Case Mod - In Progress [Build Log] Project Blueberry Apple G4

I would do it grey but use caution as I am pretty sure that is stainless and thus will reject many primers. It won't happen immediately but you will get large areas that will peel off over time. I think you need to use acid etch to stop that happening and make sure you give it a good scuff before you start.

 

Here are the latest updates:

1. Following the discussion on this thread and being inspired by Candy Apple, I decided to cut out a window. I just received my order of Isopropanol which should take off the paint of my side panel and make it clear .







2. A big thank you to Aquatuning again! I received a GPX full cover waterblock for my new Gigabyte G1 1070 ^^. It looks great with my custom sleeved cable! I would like to add that the overall installation of this block was MUCH easier than the older model I had for my 970. The block was also way better CNC'ed as this time it actually follows the layout of the different parts on the board! Thumbs up for the great product!















3. Finished my 4 layers of primer :'). Now off to the matte black finish ;-)

 

It's finally coming together!

Routing the cables took so much time, but I am pleased with how it turned out, given the limited space to work with!

Since the pump draws power from a molex connector, I needed at least one molex connector to the power supply. Unfortunately, it doesn't pass through into another molex connector, so you can't bridge them up. The reason I wanted that is because I also want to power my 4 LED strips and my SSD with that molex cable, as to avoid needing more cables.

The solution was making an adapter from 1x 4-pin male to 2x 4pin female. My cat wanted to help out . I'm guessing that these components won't draw too much power and so the adapter cables should be fine.

Apart from that, the 4 fans are connected with 2x 3pin splitter cables. My motherboard allows voltage regulation, so I should be able to control their speeds that way. I wish however that Alphacool and Phobya should come up with more 4pin fans as this has become the new standard for quite some time now.

Sorry for the mess in the background, too excited to clean up, hoping to fill up the loop tomorrow and see if it's alive :')

 

Since everything seemed to be going so well, something obviously had to go wrong somewhere

I had just finished filling up the loop with distilled water (to remove factory dust etc before putting in the UV liquid) and powered the system on when I noticed that my motherboard keeps hanging on the "00" error code with a solid CPU_LED. Damn... In the meantime I ordered another 6700K and another maximus gene mobo since I can always return whatever is not broken within 14 days and RMA whatever IS actually bricked.

It's lame though :'(











I installed a new CPU and everything was working perfectly! Until I restarted the machine and the dreaded CPU_led error came back. I then put the new CPU in the new motherboard and just like the old cpu, same error on the other motherboard. So either the motherboard fries the cpu at some point or it's the psu... I have tested the psu though and the voltages didn't give any errors :/

I'll RMA the old motherboard and both cpu's :'(

The good thing about the loop is that the way it is set up, I can take out the motherboard without spilling a drop







While waiting for another CPU, I decided to drain the loop in the meantime and see what it looks like with the UV led's and the blue liquid:

 

In the meantime I started working on the plastic panel that has to become clear to act as a window.

Following the Candy Apple mod, I soaked the side panel in Isopropanol, hoping to remove the paint and to achieve a clear panel as a "window".

I let it soak for about 5 hours before I tried removing the paint by wetsanding it with 400grid. It didn't work.

My second attempt was with Acetone. This worked better and I managed to remove all the paint, while using sandpaper that is. However, what I didn't know is that apparently the Aceton leaves a foggy, cloudy effect on the acrylic . This was actually also documented in the Candy Apple build using Isopropanol, where @CommodoToshx86 managed to achieve a clear effect by using Pledge Future floor wax. I don't have acces to that product in Belgium, but I do have acces to Meguiars PlastX Clear Plastic Cleaner & Polish. Unfortunately, these are not the cheapest products to work with :/.






After some googling I stumbled on a thread where a guy basically asked the same question: "How do I remove paint from acrylic without the fogginess". Turns out that nail polish remover WITHOUT acetone does the trick! I tried it on the other side panel and the little amount of nail polish remover that my gf had left did remove the paint! This method is about as cheap as a 1l bottle of acetone, so I will go with this method instead! It also gave me the idea to make all the panels around the case clear/foggy, since it'll make more sense seeing the black through everywhere instead of having one black side and all the rest quicksilver. I'll probably paint the Apple logo's to match the Alphacool Blue to stay in the theme .




I am still debating whether to try and salvage the cloudy side panel with the PlastX, or use another one from my other G4 that I have as backup

Isopropanol does actually work! It did however take 2 days before the paint starts peeling off. That way it's way less messy than the nailpolish remover where the paint becomes half liquid and leaves marks behind...

Hoefer.de is a German chemistry webshop and they sell 6 liters for 22 euros, which is the cheapest I could find it! (making it cheaper than acetone and I can still use it to clean cpu's, gpu's etc!)










I decided to ditch the original front panel idea since it takes up too much space --> the res needs to be moved about 1 cm away from the front of the case, which in turn blocks the GPU. It's a tight fit! To remedy this, I cut out the front IO of an old Gigabyte case I had lying around, which was my original plan if all else failed anyway.

Since this layout renders the original button useless, I decided to hot glue an LED into it, to keep some original look.








Here are the results of the isopropanol soaked side window : I will then paint them blue/black from the inside , more or less like the blue mac pro g3. Or I could of course mod those panels instead




I closed the case and experimented a little with where to put the UV leds to get the best result. This is what it looks like:









Here are some pictures with the rest of the panels added
I tried to polish the clear panel with PlastX, but that didn't do the trick. I'll have to look for some other solution.







FINISHED

Here are the final pictures:
















I modified the front panel as I intended and I am happy with the results. I also painted the inside of the side panel black, to hide the cable mess. All the panels are mounted now

I put together a little video with the end result here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDKa_d5q_oU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvTLtcHCF3Q

Finally time to game ^^