Overview / Usage

I'm Bill Owen, I started Mnpctech, http://www.mnpctech.com in 2001. I started out modifying computer cases for friends into unique custom designs. Over the past 20 years I've been approached by manufacturers to build them Gaming PCs and Case Mods for giveaways, PC game releases, event marketing or displays gaming industry shows like CES, CeBIT, Computex, Comic-Con, Pax East. In 2019 I expanded Mnpctech into making custom desktop gaming PC's for Youtube and Twitch Game Live Streamers and Gaming Influencers.

Those of you who have followed my PC mod creations over the past two decades, know that I love Dystopian theme builds. Receiving an invitation by Deep Silver to create the official Metro Exodus Gaming PC was a dream. Never heard of the Metro game series? Maybe you were playing too much Fortnite and didn’t notice. I can understand that, but a game set in Post Apocalyptic Russia in my opinion is a lot more interesting. The visuals of the Metro Exodus world are stunning. 4A Game’s development team in Ukraine and Malta was very generous in sending folders of images captured from the world they created. A Steam powered locomotive plays a large role in the game and since there’s no electrical power sources in this world, I imagined the PC as being independently powered by small single piston steam engine. One month to develop a real working engine from scratch wasn’t realistic, but we could create something that emulated one. My space is was limited to the front of the chassis for creating this faux single piston engine. This location actually made sense, so people could see the piston rod and gears. I knew in advance the RTX 2080 would be used, so I used this vertical bracket https://mnpctech.com/vertical-gpu-video-card-installation-mount/ since the Corsair 570X doesnt have vertical mount option.

Making the Exodus PC kinetic with a real working piston engine.

The piston gear assembly was the most time intensive feature of the PC. It consists of large stainless steel tube with a working piston inside. Everything had to be created from scratch. The piston engine consists of machined and laser cut parts. Materials include black Acetal and 6061 aluminium for the frame work and gears. The piston and and crankshaft were made from grey Delrin and actually pump inside the cylinder. The smoke stack is from a scale model steamboat stack made by “RC Smokers” in Australia. He sells exclusively on Ebay. Before the RC smoker arrived, we had designed the piston cylinder to be connected to the smoker box with a tube, so the piston would produce realistic steam train chugging effect, but the piston didn’t produce enough air pressure. Luckily the RC Smoker produced its own effect, so we got lucky. I’ve added a key chain remote control for the smoker, just to mess with people. The gear drive chain came from an old bicycle. The gear assembly is powered by IG32 12 VDC 197 RPM Gear Motor. The motor’s power is controlled with DC 12V 10A Relay 1 Channel wireless RF remote control switch transmitter and receiver. The speed of the piston gear assembly is controlled with a vintage rheostat dial on the front panel. Tuning the gears to turn and operate effortlessly took a great deal of development time. I believe it went through three design revisions until we nailed it.

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Methodology / Approach

Manufacturer Recycle Bins, A Great Alternative to Ebay for PC Mods.

Great resource for mods is recycle bins behind manufacturing plants also put myself in the role of the game’s main character, Artyom who must scavenge the landscape for items to survive this cruel environment. Have you climbed over a fence to dive into recycle bins behind a manufacturing facility? There’s loads of inspiration in those bins and some nasty stuff too. Bring gloves and a filtered mask. I found a proper steel handle and vintage Incandescent worktable lights to illuminate the PC’s interior. The light fixtures are similar to something you would find near in an abandoned Russian factory.

Technologies Used

Intel Core i7-8700K 3.7 GHz 6-Core Processor** **

MSI Z370 Gaming Motherboard

64 GB DDR4 Corsair Dominator

Corsair Force MP500 M.2 SSD, 1 TB

Nvidia RTX 2080 Graphics card

Corsair RMX 850W PSU

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Repository

https://www.mnpctech.com/pages/gaming-pc-build-case-mod-gallery-by-mnpctech