ASPHIAX Posted August 10, 2012 Posted August 10, 2012 FINISHED PICS AT last and 3rd post ! the IMPERIAL AT-AT ... I think some of you may know that I am a bit of a SCIFI freak. I just cant resist combining my two hobbies, PC building and SCIFI reading, watching, listening. One of my absolute all time favorite models from the STAR WARS saga is the Imperial AT-AT (All Terrain - Armoured Transport) Vehicle. I read somewhere even the pentagon actually studied the design of a walking tank to see if it could be real. I used to dream about being a AT-AT driver when i was a kid. So when i saw the HASBRO 2010 Imperial AT-AT toy on a website in the US I knew I just had to have one. Getting it over to the Netherlands was a big challenge though. Transport was 2 x the cost of the actual AT-AT itself. I could have bought a Cosmos II instead. But It finally arrived and I could unbox it. VERY VERY carefully ... That all changed when I had to put the dremel into the model for the hardware to fit. So what is the idea; Well it has to be watercooled (I am a watercool junky) and the exterior needs to be as original as possible, meaning no fan holes or something. There has to be major cablemanagement as I do not want to see ANY wiring, tubing or connectors anywhere. I want it to be like it has just stepped out of the movie into my office. So i need to do some major learning in the airbrushing department. Oh yeah, it needs to have lasers too ... Cant have a build without lasers ... LOL So here is the report of the first week of playing around and disassembly ! Let me know what you think and hope you will enjoy it as much as I did building it ! ASPHIAX
ASPHIAX Posted August 10, 2012 Author Posted August 10, 2012 Here is a list of the components I used. I cannot show everything as the build is extremely hard to take apart again. Would have to cut wires and tubing and actually destroy all my hard work! The components were as following: HASBRO AT-AT toy Styrene sheets 1.5mm Aluminum sheets ZOTAX Z68 Mini ITX Intel 2600K 8Gb vengeance 1600 DDR3 Crucial 64Gb SSD 1200 wat coolermaster slinet gold psu Koolance CPU-370 waterblock Alphacool kape fuzion reservoir Watercool heatkiller NSB rev3.0 Koolance MVR40 waterblock XSPC pump Tygon 1/2 and 3/8 tube Bitspower fittings AC ryan radgrills 2x EKWB 240 radiators Programmable Arduino microprocessor connected to the USB port 2x 5mW red laser module with adjustable lense Home made PCB for led, laser and remote control through TSOP 1838 Remote control of a Kian HDMI switcher Here are some teasers of the build ! As I saw it on for the first time ! All the parts I had to work with ! I had a little help reaching the small places ! As if you didnt know it all ready, its called the IMPERIAL AT-AT Getting all the wiring and tubing through the legs was a real challenge !
ASPHIAX Posted August 10, 2012 Author Posted August 10, 2012 Some shots for the Swedish Gadget Magazine 3M !
ASPHIAX Posted August 11, 2012 Author Posted August 11, 2012 Thanks L3p! I am hoping the airbrushing will not be such of a disaster as with the EURISKO !
ASPHIAX Posted August 12, 2012 Author Posted August 12, 2012 I disassembled the AT-AT to get a better view at the available room. Here is the main body. I had to get a lot of stuff out of there to make room for the mini ITX board. With the interior out of there I could get a better view on how the fit the hardware. At this stage I spent maybe a whole week just looking and picturing the hardware inside the space The location of the reservoir was quickly found. The space was exactly 60mm. I was expecting to have to restore the model a lot here, but i found a very nice 60 mm res that fitted perfectly. I used a spraycan for a mockup to see if it would really fit and what the effect would be. The inside of the leg. I needed to fit a lot of wires, cables and tubing in there as I wanted NO visible cables ! Due to the way it was constructed I had to extensively dremel the inside of the legs to fit all the cabling and tubing through. The start of the base, and figuring out the locations for the radiators. I am going to need a bigger office soon ! Its size is sheer impressive ! I made a simple aluminum box which will be the base. In here I will fit the hardware that is too big to fit inside the body. The radiators, PSU and fancontroller will be fitted in here. Also it will allow me to prevent any visible cables. Holes for the radiators, these will be covered with a couple of radgrills. And that was it for this update! With the rough build thought out its off to the finer parts !
ASPHIAX Posted August 31, 2012 Author Posted August 31, 2012 Hi all, here is another update of the work that I had to do for the AT-AT! With the hood removed I could start thinking on how I would mount (and cover the non attractive parts) of the hardware! Had to cut out the middle section of the models interior baseplate without messing to much with the fixation points that provided its structural strength. Cut away to much and it would not be capable of supporting the hardware. Replaced the frosted plexi with a piece of UV red I had laying around. This will fit better into the overall lighting scheme. Playing around with the location of the pump ! This looks like an easy job but actually took a couple of hours getting it to fit exactly with no luight from the interior shing through on the sides, the hood needed to to fit perfectly and the pump had to be taken apart to fit into the hole in the vertical piece of plexi. Must have done 50 test fittings in total. One of the main design criteria was that it had to look original from the outside, so the pump had to be well inside the model for the backdoor to close. (unfortunately this also meant my GTX580 was 2 cm to long) This was the original idea, the hardware on that location was soon changed to the I/O plate! Well that was it for now ! Next update will have my first ever build video (let me know what you think!) Laters
ASPHIAX Posted August 31, 2012 Author Posted August 31, 2012 Hi all, here is another update of the work that I had to do for the AT-AT! Started work on all the cabling that had to be extended through the legs and into the body for the pc hardware. The 2x240 radiators and PSU will come in the base. Had to cut out a lot of plastic to be able to route all the cables through. But I had to do that again without compromising the structural integrity of the model asa AT-AT that continuously drop to its knees wont destroy any rebel bases soon! Also had to route 2 x 3/8th Tygon tubing to and from the rads into the legs. This was a very tricky point. I do have some restriction in my loop now, but the cooling works beautifully! When all the wiring was done, I had to trace them all to be sure I wouldnt connect any of them incorrectly! All the cabling installed! What did I install in total: 2 X 6 Wire GPU Pwr 4 + 4 Wire Mobo Pwr 24 Wire ATX Connector 4 Wire Molex HDMI USB2.0 CAT5e 2 x 3/8th Tubing Also installed a little fan, its all watercooled (except for the RAM) But having some airflow is never a bad thing! The connection to the base. This way it can move around the base a little but is still firmly attached (this is actually one of the first thing I will change; get a full modular psu) AT-AT Chainsaw Massacre --- There's legs everywhere !! Anyone got a wiring scheme??? Luckely I had some tiny helper hands for them hard to reach places! That was it for this update ! Laters!
editor22 Posted September 1, 2012 Posted September 1, 2012 I love your build dude and this ones no exception, brilliant how your fitting all the parts into such a small space
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