Project [CIP]-XIXIV-[X4] FINISHED! 23th of october

[floriske.nl]

It took me quite a while, but finally I've finished translating my project's worklog from dutch to english.

First I had to translate the complete HTML document after which I had to convert it from HTML to suitable UBB code.

But, finally there it is, my (overhere) 23 posts/600 pictures long worklog of my latest finished project.
(for those with less time, pictures of the final result are on page 3 )

I've been a frequent reader at TBCS for quite sometime now, but never took the effort of regestering. Mostly because I'm a verry busy bugger and if I have to keep track of all forums out there I wouldn't have time to sleep

Today I did register because I couldn't resist posting the project log of my latest finished project XIXIV which you find below.

On short notice I will start a new project (Preperations are being done atm) and I might just post the progress of it overhere as well.

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XIXIV english (translation done)

Credits

Before I start with the entire story, I want to give credits to all the people at and of the dutch casemodding community Gathering of tweakers.

GOT is the site where it all started for me and where the original version of this work log can be found. The entire content of this story is copied and pasted from my original work log after which I've translated it to english.

Thanks for getting me addicted people at GOT and all the interest in my mod in progress!

What's the plan


All right, the starting picture looks fun, but what the H#ll is this guy up to

After I about finished my previous case silvertec en watching at it for quite some time, I thought it was about time for something new.

At this moment I've got 2 systems running over here, but the 3d one is on it's way.
For that system eventually a new case has to be built as well.

So I started looking for a solution that would take up less space than de chieftec and my other thermaltake case with 3 identical cases.

Because of my work as an audio visual technician I soon got to 19" enclosures, but those where way too expensive and off course I wanted to do some modding.
That's why I eventually chose to mod 4 Aopen HQ95a desktop housings into 19" cases.

I started brainstorming and photoshopping a bit and came to this design.

The front will be made out of 4mm transparent acrylic panel, with behind it mirror foil on which in it's case matte foil with text or a logo (still need to design the final) cut out of it.

I want to place 1 120mm fan in the front panel and 1 in the upper side of the case.

For the 5,25" Bays i'm going to modify a couple of lian li bezels so they will form a whole with the rest of the design. Around them there will be an edge of green UV reactive acrylic panel

Round switches etc. have been ordered, so I hope to get started soon!


the very first start

After a few weeks of waiting today I finally got my cases

At first I will mount my current two systems into 2 of the cases without any modifications

I have sold my old 2 cases, that's the reason why I have to work like this.

I'll start modding the other 2 cases as soon as possible, starting with the fronts and some minor adjustments that need to be done to the cases.

The cases like they arrived at my work today.

First of all I emptied my Xaser case

The first disassembled HQ95a

And my server placed into it.

So far not much modding yet, but mounting my old systems into the cases before actually starting already proved to be a good step.
Already I encountered a few problems with the cases and this way I can easily think of a solution without having to find out in a later stage.

The first problem is the mounting of the hdd.
As you can see on the last picture the hdd at this moment is mounted in a separate steel part above the processor.

Above the processor eventually there will be a 120mm placed, so the hdd can't stay mounted like this.

The existing 3,4" drive rack of the HQ95 however is build for vertical mounting of the drives and I don't want that because my drives have always been mounted horizontally and vertical is known to wear the drives faster.

I will have to turn the internal 3,5" drive rack 45 degrees and give it another place so there will be enough room for the 120mm fan in the front

Second of all the bottom 5,25" bay doesn't allow the mounting of a drive because it would hit the motherboard, so in contrast to my first design I will have to use the upper 2 bays.

That results in this adjusted drawing.

Most likely I will also place the switches somewhere else.

I'll keep you informed!


started modding the chassis

Today I've started modding the 2 cases that where still standing at my work, in one of them I replaced the hdd rack including dremeling away some useless metal, in the other one I only replaced it, the dremeling still has to be done.

First of all i de-mounted the hdd racks

Than I cut away the old sled-system in which the racks where originally placed to make some room for the new way of mounting..

The racks will be mounted with m3 bolts, therefore I had to drill some holes and make thread into them

Out of the front of the case I have cut away a piece so the finished hole is just as big as the HDD rack, allowing me to mount the drives a bit more to the front so I will have some more internal room.

My custom made fronts eventually will be mounted a few cm in front of the original case (for which I already thought of something) so this doesn't cause any problems.

The rack back in it's place just like i wanted.

Like I said, I have done this to one case so far, in this one I will mount my workstation one of these days.
This way I can kind of keep modding all cases without having none for my systems. All I have to do is quickly replace the systems in another case when needed.

The disadvantage of having to do everything 4 times is that it takes a little longer to get to the next step in the project.
The big advantage is that my cases will eventually be a unity and you get quite handy after doing it a couple of times.

[floriske.nl]

goodbye silvertec

Today it really was time to say goodbye to my silvertec

so I've place my workstation in one of the Aopen cases

. Like I told before I have sold the complete case including lights, LCD, baybus etc. so fortunately I didn't have to take everything out of it :d

There it is, after a long period of loyal service, de-mounted and parts spread throughout the room

At first I intended to let the HDD's stick out of the front a bit to create some more room inside.

But it turned out to be a better idea to just turn the drives around so the cabling will eventually run behind the fronts.

All it took was drilling 4 holes into the hdd rack and in no time they where mounted the other way around.

It takes a little getting used to the lack of space after being used to a chieftec bigtower, but fdd and zip drive will be left away anyway so in total it's a few less parts..

Now both my systems are mounted in an Aopen case, one a bit modded, one still original.

The other two cases need a bit more dremeling to be abel to mount the HDD racks the same way as in my current workstation case.

I'm expecting my 120mm fans and aryl panel somewhere this week which means I can finally start brainstorming about the fronts and start mounting the fans in the two empty cases.


1st load of equipment from a joined product buy

After a bit of waiting finally I got some stuff I ordered in a "joined product buy" today (no i'm not impatient

):

8x ac-ryan 120mm fan uv-green
3x ac-ryan acrylic panel 5mm clear
2x ac-ryan aryl panel 3mm green

Now I can finally start working on my fronts

The machine cutting of the holes for the fans and 5,25" bays I will do together with my boss's uncle (hail uncle Herman!!) to get this done as smooth as possible, but he's only in on Thursday so I'll have to wait a little.

But if I finish working a bit early tomorrow I will start working on the two empty cases again.

Finishing the work on the 3,5" racks and mounting the 120mm fans in the fronts are 2 things I want to have done asap so I can start measuring the front and start machine cutting on short notice.
So that's my first priority for now.


here we go again

Yesterday, after I finished working, I've worked on my project a bit at the company.

First of all I wanted to have a look at what I actually bought.

I started with finishing of the 2 hdd racks in the 2 empty cases, but because you've already seen how I did this I'm not going to tell the whole story again

That's a thing that comes with having to do everything 4 times

Let's see how the 120mm fans have to be placed.

There!

so let's grab the dremel!

Eventually cutting out the holes turned out to go faster than I thought

so I just had some time left to mount one of the fans before leaving the building (because of the alarm I have to be out before 20.00).

One step closer to the end result

New front design

Not really an update but I just had to show it.

I finally managed to get the layout of the front so that i'm pleased with it and everything will fit.

I've chosen to place a 20x2 character LCD in each case for display of e.g. fans speeds and temperatures.

[/b]


yet another new front design

Because the size 20x2 character LCD I needed was hard to get I decided to use a bit narrower 20x4 LCD (even better more characters :d) I found them for a reasonable price, but I did have to change the drawing again

I'm starting to find my way in 3Ds max a bit so I decided to make a rough 3D model to get an impression of what the end result will look ( I didn't feel like modeling all screws etc as well

)

[floriske.nl]

yay, more "presents!"

Slowly (always too slow

) the stuff for my project is being delivered piece by piece :d

Today I got 4 sweex SB hubs (one per system) and I've printed a 1:1 scaled design for the holes in the fronts.

(I'm really glad they decided to buy an A1 printer at work

)

yay, even more "presents!"

Today the 4 20x4 LCD's I ordered arrived.:d

Just to keep you informed:

Thursday my fronts will be picked up by my boss's uncle who's going to machine cut them (nope I'm not going to do the holes in the transparent layer my self because I want them to be as accurate as possible, handwork wont accomplish that result.)

I'm calling some people for neatly priced 2mm steel for the "ears" of the cases and I hope to have this as well one of these days.

Tomorrow I'm going to buy all the stuff needed to solder my LCD's.


first LCD working

Tonight I managed to free up some time to start soldering one of the LCD's and test it.
At least the first one went ok

(not that I expected different btw)

As you can see in the pictures I managed to fit the two potentiometers for contrast and backlight into the housing of the 25 pole D-sub connector, I found this practical so I didn't have any loose potentiometers hanging round.

One down, three to go :x


lcd's finished and fronts back from machine cutting

Today I finished soldering the other 3 LCD's as well

Next to that I also got my fronts back. The rounded corners of the square holes I will square myself and they will need a lot of sanding as well

I hoped that they would call me today to tell me my steel was ready to picked up, but unfortunately this wasn't the case, I'll call the dude tomorrow to tell him to hurry

theme design for siemens sl65

I found out that for my mobile phone (siemens SL65) there was a possibility to design my own theme so I couldn't resist making one in style of my casemod in progress

For those who are waiting for updates, I haven't worked as much on my mod the past few weeks, but I haven't stopped completely either, the transparent parts of the fronts are as good as finished.

Next week I'll have a holiday and I will start making the UV green parts of the fronts and the side panels from 2mm steel plates.

[/b]


a days labour

Today I've been working on my project the whole day :d
Once again I have been modding at work (with permission of course

because my boss isn't the worsted

)

First of all I started to sort all the material I thought I needed today.

Because I didn't get to it the last time I still had to cut out the hole for the 120mm fan in the second case.

It took me a while how to get started with cutting the uv green acrylic panel, but after a bit of measuring and messing around I managed to "build" a setup for machine cutting the needed 4 pieces of acrylic panel

after copying the holes from the transparent parts onto the green parts I started hacksawing the holes for the 120mm fans.
These had to be identical to the holes in the transparent part so they where the easiest to start with (gave me some time to get comfortable with the hacksaw

)

Because after 4 120mm holes of hacksawing I got bored I decided to drill the holes for the switches in between:x

Than I started sawing the holes for the 5,25" bays. As told I will leave 5mm of green visible around the bezels and switches. That's why these holes are 5mm smaller than the ones in the transparent part.

Because I don't have the bezels yet I decided to make the holes a little bit smaller just to make sure (easier to make them bigger than smaller). .

The holes for the LCD's I will do in a later stage, because they are smaller I thin I will saw them by hand.

So I started to work on the side panels/ears of the cases.
I started to measure and draw the size of the ears on the steel plate minus the thickness of the plate (because when folding the thickness will be counted to the eventual size) after which I folded them on the fold bench.

For those who payed attention, yes I did bent them a little bit further than 90 degrees, because at home (where I don't have a fold bench) it will be easier to fold them back a bit instead of further

There's the result of a day of labour (9.30 till 16.00) at work.

Fortunately I got quite a lot further and because the overall look is slowly starting to show below you'll find a few pictures of the parts stacked together so globally you can see what the idea is.

Between the two layers there will be a layer of none transparent foil so you will only see the green at the edges and the bezels and switches

That's it for today

[floriske.nl]

little update of the fronts

Today, in between my day job and part time education, I saw a chance to get some things I needed en mod a bit.

At the local hardware store I've bought some Stainless steel handles and (hex key) bolts for the fronts.

The way I'm going to mount the fronts is developed completely in my head, but it's difficult to explain so please keep track of the updates to find out

Like some of you already knew I've been busy cutting the holes for the LCD's in my fronts.

Because the LCD's have to be mounted as close to the transparent layer of the fronts as possible I had to cut the holes the size of the LCD's housing instead of just the screen.
The housing eventually wont be visible because of the foil that will be placed in between the green and transparent part.

the third picture shows that while cutting the first front it tore a bit

, but fortunately that won't be visible at all in the end

There you go, 4 times done

After that I started drilling the holes for the 120mm fans.
I measured out 1 front and used this to copy the holes onto the other three, started drilling with 3mm and ended with 4 and ..... wow it fits exactly

There we go

some more work done again

And, just to show you where I'm modding most of the time, here's 2 pictures of my hobby room

little update

It's been a while and many of you must have thought I gave up, but don't worry, that won't happen!!

To be able to go further I really need the lian li bezels I ordered, but unfortunately it takes ages for them to be delivered

so really continuing modding is a bit harsh atm

I did receive some other materials and I've got some other new, but more about that in a bit

The first picture shows the materials I already received, with the most important missing :s

The second picture shows how the pile of parts is slowly growing

On the third pictures I've roughly place some parts on/into the fronts to get a bit of an idea of what it will look like.
I've placed the original front measurements drawing in between like eventually the foil will be (except for the 5mm around the bezels, over there the green will be seen as well.)

And now to something new,

Because of the weight of the side panels I wanted to lighten them a bit by cutting out a logo or something like that.
When the father of a girlfriend of min heard this (for which I'm designing and making invitations for their 25th marriage anniversary) he offered me to have them laser cut at his work, as sort of payment for my efforts.

And of course I didn't say no to that, looks a lot better and costs a lot less work than doing it with the dremel

here's the result :d

Unfortunately no big update because of the delay in the delivery of my bezels, but I wanted to show you that I didn't give up and am still working on the project.


first front is starting to look like it

I haven't been working on the fronts for ages because I'm still waiting for the *beep* lian li

But it turned out that a friend of mine who owns a lian li case had a few blank plates lying around which have the exact same size as the bezel .

Which means I could have cut my fronts the right size using the blank plates all that time

stupid that I didn't think of that before

But, enough about me being blonT again, pictures

First of all I've cut the hole for the bezels the exact right size.

After which I used sandpaper grain 180 (picture is called 60, my bad

) to "matte the green acrylic panel layer on both sides.

After which I couldn't resist placing most of the parts together to get an overview again

Behind the green acrylic panel I will place mirror foil to make the green seem extra bright and between the green and transparent layer I can place anything I'd like

There

finally, a short but useful update after waiting ages for my bezels

which still haven't arrived btw!

[floriske.nl]

BEZELPARTY!!!

Finally, after waiting for about half a year, eventually my Lian-Li bezels arrived by mail, a good reason for an extra beer tonight and to start modding again

There they are, it took a while like said, but that didn't reduce the smile on my face when I opened the box

Just for fun I gathered some materials and parts for the picture

As you can see I am just as far with the other 3 fronts as the 1st in the previous update. (Am not going to bore you with the how to again

)

I started with cleaning the transparent acrylic panel of the fronts today, they had some residue on it from the tape I used to draw all the holes etc. on them.
This was a challenge to itself because the residue didn't easily come off and I didn't want to use any chemical products on the acrylic panel
Fortunately my mum had a trick from grandma's era "Eau de Cologne"(old peoples perfume) and this worked perfectly

(does smell a bit though

)

Alright, enough talk, PICS

If I've got nothing better to do I will drive to work again tomorrow and try to build up at least 1 case as far as possible.

No long story this time, pictures are way more interesting

Steel part of the fronts + Bezels

Woke up a bit late today so I didn't start on the assembly

Starting on the steel part of the front panels was another thing that still had to be done so I've made one of them today

It took me a few lines, but after a bit of measuring I think I drew the correct lines eventually

Dremel time

been a while since I touched my dremel, but fortunately I still knew how to

one tiny little mistake, but this wont be visible in the end.

As you can see the hole for the fan is a bit bigger than in the green acrylic panel layer, so you won't see any steel edges near the fan in the end.

After placing the fronts exactly onto each other I drilled the holes for the fan in the steel so I can start assembling the layers to make work a bit easier.

He waited so long for his bezels and the first thing he does is cut them to pieces

Because my cases aren't lian li cases it was pretty obvious that it wouldn't fit directly

in case of an original lian li the bezels are mounted to the case, but in my case they will have to be mounted to the front panels.
There for I've cut off a piece of the bezels and mounted it the other way around (hard to explain, so here we go again, pictures

)

Into the cut off pieces I drilled holes on the same place as where the bolds which keep the plastic in place in the bezels.
This way I could easily mount the pieces to the side of the bezels.

On these pictures you can see how the bezels will be mounted to the fronts eventually..

On the 3d picture you can see the screws are sunk into the green acrylic panel layer so you won't see them in the end.

And..... I"M A DAMN LUCKY *******

why?......After I drilled the holes to mount the bezels I realized that in the final design an edge of 5mm green acrylic panel will be visible in the fronts.
I didn't take this in notice while drilling the holes, but fortunately the holes are outside this 5mm
but just to make sure none will be I will be using bolts with a smaller head from now on

A few leftover pictures

[floriske.nl]

Wish I wouldn't have done anything today

Not much to say, I'm going to have to remake one of the green front parts. Because I stepped on one lying around

Pictures:

* floriske.nl is going to break something useless to get rid of his aggression

Continued after a grumpy day

After putting aside the disappointment from yesterday I started with a second front panel today.

Because you've already seen the making of the steel parts I won't bother you with it again

Pictures again

This is today's victim (indeed this is the one with a tiny break in it but this won't be seen in the end) hopefully it won't end up under my big feet

To be sure I wouldn't drill within the 5mm which will eventually be visible I drew lines so I could see what I was doing

The holes for the bezels are drilled like above..

To easily mark the mounting holes of the LCD's I've put it on it's place upside down. These holes are drilled 3mm and I also enlarged the mounting holes in the circuit board so I can use M3 bolds for mounting..

Once again the bolds are sunk in the green acrylic panel layer.

Here you can see how they will be mounted, the bolts will eventually be cut off.

And of course I couldn't resist mounting one front panel as far as possible to see if it all fits like it's supposed to

The hole for the LCD screen has to be adapted a bit, but this I will do later on.

WOW, I've modded without wrecking anything today

I'm still alive and started again

As promised I would continue working on my project after finishing my part time education for graphical designer (which I successfully finished

) in my holiday

The first week of my holiday I've been away and relaxing with my girlfriend

but I've started again.

Yesterday I gathered all of my mod stuff and drove off to work (yes during my holiday) because the weather wasn't to good the past few days and at work we've got a lot more tools to work with (thanks boss

)

I started working on the 3d front so it got just as far as the first 2 (don't have new material for the 4th one I broke yet so I'll have to do this later on :S)

Finishing of the 3d front took most of my time, but I did do a few extra things

After I finished the 3d front I drilled the holes for the power and reset switches in all 3 of them.

Don't be bothered by the rust on the steel btw, they will be treated before they are going to be painted/coated..

Tomorrow I will continue, I want to drill the final holes that go through all 3 layers of the front panels. I'll start early so I hope to show a lot more pictures than today!

Here are 2 more pictures of today's result............ on to tomorrow

[floriske.nl]

Day 2

Today I'll start with some good advise

quote:
floriske.nl wrote on tuesday 02 august 2005 @ 10:28:
I've got a tip for fellow modders:

If you are going to use your dremel make sure to wear safety glasses.

When I was dremeling yesterday somehow I got 2 tiny steel splinters in my eye while wearing my regular glasses, result: hardly any sleep and a lot of pain

But the doctor took them out and according to him It'll only stay annoying for a few days

And now, off to work to mod

There, that's today's tip, now let's go and view today's results

I didn't work all day as I wanted because around 3 in the afternoon my eye was so irritated that I stopped.

I've spend most of the day assembling one case to see if it all fits so far and check if I am not forgetting something..

started placing the parts toughly together after which I could mark the mounting holes for the side panels.

After which I could start drilling them an mount the panels to the chassis.

Eventually I will have to take the side panels off again because they have to be coated, so I didn't mount it on all places yet.* floriske.nl is rather lazy than tired

I almost forgot to drill the extra holes to mount the 3 layers of the fronts together. 2 extra holes left of the drive bays, aligned with the fan mounting holes.

Mounting the fronts to the chassis basically will be done with the bolts of the handles, the left and right side will contain these handles which will be mounted with bolts from the back, through the folded part of the side panels and the front panel.
Simple, but successful.

All in all I'm pretty satisfied with today's result, didn't expect that the assembly of one case would go this quick

and ............ at least as important ............. so far everything fits and I think it still looks promising

2 more pictures of what the case looks like now:

see you in a few days!

[floriske.nl]

1st 'chassis' ready for use

I had to make a choice today: Either mount the side panels to the second case, or make the first case's chassis ready to mount my workstation in it.

Eventually I chose the second option, first of all to keep a bit of alternation in the build process and to empty another "non modded" case so I can start working on that one as well

Like I've said before, my current workstation will eventually become mediacenter and will be cooled with a thermaltake bigwater cooling system.

To be able to mount the pump and radiator the HDD's had to be moved so I would have enough room.
After a bit of brainstorming en making the conclusion that I would never use 2 DVD/CD players in one system I decided to mount the HDD rack underneath the DVD player.
But, in such way that it can always be placed back in its original place when needed.

First of all I removed the top of the rack to have just al little less overall height. Once the harddisks are place they will make sure it wont deform, so the top isn't needed anyway.

As I could have expected I also had to replace the mounting holes in de rack because I want the disks to stick out in front as much as possible so I will loose as less space inside the case as possible.

Between the LCD en the chassis front there is 3cm of room, the harddrives will eventually stick out 1,5cm so they won't be in the way.They also won't interfere with the mainboard inside the case because they won't overlap that.

I also had to do some minor adjustments to the front to make it all fit (edges aren't sanded yet on the pictures

)

The rack will be mounted almost the same way as before, except upside down an in such a way that I can take it out from the front of the case.

To make sure the rack won't bend due to the weight of the disks I simply mounted a rubber foot under it.

And that's how it eventually looks.

As some of you might have noticed the side panels stuck out of the side of the fronts a bit.
I've done this on purpose because it's easier to take a bit off steel of it than add some to it.
Here you can see the edge that I had to cut off on both sides.

On with the hardware mounting now

I have removed the side panels so they can be powder coated, mounting them again can simply be done while the hardware is already mounted so I can continue preparing the chassis for mounting the hardware.

To mount the radiator I didn't have to do much more than cutting of some small edges en drilling 4 holes as you can see in the pictures

Mounting the pump is a different story, as this has to be placed where the HDD rack was mounted and there isn't much steel to mount it to in that place anymore because I cut that away.

It took me a while, especially because most likely I want to use another type of pump in the future, but I figured something out, a PCI slot cover plate did the trick

not the prettiest solution but an effective one and I only had to drill one hole in the chassis.

I want to run the cooling "dry" before mounting it on the hardware, so I took a few pieces of plywood and temporarily mounted the hardware to those.

Officially the GPU block had to be mounted vertically, but because of the lack in height in the cases I had to measure and improvise a bit to mount it horizontally.

I also mounted the CPU block on the right place on the wood, after which I went home for dinner and mounting the hoses and filling the system.

I would rather have mounted the hoses less messy, but as this is my first liquid cooling system it this was something I lacked experience in, next time I have to refill the system I will reroute them.

I'm going to let it run overnight now to see if it doesn't leek anywhere.


done a lot, not much pictures and text

Because mostly I've worked on things I already did on the first case there wont be much pictures and much of a story in this update

Today I've e did the same work to case 2 and 3 as I have done to case 1 so far:

That's it for today

[floriske.nl]

miniature update

Not a major update but another good reason to drink a beer to it tonight

I have de-mounted chassis 2 and 3 today and mounted my server in one of them so I can start working on the final chassis as well

As some of you know I have wrecked one of the green layers of my fronts by standing on it and unfortunately I am still waiting for a new Acrylic panel for it

(by mistake they had send me a 4mm panel instead of 3

)

I did do all the rest of the work on the fourth chassis today but unfortunately I can't pre-mount the front yet due to the lack of material.

I didn't take any pictures of the adjustment of the chassis because you've already seen this before, but I did take some pictures of my server in it's new housing and how I got rid of the cables as much as possible.

Add on to the first update of today

After coming home and firing up my server I heard something that has been annoying me a while already, the CPU cooler making an awful lot of noise

the orb series of TT has the reputation of not being the most quiet cooler, but mine wore out as well so it was hell to listen to it.

At first I wanted to remount the original boxed cooler, but than it came to me that I had a Zahlman CNPS7000-CU lying around somewhere.

Standard it doesn't come with mounting material for socket 423 (the server is an PIV 1.4 willamette) but with a little creativity I managed to adjust the clamps from the boxed cooler in such a way that I could mount the Zahlman with it. Simply drilling 2 holes and cutting thread in it did the trick.

As you can see, all I had to do was remove the original socket 478 brackets and mount the modded original williamette clamps to the cooler

The TT indigo orb kept my williamette (running at 1610 MHz) idle around 39 degrees, but the Zahlman lowers that temperature to 32 and with a fanmate in between and the fan running at it's slowest it still manages to keep it to 37 degrees

(and awfully quiet

)

[floriske.nl]

First 2006 update

After hardly hearing from me for about 4 months finally here's another update, more pictures than text, but hey it's an update

First of all a few pictures of the reason why you didn't here from me for such a long time.
In october I got the key to my first own (rented) 2 story apartment and I have been working hard on that (and just like my mod I somehow never get finished

)

First of all the living room:

I wont bother you with the outside, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, hallway, toilet, shed, dining room etc. but one thing I do have to show you "where am I going to work on my mod from now on?"

The hobby room on the top floor that is (complete with self build workbench

):

But enough about my new home now, most likely you are much more curious about my mod

As some of you knew I have a new workstation in the meanwhile and my old one has become mediacenter, I also got a PIII for free for the fourth case and messing around with linux.

off topic:

for those who are curious, here are the specs of the workstation:

-Athlon 64 X2 Toledo 4400+, Socket 939, Boxed
-Corsair TWINX1024-4400C25PT DDR SDRAM, 1 GB, PC4400 cl 2,5
-2x Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 10 250 GB, 7.200 rpm, 16 MB cache Sata
-Asus A8N-SLI Premium
-NEC ND-3540 16 x, 8 x, 16 x, Silver, OEM
-Antec True Power 2.0 550 Watt
-Asus EN7800GTX TOP/2DHTV 256 MB, PCI Express x16

As you could have expected I have already built it into one of the chassis and momentarily it's running like this on top of the stack:

As you can see I didn't install the water cooling yet, I did get started on that in the empty chassis I have left, this way I can work on mounting the radiator and pump without having to miss my workstation.

The chassis that currently contains the workstation will eventually contain the PIII.

Like said I started on mounting the water cooling which contains the following parts:

-Aquacomputer 120mm radiator
-Aqua computer Cuplex Evo 1.1 CPU block
-Alphacool NexXxoS NVXP-3 6800/7800 GPU block
-Eheim compact 600 pump with....
-Aquatube reservoir for compact 600

The pump and radiator are mounted in their place

As you can see I mounted the pump rotated 90 degrees, this way the reservoir is the highest point in the cooling system and it will be easy to refill. It's also mounted partly isolated from the chassis with bolts through rubber to prevent resonance as much as possible.

How are we going to go further after such a long time?

Well, I've got more good news, the side panels are send to the powder coater and will be ready in about a week, when they are I can start mounting aluminium gauze behind them and mounting them to the cases so they wont have to be de-mounted AGAIN

I also have to do some things for the water cooling before I can mount it onto the hardware, for the 230V pump I'm going to make a relay switch so it will turn on with the system. This will be build into a metal box and I will have to put myself to realizing that

After that? I have no idea, I'll just pick up the work and I still am not in a hurry, so I'm still going to take my time and work as concentrated as possible

The wooden cabinet won't become black anymore, but it will be the same color and style as my furniture, I will see if i can adjust the 3D render one of these days.

That's it for today.

p.s. for those who don't like to read through the entire topic, here's a short to-do list:

done:

- All 4 of the chassis are nearly done
- side panels are done,
- Most of the cutting and drilling work on the front panels is done (except for the led's)
- I have made a replacement for the broken green front layer.

to do:

- build in workstation water cooling
- mount PIII in the last chassis

- mount aluminium gauze into the side panels
- final mounting of the side panels
- build led's into the fronts
- final complete assembly
- build the wooden cabinet

because I had the picture, here you can see the 2 crates which currently contain all of the projects mod stuff

Water cooling relay switch

My first intention was to do this yesterday, but didn't get to it, so I've worked on the relay switch for my workstation's water cooling for a few hours today

The entire switch will be built in a die-cast aluminium box and will contain a molex connector which can be plugged in inside the case and a 230V connection.

I started mounting the molex and 230V chassis and testing the relay on a loose power supply.

After that I had to make a hole where the pump cable could run through, I placed a rubber in this hole so the cable stays in place and won't get damaged.

The box is mounted on the back of the case where you can normally mount 2 60mm fans, but because I wont do that this is the best place for it. Also because it was very easy to make the molex chassis pluggable inside the case (see next pictures)

You can also see how the pump's cable is running on the second picture.
Both 230V wires (phase and null) are switched by the relay.

Here you can see the box completely mounted and connected in its place.

In the second picture you can clearly see how it will be connected to the PSU, unfortunately the hole for the molex isn't too nice because I Miss-measured a few mm

but I don't think it will be noticeable once all hardware is mounted.

There, once again not much text, but hey, it's friday and I didn't feel like writing a long story and I think most of you rather see pictures than text