Lean and Green - modular dual PC scratch build

[Waynio]

That switch is gonna look sick. Will it be backlit?

Thanks Fuganater, it will be lit with this beauty.

[Waynio]

So, it's a 10mm spring compressed to 5mm so it stays forced into place so not loose & only have to press it 2mm in to switch it, 2x 0.9mm m4 nylon washers, 4mm acrylic rod, 3mm opal frosted acrylic sheet, 2mm acrylic sheet, Aluminium tube, 2mm aluminium sheet, 10mm aluminium plate, lian li switch.

Had trouble making it fit in but just about got to a point where it should work.

Just over 4mm space between the switch & PSU, extremely close.

I'm done for today though.

[Waynio]

Improved the design & got it ready for the spindicator & managed to make it less deep so has a touch more space again, lol about 3mm extra space but it all makes a difference.

Got it printed, had a good rest, caught a few rays from the sun so feeling gooooood, time to get busy until I have a good scoop of progress.

Next update I aim to do the back pci/io pieces for the HTPC & gamer rig, get this switch assembly made & fixed together & have the soldering done for the spindicator, I'll save the spindicator until last though because I might have to ask Keir about the negative part of the LED's again, might.

[Waynio]

Mini update while I take a break.

Chop saw time, I need to figure out exactly where I need to place the piece to be cut, also the clamp is a bad combination with the mitre guide because the clamp has decent force to hold things in place but the mitre guide is an easy push over so throws it off whatever angle you set it at so I recognised this & fixed the angle & only clamped so it was touching & held it manually, helped do a straight cut & wow it blitzed through this 45mm pipe with 3.2mm thick walls, took about 3 seconds or less & safety glasses should be worn using this as chips fly everywhere, I will mod this tool at a later date for the clamp & guide combo to function better as well as add a marker for where it actually cuts.

Like said I need to figure out exactly where to place pieces to cut, had about 5 or 6mm excess I had to file & sand down to get it correct length, nice & square.

On to the design.

This is another nice thing about the scroll saw with 760mm throat I can cut a slither off a 1000mm panel easily by doing half 1 way & flip it around & go at the other side but I only needed a tiny bit off this sheet of acrylic lol.

Used scraps for the aluminium bits.

10mm aluminium takes some time to cut so I just took the needed piece off & got busy with files.

Using that sweet precision helper for drilling on both the 2mm alu parts.

Because it's 4 layers that need the same holes I completed 1 of the 2mm alu ones & then aligned that to do the acrylic ones & quickly got it drilled & because the other alu one was on the same panel I decided to just do that one too but same as the first one.

All the needed bits with switch slotted in.

I need to get the multi layer front panel mounted to the bottom HTPC panel before I fix the switch parts together so it functions 100% spot on.

Next up, pci/io pieces & I'll get back to completing this switch when I get to fixing the pci/io pieces together, should have another update in a pile more hours.

[Fuganater]

That button is going to be sick!

[Waynio]

That button is going to be sick!

Can't wait to have it fixed together & the spindicator mod placed in it, hopefully very soon.

Didn't meet the goal of completing the switch & PCI/IO pieces but.

PCI/IO pieces, 1 low profile for the HTPC & 1 standard ATX for the gamer rig.

Started first by printing, cutting, tacking together the templates & I made 2 for 2 slightly different aluminium panels on each one so the IO shield can pop in/out properly & just the 1 for the triple layer acrylic sandwiches which I stuck on the outer layer of the sandwich & roughly cut around it & drew around the master one onto the other layers & stuck together with tensol 12 acrylic adhesive & left them clamped for a few hours, I moved it around so it was 100% caked & squeezing out of the seams on the joining surfaces.

While waiting for the adhesive to get an awesome bond I focused on doing the 1mm aluminium panels.

Cutting the 13mm acrylic sandwiches proved tricky, when using normal blades they would get hot pretty fast even on a slow speed & start melting the acrylic causing some very unwanted problems of the blade going in any direction it wanted to with ease & melting the greenish dust from the black acrylic onto the opal frosted stuff making it look a heck of a mess instead of like a liquorice allsort lol, so I had to drill bigger holes so I could get a modded band saw blade in which still gets hot but not as fast & gets further before it needs a cool down, after cutting it all out I had a good bit of removing that dirty green mess away with files & razors which made my nice cuts dull full of uneven levels & requiring much more finishing, I want to get them to a shiny polished state so still have my work cut out on these.

Loosely fit together, I like them & can picture how sweet they will look if I do polish the acrylic edges & polish the aluminium, they still need mounting holes adding & brass thread inserts pushing in, Ill do the mounting holes next.

Would have posted this at 8PM but I desperately needed a nap or it was a natural hangover coming my way drooling into my keyboard lol.

[Waynio]

Just finished doing these, started yesterday evening but had a few hours of breaks.

Cluster pictures because there was 25.

Placed some masking tape on a square & marked where the blade comes down on the chop saw for easy aligning.
Left near 2mm excess to be safe & filed & used the disc sander to get it the perfect size needed.

Drill helper idea being used for drilling the dead centre of rods & then finishing off in the drill press, I'm calling this poor mans lathe.

Boring fan control knobs.
Cut a 6mm strip of card & wrapped it around the bottom of the knobs & marked a line around it, the bulky bit needs to be 10mm high, the smaller bit needs to be 6mm high.
Whole lot of filing until it's good enough.
Getting the same depth of hole on them all I perfected 1 & then used a pencil to mark where the needed depth should be for the others & did bit by bit until they were all good.

Printed the model from different perspectives as a rough guide & got busy with appropriate files until they were good.

Woooo, just need smoothing off on the drum sander now.

End result but I will perfect these before I get them anodised & once anodised I'll re sand the sharp arrows for a sweet contrast.

Awesome, nice to have those done with.

[Stonerboy779]

You milled them by hand......

WOW this just gets better and better and better.

[Waynio]

You milled them by hand......

WOW this just gets better and better and better.

Was a little worried I just wouldn't be able to work them good enough with only being 15mm diameter x 16mm but thanks to making them as 1 piece instead of 2 I was able to place them in the vice on the end, nice to have another big ish session out of the way.

Internal plans are mostly simple but might up the features, might cheers Stonerboy779.

[msmrx57]

You milled them by hand......

WOW this just gets better and better and better.

What he said.