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Rise of the Triad.

ALXAndy
Right, one PCI SSD holder.

 

DSC09943_zpsoofifcyt.jpg

 

DSC09944_zpswxuurkni.jpg

 

So I should be able to display that lovely blue SSD :)

Area 51 2014. Intel 5820k@ 4.4ghz. MSI X99.16gb Quad channel ram. AMD Fury X.Asus RAIDR.OCZ ARC 480gb SSD. Velociraptor 600gb. 2tb WD.

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And it's done :)

 

First up I found the cable I needed.

 

DSC09952_zps9ajalyil.jpg

 

Cut off all but one.

 

DSC09953_zpstue89voy.jpg

 

Joined the OEM SATA cable to the blue one I bought.

 

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The drive..

 

DSC09958_zpsqb6wzmrg.jpg

 

And fitted.

 

DSC09960_zpsvq9nybld.jpg

 

And you may have noticed I have fitted some cable combs.

 

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Area 51 2014. Intel 5820k@ 4.4ghz. MSI X99.16gb Quad channel ram. AMD Fury X.Asus RAIDR.OCZ ARC 480gb SSD. Velociraptor 600gb. 2tb WD.

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  • 4 months later...

FFS. So I lost my old account because something happened here and Linus wanted me to change my password. However, what this site doesn't understand is that the emails it sends to MSN do not arrive. So I've lost my account, basically.

 

Any way.

 

The Triad is now finished.

 

DSC00123_zps2jzb15if.jpg

 

DSC00132_zps0ercu0wn.jpg

How many special people change?
How many lives are livin' strange?
Where were you while we were getting high?

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Hah ! 

 

Thanks fella. Yeah I'm not sure why Linus forum emails do not reach MSN/Hotmail. Very, very odd. I even signed up for a new account using a different MSN based email and again, nothing. I could not activate the account :S

 

It's nice to be back though. I did miss this place doing my daily forum rounds :) in my absence I built up my third Alienware. It's an old proper ALX from 2006 might put up a thread :)

 

So now me and my lady have three in total. All quite beastly too :)

How many special people change?
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Where were you while we were getting high?

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why 2 fury x for 3 or 2 Titan Black ? why ?

 

I'm a little confused but I assume you are asking me why I replaced two Titan Black with two Fury X yes?

 

If that's what you are asking then the answer is @ 4k one Fury X is almost twice as powerful as one Titan Black. With Titan Black I was limited to 3 maximum in this PC on air cooling (because there is no way to add three radiators) and so I decided to Crossfire X two Fury X as they come cooled with built in AIO which means I can use semi quiet fans @ 12v and never get any "Load noise" from my rig.

 

I will admit at idle it's not the quietest PC ever but at full load with balls to the wall it makes 0% more noise. Which is really, really nice.

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  • 2 months later...

Me again. Slightly different username because I lost my old account. Any way, I give up. I totally and utterly and unequivocally give up.

 

For over a year I have been desperately trying to tame 4k. I tried first with two Titan Black and ran into issues with Gsync and SLI (flickering) as well as poor game support so after buying the first Fury X I did a lot of reading and as usual you had loads of people saying the same old shit as before, IE; "Crossfire is great now and works" and so on. They're wrong, it's just as fucking awful as it ever was.

 

Not only that but I was stuck using a Gsync monitor on two Fury X, not exactly ideal. I have hung in there for as long as I can putting my faith in AMD but they have simply lost the plot when it comes to Crossfire support. Maybe they just don't care any more? that's how it seems any way. I won't go into too much detail but I will use the most recent example.

 

Need for Speed (the new old one that the Xbone got last year) was released on the 12th March 2016 for PC. It uses Frostbite, which has been proven in the past to be completely Crossfire compatible.

 

The game did not work in Crossfire. On 17th March 2016 a performance driver was released for Need for Speed. It broke Crossfire totally. I decided to go to the top and messaged Roy, who apparently is the head driver guy @ AMD. I asked him to look into it, he said he would. How did he not know Crossfire was broken in this game? that remains a mystery. In the mean time I had no other choice but to switch to my wife's rig with a 8 core Ivy (the 2009 Area 51) and a Titan Black. The game plays beautifully on that rig.

 

On the 28th of March yet another driver was released to fix Hitman. As of now Need for Speed is still broken and stutters and jerks really badly in Crossfire, and one card is not enough to run the game maxed out.

 

So I have decided to call 4k a day and get rid of it. I am currently using a Acer 4k Gsync monitor (Predator XB280HK) but have now ordered this, a 32" 1440p Freesync Envy with Bang and Olufsen speakers.

 

frontlarge_zps3kyd6tgj.jpg

 

backlarge_zpspqoqrdni.jpg

 

I guess the purpose of this post is to try and stop people making a big mistake. Especially when it comes to AMD. I know SLI is not perfect but Crossfire is worse, period. Not only that but this supposed 4gb HBM that the Fury X carries that "Should not be a problem due to the bandwidth" *IS* a fucking problem. In three games I own the cards run out of VRAM at 4k and cause all sorts of issues. Most namely -

 

BLOPS III will refuse to offer you "extra" settings. If you hack the config and unlock "extra" settings the game will go straight to a black screen and lock up. Even if you drop the resolution to 1440p or even 1080p you still can not enable the extra settings. However, if you hack them into life the game has no real issues at 1440p that I have seen.

 

Rise of the Tomb Raider. Again, nightmare for the Fury X @ 4k. Game runs out of VRAM at Very High settings and then freezes for up to 30 seconds at a time. Only by reducing the settings down to high can you stop this problem.

 

Shadow of Mordor also struggles with VRAM @ 4k with the settings maxed out..So the moral of this story? don't touch 4k or Crossfire with a fucking forty foot pole.

How many special people change?
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Where were you while we were getting high?

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  • 1 month later...

Good afternoon every one, been a while ;)

After suffering with two Fury X for about a year I decided enough was enough. Crossfire was crap and broken and even on a single card I was running short of VRAM. You don't even want to know what that's like... So I gave one Fury X to my wife and sold the other and ended up buying a Titan X for £480 recently. I also ordered a back plate from EVGA Europe (thanks guys, best packing of ever !) and bought a second hand Hybrid kit. Just one problem, it was the 980 version. So let's see what I did about that shall we?

First of all I ordered some brushed alu in blue (it's vinyl with alu film on). I covered the areas on the card I thought looked best.

Here is a pic of that, though this was taken at night. I also covered part of the shoulder too, as you will see later.

1_zps2c51xhkr.jpg

I did not want to use the stock fan as I heard they are very noisy. So I bought a Alphacool Eloop (same as Noiseblocker just come in colours) and a PCI slot fan controller.

2_zps6aqu8vaq.jpg

The fan.

3_zpsyzbkcuu3.jpg

And the controller. This was after I had taken it apart, desoldered all of the wires, braided them, modded it so the braids fitted it and then put it all back together.

4_zpszinafsu7.jpg

Then it was time to measure the shroud inner part.

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Chrome vinyl. This stuff is really slick and my plotter was having issues with it so I glued it down to some paper so the plotter could get a grip.

6_zpsueeo3vva.jpg

Load up the plotter...

7_zpsuakrsoi4.jpg

Then it was time to design what I wanted on there. Design.

photoshop%20wip.jpg

Send to plotter..

software.jpg

And then cut :D

8.jpg

After lots of fiddly picking and swearing we have....

9.jpg

That's better.

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One shiny new back plate.

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Erm....

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Precisely one hour later.

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And in.

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Back plate.

15.jpg

And some quick and dirty overclocking.

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/12101880?

How many special people change?
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Where were you while we were getting high?

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sick build :)
other than the abit oversized for my liking EVGA logo on the gpu the whole mod was pretty nice. way to go man :D 

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Thanks chap. It was hard getting the size right and tbh? you never see it any way. I just like the way the chrome stuff reflects light etc.

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Where were you while we were getting high?

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1 hour ago, AlienALX said:

Thanks chap. It was hard getting the size right and tbh? you never see it any way. I just like the way the chrome stuff reflects light etc.

i mean i totally understand and it is your build so it should be the way you like it! :) i still think it looks nice for sure and yeah i guess you wont see it really. you haven't got a window either sooo ^^ got any other plans with the machine? 

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Not at the moment fella no. I just did all of my shuffling for this year (sold my final Titan Black out of three, sold a Fury X and a 760 Mars) so I am set now for at least another year. Cleaning the rig is a real pain, it has to be taken down and all of the rads removed (I've just literally done it). So these days I just like using it without any fuss. That was why I got rid of the Fury X, because it kept running short of VRAM in modern games and the reality of that sucks really hard. Basically a game would either freeze for about 30 seconds then stutter along at about 2 FPS before finally righting itself after a couple of minutes, or the rig would simply beep and reboot.

 

As soon as I lowered all of the settings in Tomb Raider for example it stopped doing it. BLOPS III? no extra settings for you unless you have 6gb VRAM. Hitman was struggling too (had to lower the shadows to low) and so on and so forth. I didn't expect to still have issues when I dropped to 1440p but I guess I was wrong.

 

That's why I have been so quiet really. Not been gaming much (though I am now, Doom with nightmare settings FTW) and just keeping myself to myself :)

 

I gotta say though, this Titan X is tits. No more issues at all, just whack everything to max and game away without problems. I really hate being on the green team but if AMD can't sort their issues out then I have no other choice. I would say that the Fury X was one of the worst products I've ever bought for a PC. The drivers were awful, Crossfire? HAHAHAHAHA what's that again? and even one card does not have enough VRAM. "Here, have the fastest VRAM on the planet but only have 4gb of it !".

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  • 3 weeks later...

Slight update.

 

Changes -

 

Bought and fitted an Asus Xonar D2X to go along side my XFI Titanium HD to drive another set of headphones. I also wanted to audition the DAC. I've made back plates for both sound cards, nothing fancy just matt black.

 

IMG20160608143954.jpg

 

As well as some general tidying.Got a couple of nice simple mods coming up, inc trying to change the LED colour of the D2X circular part and the Asus RAIDR's red LED.

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OK so it continues. I am not happy with the hose routing on the Hybrid. It wants to force its way outward making it hard for me to close the case :(

 

So basically a few weeks ago I saw this picture on another forum.

 

rig.jpg

 

And thought that looked pretty bang tidy. The problem was what are they? well after a lot of asking around it seems they are clamps for cars to hold nitrous hoses in place. They vary in size so I needed to know the size of the hoses in the rig. So I bought one of these.

 

vernier.jpg

 

The hoses on my AIOs are 11mm. So I ordered five 11mm clamps.

 

clamp_1.jpg

 

And two M3 30mm anodized bolts.

 

blue%20bolt_1.jpg

 

The bolt that comes with the clamps seems to be smaller than M3 or 6-32 so I can't just find a bolt long enough and fit it now. However, what I have done is order an M3 tap kit.

 

tap.jpg

 

And I want to use two clamps stacked on top of one another with one at a 90' angle so that I can bolt through two and hold those hoses in place without using that manky velcro PSU cable tie thing.

 

I doubt I will be changing the spec of the rig ever again tbh so now I want to go back to it and tidy everything up. I also want a PSU shroud but it's going to be hard because of the angle the PSU sits at. Still, never say never eh?

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Where were you while we were getting high?

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I want to make my rig look as clean as I possibly can. I mean tiny little details. So I decided that even though they looked far better with the back plates on, both of the sound cards did not look how I wanted them to look.

I am running an onboard Soundblaster Recon3D (going into one headphone amp) an Asus Xonar D2X (going into another headphone amp) a Soundblaster Titanium HD (going into yet another headphone amp) and a Asus Xonar U1 USB sound card that runs into the B&O speakers on my monitor and a Bose Acoustimass sub. Yeah, that's a lot of sound gear but that's what I have been doing lately more than anything else. Just chilling to music :)

 

So yeah, there were a few things that irked me about the sound cards. They were, in no particular order.

 

I will start with the D2X. First of all there's an orange disc/light diffuser inside the card. Fitted into it are four yellow LEDs. So there's a ring on the face of the sound card (cut out through the alu shield) that glows orange. Not only that but there's a hole cut out of the shroud along the spine so you can connect AUX devices and it too is ugly.

So let's deal with the Asus first. First mission, remove the back plate and take it all apart.

 

1.jpg

 

Then cover any viewable part of the orange with gloss blue. You won't see this when the sound card goes in but I don't care. It will also stop the orange disc glowing orange and lighting up the case in a pee colour.

 

2.jpg

 

I decided to use two 5mm blue LEDs, so got to work cutting off the yellow ones and soldering on the blue ones.

 

3.jpg

 

I then got out the braid and made my little LED cluster as tidy as I could.

 

4.jpg

 

Fit the modded parts.

 

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Measure the disc size.

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And then cut a double thick vinyl circle from matt black. This is solely to stop any bleed through the orange.

 

7.jpg

 

Then to address the nasty AUX connectors. I took out a sheet of flexible plastic. This is the stuff that goes "wooka wooka" when you flex it lol.

 

9.jpg

 

Mark.

 

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Cut it out, cover in matt black vinyl and glue in place.

 

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Noting now that the circular accent is no longer orange but blue.

 

13.jpg

 

And the spine looks a whole hell of a lot better than it did before.

 

14.jpg

 

OK. Now the Soundblaster XFI Titanium HD also had a huge hole along the spine. The only thing located in there was a front panel connector which would kinda look like poo if I used it and poo if I don't. Now sadly it wasn't recessed like the sockets on the Asus card so I had to get out the snippers and cut the connectors back so that a spine cover could fit in place. Here it is finished, using the same materials and process as the D2X.

 

16.jpg

 

And here they both are fitted back in the rig. The only thing bothering me now are the edges of the PCBs as they're clearly not black. I will address this at some point soon with some model paint and some ear buds. Shouldn't take too long. I'm holding back the rig pics because I have a couple of other mods going on that I don't want to show yet :)

 

19.jpg

 

But yup, I modded two sound cards lol. Next up - modding the Asus RAIDR to get rid of that nasty red lettering.

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Hey guys what's up. I have now completed the hose dressing and I have to say not only does it look super nice but it has also pulled the GPU hoses back into the rig so I can now get the side on. Hurrah !

 

However, as I pointed out before I am now concentrating my efforts on even the most minute of detail. So of course, after I had tap cut the thread for the blue bolts and it stuck through by about 2mm I was not happy. However, the thread cut kind of loose so for safety (so it doesn't just all fall apart into the GPU) I have ordered one of these in blue.

 

M3%20nut.jpg

 

It's just a simple M3 locking nut. It cost me three quid.. For one nut.... Worth it though :)

 

In other news I have realised that due to the channel around the outer edges of the rig blue LED lighting will not be possible so I have ordered two 6" cathodes.

 

cathode.jpg

 

I know, white LEDs for show... I like coloured lighting though I think it looks far better in person than white does.

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Today I decided to tackle a few jobs. There are certain parts of the PC that I don't like that I can change. Again, all minor details but I want them to be right. There is a side panel connector that fires up the LEDs and the cable looks like ass.

 

 

1_3.jpg

 

 

It's been bothering me for an entire year. So I figure what the heck I will just unplug the cable from the connector and braid it. Nice and simple... Wrong ! the cable is fixed to the connector and it's all one part. This meant about an hour of stripping down the case before I could get to this, the whole ruddy thing.

 

 

2_3.jpg

 

 

But man, so much better.

 

3_2.jpg

 

And hose clamp win. This has completely sorted out the hoses and they now sit inside the case where they belong without fouling the side panel when I fit it..

 

 

4_2.jpg

 

 

I've also decided that come next week I am going to replace all of the fans. The rubber gaskets on these fans are just dust magnets and very hard to clean as all that happens is the dust gets dragged across the rubber making it even worse. I still need the nut to cap off the bolt so it doesn't look nasty like it does now but there seems to be a long waiting time for them.

I am now in the process of beginning to sort out the PSU 'Box in' but I want to approach it differently to how I did it before and it will be in several pieces due to the shape etc.

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Hey all. I am still working some stuff out in my head. That as well as having a mound of marked out plastic sitting on my desk and tools etc.

Any way, the shroud I am thinking about building is all well and good but I need a way to get the GPU cables out of it. All of the others can stay where they are but the GPU cables are kinda floating in space right now so they would need to be routed. And the problem is they need to come out of the shroud in some shape or form. Right now the cables look pretty tidy but if you look at the rig you can see how the GPU cables are.

 

So, I decided they will come out of the shroud at a set point and hopefully run in a nice straight line up to the GPU where they can be plugged in. Problem is how to make them look stock. It's about the detail again.....

After lots of searching high and low I finally found out that Corsair sell grommet sets for their cases. At a measly £3.99. Problem is they're out in the EU somewhere so the shipping is £8 :o

 

Ah well. £12 for a stock look is fair enough I guess (cue muted grumbles). It's kinda like when I bought the EVGA back plate for $1 on sale and the shipping was £17 :D

 

grommet.png

 

So that's them there. I had a bit of a splurge this month on headphone gear (addict, me) so funds were tight. Then I realised I have an enormous sheet of 5mm acrylic in the boot of the car that I was going to dump (the old windowed panel from the 2009). So yeah, that should provide me with more than enough material to make all of the pieces.

Also, talking of detail again. If you look closely you will see that the fets and VRMs are cooled by a large spiky heatsink with an odd plain alu cover on it. The reason I think it's a cover is because I *think* I can see two screws holding it down. Strange ! any way, if they are indeed screws then I will be taking that off and painting it black. If they are not screws I will fashion my own cover from alu sheet (got) and then paint that black and put it on with some double sided foam.

First job up though will be changing the fans out for these, which I've also ordered :)

 

 

alphacool-nb-eloop-1200rpm-120mm-fan-104

 

 

In an effort to reduce the noise of the PC I have ordered three of those. The fourth is on a fan controller (it's 2300 RPM) and the others I ordered are 1200 RPM.

I am removing the push/pull from the CPU rad as I hardly ever overclock the CPU any way.

I now need to do some tests with 5mm acrylic to see if I can tap M3 threads into the edges of it without it splitting. If not I will have to glue it all up but I would rather use nice pretty blue bolts to hold it all together.

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Today was the day I have been dreading since I bought the rig. It's the one thing I have continually put off because I really had no ideas as to how to map out the area I want to cover without expensive tools.

 

I was going to do the "Edd China" method and use this.

 

IMG_20160627_101039197.jpg

 

Edd China Method explained. OK, so you basically use masking tape to shape the area and then draw around it with a black pen giving you the shape you require. Sadly that just wasn't working as the surface is 3D and not flat and so the masking tape was just flopping around all over the place. So I had to come up with plan B, and sadly I never took any pics of this being done because it was an idea that I wasn't sure would work.

 

In the end though it did work, and now I have this*

 

IMG_20160627_113307422.jpg

 

*note. The cable cut out square is too big and will be changed for the final piece.

It's that "wooka wooka" plastic ! basically I just made a part for each turn and then at the end stapled and glued it all together. I'm super stoked with it because for the best part of a year I have had no ideas as to how I was going to do this so that it fitted really well.

 

OK so the next idea. This is one I have had going around in my head for a while now and I'm not quite decided on it yet. It will take testing to see in reality what it looks like but around the rig I want to basically label all of the areas using Alienware gyphs. However, I don't want them to be "RAWR IN YOUR FACE" I want it to be subtle enough so that if the light doesn't catch it it will be almost invisible.

Now I had a couple of options open to me here. The box itself will be either painted with matt black or covered in matt black vinyl and then the lettering can either be mirror black.

 

black%20chrome_1.jpg

 

Or satin black vinyl which will obviously be far less apparent. I have ordered both, so will do some testing and see how it looks.

I've also ordered ten of these to hold the box together.

 

bolts_1.jpg

 

And for now I am just literally designing and making templates for all of the many cover panels the rig will use.

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Where were you while we were getting high?

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  • 3 weeks later...

Dang, seems I forgot about this place for a while :S Let me catch you up.

 

OK so the work continues :)

 

Firstly I have fitted the locking nut to the hose clamp assembly. This offers security :)

 

IMG_20160626_140009087.jpg

 

The 6" cathodes also arrived. I set to work :)

 

IMG_20160627_122510638.jpg

 

IMG_20160627_122532261.jpg


A little while later :)

 

IMG_20160627_133704041_1.jpg

 

Took the horrid light blue ballast apart and modded it.

 

IMG_20160701_155442565.jpg

 

Have to fix the scratch..

 

Any way, I have ordered two of these from HK. You'll see why later.

 

button.jpg

 

Random box of bits that have slowly been arriving :D

 

IMG_20160701_154402671.jpg

 

Started fitting the fans.

 

IMG_20160701_154412165.jpg

 

And making the cover panels. There will be around ten in total, here is the back PSU cover (the white one) and the side of the floor box.

 

IMG_20160701_154345469_1.jpg

 

There will also be a top PSU cover, SATA connector cover as well as any others. I believe Aston Martin refer to them as "beautification panels".

They are all being painted, though, so I ordered this as I am using both acrylic and plexi glass.

 

http://i184.photob

ucket.com/albums/x93/alurencat/paint_2.jpg[/IMG]

 

Ear infection confirmed. And it's bad too. So off I went to the docs yesterday arvo and was given the ear penis that squirts horrid vinegar (at least that's what it smells like) and have been told no work for a week and no headphones for a fortnight. That's like Chinese water torture to an aspie :(

 

Any way I have been having "side ideas". They're kinda like side quests in a RPG where you are concentrating on what you are doing but then you have an idea you want to use and so you basically stop what you are doing and spend ridiculous amounts of time on these "side mods".

 

I won't go into what the side mods are because some will not make it to the end (they're the ones that end up in the bin after about eight hours of cutting sanding and god knows what else) but a couple of them will definitely make it. I'm not going to talk about those either just yet as they may change :D

 

So yeah, apologies for boring post but I'm still waiting on deliveries. Side mods also cause you to order things at random times of the day over the course of about three days. The way my brain works is first to have an idea, then to fine tune how that idea will make it to fruition. You know? like the best way to do it, the easiest way to do it, what tools would make it easier and so on :)

 

Edit. More items ordered now.

 

One 8mm slab of acrylic.

 

8mmacry.jpg

 

Which of course I can't cut with my existing blades as they're not big enough so these.

 

saw.jpg

 

I've also got one of these now too, not sure how I did without it tbh.

 

snake.jpg

 

It's like writing with a chisel, then realising you can do it with a pen.

 

I've been a pretty good boy so far. I've reused all of the off cuts and panels removed from other projects mostly. That's why it looks like ass ATM because I am using clear plexi (not acrylic) yellow 3mm, white and black 5mm and so on, there's even a bit of purple in there. Obviously working with this stuff is easiest when it's transparent so I have ordered an A3 sheet of 5mm smoked.

 

trent.jpg

 

I also needed a decent sanding block, given these parts all need sanding and so on.

 

block.jpg

 

And plenty of wet and dry for prep.

 

paper.jpg

 

I also had not read this properly.

 

paint_2.jpg

 

And it seems it is not exactly primer. I know what it is, it's KO seal. Basically anything nasty that escapes from a surface is sealed down so it does not bleed through. I would say this is pretty important given I've used Frankenstein pieces of acrylic lol. I will need primer though as I mentioned before..

In a little bit I will grab my phone and take a few pics of the parts I've fabricated so far.

How many special people change?
How many lives are livin' strange?
Where were you while we were getting high?

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OK so here is where I am at. First of all there is the side of the box. This will hide all of the wires sitting in the bottom of the rig and the top for it will have Corsair grommets fitted (tbc out of that smoked 5mm).

 

IMG_20160705_114431939.jpg

 

OK things to note. It looks like a dog's dinner atm. It would do. It has tiny little dots silk screened all over it and the plastic weld has melted them a bit. This will need serious sanding and prep, so ignore the fact it looks rough. You'll notice I have glued on three tabs. Well, not glued, welded. These will get 8mm block supports welded under them when I can cut the 8mm.

 

IMG_20160705_114443869.jpg

 

OK, so as you would have noted from an earlier post I have ordered two blue LED buttons. These are not momentary they are latched, which will allow me to control the internal lighting. However, the side piece where I want to mount them is 3mm plexi glass and this stuff is super brittle and usually cracks when you drill it. So, to counter that from happening I have marked out a 3mm acrylic support panel which will double the thickness.

 

IMG_20160705_114456362.jpg

 

As I say, it's going to look a lot worse before it looks better :D

 

Also cut now is the PSU top cover panel.

 

IMG_20160705_114512776.jpg

 

And parts have been welded on to make sure it stays where it should.

 

IMG_20160705_114523552.jpg

 

Again I have not even taken a piece of sandpaper to it yet because I do not have any. I would say there will be at least a whole day of prep once I am done making panels.

Two secret panels. One 5mm one 8mm. Just think UFO.

 

IMG_20160705_114552563.jpg

 

I have 50 3mm LEDs at my disposal for that :)

 

The last time I did a mod of this magnitude I used this stuff, which I will be using again.

 

black.jpg

 

And a sample of the finish.

 

bitsoutsidedone.jpg

 

I still have four or five cover panels to cut. Shame about this ear infection I was really enjoying myself :(

How many special people change?
How many lives are livin' strange?
Where were you while we were getting high?

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More work on the SSD-UFO.

 

ssdufo_1.jpg

 

Yesterday I welded two pieces of acrylic together (8mm clear and 5mm black). I then sanded the edges flush which took about an hour. Then today I marked it up and drilled 28 3mm holes into it (5 on each small edge and 9 on each large edge, 8mm apart).

 

Then I've just spent the last hour going from 400-600-800-1000=1200-1500-2000-2500-3000 grit to get it almost transparent. I don't want it glass clear because it will show too much of the inner workings (28 3mm LEDs for a start).

 

The piece of thin material you see it resting on will be cut to size and will cover up the internals when it is all built and finished. Annoyingly I only added 25 LEDs to my original order so I have just ordered 25 more.

 

Once they arrive I can start fitting them and soldering :)

 

In the meantime later today I will start sanding the pieces ready for priming and so on.

 

Quick update. Not much been happening because I found out I had ordered 3v LEDs that pop if you give them 5v. I'd also ordered 25 more too. Turns out this was cheaper than replacing all of the LEDs.

 

3v.jpg

 

Basically you feed it with 5v then adjust it to give you the desired voltage.

So I'm kinda stuck atm waiting on parts. I can't finish the panels because I need those two buttons and everything else is just sitting waiting to be worked on.

OK so pretty much everything is here now. I am still waiting on some blue tint but that may not even end up getting used.

Today the vandal switches arrived from HK (£3.80 the pair, they're four times that EACH from UK vendors) and they're pretty snazzy. So I could finally cut the holes into the side panel to hold the switches. However, I had been very nervous about this because the outer skin is made from plexi glass and not acrylic. It tends to crack and split extremely easily. Thankfully though it was one of those jobs that just worked first time - phew, I'd put hours into that panel !

 

IMG_20160713_143402137.jpg

 

As you can see the final struts have also been cut and welded on. It should now be able to carry the quite heavy top panel without anything breaking off.

Here are the switches in situ.

 

IMG_20160713_143539875.jpg

 

They light up too, very happy with those ! and of course the finished SSD-UFO.

 

IMG_20160713_143620936.jpg

 

Today I finally did some rewiring inside the PC and straightened up the cables. They're all on cable ties ATM until they stop fighting or, end up being shoved into a channel that will hold them straight regardless.. Here is the top panel WIP so far, I've mapped out the areas that need to come out and drawn the cut hole for one of the cable management thingers.

 

IMG_20160713_161017746.jpg

 

And here you can see what I have done. Trim off one side by around 4mm then I will trim it to fit and glue it in once it's all painted.

 

IMG_20160713_161024910.jpg

 

Still lots to do because I had an idea that I want to basically sink the cathodes into the lid so they are flush and don't stick out. Shouldn't be too hard, just cut holes big enough for them to fall into then weld in some supports.

 

Last update of the day ! So I have now finished marking up the top panel. I made a couple of mistakes so I waited until everything was final then coloured in the areas to be cut with a sharpie (hence why I have stuck labels on it's easier to mark).

 

IMG_20160713_172228614.jpg

 

(complicated part).

 

OK, so as you can see I am going to cut rectangular holes in which the cathodes will be sunk so that they are flush. Problem is the blade I use to cut acrylic (diamond coated) is wider than the 13mm hole. So I am going to have to over cut the ends meaning I will need this.

 

filler.jpg

 

And some spreaders.

 

spreaders.jpg

 

And finally some double sided tape. I decided I am going to take the SSD UFO apart and make some changes to it. 

 

tape.jpg

 

I will probably start cutting tomorrow.

How many special people change?
How many lives are livin' strange?
Where were you while we were getting high?

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Got the bug :D

 

Earlier I cut out the floor pan.

 

IMG_20160713_1932501721.jpg

 

Now you can see where the grommet for the GPU cables goes. OK, so there are about 12 parts to this floor pan and I've progressed on from the pic above but sadly it's too dark to get any pics now.

 

I had a really cool idea though, it should look super awesome :D

 

Mod on !

How many special people change?
How many lives are livin' strange?
Where were you while we were getting high?

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OK so here is where I am now after going to bed at 1am and then getting back out of bed at 2:30 to complete the structural work on the box.

 

IMG_20160714_115314693.jpg

 

Now you can see why the rectangular holes do not matter. They are only there to allow the 6" cathode lights to sink through completely. You will also notice there are two pieces welded to the top. That now looks like this.

 

IMG_20160714_115326609.jpg

 

I originally planned to do this in one piece and to wrap around the cable grommet hole too but after spending a couple of hours designing things in Photoshop I decided on separate parts. Now you will note that the two strips are masked? that's because everything else you see will be painted apart from the very tops leaving those clear. I wanted it to be very *very* subtle as cathodes are like RAWR IN YOUR FACE so this was how I designed it.

 

lampcutout.png

 

There will only be a 3mm strip letting the light through. And going on top of them when it's painted will be these.

 

IMG_20160714_115409496.jpg

 

Basically I printed 2 off. One in black (to use as a cutting stencil) and one in the black chrome I mentioned earlier in the thread.

Later today I will be starting the 2-3 days of prep. Then I will fill, prep some more and keep working on cranking out these cover panels (two more to go at last count).

One I start getting paint on it will actually start to look like something :)

 

Oh yeah, and I buzzed the vandal switches last night and mapped all of the pins. No documentation pfft.

Oh yeah forgot to explain how the lights fit. At each end of the rectangle underneath I have welded on a post. This sinks them down flush so later today I will be doing all of the drilling/tapping (that's why it's taped together like that).

How many special people change?
How many lives are livin' strange?
Where were you while we were getting high?

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OK so today I have been making support brackets and melting screws into holes. Doesn't look like much but took a couple of hours.

 

IMG_20160715_142054344.jpg

 

And then "tap" the bolts in. 

 

IMG_20160715_142113166.jpg

 

And a quick test to make sure everything lines up and everything bolts in as it should.

 

IMG_20160715_145423869.jpg

 

All fits as it should, sweet ! so I've broken it down ready for prep :)

How many special people change?
How many lives are livin' strange?
Where were you while we were getting high?

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