I originally didn't allow for any drive movement, but since I've checked the clearances (see below) I think it'd be better to be able to move stuff to make them fit and to route the wiring optimally.

I've just checked the clearance with just SOME of the LED strips in place and it's going to be TIGHT! Here's a Solidworks render showing 4 of the 6 sides equipped with LED strips. The clearance is going to be in the range of 2-3mm on the sides and as little as 1mm at the back!

I love the stuff from Portal.

There is a guy who does alot of modelling and he made a Portal Gun some while back, which would be totally awesome to have in addition to the cube

-> http://volpinprops.blogspot.com/2009_01_01_archive.html

Love the 1mm clearances! I'll watch out for the cursing if things don't line up like you'd hope.

Wow, that's awesome! Must've taken quite a while to make that... It's absolutely huge though in comparison with the cube. Should make a mini sized one.



Yeah, I'm starting to hope I made all the parts with incredible precision so that 1mm doesn't turn out to be 0.5mm or something similar. But I'm sure I'll squeeze the parts in some way or another...

Lol, excellent outlook man! I've got quite a few tight tolerances planned in OSIDIAS as well. A mm or two doesn't seem so bad in CAD, but looks a whole lot different in person.

That's very true! And when it looks tight in CAD... uhm... it's going to be near impossible in person I guess?

Okay, I finally decided how I'm going to construct my LED strip boxes. They will be pieces of pearl opaque perspex covered in pewter (yes you read right) with a small strip cut out that will shine through a slot in the side panels. I chose pewter because it's reflective, easy to work with and can easily be smoothed out. It is pretty heavy though - although that does give the strips an amazing feeling of quality



I also worked on the hdd mounts as well as the edge pieces (I miscounted the edges of a cube - it's not 8 but 12, so I had to make an additional 4 pieces) but didn't take photos of that. Also, I got a way of mounting the circular heart disks to the frame by making (and baking) plastic clay pieces to give me a way of mounting threaded standoffs to a curved surface. It's not amazingly pretty but it works and will be covered. Will glue that tomorrow.

Sorry for the shoddy update guys, will hopefully do better tomorrow

Pewter huh? Well, that's certainly original. I'm curious about your standoff idea... I'll wait patiently...

Yeah, I wouldn't have thought of it normally, but I jumped into my mother's art and crafts stash to find something that I could use and found a roll of it. She also provided the plastic clay I used for the standoffs... There's basically anything you can think of there.

Okay, I have a little update that took a long time...

Today I cut and shaped all the LED strip pieces and started to cover them in the pewter. I got as far as 4 as it takes about 20min each. So only 20 to go... I also made a batch of plastic clay standoff pieces that will hopefully fit into the thermoformed disks I made earlier. They will allow me to screw the curved perspex to the side panels. They're not pretty, but hopefully they will work and they'll be covered under the panel anyway.

So, on to the photos! This is the jig I quickly built to align the plastic clay pieces.


Here's the jig with the standoffs and their plastic clay tails that I will use to mold to the disk's contour.


After coating everything with baby powder (:D) so they don't stick, the disk was pressed onto the clay and tidied up a bit with a blade.


The finished pieces. They do look a bit crap and untidy, but the clay is such that I couldn't really tidy them up too much without risking losing the bond between the standoff and the clay and then ending up with a useless (albeit nice looking) piece of clay and metal . Afterward I just popped them into the oven at 130C for 35min and they're rock solid


Next I set about cutting and shaping the LED strips. It took a LOT of measurement, 48 holes and some time filing to get the 24 pieces so that two LED's fit neatly side-by-side. The finishing wasn't that important since it will be covered by pewter anyway. At the left is a test fit of the pewter to determine the size needed to cover the entire perspex strip.


A strip of pewter I cut with a blade to size. It's heavy!


To illustrate just how heavy it is, I weighed 20 strips on a scale. 97g! Which means they are just under 5g for a ~30x100mm piece! All in all just by covering the perspex the pewter will add 117g to the cube


I then covered and glued the pewter over the perspex strip. Here's the finished product after about 20 minutes. The strip of light will be cut on the opposite side.


The underside with the strip cut. Also, all 4 I've been able to make so far


One of the final strips in action!


I'll be going away tomorrow (camping) for a few days so I won't be able to work on the project for a while. But I'll be back the 15th or so and then I'll be going at it full speed again. Also, while I'm away I'm going to pick up the picoPSU 90W version - the 120W is pretty thick and will push the clearances further than needed. Also, 90W is enough for everything in the cube I believe...

It's all in the details! I think this is a great example of why worklogs are so important. You put a lot of time in to those LED strips just for them to be hidden away. The end result will be awesome, but anyone that hasn't seen how you made them, won't truly understand what it took to get there.

I agree with you 100%! Although I did put in quite a lot of time (and will put in some time still) for those LED strips, the end result just wouldn't have been quite as good if I had just thrown in a dozen LED's side by side or something similar. Also, I love this project and I don't mind spending time to get everything looking just right - as you can see with all those corners and these strips.

I am a bit worried about paint though, I'm not the most experienced painter I know (although my mother can probably point me in the right direction since she's an artist/painter as well ) so I hope I can get the effect I'm after. Will probably start with a pristine white/gray paint job and then weather it a bit like the actual cube . Also, I might need to treat the MDF with something before painting to get a smooth finish...

As much as I cheer to you for your well executed LED-thingies there, I would've bought pink LEDs

http://www.leds.de/en/Ordinary-LEDs/LED ... -5-2V.html

As they're 5.2 Volts, they don't even need resistors or any fancy circuit. Just connect them to the 5V-rail and you're done

Oh hell, pink LED's? Lol, did you know about those zAAm?

Yeah, I did know about them. Sadly though, they're not available in South Africa. I thought about importing some, but considering the exchange rate and import taxes, it would've cost me a fortune and would've taken ages to get here (if it got here at all - our postal system sucks).

And even then I'd still have to make the diffusers to have a uniform strip of light . Like I said in the beginning, I'd see if I could make it work with some way cheaper red and UV LED's and it did pretty well. Also, now I can adjust the hue of the pink if I wanted to.

I guess pink LED's would've been much easier, but since I'm into electronics, what would've been the fun in that? LOL. Thanks for pointing it out though

Yeah, you're right... nothing beats self-made parts

I'm just not into electronics this much allthough I went 2 years to a communication & electronics-class. Everytime I start something with LEDs or self-made circuit boards things go horribly wrong, from solder not sticking to the wires, to burned parts etc...

Electronics do work for me only on a bigger scale, like rewiring the house I'm living in etc, where I can use lustre or screw-terminals

Haha, yeah I guess not everyone is an electronics nerd like me

I must say that we're then at opposite ends of the electric world since you like doing heavy current (electrics) while I like light current (electronics) . I guess it takes a person that's a special kind of weird to get excited when buying little IC's and transistors and such.

Okay, so maybe you get a little excited at the thought of transistors... We won't judge you... Haha.

So my stay has been delayed a bit... I'll be on my way home tomorrow - WITHOUT the picoPSU. It seems there are NO picoPSU's in the country and quite a few have been ordered - mine included. So I'm going home tomorrow and my pico will only be arriving early next week. Which means I'm going to have to fit everything without knowing actually if everything will fit.

I did however, in my stay here, manage to finish all the LED strip coverings (took me around 8 hours to do them all! )

Stay tuned, I'll probably be able to do some updates tomorrow or so

I guess we are kind of spoiled when it comes to getting parts here in the states. I look forward to the update!

So, I'm finally doing an update again - been away awhile and haven't been able to work on the cube. This is where everything starts to fall together so it's been a challenge to work out how and where I'll fit everything.

At least I've finished the 24 LED strips. Took ages!!


I also started the final work on the side panels - drilling holes for the heart covers as well as cutting the LED strip channels in all the panels. Here's everything marked up and ready to go!


I used a normal jigsaw to cut the channels...


Everything finished


The placement of the LED strips at the back of each panel. Also, I removed the perspex backing so now we can see the actual colour.


The placement of the heart covers - I superglued the little plastic standoff mounts to the covers, will q-bond everything later when I get some more superglue.


I also bent the top perspex panel to fit over the network card - it's now nice and secure


I moved the wireless adapter to the top panel, and made a perspex mount to hold it in place. It will be glued to the top panel and braced with additional perspex strips.


Finally I decided where the switches and power/hdd LED's were going to be placed (the perimeter of the front and back panel holes just behind the heart covers) and wired them quickly. They will be connected with a single connector to the motherboard.


I also decided exactly how the rear removable heart cover is going to be mounted. It will be completely removable without hinges to simplify everything. They will have steel rods going through the perspex panel and will stick to 4 neodymium magnets covering the holes on the backside. This will ensure easy removal as well as pretty decent holding strength. Before you ask, I will cover the backside of the magnets with sufficiently thick steel to route the flux directly through it - essentially negating the magnetic field inside the cube so as not to damage or influence the components inside .

So that's the progress so far. Tomorrow I'll continue with the removable cover mounting system and also try to complete the hard drive mounts.

Excellent update! It looks like all of your planning is paying off. I'm looking forward to seeing your cover mounting!