Case Mod Project: Orange Monster, 26 July 2006; Aquaero and the DVD drive, 25.5.2008

[Darkened]

Ok, here goes.

Firstly I must say that people here at the forums of Bit-tech.net are a great community of modders gathered from around the world. Some of the most inspiring and coolest things ever have been done by the skilled modders here. I've been checking here almost daily for years now and finally decided to have a crack at my own project log.

So Orange Monster, where does the name come from. Well I'm a bit of an watch enthusiast, so the name comes from a Seiko divers watch which has a nickname Orange Monster. I have it's brother, the Black Monster, which has a black dial where the Orange Monster has, well orange dial So the theme for this mod is orange and black. I'm not sure if I'm going to incorporate the watch thing in the case in any way, it was just the for the name, but you'll never know...

The case I'm going to use is a Lian Li V1000 Black Plus, which has been seen here so many times that I'm not going to go into much detail when presenting it.

I'm also waiting for my new camera to arrive in the mail. In the mean while I'll have to take the pics with a Pentax S5i compact camera and without a stand so some of the pics are a bit out of focus. Hopefully that'll improve after I get all my stuff together.

Ok, let's bring out the pics:



So maybe not the most ingenious of choices, but hey, it's a nice case



Out of the box and lookin' good.



Let's have a look inside.



These things come with the Plus version of the case. A large radial fan, an air duct and a cover for the PSU.



Hard drive racks, nothing that you havn't seen before.



Since the hd racks have to go, it's quite nice that people over at Lian Li have attached them with screws instead of rivets. Just makes removing them so much easier.



The stock Adda fan, that's going to be replaced with something much nicer.





So after unscrewing a couple of screws, the case looked like this.



After that I slapped some tires on those rims because the case is going to be standing on a glass shelf.


So this wasn't all I got done yesterday, but now I'll have to edit a lot of pics, resize them and send them to photobucket so that I can show you the other things. I just wanted to get this show on the road.

Keep them comments coming, I'll be updating most likely today when I get the pics edited.

Janne

[Darkened]

Hey there again.

Let's see some of the parts that are going in this thing.

To disappoint you right from the start, I'm telling you that I'm not going with watercooling. At least yet... And all in all this is going to be kind of an mix and match situation.

The components of my main rig are going to be moved in this case with some additions. What they are going to be even I'm not sure yet.

Then the components of my old main rig which is now serving as my HTPC are going to be moved in the case which houses my main rig now.

Confused yet? Good, so am I

So my main rig is just going to be in a new case and my old comp is going in the case my main rig is now. The old computer will be my server running Windows 2003 Server and it'll be handling tasks as Active Directory, Remote Installation Services, webserver and I'm also planning on running Skype on it. And every other thing a server should do.

Why I need a server? Well I don't, but it's good practice to mess around with them cause I'm studying datacommunications anyways. Also gives me something to do and spend money on

So during this time I'm probably going to show pics of my Server, HTPC, Laptop, but the main focus is on Orange Monster, my new main rig. Also I'm going to give the specs of the machines later on when I get to installing them. First I'll have to get the case ready.

Ok, let's turn on the orange:



These are the parts which were removed from the case. The stock fans, hd racks, fdd rack and that annoying little speaker. Next we'll see what's going to replace them.



I ordered 2 of those Ac Ryan 120mm fans and a morf-kit for the PSU.



Also 1 80mm fan + some cable sleeve was in the same package with them.



Since I'm not going with watercooling I thought that the case should still have something controlling the fans and temperatures. I bought an Akasa Fan Controller Pro which is a really nice unit. I have one already in my other computer. Also there's a couple of orange SATA-cables from a MSI motherboard.



There's one of the 120mm fans out of the box. With these fans came one problem as well...



This. Well it isn't actually a problem since I'm going to hack the cables anyway, but that thing does not look nice and tidy


Ok, that's it for tonight, if I've got time tomorrow, there'll be an update on painting a few things...until next time...

Janne

[Noni]

Looking good, thats one sexy case!

[Darkened]

Thanks Noni, I think so too and the goal is to make it even more sexy

Hopefully that'll be the case too when the mod is done

Janne

[xpc]

it doesnt matter if you will not use water cooling

just do what ever you want! let your computer do the talkin'! ayt?

good luck bro.. looking forward to yah.

[antiHero]

Nice colortheme! Pretty uncommon and that makes it special!
Looking forward to this!

B.T.W where in finland are you from?

[Darkened]

Hey

@xpc

It just seems that there are so much watercooling projects around here that I decided to go "old school like the old fool" with this one The truth is that I don't have the money for watercooling gear at the moment, but I hope the case speaks to you kindly when I'm done with it.

@ antiHero

Thanks for your comment, I'm from Turku myself. You have a nice project going on yourself, I've missed that somehow, but I'll be checking on you from now on

Ok, I'm off to work, good night everybody.

Janne

[xpc]

yah your right man!

any plans for your mod?

[kbates666]

What is with those fans? I have never seen two cords out of the same fan.

[Limpi]

I thought that one was for the leds and the other one for the fan, so if you reduce the voltage, the leds wont dim.

I really love v1000b mods Hope you make something really nice !

[Darkened]

Back from work

Let's answer some questions.

@xpc

I'll be honest and say that I don't actually have one single plan. I'm kind of modding while I go and have lots of different plans and ways of doing things in my head. What I can tell you is that I'm going to use orange acrylic quite a bit (don't have a pic of that yet). Also aluminum mesh is probably going to go in the mod (pics of that tomorrow).

One major thing to do is to fill the hd rack space with a hd rack of my own. The plan is to place two Nexus Drive'a'ways in there in a rack made out of that orange acrylic. Also wiring and such things are going to be as tidy as possible (meaning hidden). I might be re-doing some of the bits while I go if I'm not totally pleased with them cause I'm a bit of a perfectionist So bare with me.

@kbates666

Limpi is right on the money with the fans. Though it seems that with this kind of wiring it's probably meant for disabling the leds entirely.

@Limpi

Hey and welcome to the forums. I'm quite flattered that your first post ever was in my thread

Janne

[Darkened]

Well got some work done after I got home, so decided to throw an update before going to bed

The front port assembly which comes with the case is, excuse my french, butt ugly. All beige and awful and doesn't go with the case at all. Solution; let's paint it black.



So here it is masked for painting.



And after a few coats of gloss black paint and some sleeving done it looked ready to hop back in the case, but I had the feeling that something was a bit off...





And something was off indeed. How come I didn't see that one come back and bite me in the arse Well let's do that again and this time mask those little buggers individually...



Took a while, but I got it done with too much fuss.



Here they are a bit closer.

So first thing to do when I wake up is to slap some paint on that thing and take a few pics of it while I'm at it.

Next update probably tomorrow...mean today...

Janne

[customh]

Finally an orange pc that looks like it might carry all the way through to finish (ahem deathrow) mod on!!

[OldY]

I love V1000 lian li mods, they are such good cases!!!

[Darkened]

Thanks for your comments and support customholle and Oldy

I'll be updating when I come back from work, pictures are ready, but I'll have to go now, so no update yet...

Have a great weekend!

Janne

[Darkened]

Update time.

So we had a little problem with the paint on the front port assembly. I got that fixed and while I was at it I painted the whole thing again with satin/matt black cause the gloss black looked a bit too gloss for my taste.



Here it is with satin black paint on it.



The problem area is looking quite good now.



There it sits back in its place



This is how the front looks at the moment. Hopefully I'll have the time to install and re-wire the front fan tomorrow.

I'll update you on my new camera next.

Janne

[hydro_electric_655]

that is sweet always pay attention to detail in a good mod.

[Darkened]

Ok, as I told you I ordered a new camera from pixmania.com. DHL kindly delivered it two days ago and yesterday I went out and bought some accessories to go with it.



Not the smallest camera ever, but should be pretty good.



10x optical zoom, me likes



From behind.



A 15min charger with 4 x 2200mAh and 4 x 2500mAh batteries & 1Gb xD memorycard. Damn they were hard to find, had to circle around for hours before finding them

Well that's it for this morning, I'll try to get some work done tomorrow, but I can't promise anything cause tomorrow will be the fourth night in a row working for me. Havn't had too much sleep lately

Janne

[Darkened]

Thanks hydro, I'll try to keep the little things in order while doing this thing. It's a good opportunity for me to release my perfectionism and let it ramble on

Janne

[hydro_electric_655]

It could take years. lol :laugh: