DarthBeavis Project: Trek

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04 Oct 2010 05:02 #9961 by DarthBeavis
NOTE: Thi is a project I have at a standstill until i fab new monitor brackets. Hope you still enjoy reading. I will update it when I have time to finish the project.

This project will be themed on the utility case a Star Trek Engineering away team might take on a mission. Technology featured in this build will include Nvidia's 3d Stereo graphics for the most immerse gaming short of a holodeck. The build will contain two mini-itx based systems for true head-to-head gaming. The project is a join venture between BoxGods (a.k.a. Geno) and Out of the Box Mods (a.k.a. me). Our goal is to have it premier at QuakeCon (Nvidia has booth space reserved for it) then next travel to PAX.

Sponsors:
- Nvidia (3d monitors, glasses)
- Danger Den (CNC, laser, design services, I think I bought all the water-cooling parts retail for this project except GPU blocks)
- Crucial (Ballistix Tracer ram and SSD hard drives)
- Performance PCs (tons of stuff)
- Mountain Mods (thanks for helping get materials on short notice Ben!!!)
- BoxGods (aluminum boxes and tons of design services)
- Asus (motherboards? and GPUS - two 260s)
- I wanted to fit FrozenQ reservoirs in but the space is so small he would have to make really small ones. I do not know if he will have time. Anyway, he still deserves a shout out.

Geno, after months of work and more than one sleepless night and shower less day has the drawings finished. I received the aluminum boxes Friday, then traveled to Danger Den Saturday. Jeremy, the CEO of DD, was kind enough to give up his entire day to draw the holes for the case where I needed them and then use one of their CNC mills to cut the holes. This week they will laser cut the acrylic parts as well. Today I ground the slag off the boxes and radiused the edges (Geno already has some of it done so I would know what result to shoot for). This is my FIRST time working with metal so please keep that in mind when commenting. I still have to do use the Scotch Bright finishing sander attachment (this round was with a number 80 flap attachment). Tomorrow I will start the polishing . . .w00t

Drawing (not complete):



CNC Mill:



After mill:


Grinding (Geno I do listen to your safety nagging):






Guess I have a date with a file and sandpaper tomorrow as well . . . .maybe polishing on Tuesday?

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04 Oct 2010 05:03 #9962 by DarthBeavis

dualbrain;3930655 wrote: Hello DarthBeavis :) I might have not read well enough (language barrier :D) but are the "flaps" on the side monitors? If so: Very cool!!!


A flap is a grinding wheel.



Here is a different perspective with more details drawn in:

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04 Oct 2010 05:03 #9963 by DarthBeavis
Did what I could metal-working on teh boxes, but got some pros to help get it rightly polished up. here is the center box. The other two are already at the painter who will paint the inside metallic teal then clearcoat the inside and outside of the boxes. I might also have them paint the PSU ;)





Brian from Primochill came though in a pinch with laser cutting.


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04 Oct 2010 05:04 #9964 by DarthBeavis
Moar Shiney . . .also filed the corners of the reservoir hole so it will sit flush. It will have one of the new billeted aluminum face plates polished to match the case




Thanks to Asus and Crucial for sponsoring hardware:


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04 Oct 2010 05:04 #9965 by DarthBeavis
Decided to get some painting done. The pump and rads really will not be visible but I wanted to at least have them reflect some light to maybe help light up the 'nacelles' or laminated acrylic layers between the boxes




Geno says I will have some sanding and polishing of the edges of the acrylic pieces when they get here so I stocked up on compounds (also need to polish the knobs . . .errr, that did not sound right . . .uh handles for adjusting the monitors)

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04 Oct 2010 05:05 #9966 by DarthBeavis
Got the PSU put together after painting (finally a silver Silverstone) . . .then started violating my diet by consuming a steady stream of gin and tonics . . .

Got the boxes back from painting:



Wish I had the pump painted teal as well:

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04 Oct 2010 05:05 #9967 by DarthBeavis

got the acrylic pieces in from Geno . . .first peeling off all the paper. tomorrow starts sanding and polishing.



to give you an idea of how many parts:

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04 Oct 2010 05:06 #9968 by DarthBeavis
sanding away (batch sand then go back and wet sand with finer grit individually):



Sniipe look what I have in the backround

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04 Oct 2010 05:06 #9969 by DarthBeavis
fully polished black piece next to sanded black piece (only 100 or so more to go)


That is on the buffing wheel using blue compound and a five sewn wheel
Polished ALL day long and still went to the gym. Special thanks to my buddy John (SoundEvolution) for spending the last two days sanding with his orbital while I wet sanded and polished. After the project is done I will post some videos of parts of the project.

Here is a test assembly of the center box and one of the side boxes. I got the order wrong as the black layer with the radiator mounts goes next to the bigger center box not the outside box. So far, looking good. I will clean the acrylic up well before final assembly.





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04 Oct 2010 05:07 #9970 by DarthBeavis
Yes I have some nice 6" UV cathodes and a load of UV LED strips to play with. lights will be remote controlled ;)
Test fitting the wheel assembly (will use different mounting hardware of course

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04 Oct 2010 05:07 #9971 by DarthBeavis
Don't think I will have all four monitors ready for QuakeCon but I will have them ready by PAX. Need to finish plumbing on side, install mobo and GPU in the other, little wire management, cut acrylic handles and replace the ghetto screws in the top part with better ones tomorrow. Then tomorrow night pack it all up to take on the plane. We cannot finish the monitors until we have a screen panel (Danger Den will cut tomorrow and send to the hotel in Dallas, we will finish the monitors at the hotel).

Monitors:


Made backplates for GPUS so I could mount them to the mobo tray:

Sleeving my arse off:

Coming together (wife is gonna kick my tail over this mess):



Crappy pic but it shows the lighting (can control it with a remote fob):

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04 Oct 2010 05:08 #9972 by DarthBeavis

QuakeCon 2009:

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04 Oct 2010 05:08 #9973 by DarthBeavis
Working on monitor enclosures. Have to tap into the controllers boards to get power for fans I am adding to the enclosures. These boxes will connect to the 'antlers'.




I took the small rads out of the aluminum boxes replacing them with a single rad in the new center housing (split off the T3 dual outputs back and back using Bitspower Y connectors - don't know if there is a benefit but I thought why not)








T3 cover on:






Re-plumbed and ready to fill and leak test. Used Koolance quick disconnects so I can take the top part off for shipping/transport.











I will also sand down that top piece so it sits flush.

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04 Oct 2010 05:09 #9974 by DarthBeavis
I hate the monitor enclosures so I am going to design something different. It will continue the green and black design element and will be more like brackets that wrap around the monitor instead of entirely enclosing it. Will look much better. here is the ghetto enclosures installed (was going to install pieces to cover up teh seams by instead time to make it look tight).




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04 Oct 2010 05:09 #9975 by DarthBeavis
Internal pix:




Hate the sata cables will redo them

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04 Oct 2010 06:22 #9989 by LeatherFace
Very nice...

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