Case Mod Project BIO-A10 by E.E.L. Ambiense - Completed

[jhanlon303]

Originally Posted by Cheapskate

@John - The answer is yes, and it's lower than it's ever been before, apparently.
@EEL - I know how you feel. I have more appliances in my garage than in the house.

... and the toilets behind the garage can seat more people than the average minivan.

Originally Posted by E.E.L. Ambiense

LOL, Cheapskate beat me to it!

Hahah, man. I'm okay in that dept. Only a couple ovens laying around.

I haven't unpacked 90% of my stuff from Colorado. Couple months.

I was going to ask about the powdercoating oven. Thanks for reminding me. I'm off to search Craigslist.

john

[MrWizard]

Originally Posted by mnpctech

I felt a rumble in the Internets and tracked it down to this thread Your project logs set the bar for many people who first discovered bit-tech, and are now loyal members.

QFT!

Welcome back Jeremy, your presence was missed around here. Glad things are back on track for you, and I can't wait to see what you've got coming down the line!

[Combatus]

Holy crap, one of my favourites has started a new project! Watching!

[Scirocco]

Woot! Glad to see you're on it, Jeremy! And thanks for ranting on about those companies. Another reason for me not to buy their gear.

[E.E.L. Ambiense]

Originally Posted by Cleveland216

I was wondering what the heck happened to you!!! Why such a talented modder dropped off the radar. Well now I know! Really glad to have you back

You mention carbon fiber or fixing "that" in this build. I'm doing a carbon fiber build as we speak, check it out for how to make carbon fiber and if you have any questions, jus ask. Also, if you really need a piece, give me some dimensions and I'll see if I have something lying around and I'll send it to you. I have alot of raw carbon fiber fabric lying around too...if you want some fabric I'll send some to you.

Anywayz, Glad to have you back, MOD ON

Thanks for the kind words!

I appreciate the offer!; actually someone from work in the past had applied some fake-looking carbon fiber vinyl to the front door of the case and it looks atrocious to me. I'm going to remove it.

I checked out your mod too; awesome and interesting work!

Originally Posted by MrWizard

QFT!

Welcome back Jeremy, your presence was missed around here. Glad things are back on track for you, and I can't wait to see what you've got coming down the line!

Hey, MrWizard! Long time no-see! How's it going? I missed all you guys too. Hopefully, I won't let everyone down too much.

Originally Posted by Combatus

Holy crap, one of my favourites has started a new project! Watching!

Hahaha, thanks Antony! I promise I won't take 6 months to finish it.

Originally Posted by Scirocco

Woot! Glad to see you're on it, Jeremy! And thanks for ranting on about those companies. Another reason for me not to buy their gear.

Thanks, Christine!

Yeah they really peeved me off. My story seems to sync with quite a lot of others out there too. It's a shame. Buy a real case from companies such as Fractal or NZXT, where you'll actually get a response back through email.

[KayinBlack]

Seriously. I have had more luck with support with a hacked Dell case (long story, but super awesome) than I have with CM.

Later this summer, if I'm cleared to travel again I'd love to stop by. We'll see how it goes.

Stop by and take a look at what I've been playing with. Super fun stuff there. I think it's been my favorite mod so far. Also, I'm watching this. I really enjoyed your old builds, I expect this will be just as fun to watch unfold.

[Kylevdm]

blah! Now I have to read all your guff again!

SIGH! Welcome back mate, need to catch you and Bill on Skype again!

[dbradford32]

I agree about those companies. I believe, if a company wishes to continue to thrive, they should back it up with customer support. I have seen some people talking about how great Lian Li's support was... That is another good one for the money!

[E.E.L. Ambiense]

Originally Posted by KayinBlack

Seriously. I have had more luck with support with a hacked Dell case (long story, but super awesome) than I have with CM.

Later this summer, if I'm cleared to travel again I'd love to stop by. We'll see how it goes.

Stop by and take a look at what I've been playing with. Super fun stuff there. I think it's been my favorite mod so far. Also, I'm watching this. I really enjoyed your old builds, I expect this will be just as fun to watch unfold.

I don't doubt it, man. CM has really dropped the ball for me. I'll never buy their products again. Even if they came out, stepped up to the plate and issued a public apology on this very forum. I still won't buy their products.

Yeah, definitely man!

Originally Posted by Kylevdm

blah! Now I have to read all your guff again!

SIGH! Welcome back mate, need to catch you and Bill on Skype again!

Oh, come on, m8.... you just love it when I drone on and on about non-sense!

I have all the files still from the p'cast... including a snippet of Kyle saying, "Face-tube" which kills me every time I hear it. Along with dbradford's laugh... heh heh heh! Man, if he knew we were laughing at his laughing he'd--- BAH! Hey, dbradford!

Originally Posted by dbradford32

I agree about those companies. I believe, if a company wishes to continue to thrive, they should back it up with customer support. I have seen some people talking about how great Lian Li's support was... That is another good one for the money!

Apparently they don't want any business, which is fine by me. Whatever. Lian Li used to actually know what they're doing with cases. Now, I'm not so sure. They've basically recycled the same frame for the past 5 years with some minor changes made to it and slapped new outside shells on it to sell as a different case. If that's innovation, I've created more cutting-edge things with my !

[E.E.L. Ambiense]

Alrighty then. Right back to it! I'm making an effort to make good on my promise to not take 6 months (or 2 years) to finish a log, so here ya go.

I decided to work a little on the switches going on this thing. Nothing special. The typical vandal-resistant poop switch.



But a shiny, new switch isn't going to mesh well with a beat-up case, is it? Let's fix that.

Some 80-grit sandpaper does a quick job of giving it years of use without the actual switch-actuation.



And here we go. Nothing too difficult, right?



There's another switch as well, so I slapped that one around the garage a bit too. Not literally, though. Just figuratively. So don't go calling DCS (Dept of Care of Switches) on me, ok?



Alright, moving right along. I need to strip the rest of these wires out of the case so I have some room to work in there without something smacking me in the face all the time. ...wow, that just came out...wrong....



Here's the stock power/reset assembly. I believe they've used this same unit on a half-dozen cases already or more.



Let's get that thing outta there, shall we?



There we go.



I love how I always end up with a bundle of wires when I mess with LiLi chassis. I have boxes of basically this same pile here. I could probably string them all together and wire up a dozen X-Mas trees with the LEDs alone!



Noticed the cheapy stock case feet are literally screwing themselves off the chassis as we speak. Definitely being replaced by real feet; i.e. MNPCTech units.



Hey, let me ask you something... Do all your 1/8" drillbits look like this?



Yeah, me too. I think that's a side-effect of owning LiLi chassis.

Alright, so I need to make some room down below so I need to de-rivet some cage plates and some other non-sense out of the bottom of the case.









There we go. Nice and easy!



A little more room now. Let's keep going.



Need to remove the PSU stand thingy and that mid-plate that has a 120mm fan spot, probably to keep the airflow through the HDD racks and onto the PSU and out the case. I dunno. I'm not a thermodynaminiscistician.



Much better.

Alright. Now that PSU bracket thing. The hell do I call it? A cheese-grater? No, wait-- it looks like a metal version of Connect-Four!



Oh, I also had some gear handed over to install in this beast... here's a perfect chance to see how things look, shall we?



Heh heh.



It's a decent-sized rad.



My calculations showed I could probably get away with getting it shoehorned into this case; looks like I was right. I probably couldn't fit any other brand rad of this size down there though because of the size of the plenum chambers and the fan-spacing too since EK's spacing on 140mm rads is actually smaller than majority of the other rads on the market. To each their own I suppose.

Until next time, thank you for tuning in!

[E.E.L. Ambiense]

Oops!

[GuyInTulsa]

Welcome back! You were missed...

[jhanlon303]

Drill bit with rivet heads - check.
Lian-Li wiring harness - check.
3.5 inch bays, vibration mounted - check. Sent mine to you for one of your builds.

Is this where we insert "same case different size?
Lian-Li is one of the vendors that is currently in "rest on our image" mode. Love em to death but they are in the 'take these parts and put em in a new case' mode. Bigger, little-er, sideways, move stuffz around.

Oh, and yes we all are watching.

john

[dbradford32]

I know you were all laughing at me laughing! It's all good, I have a funny voice, and laugh... lol I laugh at myself sometimes! This case is starting to kick more ass, every time you post! Keep it up! We, "EXPECT GREAT THINGS FROM YOU!" jk. No pressure or anything!

[Cown]

Looking good mate, can't wait to see more

[E.E.L. Ambiense]

Hello again!

Last we left off, I was about to ruin another case-- er, modify one. Let's get back to it, shall we?

The stock top exhaust port is a small thermal exhaust port, right below the main port, er, fan (sorry, had Star Wars going through my head for a second there! ). The top 120mm spot is cool and all....buttttttt it's not good enough. So let's fix that.

First, need to remove the fan first or it's going to be a little more difficult to get it going.



But how am I going to make it different? Well....



By magic, of course! *SNAP!*



Presto!



Man, I just made Penn & Teller look like hacks.

One thing that Lian Li implemented into their case design a little while back that I was less-than-thrilled by were these "watercooling pass-thru ports".



..Why? But then again, I guess being a modder you think outside the box a bit more and the typical system builder schmo isn't really going to mind it. Anyways, I want to cover those things up at the very least, as well as increase the cooling a bit. So I opted to increase to a 140mm top fan.



I designed the acrylic so the frame was just large enough to be able to cover those stupid ports and shift the actual fan itself slightly toward the rear of the case. Honestly, I wish I could've gone even larger, but the rails for the removable mobo tray wouldn't let me because it was being a poopie head.

Any decent modder will know to mask off their work in case something horrid occurs like it spontaneously turning into a typical prime-time network television program or something, so it's always a good idea to make sure your subject is protected. And I don't mean condoms either, guys. We're not talking about chassis-intercourse. ...*shudders* Just got a horrible mental-image. ...Maybe that's what those ports are for! And hey, there's even two for a choice!



Yeah, the fan will sit right about there.



Make sure you mark off where you're actually going to conduct the surgery.



I like to check it against an actual fan as well to make sure things are good.

I decided to bevel around where the fan will sit as a "margin of error" sort of thing. Insurance, if you will.



Nice and easy-peasy.



In a situation like this, I prefer to use step-bits to bevel out the holes in the corners and follow it with jigsaw cuts. It's fast, easy and clean.



The only issue doing it this way is I have to modify the acrylic so it had additional mounting holes to actually hold the fan/acrylic combo onto the chassis, but I was in a hurry and didn't think things through as thoroughly as I usually do. No big deal though. This is just fine! I prefer the fan to sit clean against the acrylic instead of against bits and pieces of what was left of the stock fan hole on the chassis.



If you didn't drill into your own arm, your hole should look like this...



Great. Now four more like that, and we're good!



And a simple straight cut down each side with a jigsaw...



And we're done. I prefer to use a flat-file on the metal since it's aluminum so it's nice and soft and easy to meld into the shape you want.



Sometimes I'll use a rotary tool and sanding band if I'm in a hurry, but no worries here. I have plenty of time. ...actually, not really. This thing needs to be done and off the bench to make room for... well... another log; another time.

Not perfect, but works just fine.



Alright, remember this top IO port assembly?



Here's a little teaser....



Spot-on. Great! This should look just fine...



Until next time. Thanks for tuning in!

[jhanlon303]

Seriously, you really need to get one of these:



Can't live without it on the bench.

My CM Sniper has them same 2 'what for' holes in the case back. Not the rubber 'I'm a water cooler poser' holes, the two others. Look like knockouts in old electrical boxes.

Mod on!

john

/edit

Humor and attitude.

[Cown]

Awesome acrylic, wish I had access to a cutter like that, great job :-)

[E.E.L. Ambiense]

Originally Posted by jhanlon303

Seriously, you really need to get one of these:

Can't live without it on the bench.

My CM Sniper has them same 2 'what for' holes in the case back. Not the rubber 'I'm a water cooler poser' holes, the two others. Look like knockouts in old electrical boxes.

Mod on!

john

/edit

Humor and attitude.

Of course, I have THE ruler too somewhere; just don't know where as there's still "dust" settling out here. I use one at work as well; 1st one out of the box when we got the stock in. It's integral to one's sanity. Thanks, MNPCTech!

Exactly, electrical box knockouts! Brilliant. I knew it reminded me of something!

[Cheapskate]

Originally Posted by E.E.L. Ambiense

Gulf Coast indoor-type detected.
Like the biohazard grill. The little one looks like a D*sney swastika.