Planning Your Case Mod - bit-tech.net Forums

Bindibadgi · 23rd Mar 2007, 17:40

http://www.bit-tech.net/modding/2007...ase_mod/1.html

dire_wolf · 23rd Mar 2007, 18:05

Excellent guide, I think you covered just about every base, ther's nothing more dissapointing on these forums than when a project log disapears or goes wrong through bad planning

oddball walking · 23rd Mar 2007, 18:32

Thank you just what I needed.

Bluephoenix · 23rd Mar 2007, 18:34

excellent guide, and helpful.

I'm using Solidworks to design my own potential mod, but I'm suffering from lack of material information. Being in the US actually does have disadvantages, I can't really use most of the material discussions and information here as it is all european/UK and the shipping costs from there would bust the budget.

As for the stuff in the catalogs here (mcMaster Carr, for example), I can't afford samples to see what would be best to use.

I think something that would be very helpful to prospective modders would be a cohesive list of good materials available for given regions (US/UK/EUR)

Great article!

Mankz · 23rd Mar 2007, 18:47

Very nice guide there....

Tulatin · 23rd Mar 2007, 18:53

Us canucks have the same problem. Can't find a 1mmx400x1200mm sheet for the life of me

rowin4kicks · 23rd Mar 2007, 18:53

hey another great article
just what i needed to start up my planning agian!

€gr€s · 23rd Mar 2007, 19:01

very good guide... really..
but i belong to the group of "improvisators".. i have my ideas and probably whole project in my mind only... and i havent met any big problems yet.. but.. i think you are right, without good planning it is very hard

DarkLord7854 · 23rd Mar 2007, 19:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by €gr€s

very good guide... really..
but i belong to the group of "improvisators".. i have my ideas and probably whole project in my mind only... and i havent met any big problems yet.. but.. i think you are right, without good planning it is very hard

I fit into the "bright but lazy"
Great ideas
Can be done
Have the skills
Have the budget
BUT... I'll stick to sleeping in the bed

LoveJoy · 23rd Mar 2007, 19:30

Love it they dont teach that in school eventhough im studying at craft and art school :P

1e8o · 23rd Mar 2007, 19:56

Nice guide, gonna use it very soon :P

Fod · 23rd Mar 2007, 21:32

hey, the writing in that article was not half bad! Peter Dickinson, good job on a great article!

i'll be building a new machine in the summer. it's unlikely to see any major mods but i may have to 'personalise' it a bit....

metarinka · 24th Mar 2007, 00:17

not bad, My whole degree is built around actually metal fabrication and design/theory and engineering. I work in the manufacturing sector during the day and I've had chances to build some pretty sweet things with other peoples money.
I would like to add that no matter how simple plan on everything taking twice as long as you think it would and costing twice as much as you would think it would.

I'm a poor college student so my money is thin and now adays I try to keep my cases cheap. Something that is more expensive might not look or be built better, You can do a lot with simple materials and skills depending on how you plan.
remember that sometimes something may be difficult to make from scratch (lets say a metal sphere) but easy to find from some company who makes that part for a living, or from some premade part (two propane tank ends put together). It can save you time and money in the long run to adapt something that exists then trying to fab a bunch of things from scratch.
Also as a rule I say don't mod the case you are currently using if your like me, taking your main computer offline is the equivalent of going cold turkey from smoking. It's nice to be able to build a mod hastle free and only swap parts in when you need to size something up.
oh and finally the bigger the projects the longer it will probably take
(check out my project log start dates)

good article planning and fabrication is definately a series of learned skills, you'll find some designs can be made with the bare minimum of planning, and some will need many hours and specific blue prints/cad drawings. I really agree flexibility and creativity will get you really far.

neillyb · 24th Mar 2007, 02:13

I haven't got a clue

Neji · 24th Mar 2007, 08:28

That's a great guide. In my first mod, I got overambitious and found out I could't do everything I wanted due to lack of.....just about everything. In my current project, I'm following the advice of that guide as much as I can.

yakyb · 26th Mar 2007, 00:28

i think that this is an excellent article/guide, Esspecially where it says

Quote:

keep in mind that getting out into the garage or workshop and working on your project is the most important thing

i spent a while doing concept drawings for my mod '2en' but not much time planning space and costing, and i will do a lot more of both of them for the next mod i attempt. however i have learnt so much from this mod that i doubt i could have planned for the majority of things i have had to overcome any way.

My mod is in no way shape or form even close to being as good as some of those on this forum, and that frustrates me however my next one will and if not the one after will be. this weekend was the first time i ever worked with resin and had i known how good a product it was a lot of my bondo work would have been replaced (saving me Time, effort and Money) but there was no way for me to know untill i actually got my hands dirty so to say!

anyway i will be updating my worklog soon be sure to check it out (see sig)

Zut · 27th Mar 2007, 00:05

Excellent article.

I think I'll be reading this one several times over!

G-gnome · 13th Apr 2007, 15:15

Thanks for the positive feedback all.

The article is more an overview of common considerations than an exhaustive guide, as everyone has different approaches to planning; I can only speak from my experience and what I've seen around the forums here and on other sites over the last few years, so I may have missed the odd thing. I'm glad some found it useful.

I'll be covering a few other areas of modding, in a similar fashion, in upcoming articles.

Now get planning (and modding)!

23rd Mar 2007, 17:40	#1
Bindibadgi Richard Swinburne bit-tech Staff Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: Omnipwntent Posts: 28,284	Planning Your Case Mod http://www.bit-tech.net/modding/2007...ase_mod/1.html Digg it! __________________ Made you look, made you stare, made you clicked this in your underwear! Den of Geek! Last edited by Bindibadgi; 23rd Mar 2007 at 18:03.

23rd Mar 2007, 18:05	#2
dire_wolf Revelation Machine Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: UK Posts: 2,119	Excellent guide, I think you covered just about every base, ther's nothing more dissapointing on these forums than when a project log disapears or goes wrong through bad planning __________________ Marching Into History, Marching Into War, Marching Into History To Function As A Whore "Don't Fear Citizens! TAD KNOWS HIS RAID!"

23rd Mar 2007, 18:32	#3
oddball walking ...! Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Mercia Posts: 896	Thank you just what I needed. __________________ Flickr DeviantART tweet tweet

23rd Mar 2007, 18:53	#6
Tulatin The Froggy Poster Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Canada Posts: 2,942	Us canucks have the same problem. Can't find a 1mmx400x1200mm sheet for the life of me __________________ Desky E8400 @ 4.0 1.42v; P5K-E WiFi; 4x1 Kingmax Mars 1066 @ 1129 CAS 5; 2x [TOO CHEAP TO SPONSOR] 4850 @ 675/1050; Enermax Liberty; WCing in a CM690

23rd Mar 2007, 18:53	#7
rowin4kicks Hypermodder Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Windsor, UK Posts: 761	hey another great article just what i needed to start up my planning agian! __________________ Penguin v5.0 on it's way... AMD Phenom II X4 955 - 4Gb 1600Mhz Corsair Dominator - XFX Radeon HD 5850 - Corsair HX650W - 500Gb Samsung F2

23rd Mar 2007, 18:34	#4
Bluephoenix Spoon? What spoon? Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Daytona Beach, FL Posts: 936	excellent guide, and helpful. I'm using Solidworks to design my own potential mod, but I'm suffering from lack of material information. Being in the US actually does have disadvantages, I can't really use most of the material discussions and information here as it is all european/UK and the shipping costs from there would bust the budget. As for the stuff in the catalogs here (mcMaster Carr, for example), I can't afford samples to see what would be best to use. I think something that would be very helpful to prospective modders would be a cohesive list of good materials available for given regions (US/UK/EUR) Great article!

23rd Mar 2007, 19:01	#8
€gr€s What's a Dremel? Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Slovakia Posts: 14	very good guide... really.. but i belong to the group of "improvisators".. i have my ideas and probably whole project in my mind only... and i havent met any big problems yet.. but.. i think you are right, without good planning it is very hard __________________ Your Life - Your Rules ! my case in progress: http://msxyz.szm.sk/image/plexi.jpg

23rd Mar 2007, 19:30	#10
LoveJoy Modder Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Finland Posts: 61	Love it they dont teach that in school eventhough im studying at craft and art school :P

23rd Mar 2007, 19:56	#11
1e8o Supermodder Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Netherlands Posts: 272	Nice guide, gonna use it very soon :P __________________ NEW!!! X2 4200+\| 2 x XFX Geforce 6600 gt in SLI \| Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe \| 4 x hitachi 250 gb sata hdd + Maxtor 160 usb 2.0 total of 1160 GB \| 2 x 1024 MB DDR-400 (2 GB ) \| Tagan U force 580 Watt \| Saving money for an macbook and an Iphone (2nd edition)

23rd Mar 2007, 21:32	#12
Fod what is the cheesecake? Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: London Posts: 4,908	hey, the writing in that article was not half bad! Peter Dickinson, good job on a great article! i'll be building a new machine in the summer. it's unlikely to see any major mods but i may have to 'personalise' it a bit.... __________________ "Sesame Street is brought to you by the letters P, W, N, the number 3, and the letter D." I'm a pretentious git with a camera. ISPs want to spy on you. Join the fight against phorm XBL/PSN/Steam ID: FodT

24th Mar 2007, 00:17	#13
metarinka I am a Dremel Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Michigan Posts: 1,623	not bad, My whole degree is built around actually metal fabrication and design/theory and engineering. I work in the manufacturing sector during the day and I've had chances to build some pretty sweet things with other peoples money. I would like to add that no matter how simple plan on everything taking twice as long as you think it would and costing twice as much as you would think it would. I'm a poor college student so my money is thin and now adays I try to keep my cases cheap. Something that is more expensive might not look or be built better, You can do a lot with simple materials and skills depending on how you plan. remember that sometimes something may be difficult to make from scratch (lets say a metal sphere) but easy to find from some company who makes that part for a living, or from some premade part (two propane tank ends put together). It can save you time and money in the long run to adapt something that exists then trying to fab a bunch of things from scratch. Also as a rule I say don't mod the case you are currently using if your like me, taking your main computer offline is the equivalent of going cold turkey from smoking. It's nice to be able to build a mod hastle free and only swap parts in when you need to size something up. oh and finally the bigger the projects the longer it will probably take (check out my project log start dates) good article planning and fabrication is definately a series of learned skills, you'll find some designs can be made with the bare minimum of planning, and some will need many hours and specific blue prints/cad drawings. I really agree flexibility and creativity will get you really far. __________________ project: Orbitoid project: Orbitoid discussion Project: Angry-9 the WWII radio Last edited by metarinka; 24th Mar 2007 at 00:22.

24th Mar 2007, 02:13	#14
neillyb Multimodder Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Falkirk, Scotland Posts: 102	I haven't got a clue __________________ www.gumpcom.com - LAN Parties in Scotland \|AMD FX-60\|\|Gainward Bliss 8800GTS 640MB\|\|SeaGate 160GB HDD / 2 x 320 GB SATA Seagate things I think \|\|OCZ Platinum 2 x 1GB PC3200 RAM\|\| MSI K8N Diamond Plus motherboard \|

24th Mar 2007, 08:28	#15
Neji Multimodder Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Japan Posts: 180	That's a great guide. In my first mod, I got overambitious and found out I could't do everything I wanted due to lack of.....just about everything. In my current project, I'm following the advice of that guide as much as I can.

27th Mar 2007, 00:05	#17
Zut Multimodder Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Near Sheffield, UK Posts: 127	Excellent article. I think I'll be reading this one several times over!

13th Apr 2007, 15:15	#18
G-gnome Peter Dickison Join Date: May 2003 Location: gnomeworkshop.nsw.au Posts: 792	Thanks for the positive feedback all. The article is more an overview of common considerations than an exhaustive guide, as everyone has different approaches to planning; I can only speak from my experience and what I've seen around the forums here and on other sites over the last few years, so I may have missed the odd thing. I'm glad some found it useful. I'll be covering a few other areas of modding, in a similar fashion, in upcoming articles. Now get planning (and modding)! __________________ Infinity < 1 x 10^Gnome Mods - Orac³ Part-1 Part-2 Part-3 Part-4 Final Part WMD Part-I Part-II