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

[mAs81]

Oh,wow it really looks great!Really liking this "lightbox" feel to it, kudos!

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Thanks!

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Before I can cut the wires for the front panel switch cables, I needed to first route the wires where the cables will go. That meant installing some of the cable clips to hold them in place long enough to allow me to determine the final length. Here is one style of cable clip I'm using.

 

 

Sadly, the largest one on the left has apparently been discontinued. When I ordered ten more of these from PerformancePCs, they had only five in stock. They offered to send me the five and backorder the other five. Today, I received a notice with no explaination that I was that I was receiving a refund from PPCs so, apparently, they couldn't get them anymore. I haven't been able to find the 1" clips anywhere. They are made by Mod/Smart and are called a Twist Lock Mount. If anyone knows where I could get some more of the 1" clips, please let me know. I'll be all over it like fleas on a stray dog.

 

The adhesive pads on the bottom are less than stellar. The adhesive doesn't always stick that well to the base of the clip, apparently due to bad or no surface preparation, and the foam sometimes pulls apart (I've had some of them either become unstuck or the foam pulled apart in my old desktop rig) so, before installing them, I removed the adhesive pads (sometimes easy, sometimes a real bear), sanded the bottoms of the bases, cleaned them with 93% isopropyl alcohol, then stuck on some 3M Mounting Tape. Those little suckers aren't going anywhere soon...if ever.

 

Here, I've used a different kind of clip on the switch panel to keep some slack in the cables once they have been sleeved (they are a wee bit loose right now, hence the tape). The empty clip is for the power cable for the LED dimmer switch once I get it and wire it up.

 

 

 

 

Oopsie! How did my homemade potato chips get in there?

 

Here, the panel has been put back into the case.

 

 

These shots show the wires being routed down alongside the power strip. You can see the cips being used to keep the cables corralled. I added some more slack in case I ever needed more length.

 

 

 

 

I really like those clips because they are so easy to open and close and to insert wires into and remove them.

 

Here is the mess I'm so looking forward to sorting out (said Jeannie, tongue firmly in cheek).

 

 

Once I match up the bare wires to the corresponding extension cable and snip them to length, I'll remove the switch panel, sleeve the wires, install the appropriate pins, solder them, then poke them into the connector bodies. Again, more "fun".

 

 

[TekRed]

Ok that looks awesome.... The computer isn't so bad either ?

[Lady Fitzgerald]

3 hours ago, TekRed said:

Ok that looks awesome.... The computer isn't so bad either ?

Thanks (I think).

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I worked five hours cutting the wires to length, sleeving some of the cables, crimping and soldering the pins, and poking the pins into the connector bodies and all I got done was two lousy switches (including the HDD activity LED cable). 1/8" sleeving technically was too small but 1/4" was a tad too big so I "squoze" the 1/8" sleeving on. Anyroad, here 'tis (so far).

 

 

 

I added another cable clip to the switch panel for in case I ever find a use for the presently unused LED on the Direct Key switch. I decided not to finish making the cable at this time even though i had already cut the wires and crimped and soldered the switch connectors onto the wires. Instead, I coiled up the wires, secured them with small Velcro strips, and stuck it in one of the storage drawers in the 5.25" bay.

 

I'm tired, yawning my face off, and my fingers hurt so I'm knocking off for the night. I'll finish that last switch's cables tomorrow once I get my nap out (old people nap a lot).

[TekRed]

2 hours ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

Thanks (I think).

lol I was talking about those homemade chips  they look delicious. And you have some serious wiring skills, what is or was your profession?

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

6 hours ago, TekRed said:

lol I was talking about those homemade chips  they look delicious. And you have some serious wiring skills, what is or was your profession?

 

 

Thanks! I like them. They are made by slicing a small potato into 3/16" to 1/4" thick slices. I then melt just enough butter mixed with olive oil (pure olive oil is better but I wind up throwing away most of the bottle because the oil goes rancid before I can use it all so I use Land 'O Lakes butter/olive oil mix instead) to cover a large paper plate roughly 1/64"-1/32" deep, then salt and pepper the butter/oil to taste. Lay the potoato slices onto the paper plate, flipping them so both sides get coated with the butter/oil. Nuke for four minutes (times will vary according to how thick the slices are and how powerful the microwave is), flip the slices, then nuke for another four minutes. Let cool enough to eat but eat while still warm. They come out chewy rather than crispy when cooked correctly. If you used the correct amount of butter/oil, there will be very little left on the plate. I had just made a batch before taking the pictures and, feeling whimsical (fancy word for crazy) took a picture of it while taking the other pictures.

 

Thanks for the other compliment, too. The two jobs I held the longest in my life were in warehousing for 30 of the 32 years I was at the electric/irrigation utility I now get my pension from and 5 1/2 years at a convenience store to supplement my pension until a couple of years before Social Security kicked in since I had retired early. I would have liked to have worked in the one of the electrical trades but, being color blind... I've had machine shop, welding, and cabinet work training in college (I minored in Industrial Arts Education)  and worked in a machine shop for a short while (my Daddy was a machinist) and worked on a power line constructtion crew for a short time (too rednecked for me and I wasn't a good fit for the job) before landing in warehousing.

 

I'm old enough to have picked up a skill or two along the way.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I finally finished the last switch cables. This one was the toughest one of the bunch. Besides having a double split, for some reason I had more trouble keeping the wires parallel while inching on the sleeving and had to keep backing off the sleeve to straighten the wires back out, then inch the sleeving back on again. Those sleeves were tight on the wires and my old fingers did NOT appreciate that.

 

 

 

 

I'm not putting the panel back in the case until after I pick up the dimmer switch tomorrow or Friday and get it wired up. Hopefully, I won't nuke it again.

 

 After finishing, while still had my crimping tools and supplies out, I cannibalized a couple more male pins from an old cable and made a couple more probe extensions for my ADVOM.

 

 

Right now, my tired (among other things) hurts and I need to take a bit of a break.

[mAs81]

So tidy! Very well done

[Lady Fitzgerald]

34 minutes ago, mAs81 said:

So tidy! Very well done

Thanks!

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I had a bad night the night before last so I didn't get anything done yesterday, including running any errands. This turned out to be a good thing since two packages that were supposed to be delivered to my mail service Monday were delivered today. With all the packages I picked up today, it was like Christmas in June. I spent the afternoon going through all of it, putting things away, cutting long strings of connector pins into shorter lengths so I could fit them into my parts boxes, etc.

 

After most of what I picked up today was put away, I took a black Sharpie to the USB header cable I got to connect the card readers to the USB 3.1 Gen 1 (I still would like to "meet" the yoyos who renamed USB 3.0!) header on the MOBO. It was blue and all the other cables in the area it is running in are black so the blue had to go. Here is the cable after "painting" it.

 

 

It's a little glossier than I would have liked but, otherwise, it will do quite nicely.

 

I then wired up one of the replacement dimmer switches I had ordered to replace the incinerated one. Before installing the dimmer switch onto the switch panel, I gave it a trial run to make sure it worked ok. This is full brightness.

 

 

This is when I turned the brightness down somewhat.

 

 

That's much better. The light isn't glaring and washing out the colors. Here is when I dimmed it all the way down.

 

 

It's a bit too dim but it gives you an idea of how much range the dimmer has. Light from the kitchen is messing up the photos a bit.

 

Here is the dimmer and its cable before I installed it on the switch panel.

 

 

 

And this is how it looks installed.

 

 

 

That single cable sticking up like an obscene gesture is the one that goes to the LEDs.

 

That's it for tonight. I'm pooped!

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Before I could work on finishing the power cables to the MOBO, I needed to start working on cable managment, mostly installing cable management clips to hold cables in place so I can determine what length to cut some of them down to. I had already installed the clips for the "front" I/O panel cables (audio and USB), the USB cable for the SD/MicroSD card reader, and the switch panel cables. I now have the switch panel permanently installed. This shot shows the upper end of those cables. They are squashed down to make sure they don't get too cozy with the top fans. I'll "dress them up" better later.

 

 

I also connected the "front panel" connector and switch cables to their respective header connectors and installed the intake fans header and power cables, then bundled them all up with Velcro strips.

 

 

The next thing I worked on was securing the USB header cables. I had to cut away the foam that was under the cable clamp holding them in place (more on that in a bit).

 

 

 

It's a snug fit but they aren't going anywhere soon.

 

Next was to secure the 24 pin cable. I used purse lock clips to secure this bad boy. This is the "hole" I had to make in the foam so the base of the clip would have some metal to stick to. It still needs to be cleaned up a bit. I started cutting the "holes" with an Exacto knife and used a couple of wood chisels to clean them out but I found the chisels actually worked better for cutting the outline the holes. After that, I just used the Exacto knife to make sure the chisels had cut all the way down to metal.

 

 

These are the chisels I used. I had to stop and touch them up on a hard Arkansas stone occasionally to make sure they didn't get dull since they weren't intended for that kind of use (OK, abuse). I was surprised that the edges held up well.

 

 

This is the cable clip installed in the cleaned up "hole" and the cable installed in the clip.

 

 

 

I also needed another clip higher up just before the cable enters the PSU bump out. I started by clamping a clip around the cable, putting some tape on the foam, and drawing an outline of the clip base on the tape.

 

 

 

This is what the hole looks like after cutting out the outline, pulling out most of the foam before the final clean up with the chisel...

 

 

...and after clean up with the chisel and some isopropyl alcohol pads to ensure adhesion.

 

 

Here is the installed clip...

 

 

...and the cable installed in the clips.

 

 

The excess cable length gets buried inside the PSU bump out (it will have cover over it later so only the PSU fan will show).

 

 

I temporarily installed the two 8 pin CPU power cables and the pesky 6 pin MOBO PCI-e power cable so I could determine where the clips to hold them in place would go and how much to cut the cables down. Here are the installed clips (sorry, I forgot to take photos of the temporarily installed cables before removing them).

 

 

 

I now need to cut those three power cables, pin them, poke the pins into the connectors (joy!), then test them off the PSU to make sure I didn't cross any wires (something I seem to be doing quite well, lately). I'll need to remove the PSU to do that (it's just setting in the bump out right now).

 

That's enough damage for now.

[mAs81]

Who said that cable management wasn't an art??  

[Lady Fitzgerald]

38 minutes ago, mAs81 said:

Who said that cable management wasn't an art??  

Even art can be primitive. 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Yesterday, I cut and pinned the two 8 pin cables and the six pin cable. However, when I tried to insert the pins on one of the 8 pin cables into a connector body, everything went horribly wrong. I had the darnedest time getting the pins to go in. After fighting with it for a couple of hours, muttering sweet nothings the entire time, once I finally got the pins in and tested the cable on the PSU, I threw in the towel for the night.

 

When I finally got my nap out and was ready to start on the next 8 pin cable (with dread), I first made a couple more probes, this time for female ATX pins. All the probe extensions have been handier than sliced bread and soft butter so far. I wish I had thought of making them a long time ago. They've been better than a third, or even a fourth, hand.

 

 

 

The second 8 pin cable was a breeze. I must have had a bad or extra tight connector body on the first one. Weird (it has happened before). The six pin cable was even easier; it was a simple pin to pin match up. I then installed the cables into the case and temporarily connected them to the MOBO. Here is what the right side of the case looks like so far.

 

 

 

 

 

The inside of the PSU bump out is starting to get a bit busy but it is a good place to park excess cable length and will get covered up when I put the cover on. Getting at the connectors at the PSU is easier than it looks. I can get even better access to the connectors by taking out the screws holding in the PSU and swing it out a bit.

 

 

These shots show how the cables look from the left side of the case.

 

 

The "front" I/O and switch cables extensions look better here than I had expected. I had thought about trying to make some kind of a cover for them but now, I'm not so sure. Here are the rest of the cables so far. There is plenty of room for me to get at these cables.

 

 

 

I still need to cut the graphics card cable to length, pin it, and insert the pins into the connector bodies. That will probably keep until tomorrow.

[MEC-777]

Incredible work on the cable management.  

[Lady Fitzgerald]

3 hours ago, MEC-777 said:

Incredible work on the cable management.  

Thanks, you all!

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I finished off the graphic card cable, tested it on the PSU, then installed it in the computer. The pins and connector for the PSU end of this cable went together slick as snot on a greased broom handle (pity that the first 8 pin cable wasn't this easy). The graphics card cable in this photo is the one with the arrow pointing to it. I haven't bothered to provide a clip for it since it seems to be adequately wedged in place (if it does decide to wander, I can just secure it to adjacent cables inside the PSU bump out with a twist tie or two).

 

 

Here it is from the left (window) side of the case.

 

 

This is "kindasorta" how the PSU bump out will look when its cover is installed (I'm just holding it in place because I'm too lazy to screw it in place temporarily). No more cable jungle showing.

 

 

The real "fun" starts now. I have to shorten 15 SATA data cables to their correct lengths and install them. It won't be especially difficult but it will be incredibly tedious. I'll be using the same kind of cables and a similar technique to what was used in this video (the guy in the video is a bit windy but he nails every detail dead on).

 

 

It's past my bedtime so that's all for now.

 

[MrJoosh]

Amazing build log that I have just binge read at work over the last few days - you're an impressively skilled individual  

 

Almost makes me want to start a scratch build 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

2 hours ago, MrJoosh said:

Amazing build log that I have just binge read at work over the last few days - you're an impressively skilled individual  

 

Almost makes me want to start a scratch build 

Thanks, you all!

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Before starting on the SATA cables themselves, I had to dig out out the parts for the pass through panel and attach them to the painted panel (it's been hanging from my ceiling for a few weeks now so methinks the paint is as dry as it's ever going to get).

 

Here, I've screwed the sockets to the panel. One pair is e-SATA socket to SATA cable and the other is a USB 3.1 Gen 1 (also more sensibly known as USB 3.0) panel coupler. I also have two E-SATA jumper cables and two SATA couplers in the pictures.

 

 

Another view of the pass through panel.

 

 

Here, everything is assembled and ready for installation on the computer.

 

 

The purpose of this panel is to allow the two e-SATA ports an the USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type A ports on the rear I/O panel to pass through the back panel into the computer (I'm not going to bother with the USB ports for now due to parts unavailability so far). The e-SATA ports will be used as two extra SATA ports inside the computer (I have no need for e-SATA but I do need two more SATA ports). Here, I've installed the pass through panel on the rear panel of the computer and connected the e-SATA jumpers to the rear I/O panel on the MOBO.

 

 

Here is where the SATA cables from the pass through panel are routed (they are the flat ones running horizontally snugged up to the power cables). They are too short to reach their destination (the ODD and the USM bay) so I had to put couplers on the end of the cables so I could extend them.

 

 

The USM bay doesn't have a catch for the SATA cable latch and the SATA cable connector was a rather loose fit so I put a couple of pieces of tape inside the connector and folded it over the top to shim the fit a bit.

 

 

 

It's kinda hard to see where the two cables are connected in here. The bottom one was the one that needed shimming.

 

 

I was able to use stock length cables here.

 

I started to install SATA cables to the MOBO SATA ports and quickly got lost trying to keep track of which as which so I pulled them back out and labeled each one at each end.

 

 

I had to print a long stip of multiple labels to avoid waste from the excess tape on each end of the labels (I didn't have this problem on my old computer and I can't figure out why I am now). 

 

 

Putting those labels on was fiddly work.

 

Here is a shot of the inside of the PSU bump out now that all the power cables have been installed (I failed to post it last time).

 

 

I half expect to see lions, tigers, and bears (oh, my) coming out of that jungle.

 

My allergies have been driving me crazy(er) all day and I have a splitting sinus headache so I'm knocking off and will probably be down for the rest of the day. I've decided against cutting the cables down to length for now in case I need to rearrange them later. I'm debating on whether to sleeve them or not when I do cut them down (sleeves would make them a bit bulkier).

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I got a couple hours sleep after the allergy attack but woke up and couldn't get back to sleep so I fooled around with an experiment to keep from going stir crazy.

 

The 5v rail on the Corsair AX760 PSU I'm using is rated for 25A, which is adequate to power all the SSDs I may be running at one time (both in the computer and in the hot swap bays), but I don't know what the overcurrent protection on each one of the six pin sockets on the PSU are rated for (it's either 16A or 20A) which may be pushing the limits for what I may be needing. I got the idea of combining two of the sockets in parallel into one socket so I whipped up and adapter to plug into two of the six pin sockets on the PSU that will feen into the single cable going to the power strip, then tested it with no load on the PSU to see if it would trip the short protection or not. It didn't so it should work should I need it. Anyroad, here 'tis.

 

 

The only reason I twisted the wires was to make it look a little less sloppy.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Today was a bit of a sad day for me. I finally brought myself around to tearing down my old setup to make room for the new one. It was like saying goodbye to an old friend (sniff, sniff...actually, the sniffling is more from the dust I stirred up setting off my miserable, misbegotten allergies again). I first cannibalized the computer for parts I need for the new computer or may need in the future: the five SSDs inside (four 4TB and one 500GB), the graphics card, the dual hot swap bay, the ODD, the sound card, an ethernet card, the HBA card, and some other oddball stuff. Then I removed two of the three monitors on my desk and the powered HDMI splltters they were connected to (the monitors will get reused; I left one monitor on my desk for when I test the new MOBO to make sure it will post, then I will move it out of the way). I still need to attack the cable jungle on the floor behind the desk (and harvest the carrots growing in the dust back there). The new setup will keep most of the cables off the floor and as many components as possible on the wall and off the desk to make moving it out of the way for cleaning much easier.

 

I'll need to spend a day or two updating the backups for the SSDs I removed from the old machine (I'll have to use my notebook and a couple of USB cable adapters for that) so I can run the backups down to my Credit Union and swap them out for the ones in my safe deposit box, then update them. Then I need to work on a couple of 1/4" x 2" x 3" x 7' aluminum angles for a bridge over a window so I can hang my monitors (six of them) and my TV off of it. That's going to be fun since summer has arrived in AZ with a vengeance. The angles need to be notched on each end to clear the baseboard and ceiling moldings on the wall, drilled for mounting holes, then painted. I should have started that weeks ago when it wasn't so darned hot out.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Sorry I've been so quiet lately. My allergies have been driving me insane (yeah, I know, short trip). I've been pecking away at some of the less than fun things that need doing before I can finish the computer.

 

Here are a couple of photos I took of the old computer before I cannibalized it.

 

 

 

The old night stand the old computer sat on is too narrow for the new computer so I put a piece of 3/4" x 2' x 2' plywood on top of it (I will eventually be replacing the night stand, my desk, and the drawers the printer is on). I rounded the front right corner so I wouldn't gouge my leg if I ran into it. I also rounded the left front corner for looks (I'm OCD when it comes to symmetry), then covered the edges with some iron on oak edging tape I had left over from a project I did around 20 years ago to avoid edge splintering (also, the raw edges looked...well...raw). That was a bit of a chore since the tape overhang had to be trimmed off (having the right tools helped a lot).

 

 

I also removed my satellite speakers and their mounting brackets (the sub is still under my desk), some shelf standards, and some curtain rod hardware from the wall. I've also put the new mount parts on the back of the TV (it's currently attached to a base that is bolted to a swing arm on the wall so I won't have to deal with that later.

 

I got the backup drives I had at home updated (that actually went a lot faster than I had expected using USB adapters cables and my little notebook; I love it when things like that happen). I was going to run (ok, drive and waddle) errands yesterday, including taking the backup drives to my credit union to swap out with the ones in my safe deposit box but my allergies made other plans for me (mutter, mutter, mumble, mumble) so I took care of the errands today.

 

When I got home, I installed a couple of angle braces on the back of the night stand to give the plywood overhanging the back of the nightstand some more support. That meant getting down on the floor (I'm approaching 70; getting down on the floor and getting back up again is somewhat problematic). After that, I made new labels for the data drives I pulled from the old computer and installed them, then made labels to go on the drive trays in the new computer and installed them (ok, I'll admit it, I love playing with my label printer).

 

 

Right now, i have only four data drives but I expect to get another one (plus four backup drives) around the Thanksgiving/Christmas holidays if i can get a decent sale price. I want to replace the 4TB Samsung 850 Evos I had in the old computer (and will be putting in the new one) with the new Sammy 4TB 860 Pros. I can use the four 850s that get replaced as back up drives for the new fifth drive. However, I'll contemplate crossing that bridge in November (I'm hoping stupid Trump's equally stupid new tariffs won't jack up the price).

 

Tomorrow, I'm going to upodate the backup drives I brought home from the credit union and work out the dimensions for the notches and holes on the two 7' pieces of angle that are going to hold the "bridge" the TV and the monitors are going to be mounted on to the wall (there is a stupid window in the way, hence the need for a "bridge"). Hopefully, I'll be able to cut and drill the angles on Sunday. We are getting a short break in the weather starting Monday morning so, hopefully, I can get the angles painted Monday or Tuesday morning.

 

I have a couple pieces of 3/8" x 2-1/2" x 8" aluminum flat bar coming in the mail tomorrow or Monday I'll need to be able to remount my speakers to the bridge. The only reason they are so thick is I have to tap the holes in them for the speaker bracket mounting screws and they needed some "meat" for the threads so they won't strip out should I ever mount larger speakers. That means digging out and setting up my drill press (I love my little drill press; my back, not so much).

 

At some point, I need to tackle the cable jungle behind my desk. Then, once I bench test the MOBO to make sure it will post so I can temporarily relocate the last monitor, I need to move furniture out of the way and replace some damaged floor tiles while they are easy to get to (that will be fun since it means getting on the floor again).

 

I've already made arrangements with the mobile home court handyman to help me assemble and install the "bridge" in the next week or two. The pieces aren't too heavy for me to handle by myself but my arms are about five feet too short to let me hold up one end while installing screws in the other end of two of the pieces. Also, the TV is too heavy for me to handle by myself now (funny, I had no trouble doing it nine years ago when I first installed it; this old age business is for the birds!).

 

That's all for now.