Polar by FAT

[F.A.T.]

 

 

Hi

 

My name is Femke Agnes Toele a.k.a. FAT. You might know my work from 'Little Scratch' from ECS Modmen Contest and 'Flux' from the Bit-Tech Intel NUC contest of this year.

 

I have build 'Polar" together with Tenzin who is an Industrial Design student in Rotterdam. Initially 'Polar' was build for the Hardware.info Masters of Modding competition. Wich we won!  

And now it has been selected for the MSI PRO MOD Final round.

If you like it you can cast your vote on the MSI Global Facebook page;

https://www.facebook.com/MSIHQFANCLUB?fref=ts

 

 

First the design! For the competition there was an 'ECO' theme so we took our inspiration from the north pole, ice bergs and glaciers.

The Olympic swimming pool in Bejing has these amazing shapes wo we incorporated those 'bubbels' in our design. The whole build is based on the huge Coolermaster HAF Stacker 935. 

 

Below you can see the renders for the design;

 

 

 

 

These are the packages we received from MSI and Coolermaster! 

Always fun to unpack the boxes

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lets start with taking everything off the HAF stacker.  

In this video you can see the strip down of the case.

 

 

 

 

The first big thing we did was cut out 80mm of the case, right down the middle!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After that the whole case was very flimsy so it's gonna take some work to get it back to shape and strong again. Bit it will be worth it. Slimming down the case this way really brings out the best of the hardware!

 

Next up is the motherboard! Again in the ECO theme.

 

 

 

 

 

After unpacking we could measure everything up and start cutting the panels. Our mascot 'pixel' always likes to help out

 

[img width=450 height=600]http://i1324.photobucket.com/albums/u601/femketoele/P2180128_zpsmmhojld2.jpg

 

 

From now on no more destroying but building!

[You_are_a_cunt]

Subbed.

 

currently speechless. will come back with a better reply when I find my fallen jaw.

[BoredErica]

Whoa, I started seeing sparks and I knew shit was getting real. 

[Guest]

Oooh nice.

[theninja35]

Looks sweet. I like the mobo colors too.

 

(And that's a budgie, right?)

[Marvzl1357]

Wow cool

Never seen a motherboard of those colours lol

Followed and am keen for the outcome

[Stefan1024]

It looks interesting.

 

Personally I think the case is a bit to big for the MoBo, but I don't complain until you are finished

The FLUX was awesome...

[thatguyjerry]

im amped for this one, subbed.

[F.A.T.]

Thanks for the nice comments ! I will be posting the complete buildlog during this week so it will be updated quickly !

 

 

Looks sweet. I like the mobo colors too.
 
(And that's a budgie, right?)

 

Thanks!  Yes it is a good looking MoBo!

Pixel is a parrotlet, so he should be really intellegent :rolleyes:   :lol:

 

It looks interesting.

 

Personally I think the case is a bit to big for the MoBo, but I don't complain until you are finished

The FLUX was awesome...

 

 

Yes, the case in general is very big ! The case was sponsored bij Coolermaster for this contest and it had to be recognizable as a HAF Stacker 935 in the final design.

All the contestants had to use both parts of the case, so it will be big !

Hope you like the outcome!

[Norman_the_Owl]

I forgot gigabyte starting making boards with green accents again...

[F.A.T.]

 

Time for another update ! We used a lasercutter to cut out the side panels out of wood. 

Below you can see a short clip about the cutting! 

 

 

 

 

 

Time to put together the frame again with aluminium extrusion profile and rivets!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The laser cut wooden side panels are glued together in the right angle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here you can actually see how much has been cut out. A big difference!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So here is where the experiment begins...

To melt the plexiglas into the form we had to heat it in the oven (without burning it ) and immediately form it before it cooled down.

So here are the test pieces;

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Worked really well! So now ... on to the real deal !

[Brandonberg]

Very Nice! Subbed.

[Ceatra]

Noice! Subbed!

[ALXAndy]

Heat gun + acrylic = fun times. Good show !

[Magic Puffin]

Holy crap this is awesome!

[Catman007]

No fair for competition you are using CNC machine for this Nice job keep up

 

 

Gets interesting at 0:59  

[F.A.T.]

Thanks for the nice comments guys!

 

ANNNDDD an other update !

Usually I cut out everything by hand but with these tiny details the lasercutter is perfect!

Pixel tests every piece,

cutting up the front and top panels so they fit the slimmed down case. First masking it with tape and then cutting them by hand and check if they fit.

 

putting it back together



Then to give the wooden panels a cool finish a made a test piece using black spray paint and real sahara sand from Egypt!













Checking if everything fits before painting.



Then first a primer and then the black paint and sand.



The real eye-catchers of the case are the blue plexiglass bubbels. To make this I first needed a frame to press the heated plexiglass in.



















it worked really well!





Ready to paint it black!







To finish it of we put in the inlays of CM & MSI logos, looks sweet!





All along the seem of the panels we made a cool CM style belt for the front and top of the case.





all done! hope you like the looks of it 


 

[nmil]

Nice build. Subbed. IDK if the motherboard colors will fit the rest of the build though.

[RazerZ]

Creative build you got going here! Subbed.

[handymanshandle]

Oh double post . Didn't notice until now (14:35/2:35PM CDT (GMT -5))

[handymanshandle]

This is pretty cool imo.

 

The most I plan on doing isn't as elegant/interesting as what I've seen from many build logs since all I'll be doing is painting the red accents of a Twin Frozr V, white and the MSI Dragon white.

[F.A.T.]

 

 

Nice build. Subbed. IDK if the motherboard colors will fit the rest of the build though.

 

Thanks! I will add some extra colour to the motherboard in the end to make it more Polar-style !

 

Creative build you got going here! Subbed.

 

 

 

So far a rather cool build log...

 

One day doing more custom things would be awesome.

(As it stands in my upcoming build (mid 2016) all I plan on doing is painting the accents of a Twin Frozr V white and the MSI dragon White.

 

 

Thanks

 

Next up is making all of the pieces fit together. This took the most time and is a very tedious proces since there are so many parts to fit together!

 

 

 

 

 

A lot of sand went into it that we had to filter to get a nice even finish.

 

 

 

Here are the first pieces coming together, it's looking good!

 

 

 

 

 

 

That was one side, now the other side!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Drilling holes to fit the motherboard.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We want a very clean look so the least amount of visible cables. First cut of the 'old' sleeving.

 

 

 

testing the hardware

 

 

 

Everything fitted with nice looking steel bolts!

 

 

 

 

 

 

We 3D printed covers for the psu and sata cables, the drawings were made in Solidworks. This gives it a really clean look!

 

 

 

Lots of details for the motherboard and front of the case.

 

 

 

The 3D printed covers:

 

 

 

 

 

[img width=450 height=600]http://i1324.photobucket.com/albums/u601/femketoele/P6156230_zpsuaj2xwfq.jpg

 

 

 

All of the plexiglass details were cut from Fluor edge Blue plexiglass that gives it a very 'Polar' look to it. And to make it better all of the edges have been polished by hand. Here is an example of the MSI ECO logo:

 

 

Final task is mounting the LED's and test them.

 

 

 

 

It is alive!

[theninja35]

Woah.

[pjm0925]

Wow, super cool build!  Always wanted to see a cool build with a HAF Stacker.  

[Guest]