After perusing the GB Fans forums for months and picking up small pieces here and there, I finally made a decision on which pack shell to go with, and picking it up from the post office yesterday I now know what pure awesome looks (and smells) like.
That, my friends, is a pchrisbosh hero shell, and it is just as perfect as it looks. I was lucky enough to grab one of these from his limited run, and I’m not disappointed.
A closer inspection of the shell showed the shell didn’t make the long trip from Texas entirely intact…
…but fortunately it was a clean chip and with a little glue it’s impossible to notice.
Of course this means I have no excuse to put off my build any longer, since I now something to do with all of this stuff…
Between getting delayed by grown up things like work and house hunting, I finally got around to putting some time into building last night. With the bulk of my parts yet to arrive, I decided to start with mounting the motherboard and the ALICE frame, starting with the motherboard using the steps outlined here and brackets available from Ejgunth87.
After getting the brackets secured with rivets, holes were drilled and tapped through the shell and brackets, thankfully with no breaking or chipping. The only issue I ran into was a slight gap between the shell and motherboard I didn’t notice until it was too late.
I’m calling this a minor mistake since it will be partially hidden by the ALICE frame and against my back, but it anyone has any advice to offer on correcting it, fire away.
I took the opportunity to attach the hose clamp from Wiz as well. Although not entirely screen accurate, I decided to move the clamp a little higher up the shell to avoid the issue that some people have been having with the L-bracket getting in the way on the motherboard.
The hole ended up not being as clean as I’d like, but I have some ideas in mind on how to hide the ugliness. A few more drilled holes through my ALICE frame (not vintage, unfortunately) and rubber spacers from [url= FS: GB1 Rubber spacer sets. - For Sale - GBFans.com]nick-a-tron/url] and the pack was all set for the obligatory test fit shot.
As always, any feedback is welcome and appreciated.
Great work so far! Bummer about it not lining up perfect at the bottom but if everything else lines up, I wonder if the mobo was too small.
I used Hoot’s build and Julz’s build a lot when I was building as well as Letmebleed’s and so many others that I feel bad that I can’t remember where I stole ideas from or copied techniques. I would usually check multiple sources before installing a part to make sure the consensus was the same.
Looks like the shell needs to move up1/4-inch or so. If the holes connecting the L-brackets to the motherboard are not uniform, you have the option of removing all the rivets and repositioning the L-brackets in such a way to utilize the existing motherboard holes to drill new holes for riveting the L-brackets. You can try to keep the existing taps but will likely need to create new ones also so check the alignment with the mounting holes before you make any final decisions regarding placement. Will take some effort but achievable.
Black Milliput would do a nice job of sealing this up. Will require a glob on the inside to ensure the patch is strong and doesn’t break away. You can get Milliput to smooth nicely with a little water.