Project: Aluminum Water Cooling Case

[spotswood]

Originally Posted by DrGuns4Hands

This is looking amazing I wish I had those kind of skills. Out of curiosity I have to ask though, the guy your building this for isn't in much of a hurry is he? Kind of surprised anyone could wait a whole year for a case for their build.

He's extremely busy, I'm extremely busy and life has a way of getting in the way of our plans sometimes (like injuries from an automobile accident). But that said, I'm lucky and very great-full that's he's been so patient.

[conley_jb]

Great work again, by the way.

Just curious... when you do your framing. What do you use to cut the aluminum bar peices that you cap you C-channel with? I am working with some 1/2" x 1" pcs myself and am experimenting with finding the best cutting method to get square, accurate cuts. After trying to find a small chop saw, or cut-off tool locally (which I couldn't find), I finally ordered a non-ferrous circular saw blade for my 7 1/4 miter saw, but I have no clue if that will work.

[spotswood]

Originally Posted by conley_jb

Great work again, by the way.

Just curious... when you do your framing. What do you use to cut the aluminum bar peices that you cap you C-channel with? I am working with some 1/2" x 1" pcs myself and am experimenting with finding the best cutting method to get square, accurate cuts. After trying to find a small chop saw, or cut-off tool locally (which I couldn't find), I finally ordered a non-ferrous circular saw blade for my 7 1/4 miter saw, but I have no clue if that will work.

I cut all of the aluminum stock using a 10-year old Craftsmen miter/chop saw fitted with a plain-old (cheap) carbide saw blade from Home Depot or Lowe's. The only "trick" is to always clamp the stock to the fence and cut in one continuous motion, keeping a steady saw RPM.

Good luck!

[conley_jb]

What blade did you get at HD/ Lowes. My store is significantly smaller than most, but was at each and neither sold a cheap metal saw blade that wasn't a cut-off wheel, which I heard can gum up due to alum being so soft.

It may have been I just caught the idiot associate who had no clue. I did find a $10 Dewalt blade on HD online and ordered it though last night though. Sounds like this is the best way to go... thanks

[DarkFox]

subbed, may take a while but I want to see it.

[spotswood]

I made a mistake, placing the false back too far into the case, which required having to re-fabricate the back sheet. But I figured I could take advantage of the situation by improving the mounting of the motherboard tray, by fastening the tray to the false back with a 7/8-inch long spacer.



I don't remember if I already offered this tip before, but I try to reduce the wear and tear on my 1/2-inch flush cutting router bit by first rough cutting with a 3/16-inch spiral downward cutting bit.



Additional Comment:

A PSU mounting plate was routed out of a piece .10-inch thick aluminum sheet with the help of a custom template.

In order to accurately transfer the locations of the PSU mounting holes, threaded hole transfer punches (mcmaster.com part # 3385A31) were threaded into a PSU.






And then the PSU was carefully centered and pressed into the sheeting, with the end result being a perfect squarely mounted PSU.

[Jonny 1i]

Love the quality of this work
Sub'd

[spotswood]

Another router template was made to cutout the areas for the PSUs out of the back sheet. A guide was clamped to the bottom of the template to keep the cutouts perfectly aligned along the bottom.

[conley_jb]

ouch, those threaded hole punches are $13 ea.... great idea and I guess if you follow the addage of doing it right the first time and no expense spared they are great, but I think I will find a more DIY solution for transfering the holes.

Keep up the good work. I am nearing the start point on my case which thanks to your work and others has inspired me in more ways than one.

[Witchdoctor]

This is epic,

That is some nice workmanship

[spotswood]

Turned out that I needed to cut one more slot out of the bottom shelf. But the last time I used my wooden "small slot" router template, I somehow managed to crush one edge, so I quickly cobbled together a new out of some left over t-slot extrusion. I'm really loving using these t-slot extrusions to make router templates - fast and accurate!




Here's a teeth-shattering video of me cutting out the slot.

[Jahova]

Originally Posted by spotswood

Turned out that I needed to cut one more slot out of the bottom shelf. But the last time I used my wooden "small slot" router template, I somehow managed to crush one edge, so I quickly cobbled together a new out of some left over t-slot extrusion. I'm really loving using these t-slot extrusions to make router templates - fast and accurate!




Here's a teeth-shattering video of me cutting out the slot.

Nice work. Aluminum is a very fine metal to work with. Routers are always so loud. You need a bit of ear protection.

[spotswood]

Performed the mind-numbing task of fastening the bottom and top sheets to the case frame via flat head socket cap screws. Through and countersink holes were drilled into the sheet and transferred to the case frame via a self-centering counterbore drill bit.







Bottom sheet all fastened:




And top sheet all drilled out:

[Jahova]

Show 'em the overall and how you counter-sunk the screws!

[spotswood]

Drilled out the holes for the vandal resistant switches and fastened the front sheeting to the case.



Additional Comment:

Finished the lower portion of the back sheet, which involved installing the PEM nuts, trimming the PSU mounting plates to the final size and creating an extra solid cover plate (which I almost forgot to do).

[UrbanSmooth]

Well, it's about time that you updated this project! Keep going! KEEEEEP GOOOING!

[spotswood]

In order to ensure that the flat head bolts in the top sheet would sit perfectly straight and flush, I drilled slightly over-size through holes in the top u-channel so a hex nut could go onto the ends of the bolts. But those nuts were now in the way of the sliding bar used to latch the side panels. A fix for that was to mill-out those areas from underneath the sliding bar (via my handheld router).



The mill marks were quickly removed with some hand filing.



To prevent the sliding bar from falling out of the u-channel, some small pieces of aluminum angle were cut and attached to the channel.



But now the angles interfered with the latching hooks on the side panel, so those areas also had to be milled away (via a center-cutting mill on the drill press).





Finally, one leg of the angle that was used to make the latching hooks was visible through the side panel perforated aluminum, so that too required having to remove around 1/4-inch of material (via my trusty router).