Project Cirque du Soleil

[tybrenis]

Alright, time for an update, finally. If you don't have time for this, read ahead until you see a big ***ACTUAL MODDING STARTS HERE:*** sign. With that said: I figure I had ought to tell the story that kind of goes along with the case, and pay my tributes. I have always had an interest in acrylics, and I have made small things with them in the past, but nothing too big. I always wanted to build an acrylic case, so I designed one, and questioned myself "why not"?

So, I purchased the necessary parts and components, the sheet acrylic, as well as some decent tools and accessories for working with acrylics. It wasn't anything amazing, but it was a decent concept executed in a decent way. My case was almost complete when I miscut some important pieces and everything pretty much fell apart.

After much debate and evaluation, I decided I was ready to start again. This time, I wouldn't ruin it. My dad has decent workshop experience and always seems to think things out a bit more thoroughly than I. So, I consulted him. What did I know, he does tons of business with a large, professional acrylics manufacturer and fabricator all the time.

So, he gave them a call asking if they had some scrap acrylic we could purchase. They offered to do a little more than that. Okay, a LOT more than that. MUCH, MUCH more than that. They made us an amazing offer, allowing me to come into their workshop for a day and fabricate a professional grade, high quality computer case using pretty much any tool, technique, or material on the market. I was thrilled, to say the least.

***ACTUAL MODDING STARTS HERE:***

With that said, I would like to thoroughly thank everyone at Trinity LLC (http://www.trinityinstore.com/) for the immense amount of time, effort, skill, and patience they put into this case for me. You couldn't meet a friendlier group of guys.

I would also like to thoroughly thank Steven Lin and Logisys Computer (http://www.logisyscomputer.com/) for providing parts for this mod as well as sponsoring some cold cathodes for lighting up our final product.

So, now, let's get down to business. We have our design down (for the most part, atleats we have a general idea), and the components have been mocked up with cardboard. All of our main problems have been worked out, and most the details are set. It is now time for building the actual case.

I arrived at Trinity early in the morning with my box of components and supplies. I spread everything out on my own *special desk* for the project.

I quickly laid everything that I needed out on the table.

My design drawings:

The case modder's bible (for good luck), Paul Capello's "Extreme PC Mods" book:

Now for the components. My motherboard:

My Drives (One DVD R, two hard disks, and one Logisys Digital Fan Controller)

Of course, the power supply unit, also a Logisys product:

Originally, I was going to fabricate the case using some pre-made parts. Once I got there, however, I realized that they could really make anything, so the pre-fab parts weren't necessary after all. None the less, I thank Logisys for providing them, they will definately be utilized.

Our drive bay collumns:

The acrylic corner pieces and the screws to go along with them:

And some basic items that you should never be without in a workshop: a tape measure, and a nice pair of Harley-Davidson work glasses, both provided kindly by Trinity:

A closeup of our eye protection:

[tybrenis]

With all of our parts and tools set out, it's time for the fun part: building it!

First, I took some time to get aquainted with my work area, though. Tim, the experienced professional I had the opportunity to work with the whole time first gave me a tour of the facility there. Three companies work together there in a joint operation consisting of Trinity, C & K Plastics, and Valley Extrusions.

As you can see by the next pics, they had plastics coming out of their ears:

In the far left of those pics, you can see my soon to be acrylic, covered in brown masking. First, we rough cut it on our massive table saw:

I was just too curious to resist. I took a piece of our scrap and peeled back the film to reveal our vivid color:

Once the dimensions were rough cut, we marked out our dimensions for placement of the motherboard, PSU, and drive cage:

Then, we cut out the stand-offs for the motherboard out of some scrap PVC:

Then, we got a measurement of the height of the motherboard with the standoffs installed, after being drilled and tapped:

Next, Tim records the dimensions of the front half of the case for bending:

Then, Tim brought over one of the heat benders he built and allowed me to snap some pics:

The left contact on the bender:

The right side of the bender:

The concept behind these benders is very simple, this is how they work:

A strand of nickel chromium (sometimes called nichromium wire) wire is tensions on a spring between two points. You run electricity through the unit and the wire heats up very quickly to a very high temperature. A wooden box is built around this wire with an aluminum channel immediately around it. This channel forces the heat to go through it, heating your plastic above. Here is a picture of the channel:

So, we marked our acrylic on the edges where we wanted the bend. Then, we just set the acrylic over the wire and lined up the wire with the two marks on our acrylic for the bend. Then, we put a weight down on it to ensure it didn't move. We turned on our hot wire, and allowed it to sit for a couple of minutes. The 1/4" acrylic heated in about 5-7 minutes.

We then proceeded to take the acrylic and clamp it into the angle we wanted, which in this case, was just a right angle. Tim already had a right angle bend built out of wood, so we just clamped it to that.

Then, we waited a little bit and allowed it to cool. Once it was cooled, we could then proceed with the next bend, or gluing it, drilling it, whatever.

[tybrenis]

Okay, we now have both of our pieces of acrylic (the front and the back), and we can begin routing out the back and front panels, and get started on our drive cage and PSU shelf.

Here is our motherboard mocked up with the back piece.

Now, our pieces will be routed, so we use some masking to cover the surface of the acrylic so it isn't scratched. We had to remove the previous masking for bending, otherwise the paper would have caught fire.

When we put our back piece and the front piece that we had bent together, they didn't line up perfectly. This is just because the front piece didn't bend quite all the way into a right angle, but this is okay. We put some vinyl tape around it, and that held it in the position we needed it. Then we finished masking the acrylic.

Now, we will begin creating a guide for the routing bit using acrylic scrap. First, Tim used a disc sander to round a corner to fit the aluminum back panel piece we will be using for our PCI slots and motherboard I/O shield.

We used double sided tape to stick the guideline piece of acrylic to our case. We used a few other pieces of scrap to continue our guide.

Finished!

Our case is now ready for routing. First, however, we look to the shrunken head for some inspiration.

Now, a hole is drilled into our area to be routed and the routing bit is inserted into the hole. Routing commences!

Scraps cleaned up:

A perfect fit!

[tybrenis]

We were in the middle of working on the case when John came back with the frosted vinyl graphics we had printed. The sun logo will go on the top, and the balance picture on the side of the case.

With our holes routed, we glued down the sides to the bottom piece. The top will be made removable to allow access to components inside for maintenance. The drive cage will also be removable.

Next, we fabricated our drive cage:

I forgot to take pics of it, but we glued side pieces onto the drive cage to allow it to be screwed down to the bottom of the case. We simply glued them on, drilled the hole, and then countersunk it so the screw isn't raising the case over the desk.

The case will all the holes and the bottom piece routed out:

With everything glued in place and routed out, it is time for flame polishing. You can use a standard torch to do this, but you must be very careful as to not burn or form bubbles in the acrylic. Here is a picture of Tim flame polishing it:

The edges after polishing:

Here is a video of Tim doing some flame polishing work:

http://www.powerpackedpc.com/images/...polishing1.wmv

Almost done! Next update: finishing the case!

[jdbnsn]

Excellent work!!! I am so impressed with how you manipulated that plexi. Keep up the great work!

[Vaantal]

Really phenomenal. What a cool thing to be able to go to a shop like that to work on your mod. I bet being able to really spread out and having all those tools at hand rules. Very nice work. I love the color, I love the heat bending (flawless looking) and I love the polished edges.

[hxcguitarist]

WOW! nice work and bends the shape of it is awsome and you certainly know how to use that plexi. can't wait for the next update

-hxcguitarist

[tybrenis]

It's been a while since I've posted anything on this work log, so it would seem some catch-up work is in everyones best interest.

Once the flame polishing work was done, we wiped down our top panel piece with a wet rag and then quickly dried it. This was just to ensure a clean surface for when we applied our decals. Unfortunately, I do not have any pictures of the components being put into the case or the decals being applied.

So, instead, I will show some pictures of the decals on the (almost) finished case. The decals are frosted vinyl, and were cut out on a vinyl plotter. They are translucent, and are thus very hard to photograph. Here is what I found to be the best pictures of the decals that I took:

The Cirque du Soleil logo on the top of the case:

Two performers on the left side:

Here are the original images:

I really like the effect the graphics have, they turned out very well, and they match the case perfectly.

With all the components installed, the decals on, and the case screwed together, it was time to leave Trinity, where all work on the case had occured up until this point. So, I headed home where work slowly resumed. At this point, the case was pretty close to being done. But detail is everything, so work will continue. Another update is soon to follow, so keep an eye out. This was just to let everyone know that yes, this project is still going strong! I just haven't updated the logs too much.

[jdbnsn]

Still looks awesome, but how about some shots a little further away? I couldn't really tell where the images were (astounding though they were). Please?

[tybrenis]

Haha, thanks, some further away shots are definately to come. It is sitting next to e now on my desk, which is a mess, so I didn't want to take pics of it yet. Probably tomorrow..