Feedback for this project here: http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=98650 Hi there all modders!! I would now like to share a bit of modding with yall. This project is mainly about improving my Sunbeam plexi case. First of all its way to small for my needs i currently have seven harddrives and there is more to come so i need SPACE! The idea is to transform the rather small Sunbeam in to a 76cm fulltower with 13 internal 3,5 slots and redesign the totally useless mainboard fitting. And add some additional 80mm fans. Since this is my first real casebuild i hope i dont screw up heres a list of things to be done 1. To make new sides,front and back cover in 8mm acrylicsheet. and add 1 extra 80mm fan to both front and rear. 2. Make some kind of cover for the cd and fancontrollers so they wont be visible 3. Redesigning the mainboard fittig so that i dont have to remove the mainboard in order to remove the sidepanel 4.Adding a whole bunch of 3,5 slots and increasing the space between them (they are to tight together in the original case) for better airflow 5.to give the whole case abit of an evil look with some engraved demons here and there 6.Tidy up all those annoying cables here you can see the victim of this mod. http://galleri.sweclockers.com/galleri_visa.php?chassi_id=385 So now its time to start. The sheets of acrylicglass arrived as they should and i was kinda shocked when i saw how big the case would get. On paper 76cm didnt sound that big but IRL the case looks huge J I put the pieces together with some tape just to get a feel for the size of this beast. I started out with the front panel. I went out and got myself a adjustable holesaw that was supposed to be specially made for cutting plastics. I must say that i thought it looked a bit wierd but it worked amazingly good. And at 79:- sek it was a bargain J then some tape,measuring and drawing and im ready to go. Drilling,cutting,sanding,sweating! After about 2 hours of wery careful drilling,cutting and sanding this is what i got. I was quite happy with the way it turned out.
And then on to the back! Once again som tape,measuring and drawing was requiered And heres the Front and Back all done The sides was just a straigtforward saw job so ill go right on to some pictures of the case put together with som tape just to get a look at how things are coming along. And som shots of the details. And now on to the bits for the harddrives and cd. to get 13 harddrives mounted there needed to be A LOT of holes it took a while to measure and draw the lines for all those hd monts but what can ya do J OMFG!! 192 holes to drill !!! After all that drilling on to some sanding Now the hour was late and i couldnt use powertools because the neighbours would go nuts so i started to sketch a bit on the artwork this will be engraved into the sides and front of the case. All motives will be filled in with transparent uv sesitive paint so when i switch on my ccd the demons will glow When i was happy with how the sides looked i had to assemble the case once more just to get a good look at how it would look. Thats one Evil case duude!! After a couple hours with my trusty friend Mr Dremel i managed to get the demon done. And here it is (added a couple of red leds to make it more evil J ) and after a few more hours of constant engraving the dremel left my arm feeling like spagetti but when i firered up those red leds and saw the result the pain seemed to go away I still have some edges to finish of and some fiting of the bits that are done. I will also add some shading to both sides later on to bring out the details a bit more. As i was sitting down today with a cup of coffe i noticed that all those holes in the drive bay sides (196 of them) were not wery nice to look at . So i began thinking of a way to get rid of them and all the screwheads that would be sticking out later when the drives were mounted. I looked over to the big pile of plexi pieces that were thrown in a corner and all of a sudden it hit me why not make a few plexibars to hide both the holes and screws for the drives. So i grabbed the jigsaw and went to work! After about an hour of cutting sanding and painting this is what i came up with. I made them of the same 8mm plexi that ive been using all along and painted the backsides black. And finally a layed them out where they evetually will be mounted . I will use some small spacers to make enough room for the screwheads. The bars will be monted with two brass screws in each bar.
i think the result came out really nice and with som UV paint on the edges later on they will glow to This was a really simple sollution but very effective. And heres a closeup. Sorry for all the dust and crap on the glass but it is work in progress Im not sure about the wingnuts i will try a few other types of bolts to see what looks best. But the wingnuts are kinda cool so i might just keep them but ill probably paint them black. I finally got the case assembeled with top and bottom this was a bit nervous because ya never now if everytings gonna fit properly. but thank god it DID all the pieces came together perfectly. In order to get it all together i had to move all the stuff out of my old sunbeam and in to another old case i had lying around (custom paintjob by me for the kids) And heres some pics of the case were everyting is in place (exept the mainboardplate that will go in tomorrow) One of my cats wanted to be in the picture to If all goes well the case should be done tomorrow night then its on to those evil cables. and i have to mention the case now weighs 13kg and thats EMPTY this one wont be easy on the back. OMG IVE CREATED A MONSTER
Finished the Mainboard mountingplate. My original thought was simply to hav a square plexiplate to mount the mainboard on but as i thought about it that seemed to be a bit on the ordinary side so i came up with the idea of a shaped plate i used the rightside panel from my old Sunbeam case as it already had the fittings for the mainboard. I had previously engraved a demon on the side and thought it would be a waste not to use it so i did First i marked out the size that i needed and found that the demon was sticking out all over the place so i decided to cut along the outline of it. And since i had a brand new can of transparent uv color i just had to go nuts with it And this is what it will look like with the Uv ccd turned on. ive been working on a drivecage and a fan controller the last few days and here are the result of my sweat First i saw that there was way to much space between the top of the case and the psu so i decided to add 5 3,5 slots for a grand total of 18!!! and this is what it looks like. Then i had a go at my two fancontrollers i had one 6 channel and one 4 channel but i felt that it wouldnt look right with storebought controllers so i made a plexi box to house them. this box will also hide the drivers for my UV ccd and alot of other cables that doesnt need to be visible. Heres some pics of the fanbus in place. Now on to the powercables for the drives. I will be using a junctionbox from witch 8 powercables will go out to my drives. This is idea was inspiered by G-gnomes moster case (he has such great ideas that little gnome ) this is what i had to start with. Some blue wire and som Silicone tubing and a bunch of hmm Tubeholder thingys (have no idea what you call them in english ) I used the casing for my old fancontroller as the base for the junctionbox Im quite happy with the cables i changed the original wires to all blue ones that will go nicely with the blue uv light. I have solved the molex problem. I used (dont know what you call it in english) a kind of tape that fuses together to form a single rubber seal, the kind you use to fix a leaking pipe with. I think the result is good enough for me. Since this is a extremly low budget build i have to recycle as many parts as i can to keep the cost down. Ive alreadey ordered Diodes,uv ccd,ide cables,fangrills,4x20Lcd and more plexi and that is as far as my budget reach. So its all recyceling and building what i need from the pile of parts i have lying around. Heres a picture of the junctionbox with the cables for the drives,psu and fancontroller. Heres a little picture of my 10channel fancontroller And ofcourse a nightshot on the back of the contoller ive used 5mm silicone tubing for the fancables you can also see the cable that is comming from the junctionbox.
I took a break and filled the demon engraving with transparent uv paint to make it glow a bit more. In daytime it looks just like a straight forward etching. But when night falls The Demon awakens!!! mouhahahaaaaa finished yet another small part of my mod now. The tubes that contain the powercables for my fans needed to be fastened. I cut a 1,5cm plexi strip and went to work on it. After some drilling and sanding i covered the edges with some hobby clearcoat and this is what i came up with. Theese will work nice to keep the cables separated and going exactly where i want them. Heres another picture of the cable separators in action Now it was time for the first nerv wrecking test of the junctionbox. Ive connected tons of cables and only one needs to be wrong to kill a drive. :/ But i was lucky it all worked fine. Now its time to design a front for the case. First i needed a piece of plexi Then after some drawing i grabbed the old dremel and went to work OMG the amount of dust!! After almost seven hours of contant dremel action this is the result. I added som color and heres some shots of the final result And ofcourse the nightshots, my camera doesnt like the dark very much so youll have to excuse the poor quality. The pics gives some idea of how the beast glows This is how the case looks today. Hope you enjoyed reading my log as much as i enjoyed making it. So for now its over and out from me. Feedback thread here.. http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?p=1071245#post1071245
Project: Blacklight Demons The Worklog http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=98649 post your comments here plz
Damn dude, that's some pretty awesome stuff. I admit to not being a fan of acrylic cases, but this looks fantastic. The black accents over the screws and the little things, like the shape of the mobo plate really make this thing beautiful. Great work
since i finished the case ive done a remake of the pentagram etching and i scrapped the demon side and made a completely new one ande here are the pictures I didnt feel that the pentagram was quite good enough so i decided to give it a bit more details. First i got rid of the rather crappy looking skull by just simply frosting him out And after that was done the Demon just didnt look right anymore so i made this replacement side for the case Feedback http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=98650
Very well done. Why didn't you go for a more custom styled case format as you were fabricating it yourself? <A88>
That question has a really good answer This was my first ever fully custom casebuild and i had no idea what i was doing. I had never worked with acrylic on this scale and i really didnt know if i was going to pull it off. The purpose from the beginning was just to make my Sunbeam case hold a few more drives but i kinda went berzerk and added more stuff while learning
