PROJECT LOG Project R Unit

I like it. The contours of the front acrylic remind me of like a robot's face or something. I like the smoked look.

Starts to look good, I like it so far.

At this point I changed gears a bit.

I decided to work on how to mount my hard drives. I planned on having the hard drives in some sort of hanging system in the back compartment, behind the motherboard and above the power supply.


This was my design:



Each hard drive would mount to a hanging rib/post.






A simple metal hanging bracket is screwed to the side of the hard drive.

The rib/post is mounted to the side wall of the case (held secure once again with a dowel peg) (altho in this case the rib is being held in place by my hand).











The bracket then slips into a hanger on the rib and a thumbscrew attaches the other end securing the hard drive in place.








It’s relatively tool free (you do have to attach the metal bracket to the hard drive), but it allows for easy access to these drives, which will be packed in fairly tightly. As a system, its pretty cool because I can arrange the drives any way I wish by locating the rib-post.

I plan on having 2 rows of drives, one set where I have it currently held, plus a mirror on the right panel of of the case.

I could easily fit a 3rd set below what I have pictured, but I think 4 drive slots are plenty.




Duplicated 4 units:







And that’s my plan for hard drives!








So I realized its hard to explain how this works with just the pictures, so here is a little video clip explaining:

BTW, I plan on painting most of the wood panels NASA white. Maybe use some red accents like the red test fan you may see in some of the pictures.






Okay, got a new piece of equipment for the shop.


Say hello to my not-so-little friend:



This is my Craftsman radial arm saw.

For those unfamiliar, a radial arm saw is a combo between table saw and a compound miter saw. The motor and 10” spinning blade are mounted on a rail. This gives extreme accuracy over fairly large sheets of material.

Here is a closeup of the blade at work—the setup is currently for crosscutting (perpendicular cuts).



You push the handle moving the blade forward, cutting the material

The motor is actually mounted on a gimbal so it can tilt and rotate for pretty much any cut.



In comparison to a table saw--One of the downsides of a table saw is that you have to push sheet material over the blade, which can cause problems (imagine maneuvering a 2 foot by 4 foot standard piece of sheet plastic over a spinning blade).

One of the downsides of a compound miter saw is that it can only crosscut about 13” of material. And to get a decent accurate and micro-adjustable one costs $500.



I picked up this saw from my local used tool shop for $60. That’s right six-zero. It was a little neglected and had no table top, but I knew a little secret. If you’ve got the proper model number of Craftsman, you can pick up a brand new table top plus other mounting equipment for free due to www.radialarmsawrecall.com.



One very specific reason I’ve been looking for a radial arm saw is to specifically cut standard 2’ x 4’ sheet plastic. If you look at the first picture above, I’ve made 2 specific modifications.

1) I’ve extended the table so I can sling 2 foot wide plastic onto there. Now the saw will only crosscut to about 18” of material, but it is so accurate that I can flip the sheet over and complete the cut to perfection.

2) I’ve added the 2 white crossbars to stabilize the plastic sheet. If you cut plastic on a table saw or compound miter saw, as the blade exits the plastic, it causes the plastic to wobble and bounce, ending up with chipped corners at the exit. So in the picture below, the left piece was cut on my radial arm saw with the stabilizer bars, and the right was cut on a table saw.





Love this baby! Did I mention, SIXTY dollars?




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So, after dialing my nifty plastic cutting setup, I cut some sheet plastic and began working on the next panel; the top panel.



Recall that I had made the bending forms in a previous post (post 32):







Well I then bent up some sheet plastic. Specifically, I set my oven to 275f then put the plastic in there on some aluminum foil. Then using a surface IR temp probe, waited until the plastic hit about 260f, and it is perfect bending consistency. Throw it on the form, press it under the top form, and wait for it to cool:






Did it work? I’m going to have to say only so-so. Believe it or not, the little twines that hold the bamboo sticks together, generate ridges. I was able to smooth out the ridges well by going back and hitting those spots with a heat gun. But I don’t think it is ready for prime time reproduction. If I were to go back and re-do this, I think I would employ the method mentioned above—filling in the baffle gaps with carved foam.

But, I feel it’s good enough for a one-off, so I went ahead and proceeded with this slightly imperfect panel.



Next, I added fan holes:








And here it is mounted:

The next step was to make the back panel. Again, using my sheet cutting system above, flat sheet to custom size is a piece of cake.

But how to mount it? Remember this back compartment needs to remain accessible as it will have the powersupply and the hard drives.





First I started with mounting a friction hinge (see arrow):



A friction hinge is a hinge that will stay at the last opened position. Like the hinges on a laptop screen.











Next I mounted the back panel to the hinge:













And now I can open it to any degree, and it stays:










Now that the back panel is mounted and hinged, the next question was, how to latch it closed?

And the obvious answer (see arrow):



Yup, my good ol’ pushbutton stealth latch thingy.

Additionally, added the little gap covering trim piece there.







So now push the button, twist the knob, and the back panel can hinge down, and stay:










Let me show you a video of this in action:




In my opinion, this is the most functional way of hinging these big access panels on this project. If I were only going for function, I’d hinge the curved front panel in this way also. But, of course, I think the gas spring action on the front panel adds a certain cool asthetic factor.




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Nice setup, What if you change all the particle board to Plexiglas???

That's a question that's been my mind recently.

There are a number of reasons I'm using mdf as the main structural component:

MDF is dirt cheap and available in copious quantities from your local hardware store. Total cost for the MDF structure I've used in this project is roughly $8.

The equivalent acrylic cost would probably be roughly $300+, must be mail ordered--remember I'm using 1/2" and 3/4" thick sheets.

Acrylic would require some specials tools to work with.

MDF is very forgiving. Because I'm really designing on the fly, I'm constantly changing things like mounting locations. If I accidentally put some mounting holes in the wrong spot, who cares. A little bit of wood filler, sanding, and a good primer job, and no one will ever know there was a hole. In plastic, there is NO undoing. Plus it scratches like nobody's business.

So for the main structure and large flat pieces, right now, plastic just won't do. In theory, once I finish the project and am no longer altering anything, I could have my MDF prototype scanned and machined into plastic.


On a very big plus side for plastic, it machines so much nicer than MDF. Plastic can be drilled and tapped directly, even in very thin pieces. MDF can be directly tapped, but won't generate a good hold and may become stripped in holes shorter than 1/2" for 6-32 machine screws, my standard size. For good strong holds, I use threaded inserts, but those require a 3/16" hole, which can and will cause splits in 1/2" MDF unless you are careful and clamp every time.

In my next post, I start putting in the substructure for supporting all my 5 1/4 drive bays, which means a lot of 1/2" MDF strips. In the future I would strongly consider purchasing some 1/2" square rod acrylic or maybe delrin, because I split MDF so many times, requiring glue and clamp repairs. Yup, definitely would consider something else.


navig

What are you planning on putting in this bad boy? Plus what kinda of paint will go on the MDF? And I love this project, it's very cool and functional btw.

Regarding the pc hardware...I don't know. I will have to do some research because its actually been a while since I've gotten new components (other than RAM or video cards). That is one of the things I generally stick to in my mods--my scratch built cases are meant to functionally fit real components.

Altho I will be bending it a bit as I will need to fab some simple custom brackets to mount a fan controller--my arrangement for 5 1/4 bays just doesn't support standard side access screw mounting.

I was planning on painting the large exterior panels and interior upper compartments glossy white. The lower components flat black. Then accents of amber and red. I'm going basically for a NASA sterile lab kind of color scheme.


Something like the pallette for this movie, Moon:

looks good so far, keep up the work!

I decided to start working on a little sub project.

I wanted to design my lighting systems for the Power-on and Hard drive activity indicators.

I started with some LEDs and some cabachons or ½” acrylic half-spheres, provided free of charge from delvie’s plastics.

After some experimentation this was what I generally settled on:






For my Power-on LED I went with a full sphere by gluing 2 half-spheres together. There was a little bit of hollowing in the center of both half-spheres leaving a little pool of glue to develop in the middle. If you look closely, this “defect” causes a nice 3D effect like the iris of an eye.

For my Hard drive activity indicator, I matted the finish on the cabachon by sanding with 220 grit then 400 grit sand paper.






Here is the HDD activity LED. I mounted a standard red LED, but because of the depth of the cabachon, there is a really nice 3D depth effect, like a red pulsation from deep within a stone.











I chose a special LED I picked up from the electronic goldmine that cycles between multiple LEDs—for the Power-on indicator.










This LED is quite cool. Here I tested it out from behind the dark but transparent plastic casing.

**Video--click on pic**













The next step was to mount these LED units to a mounting plate:



The panel was made from ¼” mdf, painted black as you can see, and I’ve also sleeved the wiring.







And finally, I tested the unit by hooking it up to real live PC to make sure it was working properly:


**Video--click on pic**

that looks pretty awesome, how did you get the LED leads to come out of the joined hemispheres? It looks pretty awesome, reminds me of the sensors on futuristic robots you see in films alot. So is it being mounted inside of the case behind the smoked acrylic?

Both of those are really sweet touches. Always love your attention to detail!

I will show you where I plan to mount it on my next update post.

To mount the LEDs, I drilled a divot with a 1/8" drill bit--I am using 3mm LEDs. Then I used IPS Weld-on #16 (Tap plastics), put a tiny bit of the gel into the divot, then stuck the LED in there and held it for a few minutes. Best no mistakes because it is a solid bond.

Navig

u r TRULY a great artist. keep up the good work

Now I focused in on building the structure for the compartment below the motherboard that will house the 5.25 bays and switching panel.


The first things to do was to build some substructure. I attached 2 ledger strips solidly to the side panels:




This is woodworking 101.

I mentioned this earlier, a lot of things get mounted to these ½” square ledger strips—a lot of holes get drilled into them. I think a better material than MDF would be suited in the future.











From the ledger strips I mounted 2 cross bars.














Each 5.25 bay device then gets a mounting bracket like so:














The mounting bracket attaches to the crossbars with some thumbscrews:














Then a bottom panel seals off the bottom of the case:














Flip the case back up and now you’ve got hard mounted devices:










I built in room for 4 devices, 2 facing forward and 2 facing backward.






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This is coming along great! You should make a front panel for those bottom drives out of the same board you used on the bottom. Unless this is for benching or something.

wow... ****ing awesome project man

thanks for the tips with the router thats just what i needed for a project im currently in! couldnt have done it with out ya!

Bottom panel fronts--are coming!

Woodworkes are gonzo for their routers because they are quite versatile. Every time I flip thru a Rockler catalog, I learn something new. If you haven't got one already, make sure to invest up front in a quality standard router like a DeWalt, Bosch, or Porter Cable so that all the appropriate accessories will fit without modification.

navig