[Intermediate] Barrel Proyect

Well, before talking to you about the project which I began for this competition, let me tell you something about myself and how I came to this point.

One day, when I was surfing in the internet, I saw pictures from personally modified computers. This was the start-point of my interest, and the first changes I made on a computer.

My first modd: I added a side-vent of 120 mm to my then actual computer, creating a window and an engraving. Here are some pictures.

Here the original window, and what I made out of it.


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This picture shows how it looked like afterwards, obviously the hardware changed a little bit.


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The next modding I made, was for a friend. It was a common cabinet, on which I just changed the look. I put some pictures from this modding for you here.
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This was the cabinet, before we put hands on it.




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And this is the way it looked like when it was finished.






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So, you can notice that I do not have much experience referring to modding. But I try to learn from the best. And I try to practice what I see and what I learn.

This is the reason why I took heart to realize this project from the very beginning, something I never did before.

I will give you a brief description about how I began this Project.

I was* quite a time away from modding. Finishing university and beginning to work, I had not much time, and so I forgot about modding. But one day, I found a WEB-page of modding in my country, and I registered. As I was reading a little bit about it, I had the wish to participate, not only as a reader, but as an active modder. And I always had the wish to make a modd from the very beginning on. But I had no idea neither about the theme or the form. So, one day I was reading a post from PaPang about how to begin a modd. In this post he said, that first you have to have an idea about what will be the theme of your modd, if it would be a movie, a game, a comic, animal, sport-team, or anything else. So, this was the first step: what would be the topic of my modd.

So, I was looking around, thinking about , then I checked the web if somebody had not made something about what I had in mind, looking what they had not done, …. And one day, walking around in the working room, which is also a storing room for forgooten things and things we do not use any more, I finally found the theme of my modd.

And this is a barrel, bought by my father many years ago. This barrel has been stored for much time, I remember it since I was a child. We used it as a seat, or as a bench and put things on it. But by the time and as decoration of the house changed, it finally went to the storing room.

Now it had a new destination, *so the project is to make a computer cabinet out of a barrel.

So le tus begin with the woklog and see how it goes.

Here I show you a picture after having rescued the barrel from where it was.

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The first step is to take the barrel to pieces. I must see how it is inside and how much work it will need.

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Once I took the barrel into pieces, I realized that the pieces were not smoothed with sandpaper and that they had lots of defective parts. So I had to smoothen all the parts of the barrel. The barrel is conformed by two tops, 16 planks and 4 rings which hold all together.

This is how the planks look like.


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For now, smoothen them *with sandpaper one by one.


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Now smoothen the tops of the barrel.


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And then put the pieces together, which is a real challenge


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As you can see, I made a small basement which I invented, but the idea is that it finally looks similar to this picture which I found in the web.



Saludos...
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*The next step after having smoothened the interior of the barrel is: How to fix the motherboard to the interior of the barrel the way it would not be a problem to take it off again.

So I was thinking and thinking. Finally I thought it would be better to leave the part of the motherboard universal, That means that it should not be especially for the motherboard I want to put in this special moment. *So I took one of the tops of the barrel, in this case the back one, and cut a rectangle. Then I put a track in the interior part of the plank. This way I can put and take off the Back Panel I/O, just slighting the panel and changing it for another one.

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Now, the next step is to make a basement for the motherboard, I did it using some parts of an old cabinet I had forgotten somewhere


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*What I did was taking the part where the motherboard has its place, marc it and cut it the way I needed it.


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For this step I used a DREMEL and a cutting disc. And, of course, a safety mask.

Do not try to do this at home, hahaha.
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Well, here are the first presentations of how it could look like.
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Saludos..

Now there comes the hard drive. The barrel *is not so big as it looks like. I have to take care very well about how and where to place all the things, because there is not much space.

*Here I am looking where to place the hard drive, using some parts of an old cabinet.

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The idea is to cut the plate just the size I need it and fix it to the basement of the mother board.
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*Using a lot of strength I cut the sheet to the size I needed. Now I only have to smoothen it to take off the cutting edges and imperfeccions.


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This is how it looks like. This is the place where the mother board might be placed.*

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The next step is to look where to place the power supply. In this case it is an generic supply of 400 watts. It is a little bit big, but let us see what we can do to reduce space.
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*First I took the power supply into pieces and took off the current connectors and the switch

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*Here you can see the dismounted power supply ready for a small adaptation


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I will reduce the size of the frame*


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*Although I reduced the size of the power supply, it is still a Little bit big for the barrel. So I will think about how to solve this problem a little bit later.
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This weekend I went to Veracruz. There are some computer shops which have many interesting things.
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*I made use of this trip, and bought some things which will be usefull for my Project. I also visited the “home depot†store.

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Well, I will tell you, what I bought. Not all is for the barrel, but most things yes.

○ 1 vent Cooler Master 120mm, red LED
○ 2 vents Thermal Take Thunderblade, 80 mm, red LED
○ 3 vents Thermal Take Thunderblade 120 mm, blue LED
○ 1 hard drive blue led cooler thermaltake
○ 1 hard drive for lap top, 160 Gb
○ 1 power supply …mini
○ 2 angles
○ 2 kinds of rails for drawers
○ 1 can of aerosol painting, stone texture
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As you can see, this trip was very good. The happiest I am with the mini power supply. This will help me to solve many space problems.

Saludos.

Now we have the basis for the mother board and the trails for the desk top, so we have to adapt them.
I made two holes in the base to put the screws, but the nuts were too high, so I made them a little bit thinner and I cut the screws so that the system is not jammed.
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*Now you can see the top of the rail already installed. After that I went to do some shopping at AutoZone. AutoZone is a car store, but there are many interesting things for modding. As I could not find red cathodes for the interior of the barrel, I bought some neon cathodes for cars which I will adapt for the barrel.


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This lamp has a control which has two modes, which are: always on and with a sound sensor.*

*I also bought a switch, although for now I cannot find use, but later on I will find a place for it.


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Maybe I will use it to sleeve the power supply, as I could not find anybody who sells things to sleeve.
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Returning to the track system for the mother board: here it is, ready and put on the back cover.*

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To fix it I took an angle which is bolted to the back cover. Instead of screws fixed to the wood, I used ones that are used to make furniture.
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This is how they look like in the barrel.
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Now with the mother board to see if everything is in its place.*


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As you can see, everything fits perfectly.*
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Now the next step is the lightening that I am thinking about putting two red lamps. But the main problem is that you can only see them when the barrel is open. So, when I was talking to a friend, he had a very good idea. Why not put acrylic between each panel of the barrel, so the light can come through. This is really a good idea and it will look more attractive, so I'm planning to go doing that
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*For now I will show you what the lamp I bought can light, and I adapted a molex connector.

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Looks great, doesn´t it?*

Saludos.

Another thing I had to check out were the fans. So I also connected them to see how they light and how much air they move.


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The*12mm fan cooler master has very good airflow, and it will be the handle to remove air from the barrel and will go at the bottom of the barrel, the 80mm fans are going to go back up Rear panel I / O and will be put in charge of introducing air.

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*Now the part of acrylic has to be done. To all the wood panels I will unite on one side a line of acrylic of 3 mm for light to pass and be seen from outside.
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Here I am doing some small evidence of what I will try to do with the barrel.
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First I glue one side of the acrylic to the Wood.


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Using resistol 5000 glue to fasten the acrylic.*


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Then I will glue another piece of Wood to the other side of the acrylic*


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They are fastened to glue well.*


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In the end this is how it is, try and backlight to see how it looks.
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Since the tests were a success now comes to make the strips for the panels and glue boards, so here's the acrylic sheet that I will use.


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Then I was drawing in acrylic the outline of each panel of the barrel and then I cut.
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Now the acrylic has to be cut a bit to give more shape to the panel but leaving a bit left over for sanding so it will fit exactly the size of the panel.


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This is the machine I used for the cuts, and this i show the stripes look like.*


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Now sanding the first panel and then glue the acrylic and see how it looks.*


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As the glue dries, the excess of the acrylic must be sanded to be just at the size of the panel.


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Now to glue the others and wait until glue is dry for sanding.


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*As they will dry up like a day later, I began to move forward with other things, so I started to paint some things that will go inside the barrel.
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For example the structure for the hard disc.

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Saludos.
Edited by iwok88 - 5/17/10 at 3:50pm

I disassembled the new power source for painting and make some changes.


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Here I will add another fan to the source.


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Here I am unwelding the wires which go to the current to make them longer.
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Here are the three wires for the current, already inside the sleeve.

And to continue painting.*


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Heating a little bit to accelerate drying of the paint.
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As the panels are dry, I have to sand them to even up the acrylic with the wood.*


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Since all stripes and panels are sanded well, I have to reassemble the barrel and light to see how it turned out.
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Saludos.

We now turn to the power supply, I am going to sleeve the power supply


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Saludos.

Returning now to the fans, I'll make the holes for the two 80mm fans that go on the back. First I will make some tests on another piece wood to see how it goes.







Here I did the test on a thin board, we'll see how it behaves in a thicker panel, and after this test we do on the top of the barrel.



And this is how it should be at the top of the barrel and with the fan.



Ready to make the holes on the back cover of the barrel, the first went well, without any problem.
But when I was about to make the second one, I applied a little more force on the drill and I broke the board.



This is how it looks.



So now I have more work because I have to repair it. For that I made a few small holes and put a wooden dowel to connect the pieces and with a bit of glue it should be ok.



So after gluing and sanding it is barely noticeable that this panel broke and was reconstructed, hahaha.





Now measure, so that the rear panel of I/O will enter easily.





Since everything went right, now I have to install the fans and try to see how they work.







After the installation of the fans, I was out shopping for the outside finish of the barrel.

The purchases were: a number of sandpapers, an angle for the optical unit, a wood filler, a can of paint flat paint for barrel hoops, a spatula, an acrylic cutter ..among other things.



At the time of assembling the barrel I noticed that there were some parts where the barrel was not quite level, so I went slowly matching them.











Then I passed an orbital sander over it to smoothen so it would not be scrappy/rough.



After sanding I went to the power supply, once the paint had dried out I began to assemble it.



As you can see I removed the connection of the socket to fit it on the top of the barrel, and I put an extension to the wires (cables).





To align the connector on the power supply at the top of the barrel I marked the area where I had to cut





And then delimiting it with the chisel.





Then I took some drills for circles and used a small one to make a hole.





Now, cutting and giving the shape so that the connection of the power supply can enter.





A little bit of working with the dremel and sanding some parts, and… ready!











Here you can see the power supply already connected.



And ready to work.

Now to paint the barrel hoops with the flat paint I bought,











Here you can see them already painted and put on the barrel.







I was thinking about the connection to internet, and that it would be better a wireless one. So I bought a wireless adapter card for the barrel. But there are some modifications to make so that the antenna will be inside. So I did not want cut more the back cover for the PCI slots.



So I will remove the antenna connector from the card to make an extension and be able to locate it elsewhere.













As you can see now, with the sleeve and everything else, hahaha.