Case Mod - In Progress Insomnia I55 Thermaltake project - NIGHTTIME PICTURES

Herroooooo everyone. It is almost time for Insomnia I55 in august 2015 and before Computex 2015 I have been asked by Thermaltake Europe if I was interested in doing a project for them to put on display.
Of course my ego was all over the place and I was hovering 50cm above the ground as I love doing these projects and I love being asked by brands so I said F**K YEAH!

The project was quite straight forward: we use the new Suppressor case, add all parts Thermaltake does like fans, PSU and all of their watercooling equipment and make something that is worth looking at.

Perfect assignment for men. Keep it simple. I can understand this.

I still had some hardware at home and for other stuff I contacted a few people I worked with before. And before I knew it this thing was on a roll.

I need to finish this project like 2 weeks from now. So I figured I should start a log about what I have been doing for the last couple of weeks since I have everything.

This will be a short log I think with rather large photo updates. I hope you will enjoy.



First of all I want to thank Thermaltake and Martin in particular for the opportunity.

I have a bunch of photos of the unboxing of the new case ending in a photo of the front panel being taken apart both with the screwdriver and a saw to create something I will show you later on

Don't worry there will be a LOT of modding involved in updates coming later on.





































OUT!!! All of you!!!



I have a rather cool (I hope) idea for the front end. I want to keep the lining and shape of the original case intact but still make its appearance different.

 

I had been thinking about what to do as a mod with this case. It will be on display to promote the case so I don't like to cut it up or melt it and make it unrecognisable. So the inside of the case is imprtant to me. I somehow came up with the idea to use covers that work as cover-grill-windows

The grills will be over the fans for air, the grill will be transparent so you can also see through them like a window and the parts that don't need seeing I will paint black.

Here is my first one. The biggest of them all for over the PSU that runs from left to right in the case. I made a design with my good friend Django, had it lasercut and then bent it using hot air.

 

Nice F51 Project!

Look forward to the rest of the build!

 

A quick peek at the hardware going into this baby. I will show it off better at a later stage.

 

The first help I received was from Gigabyte BeNeLux. My awesome girlfriend B. helped me out a lot with this amazing motherboard. The Gigabyte Z97X-gaming 5. It has all the features and it has the looks to match.















Thank you very much Gigabyte BeNeLux!
And of course thank you B.!

 

I need to mount the pump and its top and the reservoirs to the backpanel. But it is full of cable holes and such and I have almost no need for them. So I made a backpanel cover out of plexiglass. It will be painted black eventually.
I made it so that the panel is fitted to the backpanel, but for heavy things such as the pump and one side of the reservoirs the mounting screws for that will go through the plate and the backplate so it is the case itself that is holding them up. Sounded a bit more safe to me.



I bent the left side of the panel so it ends up under the motherboard.
There will be cuts in it to accomodate for cables and wiring (24 pin and sata cables).





Modding is magical

 

To paraphrase Moulin Rouge;

"Mods are like oxygen, mods lift us up where we belong, all we need are mods..."

I might have misinterpreted some of the plotpoints, but i think i nailed the overall message of the film...

Looking good btw

 

Nice going Timmetje

 

Thank you for this deep message

And thanks for the kind words

Thanks Petertje

 

I was getting such a positive response on Facebook and I was liking the outcome of the PSU shroud so much I decided to take the theme further and also make a front and rear fan grill using the same grill design. Again drawn with Djangosoe and lasercut and then bent using hot air from a heatgun.

 

Hey,

I like so much the PSU's cover !

 

I made a bracket to fit the GPU vertically so it will be right in front of the window.

 

Here I have painted the font and rear grill. I cannot paint the PSU shroud yet because it still needs holes for cables and tubing. I couldn't wait to see how it would look with the fans turned on so I tried the rear fan. The biggest conclusion is that the photo does not show what the real deal looks like for sure.

 

Since I was putting the GPU vertical anyway I had some spare room. And I needed some spare room as well as I had no place to fit the SSDs. And it is like SSDs were made to fit exactly there

I will be putting 2 SSDs here and a 3rd one elsewhere in the build.

Since it will be at a show there will be a plexiglass window in front of these to keep them from getting "unvoluntarily taken".

 

I want to show off this card now.
I have been lucky enough to be able to work with KFA2 during "Game hard, Fold Harder". They were kind enough to also support this project with the KFA2 GTX 980 SuperOverClock

Very nice backplate as well. And the colours on the cooler match perfectly with the theme of the project with dark red, black and grey.















Thank you very much KFA2 and especially my good friend G.B.

 

For this project HyperX again showed their support by putting in a set of 4*8GB 1600Mhz DDR3 HyperX BEAST modules. With the nice black PCB they are rocking nowadays.
And 3 of their 3K 120GB SSDs. Both fitting the colours of this theme perfectly.







Thank you very much HyperX! And especially K.J. and E.B. for this amazing set of hardware.

 

You know that you have no other option than send me that GPU once you finish right? Good job Timmeh, can't wait to see the final result!

 

Thanks Ian.

And....I will think about it

 

Neat layout idea. I never thought about a ssd fitting in the I/O. Slot look is really snazzy.
I noticed your slots got 'wonky' in the bending process. It might have worked better if you had kept all the cutouts and taped them in their original place for the bending, (But that's speculation. Plexi has a mind of it's own sometimes.)
...Just in case you feel a re-do is in order.

 

Thanks Cheapskate

The SSD location just came to me as I was looking for a spot. I make the case itself too full xD

I think in the midplate 1 rib got a tad wonky but I was quite pleased seeing my ghetto bending tools getting this result. I would need a line bending heater for a perfect result. But I don't have one and don't have the room for one either.

Thanks for the advice on the taping them in place next time. That is a great idea