The TIP-3000

[DaveW]

Worklog time!

I’ve finally found the time to get some work done on the Integration Project. It’s been a while since I’ve been into the cellar, almost 2 months, and I was a little annoyed to find out that someone had carelessly put something on my side panel, bending it out of shape. After a short period of hammering I had it back in shape, and cracked open the Bondo, although it’s a cheap knock-off called ‘Chemical Metal’, whatever the heck that is.

First off, here’s a plan I’ve been working on in Sketchup. It’s not finished yet but it helps me visualise where I’m going to be taking the mod.

So one of the first things than needs done is the rails for the side panels. After cutting them off the old lid, I attemped to attach them to the new one. I used a chopstick to apply the bondo in small amounts into the crack, in the theory that it’ll hold it all together nicely. The first time I tried it, it didn’t exactly work, and I had to go back and re-apply more bondo. But after a few tries, I think I’ve got it sussed. Here’s some pics of how I eventually got it on.

I’m aware that it’s a complete mess, but this stuff is much harder to use than bondo brand I suspect. I’ll use the dremel to shave it down. finally, I put the mesh in the side window. I’m going wait for it to dry, then I’ll be looking at the putting the mesh into the lid, and from then on, I’ll be done till I’m sure about what I’m doing. I suspect it will be back to measuring and trying to find a suitable hinge for the front of the computer.

Unfortunately, all the eggs I was incubating were infertile bar one, which died when we had a sudden heatwave in the last day. Needless to say I was a little upset, but such things happen. My girlfriend, Kimberley, will buy chickens from the next farm market she comes across, so we’ll get a mascot for this project at some point.

That’s all for now, I’ll update again tonight, hopefully!

-Dave

[DaveW]

Worklog Time!

Maybe that should read "Damage Control". Here's a photo of the original mess...

...then I cleaned it up with the dremel...

...before assembling the lid and re-applying the bondo substitute. Not sure if i used enough hardener this time, but i think it'll come out ok. I used the sanding part of a dremel to clean it up, and then a tack cloth to ensure that the whole thing was clean for the liquid metal crap to stick to. As you can also see, I’ve started putting the mesh into the lid too, although the mesh at the front is going to be tight fitting to say the least.

Here's a close up of the 'bondo' job. I know it looks a mess but I’m working with crappy tin-like metal and the bondo substitute's pretty heavy, so it tends to sink.

I used a small pair of clamps to hold the damaged rail that the Jigsaw wrecked earlier on into shape. Hopefully, when this crap has dried, it'll all be held in place.

I also used some of the left over stuff to fill in some holes in the back of the computer. I'm going to give this plenty of time to dry before I worry about it, so expect a work log update sometime next week. I'll be working in a job (shudder) just after I expect this stuff to dry, so it will take a while.

As always, feedback is welcome.

-Dave

[DaveW]

Worklog Time!

Sorry about larger filesizes in this particular update.

Well, the clamps did their job poorly. Well, in truth, I messed up the bondo again-I never mixed the hardener all the way through and a part came out soft. But, I managed to fix that with some epoxy putty, which you can see here.

Because the Mixture’s heavy, I also had an issue with the stuff on the back if the computer not holding it’s shape, so it sanded into a complete mess. But I cleaned it up, applied another layer to fill in the gaps, and it went on nice and smooth.

It sanded down quite evenly as well, to give me this.

from the back....

Which means that the top part is pretty much finished! It looks a little bit like this.

Now onto the front. I cut the pieces out of some card, so I can play around with a layout that I like. Then, I get to work with the pencil and mark out the places that I want to cut, making sure to leave plenty of space for the mesh and such. When I finally get a layout planned, I’ll add it to my render, before I do any messing around to make sure that I’m going to like the way it comes out. I’ll post that soon enough, but I’ll leave you with this pic just now.

I also wanted to say thanks to the 2,955 people who have hit this Worklog: I know work is slow, but I’ll make it in the end. Comments are always welcome, hope you check back later too!

-Dave

[DaveW]

Worklog Time!

Well, you allready knew i had trouble getting inspiration for this case. These are some of the things i destroyed in an attempt to get the inspiration for this case.

I think i'll work this in too...

Now here's the damage that happened to the top bar. Ouch. Again...

I made another trip to Howarth Switchgear, and these are some of the materials that i got...finally got some Diamond plate! I think I know what i'm going to do with it, but all will be revealed later. I taped up the Aluminium before cutting at this point.

Although i won't reveal how that's going for a wee while. I have some of these metal bars that are from a broken IKEA bed. I'm going to use one of them to help support the egdes. I'll get there in the end.

So i cut one of them down a little bit...

...and hammered in the ends to make it nice and square. Then i took the CD stabliser off the top of the case, and used it to further strengthen the side rails. Some epoxy stuck the stuff together, and it looks like it's going to work pretty well.

Tada!

I was quite impressed with this new Xclio PSU when i took it out of the box...although this label, perhaps, should have warned me about the product...

Although i have to say, the PSU has a nicematt finish, and a good selection of cables, and in the ooh...hour that it was working, it was quiet as a mouse. Although mine blew up, i suspect that this was a one off, so maybe you shouldn't write off the company quite yet-here's a pic of the PSU.

I've also got a picture of the damaged graphics card! I'm pretty dissapointed, but i expect those nice guys at scan computers will have it all sorted out in no time. They've allready got me a nice new PSU.

As i hinted at earlier, i've made a lot of progress since i took these photos, so when i've finished the next stage, i'll let you know. See you later guys!

-Dave

[DaveW]

Worklog Time!

Ok, i've finally found the time to update this! I actually updated this the other night but for some reason the post didn't appear. Which made me scream for a while, to say the least.

Anyway: What's new? I got the replacement graphics card, and to say the least, it is noisy as hell and sweet as hell. Now, i knew those graphics coolers were said to be noisy. But this thing is NOISY. I'll take a video when i get the chance of the noise that this thing makes...it's not natural.

Anyway, here's me plans for the computer. They're half finished, but i'm probab;y not going to finish them: I'm farly happy with how it looks, and that's as far as I can bothered going with these.

Ok, so for this, let me explain. Behind the mesh there's going to be an LED light display, that will slowly flicker between different LED's. As the computer gets busier, the lights will flash faster. The LED from the Drives will be removed and hooked up to a PIC which will calculate how busy the drive is and perform a similar function. When i move onto the PIC's, i'll set up a tutorial on them, because they're damn useful for guys like us but most folks have never even heard of them. The panel is my custom control panel, which is actually finished, but i'm trying to work out a few niggles before i bother posting pics of it.

This shows the side panel more. Underneath the Plexi i'm going to have waste electronics with a few peices of mechanical mumbo-jumbo thrown in there to boot, along with a cold cathode tube for mood lighting. I'm not sure if i should get a white tube, as the plexi's orange, or get an orange tube, as it would make everything even more orange. Feedback on this point would be appreciated. I'm also thinking about putting a little flashing hazard light in the top right hand corner, which is what you see there. I'm going to go and cut this stuff pretty much now, so these plans are finalized, but it's the little details that count. Feedback is appreciated, and please don't shy away from telling what you don't like about it- If i didn't want feedback, good or bad, then I wouldn't keep a worklog.

That's all for now, I should update again later.

-Dave

[DaveW]

Worklog Time!

Thanks for the Feedback guys! I'll put an interior switch behind the front door, which will enable me to turn it on and off at will without so much as a worry. Now i'll get on with that worklog that i've been promising you for about a month.

So first up: i've got the front end ready to cut, and i've been trying to get the time to cut the damn thing for ages. Hopefully today, but you never can tell. Pretty boring at this end, not much to show at the minute.

But there's a decent amount of progress with my dashboard (and that is what I shall call it henceforth). It's going to have 2 fan speed controllers built in, a vandal proof switch for the main power, and two smaller switches to control the doors of the drives. The one to the left will control the case fans and the one to the right will control the speed of the Zalman fans that i'm using in this case. To design it, I masked of an area from a piece of Aluminium. I then cut out the shapes in cardboard, so I could choose exactly where to put everything. When that was done, I drew my plans in the masking tape, and got to work. (I had a bit of help from my friend Cheryl here-thanks for helping me to enlarge the holes!)

After a few hours of work, it had all the necessary holes. I also had a small problem-somehow i had managed to put a massive scratch into the metalwork. But, after a round of some heave wet and dry paper, I managed to remove the worst of the damage. By putting it together with selotape and screws, i ended up with this-although the knobs for the fan speed controller are not installed at this point.

Inside, instead of using the circuit that I'd planned to use, i'm using some modified Zalman Fanmates. This pic shows the progress: I'll do a small diagram about how to modify the zalman fanmates when they're finished. It's a simple circuit that anyone can make. Hell, I did it.

I know this was possibly the worst update ever, but i've got a lot of things half finished, and i'm just waiting till i have more done so i show you something more substantial. Watch this space.

-Dave

[DaveW]

Worklog Time!

It's finally time to show you some of this stuff. So Yesterday I had a little help from my friend Cheryl again-thanks for all the help! We got a decent amount of stuff done. First up: I’ve gotten around to getting the dashboard finished. Here’s a nice pic of the dials in place.

I’m thinking about illuminating the dials something like this. It looks sweet. I was going to get new back plates for the dials, but they’ve really grown on me-if you think I should replace the back plates on the needle gauges, the please let me know, maybe suggest something? You might have noticed that there’s no temperature gauge on this anywhere. The reason for that is that I think it would ruin the appearance. This mod has come through a lot of revisions to get to where it is today, and although I had included a Digital Temperature monitor in the Dashboard in every revision bar the last, I decided to put this inside of the door. The whole front of the case will be removable, with a temperature/electronics light board underneath. The one that will be visible through the mesh at any rate. Anyway, here’s the illumination pic.

Next up is the left side panel. I’ve dropped the hazard light for a number of reasons.

1) It would eventually annoy me.
2) It would be very difficult to implement, and time consuming-the time/result ratio was close, but not close enough.
3) I already have an idea for what to replace it with that will be equally as effective-at least I hope so.

At least if I ever missed it, I could get one on a pole, and have it ‘sticking up’, if you know what I mean. So with this in mind, I cut my materials, and worked out what to do with the left hand panel.

I found some shelving brackets that I had left over from making my keyboard bench in Stage 3. So I used them at this point as they were perfect fits for my corner brackets. This was blind luck, as I had planned to make these. This is better thought.

After waiting a while, I managed to assemble the square for the side of the case. This is what it currently looks like.

Then I got on with tying up some loose ends; I tidied up the floor of my case, and filled in and flattened out the holes that were in it. There’s no point in doing a half ass job, is there?

Finally, I made these little hinge/bracket thingies to attach the front door to the case with. They might not look like much now, but I’m hoping they’ll look a lot better when they’re all in and finished.

Allrighty, I think that’s all for today! I’ve got a day to myself here, so I’m going to get some work done on this and hopefully you guys will be in for another proper Worklog tomorrow. I’d love some feedback and criticism on how you think the mod’s coming along-and on my Worklog technique too, that would be interesting and helpful. Thanks guys!

-Dave

[DaveW]

Worklog Time!

Hi Silverdemon, I was thinking about that-but I’m going to have a lot of different LED’s at the front so I don’t think it’s worth it. I recon that the contrast between the orange lights and the 2 greens at the front would be pretty cool. Anyway, on with the Worklog!

I stuck on the frame for the left side panel. It looks GOOOOD. I’m really pleased with how well this part is turning out. I need to fill the edges, as it’s not 100% perfect. Does anyone know how well paint will stick to hot glue? I’m thinking not well at all. If It comes down to it, I might try and use a syringe filled with epoxy to get that edge perfect, but the hot glue gun would be easiest, assuming of course, that it would actually work. Anyone who knows this; it would be useful for me to find out.

I also finished off half of the hinges for the doors: you can probably see where these are going by now. The parts on the right are perfect: I couldn’t have asked for a better finish. The parts on the left will need to be done again.

My friend Euan came over today and helped out with preparing the case for painting. He did a pretty good job fixing up the case.

Then I finally got the front cover cut! This took nearly 5 hours of constant cutting. At least I’m getting very good at using the Jigsaw. It needs a lot of tidying up, and I thought I might have to throw out the whole piece: This was how it looked with the paper on it…

But when I removed the paper, I realised the damage wasn’t as bad as I first thought, and most of it can probably be fixed up with a bit of time with the file, which is what I’ll do tomorrow.

I really want to get this case finished to the point where I’m installing hardware and using it. I need to get a lot of practice with the soldering iron at any rate, cos the electronics part is calling up soon.

Also, I managed to kill the Zalman fanmate. I had a wire soldered to the potentiometer, but something went wrong and I burned it out. Still not sure how, but I’ll figure it out.

That’s all for tonight, would love to know about that glue thing please. Thanks for sticking with me guys!

-Dave

[DaveW]

Thanks very much Maleficus, much appreciated-its just in a very, very hard to sand area, and if the hot glue works, then it won't need sanded. Thanks for the feedback with the front panel.

As for cutting Aluminium with a jigsaw...it's much, much easier than cutting through steel!

Top tips? I'd say always keep the part you want cut on a flat surface. If you put pressure on it, it will always bend and possibly snap or warp. With steel, you can hammer it back into shape, but probably not with Aluminium. When using the jigsaw, always wear eye protection. Also, use oil on the blade every few inches. It makes the blades last longer and gives a cleaner cut.

As a final tip: If you have long hair, be careful when washing afterwards-I didn't realise I had a sharp peice of metal in my hair and it went into my eye in the shower last night.

Hope that helps. Anyway, i'm off for another day of modding-i'm flying through things this week, i've been too ill to go to work, so this is my escape from reality. Thanks for the feedback.

-Dave

[DaveW]

Worklog Time!

Thanks for the advice dgrmkr, but that’s pretty much what I ended up doing anyway. I’m thinking it doesn’t look too bad, and I can probably get away with doing this. So I applied hot glue to the inside of the frame, which has held it on really well, and I used some to finish off the hinges for the front door.

I’m aware the hinges look like crap. It’s beauty in the flaws, ok?

I also cut out the space for the front 120mm fan to go in the case. It’s not clean but I don’t care so much. This is going to be hidden anyway.

And here’s the front panel. I would have it finished by now apart from the fact that I can’t find any of my god-damn tools. I needed Tin-Snips, all I can find is secatours. Which don’t do me any good at all. Anyway, my dad came around today and helped me out with filing it down (read: did it all for me ) and it looks a lot better than it did.

The truth is I’m getting really fed up with this case-I’ve not got a decent workspace, (I can’t stand up in the cellar) people keep moving things around, and I can never find my tools. Not only that but the materials I’m working with are getting really annoying. I’m at the point where I just want the damn thing finished and out my way so that I don’t have to worry about it any more…but then I feel like it’s taunting me, saying “Ha ha, you can’t finish me.” I just want it finished so I can move on, use the damn thing, maybe get on with the rest of the Integration Project.

I want it done soon. I’m going to e-mail those guys with the water cutter and see about getting my fan grills cut-they’ll look nicer and it saves me a lot of effort. I’ll let you know how that works out. Maybe the tin snips will turn up and I’ll get to finish that front panel after all anyway.

-Dave