Dark Carbon

[rendermandan]

Thanks you guys!

Plexi work is amazing as always mate. The fan controllers turned out very well, shame they aren't black though lol. I know they won't be seen but you gotta go with the theme haha.

Yeah, I know it sucks being kinda yellowish. Not sure If I could paint it and still make it look good.
Most of the pcb mfr's. offer the green solder mask, but its alot more money. I don't know how much more it would be to do black too.

Here is the company I went with for the board.
http://www.expresspcb.com/

The reason I used them is they offered their "Mini Board" service.
I used their free software to design it. -As long as it fits within the maximum size limit. they produced 3 identical boards for $51 plus shipping.
They also produce and ship it very fast. Most other companies your looking at a longer turn around time.
If I wanted to do the solder mask and screen print. the price jumped from $60 to $250. SoI chose not to do it.
If we end up making some of these to sell. we will order them masked. but for now the prototype is fine.

[rendermandan]

Hey Dan, I just had an idea. I was thinking, if you frosted all the exposed edges of the red plexi you would get a more uniform, softer, less in your face glow than the naked edges. Just a thought.

actually I kinda did. I sanded them with some pretty rough sand paper. In other words, I didn't polish the edges. and it does give the edges some glow. I'm in the process of glueing on the black plexi. and believ it or not, it makes them look worse. basically whats happening is when I glue the black ot the red, it removes all the air space between the two pieces of plexi. the red leds light gets mostly obsorbed by the black plexi and not transfered through. the parts that do leak out into the red plexi lights up the edges but just not as much. Hard to explain.

There is really no way for me to change it now either. Its glued for good onto the case and if I try to remove it, I will destroy the red led stip lights along with the finish on the carbon fiber. Its really not that bad. just a little different than what I was planning on. But still looks good!.

I'll ge some pics for you tonight.

[rendermandan]

Go for the Carbon Vid card wrap, and the Keyboard..... In fact The mouse wouldn't be overkill! Or the monitor.

LOL, well, monitor and mouse huh?

How does this look?

Lol. My monitor has CF on the ends and my mouse already has a cf housing. -Not real of course, but OEM. Depending on how much I have left over from doing the video card and keyboard I might be able to cover the ends of the monitor with REAL CF. -Not sure how to do the mouse though. You can't bend real CF in multiple directions. Even though the stuff is .015" thick, it will still only bend around 3/4" dia.

But anyway, I went ahead and ordered the thin CF sheet. In the meatime, I'll work on getting some pictures uploaded and make a progress report tomorrow.

[rendermandan]

Thanks guys.

As promised, here is the progress report.

I mounted the fan controller in the bottom chamber.

I also started to mount the black plexi over the red plexi.

I started with the front panel.

I then added a CF panel for the dvd drive cover.

I also mounted my new shiny WD 750Gb hard drive. in the hot swappable tray.

I also noticed that one piece of my tubing that makes a 180deg bend had a slight kink in it. It wasn't huge, but enough to cause some flow problems. So I installed some wire around the tubing.

I got the rest of the black pieces polished and installed too.

I installed the power and reset switches on the front of the case.
The led light ring on the power switch will fade in and out when the case is off all the time. then when the power switch is hit. it goes solid.

the resest led ring is basically the power led so it will only be on when the computer is on or in standby mode.

Lastly, I made some CF panels to cover the holes in the top of the fan and hard drive boxes.

Sorry, but thats all I have to report today.

I'm getting very close to being done with the computer, but I am going to be modding the keyboard and possibly the monitor and mouse.

Its not over yet...

[rendermandan]

Hey guys, the Ultra Thin CF will be delivered tomorrow. So should be able to get some work done on the video card. In the mean time, I worked on the case a litte more.

I polished the edge of the window.

Then I mounted it to the top CF Panel.

Here is what it looks like on the case.

I also pulled the paper off the bottom cover.

I picked up some rubber grip feet to use.

Next I figured I'd start tearing apart the keyboard.

Most of you know what a G15 V2 keyboad looks like.

So after removing what seemed like a million screws. I got the trim piece removed

I found the led lights that light up the keyboard.

Just my luck, Surface mount LED's. -Not fun to replace.

I also pulled apart the led portion and founds some more Surface mount led's.

I'm not going to be able to replace those.
So the keys will have to do.

I used some more of those red led light strips I used on the computer to change the color from amber/orange to red.

Sorry this shot is a little over exposed. It really doesn't look that bad.

Next I made a template from the trim piece by first taping it to a piece of thick construction paper.

I traced around the openenings and cut it out with an exacto knife.

Here is the template over the trim piece.

It fits pretty good.

I'll used this template to cut the piece of CF once it arrives tomorrow.


I also filled the liquid cooling system with some red coolant.

Thats all I got done this weekend.

Later,

[rendermandan]

Nice work. I was under the impression you were using a CF vinyl, not the real thing. Should look awesome. Isn't the surface of the keyboard slightly curved though? How will you bend the CF and keep it in place?

Nope, I'm using real CF. Its just one very thin layer. .015" thick. so its basically as thick as a few sheets of paper. it bends easily up to a 3/4" dia. radius. so the slight curve the keyboard has will not be a problem. It also has a 3m adhesive on the back side. So All I have to do its cut it out and apply it. then clean up the edges.

It should arrive today.

[rendermandan]

Either way it's gonna look awesome.

Well, I'm normally more modest, but yeah, It does look AWESOME!!!

lol.


Ok, and to prove it, here is the update.

The sheet of CF did get delivered yesterday. But it had a slight defect.

Here is the sheet.

and here is the defect. Its from the damn Post office. The corner of the box was dented in and smashed, Its a VERY GOOD THING, that its happens to be in a spot that will get cut out. So its still usable.

I figurd I'd start by working on the video card. Here is the EVGA GTX 280 that I'm using.

I pulled the "plastic" stickers off the videocard to use as a template.

After some quick cuts with the exact knife, I had my template.

Here are two of the pieces layed out on the CF. You can see the damage area and how close it came to the keyboard.

So I started to cut the CF sheet with an exacto knife. -After going through 10 blades, I have this.

-This CF sheet doesn't cut very easily. I knew it would be difficult, but its much harder than expected. It does cut easily with Tin snips though.

Then, sanded the edges with some 600 grit sand paper. and applied it to the back of the video card.

I used the same procedure for the front.

But I forgot to do the small sticker on the edge of the card. -Have to do that tonight. I'd like to find a way to add "GTX 280" to the face of the card somehow in a red anodized aluminum, but not sure how to do that just yet. I need to look for some precut thin aluminum letters and numbers.


Next, I started on the keyboard. I rough cut the piece first, and then instead of using the template, I applied it to the keyboard directly first.

I didnt' use the template because of knowing how hard this stuff was to cut. So I came up with a different method. I used a straight carbide tip for my dremel, and just ground away the CF. I used the actuall plastic as the tempate really. and I think it turned out great.

I did some more rough cutting before getting too close to the edges.

Then I just followed the shape of the plastic very carfully.

Not too bad.

I finished the piece with some 600 grit sand paper to clean the egdes up, just like the pieces on the video card. Then I re-assembled the keyboard.

And here is the finished Keyboard.

Damn, that is one sexy keyboard!!!

[rendermandan]

LOL, Yep it looks kick Ass!!!!


-Got some good news and bad news.

Good news is, I got the computer Up and running. Vista installed,
all drivers working and I'm actually making my first post from it right now.
I did get a chance to run 3d Mark 06, and got a score of around 15000. Is that good for a GTX 280?

Bad news, I wont' have time to take any final pics untill tomorrow Because I have bowling tonight.

Sorry to keep you in suspense... LOL

[rendermandan]

Alright guys, My next post will be the final pictures and a video showing the motorized panel on the top and the pulsing led power switch.

I took the final pics using my Kodak digital camera and tried my best to do some photoshop editing to clean them up. Hope they look ok

On a side note. I don't have the fan controller finished quite yet. The actual electronics are done and it does power the fans. I also have the software program done. It just doesn't communicate with the controller just yet. I hope to have that finished in the next few weeks. I'm at the mercy of a programmer at my office so its up to him when he can help me work on it.
I can controll the fan speeds through a terminal application and just send Hex codes to it to speed them up or slow them down. So its not like I can't use it.

Ok, enough already. I'm uploading the final pics right now....

[rendermandan]

I present to you Dark Carbon.

Link To Original Worklog