Yep it's time to feature another cute little PC. Savage is making his niece a Pink 'puter much like the one I made for my girl child. I am knocked out by the case he chose...it's a class act and not one that many people have seen. I know I over looked it. Not only is it "Made in U.S.A." it's all aluminum and the cover is nice heavy aluminum with a rich anodized finish reminiscent of Silverstone's high end HTPCs. The mobo tray slides out and the HDD rack is also rmovable. The floor plan is way smarter than the PC Labs Design QV2E that I chose, and seems well suited for a gaming rig (mATX of course).
Savage asked me to document the build so I took a lot of pictures, and I'll explain some of the steps I go through in prepping a case for powdercoat.
The box...
The box inside the box...
Well protected, just the way we like it.
Terrible picture that does not do the case justice. Nice size and heft to it.
The entire cover slides off for optimal access.
I can see the designer put some brain power into this one.
Sturdy chassis.
Nice layout.
These sort of captive spring loaded thumbnuts are best left in place and I cover the threads with some sacrificial 6-32 nuts to keep the powdercoat off them. They are pressed into the metal so the only way to remove them is to press them out...and the metal is already deformed so they never grab as well on the way back in...especially if the hole is loaded with paint.
Powdercoat will go over anodizing, but the silkscreened paint logo must be removed using lacquer thinner.
The front panel features a small plate that will trim out the DVD drive tray. This is left attached to the front panel but two tiny bits of metal. Because I want the edges of this trim piece and the opening to be nicely coated I elected to break that piece free. This created a need to make at least one hole for the part to hang. Powdercoat parts must be electrically charge for the process to work, so each part is humg from a metal rack using wires and hooks. I carefully marked and drilled and tapped two 6-32 holes and used some sacrificial screws and oversized washers so the part can be hung yet get a full coat. Later I will use a pair of tasty button head screws and grind them flush on the back side so the trim piece can be adhered to the DVD tray door with some 3M Hi-strength tape.
The HDD tray had a bunch of nice PSA felts on it which I removed neatly in order to reapply after the coating process.
As usual I removed the switches, any plastic parts, andy screws.
The removable mobo tray poses another problem...the track it slides in will of course accumulate powder and the build up will hamper the action of the slide.
The tray itself can be coated as is after the standoffs are masked using silicon plugs to protect the threads.
Anything held in with screws like this fan mount are removed.
Any stickers or labels and residual adhesive are removed.
Here is the flange the mobo tray slides along. To keep this gap I will have to de-rivet the parts and rerivet them after coating.
My little girl came down to see what I was doing and was interested to learn I was helping a man make a pink puter for his neice.
Broken down into parts and ready for coating. Look for a follow up on this in 5-10 days
Edited by CyberDruid - 8/7/10 at 3:09pm
Savage asked me to document the build so I took a lot of pictures, and I'll explain some of the steps I go through in prepping a case for powdercoat.
The box...
The box inside the box...
Well protected, just the way we like it.
Terrible picture that does not do the case justice. Nice size and heft to it.
The entire cover slides off for optimal access.
I can see the designer put some brain power into this one.
Sturdy chassis.
Nice layout.
These sort of captive spring loaded thumbnuts are best left in place and I cover the threads with some sacrificial 6-32 nuts to keep the powdercoat off them. They are pressed into the metal so the only way to remove them is to press them out...and the metal is already deformed so they never grab as well on the way back in...especially if the hole is loaded with paint.
Powdercoat will go over anodizing, but the silkscreened paint logo must be removed using lacquer thinner.
The front panel features a small plate that will trim out the DVD drive tray. This is left attached to the front panel but two tiny bits of metal. Because I want the edges of this trim piece and the opening to be nicely coated I elected to break that piece free. This created a need to make at least one hole for the part to hang. Powdercoat parts must be electrically charge for the process to work, so each part is humg from a metal rack using wires and hooks. I carefully marked and drilled and tapped two 6-32 holes and used some sacrificial screws and oversized washers so the part can be hung yet get a full coat. Later I will use a pair of tasty button head screws and grind them flush on the back side so the trim piece can be adhered to the DVD tray door with some 3M Hi-strength tape.
The HDD tray had a bunch of nice PSA felts on it which I removed neatly in order to reapply after the coating process.
As usual I removed the switches, any plastic parts, andy screws.
The removable mobo tray poses another problem...the track it slides in will of course accumulate powder and the build up will hamper the action of the slide.
The tray itself can be coated as is after the standoffs are masked using silicon plugs to protect the threads.
Anything held in with screws like this fan mount are removed.
Any stickers or labels and residual adhesive are removed.
Here is the flange the mobo tray slides along. To keep this gap I will have to de-rivet the parts and rerivet them after coating.
My little girl came down to see what I was doing and was interested to learn I was helping a man make a pink puter for his neice.
Broken down into parts and ready for coating. Look for a follow up on this in 5-10 days
Edited by CyberDruid - 8/7/10 at 3:09pm
