Got a New Case!

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I tried printing a couple of labels for the shroud today but I kept getting slightly faded areas on the black field, just enough to annoy an anal old bi...broad like me. Since the trial "labels" I printed on regular paper worked so well, I printed a fresh one, attached strips of double sided cellophane tape on the back, then cut it out. When I applied the "label", I found out any slight overlap of the tape strips showed through the paper. Back to the "drawing board".

I printed another one and was more careful applying the double sided tape, leaving a small gap to make sure I didn't overlap the strips any. I got a few tiny lumps but decided to see what would happen if I put furniture polish on the entire shroud. It worked great on the paint but the moisture in the polish didn't do the paper of the label any good. Back to square one.

I removed the "label", again, used a couple of alcohol wipes to clean the polish of the front of the shroud, then made another "label". This one was best of all. After smoothing out the bubbles, I ran a felt pen around the edge to blacken the slight bit of white that showed from the thickness of the paper (yes, I am that anal). The camera picks up the felt pen marks but, in regular lighting, it doesn't show up (bad camera slap slap!)



I'm declaring the shroud done.

 

[Stephanie]

Looks very cool Jeannie

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Thanks, Stephanie!

Btw, I like your current sig. Simple yet very elegant.

 

[Stephanie]

Thank you

 

[paulpicks21]

How's she coming along anyway LadyF? Not been an update for a while but very understandable due to the loss of our good friend.

I don't tend to comment on it (much) but enjoy seeing the progress.

I am hoping to see it finished by the end of the year OK! Lol.

Paul.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

How's she coming along anyway LadyF? Not been an update for a while but very understandable due to the loss of our good friend.

I don't tend to comment on it (much) but enjoy seeing the progress.

I am hoping to see it finished by the end of the year OK! Lol.

Paul.

Thanks for asking! Fear not, it will be finished before 2015. I'm now mostly waiting for a good time when I will have no interruptions (life has been mildly nuts, lately), the humidity is high enough to reduce the danger of ESD, and my back, arthritis, and allergies are behaving.

I'm going to use the existing SATA data cables for now but will start making custom length ones once I get my machine up and running in its new case. I'm also going to monitor CPU temps in the new case to see if I may want to upgrade the cooler, now that I have room for a bigger one (air).

 

[NoN]

Been a while Lady...Does that means you're someone very cautious? Looks so!

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Been a while Lady...Does that means you're someone very cautious? Looks so!

Kinda sorta. ESD is a huge problem where I live because of the vinyl flooring and the dry air. I've also been dealing with other things as well. I recently went on Medicare and had to get the medical part of my pension switched over; that got thoroughly FUBARed, partially due to the flood of mail that came in wanting me to sign up with this and that company's Advantage Plan, partially because the system is FUBARed, and partially because my ADHD "blessed" mind gets easily overwhelmed (there is a reason I keep my life as simple as possible and depend on computers to keep my life on track). Then I had to do battle with the plan my former employer pays for as part of my pension package because the cheap b*****ds didn't want to pay for one of my meds, one that I've been taking for the past 18 years (never mind that under the new health care reform act, they were obligated to). Added to all that, my mail service is closing down after this Friday and, since the children running the USPOS refuse to forward my mail from one private mail service to another (even though someone else paid for the postage), I've been going nucking futz trying to track down all the parties I had to notify about my address change (fortunately, I keep good records); the worst were the various government agencies I had to deal with (don't get me started on that!). And as if I wasn't having enough fun, my new mail service (UPS Store) refused to accept a package from Hong Kong (get this, it went from Hong Kong to New Jersey, where it was handed off to the USPOS; what the ?). Fortunately, I had been tracking the package, caught the foul up in time, and made arrangements for the USPOS to hold the package for me to pick up before the carrier returned to the station with the refused package. The manager that refused the shipment claimed over the phone that the address was wrong. I claimed the package today and the address was correct. He has a lot of "esplainin' " to do since the address was correct, the manager didn't bother to cross reference my name, and the service didn't document the reason why the package was refused.

But, on the bright side, recent storms haven't done any damage to my home (some of my neighbors haven't been so lucky), the arthritis flare up that made my left wrist almost useless for the past two days has settled down, and I'm still this side of the dirt where the view and company is much better.

 

[Stephanie]

Hows the new build / modding going Jeannie ?, I'm looking forward to the final build

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Between my allergies (I have a sinus headache right now) and arthritis acting up due to the insane weather we have been having (old age stinks), I haven't gotten much of anything done lately (I even cancelled a trip back in June). Speaking of insane weather, in the last seven hours, the Phoenix, AZ area has received more rain than it has all year. There has been a lot of flooding and road closures, including two interstates. I'm staying in my home today. Fortunately, my home is elevated on a well drained lot. I do want to get the "innards" of my present case moved into the new case before too much longer.

 

[paulpicks21]

Can't you just fit a cable or something Lady F? It's been 2 months since we had a pic! We need pics lol.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Can't you just fit a cable or something Lady F? It's been 2 months since we had a pic! We need pics lol.

LOL! I'm not wrestling that thing until I'm ready to do the swap.

 

[Stephanie]

Between my allergies (I have a sinus headache right now) and arthritis acting up due to the insane weather we have been having (old age stinks), I haven't gotten much of anything done lately (I even cancelled a trip back in June). Speaking of insane weather, in the last seven hours, the Phoenix, AZ area has received more rain than it has all year. There has been a lot of flooding and road closures, including two interstates. I'm staying in my home today. Fortunately, my home is elevated on a well drained lot. I do want to get the "innards" of my present case moved into the new case before too much longer.

Looking forward to it Jeannie

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Thanks, Stephanie!

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Can't you just fit a cable or something Lady F? It's been 2 months since we had a pic! We need pics lol.

You want a cable, Paul? Ok, have I got a cable for you! How about what very well may be the world's shortest SATA data cable?



The little runt is a whopping 2 1/4" long, including the connectors, but started out life as a seven incher, including the connectors. Here it is alongside another, unshortened cable:



I was recently working on a little project that needed a short cable like this (I'll post a separate thread on the project when I get it done; right now I'm waiting on an oddball part). I remember reading a build log on another forum that had a post on how to shorten a certain kind of SATA data cable (read it here, starting at post number #1540). Chris, the poster, later stated he had run into some problems with the process and abandoned it for his build. I exchanged some PMs with him and learned the only problem was occasionally the "teeth" in the connector wouldn't correctly align with the conductors in the cable. For this project, I figured the cables were cheap enough and I had enough length tolerance I could have one or two do-overs on a single cable if needed so I decided to give it a try. I got lucky and it worked on the first try when I tested it on a HDD in my desktop rig.

 

[paulpicks21]

It's certainly a little nipper ain't it Lady F lol. Nice job. Glad to get a pic

Are you still on course to finish the case by the end of the year? I joked about it at the time but it draws nearer!

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

It's certainly a little nipper ain't it Lady F lol. Nice job. Glad to get a pic

Are you still on course to finish the case by the end of the year? I joked about it at the time but it draws nearer!

I though you would get a chuckle from that!

The case is finished; I just need to move the innards of my present case over to the new one. That will be at least a full day job and I've been short of stamina lately plus life keeps happening. I've got most of the monkey wrenches thrown into my works in the past few months sorted out but still have a few loose ends to tie up. A few weeks ago, the steps into my mobile home collapsed from under me (I didn't get hurt from the fall but I was rather sore for a few days). I couldn't find any replacements locally so ordered a set online from a vendor I will never do business with again. It took me all afternoon to get the stupid things set up, even with help from a couple of neighbors and I'm paying for it today. Hopefully, it won't be too much longer before I can make the swap.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I did some more work last week on the little side project I made that short SATA data cable for. I've been hampered by an extremely painful stiff neck since Wednesday that's probably a weird manifestation of my TMJ (I'm seeing a chiropractor late tomorrow morning). I needed five more of the mighty midget cables so I worked on them yesterday and that turned into all kinds of fun. Out of five of the cables I made only three worked. I went through parts from three more cables before I finally figured out why they were failing and what to do about it. In a nut shell, the piece that held the cable in place for pushing into the punch down connector pins was shifting slightly when I was squeezing it in with slip joint pliers causing the pins to bend instead of biting straight into the cable jacket. It was just dumb luck that the first cable and three of the next five worked. I finally figured out how to hold the connector body with a pair of those cute little 4" vise grips I have so the jaws of the vise grips would guide the plastic piece that was shifting on me. I was expecting some spoilage and had ordered extra cables for that reason so I'm not especially upset that I "killed" three cables for the cause, especially since I worked out how to prevent the problem in the future. I couldn't take pictures of the process while I was doing it because I have only two hands but I did mock up the process after the fact. The first two pictures show how the connector is held by the vise grips (I love those little guys; they are proving to be so handy!).





This picture shows the piece of wood that I used as a drift I gently tapped with a hammer to drive in the plastic piece under it into place. The vise grip jaws to the left of the connector in the photo are what guide the little bugger into place; otherwise it wanted to shift left, bending the pins underneath. For more detail on what the disassembled connector and cable look like, go to post #1540 here.



The project itself is modifying the snot out of some Thermaltake 2.5" hot swap bays I found. They are similar to the Antec EASYSATA 3.5" swap bays I love so much since they do not leak air nearly as much as most bays do and do not use a breakage prone eject lever. The two biggest problems with the Thermaltakes are, first, they have a couple of USB 3.0 ports flanking the door for the HDD that I neither need nor want, especially since the cables for the USB 3.0 ports are the pass through varienty (why manufacturers feel they just have to put extra bells and whistles on their case accessories is beyond me). The other problem is all the rear connections are made by awkward, ugly looking cables extending out of the case. The mods I'm making are to completely remove the stupid USB 3.0 cables and ports, make new faceplates to cover the gigantic holes left by the USB ports, and replace the stubby cable and four pin Molex connector and the longer attached SATA cable with a more conventional 22 pin (15 + 7) SATA combo connector like the ones on the back of optical drives and my EASYSATAs (I found and bought several spare EASYSATAs since they have been discontinued by Antec). I bought six of the Thermaltake 2.5" swap bays since they are an old model that is probably being discontinued and the remainder have been dumped on the market (I could only find them in China).

Here is what the Thermaltake bays look like before I modded the three I've finished.







Here are a couple of after shots.





No more ugly cables hanging out the rear like a...well, it wasn't a pretty image.

I spent Wednesday making and painting some thin plastic faceplates to cover up the big holes where the USB 3,0 ports used to live. They will be sandwiched between the stock Thermaltake faceplate and the 3.5" to 5.25" bay adapter faceplates. I spent Thursday prepping the 3.5" to 5.25" bay adapters for painting (that's about all my idiot neck would let me do). I also took apart one of my EASYSATAs so I could also paint it. I hung the six adapters and the metal body of the EASYSATA from a string stretched between my carport posts and shot the paint early Friday morning, which was fun since I couldn't move my stupid neck (it's a bit better now thanks to ibuprofen). I'm letting the paint on the adaptors and the faceplate harden some more before I horse around with them.

I did reassemble the EASYSATA this morning (see next post) but I'll probably take it easy the rest of today. One reason I tackled this project before moving my computer to it's new case is I can work on it in little bits and pieces instead of working nonstop all day like will have to do when moving my computer innards.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

As I already mentioned, I took apart one of my Antec Easy SATAs so I could paint it. Here it what it looks like disassembled.



And after painting and reassembling. Please forgive the lousy photos; my tired (and neck) hurts and I just don't really care (how's that for attitude?).





Disassembly and reassembly of the EASYSATA was much easier than what I expected. I have a couple more used 3.5" to 5.25" adapters coming in (even those have been discontinued; all I can find otherwise are overpriced cheap plastic crap or poorly designed metal ones) and will liberate another when I make the case swap. I'll paint the remaining adapters and EASYSATAs once I've finished with the case swap and put them into storage for replacements and future case builds (I'm tired of modifying cases and still not getting exactly what I want and need so the next case will be totally homebrew).

When I modify the remaining Thermaltake bays, I'll take more detailed photos of the process.

 

[Layback Bear]

Jeannie I do understand the time it takes to make cables. Just the time to sleeve them when when your done is outrages.

I did a 1 led cable yesterday and it took me a hour.
When I got done I discovered one of the pins was no good and wouldn't stay in the connector.
When one installs many things in a computer and wants to hide most of the wiring and harness pretty much all of them need to be customize as you know quit well.

I have updated my water cooling system that I just finish a week or so ago.
Once again getting all the bends at 90 deg and proper was a challenge; but getting them just wright so every thing would be level and plumb took even more time.

I discovered that lighting would probably even take more time. I got more money in lighting than the price of 4 cartons of cigarettes.

Many of the lighting things were absolutely useless. They wouldn't light enough to see a flies ass. I have got more one order. Every light need the wiring customize for proper length and connector and of course sleeved.
Trying to figure which diode is what is another challenge. Five or twelve volt. I have cooked a few light diodes I thought were 12V and they weren't.

Have you ever tires to solder the wire back on a LED light stript. Hell I can't even see them without a magnifying glass.

**Trick**
Every LED light strip the first thing to do is put heat shrink up close to the strip on the harness and then overlap that with heat shrink about 1/2 inch up the light strip and a inch done on the harness. It help to prevent the wires from braking off at the strip soldered connection. That little trick saved me about $45.00 in LED light strips.**

Now the challenge. Putting all those lights in the case so one type of light doesn't wash out the other lights and no reflection from the lights on hardware. Then hide them and the harness. I use different lights to highlight different places and things in the computer. Sounds easy. Not really.

Let say you have in my case two cylinder water reservoirs. I want the cylinders to not only be lever and plumb with each other but I want them both to be lite up exactly the same. So I buy some of the same lights for both of them. Makes sense. Well you better buy some extra ones just like those because I have found just because they are the same their is a good chance they won't light the same. Now one must keep mixing and matching to get light that will light the same. I'm presuming that the maker of these lights were not getting their LED bulbs from the same supplier all the time.

And we call this fun.
I could go on forever about little stumbling blocks one runs into if one wants things just so; but I won't.

***Jeannie I do have a question.***
Where is a good supplier of connector shells and pins. I find them but they are way to over priced. A 3 pin black fan connector shell without pins are over a dollar apiece.