[Intermediate] "Up and Away" - Page 2

While I gather the wood, yesterday I had a lucky break. I gives me great pleasure to report that I have a larger capacity 2.5" hard disk drive by Samsung, model HD322HJ instead of the previously reported Fujitsu. The specs are:

-7200 rpm
-Sata II
-320 gb
-16 mb cache
-8.9 ms average seek time
-5-6 w. usage (Great!)

I got this from a friend named Gino, that upgraded his drive to a faster 500 gb model on his laptop. Cost: -0-. OMG, you say? The real reason was that there was a very sporadic corruption of the drive which made him decide to upgrade. Since it was out of guarantee, a technician told him that a change of the circuit board should solve the problem but not being the adventurous type, he scrapped it instead. I happened to ask him about it (lying on top of some books) and he tossed it to me saying "Keep it". I have been running tests (fine up to now with Win 7 x64) on it and have put out feelers for a replacement circuit board. I am a modder anyways and it is one way to save and rescue a pretty good drive. Probable cost of the circuit board? Around $40 usd and I just have to mess with screws and some connectors, no big deal.

Fast and green, that is the ticket for the future! (and cheap!)





Cheers and Saludos

Hello guys, just to let you know that I am still on track to finish one way or the other. See you all soon!
Unfortunately I already know of several guys that registered and are about to give up. Too bad the threads are closed-can not egg them on nor help them out, so sad!

BTW, I wanted to thank you for sending me these:




Does any one know why I got them? Muchas Gracias for whatever the reason, not complaining at all! Will find a good place to put them on and will upload pics, hehe.
Edited by Papang - 3/20/10 at 8:04pm

Well, back to the grinding block with another shot at the plaster mold. I could not find anything shaped like a ball that could help me avoid making this darn mold. Such is life here in Cancun, a tropical paradise but a tough place to find things in order to mod!

So that you don't get the wrong idea, this will be my third attempt, but if I can't get it right, I just can't call myself a true modder, so on with the project!



I did make a wood box for the mold but after the 2nd mess up, I had to un-nail the thing to get the bad mold out and this was a real pain. The first was made in the cat litter box, remember, but my wife prohibited to do this again so the cats would not be traumatized while I used it. This time around, I used a strong, thick cardboard box lined with a trash bag as usual and used clear container tape to reinforce it.



Also this time, I brushed on a de-molding agent so that the plaster would have a slightly smoother surface to rest on while it hardens. It is the water soluble type used in fiberglass molds but should not wash off with the moist plaster. I can then use water pressure to separate the ball from the mold (I hope).





Put sand up to the half way mark of the ball and used beige masking tape to mark it as the walls of the box don't let me peer the sides too well. Then I watered down the sand to help level and compact it around the ball.

Ready to moisten/wet the plaster which is the hard part here due to the rather large amount I have to mix to fill the cavities abound the ball. This will take a while so I will update later.

On a side note, while clearing out a closet, my wife was about to throw out a perfume box that was given to her by our son when he came back from France on a student exchange program. Duty free from France, it was way cheaper than buying here or in the USA. What it did have was a funny blinking light array on the cover which looked pretty haunting at first.



Taking the cover apart, I find that it has a small blinking light assembly with a pcb and all, something to use on the mod and already paid for, hehe.



It runs on a couple of AAA batteries and the blinking when turned on, lasts around 40 sec. Hmmmm.. lets see where I can use this neat little kit.

Man Hours Used: 3 hrs.
$ Invested: $87.00mn=$6.96usd for 12 kgs. of plaster, 4 kgs. of white cement and a cheap trowel.
---------------
Acc. Man Hours: 15
Acc. $: $217.96 usd

Cheers and Saludos

I will add these hours and expenses as a done thing.
Edited by Papang - 7/29/10 at 10:28am

Third attempt. The challenge: get everything done in under 15 minutes!

A little more added to the mold, a Styrofoam ring around the half of the ball and play putty/plastelene to fill in the gaps between the ring and the ball.



This should give a smooth rim which will be needed later on.



Placed paint cans in the corner to not fill that space with plaster. Less to mix and not needed in the corners.


Learning from past errors where I tried to run rather than think things through, I first laid out my materials and tools.



Each bag weighs 2 kgs.. In the foreground 6 bags of plaster and behind 2 bags of white portland cement. A total of 16 kgs. or a bit over 32 lbs. in all.



I poured the bags into containers so that I could access them quickly.

I "guesstimated" the amount of plaster to mix by the amount of water used, which almost filled the tub. Adding plaster adds to the total volume but supposedly only around 20% more once absorbed into the water. By the time I saturate the water with plaster, the volume should reach the rim. A clock was on hand to measure my time, and a small container to grab the plaster from the large container and sprinkling into the water.



As I sprinkled and added plaster to the water I would periodically dip my hand softly into the mixture to check for clods/clumps which I would mash with my hand. NO STIRRING OR BEATING INVOLVED! We do not want to mix air into the mixture or hasten hardening with forceful handling which will do that.

The point of saturation was reached when added plaster would no longer readily absorb into the water. Another sign is that the plaster will cover your hand like a glove .



And if you draw a line on the surface, it will show.



TIME ELAPSED: About 10 min. On schedule with 5 min. to pour the mix over the ball.



Poured and evened out the plaster on the ball. By that time, over 15 min. had elapsed and a breathing hole which I wanted to include, could not be done. The plaster had hardened too much. Oh well, it would have been desirable but is not absolutely necessary.



A second batch was mixed which was about half of the first. Here I used the 4 kgs. of white cement which should add strength to the bottom and a little to the sides and the remaining plaster (about 3 kgs.) mixed together.

Now to let the mold sit for at least 2 days. The plaster feels warm which means it is setting. I am crossing my fingers!


Man Hours Used: 1 hr.
$ Invested: -0-
--------------------
Acc. Man Hours: 16
Acc. $ : $217.96 usd

Cheers and Saludos
Edited by Papang - 7/29/10 at 10:28am

Meanwhile, I worked a little on the Zotac mobo cooler. With tight space restrictions, I decided to to keep the factory Intel cooler in place. Only low profile heatsinks can be used in this design and from what is available, it is just as well to keep the original hs/fan as what are available are not lit nor offer much of an improvement on performance being made more HTPCs than gaming balloons, hehe.
What happened to the water cooling kit I thought I would use? Well the forum mate that I had promised to use his first prototype on one of my mods (Icecore Tech Mexico) was having $$$ problems so he estimated that he would be ready till the end of the year. Well, another setback for this project, maybe next year

Led Puck)
As the fan has this wonky layout, it actually lends itself to a cool lighting mod-a led puck hotmelted to the top.



I used 4 small 3mm leds with 270 ohm resistors connected to the 12v feed of a molex.





Painted the fan light gray (originally black):



Sleeved the leads (anal really cuz it is not seen):



Testing.



And what it looks like on the mobo:



Pretty bright! Good for lighting the interior of any mod.

Man Hours Used: 4
$ Invested: $37.00mn=$2.96usd-4leds and 2 resistors
------------------
Acc. Man Hours: 20
Acc $ Used: $220.92 usd

Cheers and Saludos
Edited by Papang - 7/29/10 at 10:37am

After waiting 3 days, I thought it was time to see how the mold came out. It still felt cool which means that there is humidity still but less. Since this was a cardboard box, there was no need to be yanking out nails. I simply slit the corners with a knife down to the edge of the mold and the sand.



I managed to yank out one of the cans from a corner (the rest were firmly wrapped in plaster) so I could get a firm grip of the plaster and with a mighty yank, out came 20kgs (45 lbs.) of plaster but with the damn ball still stuck in it! I yelled for my wife and she yanked the ball out by squeezing it which dislodged it from the plaster, pheww!

I set it carefully on the floor and half filled a plastic container with sand and settle the mold into it by pushing and revolving till I felt it firmly set. That will be the molds base while I fix it up and use it for laying up my fiberglass.



Cleaning up the mold, I see these:





Pores! Since this is the first good mold, I will try to repair/fill the pores. It took me longer to pick up the mess than what it took to cast the mold, oh well...

Next up, how to fix the mold.

Man Hours used: 4
$ Invested: -0-
------------------
Acc. Man Hours: 24
Acc. $ Used: $220.92 usd

Cheers and Saludos
Edited by Papang - 5/1/10 at 2:25pm

My home forum just suffered a D.O.S. attack a couple of days ago which meant that all posts were lost from the last backup which was April 16th. Thanks goodness that I had posted here if not I would be really be up the creek re-doing the lost posts, hehe.

Like I mentioned, my raw logs are posted there first and then polished over here. What I did loose was a bunch of tips and techniques learned and don't think I can remember them all. Oh well, I will begin backing them up with Word on my pc so no matter what happens on any forum, I will be able to quickly replace my lost info. Just a tough way to learn.

Cheers and Saludos
Edited by Papang - 7/24/10 at 11:48am

Continuing, what I noticed is that with the load of plaster dumped on the ball, the weight pushed it into the sand around a 1/2-1". Luckily, the tape I put around the equator of the ball left a subtle mark in the plaster, so while it was semi-humid, I passed the Dremel around the mark with a cutting disk.



With a compass I marked and cut the step out.





Now the edge doesn't curve in which would prevent me from pulling the fiberglass out.

Fixing Pores: I could only fill in the larger ones with plaster because the plaster would "bunch up" with the smaller ones and cause a mess. I carefully sanded these down with a lot of trouble, so this was only a partial solution. I saw that what had to be done was to brush on some kind of coat so that in the process, the coat buildup would eventually fill the pores leaving an even surface. I ran to the paint store and the best they could recommend me a local brand of Marine Spar Varnish.



Being varnish it had several distinct disadvantages: slow drying times (6-10 hours), slow buildup and a funky smell of turpentine (similar composition). The only few advantages were that it will firmly grip the plaster better than most other coatings and since it dries slowly, the leveling properties are very good. Atleast it will be smooth, I hope.

Oh btw, I drilled a hole through the center which will aid de-molding later. It is recommended that the hole be drilled from the inside so that the ragged exit will happen on the other side which is not important. Upon fibering, this will be covered with a small piece of masking which can be easily punctured when needed.

To rush things, I placed a sheet of cardboard with a 80w incandescent light bulb to help dry faster between coats. With the bulb, I could recoat after about 3 hours.



I am going on 9 or 10 coats (lost count) so this is going to be long and tedious, sigh....


Man-Hours Used: 9
$ Invested: $79.00mn for 500ml of varnish, 3 foam brushes and a 400 grit sandpaper + $86mn were spent on a can of expandable foam=$13.20 usd
-------------------
Acc. M.H.: 35
Acc. $ Used: $234.12 usd

Cheers and Saludos
Edited by Papang - 5/1/10 at 2:30pm

FILLING THE PORES) I finally decided to stop with the varnish coating as time was going by fast and buildup was not that good. I figure I stopped at around 15 coats and let it sit the night with the light bulb oven on top of it. The next day the varnish was pretty hard, hard enough to sand it first with a 240 grit, then 400 and finally 600.



Upon closer inspection after the sanding, the large pores where still there, not so deep but there. The next thing that occurred to me was to use a rubber wedge to smear a thick wood filler/sealer.



Hmm, much better! After around 3 applications with their respective sandings, I still was not satisfied so time for a more radical tack. I had thought about but desisted from using an automotive air dried filler/putty because I had felt that the plaster would no stand up to a firm sanding (true, the dry putty is harder than plaster) but now that I had a hard varnish shell inside, I figured that I could do it. And I could!





After around 3 applications and sandings, I finally thought that the surface was smooth enough for my likings so I proceeded to polish it with an automotive polish. Note: all of this is done by hand as I don't have a polishing/washing bonnet for my drill and I don't particularly like them because you can easily over-polish and cut through just about any finish. By hand there is way more control for delicate stuff as this.

WAXING!) Be aware that most automotive car waxes are not really appropriate for this as most contain silicons and other undesirable additives that prevent the next step, the PVA (poly vinyl alcohol) demolding agent, from clinging to it. These additives make the PVA "bead" so a strong continuous film cannot be accomplished, thus letting the fiberglass stick to the mold-most undesirable!



I used a locally available, fiberglass mold specific wax and applied 5 coats for this being a new mold. The equivalent in the USA is Part-All 2 (great tips in the site forum!). The wax is applied with a sponge or rags and after a couple of minutes is ready to buff with a clean dry cloth. I let about an hour pass between coats as there it is a hot and humid environment (90° F and 75%) and I need the wax to be as tough as possible. To make sure, I let the wax cure overnight.

APPLYING THE PVA DEMOLDING AGENT) Using another sponge, I wiped the PVA around the mold, first up and down and then around in circles. There is still "beading" but much less than with a car wax. I broke the beads up with the sponge and re-touched the areas with the same sponge. I let the agent dry for a half hour or so and applied consecutive coats till I got to 5. I think it is enough and should have the 1-2 mills needed to resist laying the fiberglass.



Just to be sure, I softly applied a couple more of coats of wax and buffed them to a high sheen. I will let the whole shebang dry out more during the night.

Tomorrow, laying the fiberglass!

Man Hours Used: 10
$ Invested: $86mn for the demolding wax + $29mn for 3M blue masking tape=$9.20 usd.
------------------
Acc. M.H.: 45
Acc $ Used: $243.32 usd

Cheers and Saludos
Edited by Papang - 7/24/10 at 11:53am

Why so much insistence on plaster for my mold? Most who know would say that I should have used a rubber or silicone RTV mold which is a much more noble material for this due to the fact that rubber or silicone will not stick to fiberglass resins. This means that there is practically no mold prep necessary and much less time is used. The main reason is: COST. I don't really put a cost to my hand labor--this is my hobby after all!

Since the mold is rather large, I used approximately 5 gallons of plaster slurry and I didn't fill all the cavity (maybe a couple more gallons). To fill the same amount with silicone or rubber would be as follows:

--Cost per gallon of plaster: $1.60 usd (real cost in Mexico)

--Cost per gallon of silicone/rubber: $160 usd (in the USA, in Mexico say $195-200 usd)

Since at most I am going to get 2 pieces from the mold, which would be your choice? It all boils down to what your intent is, to make a mod/project for the OCN mod contest or make several hundred/thousand parts to sell.

Also this should be considered a learning process, if a plaster mold can be mastered, more complicated and detailed molds (including silicon/rubber) can be made for future projects and we know that this means that the sky is the limit!

Cheers and Saludos

P.D. I just learned that I could make a compound mold: Silicon a couple of inches thick and then a plaster backing as a base. Even so, I calculate a couple of gallons of silicon will be needed, the rest plaster but that is a bunch anyways!
Edited by Papang - 5/4/10 at 1:14pm