scratch built Roisin Dearg (a Scratch Built "Modular" Case)

[Psmall5]

love the effort! the fab work looks mint!

[MEC-777]

This thing is going to be so quiet. lol. 

 

Great work so far.  

[Lady Fitzgerald]

10 hours ago, mAs81 said:

Insane foamer indeed .. 

 

6 hours ago, Psmall5 said:

love the effort! the fab work looks mint!

 

5 hours ago, MEC-777 said:

This thing is going to be so quiet. lol. 

 

Great work so far.  

Thanks, guys! I'm sad to report the Insane Foamer will be returning  . I forgot to foam the space under the 5.25" bays on the right side 5.25" bay panel and decided to foam the back panel of the MOBO tray so the next report will be more of the same ol' same ol'.

 

I don't know how quiet 12 fans are going to be but they should be quieter with the foam than without.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Ok, I forgot about the CPU cooler fan(s) in the fan count in the previous post so the total number of fans will be 13-14 (depending on if I use one or two fans on the cooler).

 

Foaming that last blank space on the right side panel of the 5.25" bay was fairly easy, even with punching screw holes.

 

 

I even remembered to leave space for the foam on top of the intake fan plate. These are shots of the panel when set into the frame.

 

 

 

In case you're curious (and even if you are not), this is what I used to make the screw holes in the foam. It's from my leather punch set that has interchangeable sized tips.

 

 

To make life a little easier (and to reduce the likelihood of zapping the snot out of it from ESD), I removed the MOBO from the MOBO tray before foaming the tray. After foaming it, I temporarily installed it in the case to check fit and to make sure the rear fan will be lined up correctly when I installed it.

 

 

 

I put grills on both sides of the fan to make sure I don't get my fingers into the fan. Yea, I am a coward. I'm on an aspirin regimen and I bleed like a stuck pig from the slightest cut. It wouldn't take much of a cut for me to have to take a trip to the emergency room. I'll do the same when I install the fans on the top panel.

 

Here is what the MOBO tray looks like outside the case...

 

 

Amazingly, I had the foresight (ok, dumb luck) to remember to leave a foam free strip to make inserting the PCI thumbscrews easier.

 

After looking at the back of the MOBO tray and the bottom front of it, I'm wondering if it wouldn't be a bad idea to put some foam there, too (who knew foaming could be so addictive?). I'm pretty much out of foam so, if I decide to foam any more, it will be after I'm through with cable management so I can determine how much to buy. The insane foamer has gone into retirement for now, if not permanently

 

Moving right along, after reinstalling the MOBO, I debated on whether to blow the warranty on the fan and shorten the cable or just route it in a way that it will stay pretty much out of sight. Being the cheap, old bit...broad I am, I decided to keep the warranty intact and just route and fold the cable pretty much out of sight.

 

 

 

I used black electrical tape to secure the folded section of cable. Once I'm satisfied with that, I'll seal the end of each piece with some brush on Krazy Glue to make sure it doesn't peel off. Right now, with the fan cable plugged into a MOBO fan header, the cable seem to be perfectly content to stay put on its own but, if that ever changes, I can make a little tab or two of black plastic or aluminum and stick it (or the) to that little strip of painted aluminum between the I/O shield and the fan with the some 3M VHB tape.

 

Right now, my tired hurts so I'm going to web surf a bit, then take a nap. I guess the next thing for me to do is start assembling the internal panels inside the case (that will be "fun" because of the bazillion or two screws to drive) so I can get to work on making cables (that will be even more fun). I still need to decide on what to use to glue down the veneer to the outside case panels, then apply the finish to the veneer. I'm leaning toward a brush on lacquer by Deft (I've used it in the past and love it) but, even if I apply it outdoors, the fumes are a bit ferocious for a while afterwards (maybe it's time to plan an overnight road trip; I am overdue). Otherwise, I'll have to use a much slower drying low VOC polyurethane. Once the left side panel veneer has been finished, I can tape and glue the tempered glass to the left side panel. 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Last night, before crashing for the night, I decided to install the left side 5.25" bay panel. Once I got it in, I figured it would be easier to install the power strip before installing the MOBO back plate and PSU bump out. Before doing that, however, I needed to sleeve, pin, and install the connector body to the mass of wires coming out the back of the power strip. That's when things started going horribly wrong.

 

I bundled the wires, trimmed them to equal length, "slud" on a sleeve and a couple of shrink sleeves, then taped them out of the way with no trouble. However, crimping on pins to the #14 wire was a nightmare! I've pinned #14 wire in the past with no trouble but I can't find those pins anymore. The only pins that come close to being usable were ones designed for #16 wire. Those are the pins I used for the PCI-e slot power jumper on the MOBO and had no trouble using them on the #16 wire I have. On #14, though, I had nothing but trouble. Some pins would fail the pull test after crimping and I had to redo them. Once I got pins crimped that held up fine, the crimped insulation wings wouldn't go into the connector body.

 

I finally gave up fighting with that, cut off the pins, then stripped a little extra of the ends of the wire so I could crimp both wings to the conductor itself. I figured I could get away with that since the wire insulation fit fairly close in the connector body and would act as a strain relief. Now it got really weird. The pins would pass a pull test of me gripping the pin with a pair of needle nose pliers and tugging firmly on the wire. All the pins passed the test. But, after I inserted the pins into the connector body, some of the wires would easily pull out. What the heck?!  

 

At this point, I had ruined two connector bodies due to pins I couldn't get out and my temper was fully frazzled so I  crimped on replacement pins where needed, dug out my soldering iron, and soldered the *&^%$#@! things on! Those little buggers are not going anywhere.! Ever! The soldering went so quickly and easily, I'm soldering all my pins after crimping from now on, no matter what size the wires or type of pins.

 

Any road, here is what the power strip (I made it a while back) and sleeved cable look like.

 

 

 

 

By this time, it was past my bedtime, my fingers were killing me, and I was as mad as a cat getting a bath, so I read for a while to wind down, then crashed.

 

This morning, I installed the power strip. That went blissfully uneventfully.

 

 

 

 

The frame has the top four corners joined with a three way bracket that is strong but ugly as sin.

 

 

This is the cure for the ugly. That pin in the center of the cap is an interference fit with a hole in the corner bracket.

 

 

I had to use a hammer with a piece of soft wood over the cap to "encourage" the cap to go into place. The result is the three way corner cleaned up quite nicely.

 

 

Then I started sewing in the left side 5.25" bay panel. The first three screws went in nicely. The fourth screw, not so much. I was using black oxide 4-40 x 5/16" flat head screws. I tried a couple different screws. No dice. I chamfered the end of a screw. Still no joy. I removed the first three screws to see if there was an alignment problem. Bupkis! By now, I was so furious I was ready to start destroying things. Instead, I tried a bare stainless steel screw that was the exact same size. For some inexplicable reason, that little bugger went right on in. It took me thirty minutes to get that one screw in and less than thirty minutes for the remaining 45 screws. Yeesh!

 

The rest of the panels went together without anything more than minor annoyances until I got to the rear panel. Some idiot forgot to allow for the MOBO tray back plate when she foamed the back panel. I had to cut and peel a strip of foam off before I could install the back panel.

 

 

By now, my fingers were killing me and I needed to screw in 47 screws to secure the rear panel. I cheated and started the screws to make sure I didn't cross thread any of them, then carefully used my 18v impact driver to finsh driving them home. Pity the driver was too big for the other panels.

 

Here is where I'm at so far. Left side views.

 

 

Ok, a photographer I am not.

 

 

Rear view.

 

 

Right side view.

 

 

View inside the 5.25" bay showing the power strip.

 

 

I still need to install the foam anchoring angles, the 5.25" bay dummy blank panels I had to remove to make the foam anchoring angles, and the fan hub in the MOBO back plate so I can plug in the fan cables and get them out of the way. I also need to install the CPU cooler and the graphics card before I put the MOBO tray in the case so I can start making up power cables (I'm so NOT looking forward to that chore).

 

For now, however, I need to take a break for a while. I'm grumpy, my left hand is cramping, and my tired hurts.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

After lunch and a break, I shifted gears and worked on the anti-sag bracket for the graphics card (I'm sick and tired of screws). I needed to open up the screw slots so the shoulder on the thumbscrews would fit in snugly. It took some serious "cogitating" to figure out how to clamp the thing down so I could put all my effort into pushing down on the file instead of trying to hang onto the darned thing, I wound up clamping it in my little drill press vise with the jaws padded with masking tape. The long bar had to hang over the side of my desk where I was working (sitting at the desk was easier on the old back). Here, the filing is in progress (I so love filing...NOT!).

 

 

A coarser file would have been nice, not to mention faster cutting, but the only files I had that would fit in the slot were fairly fine. Here, the filing is finished. I "painted" the insides of the filed slots with a felt pen rather than paint since I didn't want to make the slot too tight due to paint build up.

 

 

 

Here you can see how the shoulder of the thumbscrew fits closely in the files out slots. It was sloppy tolerances in the original slots that allowed the bar to sag (ironic, isn't it?).

 

 

(The thumbscrew knurls aren't dirty; that's just shadows).

 

 

Before I reinstalled the graphics card, I installed the CPU cooler while it was easier to get at, especially for clipping on the fan. First, after scrubbing down the IHS and the base of the cooler with 91% isopropyl alcohol and piece of non-woven microfiber cloth, I laid down a graphite thermal pad. It's more like a fine mesh film and is a reusable replacement for regular TIM (Linus did a video on it). It doesn't cool quite as well as regular TIM but it will never dry out. I never ran my old computer very hot and it had a lousy cooler so, with the better cooler I have now, it should still cool more than adequately. Installing the cooler is tricky since the film shifts very easily (I was literally holding my breath so I wouldn't blow on the film).

 

 

Here I have the Noctua NH-D15s cooler installed with one of the new Chromax fans and the Chromax covers. I may cover up the Chromax logos with stickers showing the name of the computer (then again, maybe not). I actually remembered to plug in the PCI-e power jumper before installing the cooler.

 

 

With the cooler taken care of, I installed the graphics card and the anti-sag bracket. I wound up having to trim the plastic bumper on the bar of the bracket but everything is now straight with no sag.

 

 

I probably should snip off those little nubs holding the plastic corner cushions on the cooler fan. I didn't even notice them until I took the picture. There is even more room than I was expecting between the CPU cooler and the graphics card so I'm going to make a full backplate for it. I just have to come up with some kind of a design for it, maybe blue chevrons similar to the ones on the Chromax fin covers? I'm open to suggestions.

 

Ok, I've bored you all long enough for now.

[mAs81]

50 minutes ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

maybe blue chevrons similar to the ones on the Chromax fin covers

That sounds good to me , unless you wanted something more elaborate

[Voxels-Box]

2 hours ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

Ok, I've bored you all long enough for now.

You haven’t bored me one bit! This has been one of the most interesting and enjoyable logs that I’ve seen in ages. Very impressive work!

[MEC-777]

On 2018-06-08 at 1:54 PM, Lady Fitzgerald said:

 

I don't know how quiet 12 fans are going to be but they should be quieter with the foam than without.

I have 8 in my PC and at full load it's whisper quiet. The key is keeping them at lower speeds. Mine never need to run higher than 50-60% to keep everything cool.  

 

I suspect with 12+ you'll have plenty of volume flow to keep all your components cool at lower fan speeds, no problem. 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

20 hours ago, mAs81 said:

That sounds good to me , unless you wanted something more elaborate

Thanks!

18 hours ago, Voxels-Box said:

You haven’t bored me one bit! This has been one of the most interesting and enjoyable logs that I’ve seen in ages. Very impressive work!

Thanks!

15 hours ago, MEC-777 said:

I have 8 in my PC and at full load it's whisper quiet. The key is keeping them at lower speeds. Mine never need to run higher than 50-60% to keep everything cool.  

 

I suspect with 12+ you'll have plenty of volume flow to keep all your components cool at lower fan speeds, no problem. 

Thanks! That was what I'm hoping for although the main reason for so many fans is to ensure adequate airflow through a restrictive paper or fine mesh filter.

Edited June 10, 2018 by Lady Fitzgerald
Correct spelling. I plead Senioritis and Old Timer's Disease

[Lady Fitzgerald]

After installing the angles to hold down the edges of the foam on the fan plate, I installed the intake fan hub and "managed" the fan cables by bundling them with Velcro strips. It looks a bit less than stellar but I didn't void the fans' warranty by cutting the fan leads (yes, I'm that cheap). The fan hub will receive 12v from the power strip and the PWM and RPM leads will connect to a fan header on the MOBO.

 

 

Amazingly, the cables seem quite content to stay put on their own volition (with, mayhap, a wee bit of help from the exposed hook side of the Velcro tape snagging the foam). If it later proves necessary, I can probably wedge tabs of thin sheet aluminum between the foam and the angle holding the edge of the foam down to corral the cables.

 

Next, to be able to make the jumpers that go from the power strip to the 5.25" bay devices, I need to install the devices ( I actually thought of that all by myself). Since there are no ledges to properly position each devices, it was necessary to start from the bottom and work my way up. I started by replacing the three blank bay dummy covers.

 

The bottom three "devices" are little storage drawers I can keep USB sticks, etc in (they are a bit more useful than just a blank bay cover but can be considered expendable if I ever need the spaces for something else). I earlier had modified the drawer fronts by fitting them with cut down Lian Li blank covers. I found it necessary to use a fine adjusting tool on the ends of the covers so they would freely slip in and out of the bay. This is my fine adjusting tool.

 

 

I actually found that lying in the middle of the road 30 years ago. I could  adjust (aka pound) the ends of the drawer fronts only so much without damaging them, then I had to take a file to them to eek out a wee bit more clearance. Here are the three drawers after installing them.

 

 

They open by just pushing in on the drawer face which will let them pop out enough to pull open. Pushing the drawer back in latches it. When closed, no one (except people reading this log) will ever know they are drawers instead of blank bay covers.

 

 

And with that, I'm making myself the filling of a sheet sandwich.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

This morning was...let's just call it weird. I spent four hours installing 5.25" bay devices that should have taken only an hour but didn't because the devices that fit the last time I test fitted them, didn't fit this (mutter, mutter, mumble, mumble!). In the process of getting everything to fit, I managed to break the latch on one of the storage drawers. The drawer itself works fine and i could just order a new drawer for the case that has the latch but I was mad enough by then, I just replaced the whole thing with a blank 5.25" bay cover. There was another problem I ran into I'll discuss later

 

That's all I got done today. I didn't sleep well last night so, by the time I got through horsing around with this, I was pooped and, after lunch, I crashed. Enough with the carping; here are the pictures.

 

First, all the devices installed. The top one is the switch panel but I haven't installed the switches yet plus I need to make up cables for them. There is an ODD (Optical Disk Drive) in there (just above the USM drive) but you can't see it because I "stealthed" the drive and I can't open it until the computer is up and running.

 

 

Hiding behind door number one is the front I/O panel. I got a bit of a shock when I opened the door because I converted one to have two USB 3.0 ports and two USB 2.0 ports (I have a few spares since it's apparently being or has been discontinued and I use the door sections for other purposes). Instead, it had four USB 3.0...(oh, excuse me, I forgot a bunch of morons renamed USB 3.0 to USB 3.1 Gen 1)...make that four USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports.

 

 

After taking the photos, I fixed the problem. However, somewhere in the umpteen boxes I have of spare parts is another one that has been already converted. There is an eSATA port in there as well but, since I'll never need it, I filled it with a handleless dus cover and cut the cable off the back.

 

 

Behind door number three is the dual card reader for SD and micro-SD cards. The missing door number two is supposed to be between doors one and three (duh!) and was supposed to have two USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports fed from the rear I/O ports on the MOBO but I had problems getting compatible hardware (hardware has been slow to catch up with technology) so, for now, I have a blank 5.25" bay cover there.

 

Just below door #3 is the stealthed ODD. Below that is the USM (Universal Storage Module) bay. It takes an external 2.5" drive enclosure that can be plugged into the bay or used with a USB 3.1 Gen 1 cable. I use USMs with SSDs in them for backing up my notebook and transferring data between the notebook and my desktop machine. In a pinch,if I ever need a second ODD (don't laugh, I use ODDs for ripping CDs, DVDs, and BDs), I can swap it out with the USM bay.

 

These are the 2.5" trayless hot swap bays. I will use them for updating up to four backup drives at a time.

 

 

These are the eight 2.5" bays for my internal data drives.

 

 

 

Since these drives get pretty much permanently installed and I needed a way to dramatically reduce the amount of air that could escape or be drawn in through the front (the bays have fans in the back and I modified the bays so air flows in one fan travels from one side of the bay to the other side where the other fan can draw the air back out; I have the option to turn off the fans if they aren't needed), I stealthed them with cut down blank covers held on with magnetic tape. A piece of steel inside the center of the cover allows me to use a child lock magnetic key to remove the covers.

 

 

 

Here is a shot of the backside of the 5.25" bay. I need to make up power jumper cables to feed the devices from the power strip and route the I/O cables so that will keep m busy for a while. I just ordered a USM 3.1 Gen 1 header to two type A female connectors adapter cable to feed the the card reader. I also need to order some cable management clips for corralling the I/O cables. This is the side of the computer not normally seen so I'm just going for easy organization and reorganization as changes are made and reasonably neat and compact cable management rather than pretty but bulky individually sleeved cables.

 

 

The way this is set upo, I can move 5.25" devices around without having to make new power cables. I can also quickly add or remove devices without having to shut down the computer and tear it apart.

 

I'll be stuck on making, sleeving, and managing cables for a while.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

In spent 8 hours today making six, lousy, little jumper cables. The first two were real stinkers (I should have painted white stripes on them). Each one of my Startech dual trayless hot swap bays needs a split cable to power each bay in in each dual bay device. The manufacturer's cable is too short and impossible to sleeve as is so I had to cut the input end of the alternate stock cables off (I removed the male 4 pin Molex connector bodies first and haven't cut the pins off yet in this shot). I then cut the female ends of a SATA power splitter off. These are what have to spliced together.

 

 

I started on the first leg by sliding on a couple of heat shrink sleeves and a length of sleeving, then jammed it all up the wires as far as possible and secured it with a bit of tape.

 

 

Here, I've stripped the ends of two of the wires and twisted the wires together for the splice.

 

 

I would have preferred to have staggered the splices to avoid a bulge in the finished cable but there just wasn't room for it. Before I could pull these splices apart, I went ahead and soldered them before moving on to the the other splices.

 

 

I got a little heavy on the solder but not by much. Ideally, strand should be covered with solder but still visible but some of those strands were just too tiny for me to see.

 

I had to use electrical tape to insulate the splices since there just wasn't enough room to slip on heat shrink sleeves first. I don't like electrical tape for that since it has a tendency to peel off over time but the splices are going to be held tightly together by the sleeving so the tape isn't going anywhere.

 

 

Here, the sleeving has been liberated and stretched out and the heat shrink sleeves are ready to be "slud" into place and shrunk.

 

 

Rinse and repeat for the second leg.

 

 

Here, both legs are finished.

 

 

For some wacky reason, Startech used an external cable with a floppy connector to power the LEDs in the swap bays instead of wiring them internally.

 

 

The only way I could sleeve those little cables would have been to remove the pins from the floppu connector body. It's fiddly work, my eyes and hands aren't all that great anymore and, since only red and black were used to color code four wires, keeping track of what was what would have been a nightmare so I twisted them together.

 

 

Not as nice as sleeving and definitely Michael Mouse but it looks a lot better than four little wires flopping every which way but loose.

 

I had to make two of those dual cables. Here is how they look in the case.

 

 

I had to make three cables that went from SATA power male to 4 pin Molex power female. I have yet to find a male SATA power connector that I like so I bought a bunch of four wire and five wire SATA power extension cables and SATA power splitters. I should be fixed for life.

 

 

Making up these three cables was as simple as cutting off the female ends of SATA power extension cables, trim the wires to the correct length, slip on the heat shrinks and sleeving, then stripping the ends of the wires and crimping on the pins. After the problems I had getting crimps to hold on the #14 wire on the cable feeding the power strip, I took no chances, especially since the wires were so small, and soldered all the connections after crimping them. Call me paranoid but I'm not going to loose sleep now wondering if the crimps were going to hold. All that was left after soldering was to plug in the pins to the connector bodies.

 

The last jumper was to power the ODD. It's a simple SATA power extension but the extensions I had were too long, not too mention impossible to sleeve without cutting and splicing wires. Fortunately, female connector bodies and pins are plentiful. However, I decided to try a new (to me) punch down terminal connector body that's similar to the inline ones except they are straight instead of a 90 degree angle. One reason I bought a bunch of these is, when the wires are punched down and capped, they look like a commercially molded connector both for four wires and five wires. They come with either a four wire cap or a five wire cap so, if using only four wires, there is no empty hole left over.

 

Here, I've already punched down the wires and I'm ready to squeeze on the cap.

 

 

After squeezing on the cap with a pair of slip joint pliers, the connector looks factory made. If I had used only a four wire connection, there would be no hole showing where the missing orange wire would have gone.

 

 

 

Here are the last four cables I made.

 

 

Here, all the jumpers have been installed.

 

 

That's it for tonight. I don't know what I'll start on tomorrow. I really need to do some grocery shopping and make a Home Depot and Ace Hardware run (although methinks I will drive rather than run).

[MEC-777]

Top notch work! Damn, I should hire you to do the cabling for a build I'm working on right now.  

[TekRed]

2 minutes ago, MEC-777 said:

Top notch work! Damn, I should hire you to do the cabling for a build I'm working on right now.  

I second this lol 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

11 hours ago, MEC-777 said:

Top notch work! Damn, I should hire you to do the cabling for a build I'm working on right now.  

 

11 hours ago, TekRed said:

I second this lol 

Thanks but you all couldn't afford me . I paid for it last night and this morning with sore fingers (there was a song quite a while back about working your fingers to the bone just got you boney fingers).

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Since USB 3.0...excuse me, USB 3,1 Gen 1 (I still would like to "meet" the yahoos who made that moronic name change)...has such a big, clunky, usually standout-like-a-sore-thumb blue connector that plugs vertically into the MOBO header and I'm trying to keep the cables as unintrusive as possible, i found these header extensions...

 

 

...to use with these cute little angle adapters...

 

 

 

...to make slipping the USB 3.1 Gen 1 cables under the MOBO tray easier and less clunky looking. It didn't dawn on me until this morning that I could sleeve those cables to keep the little wires corralled and looking nicer.

 

Here, I've started sliding the sleeving onto a cable. One thing I really like about the Kobra sleeves I'm using is they are really expandable. Once started (that part is a bit tricky), the sleeve I'm using had plenty of expansion room to get over the connector.

 

 

The sleeve is on and the heat shrink sleeves have been slipped on prior to shrinking.

 

 

Here are the final results.

 

 

 

This is how the adapter and sleeve will look when plugged into the board. I haven't fully seated the adapter in the MOBO header yet since, once seated, they are buggers to remove. I destroyed the one I did seat getting it out (fortunately, I had a couple of spares).

 

 

 

I've been agonizing over how I was going to get the ribbon power cables I was going to make stay aligned and neat looking. Since the sleeving here worked out so well, I may do the same for all the cables except maybe the 24 pin cable. I may just get an extension for the 24 pin.

 

I don't know if I'm going to get any more work done today or not. My miserable, misbegotten allergies have flared up and I was forced to take a couple of Benadryl so I'll be loopy(er) for a while and have to sleep it off.

[Professor Dingledore]

5 hours ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

Since USB 3.0...excuse me, USB 3,1 Gen 1 (I still would like to "meet" the yahoos who made that moronic name change)...has such a big, clunky, usually standout-like-a-sore-thumb blue connector that plugs vertically into the MOBO header

 

Funny you're complaining about USB. I was ranting about it earlier while reading my mobo manual. I wanted to verify I was plugging devices into the best port they support.

 

My motherboard has...

1 x USB 3.1 gen 2 Type C

1 x USB 3.1 gen 2 Type A

8 x USB 3.1 gen 1 (4 back / 4 internal)

6 x USB 2.0/1.1 (2 back / 4 internal)

 

No wonder regular people hate PC's. They're just going to plug into whatever port the connector fits into with no knowledge of power/bandwidth differences. 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

After a wee nap, I thought I would tackle modifying the 24 pin cable that came with my PSU. Just strip back the sleeving a bit, staighten the wires, then maneuver them into a ribbon cable. Easy peasy. Won't take any time at all. or so I thought untill I cut the shrink sleeve and zip tie holding the sleeving on, pulled back the sleeving and saw this miserable, magnificent mess!

 

 

It looks like someone barfed up their spaghetti dinner.  The sleeving on the cable was almost three inches too long so I cut off the excess, stretched out the sleeving, then taped it in place until I could put a new heat shrink on it.

 

Do you think this heat shrink is big enough?

 

 

All seriousness aside, I had to use one that size to be able to get over the 18 pin and 10 pin connectors on the other end (no way would I have been able to get it over the 24 pin end). It was a 4-1 shrink so it was able to shrink it down to the correct size...barely.

 

 

On to plan B; make a ribbon extension cable. Now, that was so much "fun", I could hardly stand it. Here, I've cut all the wires, stripped the ends, and I'm ready to start crimping on pins (joy).

 

 

I was wondering how I could keep the ribbon cable flat with the wires running in parallel when it dawned on me I could split the cable in half and use a 1" sleeve on each half (1" is the biggest sleeve Kobra makes). That would also solve the problem of how to reach the latch whenever I needed to remove the extension from the MOBO. Here, I'm working on the first half.

 

 

I used electrical tape and, eventually, superglue to keep the cable flat. Here, you can get an idea of how much "fun" I was having.

 

 

I got too engrossed in what I doing to remember to take pictures so let's jump ahead to the final product. Here, you can see how the split allows access to the locking latch.

 

 

The side view kinda sorta shows how the cable rises up from the 24 pin header on the MOB, drops down and goes between the MOBO tray and the MOBO back plate, then wraps around to the other side of the MOBO back plate where the 24 pin cable will connect to the extension.

 

 

The next two shots give an idea how the extension will look in use.

 

 

 

There is enough flex and play in the extension to make plugging and unplugging the connector to and from the header possible.

 

It only took a little over six hours to make that little bugger.

 

I don't know what I'll work on next and I'm too pooped to care right now. Tomorrow is another day.

[mAs81]

The 24-pin is really a beauty !!

[Lady Fitzgerald]

8 hours ago, mAs81 said:

The 24-pin is really a beauty !!

Thanks! I suppose I should call it a 12+12 although I had other names for it while trying to keep all the wires sorted out while making it and training them into shape. 

 

One thing that was bugging the snot out of me (after yesterday's allergy attack, snot is my new four letter cuss word) was those heat shrinks sticking out like a sore thumb. While writing this response, I was inspired (perspired? whatever, I just got up) to take a felt pen to the shrinks to blacken them further. It made a huge difference (enough thta I did the same to the USB 3.1 Gen 1 header extensions and adapters). Again this is how the 12+12 looks before the felt pen...

 

 

...and after using felt pen.

 

 

The camera flash introduces some glare which distorts the wire colors a bit so here is a shot of it using the limited overhead lighting.

 

 

I couldn't get the camera to focus very well but, at least, you can see the colors are a better match without the glare. The whole idea is for the cables to not be so obvious.

 

To be honest, I stole the idea for making ribbon cables from someone over on OCN although she didn't sleeve hers.

[TVwazhere]

On 6/10/2018 at 1:51 AM, Lady Fitzgerald said:

This is my fine adjusting tool.

10/10 +1 sub

[Lady Fitzgerald]

2 hours ago, TVwazhere said:

10/10 +1 sub

How did you know what I was eating for lunch? (Seriously, I was eating a sub sandwich for lunch when I read this.)  

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I'm waiting on a bunch of parts, some of which may not arrive for a couple of weeks, for making front panel header extensions that will slip between the MOBO tray and the MOBO so, for now, I'm getting some of the fiddly details out of the way.

 

My MOBO has two USB 2.0 headers. There are only two USB 2.0 ports on the front panel so I'm going to connect a PCI cover that has two USB ports mounted on the back panel to the other header. The two separate cables it has are rather rinkidink looking so I sleeved them into one cable to clean it up a bit.Here, I've taped the two cables together so I wouldn't have to keep chasing after them. The cellophane tape on the header connector is to help getting the sleeving over it.

 

 

Here the sleeve has been expanded over the connector. Kinda makes me think of a python eating a pig.

 

 

 

The cable is now ready for heat shrink sleeves...

 

 

...and, through the magic of cameras and computers, the sleeves have appeared.

 

 

 

I took a felt pen to the shrink sleeves...

 

 

...and a black paint pen to the little wires going into the header connector.

 

 

This is the PCI cover from the back of the computer view.

 

 

Here, I've removed the ports from the PCI cover so I can paint the cover (probably dull and early on Friday morning when we get a slight, temporary break in the heat). I'm not overly concerned with how the cover looks from the back of the computer but all that nickle plate showing inside the computer sticks out like a sore thumb.

 

 

The sides of those ports can leak a lot of air so I cut some black foam to seal the sides and eliminate the glare from the nickle plating. I get my black foam from the lids lids of styrofoam take out boxes (fortunately, I saved a bunch of them--I'm such a pack rat--since I havn't seen any like that in a long time).

 

 

Here is how the ports look with the foam installed. They are force fit but I also used a bit of double stick cellophane tape for insurance.

 

 

I remembered a post on another forum from a guy who suggested putting silicone spray on 24 pin connectors to make inserting and removing them easier so I did the same with the USB 3.1 Gen 1 angle adapters. I sprayed a bit on a finger tip and wiped the silicone onto the outside of the connectors, then inserted them into the headers. It still took a bit of a push and they seated with a definite click so I have a pretty strong feeling those things are in there for keeps. This is how they look fully seated.

 

 

With the adapters fully seated, I was able to make the final bends on the USB 3.1 Gen 1 header extensions.

 

 

I may have a problem with the six pin PCI-e power extension cable I made. It's right up against the heat pipes of the CPU cooler (sorry for the lousy picture but that was in a hard to reach area; I had to hold a flashlight in my mouth to give it enough light while carefully positioning the camera.)

 

 

I'm concerned the heat pipes may get hot enough to melt the insulation. I would hate to do it but, I'm thinking I'm going to have to remove that cable and make a slight longer one so I can route it over the top of the RAM sticks. I would have to remove the graphics card to get at the connector to remove the cable but I have to remove the card anyway so I can remove the MOBO mounting screws so I can lift the MOBO a bit to route the front panel header extension cables once I get the parts to make them.

 

I welcome any comments about if the cable insulation is in danger of melting from being in contact with those heat pipes.

 

I did some experimenting, some research, and read comments both here and on OCN when i asked about the temperature of the heat pipes and came to the conclusion that, with the CPU I'm using, in theory, the temperature of the heat pipes will never get close to the temperature rating of the wire insulation but there is an excellent chance it could be enough to melt the sleeving. I have heat shrink tubing that is rated higher than the wire insulation so I'm going to remove the cable, stip off the sleeving and replace it with a long heat shrink.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I removed the graphics card and also had to remove a RAM stick to get the extension cable out. Fortunately, my RAM sticks are low profile (no RGB or other nonsense) and I had plenty of room to get it out. Getting the sleeving off the old cable was a bit of a chore.

 

Rather than fight with unpinning and repinning a connector, I just used a shrink sleeve large enough to fit over the connectors.  My shrinks are 3 to 1 so the one I used could easily shrink down to size. Here s a comparison of a new shrink and how much it shrinks down to. Note how thick the wall of the shrunk shrink is.

 

 

When I reinstalled the cable, I tried to get the RAM stick back in. It wouldn't fit without forcing it. The wall thickness of the shrunk shrink made the cable too thick (mutter, mutter, mumble, mumble). 

 

The "fix" was to remove the cable, heat up a section with my little heat gun, and flatten it witth a pair of pliers, move on to the next section, and keep going until I ran out of cable. It's ugly as a mud fence but it fits now. Because of the abuse I gave the cable, before reinstalling the cable, I put 19v DC on each wire to make sure there were no broken or shorted wires. It passed the test.

 

 

That has got to be the UGLIEST cable I've ever seen! Thank God it's buried where one has to jump through hoops just to see the darned thing...and that's only when the MOBO tray is outside the case.