Project: Rivendell

[artoodeeto]

I recently started using a spot drill bit for when I use the normal drill & would say it's more accurate than my drill press, it's a drill bit but with a 90 degree sharp point works excellent for drilling precisely where you want to drill infact I've barely been using my drill press since getting the spot drill bit lol.

ooooh....I'll have to look for one of those, sounds handy. I need a dremel too...

Got the first case pics! Assembly is nearly complete, but I didn't quite finish it last night because it got to be too late to use the noisy jigsaw, and I need to cut openings in the back for the various cables.

[Waynio]

Wow that came together fast .

[artoodeeto]

Almost done! With the case anyway. Just need to figure out where to mount the power button (I'm thinking rear corner to keep it accessible and on the part that slides out), and put in an extension cord for the exhaust fan above the DVD drive.

For the case itself, I need to put the vertical rear panel on after attaching the two halves together with some scrap wood, and then attach the top lid. Once I do that, this portion of the build is finished. It's not super heavy either, which surprised me a little. The cabling's a bit messy, but...it's not blocking anything, and it's not visible, so I'm not worrying about it right now. And someday when we upgrade it, some of the power cables will probably be able to come out.

[Munty]

Wow, awesome speed! Good work dude! How have you mounted all of the components on the removable tray? And what did you use to cut the openings for the fans and I/O panel? It's got you a very neat finish whatever you used!

[artoodeeto]

Wow, awesome speed! Good work dude! How have you mounted all of the components on the removable tray? And what did you use to cut the openings for the fans and I/O panel? It's got you a very neat finish whatever you used!

Thanks! Yeah, it's amazing how fast it came together but I credit my sketchup work for that. It looks like the only piece I sort of goofed on is the rear panel, you can see in the photos it's not quite tall enough. Not sure how that happened; I'm guessing one of the underside pieces is longer than it should be since I had one of those drawn adjacent to the rear panel before I cut them out.
All components except the power button are mounted on the tray, yep. I'll do the button today, make an extension cord for one of the fans, and get that upper rear vertical panel on. Unfortunately the tray is rather heavy, which makes pushing it in and pulling it out hard. It's really easy for it to go slightly crooked and then get stuck. I'm kind of wishing now I'd made the whole box taller and put the tray on drawer slides...oh well.
As for the I/O and fan holes...pure handheld jigsaw, after drilling several holes through which I inserted the saw blade. It's not quite as clean as it looks in the photos, but since I don't have a giant hole saw, nor do I have a dremel to clean it up, that's the way it's staying.

[Munty]

Cool, looks like pretty impressive work if you had to do it all with a jigsaw! I've been building my case today but am limited in tools to a rusty woodsaw, an underpowered drill my little Dremel with nowhere near enough cutting/sanding discs left lol

The Dremel is a Godsend, got is with a voucher from xmas so it's really paying for itself now and is good for other modelling jobs too so highly recommend one when finances allow! I'm cutting an opening for my drives now so if I get done I'll have some new pics up this evening too

Oh and what about standoffs? How have you attached the MOBO to your drawer?

[x88x]

Is there any space between the drawer and the bottom? If so, you could get some nylon sliders (for furniture) and put them on the bottom of the drawer. That would let it slide a lot easier, though wouldn't really help the alignment problem any..unless...you could add small strips of wood on the base, on either side of where the sliders would run, guiding them in a straight line.

[Munty]

Failing that you could at least line it with a low-friction material to make life easier. Any kind of smooth plastic or metal sheet would be a vast improvement over wood and you can get stuff paper thin so you wouldn't be adding a significant amount of height either. Still doesn't help with alignment but how about tapering the sides of the drawer so it's base becomes a trapezium instead of a rectangle? It'll give you a larger margin for error but still appear flush when closed.

[x88x]

I want to say I've seen nylon strips made for such a purpose...can't for the life of me remember where though...

[artoodeeto]

Good ideas! I'd thought of doing the tapering, and I believe there's a little bit of room on the tray to cut it down slightly. I also like the plastic sheet idea for underneath it. On the flip side, I won't be pulling it in or out all that much, so even if I'm unable to change anything, it's not the end of the world.
And Munty, yep I've mounted the mobo on 5 standoffs...only 4 of which it's actually screwed to. There's 8 mounting holes total in an ATX board; I started off with 6 screwable standoffs. One of them sheared off when I was putting it in the wood sheet, and after I had to scoot the mobo over a quarter inch because the PS2 connector was hitting a fan and preventing it from closing all the way (grrrrr....) one of the remaining standoffs doesn't quite line up with the hole in the mobo. It's ok though, the 4 screws holding it in are more than enough.