Project: OSIDIAS (officially v4). What's this? A worklog?!

[craigbru]

Sorry for the lack of updates in a while. I've been busy with a few other things, mostly Jeep related. With my schedule clearing up a bit, it's time I give this project a little more attention. The D300VS is fully assmbled and i've been fine tuning Slic3r settings. I'm getting pretty consistent prints and I feel confident that the printer is ready to contribute to this build in anyway that I think might fit.

I do have a decision I need to make however. I need to figure out whether I'm going to 3d print the entire case, or whether I'm going to make molds and do a carbon fiber layup as originally intended. The latter is definitely cooler, albeit much more time consuming. If I print, then more time is spent up front with the design, but I can build much faster. Due to the small overall case design, and the decently large build plate, I can actually print the cage and shell of the case in a single piece. I've gotta admit, that's awfully tempting...

 

[confusis]

mmm printed...

 

[Biowarejak]

Personally, I still see 3D printing as a supplementary process especially with large pieces, a little mistake somewhere often means having to reprint the entire thing.

You could of course use it to say, develop the molds for your layup or whatever, and use 3D printing for accent pieces.

 

[craigbru]

I appreciate the feedback guys. Up until now, I've also thought of 3D printing as a supplementary process as well. I thought I'd use it for small bits and pieces that would otherwise be hard to produce. I've relied on aluminum in the past, but even with a CNC and pretty decent bending skills, there are still some very real limitations. 3D printing removes almost all of them. Of course yes, screwing up a print as it nears completion is frustrating. As with my CNC however, once you get a few tips and tricks down, the likelihood of that happening gets ever more minimized. In fact, unless you are using a truly exotic filament, I should be able to print most things in the SFF realm much cheaper than what I pay for aluminum.

So, where does that leave me? I’ve been thinking about it too hard. I’ve already committed to producing certain components of this case with the printer. Namely the core, certain side panel mounts, as well as the front w/ LCD mount and the rear. Once I get done with a little tweaking, those will be ready to print regardless of whether or not the outer shell is CF layup or printed. That means I’ll start there. Depending on how my available modding time plays out, I may opt to print the exterior shell after all and then work on a layup version as time allows. This would allow me to have a “finished” case, and I can just swap in the core once the layup version is finished. Time isn’t really an issue when you can just walk away and let the printer do its thing. Sure, there is some extra time involved in the design stage, but at this point I’m not even sure it’s worth worrying about. I mean, how many years and revisions have I gone through already, haha.

 

[Biowarejak]

Well that makes sense to me I guess one downside to printing is that, depending on the filament, you have to print rather thick to have it be stiff

 

[craigbru]

Yeah, required print thickness is a bit of an unkown at that point. I'll be using something blended with carbon fiber, so that would help some. I know layup CF is crazy strong even at 1mm thick, and this case is designed for a 2mm shell. I may have to move to 3mm and up the infill percentage. My biggest concern is sag over time. It's not like the hardware will get really hot, but there will be sustained warmer temps and that's not always friendly to plastics.

 

[Biowarejak]

Yeah the integrity over time is something I've yet to test where heat is concerned. The 3D printed cooling shroud on my printer has held up nicely, but it's not a load bearing component and is actively cooled after layer 1.

~3mm has really proven to be rigid enough for PETg, haven't tried a carbon-fiber blend however.

 

[craigbru]

I've decided to finally buy the last remaining hardware components for this build. My current 290X has been pretty faithful to me for a few years now, but it will have no place in the build. It's simply too long. With that in mind, it was time for an upgrade! I bought a Zotac GTX 1080 ITX. It's crazy to think about how much power you can get in such a small package these days.

The card arrived yesterday, and I installed it last night. It's a massive improvement over the 290X, both in terms of performance and efficiency. It's no secret that the 290X was power hungry, and running on my HDPLEX 300w had to be pushing things a bit. I've now got a lot more headroom, and with the 400w version of the HDPLEX arriving in the near future, I should be good for quite some time to come.

With all hardware here or soon to be short of some LED lighting, it's all up to getting the case finally built.

 

[confusis]

Woo! RGB LEDs by any chance?

 

[msystems]

I can't believe they can make a 1080 that size. Was anything is sacrificed in making the card that much smaller than the reference size??? I looked at a review and it matches or exceeded the FE model in performance. That's awesome.

Reference PCB
I guess Nvidia left much of the reference PCB card size available for extra VRM phases, and the reference model simply doesn't use it all!

Evga Classified
Only the higher end models bothered adding extra VRM phases.

Props to Zotac for rearranging everything and removing the extra space.

 

[confusis]

@msystems https://smallformfactor.net/reviews/zotac-1080-mini-review

 

[craigbru]

Woo! RGB LEDs by any chance?

Uh yeah actually. Although it's not going to puke rainbows. It's more likely I'll set a single color and run with it. If I stick with the orange accents, there aren't a lot of colors you can choose that will actually fit with the theme of the case.

 

[craigbru]

Slowly, but surely. Here is the cage and shell redesigned for 3D printing. I've bumped the exterior walls up to 3mm, and the cage portion is now sitting at 6mm. This should be enough strength to support the case without flexing. There shouldn't be any more major changes to this portion. I do have to add some mounting points for the accent panels, but not much else.

 

[confusis]

Is it all going to be printed as a single piece, or will it be in parts? That seems like a big print to have go wrong right at the end :/

 

[craigbru]

Is it all going to be printed as a single piece, or will it be in parts? That seems like a big print to have go wrong right at the end :/

All one piece. Yeah, it may be a 24 hour job depending on the resolution I choose. I'll just have to make sure the printer is fully tweaked and dialed in. Then you just hope for the best.

 

[Biowarejak]

A benefit of individual parts is that you don't have to worry about reprinting the entire thing if it breaks later on but I'd definitely do some test prints to see how acceptable any overhangs are.

In it's current orientation I'm fairly certain you'd wind up with filament spaghetti 'round the ol' nozzle

 

[craigbru]

A benefit of individual parts is that you don't have to worry about reprinting the entire thing if it breaks later on but I'd definitely do some test prints to see how acceptable any overhangs are.

In it's current orientation I'm fairly certain you'd wind up with filament spaghetti 'round the ol' nozzle

Yeah, of course printing individual pieces has more than a few advantages, and I certainly did think about it. It's certainly better to screw up a smaller print than a big one. I can't say damage later on is a huge concern. One of the benefts for printing in a single piece, is the ability to not use fasteners. Multiple pieces would require fasteners, or glue/epoxy at the very least. Using glue would render any part replacement moot anyway.

It would be printed standing on it's rear end. There's no realistic way to print without supports, and I'm okay with that. I also realize that I'm probably going to use as much, if not more filament in supports than in the cage itself. I'll definitely do as much testing as I can before I commit to a full print.

 

[craigbru]

I ordered a new HDPlex 400w a few weeks back, and it finally arrived yesterday. As already noted in different thread here on the forum, it looks pretty damn solid. I've not had any issues with my current 300w unit, even under load with my 1080, but I thought the extra headroom would be nice just the same. I also really wanted the revised layout. It will make routing cables so much easier. As a lot of you guys know, cable placement in SFF rigs is one of the biggest challenges to overcome. At least if you want to maintain good airflow and aesthetics.

Speaking of cables, or more specifically, wiring. I'm simplifying, by complicating. The case shell front will have the USB3 and audio jacks attached. The front LCD screen and associated control board, will also be mounted internally behind the front. When the internal motherboard tray/core is removed, those ports, jacks, and boards will remain. There is no way I'm going to deal with disconnecting wires or plugs, so I'm looking into edge board connectors. It's just a matter of tallying up all the connections needed, and finding a connector to fit that spec. As such, I'm making a few revisions to the interior structure to allow all wiring to be completely hidden, and/or seamlessly routed. Moving to 3D printing has given me some pretty creative options, at the expense of design time of course. Everything has to be perfectly measured, aligned, and accounted for up front as it will be hard to adjust later. When I was working with aluminum, if something didn't work, it was pretty easy to just cut and bend a new piece. Here, although still easy to adjust in CAD, I'll have many more hours of print time involved.

 

[craigbru]

So, I've been taking my sweet-ass time in getting the CAD work done. Blame it on a busy summer with not much free time, but I'm contemplating doing something crazy...

The next Netwar has been announced, and it's just under 2 months away. It's early this time, as normally they hold them twice a year, with the second one in the beginning of November. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I'd thought it would be nice to have a completed mod to take along. However, in order to pull this off, I've got to put a whole lot more time in than I've been commtting lately. I did build MPD-01 in a little over a month, so it's certainly not an impossible task assuming I get the CAD work wrapped up in short order. Uh, I better get some filament ordered...

 

[Biowarejak]

I'm sure you'll be able to pull it off