Case Mod - In Progress Project: miXture, rebooted

Nice to see this ain't dead

 

Cool idea's

 

Update

Slowly but steady I'm working towards building the new side panel. This is gonna be one hell of a job, but we'll see how it goes. For now, I need to remove some more plastic from the old side panel:





A few rough cuts with the Dremel left me with this:



At this moment I forgot to make a few pictures, but the end result isn't very much different from the picture above. I did still make a hole to bolt the plastic to the case.

But before I can mount a new panel, the case needs a few more mounting points. I am using these two pieces of angle aluminium that were laying around, as was everything I've used so far. The sizes are different but that doesn't matter:



After an hour of cutting, drilling, measuring, drilling, fitting and bending, this is the result



Like a glove







The strip at the top was a little easier, because there's no bend in it. So I was able to mount it after just a little work. To mount it at the right place the first time, I took a scrap piece of acrylic that automatically gives me the right angle of the side panel:



For that I used a few pieces of double sided tape:



Four drilled and tapped holes later, I am able to mount it to the case. Now it looks like a side panel can me mounted to the case





I know the angle bars don't have the exact angle of the side panel, but I will be working on that in the future. Also, I don't know how precise I have to make everything to be able to mount the side panel properly, still have to figure out that part.

This is it for now. This is the work I've done in the last few days. I want to update this log at least every week to keep everything going, and hopefully there won't be a lot of work left at the end of the contest period. Fingers crossed, and see you next time

 

Dude, amazing as always! Sorry if my reservoirs kept you from working on this baby!
Destroy and rebuild, great fun to watch!
Kutgw!
*Edit - sub'd natuurlijk!

 

I'm glad the CM contest came along and re-booted this project. Now that you are adding parts, it looks much more promising.

 

Thanks guys I have to agree that it is starting to look like something that might actually work in the near future.

 

CM sucks. I'll never buy ANY of their products. They told me to deface one of their own beautiful cases to enter last year's contest.

Munky Nuts!

Lost me as a customer.

/rant over.

john

 

Update

The (still unknown type) GPU will be watercooled in this pc. To do that, I will be using this old radiator I had lying around. The white residue appeared during high temperature testing, it's probably water scale. As you can see, a few sheets of white paper do wonders for a clear image.



I will sacrifice the bottom three bays for the radiator:



Once again, I will be using 2mm aluminium for constructing the radiator holder:



Just to make sure the holes were drilled well, which was the case fortunately



This is what the plate looks like after bending, drilling mounting holes and cutting out slots for other parts of the case. Removing the protective foil is always nice



This is what it looks like after putting it in the case:





For now, this is the complete assembly, of course the fan is still missing. If the aluminium is still visible through the front, I will be painting it black or white in the future



These two colors make it really easy to go to the next part, the reservoir. The other seven bays will be used by my very own production reservoir, Liquitwist Orders can be placed from now on, see my website http://brinkofmodding.com for all the details

 

That is a seriously brilliant-looking res.

 

agreed res looks stunning good work dude

 

Agreed- awesome res! Yet the whole thing is mind shattering- half a cosmos S!

 

Update!

Yesterday was the day I started building the new side panel. I will be using an old 8mm thick sheet of Lexan. The protective foil was severely damaged, so I didn't want to sell it anymore. You never know how damaged the actual sheet is when the foil is damaged. This is the better side of the sheet



The first thing to do was to remove the protective backing. The design is so complicated that I can't work with the non-see-through foil. Fortunately the sheet didn't have a lot of scratches, very few actually. I put it on the case to draw some rough cutting line:



The first cut:



Second cut:



This is how it should work in the near future



Before cutting the second part, I needed to adjust my jigsaw to cut under an angle of about 20 degrees. Fortunately, this jigsaw lets me do just that:



The second part is cut and filed to shape:





The third sheet is the hardest, since we've cut off a little too much of the plastic side. I will have to fill that gap later on. This is the shape for now:





And to finish off, a nice overview picture. It starts to look really good I have to say





There are a few problems that I have to solve. I need to join the three panels of Lexan together. Metals plates will be used on the back, but I have to fill the gaps with some plastic kit or glue. Bondo will not work, that will crack due to the flexibility of the panels. I could still use some tips on how to solve this issue.

The other problem I have is that the top of the case was also cut a few mm wrong. One possibility is to buy a new top panel, but Cooler Master doesn't sell it in the shop anymore. The other option is to bolt some aluminum plate to the Lexan to fill the gap, since the gap is about 2mm wide across the whole top.

What I will do next time is unknown. I wanted to work on the side panels some more, but I may have to finish the radiator and reservoir assemblies first. You'll see

 

You could also create an aluminum frame to mount the lexan in, that way you wouldn't have to bond it. It would also give you space to wire some LEDs in to illuminate the side panel.

 

I am a greenleaf when it comes to modding but I do believe there are H-profiles of lexan and or plexi. it can then be easily be welded then.
Just not to sure if they will be bendable with a little heat to form your corners needed.

Downfall I think that it will be a frame that still does show gaps. specially if they only come in clear.

But again I am very green on modding. I am still doing research for a scratch build that is in my head.

 

I'll have to bond it anyway, because the cuts aren't 100% straight.

Thanks for the tip, they do exist indeed. The weird angles and the bulky shape of those profiles makes me not want to use them. My plan still is to make the panels into one big flush panel, and that's hard. They are not going to stay clear by the way. I got some pointers on which glues to use, so I'll be searching and testing those

 

I think this is a really cool idea. Sorry I don't have anything more constructive to say but it looks great so far and you've got my attention.

 

I'm happy with just that comment

Update

Maybe the new shape of the new side panel wasn't clear yet, with the case laying down. So I put it back on its feet. This went well for a few minutes, but then the tape broke



Before I will continue with the side panel, I have to have a better view of what the inside will look like. In this update, I will show you how I made two compartments, one for the radiator and one for the reservoir. It all starts with this sheet of 5mm white acrylic I had left:



I cut it under an angle of 45 degrees to make it flush with the case





To be able to mount the side panels, some more material had to be cut off. This picture also shows the second part I cut and bolted to the case:







I need a strict separation between the two chambers, so the air of the radiator will not pass through the whole case. To determine the shape of this part, I made a cardboard model first:







To mount the big plate in the case, I used two captive nuts that were attached to the bottom of the case. These will soon appear on my website, because they are so nice to work with Otherwise I would have needed to tap a thread in 1mm aluminum, of use a normal nut, which is no ideal solution.



All of these parts will be mounted with black hex bolts, they will be replaced by countersunk ones later on. You probably won't be able to look into the radiator compartment, but I will paint the angle profile black anyway





And then the moment was finally there, I could mount my Liquitwist reservoir







The reservoir will be visible from both the side as from the front. I will be using the standard front plates (and still need two more), but I still have to choose if I'll use the plates with or without the fine mesh:







Through the focus of the camera, I can't really compare the result with these photos, but I'll just decide later on I hope you're liking the results so far, but more will come

 

Love the asymmetric feel of the case its different playful and looking sharp.
Love the res you made as well and its giving me some ideas to incorporate into the planning of a future build.
And from what i see in your pictures the one with out the dust filter makes the looks less grayish.

 

Update

The side panel will be painted white, once the three parts have been joined together. All that white needs a black fan grill This hole will serve as an intake for the radiator. The outtake will be in the front, so the dust will not get stuck in the front mesh. I will be using a Nexus Beamair, which was designed to improve airflow on fans. No fan will be mounted to it this time, but I finally found a nice purpose for it:





The nice thing about 8mm Lexan is that you will have to spend a lot of time on filing if your cuts aren't perfect On this picture it needed no support, but it didn't quite fit yet:



A little while later:





It's almost flush with the front of the Lexan, I'll make sure it is in the final product







To prevent a clogged radiator, I will make a dust filter for it. And as any woman would say, layers do the trick This assembly now has a layer of Lexan, a layer of Beamair, Hexx mesh and a finer mesh



All of it is mounted with four M3 bolts, with threaded holes in the Lexan. The holes are blind, so they won't be visible from the outside





See you guys next time

 

Update

I want to have two fillports at the top, one for the water going in and one for the outgoing air. There's only one problem, there is not enough space to use a standard fillport or a weird construction with fittings. So I went for my standard solution: "When everything else fails, build something out of 20mm acrylic"

First up, a 1:1 scale sketch of the piece, with the same 42 degree angle as the big white sheet:



Next step: cutting a chunk out of the big sheet of 20mm acrylic. I had to cut it by hand to prevent it from melting. The holes were drilled with a 12mm drill, in one time. To make sure it wouldn't crack I clamped it in multiple ways and I had to cool it repeatedly. The holes were threaded with a G1/4" tap:







The plan was to not drill the holes completely through, but I had to do that so I could tap them. The result is that I need to put in even more stops. This is how the complete assembly will look



At the case, it should look something like this is the near future. I will cut a hole in the top of the case for the two fill ports. When in use, I will only have to slide off the top of the Cosmos to reach the fill port:





It ain't much this time, maybe more next time