Sapphire Demo PC '06

Posted:Sun Apr 16 @ 8:56 pm

Sapphire wanted another case for E3 again this year. Again giving me NO time to do it justice they wanted a cold theme for another blizzard cooler. This time an all inclusive liquid cooler from thermaltake. After some discussion with Cathy we came up with a glacier theme. So here it is.

This is the side image. The Front, top and back are all going to be plexi as well. Frosted with Fanatics spray can method. I am going to leave the area where the mobo is viewed unfrosted so you can see it clearly.

here is the internal layout of the case.

I am going to have extension cables running from the mobo down the front to a back panel. I will figure that out when I get to it.

Ok so finally some pics. Here is one of the side panels printed and cut out. It is leaning up against the cooler Sapphire wants me to use for the CPU. The case is a bit smaller than I imagined so let's hope all the hardware fits in there.

Speaking of hardware here is a list of what I believe will be in it. Some of it I requested others Sapphire did.

AMD FX-60
Pure Crossfire PC-A9RD580 MB
2 X1900XTX cards with blizzard cooelrs in X-Fire
74gb WD Raptor
2GB Ram Unknown brand at this time
Pioneer Slim Line DVD with SATA bridge board

So what I did was print out the design onto plexi with my flat bed printer and then coat it with some frog juice (clear coat for ink). Once that was dry I printed a pattern with vinyl and hand cut it on 1/16" polystyrine. This was my guide for the pin router.

The Guide.

Once both sides were cut out I began measureing and cutting the bottom, top, front and back pieces. The top was originally going to be flat but I was feeling ambitious and decided to bend it to the shape.

Some pieces of 3/16" plex

and here we have Mr. bender.

Some pics of the bent pieces. Again sorry for no pics of me doing it. Both myself and Lancer forgot our cameras yesterday.

as you can see the back goes flat there. That is for the 2 -120mm fans that will be mounted there. I also wanted enough room for a radiator. Although this thing isn't going to be watercooled because of all the noobs handleing it I thought I would leave it open for the upgrade option.

You may also notice that there are two pieces there. they will be connected with an Acrylic hinge. The front section will lift up giving whoever the ability to get to the hardware inside, let people take pics, whatever. That was the one complaint about my shiny cube...to hard to take pics of the hardware in it.

The next step was to make some acrylic L-Brackets to assemble the case with. I can weld some of the case together but the sides with the ink on the inside cannot be welded through the ink. So I will have to use screws to attach the sides to the rest of it.

before I started glueing things together I wanted to put the holes in the top for the 120mm fans. I did this useing a guide I had left over from Project13.

its basically temporarily taped on so I can cut it out with the pin router. The we trace the holes with the bit.

This is similar to what I did to the sides but that template was more complex.

beautiful

Then we start welding the L-brackets onto the pieces.

I did that the bottom and the top and started to get unfocused. So I went home and played. It's always better for me to leave before I start to screw things up.

This week I will hopefully get it all put together. and have the Mobo tray put in as well. By then I should have most of the hardware. Then its time for some fancy wiring, Lighting and painting.

stay tuned.

Posted:Sun Apr 16 @ 10:53 pm

I am going to sit here and keep refreshing the page...hoping to see some new pictures.

M-I Admin Joined: Feb 15, 2006 Posts: 2065

LOL AF. Excellent start Shel, keep them coming.

M-I Admin Joined: Mar 17, 2006 Posts: 663 Location: USA

Looking good so far Sheldog.

Posted:Mon Apr 17 @ 12:34 pm

*duh-rhooooollllll*
"BzzzzzzT!!!!" (shorts our keyboard...)

Joined: Apr 04, 2006 Posts: 17 Location: Marion, Indiana

Off to another great start! Waitin with baited breath to see this one comepleted.

Posted:Tue Apr 25 @ 8:17 pm

Well, they went and changed to logo on me. It kinda makes the theme pointless now but they still want me to complete it. They seem to really like the mod and the direction it is going in. It just won't have a logo on the sides. I may put this one on the front somewhere but I don't really care for it too much.

ok, Moving on....what I did today. I made the MB tray and put a bunch of holes in it. hoorah.

Ta-da.

I also got the back piece cut and put a hole in it for the PSU and for where the new I/O spot will be.

here I am adding the L-Brackets that will hold this all in place. The MB you see there is a trashed MB I use for spacing.

The MB tray sits on this little base made from 1/8" plex. The Cube just stabilizes it. Then the L-Brackets on the back side secure it to the sides.

OK, next thing. I was wondering about the fans I had planned to put into the sides. I didn't want to put them inside there now that I had the case all together. I also had originally speced the fans to be 120mm.

as you can see thats just too dang big. So I went down to a 80mm fan hole. Since the sides are now trash since there is a new logo I figured "What the hay" and cut a hole to see what it looks like. Not as bad as I thought it would look. This is good because I have a really cool idea on making a snowflake fan grill out of some modders mesh. Woot!

and a shot of the back for good measure.

As you can see from the above pics everything is nice and screwed into place. It is very stable and sturdy. You will also notice here is a hinge there at the front of the top holding the front door on. It will swing up so that they can have access to change stuff, also so photographers can get in there.

here it is lifted.

unfortunately I had to mess with it and heated it up with a heat gun to get it to sit agains the bottom plate "perfectly". Bad idea. I ended up cracking it.

Damn it all to hell!

I think I might just make a flat front piece like orignally planned to replace this one. Unless I am feeling "ambitious" again.

[edit] you guys like it transparent like that? I was thinking of putting some white translucent vinyl on there to make the colors stand out more. I can't decide though because the transparent thing is kinda cool.

Posted:Tue Apr 25 @ 8:34 pm

Damn Shel, that is looking so sweet.
How DO You Do It Very Happy

Posted:Tue Apr 25 @ 8:37 pm

Maybe just a tad of frosting, just enough to give it a almost see-thru look. :idea:

Posted:Tue Apr 25 @ 9:04 pm

I plan on doing that to the middle pieces. I meant the side print.

Clear or solid?

Modding Apprentice Joined: Mar 18, 2006 Posts: 250

Nice work Sheldog23 that is awesome Very Happy

Posted:Wed Apr 26 @ 12:04 am

Clear

Posted:Wed Apr 26 @ 12:36 am

Posted:Tue May 02 @ 10:04 am

Sorry I haven't been updating this thing as much as I should. Its been crazy trying to get this thing working. Once problem after another really.

I put it together last night (very roughly) just to see if it worked and guess what. It didn't. booo. I had to take it all apart down to to nothing. A piece at a time to figure out what was wrong. It ended up being that metal CM WCing block backig plate. SO I am going to replace it with a stock one I am modifying. Hopefully tonight I will have it up and running windows. That way when I get the cable I can install it and ship it.

here is a pic of it all put together (not working)

pretty tight in there. I keep forgeting to bring the mounting bracket home for the cards. To give myself a sense of achievement I installed the blizzard cooler they gave me onto my X1900. Looks out of place in Project13 but so far it actually seems to work pretty good.

Posted:Tue May 02 @ 10:40 am

You'll get right Shel.
The whole thing looks Slick.
Very Nice Work Sheldog