I am going to present to you my most recent mod project named LUMINA, which was entirely designed and built by me from smoked and crystal acrylic shapes. It demanded me a very hard work and skill for creating and mounting 114 pieces, through precise cuts, polishes, finishes and heat moldings procedures.
The following result come from my untiring seek for the best design, lighting and 6 mouths of hard work.
Feel free to comment! I really hope you enjoy!
Project
The first step for starting the project was to design and mount all the case structural parts. All the other complemental parts would be made in a second stage. The project combines an amount of 114 acrylic pieces, with 14 structural ones and 100 complemental ones, both smoked, crystal or foggy and reaches the following dimensions: 520mm height x 285mm width x 545mm length x 2-15mm thickness (considering thumb screws and foot stands).
Mounting
For mounting all 114 pieces of LUMINA project, I performed the cuts, moldings, finishes and polishes procedures manually by using the Rotary Tool kit, sandpapers, drill, soldering irons and aluminum heat molds. I only requested the factory to mold some of the 14 structural pieces because of my technical impossibilities of molding big size parts.
Below, the structural parts being placed:
After some days of planning, I decided to create a new PCI board placement system. My idea was to build a back door system to get the boards insertion easier and with screwless.
No problem with the acrylic powder: All boards used here are wasted!
By using the Rotary Tool, I performed precise cuts to create slot bays on the shape. Below, the parts already mounted and set firmly in place by two hinges and the slot plate rail piece, built from smoked acrylic by using heat mold. Later on I will show you some examples about this molding procedure.
On the mainboard fixing shape, I did two 80mm diameter holes for improving internal air circulation. This part is located internally, without any external contact. To fix the mainboard I made ten acrylic cubes, replacing the screws:
The next step was to build the main panel by using a 12mm acrylic piece. I had to sculpt each button hole manually to reach the desired form. It was very very hard-working and took me 3 days:
At that moment, the parts faces would still be sanded in view of the fact I had planned a foggy finish for reaching a better lighting effect:
After making up the part, I firmed the main panel leds and switches with cold-heat glue. To hide the apparent wire, I idealized and made a new part following the original lines of the main panel:
That’s an acrylic cut shape completely molded by using the heat mold:
That’s the finished piece with rounded corners:
Observe the foggy finish on both parts and how well mixed they are, don’t you think? The cable sleeving was made from nylon nettings. Later on you are going to see more about it:
Returning to the case, I made some draughts seeking the best design for the complemental parts of the recently placed lateral windows. On the front face, the holes for placing the main panel had already been done:
In focus, the engineering solution for fixing little curvatures of very thin parts, such as the 4 structural angle columns built from smoked acrylic. All of them were firmly linked on pressure through two screws by each extremity, ensuring the stability and rigidity of portico:
Finally, the last external part was installed. That’s an angular smoked window, with one central groove and fixed in place by two hinges. Following the project, this part was provided by the factory because I didn’t have a big heat mold needed, unfortunately:
The 2mm smoked shapes were being prepared to be turned into lateral windows complements:
The cuts had to be done carefully because of their curvatures. The parts were properly sanded and polished:
Above, the smoked complements were fixed on the inside windows. Below, I idealized an air filter by using 0.5mm double layered metallic netting. For that, I cut two 120mm diameter wheels and placed them side by side surrounded by “Uâ€
