Project ZOE

[Zesti]

Hi everyone!

My first post here and what's a better way to start than a worklog? :D

This build was finished around nine months ago, but here's a short retro worklog.. Here's a photo of the finished build for starters:

Specs are nothing special - 3570K @ 4.4GHz, Maximus IV Gene-Z/Gen3, 16GB RAM, HD5850 @ 888MHz, Strider 750W and 120GB Vertex 3. Still fast enough and pretty silent considering it's an open-air case.

Anyway, back to start.. Build started with a huge sheet of 3mm aluminium, some 5mm aluminium and jigsaw. Some cutting later I got bunch of parts. Here they are mostly taped together just the test how it looks like:

After that I cut and glued some L-profile into the sidepanels - these will hold the shell in place.

Bending the shell was probably one of the hardest things in this project.. Meter long sheet of 1.5mm was hand bent to create shell for the case. I even made small mistake and had to move other bend some 5mm. However, I'm very happy with the result!

Then it was time to start building IO-panel with some old hardware. The side fan enclosure was later dropped since I wanted to mount Aquaero 5's display there instead.

Most of the warm air exhausts from the top so I built a custom grille there.

With most parts ready it was time for the boring part - filling and sanding the chassis. This took forever to do and I even repainted it since I wasn't completely happy with it.

At this point Ivy Bridge was released and I got rest of the parts for this system too. If someone is wondering why I'm using P67 board with IB the answer is simple - I got the board very cheap! :D

Stealing some power from another system.. :p Had to update BIOS for full Ivy Bridge support too.

And here comes the best part! Finally installing components in the case!

But still some more work to do, especially with sleeving. For that I got a nice packet from Nils:

This time I went with heatshrinkless sleeving.. IMO looks much better than heatshrinks.

At this point I was slightly rushing to get it all together for Assembly Summer ´12 LAN-party. Got it all together in the end anyway and it survived just fine roadtrip to the party! Here's some photos from the ASM'12 and the mostly finished system:

Some final photos too:

I've been using this case now for around nine months and it has been great. Doesn't even gather dust as much as you could imagine and is reasonably quiet - pump in the Kühler 620 is usually the loudest component.

There's still some things I could improve or do differently, but I'm saving those for a complete rebuild. If you have comments and/or constructive criticism, I'd be interested to hear those! :D

[DJ46]

Wow man this is really cool!

[Mr.ToxiiQue]

it... it is... it is so beautiful O.O

[mathijs727]

Just WOW. This is a piece of art!

[MrPG8]

It's really awsome. I like that open case solution!

[Tomislav Matic]

Awesome, great metalwork... this should be featured on the stream. You should do this for a living if you aren't already.

[Rale]

very clean man, love it!!

[Samdb]

This is beautiful, and is that a custom PCB cover?

[roelversteeg]

............. WOOOOOOOW THIS LOOKS AWESOME , the sleeving is awesome

[Zesti]

Thanks guys! :D

@ Tomislav Matic, Case modding for living? I wish I could do that!

@ Samdb, yes, it's a custom motherboard cover. Made it from 1mm aluminium - in fact it's cut from an old Lian Li sidepanel.. And mounted with 12mm standoffs.

[Riot54]

Mind = blown.

[alif49]

This is amazing! I really hope you get showcased on the live stream.

[Conelton]

Absolutely stunning. Incredible.

I would pay lots and lots of money for someone to make me one of those. You could easily make some serious cash here.

[TicTac]

Turned out well man awesome job :P

[Nit3Rid3R]

Wow, wow wow wow wow wow, this is....amazing...I am just...speechless. Good job man.

[Laksen]

Dude that is so baller, you win one internetz :-)

[eshbop]

That's very nice. So unique.

[the_devil52]

Thats mad! One of the nicest looking scratch builds I've ever seen. I wish I the time and money to do that

[yhoang001]

HOLY BAJESUS !!!! one question you're not scare of other people might take part of it ?

[Bupalooga]

Holy shit... Mind blown Just mindbogelingly beautiful. How is that even possible to do by hand?

[Zesti]

Thank you everyone, much appreciated!

HOLY BAJESUS !!!! one question you're not scare of other people might take part of it ?

Not really.. LAN-parties in Finland are reasonably safe - it's extremely rare that something is stolen.

[Guest]

I think I'm in love..

[Dave :)]

This is awesome. Gets my vote of Build log of the week. :)

[Musguelha17]

I love it!

If there was something I would have done differentely, it would have been the litlle display, it somehow just looks like it doesn't belong there.

[Nicktrance]

WOW... just WOW....If this doesn't get build of the week, I'll steal Linus' cats...