That's a lot of traffic time. I hope you had some good music to pass the time with.

Yeah, I had some drum and bass with me (awesome awesome music) but my sound system isn't really up to scratch.

Now then.... Okay!

So I've got a new phone (Nokia E71) that takes decent(ish) 3.2MP photos. What does this mean? It's photo time!!

Is it my birthday?


All the parts I received


The pieces of perspex I got cut to size. The whole package is 200x200mm. It's pretty tiny pieces!


LED's anyone? The 48 LED's and various standoffs I got yesterday... The package also includes the connectors I'm going to use to connect the HDD and Power LED's as well as the power and reset buttons...


So I guess the E71's photos aren't really a match for another camera I found - a Sony Cybershot 6MP DSC-H2. This will be my camera of choice from now on

The LED's (Red on the left and UV on the right), connectors and 5mm standoffs.


Perspex unwrapped. Gray opaque perspex cube pieces on the left, 5mm clear middle piece on the right and the top pieces are frosted 3mm perspex I'm going to use for the pink lines. The frosted/sandblasted look will blend the LED's at the back better.


Wow, this is my first experience with mini-ITX and these motherboards are TINY! I made a mockup of one beforehand but seeing the real thing is much more exciting!

Nice looking hardware man! It will be nice to see you start doing some assembly. I think it's going to be smaller than some people realize.

Construction Day 1

First, I cut and shaped a number of wooden blocks to reinforce the perspex cube. I originally thought I'll screw the perspex into the wood, but since the corners will cover these screws anyway, I think I'll just glue the perspex on to the blocks. The blocks were made by cutting hardwood (Emboya I believe) into rough blocks and sanding them down to the right size with a bench drum sander. The emboya wood is VERY hard and will actually produce sparks if you go near it with a grinder You could probably thread holes into it as well.
On the left we have the starting rough block and on the right a few of the sanded ones.


Next I started to measure and drill the center holes into all the perspex panels.

What do they say? Measure twice, then measure again to check and then once more to make sure before you cut...


Using pilot holes of course (you can see them in the picture), I used a 64mm hole saw to make the center ventilation holes.


Mid-way through the drilling:


All six sheets cut


Next up, laminating some MDF! :toast:
I wanted 6mm MDF so I laminated two small sheets of 3mm MDF together and clamped them together. I only did 4 of the 8 required today. Will do the rest tomorrow. The edge corners will be cut and shaped from these laminated MDF sheets.


Afterwards, I started cutting the 16mm MDF pieces I needed for the corners. The measurements were made easy since I quickly made a Solidworks drawing of the corner and added the required dimensions. The jigsaw made the job easier than the standing bandsaw because I didn't have to lug the HEAVY piece of MDF around to cut it.


All 8 of the first parts of the corners done and cleaned up quickly:


Finally, a shot of everything I did today . Not as much as I had hoped, but at least some progress is still progress. The heap of MDF squares in the middle are the second part of the corners cut.


I might have overdone the photos a bit , will see if I do the same tomorrow...

Nah, I love all the photos! I like seeing the planning you've put in to all the parts. The Solidworks drawing is a nice touch. It's always nice to end up with parts that you know should fit, when you plan ahead.

Exactly. Since most of the planning (definitely not everything since I have to improvise a bit on the spot when making the parts) is already done, I can get to work immediately and not stand around wondering what I should do next and so... Unfortunately, this also means I'm working on 3 different parts of the project at once since I'm anxious to see everything come together

Right, there are always some changes that need to be made, but having a solid plan reduces a lot of the stress during the build. I've really been pushing the 3D design phase in my own projects lately, and it's allowed me to do some things I normally wouldn't have thought of.

Okay, I had to test the LED's. They seem to confirm my theory, although diffusing the light might be the biggest problem... Will probably need to use indirect light.

Here's just one red and one UV LED on a breadboard to test. Colours are very discrete.


Now, just by adding a white surface for the light to reflect (and diffuse) from, in this case the handy ol' cheapo ruler, the light is mixed and the result is a pinkish tint very close to what I want


So I think there is definitely some fact behind my theory. Now, how to make this test into a prototype?

I quickly built a circuit that allows me to control both the red and UV LED intensities between 0-100%. Interestingly, it seems that with both at 100% they produce the best matching colour.

The simple transistor circuit I quickly conjured up The left potentiometer adjusts the red while the right potentiometer (with leads) adjusts the UV LED intensity.


The result in low light :rockout:

Wow! Looks like you were right! The color is most definitely pink. As long as you can get it diffused without a problem, you should be set!

Thanks, it was basically just luck that the intensities worked so well though, since the UV and red LEDs are 250mcd and 1800mcd respectively. Seems that is the perfect ratio I'm also thinking of adding a microcontroller to the mix to regulate the individual LED colours independently. So then you can change the colour or even make them flash if you feel like having an epileptic attack...

Here is the light diffused by the white ruler and then passing through the frosted perspex. This is the effect I want. But what I don't want is the approx. 8cm that the light needs to mix properly. I'm thinking about a sort of wavy or triangular diffuser to mix the light more aggresively... :wtf:

Interesting. I'll admit to not having worked with any diffusing method other than simple frosted acrylic, so I don't have much for advice. Although, maybe E.E.L. has some. He's worked with acrylic extensively and may have some input.

Thanks. Well at least it looks as though I'm doing something unique (or at least something that's not done frequently ) Will see how it goes. I have a few ideas to try still...

Construction Day 2

Today I basically just continued where I left off yesterday with the corners and started making the edges.

Found a big old tub that's exactly the right radius for the curved parts . Since I already cut the pieces, a compass isn't exactly comfortable to use since the circle midpoint is way outside the square.


After marking it, I cut the curve out with a jigsaw with a very thin scroll blade. The downside? The thin blade is prone to bend and doesn't cut straight downwards.
Also, I wouldn't recommend cutting with a jigsaw at this height! Not very comfortable...



All 8 big corner parts cut. You can see the angled cut clearly. I'm going to sand everything down anyway so as long as the inner curve is spot on it won't matter.


All the parts of all the corners cut and stacked (very artistically if I might add ).


The corners assembled before sanding the edges square... (Notice how unevenly they fit together)


And afterwards... You can clearly see that the parts now line up nice and neat


Close up of the new fit


Next up, glue everything together...


Now I started work on the edges. I used the laminated 6mm MDF I made earlier, squared it off with a bandsaw and cut and sanded everything to size. They need some more refining and shaping but will do that later. I used a Solidworks drawing again to save some time.


A shot of the bandsaw where I'm squaring of the laminations... It's not hard to see the saw is a bit rusted from being outside. Will probably need to clean it up a bit some time . Works great though...


I couldn't help myself - the view from my workbench Although not much time to enjoy it...


Finally, everything together. I can only glue 3 corners at a time because I don't have enough bench- and C-clamps to hold them together. So 3 is done, another 3 is drying and tomorrow I'll glue the last two.
Also, I ran out of laminated MDF so I glued an extra piece to cut out a few more edge pieces. Will cut those tomorrow.


That's it folks! Will probably continue with the lighting tonight and maybe see if I can design a microcontroller circuit to adjust the LED's... :toast:

Wow, nice view on both the inside with the corners, and on the outside with the scenery! You're making fast progress here!

Haha, thanks!
The major work begins once I start sanding those corners and edges though. There's A LOT of sanding to be done and it needs to be pretty accurate so I think that's going to take a while...

Thanks for the support though...

Construction Day 3

Nothing spectacular today, only the continuation of yesterday and still LOTS of sanding to do tomorrow... At least I completed one corner to see what it will look like and it looks pretty good if I do say so myself

First up, completing the edge corner profiles. After drawing lines where I should sand to, I jumped in (and I use that term VERY loosely ) and sanded all the edges. There's a lot of them...


Here you go, some blood and tears later (of which I didn't take a photo), the profiles are complete. Now all that needs to be done to them is to glue the two different parts together and they will be finished.


Next up, the main event! Sanding those corners. As there are a lot of material to remove and the sanding needs to be pretty precise, it takes about an hour and a half for each corner! The next ones will probably go a bit faster though. I first masked the area to be sanded.


Then I sanded to the line I drew on the tape. Easy...


Here's the edges of the one face almost done...


... and the back edges sanded...


... and then complete! The process is simple but very time consuming as well as a bit straining on the back to stand around for hours on end...



Finally, the complete shot of all the parts worked on today. The corners at the back still needs face sanding since I'm waiting for them to dry. So one corner down, only seven more to go!


Also something to mention, the thing I like about MDF, the finish is VERY smooth, even with me using 100 grit sandpaper. I'll switch to a higher grit later before everything is painted to smooth it even further.

Wow, those are looking fantastic! The scale and dimensions look perfect. Awesome!

Thanks!

The dimensions are as good as I could get them so hopefully they are pretty accurate...

Now I need to decide if I'm going to make the controller microprocessor or discrete component based. The microcontroller version will operate through push buttons. The discrete component version will just have two potentiometers to control the intensities... Decisions decisions.......

Microcontroller based


Discrete component based


It's obvious that the discrete version will be smaller and easier to construct, but it won't be so flexible ie. I can make the LED's flash or something with the microcontroller version...

Say, I gotta ask, what do you do for a living? You're obviously a knowledgeable guy with experience in quite a few different things. Your work and planning definitely shows it.