Open Air

[blueonblack]

My last project Black Oak has been put on hold for budgetary reasons. In the meantime I threw together an open-air platform much like the HPSC Top Deck Tech Station out of scrap acrylic I had laying around.

The result is all right, but all right doesn't do it for me. It did, however, make me realize that with the awesome-looking hardware that's available today, there is no reason to put that motherboard and its connected pieces inside a box. Window be damned, I want it where I can see it.

The prototype I put together has the motherboard on the top level with the DVD drive mounted veritcally there as well. The PSU and hard drives are on the lower level. I made it without sides so I could see all of the hardware but I realized that the only thing down there that generates heat is the PSU, which really doesn't require massive air flow. So the new design is enclosed, with a hole in the rear panel for PSU exhaust and nothing else. It will draw air in from under the motherboard, but that's for another update.

Here's what I started with today:

Red oak scrap from Black Oak gave me the frame that will be the base:

After that was assembled a little time on the router table gave it a more interesting profile. I hope to continue with this square-beveled corner theme thoughout.

So that will be the base. More scrap pieces and the same chamfer bit gives me the corner posts:

These need to be sturdy, so I drilled and countersunk holes in the bottom of the base to mount them with screws:

With the posts installed:

The finished piece will have acrylic panels on the sides so I had to cut grooves for those:

And the day's work ended with the panels cut and in place:

In the end those panels will be black. I'll be painting them on the inside with Krylon Fusion, as I did with the front panel of Onyx. The PSU lights up and I don't want anything distracting from the view of the hardware that will be mounted on the top of this case.

The size is hard to tell from the pics but it is only slightly larger in each direction than the ATX motherboard I will be using. The DVD drive and power button will be mounted in the front panel.

More to come as I am able.

[Aldersan]

Looks like its gunna be a pretty sweet mod!

[blueonblack]

Looks like its gunna be a pretty sweet mod!

Thanks sir. And capping it will be that very same MSI board you're running.

I hope to eventually score one of the newer Gigabyte AMD boards like this one, just awesome-looking hardware, but for now my trusty MSI isn't exactly ugly.

[billygoat333]

Interesting idea!

[Fuganater]

Looks good bud!

[SXRguyinMA]

Can't wait to see how this turns out!

[xr4man]

yeah, this oughta be interesting.

[Waynio]

Subbed looking good blue every time I see a good modder do a scraps project it really makes me want to try one.

[blueonblack]

Thanks guys, I will try not to disappoint.


Next udpate will be one of the ones we all hate to do but end up doing far too often: how to fix a mistake.

[blueonblack]

Ok, so we all make mistakes, right? Right??

As it turns out, I'm no exception. As though I needed a reminder. For cable management reasons (among others) I'm going to have to be able to put my hand inside this box with the top in place. Obviously with the thing as it stands I can't do that since the acrylic panels slide out the top. $#&*!!

I knew that, I really did. I allowed for it in the design even, but when I was cutting away in the last session things were just going too well and I got carried away.

These two grooves should never have been cut:

The plan was to make backers for the sides of this panel and hold it in place with magnets. Now I get to do that but I also have to deal with these unsightly grooves I cut. Hooray for productivity.

Since this panel will just be standing vertically with no pressure on it at all I only need very small magnets. Just the thing:

Now the problem is I have to get this panel to line up exactly with the grooves that I cut (that I wasn't supposed to cut). Without those I had some margin for error since a little further in or closer out wouldn't be visible. Now the edges of the panel will be lined up with the grooves and anything out of line will be visible.

I'll be using two of those tiny magnets, one glued to the inside of the panel once it's painted and one glued to a backer strip. Placement of that backer strip will determine the final placement of the acrylic. I left the panel inside the grooves and used some bigger magnets to hold the smaller ones in place where they'll be in the final assemby...

Then cut some oak strips a little shorter than the columns, pressed them against the small magnets and glued them in place...

Once the glue was dry I took the columns off and set about filling in those damned grooves. Cut two strips of scrap acrylic the same length as the columns and slightly wider than the grooves are deep, roughed them up with sandpaper so they would glue well and glued them in place:

The next step was scary because I had to get that acrylic flush with the surface of the column without damaging the backer strip that I had glued to it, but patience and a table saw got it done:

Fit it in place and it turned out very well!

So there's that mistake fixed. Whew. Too bad I screwed up the panel while I was cutting it down to its new width and had to order another piece of acrylic since that was my LAST ONE. Yes. I screwed up while repairing a screwup.

<sigh>