• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Project Anima Mundi

E

endscape

Gawd
Joined
Mar 19, 2004
Messages
966
Hey folks-

Oracle is now on what may be a permanent hiatus, so I have started to fiddle around with another project. I seem to be a fan of the cube, and this is no different, being 11 inches on all sides. The case should be almost entirely plexi glass as I happen to have piles of 3/16 acrylic laying around that needs to be used for something. The design really isn't that far out there, but what I plan to do with the lighting and paint should really set it apart. No previews or hints on that, you'll just have to wait and see.

Now on with the pictures!



Everyone knows how much I love sketchup... :beer:




Working on the back panel. I still need to work on the curves on the PSU portion of the acrylic, they didn't turn out quite the way I wanted them.



This little nub will be where the PCI/ AGP/ PCIe? cards screw in. Note the edge. That's just been rough filed and flame polished. All the exposed edges will be filed, sanded, and flamed polished to a glass-like finish before all is said and done.



Waiting to become the hard drive racks. I'm trying to figure out a way to get a little rubber involved to insulate the rack from the rest of the case a bit. Haven't given it too much thought yet, but I'm sure I'll come up with something.

Now a little guessing game, 10 points to anyone who can figure out what new toy I bought, and what new toy I'm building:


 
Vertical milling machine????Or a mill drill??? I want my ten points....only reason I can think of having a step block clamp set and several end mills.....Is it an R-8 spindle taper?:D

And is that the beginning of a vacuum form machine?
 
Mad Machinist said:
Vertical milling machine????Or a mill drill??? I want my ten points....only reason I can think of having a step block clamp set and several end mills.....Is it an R-8 spindle taper?:D

And is that the beginning of a vacuum form machine?
Click to expand...

Technically Captain Slug at Overclockers beat you to it, but you get 7 points for being damn close.

At the moment I have a beast of a drill press with a mill table, but I've got a Grizzly mill on order, just waiting for them to ship it out to me. Vacuum forming machine? No. But close! Its a strip heater, so I can do nice neat bubble free bends in acrylic. Though I suppose it could be the start of a VF machine... :p Notice the aluminum is bent? Yeah, not supposed to be. Our heating element got a little hotter than we expected haha :eek:
 
A word of advice....don't do anything but plunge cuts with an end mill in a drill chuck.......you really won't like the possible outcome if you try X Y milling with a milling cutter in a drill chuck. Wait till you get a collet spindle or some end mill holders.....
 
Mad Machinist said:
A word of advice....don't do anything but plunge cuts with an end mill in a drill chuck.......you really won't like the possible outcome if you try X Y milling with a milling cutter in a drill chuck. Wait till you get a collet spindle or some end mill holders.....
Click to expand...

End mill holders should be in on Thursday :p
 
Why are you putting Oracle on a permanent haitus?

Don't know whether you had already answered this, was just curious :confused:
 
Oracle and Parallel Hex are the only project logs at [H] I am following at the moment. And 50% of that list might just disappear? :(

EDIT: Will this case be watercooled?
 
n00btard said:
Oracle and Parallel Hex are the only project logs at [H] I am following at the moment. And 50% of that list might just disappear? :(

EDIT: Will this case be watercooled?
Click to expand...

Air cooled. Unless someone wanted to donate the needed hardware, then I could squeeze something wet in there.

Black-Tom said:
Why are you putting Oracle on a permanent haitus?

Don't know whether you had already answered this, was just curious :confused:
Click to expand...

It's a good question that I haven't answered yet. I'll make a post in the Oracle project log thread here shortly and explain myself.
 
And the plexi bender is 99% completed!




That would be a 14 x 5 x 1/4 piece of acrylic :D There is a little bowing in the middle, but that's my fault for not holding it long enough while making the bend.




Playing with some 3/16 stuff. I left the last bend on there too long so it bubbled a bit, but I've got the timing down pretty well now.




I still have to do a little cleanup, add some more sheet metal, and hook up the thermostat, but I'd say for a project that cost me all of zero dollars, this has turned out pretty well.
 
n00btard said:
endscape said:
Air cooled. Unless someone wanted to donate the needed hardware, then I could squeeze something wet in there.
Click to expand...

I'll willingly donate about $20 USD through Paypal
Click to expand...

Wow, that's a really generous offer. Let me try to figure out if I even can watercool this thing before I accept any money. I'll see what I can come up with tonight and get back to you. :)

I've roughed out my plans for the hard drive rack, emphases on rough. All these pieces were taken straight from the table saw to glue, so no filing, polishing, or finishing was done.




It might not make total sense to everybody just yet, but I'll have the whole thing made tomorrow, so bear with me.
 







Well, technically it's possible. I could probably pull it off, but the $$$ involved with putting together a decent water cooling system is still prohibitive. One of the allures of this case was that I happen to have all the materials on hand.

We'll see...
 









Now imagine all that with brilliant flame polished edges and a little bit of black paint :D
 








You would not believe how much dust and dirt bare plexi attracts in a shop...full of dust and dirt :p
 






A little foot work. For whatever reason this plexi just does NOT like to be flame polished. I think I'm going to have to break it apart and do it piece by piece to get some sort of a decent finish.

Next thing I have to do is decide on a color scheme so I can start painting and lighting this thing. Should I go with black paint and white lighting like I planed with Oracle? Or maybe red paint with some red high lighting and white main lights? Some shade of gray for paint? Thoughts? Suggest paint color, pinstripe color, main lighting color, and highlighting color please.
 
Oracle is one of the bset mods ive ever seen, Im doing the same style. But building my own case from scratch. Not buying a sunbeam case first .
Plexiglass is damn expensive. Im going shopping tomorrow for some.

Buttt My idea is going to be awesome. I need to do some drawings and I will show my concept :)
 
michaLcoughliN said:
Oracle is one of the bset mods ive ever seen, Im doing the same style. But building my own case from scratch. Not buying a sunbeam case first .
Plexiglass is damn expensive. Im going shopping tomorrow for some.

Buttt My idea is going to be awesome. I need to do some drawings and I will show my concept :)
Click to expand...

Maybe I misunderstand your statement, but Oracle was a scratch build, there was no Sunbeam involved.

Plexi can be pretty pricey when you buy in small quantities. I'd suggest looking at how much a full 4 x 8 sheet would run you, it's usually cheaper per square foot than the smaller stuff.
 
Small update. Sorry about the pictures, my camera is at my new shop. Just worked on the feet a bit more, trying to get them to polish up better.





And now for something a little different...



Now do you notice the water between me and the lights? Nice night out on the water, right? Well considering I'm sitting on the top of a pickup, not so much. That pickup happens to be an F 350 with an 8 inch lift running on 40 inch tires, and there was enough water to pick us right up. Ended up drifting about 300 feet before we stopped moving. And yes, we got rescued by a man in a boat. So that was my Monday, how was yours?

There will probably be one more update before I have to take a break for a while. I'm moving into a new 3000 square foot shop, so that's going to take up the majority of my time for the next few weeks. :bday: Any modders in the Bellingham, Washington area that need a place to work should get a hold of me, we can work something out.
 
if I remember correctly from the Oracle log, you own dogs. Are they still fine after the flood?
 
that's pretty intense. must have been pretty nerve wracking.

nice mod too. Gonna watch this one.
 
meinzorn said:
that's pretty intense. must have been pretty nerve wracking.

nice mod too. Gonna watch this one.
Click to expand...

Once I got over my morbid fear of large dark bodies of water, I was good. After the initial "oh frack, what are we going to do?" things were just fine. The scramble out of the rapidly filling cab was probably the worst part.

Anyway, updates are incoming I do believe, I'm going to try to get the top, back, and bottom panels ready to glue.
 
Anyone see the mistake I made?



LIGHT!





So I'm thinking that I might frost the edges of the feet (yes, after I put in all those hours flame polishing them) to diffuse the light and spread it out a bit.

Thoughts?
 
This thing is coming together very nice!!!!

Yeah the fan direction probably won't work unless you cut another blowhole :) ... what about removing the cover from the PSU entirely and placing a couple LEDs for show?

As far as the feet, I'd say leave it for now because how things change throughout a build.. Just my opinion tho :)

Keep it up!!!!
 
Indignity said:
This thing is coming together very nice!!!!

Yeah the fan direction probably won't work unless you cut another blowhole :) ... what about removing the cover from the PSU entirely and placing a couple LEDs for show?

As far as the feet, I'd say leave it for now because how things change throughout a build.. Just my opinion tho :)

Keep it up!!!!
Click to expand...

I think I'm going to build a plexi PSU box or something to fix that flow issue, but that's not the only thing I did wrong there. Look at the second set of sketches and tell me what you see.

More updates coming.
 
Whatever it is, it's not obvious to me unless you consider that you have no more room on your workbenches to continue :D

It does appear that your sketchup rendering has everything "backwards" on the PSU from what I can tell. The wires are in the proper place in your mockup, but the rendering would place them up top of the unit if it was correctly aligned.

{Edit: Oh yeah, a Plexi box would be sexah!!}
 
Indignity said:
Whatever it is, it's not obvious to me unless you consider that you have no more room on your workbenches to continue :D

It does appear that your sketchup rendering has everything "backwards" on the PSU from what I can tell. The wires are in the proper place in your mockup, but the rendering would place them up top of the unit if it was correctly aligned.

{Edit: Oh yeah, a Plexi box would be sexah!!}
Click to expand...

n00btard said:
three expansion slots for a motherboard that uses four expansion slots?

or the power supply's fan facing the case wall?
Click to expand...

Exactly.

 
Do I get a cookie? :D

Just wondering, what are you using to cut your plexi or have you just taken the time to smooth the edges before taking the pics?
 
Indignity said:
Do I get a cookie? :D

Just wondering, what are you using to cut your plexi or have you just taken the time to smooth the edges before taking the pics?
Click to expand...

Depends on which edges you're talking about. The hard drive rack edges are cut on a table saw, then filed, sanded, and flame polished. The expansion slots, PSU cut out, and the rest of those type of cuts are done on a drill press with a mill table and some plexi specific end mills. Those edges will be polished up as well before everything gets glued together.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top