MythTV HTPC

[The_Crippler]

Hey all! For those of you still reading, welcome to another weekend update!

The end is in sight, and things are progressing very swiftly. This weekend, I actually began on painting. First off is the chassis. If you remember, here is where we left it:

Most of the upper part of the back is sanded Bondo, which I am hoping will be blended with the metal when painted. After using compressed air to plow off the dust, and a quick cleaning with glass cleaner, I applied a few coats of self-etching primer to the chassis.

Not too shabby - and, yes, the bondo section is getting covered nicely. For the main color of the chassis, I decided to go with black. This is mainly because I had originally wanted to do the whole thing in black, but it wouldn't match the other equipment where it was going to live. Since I had a can of black paint, and no one would see it, I figured - what the heck?

It's unfortunate that no one is going to see it, because I think it looks quite good. Here is a shot of it with the front fans mounted with rubber vibration grommets.

[Luke122]

Are the fans touching in the middle?

Looks great in black, I still think you should go ahead with the build in black, since the finished product will look somewhat like a subwoofer, it would be good place down beside the stand, rather than on it.

[The_Crippler]

I thought that it might work better if I split this update in to a few sections.

Another part that I took care of today was the spinners for the turbine fans. Here they are, roughed up to aid adhesion.

No, I didn't paint them red - that just happens to be the last color I painted on this rack.

Primer:

Final color:

There we go, they're ready to go. I'll probably attach them to the fans tomorrow.

[The_Crippler]

Are the fans touching in the middle?

Looks great in black, I still think you should go ahead with the build in black, since the finished product will look somewhat like a subwoofer, it would be good place down beside the stand, rather than on it.

First question: No, the fans are not touching. There is a slight gap between them, as that was needed in order for the them to line up with the duct work on the front bezel.

As for the second question, it's funny that you should mention a sub woofer - that's actually the reason that I had decided to make it silver, as my woofer is silver.

Sorry for the horrendous picture...My camera doesn't take good ones from across the room:

[The_Crippler]

Next chunk is the outer panels. Here is theyare , sanded, cleaned and ready to go:

After a light coating, certain imperfections become more clear and then need to be fixed with spot putty:

This was true of both pieces, but after a little work, a full coat of primer is applied:

Finally for this weekend, the bezel.

Like the side panels, it needed some work before-hand with some spot putty.

Also, it need some modification to add a "light bar" I put together for the HDD and power LEDs:

I had originally planned to make these a part of a unit containing USB ports, but after looking at the cable when it arrived, I decided that it was going to be too much work and more complicated than I wanted to get in to for a projec that really didn't need them.

Here it is with hole cut and bar inserted:

Then, the bar is trimmed down to fit:

...and some more spot putty to fill in around the edges...

Don't worry, the putty comes off the plexi rather easily:

After that, I placed some carefully trimmed tape over it and gave it the first coat of primer:

Once again, some more pock marks and such appeared after this coat, so I patched them up.

And that's about it for this weekend. There will be some more work during the week, most likely, and I will keep you all posted.

[Luke122]

Nice! So the box will go on the left side of the rack then?

[The_Crippler]

Nice! So the box will go on the left side of the rack then?

Yep. And the nice thing is that the fan ducts (even given the fact that they're lit) will go very nicely with the front of the woofer. So, yes, although I really wanted this in black - the silver is really turning out to be the better choice.

[DonT-FeaR]

i wanna see that light bar looks cool i need power and hdd lights in my case....

[The_Crippler]

Yay! More updates.



We're in the home stretch here.

Currently, the glue is drying on the nose cones, as I attached them to the fans. First step was to remove the stickers from them.

After that, it was a simple matter of eye-balling them and centering them on the fan.

Returning to the painted panels. Here they are, one painted silver and one still silver:

I painted the other and left them sit to dry. Then, it was back to the bezel:

All patched up and prepped for paint.

I added another coat of primer, and then several coats of silver:

NOTE: A trick of the light sure makes the part of the bezel in the lower side of the picture look dented. I assure you - it is not.


Final touch-up and assembly is all that is left.

[nevermind1534]

You've really progressed on this since the last time I got a chance to look. It looks great now, you're almost done.