[CIP] Black Matter

Tijgervarken · February 22, 2017

After looking around on the forum I finally got the time to post this buildlog. It is a build I did together with a friend for MSI, with the help of Corsair and Intel. This build is all focused around not having a too flashy system yet still have a great looking rig. So because this is 2017 and not 2016 more, RGB function still is nice but having a stealth pc is more our thing. The name of the project was thus made Black Matter. The parts of our project you will see later, but let’s start off with the renders:

Tijgervarken · February 24, 2017

After we were done designing the case it was time to make some G-code out of them, this is so that computer controlled machines can easily read these files. This case will be cut with a plasma cutter which uses these type of files. The material of choice was 4 mm thick aluminum and using a cnc machine to cut it was effective and gave the best end result.

All the panels cut out

Off to the bending machine the panels were

royalba94 · February 24, 2017

all your image links on the second post show up broken

Tijgervarken · February 24, 2017

5 hours ago, royalba94 said:

all your image links on the second post show up broken

Do they still? Because on my devices they show up just fine.

Organized · February 24, 2017

10 minutes ago, Tijgervarken said:

Do they still? Because on my devices they show up just fine.

Yes, still broken. They work for you because you are probably logged in at hardware.info, look at the image URL:

https://nl.hardware.info/forum/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FrEETGaT.jpg&hash=acc07baace9f73c8e9495eeacbd86862

royalba94 · February 24, 2017

29 minutes ago, Tijgervarken said:

Do they still? Because on my devices they show up just fine.

Yep, now they are just "" instead of the broken link symbol.

Tijgervarken · February 25, 2017

9 hours ago, Organized said:
Yes, still broken. They work for you because you are probably logged in at hardware.info, look at the image URL:
https://nl.hardware.info/forum/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FrEETGaT.jpg&hash=acc07baace9f73c8e9495eeacbd86862

9 hours ago, royalba94 said:

Yep, now they are just "" instead of the broken link symbol.

I will look into it later today

Tijgervarken · February 25, 2017

8 hours ago, Tijgervarken said:

I will look into it later today

You were all completely right, there was indeed a link missing that caused this. It should be fixed now, thanks guys!

royalba94 · February 25, 2017

51 minutes ago, Tijgervarken said:

You were all completely right, there was indeed a link missing that caused this. It should be fixed now, thanks guys!

Sweet, they're all fixed now

Case is looking good so far; I'll be interested to see how everything comes together!

Tijgervarken · February 27, 2017

As said before (and can be seen on our banner) Corsair has sponsored this project. We are grateful for that. This casemod wouldn’t be possible without them, so thanks a lot Corsair.

Besides Corsair, we would also like to thank our main sponsor MSI for providing their Z270 Gaming Pro Carbon. This motherboard suits our build very well and also has the RGB functions we were looking for.

Lastly we cannot forget to thank our sponsor Intel. They sponsored us their top of the line skylake chip: the 6700k.

Tijgervarken · March 3, 2017

As shown on our previous posts, we used a CNC plasma cutter to cut the panels out of 4mm thick aluminium. This resulted in us having to do a few adjustments on the panels because of the limitations of a CNC plasma cutter. The first limitation is that the plasma beam is wider than the holes we planned to make in the panels. This means that we had to drill the holes manually. The second limitation was that at the place of impact (where the plasma beam entered) a layer of aluminium oxide has accumulated. We removed this by sanding down the panels.

The first hole went very smooth.

When drilling aluminium these shavings are a result of using a sharp enough drill and using enough coolant :D.

And here are the M4 cubes used to hold the panels together.

But before we can assemble the case, the panels have to be sanded. We did this using a higher grit every time and ended with a 400 grit wet.

The holes were countersunk and we used nice M4 countersunk bolts.

And of course a couple of panels assembled.

KeepItCool · March 4, 2017

Nc cant wait to see how all of this will come together.

Tijgervarken · March 7, 2017

With all the holes drilled and panels sanded, it was time to sleeve the cables. Not a single mod would be complete without sleeved cables in our opinion. We chose to make our own custom extension cables which are sleeved with paracord. This will give us the most vibrant colours, it will fit the motherboard in the best and has a very cool look to it. The only downside of using paracord, is that it takes a lot of effort to work with. The colour scheme consists of black, white and grey cables, this is because it fits the Carbon series of the MSI motherboard the best while still fitting in with the RGB functions. The motherboard we used (in the pictures) to show of the cables is a Z170A Gaming Pro Carbon, however in the final case (pun intended) we will be using the Z270 Gaming Pro Carbon.

The Battlefield ready for action.

First half of the 8-pin CPU power is ready.

After the 8-pin, it was time for the 24-pin to be sleeved. After this cable our hands started to hurt :P. But after all, it was totally worth it.

Cables put in the Z170 board to see how it will look. Fits perfectly with the Carbon theme in our opinion.

Both cables ready.

And testing the cables in the motherboard.

Tijgervarken · March 17, 2017

And finally our case gets some colour. And it won’t be just any type of coating, it will be anodised. This has been done by Anox Coatinc, they helped us a lot with our project and we also learned a lot of tips and tricks about anodising.

All the panels ready to be hung up.

The panels ready to be placed in the first bath. Because the chemicals have to reach most of the panels, they were hung up using special clamps.

The first bath was filled with a sodium hydroxide solution, this cleans the panels for a nice and even surface that is ready to be anodised.

This is what the panels look like out of the first bath, completely matte.

The second bath is where the aluminum oxide layer is formed, later the colouring will be added in this layer.

After about half an hour, it was time to add the colour. This is done by lowering the panels in another bath that was filled with colouring that bonds to the surface of the anodised panels. What colour will it be….?

And to seal the colouring, a protective layer was added. This layer also made the panels scratch resistant and fingerprint resistant.

As you can see, the brushed aluminum look of the aluminum has been reserved. This may look like a rough surface, but the anodising layer covered the panels nice and even.

In the end a layer of 35 microns ended up on top of the aluminium. Because this is such a thin layer, the structure of the aluminum can be seen through the layers. However if you try to scratch the panels with your fingernail, you won’t feel any bumps or uneven areas.