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Supercharged G4 Cube Mod: i5, GTX 750Ti and 3TB 3.5” HD in a cube!

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Once again, thank you all for your kind words. Never expected so many people to like it.

CrazyCreator: I'm afraid I had it cut in a place at my city, in Colombia, South America. I believe for most of you the cost of the shipping would be too high to have it cut in here. But if you are close, let me know.

Some of you have asked for the files with the models. I don't want to sound rude, I guess I could share them, but, wouldn't it be better if you tried to do your own versions? Designing is part of the fun! Also, remember I measured everything just for my own components to fit, and maybe yours won't. You'd most likely need to change some things before using them :S

I like your reasoning though I did have a few questions: What program did you use to model all of your pieces? Where did you get the cardboard/paperboard/art board (Not sure what it's called) to do the initial model? How are the acrylic pieces held together? Did you use a glue? Or are they assembled in such a way that they snap together and each piece supports another? Providing the original files would be helpful to provide a basis for future projects or at least the i/o plate!
Excellent work, taking from other mods as inspiration on here yours has to be the most radical change and one that I would like to follow closest.
 
Yeah that is the question I had as well...

Whether you could provide your design files etc. I wanted to try to 3D print your design and use it for my G4 cube (if its OK with you of course)

Thanks in advance! Awesome work!!
 
absolutely amazing !!!!!!:headbang: congratulations for this great job.:clap::clap::clap:



I have just one question for my own imac mod: do you have no problem to power all this with only a pico PSU? this one it still holding up and have you some problem of stability?
I currently have approximately the same configuration as you and I still have to add a graphics card to complete my power Imac. I hesitate to take a GTX 750 TI for fear of overloading the pico PSU, it is given to consume only 64 Watt but can consume much more promptly.
Otherwise it will be a 730 GT which consumes much less:beachball::beachball::beachball::beachball::beachball::beachball:
 
Congratulations on a great looking mod, stuffed with tech. and kudos on some very tricky gluing and assembly jobs on this.
I must admit I do have some serious doubts on the use of 2 and 3mm acrylic. I know from experience that this stuff is not a structural material - when I tried some Cube mods from this a couple of years back the backplate almost immediately cracked. While I can see a few box sections in there that'll help and some areas where things are doubled up, my guess is that this is one that will need to be treated really carefully to stay in good order for any length of time.
 
Albertodlh I just reread your project postings and here 2 1/2 years later the project still stands out as one of the most unique G4 Cube projects ever.

I am curious if you still have it running and how well the acrylic pieces held up through time?

Good modding,
neil
 
Albertodlh I just reread your project postings and here 2 1/2 years later the project still stands out as one of the most unique G4 Cube projects ever.

I am curious if you still have it running and how well the acrylic pieces held up through time?

Good modding,
neil

Hey Neil! It's an interesting coincidence that you asked this just a few days ago. I came back to check on this old thread today because I'm planning on doing a full rebuild this summer.

To answer your question, the acrylic itself has some minor cracks, but nothing that troublesome. Now, THE GLUE has been a different story. Recently I find myself having to reglue a lot of parts because every time I disassemble the cube to change a component or to clean it up, something falls off! And the problem is, the more glue I apply, the less it works.

The other problem is that my approach for this was to make a solid structure, that can't be disassembled. Changing any of the components requires me to disassemble the entire thing and sometimes it can take me up to two hours (!!!) to put everything together again (i believe this might be one of the reasons the glue is failing on me). This are things I want to address for my cube 2.0. I want to make it modular and use more screws, less glue.

The PCIex extenders have been a REAL HEADACHE. So far, 3 have died on me. I guess it's because the way I have to bend them, but the soldering on them is so flimsy, they break. I'm looking for a good one, no matter if I have to pay more.

Last but not least, one of the reasons I'm patiently wating is because I want to change the components as well. So I'm crossing my fingers for Kaby Lake and, hopefully, Pascal support.

In other news, I have a 1 year old kid running around the house now. This might seem completely unrelated to the whole doing a custom G4 cube case thing, but believe me, IT HAS EVERYTHING TO DO WITH IT. The difficulty has raised exponentially :p

I'll let you know how everything goes!
 
albertodlh I understand the issue with acrylic parts to some extent. I have used plain acrylic panels (with flame polished edges) as windows for side panels. I have found that even the smallest pressure point can cause a crack to develop over time. I also have not had much success with solvent welding clear acrylic parts as I can not control where the solvent will run to which usually makes a mess. So whenever I can, I use a good grad of clear RTV such as "Clear Transparente" "All-Purpose Adhesive Sealant" by DAP. An 2.8FL OZ tube is about $8 US. This is a Silicon paste type product and you need to keep it out of you eyes. However if you let it cure for several hours (a full day for maximum cure) it does a great job of holding things together.

For example, I used this adhesive to test assembly a slot loading optical drive into the shell of the original G4 Cube optical drive housing. It worked great and the test turned out to be the final assembly.

Good modding,
neil
 
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