Case Mod - In Progress Project: Black&White (N' some blue) - Making of HDD-rack, 19th December

Hello all modders!

I have been hoovering around the forum for a couple of weeks now, getting inspiration and drewling. So i decided to do something with my computer, I've had that thought for a long time, and it felt like the proper time to do it!

At first i have to say that i work 100% and study some at the same time, so when I have som spare time i will update & mod my case. Also I got to apologize for the bad resolution of the pics, only have my phone. But I'm getting a new phone soon, w 8MPX camera, wohoo!

I haven't done any drawing in CAD or SolidWorks, was planning on it but can't find the time for now. So i took a paper & a pencil and started drawing my idea of the front and one of the sides.

This is the result:


Made a new one.


And i made one in MS Paint too, the temp-meter and power button is just there to give you a hint of whats coming.

Before touching anything:


Disassembled. (w. top and bottom gone)
Decided to rotate the case 180 degrees so i get the PSU in the bottom and CPU+GPU at the top. Im also planning on making some HDD racks to go in the lower part of the case. (Originally there is two HDD racks w. 3 HDDs in each, that's located in the lower part (higher after rotated).


Had to file some to get the bottom part to fit at the top




And its turned! Here you can see the two old "plates" that you slide in the HDD racks, both of them will be removed, and some other things will be cut off etc.
But more on that later!





This is how far I've gotten, i have recieved some WC stuff from EK, but I'm going to order some more in a few days. Going to write what specs and so on in the next update!

--
My english isn't too good, so beware.
Haters are welcome

Be well, thanks for stopping by!
/SunkiiSh

 

Weekend work done, updated 28th November

Hello again guys!

I've made some progress during the weekend on the case. Some cutting and a LOT of sanding/filing..! My hands are somewhat sore.

Here are some pics on the progress!


Cut two pieces out of the metal with my dremel, so the DVD-ROM would fit. Since the case is turned upside down i had to do some modification.


Sawed some aluminum L-profiles that's going to be part of the HDD-holders.


My newly bought vice broke, the first time I used it! So had to improvise a bit. ;-)
Filing of the L-profiles to the right length.



Test fitting the holes on the HDD. Fits nicely! Now there's just some cutting and sanding left.


Three down, nine to go. I have made some more, but havn't got any pictures of it.. I'll upload them when i get home!

The WC specs for the build:
2 x 2x120mm Radiators (got one, ordering the other one soon)
1 x DCP 2.2 Pump (at the time, maybe going to buy another one and have two loops)
1 x EK-Multioption X2 400 Advanced Reservoir
Clear tubing
Blue UV-reactive fluids
Some EK-fittings, probably ordering some Bitspower fittings later on.

You can probably figure out that the radiators are going in the front, behind the mesh. Oh and I will order some honeycomb mesh from the UK if it aint too expensive (or if i find it here in Sweden..) If you guys got any tips on honeycomb mesh, feel free to share
And also, if you have any thoughts/recommendations/ideas about my build, feel free to comment!

Oh, I almost forgot.. I made a light casemod early in 2009, when I was still in school. Me and my buddy decided to do it as a school project. (I made the building, most of it. It was his case, and he paid for the parts too, I was broke. ;-P)

Got some pictures of it, posting them too. (The build that I'm doing now is going to be much, much nicer!) =P


w/o the side


The top radiator (2x120mm) and the aluminum box that i made to coverup some rough edges.


From the side, with the sideplate on.


In the dark, UV-reactive tubing and fluids. Some of the cables are also UV-reactive. Two UV-catodes placed inte the back and the top.


Closeup on my homemade box, the fan grills are bought online.

--
Too next time!

Thanks for stopping by!
Haters are welcome!

/SunkiiSh

 

Update no. 3 - Sides for the HDD-rack cut, 6th December

Hello again!

I've done some work on the case the last days. It's not much, but everything counts! Right?

I'm not going to explain so much, I'll let the pictures explain instead. Feel free to ask if you're wondering something!


This is the HDD-holders, in the last update I showed you how they would be, but I changed my mind a bit about the design. I started to cut them to the new design. So I've cut all of the 12 now, but there's some filing and sanding left to do before they are ready.


The old design to the left and the a freshly cut to the right.


I've also bought a "drillpress-stand" to my dremel. hav'nt used it yet, but I will most certainly!


First side of the HDD holders measured and cut, well almost completley cut.


Second side measured, just before start cutting.


I also bought a "circle-saw" that you screw on the dremel. Tried it for the first time here, went very well too! Almost a straight cut (I sat on the floor when i cut it, that's why the cut were a bit off)


After filing the first plexi-block i started sanding one of the ends so I had a reference when filing the second part.


After sanding the first plexi part i took both of the plexis, a couple of clamps and two pieces of wood. Placed the reference of the first plexi to line up with the freshly filed end of the second plexi, then took the wood pieces and clamped it together and started filing them to the right size.


Here you can see that the filing is almost done on this side.


After filing the pieces I sanded them with 240, 600 and 1200 grit. Don't have any pictures of that moment. And then i polished the ends with my dremel and some polishing compound.


Notice the nice reflection of the lamp


I have some more pics of the progress, but I'll split it to two posts, so it's not too many pictures in one post. (Don't remeber the maximum of pics in one post)


So, stay tuned for another update in a couple of minutes!

Thanks for stopping by!

---

/SunkiiSh

Haters are welcome!

 

Update no. 4 - Rubber pieces to the HDD-rack, 6th December

Continuing from post above.


This is one of the sides with a rubber piece with a U-channel in the middle. The HDD mounts are going to be slided in on these rubber pieces. They will eliminate the vibration i hope.


Here you can see what I mean with the "U-channel". I'm cutting these myself from a pad with this pattern on both sides, but in different directions. So I have to off the ones that are in the wrong direction. Look at the pictures below if you don't understand, wich probably noone will. (The one in the picture above is already cut and sanded)


Here I'm cutting off some left-overs.


And here I'm cutting out the actual rubberpiece from the rubber pad. (The piece i cut in the picture above is on the left in the picture, there you can see how the pattern is on the underside)


Some pieces done.


Three of the rubberpieces laying on one of the plexi sides. Note that the two lower pieces are not cut on the underside, but the part in the top are completley finished.


Here I'm cutting off the pattern from the underside.


OOPS!


One of the pieces completley cut, just some sanding left.


This is the idea.


Spared one of the "fins" on the underside so it would overlap the plexi, it looks really thick from this point of view


One more pic.


This is the idea.


This is just a test-fit, there will be the plexi pieces that I've already cut as sides, and between the rubberpieces there'll be some 5mm plexi pieces. I'll also cut out some holes between the rubber pieces so there will be a good airflow to cool the HDD's.


A lot of them done, 14 to be exact. I need about 18 of them, it takes about 3 pieces to each HDD.


My "sanding jig" for the rubberpieces. When it is cut in half, there's not much material left in the middle of the piece, so it bends a lot when sanding it. So I took a few clamps and some spill plexi and made this.


Here you see the rubber in place, I've just sanded one of them so far, but I'm going to do some when I get home from work today.


Hope you liked it, more updates will come, so stay tuned!

Thanks for stopping by!

--

/SunkiiSh

Haters are welcome!

 

Nice, I like the MSPaint pic and the decibel level display type style of the middle. I look forward to the progress! +subscribed.

 

A lot @ work, no update.. YET!

Hehe thanks MonkeyFun! I've got many hours on MS Paint, wish i had put that time on learning PS instead, but you can do some pretty fancy sh*t in MS Paint too, if you have the time ;-)
Yeah, there will be some "decibel levels" on the side also, with some honeycomb pattern, I'll upload a pic of the idea later on! So there will be honeycomb pattern and the "decibel level" pattern. Maybe some minor other patterns that consists with the other ones.

Haven't got so much work done the last days, got a lot to do at work. But I'll post some picutres after the weekend, when I have some serious progress ;-)

Take care!
¨
Oh, btw, how do you change the topic? Want to change the date, looked in the FAQ and the other questions, but couldn't find anything about it..

 

Looking good so far

You edit the first post, go to "Go Advanced" and then change the title there

 

lol Dont know if I have ever seen an inverted Chieftech Dragon before! This should be interesting!

Looking forward for more updates!

 

Thanks! Allright, now I got it! :-D Thanks again!

Thanks p0Pe! Yeah, me neither =P Someone has to be the first! There's two more updates now, and more will come in a couple of days!

 

Rubber pieces are done! I've been sanding them for a few days now. And I unwillingly sanded my fingertips aswell.

So now its time to start measuring the plexi, and then cut out the stand pieces. It's going like this:

||
|[ <--- Rubberpiece for HDD
|| <--- Plexi "stand piece"
|| <--- Here there will be a oval shaped hole (through both plexi pieces)
|[ <--- Rubberpiece for HDD
|| <--- Plexi "stand piece"
|| <--- Here there will be a oval shaped hole (through both plexi pieces)
|[ <--- Rubberpiece for HDD
|| <--- Plexi "stand piece"
|| <--- Here there will be a oval shaped hole (through both plexi pieces)
|[ <--- Rubberpiece for HDD

^
|____ One solid plexi piece, with oval shaped holes in it for air to pass through.

So that's the plan, what do you think of it? There will ofcourse be two pieces like this, so one on each side of the HDD (with the metal slides to go in the rubber channels)

The plexis thickness is: The big piece is 3mm, and the smaller ones are 5mm. So the rubber will be countersunk about 0.5 mm. Think it's going to look pretty good actually. Thinking of painting the stand black, but I don't know yet, rubber pieces are black. (maybe white?) I'll ask you guys later when it's done, to help me choose =P

I'll probably get at least one side done in the weekend, and hopefully the filing and sanding of the L-shaped HDD-holders/slides.

I'll post some pictures of the progress when I get home, don't want to post JUST the rubber pieces

Thanks for stopping by!

Haters are welcome!

 

Update no. 5, Friday 16th December

Hello!
I havn't had so much time to be here on bit tech the last days, therefore the lack of updates. But I have done some work!


All the HDD "sliders" are done now. Cut, filed and sanded. I'll probably sand them some more later on, but for now theyr'e good!


Another pic on a left and right side of the "slides".


Test fitting on the HDD.


One more pic!


The underside of the HDD w/ the slides on.


I fitted the radiator in place, just testing here. It was a snug fit


Had some scrap metal that I could use, this part won't be visible so..


Measured and cut!


Testing to see that I've measured right


Measured and cut a hole for the fan. Was pretty tired when i did this, made some worng cuts, but it won't be visible as said before. Oh and I filed and sanded the cuts, ofcouse!


Did the same procedure to another piece of metal and monted the fans and the radiator. This is what it looks like. Test fit.


As you can see, it was a perfect fit!


Another pic from the inside.


Another pic from the outside.


Another pic from the outside.


From the side.


Then I carried on working on the HDD-rack/slide. Filed off some insertions for the rubber pieces.


Another pic.


Here you can see the insertion.

Thats all for now, I think I'll upload some more pics today when I get home from work. The newest pictures are on my new phone wich arrived past wednesday. So the pictures will be better from now on with 8MP instead of 5MP. And a working flash ofcourse! :-D

So stay tuned for more pictures and progress!

Thanks for stopping by!
--
Haters are welcome!

 

The HDD sliders are cool, so is the rest of the project I cant wait to see more!!

(btw, the blood pic made me feel all nauseous )

 

the hard drive sliders are a great idea! im sure that will quiten them down abit xD

 

Thanks! I'll throw in a update today, just have to resize the pics

Yeah, I thought so too. The main cause for this project is that the build is quiet and good looking And ofcourse good performance :-D

 

Update no. 6, Monday 19th December

Hello again, I've uploaded the pictures from my new cellphone today, so I'm posting them below so you can see Some of the progress in the pictures have you already seen, but some was done in the weekend.


Radiator and fans in the front.


This is the HDD-holders w/ the rubber slides.


Again from another angle.


Here you have a HDD with the alu L-profiles attached to it.


Test fitting, noticed that the 5MM plexi was to thick, so I have to fix that later on.


I started making the pieces that goes between the rubber pieces to strengthen the design.


Sanded and polished the ends.


Made another one, I measured every piece to get it to fit perfectly.


Just test fitting.


Test fitting no 2.


Fast forward a couple of hours work, made six pieces.


Nice fit!


Cut and put together the rubber pieces, with tape.


Cut some 1MM plexi.


And filed it off to the right size.


Six done.


All done!


Glued the rubber to the 1MM plexi pieces.


Continued on the plexipieces, this is the first pattern i choose. I've changed them to a sqare form, (you can see the lines on the picture)


Here you can see the lines even better.


Drilled some holes. Some of the plexi parts broke at different occasions, but it's not a problem cause I'm painting this black.


Crack, close up.


Sawed the pieces on my dremel-saw. (My first "in action" pic)


Just broke of the pieces after i had sawed them.


Three filed and three to go. But this is still the first design that I changed. There's not so much soft forms on the case, so it fits better with sqare form.

So, that's all for now. I'm going to upload some more pictures today or tomorrow, so stay tuned!

Thanks for stopping by!

Feel free to comment!


Haters are welcome!

 

Good start so far. Im looking forward to see how this turns out. I like the case but everywhere I look it seems it is discontinued, but it looks like a good candidate to be modded. Subbed.

 

nice