Thanks for the compliments... on with the show!
First off, I set in with my hack saw and cut the hashed area of the original drive cage out.
Not too shabby...
Made an additional slot so I could do a double bend to spread the connecting area just enough to get over the copper, like so...
Next, I cut a piece of ½" copper pipe/tubing 1/8" wider than the drives and checked the clearance...
Then, out came the torch and I soldered both sides... taking care not to overheat the plates and desolder something important! (That would be bad
) Don't worry, the drives I'm using are either bad or REALLY small capacity. (Less than 400mb)
Now the unit is mostly complete and can stand on it's own...
After the cleanup, I tested the fit of the drives again to make sure I didn't miss any extra solder blobs that might make the bottom drive fit incorrectly...
Here I've attached the modified drive cage and secured it... seems I need an extra screw hole in this location... (Red circle)
Now for the inlet and outlet bung... I cut a 3/4" x 5/8" piece off my ½" copper bar. I then drilled two 3/8" passages at 90° to each other and then milled out a ½" hole for the outlet side about a ¼" deep and soldered a section of ½" copper pipe/tubing in for the connection...
Out came the torch again and I soldered this over the inlet hole on the front plate...
Next I cut a smaller piece from my bar and made another outlet and soldered it in place. This one faces down instead of toward the back of the PC...
Here is the completed cooling cage with all four RAID 0 + 1 drives and the single EIDE extra storage drive at the top. Front...
Back...
That raps it up for today... Cheers!