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Thread: Nox's Mechwarrior Mod Mk1

  1. #1
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    Default Nox's Mechwarrior Mod Mk1

    Well, I have to start by saying the folks here at the TBCS forums have given me inspiration to go all out an mod the hell out of a computer. I've lookied through the forums, checked worklogs to see how the little tricks are done, poured over the forum tips and tricks and got it in my head to mod, truly mod, my system. Now, the most I've done as far as modding goes, is I've pulled a case apart down to the pieces and painted it...I hear you all now OoooOOoo...lol
    This mod will be the first time I delve into cutting, painting, manufacturing my own parts etc. Call me chicken, call me skeptic, but I have always thought to stay within my own comfort zone to keep myself from growing broke while envying all of you guys with your ideas. But envy I shall no more! heh.

    On to my idea: I have always been a fan of the Mechwarrior series of games, playing battletech until just a few years ago when they came out with the new gaming miniatures (BRING BACK PARTHA MINIS!) so I decided for my first mod to step right into the thick of it and mod a cube and detail it after a Battlemech.
    I kicked a few ideas around at first, thinking a mech might be too difficult, but then thought about making the mod reflect the docking bays or hangar that a 'Mech would refit and repair in. I read Crimson's Doom 3 mod, and thought kitbashing was the way to go for all the parts I needed - wrong! A hangar would be too detailed for a person of my skill, so I went back to the idea of making the cockpit and reactor assembly of a Battlemech.

    The Mod:
    I had a cabinet sitting around here from a past upgrade I did for my last computer, and I needed to find another to make my cube. I looked online to price the cost of 2 basic boxes and was surprised to find out how much a friggin box cost nowadays! So I did the next best thing and checked out my local computer repair shops for boxes they no longer wanted or needed because of customer upgrades. Lemme tell ya folks, there's a treasure trove there I never imagined. One shop gave me 4 boxes of various size, 2 Dells, and 2 no namers - one of which fit almost perfectly to the box I had at home.
    Besides getting the second hand cases for free, I got what was mounted to them for free as wel, netting a 40x cd rom, a 52x cd rom, 3 floppy drives and 2 PSU's (One a brand spankin new Antec 350W), and 2 Windows XP Home cd keys from the Dell computers that were printed on the side of the cases lol.

    I got my cases home, measured them out and found the match to the one at home:



    Which I then took them outside and riveted them together along the insides of the frames. I also took note that one case had removable sides, while the other was a single piece 'U' shaped cover. I noted that so I could figure out how to mount the side panel to that side of the case.
    I took the top from the case that had removable sides and cut it into strips, enabling me to use the notches in the tp to mount the removable sides:



  2. #2
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    Default Re: Nox's Mechwarrior Mod Mk1

    I used one of the ideas I garnered from the Doom 3 mod (Which I had never thought of) and used foam bard to mock up a control panel for my "cockpit". After using several days to think of what I wanted, I cut the board and taped it together then drew out what I was going to have down for little eye catchers all over it which I was going to mount by, again, using Crimson's idea of transparencies printed out over lights or LED's:


    I ordered some 1mil styrene sheeting from Evegreen Scale Models and then made a few purchases from Directron as well as FrozenCPU for the innerds of my box - then waited for them to come..

    Meanwhile, I bought some 1/8th inch angle iron (yup, steel baby!) and flat stock from one of the steel shops here in town ansd began working on the front of my cockpit:


    After making a mistake here and there, I finally decided that the flat stock had to go, since I planned on using it as a 'spacer' to push the face of the computer out so I didnt have to drill new holes to mount my drives and fan controller. so I started drilling out the rivets I had used to mount the steel stock (which were - steel rivets, not aluminum) Needless to say, using quality tools results in quality product and lessened injury - the cheap ass drill bit I was using (Thanks Black and Decker!) decided to break and the remaining bit that was in the chuck buried itself clear to the bone in my hand...
    WARNING: not for the queasy of stomach!

    Yea, the yellow stuff is fat..
    Well as a result: Some cursing, questions from my wife why I was having her take pics of my hand, and a nice tetanus shot later - I was back home and working on this beast to finish the front end of the box.

  3. #3
    Retrosmith Mach's Avatar
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    Default Re: Nox's Mechwarrior Mod Mk1

    Great idea, I love the control panel mockup. Should be very cool!


    No, I won't click on the injury link as anything with the footnote of "the yellow stuff is fat", I do not need to see.

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    Default Re: Nox's Mechwarrior Mod Mk1

    I unfortunately had to redesign the front control panel since the idea I had wasn't panning out - I wanted to make small doors to cover the drive bays, but the design of my control panel was too high, and wouldnt allow that.
    So I decided on a new panel design, and had to cut the front of the cube in order to allow the wiring and other goodies I had decided to make:


    I was having trouble mounting the top to the two cases so I decided to cut the strips for mounting the sides a little narrower that way I didn't have such a residual space along the front of the face. I also bought some cheaper black paint to use as a primer to keep the steel and sheet metal I was using from rusting:


    Next I bought some good blades for my jigsaw (Dewalt is the brand I got) 32 teeth per inch I believe, not sure, but they cut sheet metal like frigging butter! I cut the window out for the side, then primed it with the black after some hearty sanding:


    I had planned on buying some good thick plexi to mount into it as a window, but I checked the prices for my local stores and they wanted damn near 10 bucks for a window. Eh, too much in my opinion for a mod that may or may not look too hot, so I checked Diamond Home Improvement - they had a sheet of 1/10th inch plexi, 24x36 for 8 bucks!
    That made my window, and left me plenty of leftovers for any ideas I might be able to cook up.

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    Default Re: Nox's Mechwarrior Mod Mk1

    I found out where I could get some sheet metal at a decent price and began working on the top to my mod. I decided I wanted to make a 120mm blowhole in the top, but had trouble figuring out what I wanted to disguise it as - then I had an idea later that day - a fusion reactor that is used to power the 'mechs as they move and battle.
    Anyhow, I went to a heating and air business and had them cut me a piece of metal for the top - 20g galvanized. They wanted 50 bucks an hour for any shaping or breaking of metal, but when I explained what I was doing with it, they guy bent the ends for me for free. (Thanks Caveman heating & air! lol)



    I dont have a holesaw, so I gad to cut the hole using a jigsaw and round it off with a file.

    Next I sanded and painted the MB removable case side:


    Next I had an idea about wanting to mount a 120mm intake fan, but the idea was shot down with the failure of the original control panel, so I had to modify my idea with a 92mm blow hole intake. A buddy of mine had a Vantec tornado fan he wasn't using, so he sold it to me for half of what some website wanted, so I began shapng my idea around that fan.
    I bought a 100mm to 82mm step down sewage coupler and (what I thought was) Bondo and began working on the intake side of my air cooled system.
    Also, I mounted some of the plastic sheet stock onto the exhaust (fusion reactor) and the intake to make a fan mount for each (which was later scrapped and modified) Later I found out that the red bondo isn't actually Bondo, its body filler. My dad had a 10 year old can of bondo laying in his shop (The ****'s like a twinkie, it never goes bad??!), which I later used in the making of the intake:

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    Default Re: Nox's Mechwarrior Mod Mk1

    I sanded and primed the top, marked the various holes I needed to drill for rivets and mounted the top section to the cube:


    After much fighting with the different pieces of angle iron and flat steel stock, much of it was removed and I will have to find some other way of mounting the drives and fan controller properly.

    Next was the control panel. Now, admittedly, I underestimated any of you that have done scratchbuilding of any sort with sheet plastic. I went into the control panel idea like I was building some sort of Revel model when I was rudely awakened by the shock and horror that is scratch modelling lol.
    I cut plastic and went through measurements like there was no tomorrow, changed plans and ideas in the middle and modified my original idea - I didn't take pictures of the process becuase I knew I would have enough memory in my camera even if the pics were turned to the smallest size LOL. After 2 weeks of cursing, glueing, cutting and my wife yelling at me to come to bed at 3am I give you the control panel:

    FRONT:


    BACK:


    FRONT with Flipout panel closed:


    I modelled it somewhat from a cockpit I saw in RobotJox, as well as some Star Wars ideas. The reset switch is housed in a flipout panel, and when its time to hit the reset switch, you flip the box out, hit the button, and push it back in to hide it. The panel of 6 led's on the top left is for a weapons readout which I was going to use transparencies for the "screen", and the led's to light it, but I couldnt find transparency stock for a home printer. Also, this might be delayed due to the led's I have are really REALLY dull, they arent very bright. The two green LED's on the right are a backlight for a power readout, and the single red led in the lower end is for another simulated readout.
    In order to start the computer, the missile switch needs to be flipped to the "on" position, then the two smaller switches beneath it must be both pressed to complete the circuit to the start switch on the MB.
    I have stickers that I will be putting all over this board to simulate warnings etc, it wont remain this plain.

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    Default Re: Nox's Mechwarrior Mod Mk1

    On to the front of the box again!

    I finally completed the front of the box, I decided not to take step by step pics on what I was doing, because every time I had an idea down and started taking them, something would change and I would have to start over.
    The front of the mod is pretty much done, having had 3 coats of a cheap paint as primer over the entire box, sanded with 420 and painted again.
    I decided that I wanted to be able to see my hard drive from outside the drive bays, so I cut a small window into the sheet metal on the front of the bays, and I will be covering it with a piece of the plexy I bought from Diamond. I also bought a red blinking LED I will be mounting above the HDD in the bay - so you can see the HDD with a warning light blinking above it.



    A guy I work with does laser engraving, so I will be giving him the plexi window before I mount it and he will engrave this into it for me:



    It still needs some work, but its a general idea. It wont be etched with colors of course, so I need to find a way of giving it a feel of being realistic, but readable. Also, the intake blowhole was changed a little - I found a grill to an older power supply that was the same size, so I notched the back of the intake and epoxied the grill to it - then mounted the fan to that.



    I decided that if I am making a box that has a fusion reactor, stuff inside needs to glow - so I bought UV reactive mesh sleeving from FrozenCPU and you can see some of it on the tail of the fan - its bright orange but you can't tell in the pic. UV cathodes are in the future to make the inside light up, and I bought 2 sets of lazer LED's to brighten things up here and there - 1 set of green, 1 of red.

    That's all that I have so far, more will be posted as I go along - but its in the final stages of the build - I need to do some outer touch ups here and there.
    I'm out for now!

  8. #8
    Paradox Sausage DaveW's Avatar
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    Default Re: Nox's Mechwarrior Mod Mk1

    You would be better posting the images in the thread directly. You might find this easier with photobucket hosting?

    -Dave
    Quote Originally Posted by jdbnsn
    Ideas are just knowledge soaked in alcohol.
    Quote Originally Posted by jdbnsn
    Did I just get in a Volvo? Volvo's don't have guns!

  9. #9

    Default Re: Nox's Mechwarrior Mod Mk1

    For the images, try my hosting at www.lotechdesigns.com/host. It's not just a plug for my site, but it provides you with the thumbnails and also gives you the code to copy + paste for the forum to give you linking thumbnails embedded in your post.

    As for the mod so far... looking good

  10. #10
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    Default Re: Nox's Mechwarrior Mod Mk1

    I used imageshack and they gave me the code to copy and paste to make the thumbs show up but for some reason they arent coming up - for example:
    url=http://img113.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture0207wx.jpg][img=http://img113.imageshack.us/img113/3236/picture0207wx.th.jpg][/url

    That code isn't popping up the preview like it should - mind you, I took the first and last brackets off so you can see the entire code.
    Lemme know how to fix it and I'm all over it. Gawd I hate PHP...

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