot nice clear video because videos can say a lot without saying a word & I like that a lot. :D






Made a case for the spindicator electronics which only just fits in next to the HTPC PSU.

2 more to go. :D

Ladies and gentlemen, the evolution of a true modder:

Then:

Now:

By the way, those knobs are incredible. :bowdown: +rep

Quote:

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Originally Posted by blueonblack

Ladies and gentlemen, the evolution of a true modder:

snip

By the way, those knobs are incredible. :bowdown: +rep

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Thanks Blue :D just trying to not think of what I might do after this one, something smaller lol. ;)

I slipped up on the updates so to get it right here's another 1.


Mounting the coupling plates to the bottom plate, had to retrofit templates in place with not including mounting points in the initial design, this made fixing everything together a lot more difficult.

Mounting support bars to the top of the coupling piece, wanted to use 3mm but was all out so went with 6mm bars.

Back to the squirrel feet adding pegs to the front making it a good solid fit, they are also fixed in on the short ends so they don't move about.

Optical plate mounting.

Added rod & grub screws to bridge the gap from HDD section to motherboard section.

Added the layers to let the mini-ITX tray slide in/out.

HDD sliding slots to replace a HDD box I made but wasn't quite right.

Fan perch & more sliding slots.

HDD trays.

Sticking the slots in place & mounting them to the panels.

Works nice but more work will be going into it so the power & sata plugs don't have to be touched & I just slide the trays in/out of place hot plug style.

1 more to go, then I can carry on at normal pace. :)