Evolutionary

[Franklin]

I was thinking about frosting the acrylic and adding some light, but I first want to look what it will look like without that, because it will barely be visible ofcourse.

The PSU will be mounted with the normal screws at the back but it will need some additional support. A sheet of 2mm AC Ryan aluminium is all I need. First draw the part.

Saw it with my scroll saw.

Time to see if the part fits.

Looks ok.

The aluminium parts for the PSU also look good in combination with the harddiskbox.

The reason that I mount the PSU on its side is that I want to show the best side of the PSU and also make the cables visible. Sometimes cables even look good and I think that these will look good.

[Franklin]

Wow thats some nice stuff. I like the way this is coming together. Is this area with the PSU and HD box going to be open or covered with plexi or something?

All the "walls" will be covered with black aluminium.

Started making openings in the front for the Aquaero and the I/O box from the X-Fi Platninum soundcard. Need to decide what optical drive I want to use soon.

I also started working on the drivebay. It will be build from scratch and I will use aluminium profiles in combination with acrylic. It will be a pretty complicated construction, because I can't use the bottom of the case to support it. This because it's not strong enough and I don't have room to strenghten it, because the two ducts are in that place. Also need to keep room for a cable from the soundcard. No problem, I solve the problem with an aluminium construction that doesn't even touch the bottom plate.

First make a cut into a profile.

Remove parts that are not needed.

Looks like this.

Bend the end, by hand.

It's a beginning. Run out of aluminium profiles. Will have to buy some more tomorrow

[Franklin]

@ XcOM : of course that's ok. Just send a pm.

Made the last three polyester parts I need for this this.

After about 40 minutes the part can be removed from the mold.

Cut a bit of the material on te sides.

Need to cut some openings in the top of the lid for these vents.

and an overview of all the openings for these vents. There is no hardware in the top of the case and the radiator is shielded with some acrylic, but there will always some heat underneath the polyester lid, so that's why I place these vents. One vent in the front of the case, left and right from this vent I will cut openings for the two waterreservoirs, and two at the back.

Glued the parts into the lid.

the vent from the other side, that will be visible.

When the glue has hardened I will use a file and some polyester bondo to give the opening a fine finish.

I'm also working on something that I'm not sure of wheteher I will use it.

Everything that is black will have to be cut away.

the thing on the harddiskbox

The last thing I want to show is the handles I started working on.

The pictures hosted on the AC Ryan server are down at the moment. Problem will be fixed soon I hope.

[Franklin]

Working on several parts at the moment. No pics yet, I want to wait a while and post the pics when these parts are mounted, because it's difficult to explain what all these parts are for.
The panels that will cover all the sides of the case could have been finished by now, but no they still aren't. The problem is the lack of daylight. When coming back from work it already is dark and I can only cut the panels outside because of all the dust. So I can only work on the panels in the weekends. But I have two photos from last week.

Man I just can wait to get this case painted black.

[Franklin]

Yes it's a sticky stuff and you have to be quick, before you know it the resin starts hardening and can't be applied anymore.

I don't want to hide all the cables like I did in my previous case, but the cables will need to be ordered. That's why I made some cableholders. I used two layers of white aluminium from AC Ryan with some mdf in between. Strange I didn't see anyone use the white aluminium from AC ryan yet. It looks very nice in combination with the black panels.

I won't use any bolts or glue to mount the holders. I will just slide them in.

Need these small openings for mounting the cableholders. Just slide it in there.

and the result

The black aluminium sheet will divede the left and right compartment of the case.

In the next picture you can see what the distance is between the hddbox and the cableholders.

I'm also working on the side panels. Some aluminium profiles will give it some strenght and prevent it from bending.

[Franklin]

Not many people know that AC Ryan sells white aluminium, so that's why they were so happy I asked those white sheets for my casebuild.

I mounted the aluminium U-profile to the sidepanels.

The profiles on the sidepanels fit inside the aluminium frame from the case. I'm happy with the result, it fits very well.

On both the left and rightside panel I will mount a piece of the airduct.

When the panels are in place the duct on the sidepanel touches the duct in the case. I will modify the duct inside the case a bit more to make sure there will almost leak no air.

I'm also working on the two reservoirs I'll use for the watercoolingVerder ben ik de reservoirs aan het maken voor de waterkoeling. Need several circles og acrylic. The small ones will have to fit inside the tube.

I used a file and some sandingpaper to get the small circles to fit into the acrylic tube. Now I'll need to glue the small and big pieces together.

Need to file and sand the big circle till it has the same diameter as the tube.

With the parts in place it's easy to mark acrylic that needs to be filed and sanded away. This one is almost ready.

[Franklin]

I glued some polyester parts, for mounting the duct to the sidepanel, to the sidepanel.

Drilled some holes in those pieces to be able to use small bolts.

All the parts I need to make the shocks, from the harddisk box, function are in now, so I started mounting all the parts to the case. The parts that came in yesterday I will show you in another update. It's something to prevent the harddisk box from flipping over to one side.

Making some thread for the bolts.

Ready to mount the part.

and finished.

The drivebay is also almost finished. It looks a bit funny, because top top is very small. That's because that's the place for the Aquaero and a VFD and those aren't as big (deep) as a DVD drive.

[Franklin]

Time to work on some parts inside the case. The pump will be placed near to the motherboard. The area around the pump is covered with an black aluminium sheet from AC Ryan.

The aluminium cover around the pump also comes in handy when I have to hide some cables.

The pump itself will be covered by its own housing. I used some acrylic piping and cut it in half. This is just the base of the pumphousing, now I can add some more housing parts by glueing it onto this pipe.

I can finish the construction of the hddbox now, this because of some great help from a company nearby in Eindhoven
called Nebo http://www.nebobv.nl/

Now it fits into the pipe.

I drilled two big holes in the hdd box.

These holes are there for the acrylic pipe that will go through there. I glued some black acrylic around the pipe. This is needed to attach it to the hdd box with some bolts.
Couldn't glue it because I will need some space to adjust the construction when needed.

A quick look underneath the hdd box.

The two pieces of acrylic that fit into the pipes underneath the hdd box will be mounted on the bottom of the case. To prevent any movement I will use some aluminium profiles underneath the bottom of the case, but this will not be visible. This construction will prevent the box hanging in the rc shocks from flipping to one side.

[Franklin]

Not a very high quality movie, but I didn't want to wait showing the shocks in action. Haven't cleaned the harddiskbox yet and this just is a first test.



It works! It runs very smoothly. The sound you hear is from the acrylic pipes in the acrylic tubes. I will adjust the shocks when the harddisks are installed, there is no weight in the box now.

[Franklin]

Jon thanks for your help with the hosting space for my pictures!

Have been working on, what must be one of the last polyester parts, dust filter holders.

Getting the part of the mold.



Marked the part so I know where to cut it.

Smoothened the edges with some sandingpaper.

Made an opening in the filter holder.

Ready to mount it on the aluminium. Used some bolts to do this.

And from another angle.

The acrylic part that will hold the filtermaterial can slide in now.

Made two of these parts, one for the left side and one for the right side of the case. These holders will be mounted underneath the case, so you can't see them.