Case Mod - In Progress COMPLETED - Raised from the dead Mod ( 2nd in the June MOTM )

Hi guys,

my build has been going on now for 3 good months, i can say if only took 10 days off and the rest is done daily as much as i can manage usually in the late hours when the wife and kid are a sleep


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So this is how it started 6 months ago was a very exciting ride, id love for anybody who has not seen or read the thread to check it all out, i know its a long one but you wont regret it, as so many people have not

but if your just to eager to want to see the final product bellow is the link to the final pictures, but I'd really urge you to read and check out the entire thread

http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?p=3859091&posted=1#post3859091
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I see that the Bittech community is really a great one, seen some really really good mods here and would like to join the community and show of my latest mod called " Raised from the dead"

I have a really extensive build log on another forum, you can see the link bellow, its already on 34 pages and almost 1400 pictures, so would be a real big job, re-doing it all over again here. Going to sum up what is the concept and what i have done till now, and continue the log also here.

http://www.overclock.net/t/1536880/build-log-raised-from-the-dead

The idea behind my mod was to take some old cases i had and one that i got free online and stack them one on top of each other, so that the bottom case will be a cooler box for the top case. To use up some really old water cooling parts i have laying around. But i would spice up the old radiator i had and a used pump and rez combo and a old CPU block with some custom acrylic water paths and some hard tubing. The uniqueness of the hole loop is that its made up of pieces that just don't fit together and in the loop there will be 10mm and 12mm tubing, custom acrylic water paths and 10mm hard tubing.

along side all of that the main features of the build is

- Uniquely designed interior of the top case
- Tilted HDD/SSD trays
- Top mounted Spotlight LED, shining on a 3D S7 logo
- Custom painted fans
- Custom painted RAM heat sinks
- Custom painted GPU
- Custom CPU block acrylic top
- Custom made acrylic LED GPU back plate
- Custom painted fan controller
- Uniquely position optical drive (yet to be made)
- Custom made power cable
- Custom cable sleeving
- White and orange color scheme all around
- and much more that you can check out for your self's


Just to give a taste of where i started and were i am bellow is a selection of pictures. Its really hard to select a bunch from almost 1400 pictures, but lets try

 

DAILY UPDATE



Got me some material for making the frame for the outer shell of the cooler box, got a straight a angled beams ( or what do you call them ) and a tube that ill cut up to make spacers between the layers.



started of my measuring the top straight beam to drill 4 holes that will have screws going into the side of the case that will give the most stability to the frame. Ill do also the bottom in the same manner but with the angled beam to give it more stability. I preaty much have the concept of the frame in my head, but want to make a sketchup model of it, just to be sure i got all the things right, as these beams are not cheep and dont want to buy more then i would need











so a quick update for today, will try to do some sketchup's now, and will try to post them up today, if not tomorrow as it already midnight

 

DAILY UPDATE


Today was more of a thinking day and designing in sketchup. Im actually doing this build just from my head and this is some first sketchup models that i made, so that also all of you can see what i have planed till the end and how this mod will turn out
First some real life images

got the handle for for the cooler box top cover, it is a bit bigger that i would have like ti to be but i think this one will also do well, just need to get some 5mm screws to fix it in




here you can see the partially made side panel, still lots of holes to be drilled. Also need to make the frame first. Tomorrow ill but the rest of the material that i need for it and will do more work when i have all the pieces.










seems ill have to do another filler job on the top cooler cover, but still have to measure out the hole for the radiator intake, so this indent could be even cut out or im thinking of placing same flat trims like on the sides on top so i may end up covering up the indent, will see, if not will take out the filler out again




here are the 3D models of the cooler box frame and building process till the final design i have now in my mind. If i get any good ideas ill change something up, but im quite happy with this design.


This is the frame that will give the most of the stability for all of the panels


The panels will have flat trim on top and on the bottom, and L brackets on the corners for extra strength


All of that will be screwed together, the L brackets will hold only the sheets in the corners, but the rest of the screws will be longer and will hold the flat trim the mesh and the panel.










Will paint the trim peaces in orange and the panels will be white



Will add mesh on the top and on the bottom, and on the bottom also the feet will be mounted to the corners of the case







And the final design of the cooler box should look like this

 

DAILY UPDATE


Yesterday got the rest of the material for the frame, and today was the time to start cracking at it




again not very much pictures for the amount of time spent working on this, lots of hols to be drilled...
Started of by chopping of the L bracket into the correct lengths and forming the square bottom structure, but later on decided to turn the brackets over and used the longer side to hold the panels and the shorter edge as the bottom one, that will be riveted toughener








marked up the 2 missing holes on the side panel trim, all the 6 screws at top and 6 at the bottom will carry the frame. The panel on the left side will be the same, the front and back panels will not be doing much of the carrying as the case has lot of holes just where the screws will go,






after i had the hole template made, i started to drill out the other holes on the L brackets, trims and panels, as that was quite tricky and the bottom peace always tried to run away made some jigs to help me drill straight holes.












And after a few hours of messing around i got the left and right panel made and their L bracket's, so tomorrow will do the front and back panel, and drill holes in the case to see how this will mount on.









as i was writing this log i got a idea why not put acrylic behind all the trim and light it up with some LED's, to have the cooler box glow

 

DAILY UPDATE


Today more of the same, drill drill drill

started work on the front panel, and first of all had to cut out the hole for the OCN logo








I plan to make a "tunnel" from the front panel to the OCN logo, something to fill up the gap between the metal sheets. Will make it from foam PVC and just glue it together. Also will buy a cm wide flat trim to put around the cut out i made on the front panel.




Drilled out the top and bottom trims and also then drilled the same hols in the L bracket, but this is where i made a small mistake. The L brackets will be riveted on on top of another and the top and the back will have their L bracket placed 1 mm higher the the sides, so i did not calculate in the mm and the holes were off, also when i drilled the holes the side to side alignment was of and i did not notice that till the end. So had some extra work, that took some time. So ill have to do the back sheet tomorrow as its already very late in the night.










In the end every thing turned out OK, Looking forward to tomorrow when ill be going to make the corner joints and then i will finally get to see the full dimensions of this cooler box

 

DAILY UPDATE

Today was a very productive day, but was because i got my father in law back into action smile.gif i called him to help me out to give me a hand with all the hole drilling and all the alignments and everything, as this frame is really a 2 man job. Maybe i could have done it by my self but it would take me so much time, we did spend well over 4 hours doing this today, practically working non stop. But at the end it did pay of as you'll see


well again pretty much more of the same as like the last two daily updates, we started on the back panel that has the bottom L bracket sitting on the L brackets of the lest and the right and the L bracket holes have to be lifter 1,5mm from the bottom so that in the end all of the tops are flush, and also the sheet it self is a bit shorter then it was supposed to be. The metal guy cut it a bit short, but it will work








Then we got on to drilling the sheets that will go on the case i self and used the outer sheets as template. The front, back and left panel








The right panel i do not need as this is the top of the case and it has a nice and firm top panel, we drilled it out






and this is now the first real look of my design idea, just missing the spacers.









After admiring that for a few minutes we cracked on to drilling the rest of the case sides, using the sheets a templates.






Here is where we ran into unforeseen problems that could have been predicted. The case has a double shallow bottom and the bottom screws went right smack in the middle of that bottom. You can see here that we actually drilled a mm thick bottom right in half. If that is not precision drilling then i don't know what is







you can see (barely) see the thickens of this bottom that we drilled into - some of today pictures are not so good as we worked fast and was not much time for taking pictures.





As we drilled in the center we could not secure the bolts at the back so we marked out the sections where we needed to cut out, so it would have space to fit the bolt in. With that we had to take the case apart. The case is actually made of 2 peaces and it is a very well made case very string built.






We cut out the holes and put the case back together, the work almost stopped here as we were not sure if we had any 3mm rivets. By luck my father in law had left over 10 x 3mm rivets and save the day that we could continue the work.

















We started to assemble the frame and sides so we could determine now the final distance from the the layers and make the spacers.
3 cm is the spacer dimension as the sheets, trim and the mesh give it the extra 5mm so 3.5 cm in total. That will be just up to the end of the pointy sides of the top case. We went to cut up the spacers from a 8mm hollow rod, as i only bought one we did what we could, and need to buy one more tomorrow.








We did all this in the afternoon and we called it a day, but i just could not resist my self to go and put on the spacers to see at lest for the front panel looks like

The spacers really are looking good





installed them and tightened up the screws so it all firm and it its more or less final position














When i put the mesh on this gap will be filled up. And this was exactly what i was looking to achieve, with this extension that the top case has some closure to it and not just hang off the side

 

DAILY UPDATE


Was a busy day and did not have much time to work on the mod and also i see that it not good going to mod when your tired as you just make mistakes, like i did today... nothing mayor but any ways....



-Cutting the mesh for the space between the sheets

can any one spot my mistake here already


i need a 5 cm strip of mesh to go around the cooler box i taped up the distance as the tape is 5cm wide and went on happily cutting away. section by section.












as the shape of the can is more of a cone of course the strips will not be straight, but i did not think of that before.








I should have cut the can at the top and bottom, cut it in half, lay it down flat and measured out the strips i need and cut them out, and would have nice straight strips....

anyway i can try an fiddle around with these as they may fit if i overlap them in the corners correctly, but luckily i found again 2 "used" exact same cans for a pretty good price and will probably buy them and make the strips again so they will be straight.

I can still use these peaces for covering the gap at the bottom, there it will not need to look perfect as it will need to look at the top, so they will not go to waste.


-Slot loaded DVD drive

Today it arrived, the slot loaded laptop DVD drive. Tomorrow im going to get some U brackets to make a stand for the drive. Ill put the drive down into the cooler box facing up at the bottom of the top case and will just cut a hole with a angle grinder to make a slit big enough so that a disk can be inserted in. Ill place it few cm above the fan controller. So this will be another part of a PC that is usually on the out side being placed inside the case love the vice versa thing that im doing here




also need to get a mini SATA power connector or a combined mini data and power connector, so i can hook it up

 

DAILY UPDATE


its a busy real life week this one and manage to do just a bit of work today, and figured out the DVD drive mount.

-DVD drive frame

Bought a 16mm U bracket for the DVD drive that is 13mm wide. so will get a 13mm one tomorrow and use both of them to create the frame to hold the drive, also got the little 90 degree brackets to i can fix the frame to the top and the bottom, more on this tomorrow. I also found a cheep mini SATA connector and will get it tomorrow by post, i found it sooner then i expected it







-Bottom spacers

also managed to cut up the spacers for the bottom row of screws where the L bracket is 1,5mm thick and the spacers need to be that bit shorter then the top ones.


Put the bottom spacers in a separate tray and also marked them so i don't mix them up with the top ones.











Need to cut of the excess trim strips so i can assemble the frame construction, also ill need to cut of a few mm of the side panel sheets as the off set is not 3.5 mm as planed but a its now 3.2mm and the sheets are hitting into each other.

 

DAILY UPDATE

Had to re-do some things today but at least going in the good direction


-DVD drive


Bought the 13mm U bracket, but did not bother with the DVD drive mount today, wanted to test it out if it works as the mini SATA cable also arrived today.


so i quickly setup the system on the GPU box and hooked up the DVD drive, it work's like a charm








Also did a quick video of it and here is the Instagram link to ithttps://igcdn-videos-b-12-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xaf1/t50.2886-16/11214928_1670321093197312_1683516148_n.mp4

I still can not get over how good the GPU looks biggrin.gif it been in a box for some time and it really nice to see it again.

Now im thinking it will be a shame that the GPU will be in its classic position on the mobo, i could have used a raiser and lower it down to the bottom of the case so it can be seen at all time, but im not sure if i have the space for it, will see tomorrow.





- Building the frame


despite i got the material to make the DVD drive mount i decided first thing now is finishing the outer frame.


First off i cut down the flat trim peaces so they dont stick out of the sheets





But one i got to screwing down the bottom screws i saw that we made too small of a hole in the case to be able to put the bolt in and screw it up quickly and with no hassle, and also some holes were not deep enough as first dimension was 3.5 cm of offset now will be only 3cm offset and the screw is hitting the insides


So had to de rivet the case again and re cut the holes









that took its time and patience and now i have tested out the holes before i riveted the case back up smile.gif



Now you see how the offset dimension change effected the length of the L brackets. Tomorrow ill measure up where i will need to cut them so they will fit nicely and also will have to grind down the our sheets so they will be the same dimensions as the L bracket. Once that's done, will cut out the L brackets for the corners and then cut the trim peaces down to the correct length to fit nicely to the corner L bracket.

 

My internet connection is dead for the 2nd day, so a update from yesterday that i did only on one forum and a short update from today, hope that the internet will work tomorrow so i can post thing normally



Despite getting my head now cough up in the GPU i need to sort out the cooler box first, i can not jump from one end to another now, have to stay focused. I am thinking about the GPU all the time thou

here is just the final result of today's work, cut the L brackets and the sheets to size so they all nos fit all the way around, and on the edges ill put a wider L bracket to cover up the open ends and to make it look nice, will do a proper update tomorrow hope when the internet will be hopefully working again







And today's update



so today also a very short update and also did not mange to do much came home pretty late, and now this part of the frame build is very fiddly. All the fine tuning and putting in the bolts and taking them putting them back in measuring. And trying to figure a way to best drill holes in the L brackets



cut the L bracket for the corners and mounted the top trims and the screws nearest to the corners to get the most accurate position to mount the L brackets to the sheets to tie them together.

today my connection is so bad i managed to upload only one pic

 

DAILY UPDATE


Finally back on line and can show you guys what you have missed in the last 2 days. Also would like to invite you guys to check out my Instagram https://instagram.com/s7design/as i post up pictures as im working on the mod so you can see the freshet update


2 days ago

-Finishing up the frame


measured and cut down the L brackets so they fit to each other, and the bottom frame was done. But seeing how well the spacers hold both sheets down maybe the L bracket was not needed, but it will give that straight look to the metal sheet. If there were only spacers it could have looked wavy.












Once i had the length of the L brackets correct i marked of that with on the metal sheets as well, and grounded them down to size








and started to assemble the sheets to get a better idea of how it all fits, and at the end got out the L brackets to join up the corners, and to give them a good looking finish.














Yesterday


Marked of the L bracket and cut off 4 peaces of the big peace.










after that i had to but on the top trim peaces, but that is easier said then done, there is so much time consuming screwing involved in change you want to make. so had to take 4 screws out per side and but the trim on, so i would have the exact height of the trim and to match that with the corner brackets








Today

was in the capital city and a few days before i found online some more victims i mean used mesh trash cans And these 2 are a bit bigger then the 2 i have, so that means even more mesh It seems you can never have enough mesh Also bought some more white and orange paracord as i did not have enough, from the first order i made on line at that store.


This time im gonna cut them open and then cut out straight peaces




Today i started to make the holes in the corner brackets, measuring and drilling the first one








drilled also the metal sheet and test fitted the first one. 2 things are still needed to be solved here. One is the bottom hole, ill make that in the end, when i know i have everything square and also then i have the final height. Ill need to cut down the brackets for 1-2 mm. So i now lined up the tops of both sheets and the bracket is holding that level for me to go tomorrow onto the next corner. The other thing is more easily solved, the screws are to long so will have to cut them down so they don't interfere with each other









Then i drilled out the other 3 brackets so i have all ready for tomorrow. Also today i had to fine tune the L bracket frame and had to take out several screws again. This screwing and unscrewing has gotten really old really fast but whit out that i cant make it look nice

 

DAILY UPDATE


yesterday after a day of much fun in the sun, took the night of to rest a bit, but back to business today, and to the assembly of the frame.


First of all measured out the length of the L bracket, where ill need to cut the top trim off, and measured where the holes will be so i cut some where in between. Dont still want to cut the trim peace down as i need to get the corner pieces nice and straight






My next objective will be to cut down the screws, as now im using 16mm screws as the store has no shorter black screws, so they are sticking out rather ugly at the moment.








did cut one screw down to 10mm so that the other screw can pas on by and i can secure it to the frame for the drilling of other holes









Ill have to take a few minutes tomorrow and cut down 24 screws to 10mm, so i can tighten then all of them down and get the exact position of the corner brackets



repeated all of above on corner number 3, not much to write about now as all is same repetitive work, on these corner brackets and on the whole frame in general













But non the less 3 corners are already made and flush with the top of the panels. The few mm that the corner brackets are too long ill mark out tomorrow and cut on the saw. Then ill mark out the bottom screw hole, drill them and the sheets. then ill fine tune their positions square up the brackets, and then ill mark off the top and bottom trim to cut it down just to the corner brackets to have them all in one level.

But non the less 3 corners are already made and flush with the top of the panels. The few mm that the corner brackets are too long ill mark out tomorrow and cut on the saw. Then ill mark out the bottom screw hole, drill them and the sheets. then ill fine tune their positions square up the brackets, and then ill mark off the top and bottom trim to cut it down just to the corner brackets to have them all in one level.

 

DAILY UPDATE


getting ready to do the 4th corner bracket. Cut the trim down a bit and drilling out the holes. There will be still lots of fine tuning as when i cut down the top trim peaces the whole corner bracket will lay flat on the sheets, but that will mean that there will be also new positions of the holes. Every thing will move for 1,5mm in each direction. That will not cause much problems as ill just drill out a bigger hole to the the maneuvering room to line everything up.The biggest challenge will be to cut the flat trim peaces down to the exact size so it fits just up to the corner bracket. Once i make that im golden, then only to cut out the mesh.










Before going on with anything else regarding the corner brackets had to cut down the screws




ended up taking a bit more time the i imagined it would, and also i tested each one that the thread is still usable, as a few of them had to be grinded down a bit more, as the bolt did not want to go on.




finished up here for today, got all 4 corners, got the screws done, and tomorrow ill take the first plunge and cut down one of the trim peaces down to size

 

DAILY UPDATE


for a hours work i have to show 4 pictures
There is so much screwing and unscrewing involved here that it's getting a bit ridiculous, every thing i want to test fit and then cut and then see what i did i have to take out 2-4 screws and in most cases also un tighten the bolt and also but the spacer in between, so progress is rather slow but its getting there.


Started on marking out where to cut the top trim. Ill do the top first then drill the third hole in the corner brackets and then to the bottom trim. With that i hope to get the it as square as possible.



Brought the circular saw up to my S7 HQ so i would not need to walk to the other place where it was before and loose even more time. And now the cutting is based on millimeter precision, as if i cut to much ill have a gap in between and it will look ugly. The first cut came out perfect




then went on to the other side of the bracket and also that one fits like a glove. You can see the right panel sticking out a bit, so i will have to grind it down a bit. But see now how much time ill lose just to take it and put it back on, i have to take off 6 screws and then screw them back up again... so you see why my progress has been so freaking slow




wanted to move to the back corner but i found there some aliment problem when i screwed all the screws is and did not even want to bother taking it apart at this late hour in the night, have to grind down the brackets a bit so they are not hitting each other when all it tightened.


With that i wen back to the front panel, as the left corner is perfectly aligned and i just cut down the trim on the front and called it a day. Did 3 out of the 8 cuts not so bad, and all 3 very perfect

 

DAILY UPDATE


managed to get some work done today and to solve the alignment issue at the back


Resumed work on the left corners left panel trim, measured out the length and got the perfect fit and so the 2nd corner was done








moved on to the 3rd corner to the left and back one. repeated all the usual step, to get it done, just did not take the final picture when it was all aligned





took apart the whole back section, to see how the edge of the case cover was making life difficult for me. The bent peace was giving me a additional 1-2mm of length and messing up the alignment. So rather then cutting down spacers decided to cut the edge away and to be left with the shear and flat back of the case.




Also cut down the L bracket for a few mm at it was hitting the L bracket on the right side, also cut down the trims for easier preparation of the corners





Off went the edge




now i was left with a nice flat surface for mounting the sheets on. Also was a bit worried now that i cut away the edge that the case cover will move around as now it will be riveted only on 2 places on the top, and im thinking when i screw the legs in place that i drill a hole throw the case cover and as well as the bottom of the case and screw them both together. That will for sure hold everything in place.





the left side of the back needs to be grinded down by a few mm as its sticking over the left plate




and the right side is now even better aligned then before, the gap in the middle is irrelevant as it will be hidden with the corner bracket

 

DAILY UPDATE

Well after a few day of being sick got back to 90% and did some modding, but in the night time got some other issues and could not do a night session of modding

Mange to get some work done in the after noon and that's regarding the back and the right side trim. Had to grind down a bit of the back plate so it did not push the corner bracket out. Once i did that cut down the back trim to size



then off to the right side, first to measure the cut, and then presto smile.gif the whole way round is done







I had planed for my night session to drill out the 3rd holes in the corner brackets, fine drill the corner bracket holes, as some are not not aligned correctly, and start work on the bottom trim, but this will be now postponed till tomorrow

 

Welcome to bit-tech. 1400 pictures is a lot, maybe too many and it could be beneficial to be more concise. When presented with a lot of shots of the same stuff, folk will more than likely just skip by because nothing stands out and catches the eye. Your last post for example; the three images more or less tell exactly the same story, - white panel, some black screws and a green pen.

 

yes i know there last updates are more of the same and same and same and same and same, believe you me, no one is more fed up with the panel, black screws and green pen then me this frame has taken so much longer than i imagined. Also did not have much time to mod in this time period and doing what little u could, and posted my progress to stay true to my daily updates as i could. Will have this frame sorted out in the next days or two and then go to the finishing stages of the build

 

DAILY UPDATE


feeling abetter and had a bit of time and continued on the corner brackets. Needed to drill out the 3rd holes and try to align the them all to be square.


started of by marking out the position of the last hole and drilling it out, and then using this piece as a template to drill out all the rest of the corner brackets. You can see on the board how many holes i have already drilled for this frame







Clamped them together and drilled out the holes on both sides




ended up with 4 brackets good to go




was already rather late and messed around also with instagram 500 followers thank you picture that i had to call it a day.





quickly mounted all the pieces on one side to finally see one side of the frame done! Tomorrow ill snap into a higher gear and get done the bottom trim, and to cut up the mesh as well

 

DAILY UPDATE



Today i had some more time to work on the mod, as the wife and kid went for a visit and i had all the time in the world, with that i did good 4 hours of work today, with fine tuning all the holes and squaring up the corner brackets, took only a few pictures of the finished corners, as i did not want to mess around today, wanted to stay focused on the job at hand to line up every thing today.


And succeeded so, now the top line is flush all around and the corner brackets are square, every thing is now ready for the bottom trim to be cut down to size. After that ill cut up another mesh can, this time hopefully in the correct way and make the for mesh strips to fit in the gap, and when i mount up the mesh ill open up a cold one and admire the damn thing


The pictures of all the corners now looking like they should











in the end i could not resist then to take the case for a spin, check out the video in the link bellow

https://igcdn-videos-b-16-a.akamaih...16/11336449_1569502503315076_1505208374_n.mp4