Surly we have all looked at the likes of MDPC and thought to ourselves those cases look cool!! It is what people want I am afraid just look at the rest of the design industry all tablet pcs now basicly look like the ipad. Often people need inspiration from somewhere, a starting point so its not surprising alot of mods look similar. Personally I think the most successful mods are those that look different which is something I hope to instil in my mod.
You see it just doesn't have to cost a lot of money to make a good case. My latest case has about two hundred bucks worth of materials and it cost another eighty for the anodising. My tools are all normal hand tools and off the shelf power tools. The jigsaw that I use to cut all the alu was $98 from the hardware store and is five years old. Buy the comp? Have a look at the 2008 MOTY winner. Small wooden case, wouldn't have cost more than a couple of hundred dollars. A lot of planning and hard work sure, but not a lot of money. Everybody would like to get into the comps and everybody likes to win. I just don't think how much money you have or what kind of super automated machinery you use has got much to do with it.
Must be quite a bit cheaper in Aus. I just had a quick count up for something I'm planning and it's coming in at about £500. Thats just raw materials, no paint or anything else. Oh and then there's hardware to add to that.
+rep for that! I have seen some cool stuff over the last 8 or 10 yrs and a LOT of it that impressed me was owner created. Not sent out to place XYZ for such and such a treatment. I think what impressed me most about Mystique 2 and Cygnus, and many others was the shots of the 'oops, that didn't work" and the camaraderie of allowing the forum members to ask questions and even pose their suggestions. I really can't get into a mod thread or project log where the mod was completed and we just get to see the photo build "after the fact". Lacks sociability that Bit-Tech is capable of. Shouldn't be show and tell. john
@ John All that talk of 'oops' moments, and not once did you utter my name? I agree that farming out the construction should be saved for something beyond your capabilities, like Reichmark's sand casting. I see Mankz has his negative rep back again too.
You ever do a project without an 'OOPS'? I never have. Threw a case out a 3rd story window once. Cut me more than I cut it. The Mankz is always on the cutting edge.
It took me AGES to work out what people were on about with the red rep bar, being colourblind and all. I don't work properly.
That you are still here to work at all young friend is enough. I was Hell's Angel for 2 years. We were supposed to be tough. Not tough enough to take on a bus and win. No lack of elocution I can see. Good to have you back.
All the things that you mention is where modding is right now but it won't stay here. I think of modding as planet that is constantly evolving and in motion. Certain mods that are the first to innovate, like Ventmaster, are like a rocket headed for space that eventually fall back to the surface showing the rest of us how to do the same. Windows, blowholes, cable sleeving, and UV lighting all have influenced the mods we see today. You also see it in the products that manufacturers are now making. Some mods are so innovative or unique that they achieve orbit pulling the community strongly in one direction. Murdermods did that and we're seeing the momentum from that pull. I'm intrigued to see which mod pulls next and what the next direction is.
I should clarify mate., didn't need to buy any screws, all left over from CX1. About a quarter of the alu came from left over stuff from CX1. About a quarter of the alu came from stuffed up parts made for CX1. The thick plex is left over, the mesh is three years old, the heat sink was bought really cheap two years ago and put away. The small mesh piece on the front is from a six year old case. The fans were bought years ago for $4 each. The spinners (nose cones) bought out of a big box on sale. The hardware didn't cost me anything, courtesy of bit-tech. The heatsink fan is from a blown Antec PSU. The 2.5 inch storage drive has been sitting in my workshop for ages, can't remember what I bought it for or how much. But the hardware in CX1 was my every day PC that was bought in 2006. It's true that CX1 was a pretty expensive build, but that was mainly because I didn't know what I was doing and made some really bad design choices and some (a lot) huge mistakes.The pile of broken alu parts was larger than the case!
Ah, yeah, now that makes more sense. I was lucky like that with Heat Blast, most of the hardware came out of my misses PC which was less than a year old. The biggest out lay was the paint about £40 and the case £35 but looked like it had just come out of the box, the lighting and a few other bits totaled about £50. The next one will be from the ground up hence the price. Back to the Oops moments I love them, it shows that no one gets it dead right every time , I made 4 different front panels for Bulldogs box before going back to the original design just in a different colour. I didn't make them wrong I just really didn't have a clue which one to use, thats where the forum is so handy, 10 heads are better than one. I did have one BIG oops moment with it though when I blew the PSU to bits and to this day the tester that I was using has never turned up
Some interesting points. I guess back in the day modding cases added missing functionality, and the industry has picked up on this. For example, I've just purchased a corsair graphite case; this comes complete with all the necessary options to tidy away my wires and make a clean looking build, the drives are easy to get to etc. I do agree that a lot of the recent mods have become generic with their wrapped cables and stuff. Modding is becoming an exercise in shopping, and it's largely targeted at male consumers. It's kinda funny that people are building super water cooled computers to go on facebook or do some folding. Also the generic mod thing, it's cheap marketing for the industry, easy to give some one a board that cost like 30pence to make and get them to wrap the cables and get 200000 pairs of eyes all looking at the products than run a snazzy campaign. Marketeers are always looking for ways to get you to spend your money. Wrapping cables, adding hand veneered laser cut fan grills, putting lights inside a case, putting a window on, making the case levitate off the ground and whistle rule Britannia, building a coffee peculator front bezel are all totally not needed at all to make a computer function lol. There's millions of machines all working away around the world without any of these 'add-ons'.
I have a mod that I am going to spend time on this year, you guys can shout me down but seen's is freedom of speech on here I will say what I have to say. I am to damn scared to put the logs on here and rather show a finished product, because of all this negative stuff with modding. I firmly believe there should be two sections example 1x first time mods 1x pro mods or From scratch mods and case modding but hey that's just me and I at least got it off my chest
Well it's sad that you feel that way mate. I don't think anybody has to be afraid to post a project log on here and I can't see why you feel this way. Most people obey the golden rule of only commenting if they like what they see or have something positive to say. I say don't worry and post your mod up if you want to. I can see that there may be a use for a beginners mod section, this may help put some new modders at ease but some idiot can still jump in there and flame away.
I've had no negative feedback, just constructive points from other modders. Everyone here started somewhere, even Attila ! Whilst i agree that Scratch builds and Modded builds should be treated as 2 seperate animals, no-one is going to compare your build with another build. Scratch and Modded are already in seperate 'Title' catagories, the only point at which they should be treated seperately is in a 'judging' situation - Such as MOTY , where the 2 become non-comparable as history as shown with a 'simple' modded case not winning MOTY, over a Scratch build. Its your work, and something which i hope you will be proud of and want to share. Fellow modders have always helped me by pointing out things that i can't see, or could improve along the journey of modding a case. Without these extra pairs of eyes, i couldn't have achieved what i have. No-one comes here to be negative about peoples work, i come here to look at builds and take inspiration/ideas etc. to maybe use in some way in the future. Some of that inspiration comes from first-timers, new blood - new ideas. I hope to see your worklog soon mate
