Jonathan Posted December 7, 2016 Share Posted December 7, 2016 Hey Guys! I just recently finished a project for EVGA called "Dark DragonBlade". I was one of the lucky winners for their Gear Up with EVGA program. The project was based on the Overwatch game character, Genji. Genji's color theme are white, green and grey. Me, as a sucker for black and green theme, I decided to go withe black and green for this project. A huge shout out to EVGA and Thermaltake for giving their full out support for this project! Here's my first render/sketch of the concept that I had in mind. I chose the CoolerMaster MasterCase Pro 5 as my victim to be chopped up for this project (well, just a little bit of chopping). Here are the awesome goodies from EVGA. EVGA SuperNova 1000G Power Supply 32GB EVGA SuperClocked DDR4 EVGA X99 Classified Motherboard EVGA GTX 980Ti Classified Let's start the gruelling acrylic cutting. For some reason, I went this route and decided to try to cut almost everything by hand, file the edges, sand then down before polishing them. And you will need patience. A LOT of patience. This is going to be a part of the PSU shroud. This was cut using a Dremel Motosaw, filed down to the cut lines and sanded. For this small piece, it took me days to get a perfect fit. All the pieces will be glued together using acrylic cement. Time to start with the front panel. Same story when it comes to cutting except for that I started cutting the sheet using a jigaw. Im using a black acrylic sheet for this, but I ended up painting it since it was glossy. After marking down my cut lines on the sheet, I used my jigsaw again to cut the piece out. Then used a hole saw for the circles. Again, this required me to have a lot of patience. The small logo, I used a drill press to drill holes down along the pattern of the logo, then filed it down. I used my Motosaw for some of the parts of it. Now this is the part that I am somewhat proud of. At the time that I was doing this, I didn't have my phone with me to take photos of the process, but this, this took me quite a while to achieve. I used Motosaw on most of the cuts and a drill press on some parts. Plus A LOT of filing with needle files and sand paper. This letters will be part of the PSU shroud. This will be the acrylic cut for the PSU shroud/cover. Instead of screwing the cover on the case itself, I decided to use magnets to mount the cover on the case. It's a bit more convenient to use magnets in my opinion. If I need to access the PSU, I just need to pull the cover out. Saw a bunch of magnets on our fridge and decided to sneak them out. The time I was doing the PSU cover, I ran out of screws, button head ones to use. This screw, although long, was enough for the time being to hold the piece together. I needed to trim the one side of the PSU cover to be able to pull the cover out easily. The acrylic cuts will be glued on the cover like so. This will be the side covers of the case. Im using a smoke black acrylic sheet for these. These will be the details for the front panel. These were the details for the left side cover. It will basically have the logo/icons of Genji's set of skills. A year ago, I bought a CNC (Shapeoko 3), I used it a couple of times but never really used it that much because the bed is not levelled correctly (although I did everything I could to get the bed levelled, still no luck), and there were some software issues and compatibility issues with the software that I was using and windows 8.1. But after all the experience that I got from cutting those letters out and the logo, I decided to go back and try to get the CNC up and running properly. Which I did, but 80% of the time, it would suddenly stop in a middle of a job. Which takes back on using my trusty needle files, motosaw and jigsaw. I successfully made a fan grille with the logo of genji on it before it started to crap on me again. Here are the goodies from Thermaltake that I used on this project. Back to the motosaw and hand file cutting. Disassembled the case to get the divider out to drill some holes for tube routing. After a few weeks, I decided to give the CNC a second chance. I was thinking of doing some custom reservoir brackets from acrylic as a test piece. Again, it did work, but in this photo, you will see what I mean. Sometimes, the CNC would decide that it's getting sick and tired of following the gcode that is being given to it, and instead, it'll roam around and explore some areas that its not suppose to explore. The first brackets, the first piece was fine, but the second one got screwed up. My CNC gave it some attitude. Well, I will continue the log tomorrow since it's getting late here. Stick around for the 2nd and final photos of the project tomorrow! Ciao!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xtian1 Posted December 7, 2016 Share Posted December 7, 2016 Great work! Keep us posted on this build! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonathan Posted December 8, 2016 Author Share Posted December 8, 2016 14 hours ago, xtian1 said: Great work! Keep us posted on this build! Thank you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonathan Posted December 8, 2016 Author Share Posted December 8, 2016 Hey Guys! let's continue the work log shall we? For the custom reservoir bracket, I needed to redo them since the CNC screwed it up. It was almost perfect though. And even though the CNC did the job with no issues, I will need to redo them since the brackets were too short. I need to at least have an inch and a half more of height for the reservoir brackets. So I tried the CNC again since it almost got a small job done, then after it did successfully cut the new custom reservoir brackets, I then went ahead and tried to abuse it a bit more. I tried to make some cable comb. It actually did complete the job this time with no problems at all! Looks like I will finally be able to get the CNC running more efficient next time. Just need to do some more tweaking! And then after that, I moved on to do a little modding with the motherboard. Took this beautiful heatsink and painted it matte black. Proceeded to paint the SSD mounting brackets too since the weather was a bit better than normal. The following weekend (i think), since I got the CNC to do a complete job without any further issues, I tried if it will crap out on me if I try to give it a bit more complicated patterns to cut. Well, it actually did not! There were still a few minor issues that needs a bit more tweaking. And while i was at it. decided to design and make a custom GPU backplate for the project. I needed to redo the back plate in the end since I encountered 2 interference when I was test fitting it. This was the back plates that I ended up using. Its time to put the GPU water block! After taking the cooler off from the card, I almost didn't want to put the water block on it. The damn card actually looks sexier. Stared at it for a couple of minutes until I realised I needed to put the water block on it or else I wont get anything done on that day. This photo, for me, is just mesmerizing to look at.. Did a custom sticker for the Thermaltake Riing 12 fans that I will be using for this project. Test fit! This will be the top panel. Some more additional details for the side covers that the wife suggested. Some additional details for on of the PSU cover. And after a few months, I finally got the project completed. This took me almost 7 months to complete. This year was A LOT busier for me than what I expected. Again, thank you very much and a huge shout out to all the sponsors for giving me their full support for this project! The reps from EVGA and Thermaltake who provided assistance with this project were just phenomenon! Never heard a rep that would actually reply on emails on 2 in the morning on a damn weekend! And there it is guys! Hopefully you liked it! And if you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to leave a comment. Have a great day guys and keep the mod on! For me, I guess its time to move on to the next project. Or maybe not...... Ciao! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xtian1 Posted December 8, 2016 Share Posted December 8, 2016 Great Job! Our Marketing team wants to feature your building process. I'll message you via direct message in a while with the details! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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