Well, where shall I start?  While I was out, I fiddled around with a lot of little details.  I saw someone add a spinner to their exterior fan so I did too. I looked in the closets and found an ideal spinner, a shampoo cap!  Coincidentally, it was gray too but a little off.



With a little household glue, ready!  Note: this fan will extract hot air because it would not fit inside the upper dome where the power source and hard drive are. This means that the frame is towards the outside and that saves me from having to affix and epoxy the cone better.



I did manage to finish assembling the mid section with all the components which looks like this.






The real power source and hard drive will be transferred towards the due date because they are presently being used in my computer I am using now to view and post, but it will be fast and easy now.

wasn't planning on doing too much with the rear but seeing how meticulous some mods were (Maciel and slipperyskip), I decided to give the final touches to the lower part that I had done a couple of weeks ago.



Of course, I could not forget my Papang BizRigs sticker (this was the only flat surface I could use).  Before someone goes off on "sponsorships", I declare that it is not a legally constituted business and has no profit motives whatsoever.  "PBR" is a tongue-in-cheek take on a business I once had that sold computer exclusively to myself (for tax reasons) and has not existed for a couple of years.  It only assembled business computers (with no mods either) and I sold myself over a dozen machines over several years as the need arose for increasing the size of the network in my businesses (all closed down by Dec 2008-you can imagine why).  My latest mods all carry this sticker (I will change it swapping the gold star in the middle for the Mexican flag) and was the last one I had.

I also worked on the 11 red leds that go on the shoulder of the mod, below a double acrylic ring.



I stopped momentarily until I finish painting the exterior of the upper dome and leading edge. I stowed it aside and just needs 4 more solders to work. And yes, I am proud to say that I finished it in a couple of hours vs. the half day it took me to solder the 3 leds in the legs.



Next, a new way to paint the exterior camouflage on the upper part.

(continued)

Back to the worklog now.  Remember that I said that I was going to have to do 2 sets of stencils for the top part paint?  After testing various sets (and practically using up all of the remaining spray adhesive), I had no other choice than to use masking tape. OMG, with all those irregular patterns!  TIP)  However, going back to my modeling years(scale models, NOT the other), I remembered the "liquid mask" trick. A home made liquid mask simply is: 90% PVA glue (white in most cases like Elmer's) + 10% dish washing liquid (not for dish washers but the regular type). It is thick enough to apply by brush and will not drip or run, and with the dish washing liquid added, it is easy to wash off and PREVENTS the glue from adhering to the surface.

First the ingredients:


The bottle that says "Chitol 5000" is the PVA glue (Resistol is the complete name), it is mixed together and since mine was very old (15 years atleast), I added about 15% water to the mix.

Since it had been a while and I'm using different materials, I tested on a piece of styrene, drew a line for the cut-off and:

Anyways, rushing like most of us that had mods in progress when we entered the contest, I tried out the liquid paint mask I mentioned in the previous post with sort of mixed results and the TIP of the day with this is that you should use it on relatively well finished surfaces (such as on a flat side window of a computer).  The mask will tend to seep into tiny cracks and crevices and not come off. I then have to spend a lot of time digging out what I can with a darn toothpick! Well, learned another thing, no doubt about that! What I did do was get an idea of how the paint would look.

This is how it looks before the last color:



I missed the taping and painting pics, just found the scrubbing one at the wash basin, very dark due to it being night time. Am I in a hurry or not?!



and the final product:



I know that the photos look ok, but close scrutiny will get me a lot of criticism, I will have to retouch the paint. I also noted that vertical lines do make it "look" fatter, just like vertical stripes on clothes, make people look taller. I didn't exactly want it to look taller (maybe it is just me).

My wife (the one with the frying pan for Frenkie) asked me to place the acrylic rings on top of the paint to see what it would look like:







The second ring is a little crooked, but what say you? One ring, two rings or all three should be glued on?

Thanks for dropping by and your opinions are greatly valued.

Man Hours Used: 18 hours
$ Invested:  Artist chalk set              $74.50
                  Chrome spray paint          99.00
                  Grey paint                        43.00
                  Total                            $216.50
---------------------
Accumulated Man Hours:
Accumulated $ Invested:
Cheers and Saludos

just had a set back (yes, another). The badge made from a button, caved through when I drilled it to put the "on" led in it. I was going to stick a Team Cooler Master logo patch on it and the led would make it sort of glow, but



So, I grabbed a piece of 6mm acrylic to substitute it and cut it "old school".



With a round acrylic to feed the led light to it. Have to scuff it for the best effect later.



Since I bought a cheap strobe to go on top of the Ovni, I had forgotten to test it! I scrounged up a switch to turn it on-off and thank goodness, it worked. Since a photo does not do it justice (it blinks), I pulled out the videocam my wife brought me from her last trip to the States. Iy is one of the new wave videocams that are really easy to use and start fast. What I liked about it was that it was really cheap and uses flash memory (cheap too) for storage. Can't say the brand but here it is:





I took this little video of the strobe with it and the only thing I have to do is use a tripod as it is so economical, it does not have an "anti-shake" chip in it and using it free hand, it looks like the videos of yesteryear with no image stabilization:


Background music by Alex Syntek "Lo Que Tu Necesitas"-Mexican tecno rock.


Man Hours Invested: 3 hours
$ Invested:  -0-

Cheers and Saludos

Not much to show down the final stretch but,  I did not like the look of the lighter shade of gray which is really an aluminum color. I thought that a "chrome" paint (really shiny) would do the trick but the thing is that when transparent flat matte is applied, it darkens a lot:



Chrome on the right, aluminum on top and gray on the left.  It can't be appreciated but the lightest shade is normal gray. It appears that the more metal content the paint has, WITH TRANSPARENT FLAT MATTE, the darker it becomes!  So I am repainting all the gray again.

I did conclude all the wiring for the computer mobo (on and reset switches, on and hdd leds, beeper) , scrounging from left over parts on old cases.



It took me a while to find how to bend the final piece of acrylic which I could not accomplish with my industrial heat gun (Cesar, my acrylic supplier, did it with honking big propane torch) thus I made a mock-up to see how it would look like.  Behind it goes the 18 led sequential and reversible array which I am still working on.



The top is papered off to avoid over spray and the front has been repainted on the gray, appreciably better shade-wise. So much for now.  The big bugaboo is the 18 led array, wish me luck!

Man Hours Used:   9 hours
$ Invested:  $50 mn to bend the acrylic
                    34.00 for more paint and cyanoacrilate
          Total   $84.00

Cheers and Saludos and thanks for dropping by .

I finally got the front I/O panel out of the way.  It should be interesting since the red hdd light will blink behind the acrylic shield. I don't expect to be opening and closing the shield very often as I really don't turn off my computer but rather put it into "sleep mode" and wake it up with input from the mouse or keyboard.  I even have sound plugs for headphones or microphone from the front which I had not had for a while.



I also glued the Acrylic Logo Shield with the "on" led (I chose blue) and here is what it looks like with the preliminary Team CM logo lit up.  The final one will look much better!



One down-side. The sequential reversible led array DID NOT LIGHT UP! "#$#"e$#t#%$fwq"!$#!"!!!!!!! I am quite sure everything is soldered in correctly and even took it to a friend to check for any mishaps. I just wanted to check if it would work so it only has one led, instead of three, for each of the six channels/nodes for leds it has.  I suspect a faulty transistor but definitely puts me in a tight spot to claim it and get another one in time for the close date.   Conclusion: THUMBS DOWN FOR THIS RIP-OFF OF A KIT (STEREN MEXICO):



This was one of the main attractions for the mod!  Oh well, I will finish up the rest and see if I can get a replacement in time.

Man Hours Invested:  8 hours
$ Invested:  -0-

Cheers and Saludos and Thanks for dropping by!

On a more serious note, I FINALLY got one of my led arrays to function of which I had pre-assembled a couple of weeks ago.
Hot melting the assembly into place in the belly:



And testing the integrity.  Well, that didn't last long and in short order, 2 leds blinked and died. The culprits are pointed out.



Summary of this:  I bought these leds in "bulk" (25 piece bag) along with the resistor (5 piece strips). A couple of leds failed with a quick battery test but I know that is common in bulk type purchases-a few fail but the price savings more than compensates for the wastage. I mentioned that 1 in 5 was failing, but as I changed the failed one (usually after welding), the amount went up to almost 50%!  Also the resistors are either very poor in quality or are not the ohm value they should be.  Their color scheme is non-standard so I could not verify it against charts in the web.  The same friend that helped me previously, tested the array and felt that the resistors were heating up too much and that I put atleast one more led per string (there are 2 in parallel as dictated by the led guru in Metku). The test is holding up with no more casualties, but I did notice that not all leds have the same brightness on the same strings (too late now to redo), so.....

--Saving money, in this case, backfired on me, so if you don't have time to try and test, pay for retail leds and have them test them in front of you.
--Same goes for resistors, they are so cheap, it is best to buy them retail (what you need plus 1 or 2 just in case).
--If you are technically challenged in electricity as I, DO NOT try something new in a modding contest, you will just look foolish and be delayed putting your deadline at risk. It would be better to buy something pre-made and just install it. You won't get credit for "making it" but you will finish on time. Also you won't have to post something relatively simple as a this as if you had climbed Mt. Everest!
--BTW, in Mexico there is no guarantee for electrical components and claims are useless or very have very long waits.

Man Hours Used:  35 hours (don't laugh sunny)
$ Invested: Pending

Thanks for dropping by hope you learned from this.

Cheers and Saludos

The above happened a couple of days ago and today........





Except for the rather irregular brightness of the leds, the effect is subtle and I think, can be left on all the time. The ring will be held in place with double sided tape for future repair of the leds.

The camera adjusted itself but the lights of the ring can be seen from the studio, clearly but not obtrusively.


Next, to see what can be done with the led chaser/sequential kit. Wish me Luck!

Man Hours Used:  included in past post
$ Invested:  $34.00 mn for paint ($29.00mn) and a cyanoacrilate for $5.00mn!

Am on a small roll, well, for me, heheh.

Cheers and Saludos

A good led kit used by Boddaker on his BattleStar Galactica Mod:



It cost the same as mine but has 1 channel per led, not 1 channel per 3 leds (connected in parallel) which overly complicates assembly and wiring and soldering. ON the reverse side, it is a dream to solder the components to the pcb and comes pre-assembled with the resistors already soldered in (a bunch)!  

If you are planning on doing something like this, use the above kit or similar, not all kits are made equal!

Look at what I have:



A world of difference!

Today would have been the last day of the original deadline and if it had not been extended, I would have jumped the installing of the sequential/chaser led lights on the leading edge, detrimental to say the least.  Now with the extension, I can continue as planned so:

First, where to put the kit pcb?  I finally decided to place it in the leading edge where I would not have to make a box for it, saving some time and effort.  Here, cutting a rib to let the pcb fit under it without disturbing the integrity of that part.



Next up, fitting the leading edge ring:



Once the position of the ring was determined, I drilled the holes for the 18 leds, placed the ring back on provisionally and lit a led to see the results.



Now to fix in place. I had wanted to screw it in place from behind, but the acrylic was not thick enough to hold a screw so I had to do so from the front, which is held in place with round head screws. Tomorrow I will buy flat head screws, countersink them and cover the heads with something.  Since I had to drill sideways, the drill bit would slip so I used a red  hot icepick to start the holes for the drill bit.  I found that it helped to start bits in acrylic from any position and makes the holes more exact.



I placed the leds in place so next up is a lot of soldering to connect 3 leds in parallel for each of the 6 channels. The tuffy is to run the wiring from the other half to the pcb.  Let's see how that turns out, hmmm......

It is presently 9:40 p.m. LA time and I am ready to hit the sack (go to bed), thanks to the extension. After this stage, the rest is a relative piece of cake, heheh.  I hope I don't bite my tongue for saying this.

Man Hours used: 7 hours
$ Invested:  -0-

Thanks for dropping by and good luck to the rest down the stretch.

Cheers and Saludos

The past couple of days have been dedicated to wiring all of the leds and fixing the ring so that the leds will enter the ring half way. First to correct the wrong connector that was soldered to the pcb for one that has a switch:




In goes the pcb.


Cutting for wire from the junk psu used for fitting purposes (blown out). Wow, the wires are sort of thick inspite it being a generic psu!


Pinching the vinyl off the wire in 3 spots that have been burned with a lighter. This took its toll on my fingertips and took a long time to do! I used single pieces of wire with 3 openings to connect the 3 leds per channel to save time soldering. Finally today a few minutes ago, I finally soldered most except for the "bridge" that goes over the I/O assembly which I will have to buy a couple of meters of thinner coaxial wire to make the bridge less bulky and for it to fit.





I did get to test half of the leds and made a small video of them "working".  Sigh....like sunny says, I will have to redo the thing once the contest is over to look better. If I cannot, out it goes, I swear!


Background music: Texas A &M University Victory March (maybe I'm getting a little ahead of myself but it is a small "victory") The leds do not look sequential or are chasing each other.  Like MstJuan said: Blehh! :roll:

Man Hours Invested: 10 hours
$ Invested: -0-

Thanks for dropping by, back to the rest but first to bed.

Cheers and Saludos

I am happy to report that the top dome and leading edge is concluded, however, due to uneven lighting of the chaser leds, I changed 9 of the original leds with brighter ones to even out the light of these somewhat. Channel 1 was switched with channel 3 for better output too. I also felt that the wire used originally was too thick for such low output so I rewired the whole setup with a thinner duplex wire (from 20 to 24 gauge) for less resistance and I think it helped.



The round head screw were countersunk for better appearance and painted red with some of my wife's fingernail enamel.



After that, I sealed the bottom with its cover and that is all I can do right now with this "Bleh" led kit.  In the future I will either replace the led kit with a better one and throw this piece of junk that gave so much trouble or take it to some one who is willing to figure out why is performs so poorly.

To even out the appearance of the third ring, I found some buttons as before, to use as anchors.  The rings are only held in place with silicon so that they can be easily taken off if need be.



I finished up the top and placed the strobe light in the hole left for it, which means that I cannot flip it over any more to work on the insides. This is it for this stage.



I took about 10 photos and could not catch the strobe flashing.  The top is finished!

 The last step is installing Win7 on my hard drive, connecting the motherboard and finally, placing this assembly in the top dome to finish.

Cheers and Saludos

Well folks, just 2 days to go and this should be my next to the last post (finally, phewww!). This part was dedicated to the "center" part finishing touches and loading an operating system, which in this case will be Windows 7 Ultimate x64 bits and a spin to test out the OS and the system I have used in the Ovni.

One of the pending things before I shut the access to the dome is the stainless steel screen or mesh to help filter out major "dust bunnies" from the psu and hdd.  Here is a small roll I've had for a long time. Since I had to buy a minimum, this turned out to be 25cms X 1 meter, so it was a lot of material. It is used in small amounts to help filter fans and openings that suck in fresh air.



Only 4 small pieces were used to cover the slots around the strobe.

Of course final fitting problems inserting it into the dome. Screws on the underside of the center now prevented it from falling in completely into its area so I had to fit and shave off the obstructions:









Having gotten the fitting out of the way, now the OS installation. I was crossing my fingers since my cpu suffered a case of bent pins and I was not sure if it would work.  Fortunately, luck was on my side and the cpu appeared to be in fine shape, thus permitting a boot up and then the OS install.




Success! Here is a shot of the system page with the properties of the OS and other data.  No programs were installed except for Opensourcemark to test and burn in the system. It will hold up as I left it all night doing a test and it came out well.



Ohh, one little detail about my CM bridge cooler, probably directed to CM engineers.  The cooler does not have a clip mechanism, just an adhesive heat pad. Most head pads with head from the bridge, will soften and adhere to the surface with use. Since I could only burn it in one night (last night), I had to flip my motherboard over to finish the assembly....well, the cooler fell down, sigh......remember, there is no clip mechanism to hold it in place like the northbridge factory heat sink



I finally fixed it with a small piece of stiff wire held in place by 2 screws that held the motherboard in place. It appears to be fixed in place so a little more improvisation done.



Putting in order all the connectors, I found out that I had a rats nest of them and there were still 3 more to connect:



I picked up a comb connector at the electronics shop similar to the ones one of the contestants used on his mod (who else, sunnxtremist) in hope of being able to compact this mess.  If I see I can do it, I will, if not, for a future upgrade/improvement.



So much for now, in goes the CM psu and hard drive assembly and to connect everything for the final pics, I hope.

Man hours invested:  10 hours
$ Invested:  -0-

Thanks for looking and on to the final stretch...!!!!  Good luck to all those still rushing to finish.

Cheers and Saludos

Well, as promised, the last page of my worklog. Of course, wiring the 3 parts together brought out a bunch of little details I had overlooked until then.  First the 12v. connector was too short and I had to add around 3" of wire to reach.





I connected the front I/O plate connectors into the mobo, Wow, they were long, but no time to try to cut them down to size. I just wound them up inside the best I could.



Next, the connector to the logo disk was in peril of getting mashed with the center part insertion so I had to make a removable connection to avoid that.




Inserting the the center into the dome, I found out that I had somehow lost the "wiggle room" I had calculated and upon closer inspection, the strobe was butting into the psu, so:


Do you see the "dock" to hold the dome without damaging the strobe?  It is a glass bowl with towels to avoid scraping.





There were still obstructions so I took to the rats nest of connectors to cut of all extras to slim the mess down.



The "fixing plate" that unites the center to the botton was glued and screwed in place.



And with the help of my wife Gaby, we inserted first the center to the dome, then the bottom dome to the that and...
then the finishing touches: the Team CM logo to the lit logo acrylic dome.



a small dusting off and here it is, Stage 1 (ver 1.0) completed (dang it, I forgot to connect the upper dome extraction fan, but too late now, I will get to it later, got to run (it is about 5 PM of the last day)!  And it is raining, no sun for good pics!!!! :x  :x  :(  :cry:  :!:  :!:











Got dressed for the final pics and noticed the consequences of modding in the kitchen, A TIRE :|  :oops:




Pic of a chubby. balding coot of a modder from Mexico. Who could that be, heheh?

That's all folks!  I will try to get a video out tonight fully assembled with lights before they close the threads.

Man Hours Used: 20 hours
$ Invested: -0-

Also promise a summary of man hours used and $$$ invested in the project.

  It has been a monster bash having participated with all of you and I thank everyone for their tips, comments and patience for my wordy (and unedited) worklog.

BTW,I want to take this opportunity to apologize to anyone who I may have stepped on their toes with an inappropriate or badly worded comment/post. Sometimes I don't have it all together with me and I screw up, that is why I stopped posting after 11 PM, I get groggy at that time. So again I am very, very sorry if I hurt someone's feelings. It is not in my nature to do so, really.

Thanks again for you visits and reading the rants of the eldest member of the "CM Senior Citizens Modding Club"(sunnyxtremist's idea, I like it!)

Cheers and Saludos

To cap off this wonderful event, the final video for Ovni:
Para cerrar con broche de oro este maravilloso evento, un video final del Ovni:


Background music by Cafe Tacuba with "EO" (Mexican punk rock)

I will be coming back in the following days to see the result of the voting process and report things promised.
Regresare en los dias siguientes para ver el resultado del proceso de votación y reportar las cosas prometidas.

Loads of luck to everyone and it was a real pleasure to meet you all. Keep in touch!

Un montón de suerte a todos y fue grandioso conocerlos. ¡ Manténganse en contacto!

Cheers and Saludos

As promised, the summary of the time and $$$ spent on the Ovni:
Como prometi, el resumen de tiempo y $$$ gastado en el Ovni:

Accumulated Man-Hours:  505 hours  or 21 whole days of 24 hours. I started in March and finished by September, 6 months.
Acumulado de Horas Hombre: 505 horas o sea 21 un dias enteros de 24 horas. Empece en Marzo y acabe en Septiembre (2009), que son 6 meses.

Accumulated $ Invested:  $2,842.50 mn. At the present exchange rate $1usd/$13mn, that is $218.65 usd!
Acumulado de $ Invertido: $2,825.50mn. Al presente tipo de cambio de $1us/$13.00mn, resulto ser $218.65 usd!

As I mentioned before, this is only the "case" materials. All other components I had already so no expense taken into account.  BTW, I've seen systems like mine on e-bay for $50 usd, including a small hdd.
Como mencione anteriormente, esto solo representa los materiales del "gabiente". Todos los componentes que tenia anteriormente no se tomaron en cuente. Por cierto, he visto sistemas como el mio en e-bay (usa) por $50.00usd incluyendo un pequeño dd.

    To this add $66.40 usd for CM products and the strobe light.  Total cost then would be $275.05 usd.
     A esto, agregarle $66.40usd por los productos CM  y el estrobo por lo que seria un total de $275.05 usd.

So that's it folks 21 whole days and $275 usd for the Ovni mod, a small price to be able to compete in the 2009 Cooler Master Modding Contest-Worldwide Edition!
Asi que compas, 21 dias enteros y $275.00 usd por el mod del Ovni, un precio pequeño por poder competir en el Concurso de Mods Gobal de Cooler Master 2009!

This is my last formal post and constitutes the end of my worklog, phewww!   THE END!

Esto es el ultimo comentario formal y constituye el fin de mi Diario de Trabaja, ahuah!  ¡EL FIN!


Cheers and Saludos

Por el temor de que cierren el hilo en Cooler Master y eventualmente borren todo el diario, copie y pegue tal por cual hacia aca. Ire traduciendo el texto y quitando algunos comentarios que ya no vienen al caso.

Gracias a Death_Note, logre hacer esto porque si no hubiera omitido mucho y quizas me hubiera dado por vencido.  Sugiero a los que no han practicado el ingles echen una leida e intentan entenderlo. Cuando lo traduzca se perderán esta oportunidad! ¡Aprovechen!

Vale la pena decir que mi hilo abarco 15 paginas y si las paginas de aca son similares, todo lo de mas fueron posts de otras personas y contestaciones mias, me he quedada anonadado! Casi llego a las 5,550 visitas/lecturas, la tercera mas grande del concurso (quizas tuvo que ver con mi posicion de premiacion). Por mucho que intente, no pude alcanzar a los otros dos, quizas por falta de apoyo de mi foro, cosa que le paso a Petoscal también, siento.

Saludos

De nada solo que es mucho que leer jeje me pondré ahora mismo, mañana pondré las fotos de mi avance.

PD. Que les parece el nuevo rango a los webmaster  

Death_note escribió: [Ver mensaje]

De nada solo que es mucho que leer jeje me pondré ahora mismo, mañana pondré las fotos de mi avance.

PD. Que les parece el nuevo rango a los webmaster  

Papang es uno de los mas famosos modders en coolermaster, y es un honor tenerlo con nosotros, siempre cortés y contestando todo lo que puede!!!  

offtopic: DEATH estan padres los iconos de las computadoras, ahora como son lo colores? bueno ahorita lo veo en la pagina no  hay bronca.

SALUDOS!!!