DarthBeavis Project: Away Team

DarthBeavis

2[H]4U
Joined
Feb 24, 2006
Messages
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This project will be themed on the utility case a Star Trek Engineering away team might take on a mission. Technology featured in this build will include Nvidia's 3d Stereo graphics for the most immerse gaming short of a holodeck. The build will contain two mini-itx based systems for true head-to-head gaming. The project is a join venture between BoxGods (a.k.a. Geno) and Out of the Box Mods (a.k.a. me). Our goal is to have it premier at QuakeCon (Nvidia has booth space reserved for it) then next travel to PAX.

Sponsors:
- Nvidia (3d monitors, glasses)
- Danger Den (CNC, laser, design services, I think I bought all the water-cooling parts retail for this project except GPU blocks)
- Crucial (Ballistix Tracer ram and SSD hard drives)
- Performance PCs (tons of stuff)
- Bitspower (still using sponsored parts from Daywalker)
- Mountain Mods (thanks for helping get materials on short notice Ben!!!)
- BoxGods (aluminum boxes and tons of design services)
- GPUs from Nvidia and Asus
- I wanted to fit FrozenQ reservoirs in but the space is so small he would have to make really small ones. I do not know if he will have time. Anyway, he still deserves a shout out.

Geno, after months of work and more than one sleepless night and shower less day has the drawings finished. I received the aluminum boxes Friday, then traveled to Danger Den Saturday. Jeremy, the CEO of DD, was kind enough to give up his entire day to draw the holes for the case where I needed them and then use one of their CNC mills to cut the holes. This week they will laser cut the acrylic parts as well. Today I ground the slag off the boxes and radiused the edges (Geno already has some of it done so I would know what result to shoot for). This is my FIRST time working with metal so please keep that in mind when commenting. I still have to do use the Scotch Bright finishing sander attachment (this round was with a number 80 flap attachment). Tomorrow I will start the polishing . . .w00t

Drawing (not complete):

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CNC Mill:
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After mill:
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Grinding (Geno I do listen to your safety nagging):

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Guess I have a date with a file and sandpaper tomorrow as well . . . .maybe polishing on Tuesday?
 
Did what I could metal-working on teh boxes, but got some pros to help get it rightly polished up. here is the center box. The other two are already at the painter who will paint the inside metallic teal then clearcoat the inside and outside of the boxes. I might also have them paint the PSU ;)

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Brian from Primochill came though in a pinch with laser cutting.

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Moar Shiney . . .also filed the corners of the reservoir hole so it will sit flush. It will have one of the new billeted aluminum face plates polished to match the case

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Thanks to Asus and Crucial for sponsoring hardware:
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12 days until I have to fly to QuakeCon with it . . . .will not have the boxes until Monday and probably the acrylic pieces until Tuesday . . . lol
 
Decided to get some painting done. The pump and rads really will not be visible but I wanted to at least have them reflect some light to maybe help light up the 'nacelles' or laminated acrylic layers between the boxes
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Geno says I will have some sanding and polishing of the edges of the acrylic pieces when they get here so I stocked up on compounds (also need to polish the knobs . . .errr, that did not sound right . . .uh handles for adjusting the monitors)
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Got the PSU put together after painting (finally a silver Silverstone) . . .then started violating my diet by consuming a steady stream of gin and tonics . . .
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Just remember, the gin and tonics is okay, because Buddy Jesus said it is!
 
I'll have to stop by and check it out when I'm at the con. Hope you don't mind random people coming over to you and asking you questions :)
 
I'll have to stop by and check it out when I'm at the con. Hope you don't mind random people coming over to you and asking you questions :)

Not all all. Be sure you let me know your name from [H]. We (myself with the guys from Modders Inc) will be doing some modder workshops on Saturday at QuakeCon so stop by there as well.
 
Digging the gin, buddy christ, and the rads. Keep up the good work. Oh and try Tanq No. 10 it's the bees knees.
 
Why do you have your real doll just standing in the garage?
 
got the acrylic pieces in from Geno . . .first peeling off all the paper. tomorrow starts sanding and polishing.
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to give you an idea of how many parts:
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Jesus... You really got this one completely planned out to put all those together. I wouldn't know where in the world to start. Stupid me. =[
/subbed.
 
DarthBeavis, I was wondering if you would mind telling me a little bit about how you had the acrylic cut?

Was it done on a flow-jet? You seem to have quite a few pieces to the same specs so how is the constancy on them? Do you have a lot of ribs and or indents where the piece was finally separated from the stock?
 
I had a buddy cut it on a laser cutter (Danger Den normally cuts my acrylic but there were some technical issues that got in the way so my buddy Geno stepped in and got me laser time from Primochill). The pieces were cut on high speed so there is some ribbing. You can see what I am doing about it:
sanding away (batch sand then go back and wet sand with finer grit individually):
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Polished ALL day long and still went to the gym. Special thanks to my buddy John (SoundEvolution) for spending the last two days sanding with his orbital while I wet sanded and polished. After the project is done I will post some videos of parts of the project.

Here is a test assembly of the center box and one of the side boxes. I got the order wrong as the black layer with the radiator mounts goes next to the bigger center box not the outside box. So far, looking good. I will clean the acrylic up well before final assembly.

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dude, that is sex.

I cant wait for the end result, keep up the good work!
 
I smell a front page mention when you get this done. Very awesome man. :)
 
Don't think I will have all four monitors ready for QuakeCon but I will have them ready by PAX. Need to finish plumbing on side, install mobo and GPU in the other, little wire management, cut acrylic handles and replace the ghetto screws in the top part with better ones tomorrow. Then tomorrow night pack it all up to take on the plane. We cannot finish the monitors until we have a screen panel (Danger Den will cut tomorrow and send to the hotel in Dallas, we will finish the monitors at the hotel).

Monitors:
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Made backplates for GPUS so I could mount them to the mobo tray:
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Sleeving my arse off:
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Coming together (wife is gonna kick my tail over this mess):
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Crappy pic but it shows the lighting (can control it with a remote fob):
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-qsghdeKv8
 
om......f.....g

Sooooooo, while I change my pants, please continue to post them picks.
 
wow beavis. you somehow outdo yourself every time. id REALLY like to see what you do with no acrylic. :D seeing as you have some experience with metal now, if youre looking for something new i suggest a scratch build with metal. never having done it before, and with your creativity, i bet you would produce something very original and spectacular. just a suggestion. of course, im still digging your acrylic builds as always. i cant wait to see it finished.
 
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