|  | September 05, 2017 Choosing the right DC-DC PSU August 27, 2015 AMD's Project Quantum August 13, 2015 The Redstone PC is the ultimate Mini-ITX Minecraft Machine October 09, 2014 The "Restomod TV" April 09, 2013 Installing NAS4Free February 28, 2013 Building an XBMC 12 Home Theatre PC January 25, 2011 XBMC Guide updated to version 10.0 August 06, 2010 Building a Green PC February 15, 2010 Building an ION powered HTPC with XBMC October 10, 2008 The "Cambridge Autonomous Underwater Vehicle 2008" |
|  | | | September 12, 2008 "Florian", the DVD burning robot September 05, 2008 The "i-EPIA" May 22, 2008 The "GTA-PC" April 14, 2007 The "Digg" Case January 19, 2007 The "ITX-Laptop" December 07, 2006 The "Tortoise Beetle" October 02, 2006 The "DOS Head Unit" August 31, 2006 The "Janus Project" August 05, 2006 The "Leela PC" June 26, 2006 Nano-ITX in a Football May 17, 2006 The "EPIA Alloy Mod" April 11, 2006 Neatorama's Collection of Case Mods February 18, 2006 The "Rundfunker" October 24, 2005 The "ITX TV" October 06, 2005 The K'nex-ITX August 05, 2005 The "Waffle Iron PC" July 21, 2005 The "Supra-Server" July 18, 2005 The "Mega-ITX" July 07, 2005 The "Encyclomedia" May 25, 2005 The "Accordion ITX" |
|  | | | May 16, 2005 The "FileServerRouterSwitch" May 15, 2005 The "Mini Falcon" May 13, 2005 The "Bender PC" May 11, 2005 The "BBC ITX B" May 10, 2005 The "Frame" April 20, 2005 The "Jeannie" March 09, 2005 The "Cool Cube" January 30, 2005 First Nano-ITX Project? January 17, 2005 The "iGrill" January 15, 2005 The "Gumball PC" December 15, 2004 The "Deco Box" December 03, 2004 The "TERA-ITX" October 06, 2004 The "Coealacanth-PC" September 17, 2004 The "Gramaphone-ITX-HD" August 26, 2004 The "C1541 Disk Drive ITX" August 25, 2004 The "SEGA-ITX" August 13, 2004 The "Quiet Cubid" August 06, 2004 The "BMWPC" July 14, 2004 The "Moo Cow Moo" July 02, 2004 The "Mini Mesh Box" Full alphabetical archive on right hand side of page... |
|
|
The "Spider Case"
By Alex
"Qtip42" Wiley - Posted on September 29, 2003
Introduction
The spider case was a creation
which took about a month of 12 hour work days to complete.
The
first
two weeks
were for finding the right parts and the last two were
for building. As I rushed to get it completed for a certain
case contest *cough TechTV*, I cut some corners and strayed
from my original plan. The template I went off was a
digital artwork piece by Giorgio
Camnasio of a mechanical
spider.
Inspired by it's mean look, I figured I could produce
something similar with a computer inside. So here's how it
came together:
The "Spider Case"
I took an old oil bucket (the thing you use when draining
oil from your car) and lopped off the top and bottom. This
was the only thing I could find that remotely resembled the
body of the spider. It wasn't nearly big enough or even the
right shape for what I wanted so I went to the autoparts
store and bought some fiberglass jelly, fiberglass, and loads
of bondo.
After hours upon hours work and a lot of sanding, I had something
I was proud of. Attached to a 1/4" clear acrylic base,
I had a decent spider body going. I had to also make sure
the external Phillips Jackrabbit 24x cdrw fit and without
any problem (luckily I had just enough room with everything
else inside).
After cutting openings for the legs, I had to figure out
how and what to make the legs with. Originally I had planned
for the aluminum look but finding a cheap CNC cutter + blocks
of aluminum in only a few days seemed nearly impossible.
So I decided to go with my reliable source of acrylic at
www.tapplastics.com. Since there was a local store within
a mile of my house, I quickly made some templates and ran
off to get some acrylic. About halfway through cutting the
legs out, I stuck my middle fingertip into a table saw and
found out first hand why people wear gloves. One stitch and
3 hours later I was back in the garage cutting again. I'll
spare you the pictures. The thighs were 1-1/4" thick
and only 6 were made at the time because the template picture
I was going off showed only 6 legs on the spider. Later I
changed it to 8. As I was cutting the lower portion of the
legs, I routed my thumb and figured out for the second time
why I should learn things the first time (wear gloves!!!@#).
Since I couldn't use my right hand for the last few leg parts,
I took them to Tap Plastics and they gladly cut out the shapes
I needed cheap. This was after they laughed at me for cutting
my hand for the 2nd time.
As everything was
crammed inside, I had to ditch the PCI riser and USB2 card
I had originally planned for due to height
restrictions. So the CDRW runs off USB1 till I get some money
for a new mini-itx board. All in all I managed to fit in
a Epia 800, 384MB PC133 RAM, 30GB HDD, and the 24x
(functioning at 4x for now) CDRW. Since I didn't have it
nearly done for the TechTV contest, I lost (although I did
enter). After the deadline passed, I was able to work on
it without staying up till 4am worrying about finishing.
A few days later I finished, minus an automotive paintjob
(anyone need a pint of metallic gray for their BMW Z4? :-D).
|
|