[Intermediate] Barrel Proyect - Page 2

After struggling a bit with the wireless card I went downtown to walk around to see what was interesting there, and I found some things I can use for my barrel.



The big ones are called domes here in Mexico, they are used for the air exits of speakers. And the grills are for the speakers. So I thought to use them for the rear fans, I thought there was something missing.

So I took the measures and hands to work. The first thing after measuring how it will go was to cut the grill the size I would need it.







This is how the fans look like now.









Making a little test with the fan working to see how it looks like.



Now, since the grill looks great with the black color, as I thought that the panel of I/O did not match with the stone color I first painted it, and besides it would have been too unequal, so I painted it also black .



Here it goes, with the two fans, working.

















To my taste it looks better all in one color.

Now going to draw heat from the barrel, comes the part where I have to put the 120mm fan in the bottom of the barrel, so I measured where it would go and I marked to make the hole where it would go.













I first did this hole, because it would have needed more space if I would have left it where it was. This way I got a few inches of space. Now sanding and working a bit with the dremel in a few places where it was not uniform.

















This is how it will look like. The next step is making the holes for ventilation. But first some tests to see how I will make them.

So, as I do not want to spoil my barrel, I first make some tests on a different piece of wood.



Here I will try with a beehive grating, but with very small holes.



Half the way I realized that this would not work. So I left it where it was and went to think over to find a different way.



Walking around I found some drills for bigger holes. I liked the idea, as I had used them before for the outlet of the barrel. Here I show them again.



Here I am calculating and marking, let´s see how it works.









Finished! This is my test board.



I fixed the fan to the test board and turned it on to see how much air it would let pass by and it has a good airflow.



So now I have a mold to make the holes on the barrel.



Making the holes with extreme care.



As it is a bit complicated to make the holes on the barrel, I used an adapter for this task.













Here they are, marked and ready to be finished.

But then there was an accident, I applied too much strength and passing the drill I broke a bit of wood. This is how it looks.



So I have some more work as I have to repair what was damaged.



Here I am repairing it. Therefore I made some small pieces of acrylic which were removed and put a paste to fill up the damaged parts.

So, once repaired, we are ready to continue.

The following thing is to fix the optical unit to the front cover of the barrel. Here I will use an angle to hold the optical unit to the cover of the barrel. This is how it looks.



I changed the frontal view of the optical unit for a wooden one.



And I moved the button to open the optical unit. Later I will make a fix a button.



The wire you can see here is the button to open the unit.

What about all my disaster…



Here is the button I mentioned.








A few days ago I took some vacations and a breather from the barrel. I went to Guadalajara and there I bought a 50l. barrel. This is twice as big as the barrel I am modding. The idea was that it would be a good back up if anything would happen to my original barrel.











Here a picture with the rear and low fans working.




Edited by iwok88 - 5/30/10 at 6:36am

Well. The new barrel gave me a good idea. I wanted to buy a tap for the small barrel, but when I saw the tap of the big barrel, I liked it and I decided to make a copy.







So I took a piece of wood, fixed it to the lathe and cut it down a bit.







To reduce I have to cut many times and go slowly until it is ready.







This is the first part. On this lathe you work by hand. But I have a smaller one of more precision.

Now I will change it to the other lathe to give the final form.



First I marked it to make a more or less good copy of the other tap.



Then I reduce and compare how it goes.









And to shave more and more.







It is taking shape, some more touches and it will be ready.



Rotating the wheel I passed a fine sandpaper to finish.





Now cutting from the lathe and .. ready.





It is a bit bigger, but it does not matter, it looks nice.

This is the second time I work on the lathe. Before I made a wood Bender, the robot of the animated series “Futuramaâ€. Here are some pictures.







How does it look like?

Returning to the barrel I am assembling some things and putting them inside.



It is taking shape, little by little, there is not much left.

Now I have to work on the lighting. Each lamp comes with two controls and I cannot connect both to only one. So I will operate both lamps with only one control. How to do this, … well, check my crazy idea.

Here I am going to un-weld the controls of one lamp and I will put an extension to operate both controls of the lamps at once.





So when they are finished, I turn on one, and I send the signal to the other control of the lamp, and also to the sound sensor and the regulator of the same.

This is how it looks like.







And it works perfectly, nothing is burned.



Now I am looking where the hard disc will go. First I made a base for the optical unit from an old cabinet I had. I cut the base to the right size for the lao top hard disc. As this hard drive needs an IDE to SATA adapter, I left it a little bit smaller so that the adaptor will not hit with the base when connected.

Here it is already painted.











Now I only have to fasten the cathodes of the red light, the power supply and the buttons to turn on the computer and the reset button.

But first I have to prove if everything is working the right way, so I did the first tests so see if the computer works.



As the power supply will be at the bottom, I will fasten it, so that it will come out together with the mother board.



Here you can see it with the track system. I pull, and all comes out together.





Here the computer is turned on, and I am installing the operating system.













There is not much left, only the buttons and closing the barrel.

Arriving to the final stretch there are only a few more details left, appearing as I am concluding the work on the barrel.

One of these is the tap. Here I am making the hole for the tap on the barrel.







After making the hole I put some glue and …wait until it fixes well.

Meanwhile I fastened the power supply to the track system, so that when I take out the mother board, all comes out completely.



Here I am showing the supply in order to take measures and see how it will be.



The power supply will have its place between the mother board and the lower fan.



Then I fastened the cathode to the upper part of the barrel.



This is what it looks like turned on.



After fastening the cathodess and measuring the power supply it is time to paint the base.





Also I have to give the final finish to the barrel, the front cover being the first.





Meanwhile the cover and the bases for the supply are drying, I went to paint other things.



As you can see, I painted the cpu cooler In order to match, and, it looks better than I thought.



After being happy about the result of the cpu cooler I got crazy and painted the molex of the power supply too.







Here the tracks for the power supply are fastened to the base of the motherboard.





As you can see, they support the weight and go in and out out freely.







Taking advantage of having removed the motherboard for the movement of the supports of the power supply, I also painted the base of the cpu cooler









It looks very nice.

Now, to come to the end, I put the wires and everything in its place, closed the barrel and now, ….test and hope that when I turn on the computer nothing strange will be happen.



Here the barrel is already closed, with all of the buttons. Only one layer of paint and that is it.





As you can see here there are two wooden buttons, I made them for the power and the reset. The lower controls are for the lights.





Here it is, turned on and working.







The sight from the back.







I only have to take some pictures from inside, so that you can see the final view with everything connected, and some videos with the sound sensor working and other things. Also the artistic pictures of the finished barrel are still pending.

Saludos

here some pictures trying to take them from the best side.













these are from the interior.

















on the last picture you can see how much the motherboard comes out in case to have to move something.

and, closing the worklog, some videos and the final picture from the barrel on the bar of my house.







Videos

YouTube- P1070579.MOV
YouTube- P1070584.MOV

Saludos.
Edited by iwok88 - 5/31/10 at 6:12pm

And the final pics...









Proyect finish..... good luck

Saludos....

Thx Man jejeje.