Belial Inside : Updated 20/09/2006 - More photos

Day 1. It Begins
Some time ago a few years in fact, i did a little modding with my original "yum-cha" case, painting, windows, neons etc and then I bought my chieftec 701b which to this day has always held my workhorse/gaming rig.

Preliminary mods were a window and fan controller and the obligatory CCFL/Neon lighting.
Later came a 120mm blowhole with a licensed "Punisher" grill that a mate foisted onto me as a b'day present then a Parrallel port wired 16x4 LCD was added an used mainly for displaying winamp and free hdd space.
So the case as it stands or well stood.


With LCD (My DVD burner had recently died so i went back to the trusty sony drives.) Also notably the fan control had used some pot's instead of switches but as 1 burned out, and i didnt really ever bother using the others they made for switches.


So from here where do we go.....

Well as tax time approached here in 'down-under' so did the launch of conroe as i suspect anyone reading this will be aware.
And thus the upgrade path was decided upon.
I won't bore anyone too much with detailed specs but here is the gloss over list.

Core 2 Duo E6600
Asus P5B deluxe
2GB Corsair TWINX6400
XFX 7900GT 520mhz VIVO
Zalman CNPS-9500 LED
Pioneer 11D
1xWD 300GB

1xSeagate 320GB ( Both hdds carried over)


Thus i decided that a move to a spare case for the current rig was in order ->
With no top or side panel, it still came at the right price $0.




And thus was the modding oppurtunity born.
Of late thoughts about noise vs performance as well as cable tidyness have been the driving force of this project.
Firstly to remove the front 2 80mm fans and replace with 1 120mm,
as well as replacing the top blowhole with a quieter fan.
My papst has served me well but after being removed from a PSU and then used pretty much 24/7 for 3 years has taken its toll on the bearings and its gotten quite rattlely of late.
So out with the old and in with the new.
2 x Sycthe SFF21E's 1200rpm 49cfm at an alleged 20.1dB.


They ought to quieten it up a bit.

The other aim is to take a leaf out of others books of late is to paint the chassis i've chosen a matt black finish to blend with the existing powdercoat.

Also on the chopping block is the lower hdd cage, the way the drives stick out and obstruct the video card and its connector has been the only real issue i've had with this chassis.
And thus as with some of the thermaltake and antec cases based on this chassis i've decided to build a new hdd cage to hold some 5 drives, be cooled by the 120mm fan and be mounted transversly across the case with their connectors towards the motherboard tray side with a cut-out to allow for access to the drive's connectors and to hide the cabling.

So enough with the blocks of text and on with the modding.

Disassembly.


More disassembly

Please note my work area tends to vary a lot. Between bedroom. kitchen, garage depending on whose home and what space is available.

The naked chassis


From the rear end


Considering that board was only mounted in the last 6 months it really has collected a prodigious amount of dust.


Now tooling up to remove the stick backed velcro that has held all manner of different lights.
Weapon of choice.
Bosch Heatgun - Medium Setting
Razor Knife


5 Minutes later


After this i took to it with some metho and paper towel to get rid of the excess glue etc.

And thus ended day ones effort, life intruded once more but fret not for day 2 or rather night 2 will shortly follow.
Cheers
-Belial

 

Neat. Looking forward to further updates.

 

Day 2 or rather Night 2

Well after a long day at uni, got home to start on the hard drive cage.
After stopping by my local hardware to pick up some aluminium,
specifically 1mx20mmx3mm flat bar, and 1mx20mmx20mmx3mm Right Angle.
In retrospect 3mm was a bit overkill but hey.
So i got started however theres a lack of photos due to the camera needing to be recharged. Damnit .

So basically after marking up lengths etc i got into the cutting.
First using the trusty dremel.


But i found that with the thickness the cutting disk kept binding up on the soft metal and wasnt really cutting that effectively.
So with daylight fading fast, i turned ot hand tools, a hacksaw in fact.


Went through the aluminium like a hot knife through butter.


After finishing the cutting it was getting kinda dark


So out came the fluro's and the files to neaten up the cutting.

pre-filing


The other end pre-filing


Post- Filing


By this stage it was getting kinda cold so i closed up for the night.

 

Day 3 - Morning

Well this morning i had an hour or so before heading of to uni so i thought i'd get some more done on the hdd cage.
After being attacked by my cat over breakfast.


Starting off with the output of last nights work.


The angle pieces were still in need of filing straight.
And this was duly completed.


After masking and marking up the holes to be drilled in the upright rails of the cage, i headed into the shed to use the drill press.


Close up


After the bench drilling was complete, i noticed the bit had wandered slightly.
I now regretted only marking rather than centre punching the marking points.
But we'll get past this.
Using a right angle clamp to hold the peices square, i then drilled the connecting holes using a hand drill so that everything would end up square.



I don't think anyone needs to see me riviting, so heres the assembled cage. (sans top brace pieces)
Complete with sacrificial maxtor hdd.


Well thats it for now, had to head off to uni.
Hopefully i'll start cutting the case tomorrow.

Also on another note i got my hands on an antec SX1040II case from work that had been written off due to transport damage.
Essentially its been dropped from a height onto the rear top corner, buckling the top and rear panels as well as the psu.
No real trouble so i've got the case sans all accessorys, no psu plate, drive rails or hdd cages but essentially its the same as my current 701b chassis.
but its powdercoated in a smoother grey finish that mine.
I still prefer the black. I'll be doing some panel beating on it this arvo hopefully
no pics as i dont have a camera today, but it should let me give a home, albit temporary for my new hardware.
I've been champing at the bit to try out my E6600

Cheers
-Belial

 

your cat has strange eyes or is that just this photograph making it all-green?

anyways, very nice work, keep it up, I'll follow this one

 

I'd say that the eyes looks like that because the foto was taken with flash.

And about the project: The HDD-caddy looks great, I could make one of my own..

 

Jipa got it in one, the flash reflected off her eyes causing the overall greenness in the centre.

Thanks for the encouragement.
Now for more updates.
Day 4 - Case Mutilation

Well it was time to get down and dirty with the chassis.
After removing the grill over the old hdd cage fan, and part of the lower grill.



Close up, with the marking for the 12cm fan cutout. Using a CD as a templete gives a pretty rough size thats pretty circular and works alright.



After cutting with the dremel, pre-filing its not that circular or pretty but i never really set out to make it so seeing as its hidden behind the front panel anyway.



After that i had just enough time to get the undercoat layer on the hdd cage sprayed.



And after returning from uni this arvo sprayed the 1st coat of the matt black.



Tomorrow will be cleaning up the cut hole and maybe some test fitting/drilling.

Cheers
-Belial

 

Update : Day 5
This afternoon got a little bit more work done on the chassis.
Starting with marking up the mounting holes for the front 120mm fan.



After drilling the holes



Close up of the mounting holes



Test fitting the fan



After the fan hole edges had been cleaned up with a file.



Test fitting the hard drive cage so i could mark the holes to drill.



With the fan mounted with the hard drive cage behind.
As you can see a good percentage of the airflow of the fan travels directly through the cage.



With the Hard Drive cage mounted with the allen bolts through the case floor.



Well thats it for the day, hopefully over the weekend i'll get the access to the rear of the hdd cage cut and the chassis first coat painted.


I've been considering what to do with the current window, possibly changing the perspex for a different color? Black, Smoky or Blue or something else.
Or maybe etching a logo into it.
Any and all comments and suggestions welcome.

Cheers
-Belial

 

sweet HDD mount i like it
keep it up

 

Day 6. Got a bit more done today on the painting front

Began first with removing the top panel,
the photo was taken while i was deciding wether to remove the bottom panel or not.


Well i decided to leave that decision and moved on to cutting the access through the motherboard tray so i can acutally plug in hard drives without needing to wholely remove the cage.
Use an angle grinder with a thin cutting disk to cut the long straight sections, and just drilled the corners as i'm running quite low on cutting disks for the dremel and well the grinder did it in seconds rather than minutes.


With the piece removed.



After some filing



Heres a shot for some perspective on the access hole and also at this point i was blowing all the remaining dust and metal filings out of the case before giving it a rub down, so i could begin painting.




Then i began the painting, sorry no pictures of the procedure mainly as it was with a spray can, and well once i got some paint on my fingers i wasnt touching the camera.
So here are the results of the first coat of the case


The Hard drive cage, and fdd cage bracket


The underside of the top panel


And a couple more of the chassis



Well i guess at this point its pretty obvious that i'm definately not one of the painting gurus around here
But i'll be sanding it flat and recoating so hopefully the final finish will be better. Its matt so its less obvious depending on the lighting than a gloss.
But aside from the rear panel, the rest wont promdominately be seen so i'm not that worried.

From the looks of things the weather around here is taking a turn for the worse as is my study load so i doubt i'll get much painting done in the next couple of days, though i might get some of the smaller items such as the rear fan mounts and possibly the fdd cage painted if so an update will follow.

Any comments, tips, denouciations as a witch would be appreciated.

Cheers
-Belial

 

the paint looks pretty good but if u sayd its not perfect then i guess some flaws could be hidden. i see a few paint drips in the last pic, u should try applying thinner layers of paint and wait between the layers about 15-30 mins (depends on the paint u use). if i were u i would remove the back fan grills and unite the holes into 1 and maybe make a nice cover for them with some mesh behind it.

waiting for more updates

 

Now that looks lite a slightly dusty cpu fan

Nice work though

 

The paint i've been using contains an etching agent in a small quantity, so for clean steel surfaces it doesnt require a primer. And its adhered pretty well so far, the problem with it is that it has a 16 hour recoat time, until the surface has dried enough to be able to re-etch/paint. That and with 10-20deg celsius temps its taking several hours to touch dry.
And well i was in a hurry and finished in a rush, so i did overspray the back quite considerably leading to the runs, i'll be taking to it tomorrow hopefully with some sand paper to get it back smooth for a second thinner layer without any of the runs.

I was considering different grills for the rear, the one thing that has stopped me is that i either need to use large washers to hold fans in place that will cover the edges of the square holes that the current fan mounts use, and then just replace the grill.
Or i need to fabricate a new panel that is larger than the current area taken by the two and either rivet or bolt it in place.
So i'm undecided at this point, for the short term i'll probably just paint the current mounts and use those. But if i suddenly am inspired by a good idea for a replacement you'll be the first to know.

Cheers
-Belial

 

Jedai: Yeah its a zalman CNPS7000-AlCu and it seems to attract dust like iron filings to a magnet.
Generally it get hit with a blast from the air compressor every 2 months or so as the cpu temps steadily rise.
The difference between clean and dusty is about 14-15degrees celcius.

I'm hoping however that won't be the same with the CNPS-9500LED due to the difference in swept area by the fan, but maybe i should look into some filtering for the intakes.

Cheers
-Belial

 

dude i got 9500 cooler and unless u got dust filters on the intake fans it will get covered in dust within 2 months or so. but if u got an air compressor at home it shouldnt be a problem. i gotta take my rig to the workshop everytime i wanna clean it

 

Love the paint job, also I think that smoked plexi would look best as it would diffuse the lights (if you have any) inside the case.

 

Looking good. I also tend to agree with OldY; smoked plexy would look awesome along with the rest of the design.

Love the case-mutilation shots

 

Sorry for the lack of updates guys, the weather has been on the bad side of crappy with temperatures in the low teens, definately not suited painting what with the need to paint outside and the rain.
So i put some of the time to good use putting my new hardware in my recently acquired travel damaged Antec SX-1040II.
Its missing i side panel, i got travel damaged replacement but its a bit to bent to fit at this stage, bending it straight is on the to do list.
So its got my cheiftecs sidepanel and front panel for the meantime.
Mmmm stack o PC new meets old.



The CNPS does dominate the view


I think you can see the reoccuring black theme here, with the case, silverstone PSU and black Asus motherboard.



This is the current lighting my blue ccfl will probably sit down against the closest edge on the base of the case



Also i noticed that i forgot a front view of the painted chassis so here it is.



So after spending the best part of this weekend well saturday at least, running 50m of outdoor cat5e at my girlfriends new house between the main house and office.
And the remainder of my weekend was spent designing a 50uSec pulse generator for Electronics at Uni and here is the in progress work of the PIC microcontroller circuit for the maze solving robot i'm building for Design at uni.



So unless the weather improves in the next day or so the painting will be on hold for now. But i should get some surface prep done for the second coat on the chassis.

In other news i'm after some input from the community at large,
Should i leave the rear fan covers as is or replace with mesh?

Is clear perspex for the sidepanel with an etch or tinted perspex the way to go?



Any affirmatives, negatives or other suggestions all welcome.

So i'll be going now places to go, things to solder.
Cheers
-Belial

 

Tint it with an etch.

 

Etch wise i'm tossing up between using my engraving bits on the dremel to cut a design into the perspex, thus giving a more lit up design.
Or painting a stenciled opaque design onto the clear perspex that will be backlit.