Project: Blade **PSOne LCD installed and operational**

Hi everyone,

First off, I just want to thank all of you guys for the inspiration and motivation to do this! Your fantastic work has motivated me to start a project of my own.

This is my second mod, and my first serious one. I cut a window and a blowhole in my other case and cleaned up the wiring, but never really went all the way with it. So I purchased this:



This is a beautiful case. Nice flat front bezel, great paint job and very nice on the insides. Great to work with.

Before I started, I made up some plans for what I was doing in my high end CAD program (Microsoft Paint). Here is what I came up with:



In terms of keeping a project log, I have one major problem. I don't own a digital camera. I also live in a condo so when I want to do some heavy duty cutting or drilling I go to my parent's house to use their garage. That's where all these pics were taken.

I didn't take any pictures while I was cutting the side and front panel. I made all the cuts with a jigsaw, and used a 3 inch holesaw for the holes. I hand filed all the cuts down until they are nicely smooth and straight. I also cut out the stock fan grills from the front and back, and drilled out the rivets on the top so I could work on it better. Here is where we start:



I taped the sides up to mark hole locations for the dome nuts and bolts. I secured the side and plexi together, so I could drill them at the same time. I figured it would have to line up this way.



It came out nicely, here it is when I test fitted it with the blade fan grills I'll be using.



I then started on the top, here it is with the cuts almost done.



Here's the front drive covers. I'm putting a fan in there to get good airflow from the front. Might as well use those two empty bays! This was really tricky to use the holesaw with since these are two separate pieces and I wanted them to be cut perfectly.



It came out pretty well, as you can see here. This is what I have done as of the last photos I took.







Since these photos were taken, I've hand filed the top cutouts, they are nice and smooth now. I still have a lot of work to do, and a few ideas that I'm not sure about yet. Next up I'll be painting my drive covers black to match the case. I would like to paint the chassis of the case silver, but I'm not sure I'll be able to due to the cold temperatures up here for the next few months. I'll post more pics as I take them. Any comments or questions would be appreciated!

 

Nice work so far, keep it coming

 

Owww yeah...very nice dude...Keep the updates coming


Love the fan grills btw

 

not bad at all. Great mod

 

mmm.... i love the simplistic look of that case
well , at least that's what it looked before the carnage.
it looks even better now.
Great job,

p.s. Dont put all this effor into the case to go ahead and "paint" the chassis silver. Youve made it look this good so far, why not go all the way and get the chassis professionally chromed

 

sick! i like all the nuts and bolts sticking out of everywhere.

keep the work up

 

Very nice, some great and original window work. I second the painting the chasis idea, but I would paint it black, get the back to match the rest with some nice fan grills and stuff too. Lots of possibility.

 

I would go with red or black on the chasis, it would look wicked. Good job so far. Mod on

 

Thanks a lot for all the replies! I wanted a very 'busy' look to the case, with the nice contrast of the black case with the silver grills and bolts (I love the look of the dome nuts on the black case).

I was considering silver for the chassis to go with the silver of the bolts and grills but I agree that black would look good as well. I took a good look at KrazyIvan's Ground Zero project (based on the same type of case) and his black chassis looked really good, but just a little too much black for my tastes. In any event, I'm not likely to do any painting until the weather warms up here, it's a little too cold to do any spraypainting.

The blade grills look great in the case, but only because they are mounted behind the hole in the case. I originally bought 2 of these grills for my old case, and as soon as I got them I disliked them, because of the way they attach to the case. I just didn't like the way they look around the outsides. When I started with this case I had intended to use basic Biohazard grills in it, but I put in one of the blade grills just to see how it would look and immediately loved it. MUCH nicer than the Biohazard grills looked.

I'm hoping to get more work done in the middle of this week, so hopefully I'll have some new pics then. I'll try to take some better pics this time around

 

THat is a nice case, I'm thinking of buying one myself.

 

Very nice and very clean. I think the intake on the front is very nice!

 

Nice mod, i like it nice and clean yet functional thumbs up m8 good work.

 

Hmmm... Black and chrome.... Is there anything that it doesn't look good on?...

Very tasty!

 

Slick…Clean lines and very pleasing to the eye… MegaRouge, what plans do you have for the inside? While checking out the front panel I came up with an idea that might look good. On the back of the front bezel a few hole the diameter of LEDs going half way through. Then set some LEDs (blue or you could mix it up a little) into the holes. When the lights come on they will light up all the edges on the plexi.

 

Thanks for all the comments guys!

I do have some plans for the inside, but a lot of it will be decided once I move hardware in there and see how it looks. The power supply will be sleeved and the wiring will be as neat as can be.

There will be 7 80MM blue led fans (Thermaltake Blue Eye fans, they are nice and bright, and quiet too).

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=9330&vpn=A1640

I got them for $4.99 each! Lucky me The fans have the capability to plug into the HD LED, and each fan has a red LED that can show HD access. I'm likely going to hook that up for the front 2 LED fans, but I'll see how that looks before making my final decision.

I bought a Nexus fanbus for this case, the one with 2 blue cold cathodes included:

http://www.vibecomputers.com/index.cfm?loc=iview&if=n&vID=190947

Each channel of the fanbus can take up to 18W, and the fans I have are rated at 1.8W each, so I don't think it will be a problem to hook 2 fans up to 2 of the channels, and the remaining 3 to the other channel.

I'm still not decided on where I'm going to mount the CC's. I like your idea Bluebark to light up the front plexi, and it's something I've thought of myself. I have thought of mounting the CC's vertically on either side of the HD cage and then maybe drilling some holes in the front panel to let that light come through, but I'll decide that once I get the hardware in. The fanbus has a sound sensitive setting for the CC's and I think that would look fantastic if it was shining through the front bezel.

I should have some time midweek to get some of this done, but the first priority is painting my CD and floppy drive covers. Beige drives are NEVER touching this case My problem right now is that it's pretty cold here and I don't know if I can do any painting in this temperature (about 8C or so at the warmest these days) but I have to find a way to paint the drive covers. Does anyone have any advice for painting in this temperature? I have Krylon Fusion black paint for the job.

 

Looks good! Nice and clean

 

Nice

the bolts and stuff everywhere gives an "industrial" effect, I like that very much keep up the good work, and give us some updates

 

Project: Blade (new pics coming!)

Hi Everyone,

Here's the most recent progress I've made on the case (which I named Project: Blade; not very original but it's about all I can think of):

-completed hand filing the side and top windows
-blacked the edges of the window cuts with a black paint pen; it looks (almost) like a factory cut and paint job
-painted my CDRW, DVD and floppy drive black with Krylon Fusion. Also gave the front fan assembly in the two remaining drive bays two coats to hide some unsightly scratches

It's been a lot of detail work the last week; the filing alone took many hours to get done. The drive covers are drying as I type this; it was the first time I've ever spraypainted anything and it went reasonably well. The drives look fantastic and I can't wait to put them in and light this case up! The plan is to borrow a digital camera today and take some pics tomorrow. I'll post them as soon as I get them.

I have a question for your painting gurus out there. It's a bit cold up here at this time of year, and I'm a bit under the minimum temperature to spraypaint anything. I painted the drive bay covers by spraying them outside on my deck, then taking them quickly inside and propping them up on top of the oven under the exhaust running full blast, and letting them dry there so it's warm enough. It worked out really well and I didn't notice any paint fumes in the house. I want to paint the chassis of the case, which is a much bigger job. The only option I really have is to follow the same procedure of painting outside, then putting it under the exhaust to dry, but I'm a bit concerned that a piece that size would let off some major fumes no matter how careful I was. My idea is to paint it outside in a box with the top and one side open, then take it inside and prop it up under the exhaust as close to the exhaust shroud as possible. With the box covering 3 sides of the chassis (and the fourth side near the wall) and the exhaust running full blast, I would hope it can pull out the fumes well enough while drying that there won't be any problems. After an hour or so of that, I could likely put it outside on the deck overnight to fully air out. Does anyone think I'm asking for trouble by trying this? Has anyone tried something similar? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

Ive just done some painting here in Colorado. I used a scrap piece of board to carry the pieces in and out of the house on. While drying there really wasn't any fumes.

You can let it dry outside with no problems. As long as the can of paint is kept inside until you paint with it you'll be fine. I didn't because I didn't want something landing in the fresh paint.

 

Don't suppose you have a garage? That's where I do my winter-time painting. I don't think you have to worry about the fumes though. Do you know what kind of paint it is? Are you using fusion for the whole thing? Warm the materials to be painted before you take them outside (as in take them out there right before you paint), and set your paint in some warm water to warm it up before you use it. (always a good idea, except with primer, helps it flow better) The main thing you have to be worried about is taking stuff out there letting it get cold painting out in the cold, then bringing them back inside and little bits of condensation ruin your paint.

Good Luck