Project: Accelerated Fear

[The_Crippler]

Dude...I'm downright jealous of you. Over.

[The boy 4rm oz]

Thanks mate, yeah she is getting there...slowly.

[JohnyFive]

Dude...I'm downright jealous of you. Over.

heheh i could still blow it all up ill be happy when its all running and stable.

Thanks mate, yeah she is getting there...slowly.

I know the feeling, after i spent three hours today polishing a god dammed panel, thought to myself...this...is...gonna...take...FOREVER! then i polished for another 3 coz i love it!

[JohnyFive]

Update 7

Hi Guys, time for an update! My little girl is due in 4 days, so i wanted to get this done now as i dont know when i will have time as ill soon be super busy. On with the update.

You guys pwnd Photobucket last time! Totally blew 25gb of bandwidth away so iv had to make a secondary account for hosting otherwise it would be a load of bandwidth exceeded pics.

Anyway, after i had fitted the psu into the case i needed to make a junction box to power the hard drive and the optical drive, it will also act as a junction box for the fans and water pump. I got this project box from maplins.

Cut out a rough piece of 5mm plex, screwed it to the top and began matching the shape of the box.

Getting there, still a bit of sanding to to to get rid of those deep nicks.

I needed to add 5 input/output ports for the box, i planed to have the two cable groups from the PSU going in the top, and 3 groups going in/out of the front. One each for the drives, and the other will probably take the SATA cables and the on/off switches, reset switches wires from the motherboard. So i marked up 3 holes for the front of the box.

Then i realized i wanted to light the box from the inside, so i just ended up cutting the whole lot out!

I added some more of the cable glands from before to match the PSU. Here is a test fit.

Nice and smooth now, needs a polish but ill do that later.

But that's only 3 ports i hear you yell!

Here is the other 2, i drilled them at work during a quiet period, also added rivnuts to the holes to hold the new plate on.

Heres the panel i made to go onto the top of the junction box, i did a little experiment etch in the middle, it wont be seen but i wanted to try my hand at it for a future part of the case - more on that later.

Here is a snap of the blocks being used in the box, 3.3v, 5v, 12v and Ground.

Im going to be painting the box part the same color as the PSU (Vauxhal Platinum) but im going to make something else out of black plex right now that will also need painting so ill do it all at once. The next thing to make is the frame for the lovely HDD Cooler QuietPc sent. I knocked up there two little brackets during the quiet period at work, unfortunatly i couldnt take photo's of the process as we arnt allowed cameras inside the facility.

Basically i bent a long piece of black plex, chopped it in half so i had two bits, the bolted them together and shaped them as one piece. Then used a dremel to cut out the grooves and a needle file to smooth them down. I used the cooler as a template to line up the holes, here is a test fit.

And a snap of the proposed position.

I decided to hold the drive at an angle like this so that the top half of the air from the intake fan is angled upwards towards the big copper heatsinks cooling the northbridge and ram, and the bottom half is compressed under the drive and pushed towards the silentpipe II on the 8600GT.

Now iv got a few bits and pieces to paint i had to take another trip to halfords to get some more paint, using 3 coats on everything really uses it up!
Here is everything primed with the filler primer i mentioned earlier.

After that, a coat or 3 of platinum, and hung up to dry (looks like a demented wind chime!)

All dry and after 3 coats of lacquer

I added some frosted blue LED's to the inside of the junction box to add some interior lighting, not sure how it will look, but lighting is something i will sort out after i have everything in place.

Here is the cooler with the painted brackets.

Kinda reminds me of a futuristic dragster! haha

I made some little brackets that will hold the junction box onto the fron of the case, same as before, made them at work but no process shots.

1 hour to make, 5 hours to get them back to being shiney, but worth it.

Here's the junction box reassembly after painting and being held onto the front of the case with the new brackets.

I decided to change the choice of screws to button heads (above) as i think they add contour to the otherwise flat panels, what do you guys think? Im going to keep the same screw theme throughout so ill be changing the ones on the PSU too.

I wired the LEDs to the blocks and gave it a little test light.

Not sure about it, im thinking white LED's might give a better effect.

Had a slight problem..

ARRRGGHHH not long enough! That's a **** load of work there to extend those My fault though.

Here's a shot of the hoses connected to the box.

As you can see i extended all the PSU wires which took the best part of the evening but now there super long. I had to use blue wire instead of orange as maplins "the electronics experts" (PAH! trained chimps more like) dont keep it in stock, the guy there didn't even know about wire gauge for christs sake. Anyway i terminated all the wires to the blocks.

Now for some work on the rear I/O panel, i still needed to add a fan hole, and the graphics card slot.

Gouged a nice big chunk out, what a mess!

But it gave me a reference point.

Cut out the shape, sanded it, polished it and re-masked it, also added the hole for the fan and the screw holes.

Now remember that test etch? mmm, you guessed it!

Started with a simple pattern, using a scalpel and a steel rule, also added holes for the hose.

The as i went on i decided to add more and more to the design.

STOOOOP!!! if i do anymore i know im going to ruin it, virtually had to price the scalpel out of my king fu grip!

Cat time! Ahhhh look at him, he's so cute!

ARGHHH NOOOOOOOOOO!

Bad cat! hahaha he's mental, look at the size of those claws. He took a proper swipe at my face there. >.<

Back to the etch! I took it to my mate, he's got a really cool machine called a shot blaster, its basically a sand blaster except it uses really fine Iron Silicate shot and fires it through a gun at a million MPH! Its insane, here is the panel after blasting.

VERY dusty! I took it to the sink and washed it all off, also removed the tape.

A test fit for the mobo and graphics car slot.

Thank god that fits.

More in a few minutes.

[The boy 4rm oz]

Now that's a nice junction box and HDD mount mate. Fantastic work.

[JohnyFive]

The radiator i bought is either a load of ****, or every radiator has this problem, basically the paint chips really easy! i barely looked at it and its chipped to buggery. So i decided to paint it. Masked it up..

look at those chips goddammit, gonna sand them out.

Painted it but forgot to take pics, you will see it later when its on anyways, it basically a radiator...that's platinum colored.

Good News!

After my persistent badgering of Dennis List at A.C.Ryan they finally gave in!

Big thanks to Dennis and A.C.Ryan for the support. Logo added to banner.

I mentioned before that i wasnt happy with the rating of the power supply, it will limit me greatly if i decide to upgrade any of the hardware being 480w,
Alex Watson, the editor of custom PC magazine has shown interest in the project and is going to be sending a new PSU, an 800w OCZ model, hopefully i can keep the modded chassis and swap the insides. A very big thankyou to Alex Watson! Another logo for the banner, shots of the PSU when it arrives on Monday.

So, i ordered some Fesar 1 UV Coolant and some UV CCFL's and decided to fill the loop and leak test it, as the I/O panel was finished i can permanently secure the rad and run the hoses through. Heres a few shots.

Ignore the slight untidiness, the case is far from finished, i just really wanted to get loop in and leak tested.

That's it for this update guys, hope you enjoyed reading!

Comments always appreciated!

j5

[brinkz0r]

Just went through all 9 pages, and this one is one to remember! Great job JohnyFive

[The boy 4rm oz]

Looking nice. Yeah I have found radiator paint to chip and scratch easily, must be whole painting on copper thing.

How do you find those AC Ryan fans? Are they too loud?

[JohnyFive]

Just went through all 9 pages, and this one is one to remember! Great job JohnyFive

Thanks Blinkz0r, im glad you read through it all, i do tend to ramble a lot in my worklogs! +rep for the patience

Looking nice. Yeah I have found radiator paint to chip and scratch easily, must be whole painting on copper thing.

How do you find those AC Ryan fans? Are they too loud?

Thanks mate. They seem fairly quiet, but i could hear them at full spead when testing the loop, im going to be using rheostats to limit them though as i dont want to hear anything at all, also im not sure about the colour as they dont really fit in very well, im might spray them or make an enclosure.

Cheers Guys!

j5

[DonT-FeaR]

nice work mate looks good