Lean and Green - modular dual PC scratch build -------56k warning =D-------

[coiler]

This looks exactly like some Dwemer tech from the ruins in Skyrim!!!

[Waynio]

looking great already dude, bet this is going to be epic!!

Thanks gray, been missing some progress the past couple days with needing to upgrade the saw & being full of a cold, feeling good again & upgraded the saw.

If you saw Project Stealthlow, then there is no doubt .

Cheers yassarikhan786

Just love this thread. Nice progress.

I would love to have the skill, patience and tooling to do something like this.

Thanks pastyman

This looks exactly like some Dwemer tech from the ruins in Skyrim!!!

I've really been neglecting my gaming side with all the modding played a bit of Skyrim & it's awesome but not seen what you mean yet so I'll take that as a big compliment, cheers coiler.

Finally got the extension for the front of the scroll saw made.








I'll be able to use both hands now for parts like this.

Progress resumes tomorrow, wooo hoooooo.

[Waynio]

Ok since my sleep pattern is knackered once again but I was feeling highly focused I decided to just get on with it through the night but at a slow gentle pace so it didn't create noise & slowly but surely got it done.








1 of the big 10mm pieces done, 1 more to go.


And pulled all the templates & masking tape & protective film off the other 10mm pieces for a few group photos of 4 out of the 5 10mm alu pieces.






Warning, cutting 10mm good grade alu even with a good tool like the scroll saw I have tests a persons focus & patience, zombie mode with keeping control high is required.

[yassarikhan786]

Really perfect cutting mate. As always I'm impressed .

[Waynio]

Really perfect cutting mate. As always I'm impressed .

Thanks yassarikhan786 if only my preparation was as good as my cutting.

Ok Got all the 10mm alu cut but I have crap news & good news.

The crap news is the HTPC sides are 2 to 3mm too big on the size of the outside edges & inside edges so is no good for my design, I must have printed the design of an earlier revision, had about 10 revisions in my folder so mucked up good there, here is how they would have looked if I printed the right one.


And this is how it looks in reality, missing the inside lips because of the size difference.




I have checked all my newer prints & they all measure up spot on like the sketchup model so it was a pure muck up by me for using the wrong flipping model, d'oh.

Good news is I have ordered some more 10mm alu to re do them & the HTPC side panels made won't go to waste & I will make a tweaked version of the HTPC & sell it, but I won't be doing that one until I've completed Lean & Green.


So at least I have the stands panels done spot on at least & they were much harder to do because of the size & weight of them when they were stock plate alu.








Now I'm waiting for the extra 10mm alu it's time to pick what I'll do next, plan was to start off with doing all the difficult or patience testing bits first lol.

[Waynio]

Preparations, wow nearly a week of prep work lol as well as waiting for other bits.

Figured I should do an update of some sort & make this as a mini tutorial project interval, not been slacking much at all & this bit took many many hours to do overall although I have been enjoying some more skyrim with some of the time I been waiting for extra supplies but mostly been preparation work.

3d concept, I keep all individual pieces as groups which keeps them as individual components so they don't become stuck together in the design that are easy to move around so I can just select 1 & edit it whenever with minimal fuss.


Here is how I work out what dimensions of material I need for curve pieces, triple click a curve piece & measure each section on the outside of a curve which gives really close accuracy, would give perfect accuracy but when you get odd measurements like 1.56mm or 1.63 is says it like 1.6~mm so I add up to the closest big measurement which I note as 1.7 to be safe so I work entirely with 0.1mm difference for any pieces like that & then I can sand down the super faint difference to perfection & do the same for any cut outs like the round bars I'll be using on this piece, makes the holes a bit oval when it's laid out in 2d but should allow for the same as the model.


Separating every piece including curved pieces ready for 2d printing on a-4 paper & adding 2 2mm squares with crosses inside them for every joining edge, then finalise the last save with camera parallel projection & then standard camera view as top, ready for layout.

A-4 is 297mm x 210mm but when setting things up to print I pretend it is 280mm x 190mm which prevents where it won't print on the paper so you keep all your needed lines, yes you can choose to print without borders but I think this way give best accuracy especially on a budget printer. I could give it a bit more than what I do but I like to keep it safe.


Layout which lets you dump your sketchup model & make multi page printable pdf file templates, you don't get this part of sketchup on the free version though but if you look around you can find ways to buy a student license which is a heck of a lot cheaper than the retail version meant for commercial use.




Multipage pdf file ready for printing.


And all the little files ready to print.


Printed all of them & I have them in 2 different stacks, 1 for the gaming rig & the other for the HTPC, next stage is to cut them perfectly with a nice steel ruler & razer, tack them together perfectly measuring all the while & then using the spray glue to mount the templates to the materials ready to cut/drill, think prep work takes the longest to be honest but it should let the progress really flow fast once it's done.




One of the stands side panels after cutting, I have quite a bit of spare 10mm alu from the big cut outs & 1 of the pieces I will make drilling, tapping helpers which can clamp to any panels, even edges & ends of bars so I can drill perfectly where I want to & drill perfectly straight with a manual power drill, so yep more custom tools to be made for doing this how I want it.


Currently at 5 big steps forward & 3 big steps back but with a load of prep work done lol.

[aspdend]

I'm not convinced by the design (yet) - but loving the build log - great work so far again! Keep it up! Love your build threads

[Waynio]

I'm not convinced by the design (yet) - but loving the build log - great work so far again! Keep it up! Love your build threads

Really early progress yet mate but can easily understand what you mean, cheers aspdend.

Here is the bits I needed to cut the prints nicely.


Back to the 10mm alu, turned out it was delivered next door & the courier didn't leave a note so I waited in 2 full days for nothing, annoying to say the least.

As soon as I lost a cold, my bro gave me the flu arrrrrgh lol but I wouldn't let it hold me down, figured if I stay in bed groaning or sit at my pc moaning I may as well mod on because I'll feel like crap whatever I do except making progress really appealed to me after so little lately.

I could have done pictures again but I already done that for these htpc pieces but in wrong size so I thought an ultra speed video of the whole cutting process which is 3 hours 38 minutes at normal speed but I reencoded it twice at 12 speed so 24 speed but doesn't add up for the 1 minute 30 seconds of fast video but whatever.


Ooohh I wish I could work that fast.
My first & only youtube vid until I get around to upgrading my camera to a 550d.

I only intended to do an example of how slow it cuts for 1 straight edge but thought meh I'll do a full panel, used my old kodak z950 which is why it isn't great quality.

I'll be going quiet again now until I have the other panel & the front low piece done so I can move on to the easier to cut panels.

[Waynio]

LOL I just couldn't go to bed with being eager to try the sanding blade idea out since all the 10mm alu is now cut.

First up I tried making a simple sheet at the size of a band saw blade, it snapped as soon as I tried tightening it.




This is the example piece fresh after cutting.


Next I cut double wide to fold it over, this allows for it to be used even at high speed & has some flexibility to it but is still quite prone to ripping out of the holder but as shown on a bit of the front piece it does the job nicely but takes too long to get the finish I'm after, want that finish & better, no teeth marks at all & possibly a polished edge I should have tried to quad it up which should give it pretty good strength which I'll try when I go at it next.








Other thoughts to do it is card in the middle of a folded piece of sand paper or if I want really stiff then something like the band saw blades but without the teeth & smoothed edges all around, 1mm aluminium might do, or 0.5mm stainless steel which I think would be the ultimate for doing this & would be reusable over & over, I do know I'd be best starting the process off at 100 grit or maybe even less to get the bulk of the teeth marks out & maybe work towards 1000 or 2000, it's getting rid of all the teeth marks that's going to be time consuming, from there it will come to a good shine very quickly.

Here is how the stand side panel was intended to look like with the htpc side panel & a shot of all the 10mm alu freshly cut ready for smoothing, I'll be saving getting rid of teeth marks & polishing the edges until the last step of the project but want to get prepared for how I'll do that.

[Waynio]

Pretty boring updates I think with it all being scroll saw work but was asked for updates so made one.

Due to popular demand, picture progress report.

Started back up today after a little break to recover from man flu & lack of enthusiasm due to spending absolutely ages cutting the 10mm panels.

Got all the 10mm, 4mm cut & 1 of a heck of a lot of the 3mm panels done, it is getting easier but there is some high detail 3mm panels to be done & have no idea how long those might take I would do those next but I could do with getting a stronger spray adhesive to make sure it stays held down for the whole panel, soooo many cut outs to be done on them & this spray adhesive is only any good for simple panels.

Also shown here is the drill helpers, these particular ones are for drilling spot on on bars & on edges, I'll make a bigger one for big flat panels, will help make sure every single mount position is 100% perfect on edges of the 10mm panels & on any panels with a normal power drill.
















On to easier thickness of 3mm now, then 2mm then 1mm then adding all the drill mount points then an epic sanding session, then acrylic which cuts incredibly easy on the saw then gluing some of the acrylic parts together, then hmmmmm woooooooo hoooooooooooooooo.

Because I've gone to such lengths on the design it would probably be able to be mass produced also but have no plans at all for that but it is my most complete design so far.

[Waynio]

It was proving to be a tad difficult searching through the 3mm alu I cut up to get the project started which I didn't label what cuts were what so it took an hour or 2 just to work out which are which & get them all labelled so continue I could.

Took me about 24 hours altogether to cut close to all the edges & cut spot on the seams for the multi page templates, just decided to get them ALL done so they are ready for sticking to the materials, will make for a lot less messing.


So with the 10th March deadline I set for myself I have 12 days with 1 of them being today a partial day to cut it ALL now lol.

I will do updates every 2 days showing how much I'm getting through.

[Jacksb4]

This is shaping up to be another great project as ever! Keep it up and keep posting!

[Waynio]

This is shaping up to be another great project as ever! Keep it up and keep posting!

Thanks Jacksb4 & of course I'll continue posting.

Was a little concerned about sticking the busiest templates to the material with the weak spray adhesive but remembered I bought 50 a4 sticker sheets so printed all the busiest panels on them & got them cut up & taped together & did a final measure of them to make sure they are spot on & just stuck them to the alu.

I'll get busy drilling for access & cut them tomorrow but I'd be nicely surprised if I manage doing them all tomorrow but think it's doable, there is the front & back & both sides of the gamer rig & the rear htpc panel which are all the most detailed panels for the aluminium so expect updates to be rolling every 2 days from now with the first of them tomorrow evening or night.

[danroyle]

looking really nice dude

[GSVRasputin]

Wow that looks totally epic, can't wait for the finished piece.