Case Mod Redefine R4, updated April 17th, front done

[Razbit]

Alright, here we go

First of all, my this is my first post on this forum A very good friend of mine, Darkened, told me to register and write project logs here instead of AllTheMods, where I have a log of my Antec Threehundred mod, two years back.

So, the Big Idea:
Lets go and "watercoolerize" the (new) Define R4, and make it nicer to the eye == Redefine R4
I'm gonna partially replicate some of the Orange Monster's (Darkened's mod) ideas, including the acrylic 'separators' found in his case.


Ok, here goes:
I've started making the mod a while back (a little after R4 came to stores in Finland), so heres what I've done so far. (Sorry about the pics, SGS2 says hello )

Before:


Obviously your gonna have to wait for the after pic

So, I started by taking the case as apart as possible without any un-needed violence:

PS. Of course, the front panel already has a few scratches, damn those shiny plastic surfaces..

Then began the needed violence part, I removed the 5.25" slot and modified the front metal plate abit:

No more pics of the act since they would have been censored because of the violence in them..

The original plan was to put one 240 rad on top of the case, move the 5.25" slots (2) to the bottom of the case and install a 240 rad on top of it. After reconsidering the situation, I decided to dump the 5.25" slots and use only one 360

HDD rack:
It is the Define's 3-slot rack, I just took it apart (all the plastics and screws away..) and mounted it upside down right in front of the rad:



Aaand mounted:

The rack is mounted through the bottom with four screws (the ones that keep that plastic thingy in place). The fan holes (120mm) matched the raster of the holes in the rack, so I only had to drill two holes on my own

Then I made a cover to the fan slot from an old side panel that has been laying around, to close the fan's grill and holes. I used pop rivets for attachement.


About the next picture:
A: My MoBo (Maximus IV Extreme) has these molex connectors, called EZ Plugs, to provide more power to the VCards. Well, the other one of them is placed right to the bottom of the PCB, so that I have 5mm space between the connector and and PSU So now I need to find a solution (ofcourse, the connectors can be left unused.. )
And B: The fan slot cover is in place, I mounted it underneath the case's bottom sheet, so it really isn't shown that much.



And the final 3 things:

thanks to my school, I have some bigger (not that much better) tools available, for example this bending machine (Year of manufacturing: B.C. 2500):


But however, I managed to make the following two parts with it:

A cover for the 360 rad's holders and a holder for my two SSDs:


And finally, an image of how I finished bending them:


(The machine really sucks..)
I'm gonna paint the cover black and the SSD holder white, we'll see that in the next update (soon )

Thanks for reading, thats it for today, Razbit goes to sleep.

PS. If you don't see any updates, that means exams in the schools -> gotta study..

See ya!

Razbit salutes.

[Darkened]

Let me get this ball rolling and welcome you "officially" to Bit-tech!

You've made some good progress since I last saw the case and I'm glad you did bust out the camera since I think this will definitely be a project to watch. Also...subscribed.

What could I say to the new blood from an old fart, measure twice and a third time after that, take your time with the project and remember that "the devil's in the details". Also to avoid a lot of mistakes I've made, plan ahead

Looking forward to seeing where you're going to take this project in the coming times.

Keep on modding

Darkened

[Razbit]

@Darkened:
Thank you, buddy, I'll try and do my best

just editing the thread, that's the reason for existence of this post.. : D

[Razbit]

October 12th, 2012: Let's go to Darkened's!

Alright, this update is a complete re-think, me and Darkened revised the mod, and came to some conclusions:
- HDD Rack is better looking if rotated 90 degrees
- make a sandwich of the rad and it's fans
- And throw away the door of the case (make a nice front grill)

So, here we go:
I started off by mounting handles on top of the case, and noticed that the other one was scratchy an rusty (I guess that had been in use before, I found them from our apartment (they were leftovers from the kitchen reshuffle made by the previous owners of the apartment). Gotta go and by new ones..


Then I turned the HDD rack around (no pic, sorry..). Then I made a cover to the rear of case to close the fan hole and make it a solid rear panel:


I made it from a side (..?) panel of an old case of one of my friends.
And in place:


The behaviour of one of the rivets was new to me, if you look closely, you can see that it splitted instead of just crumpling up. I then dremeled the the rivets to look better, and that one weirdo just came off

I had to dremel off one of the extension card slots (the vertical one) to put the rear panel in place:


Now, here comes a news: Darkened invited me to his modding shop, so I went there and we did some shourds to my case (thanks Darkened )
Here are the pics of what we did that evening (we did also alot of planning and general talking about the OM and computers )
We designed the front rad and fan's mounting system, the whole front thingy got re-designed (the door goes away, for example). Here it is, partly done (mock-up stage of the part ):



I'm gonna paint it all black, install some cool (white led) fans, and make/buy a good-looking grill

Oh, and one more thing: remember the SSD mount bracket I made in my school? It just got installed and painted:

I used the flash of my phone (SGS2) while taking this pic, the wall behind the rack is white, but the flash made it look like if it was black

That's it for now, stay tuned! (next update's gonna air in a couple of weeks, that will possibly be a big one

Razbit out

[Razbit]

Hello again!

It's been a rough month: 10+ exams, essays, presentations etc schoolwork.. And, on top of that, the new Black Ops, Borderlands 2 and Steam + Origin sales
But, here we go again

So, as I said before, I was gonna equip ideas from Darkened (thx, pal!). Now, I've made a couple of shrouds from Al, one to go

Let's start with the vertical one:




The sheet's a little corroded , but fortunately, those parts of the sheet were not used/left on the back of the shroud
This one's gonna be secured to the mobo rack and the rad with total of 6 (thumb) screws, and, as usual, be painted matte black

In place:


There's gonna be holes in the left side of this, to get the cables from the mobo hidden


And then to the other part, the horizontal shroud.




This one's made from 1.6mm Al, different from the vertical one (1mm). It has some kind of a plastic on its surface on the other (top) side, I'm not sure if I should sand it off (suggestions? )
I made this by hand, using Wiss' snips and and of course, a file The bends are made using my school's (awesome) bender, which did its job just-and-just.. I was kinda amazed

I just love aluminum, its so soft but rigid, that you can make a plane from it, and cut using a butter knife Steel, on the other hand, is something I try to avoid It's so heavy and hard, that it isn't a nice one to model

Back to business..
Here they're both in place:



After I made the cuts to the horizontal shroud, I knew that I should have just shortened the vertical one Lesson learned: don't mod for too long in one spree

See you soon hopefully, now its Battlefield time

[Ra6]

I love that case! It has lots of possibilities! Keep it up!

[WALKYRIE]

I was tinking to buy tools to make modifications and improvements to my PC case, but after consideration about the amount of money needed, I decided to go and order to the modifications to a metal work shop, which can be cleaner and faster solution. I was lucky and I have found a place which is not really expensive

The reason I love to make modifications to the PC case is because I can rebuild some or may be all the metal components of the case using 2mm thick sheet metal (even stainless steel) which is extremely strong and stiff

[TeenGeek]

I've got one of these at home for my main rig! Awesome to finally see one of 'em modded. I may have to acquire another for some modding soon.
awesome so far, keep it up!

[fractal arc modder]

I am going to sub to this thread looks interesting

[Editor22]

Off to a great start! should look epic with that mid plate

[Razbit]

Originally Posted by WALKYRIE

I was tinking to buy tools to make modifications and improvements to my PC case, but after consideration about the amount of money needed, I decided to go and order to the modifications to a metal work shop, which can be cleaner and faster solution. I was lucky and I have found a place which is not really expensive

The reason I love to make modifications to the PC case is because I can rebuild some or may be all the metal components of the case using 2mm thick sheet metal (even stainless steel) which is extremely strong and stiff

That's about my point: steel is a very rigid material (and therefore heavy) which means, that you can make very strong structures out of it, if you have sufficient tools (as you said, you used a metal workshop, imagine the amount of work that would be required if you made those parts your self). That's why I prefer aluminum: you don't need as strong and high-quality tools (especially bending and cutting) as you would need with aluminum = cheaper.

Thanks though for support


To others also:

Thank you for your support, I'll try and do my best

I got this build up and running just before Christmas, though it's not ready yet I was planning to air an update before Christmas with the last shrouds and painting done and the test fit of everything, but the update couldn't make it.. it will air in January, so don't hold your breath

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

[KoSoVaR^]

Great looking covers dude!

[Razbit]

Hi!

New year has came, with it a new update

But first:

Originally Posted by KoSoVaR^

Great looking covers dude!

Thank you, I'll do my best to keep them that way

Soo.. this was all made before xmas, but I run out of time to post this..

Alright, here we go:

Like I mentioned in the previous update, one more shroud was still to come. So, here it is before painting:

Made from 1.6mm Aluminium, its quite strong and solid.

And then, all three shrouds got a matte black spraypaint and varnish. The turned out quite good, some scratches can be seen though.. (somebody didn't have the patience to sand carefully enough.. )

But, I can live with it, and if it starts bugging me, then its time for some putty + sanding

The shourds are put together using these M5 bolts:

It think this is quite a good picture, considering that I used my phone to take it (ofcourse, white balance is all f*cked up, but this pic got no photoshopping done

And these clamps:


Ok, now its time to put everything together and see if its gonna work out

I started by installing the motherboard first, though it didn't really work that way (iteration 2: start from cables and shourds, mobo goes last.. )

There it is in place, as you can see, part of it is hidden behind the HDD rack (of course, the connectors are there.. :/ ):


And now, some more components in:


And because the SATA power cables are veeryyy long, I had to shorten it:


You can also see my cutters, Piergiacomi TR25. I just love 'em

And the wireing between the PSU and HDDs:


Quite messy, but it will be covered.

And a view from the back:


All the cables go as free and messy as possible, but that will do

I also had to mod my top fans. I soldered them together and corrected the sleeving on them:


And finally, a ready-for-now picture:



This case will have to do for now (not sure for how long, I'll get back to this as quickly as possible though.. ). My wallet isn't really keeping up with my mods, I really could use some sponsors (modding ain't easy for a student)

Leave your comments below, don't hold your breath on the next update, I'll post as soon as I can

Something I'm planning to do:

- The front of course
- water coolers in place (havent got them yet..)
- sleeve the cables
- paint some nice text (REDEFINE R4 possibly) to the vertical shroud (mayyyyybe?)

Ideas accepted in the comments

Razbit out.

[Razbit]

Hello again, been a while

Been busy with school and Battlefield 3's End Game expansion

Anyway, I received a package from Nils, and this is what was inside:


So, I think you know how I've spent my days lately, fingers sore, trying to get every cable sleeved
My Sunbeam tool set for disassembling the connectors was a piece of s*it, so I made my own tool from a paperclip (no pic, sorry..)

I started with an easy one: the PCI-Express cables (6 and 6+2 pin). Silverstone had soldered anti-ripple capacitors to the graphics card end of the cable, and a ferrite bead to the PSU-end of the cable. So after removing the connectors I removed the cap (2200uF) and the bead. After that I sleeved 'em, and they worked just fine, so no harm done, eh?

Here they are:


Once those two were done (day 2) it was the turn of the EPS cable (the one that goes to the mobo, 4+4 or 8 pins) to get sleeved.

Same plan, remove connectors -> sleeve -> test, but in this case, a "boom" was involved..
I used an image as a reference of the order of the pins, but apparently swapped 0v and +12v in the connector at the PSU end of the cable got swapped -> bye bye PSU As much as I could measure the PSU (strider gold 750W) still seems to work though (at least +5Vsb and power-on) exept for nothing on the +12V line. Argh, warranty got void in January anyways; Strider only had a 12-month warranty... So, if anyone has some good advice, you're welcome to share it with me I'm gonna get a new one if the old one can't be fixed, but now I'm up 'n running on my sis's PSU (Corsair VX450W ), which barely runs my hardware.

Here, fixed:


Ok, last, but not least: the ATX cable.
Again, removed the connector with my own tool, sleeved and re-installed.
Here it is, no complications were on the way:



Since nowadays there's no -5v line anymore, Silverstone uses that empty spot as 3.3v sense, so sleeving on one of the 3.3v cables looks funny:



Part one of the update finished, time for part two.

PART TWO: THE RE-ASSEMBLY:

After sleeving the cables it was time to re-assemble the computer, so let's start off by connecting everything to the psu (this was before the "boom" episode described earlier..):



Then, mobo got in place and ATX + EPS cables were connected:



Then, lastly, graphics card in-place with all the cables connected:


And a view from the back:


That's it I guess, I'll be back with the front plate soon, just a small sneak-peek:


todo:
- Front plate
- Water coolers

[Shurika]

That`s cool redefining! color scheme is very pretty. don`t you think about bolts with rounded head for covers? I suppose it`ll have better look, what about it?

[Razbit]

Originally Posted by Shurika

That`s cool redefining! color scheme is very pretty. don`t you think about bolts with rounded head for covers? I suppose it`ll have better look, what about it?

Thanks man, can you please specify which screws you mean?

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

[KayinBlack]

He means button head screws versus socket head cap screws.

[Razbit]

Oh, those

I dunno, I haven't got any of those screws laying around, but I guess I could go and buy a few and try how they look we'll see...

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

[Razbit]

Allright, here we go again..

This update just shows the ready front panel, I forgot to take any pics while I was making it, sorry about that..

Ok, so, I started by removing some pieces of plastic that were blocking me from gluing acrylic (transparent sanded from every angle) to the sides to block airflow and annoying things that could be seen through. Then, I clued them in place. Also, I made a hole to the "door" for three 120mm fans and an A.C. Ryan 360 Grill, to push air through the rad inside the case. After that I drilled mounting holes for the grill and the fans, tapped (m5) the fans' mounting holes and the holes I made for the grill to the door. Then it was time for test-fit, which turned out to be great

Then I took it apart, glued the door to the frame (both plastic, I used Kiilto Flex as the glue, which is very similar to Sikaflex, a flexible glue that glues almost any material and sticks to your hands and spreads everywhere, especially if its black ) and re-mounted the fans and the grill. I used the same M5 socket-head screws found from inside the case.

Pics:
This is the whole front, with lights on.


And another one:


And a close-up of the buttons:


And finally, a night view:


The fans are BitFenix's Spectre white LED 120mm, they're just great

Now to get a new power supply and water coolers..

See ya,
Razbit