LotusBlossom

[amberella]

Maybe something like THIS?

Thanks - that would probably work. I ended up going to the hardware store and matching the thread to a 6/32 machine head screw. There is a taper on the head instead of being flat like your picture, but maybe I can countersink it. Not a big deal ... it is way smaller than the regular thumbscrews. And $0.98 for 14.

amberella

[DaveW]

anyway - I prooooomise to finish this thing before the hardware becomes obsolete.

Soooo - yesterday I suddenly got it in my head to set up the "lotus blossom" system to see if the components even work at this point and upgrade the hardware with stuff literally lying around my house.

Hey, I think you have something to answer for... :p

-Dave

[amberella]

Hey, I think you have something to answer for... :p

-Dave

Hmmmm - you have a point there LOL.

Actually Axel and I finally came up with a purpose for this system - we're going to use it as our music server so it can be in the living room where it'll be a fun conversation piece. Lord knows we have so many high end everyday systems around here that it's not going to be good for much else. We replaced our old "media center" computer with a PS3, which has been great so far - though streaming music wirelessly from the home network has been sluggish (still tweaking the setup). We have more than two times as many mp3s than the PS3 has hard drive space, so storing it all locally is not possible and certainly not a long term solution. Hence, we ordered a new 500GB drive for the lotus blossom system (which coincidentally arrived toooday) so that it will be good to go for a while with just holding our mp3s. Axel's a little OCD about the music ... it's all ripped to FLAC, tagged, equalized, converted to mp3, and backed up in a VERY specific sequence ... I think it was 6 months before he trusted me enough to add my music to the library LOL. Once this thing is together it's going to be difficult to get apart to upgrade, so I think it's a good compromise that's still useful. Ok, I'm babbling.

Since I got the new screws I re-fabricated the front faceplate to fit the new dimensions. I think it will be a cleaner look than the compromises in the old one to fudge the non-square dimensions.

amberella

[amberella]

Since I spent last night re-making the faceplate, I didn't get to do any sexy UV painting. BUT I did mock up the pieces to see how things are coming along. Since I'm both holding the stuff together and taking the picture with a big & heavy Nikon SLR camera, the pics might not reflect the really nice way that it's all matching up and coming together. I tried. **sheepish grin**

First off, here's another reason this ClearPC case is a first place winner (NOT):

That screw there is supposed to hold on the case side-panel and isn't really meant to be removed. I decided to remove it, though, because it was cramping the space where the dragon-head side of the box goes. Unfortunately, the space is sooo tight that it took some pliers and a good amount of praying that the acrylic wouldn't crack to get it out. You can see it the picture that it's unscrewed as much as possible to where it's hitting the wall behind it, and it's not yet out of the screw hole. All this left a nice swirly scratch mark on the side of the drive bays. It doesn't matter to me since it's getting covered up with a panel, but if you're looking for tips with a case like this, here's one: don't remove that screw!

Here's the shipment of drives that arrived yesterday. Oooh. Ahhh. They're all the same 500GB Seagate SATA drives. 1 is going in this mod, the other 5 are going into our fileserver.

Three quarters view from the right:

Front faceplate:

It's square, I don't know why it doesn't look so in the pic. Must have been the camera angle. And some of the material on the left side is going to be removed, once I am super-sure of how the left panel is going to fit in there with hardware, drives, and all.

Left three quarters view:

Left side:

With the UV light on:

Not as brilliant during the day, but ok. I'm thinking about changing up where the UV lights are placed and maybe bringing in a tube or something to make sure I have the light directionality to really get it where I need it.

I'm pretty happy with how clean and simple it's looking. Sorry no crazy dancing monkeys exploding from the case or anything ... just some minimalist design.


More stenciling later.

amberella

[Computer-Geek]

The dragon looks awesome!!

[amberella]

Here's the back part of the dragon's body ... still adding some details like the bottom of the ... spikes/fans/scales.. whatever it is that dragons have on the ends of their tails. I'm also going to freehand some grip marks so the claws have something more to "grab" onto.

amberella

[DaveW]

This is cool. Very cool.

-Dave

[alphastryk]

This is cool. Very cool.

most definitely cool.

+rep

[amberella]

Finally finished the main artwork:

amberella

[amberella]

I stuck the box element together permanently last night and then dry fit the main components to make sure everything fits. It does.... barely. Now I can see how things are coming together and create a nice to do list.

I know it still looks all jumbled now, cleaning up all the cabling is really going to finish off the minimalist feel. And there's dust and fingerprints EVERYWHERE. Wiping them off right now is a futile pursuit.

Regular lighting... my floating box is finally complete!:

At this point the internal UV lights aren't hooked up, so the light source is the external fluorescent-tube shaped UV light I've been using while painting. It's really crazy how much the acrylic filters out this light; that's why the UV paint looks much more dull than before. When the lighting is inside the case, it should be all bright and brilliant. I do think I'm going to need some additional directional UV lights though to make sure that all the planes are covered.

UV:

GIVE ME YOUR OPINION: Do you think I should make a square "backing board" for the motherboard so that from the far side it looks like entirely white shapes? I love that the board is purple (which is why I left it exposed in the first place) but now I'm thinking maybe it would look cool all white on that side - and give me a nice, flat surface for some additional artwork.

There's not THAT much space in this case to do anything else crazy without completely blocking airflow, so I'm gonna be done pretty soon, I think.

Next stuff:

• Paint the expansion slot covers
• Re-do the power supply (I'm just not diggin' it)
• Possibly create a piece for behind the motherboard
• Order additional lighting
• Paint hardware
• Paint &/or sleeve cabling
• Buy beer (it is friday, after all)

amberella