SPiC Posted September 21, 2020 Share Posted September 21, 2020 How it all started… As a child, all the boys wanted to become astronauts, and I was no exception. I've always been fascinated by science fiction novels about space exploration, space travel, robots, spacecraft and distant galaxies. It was inevitable that this influence would find its way into my mods at some point. Video WorkLog here: First Video: Second Video: SPECS:Sponsors: ASRock, TeamGroupPSU: Cooler Master MWE 750 Full Modular CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 2600Motherboard: ASRock Fatal1ty X470 Gaming-ITX/ACGraphics card: ASRock Phantom Gaming X Radeon RX590 8GB OCRAM: TeamGroup Delta RGB 3000MHz 2x8GBStorage: 2 x TeamGroup Delta RGB 250GB SATA SSDCPU Cooler: Cooler Master MasterLiquid Lite 240 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SPiC Posted September 21, 2020 Author Share Posted September 21, 2020 I first got into modding when I was invited to participate in the Cooler Master Case Mod World Series (CMWS) 2016 competition. Since then, I have prepared my projects every year specifically for this competition, and in 2017 I even managed to take 1st place with my VEGA project. The Sputnik project was no exception and was made specifically for the CMWS 2020 competition. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SPiC Posted September 21, 2020 Author Share Posted September 21, 2020 Preparing for takeoff The first sketches of this Sputnik-inspired PC began to appear a couple of years ago. At that time, I had no experience working with aluminum and decided to start with a simpler project to avoid expensive mistakes. This led to the creation of my SimpleCase project, which helped immensely in learning to how to deal with laser cutting, bending and joining thick sheet metal. During the work with SimpleCase, I clarified how aluminum bends and stretches when bending. What are the tolerances and what is the maximum length of metal to bend on a manual sheet bending machine? As you can see in the Sputnik project, additional perforations have been made in the bending areas. The mounting points of the motherboard, video card, and power supply were carefully adjusted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SPiC Posted September 21, 2020 Author Share Posted September 21, 2020 As the year 2020 approached, the old pencil sketches of the Sputnik project were retrieved, and the project started afresh. Looking at these sketches now, I see how little the finished project has in common with those first drawings. The layout and frame were redesigned several times, and the perforations that are a crucial part of the overall design have changed a huge number of times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SPiC Posted September 21, 2020 Author Share Posted September 21, 2020 Both SimpleCase and Sputnik lean heavily on the use of laser cutting. As well as making it easy to cut out large sheets of aluminium and incorporate details like holes for fixings, it also makes it easy to create intricate shapes such as the perforations that cover this case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SPiC Posted September 21, 2020 Author Share Posted September 21, 2020 The case is constructed from 2mm thick aluminum. This provides a good balance of lightness and rigidity. Although the final case was relatively simple to complete once assembled, it took a huge amount of time to develop the designs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SPiC Posted September 21, 2020 Author Share Posted September 21, 2020 To design the laser cutting path, I used a 2D vector editor – which made it easier for me to work out each detail of the project separately. I think that's why I was able to draw all the modules in such detail. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SPiC Posted September 21, 2020 Author Share Posted September 21, 2020 After many months of careful designing, the drawings were ready and I was going to give them to my local laser cutting facility, but something unexpected happened – a car accident. A car veered off the oncoming lane and into me and my vehicle: the car was a write off, but fortunately no one was injured. All available money was used to buy a new car, and the project was again frozen for several months. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SPiC Posted September 21, 2020 Author Share Posted September 21, 2020 Time passed, during which the drawings were once again revised and refined, but finally the time came to get them cut. I was very thankful to the laser cutting company that they let me film and photograph the process. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SPiC Posted September 21, 2020 Author Share Posted September 21, 2020 “I Am Speed!” Sputnik was conceived as a high-speed spacecraft. Even static, standing on a table, it had to look dynamic. To create this effect, the front triangular section is sloped forward, like a sprinter coming up from the blocks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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