This is my case Beaker, named after a muppet character because a soft toy Beaker lives inside it (girlfriends idea, anything that makes her agreeable to modding if fine by me). This started life a Xaser III. I had originally intended to leave it alone.. famous last words. First I got into overclocking, and as I sleep with this PC on it needed to be quiet. So I invested in some water cooling gear, including a 120mm fan. I removed the bottom HDD cage, and put a bix and an Enermax fan in the front. Next I decided to increase the outflow of hot air by modifying the front door with a little alloy expander mesh. I found that running with the side of my case off dropped my temps by 4-6 degrees.. as I like to go to lans, and security is fairly important (quick release 90 degree mounted HDDs in this case), I decided to make a duct so that the radiator could breath fresh air. I purchased a 6" 90 degree drainage bend, and chopped it up till it fitted under the HDD cage, and lined up with the rad. Next I chopped out the motherboard tray, and used a little bitumex foam to ensure that air could only come from one place. And that place was a decent sized whole in the side of the case. Everything you see so far was done with a jigsaw with a metal cutting blade. Before I fitted the bix, I flirted with a 3R Posideon water cooling kit. Not wanting to waste it, and having some other plans for it, I mounted the radiator from it in the back of my case. It seemed only fair that if the front rad was breathing cold air, then the rear one should too. And while I was at it, the PSU would probably run quieter if it was colder (speed sensitive fans) so that was ducted too. The duct was made from a piece of 4" downpipe and a 4" 90 degree bend. Then joined to the rear rad mount. And primered And mounted. The horrible mishapen mesh in there was temporay to see how it looked. I'll do something similar with the final result. Now since I'm into fairness, I couldn't leave the poor HDD cages without fresh cool air to breath... so another 90 degree 4" bend gave up its life. To it I made a flange from acylic, and to that I mounted a fan. All of the fans in this case were dissabembled and painted along with the rest of the case. The case was derivited and painted with purple 2pak with a blue pearl. The fan blades were done in a chrome spray paint, which really is just a shiney silver. When I fix this job up, I'll probably cut the centre out of the fans and mount them straight into the tubing, giving a much much cleaner look. So here's the final air flow diagram: In the side, out through the rear rad, and into the psu and out the back of the psu. In this side and out the front of the case (reversed the hdd cage front fan). In the opposite side, through the front rad (big ass bend not shown here) and out the front of the case with the HDD air. And without the arrows: Here's the construction of my bayres... it has a tiny tiny leak, but I've been put onto Ether by an aquarium guy. He assures me if I build another and use that instead of cement my leak worries will be over. I'm not to worried, this res looks pretty arse anyway. Here's a little relay to turn the pumps on and off. When I say pumps, I plan to remove the homemade northbridge cooling block from the cpu circuit when my gpu cooler arrives. This will let me keep that circuit totally 1/2". I'll use the Posideon pump inside the bayres (which is why it's two bays and not one), the Posideon rad, and the homemade block just to cool the 875. All of the wiring (front panel connectors, AGP card extra power, hdd power, floppys and fans) all run behind the motherboard tray. They come out through grommets and are enclosed in 3/8" split conduit. Here's a closeup of the front panel connectors. You get a view of the wiring here. If you've ever seen a Xaser III in the flesh, you'll have noticed that the holes in the top blowhole are pretty restrictive. Not only that, but the holes underneath that in the top of the case are just as bad. So I jigsawed out the top of the case, and cut out the pathetic holes in the cover thingy. Replaced that with some more mesh, and puttied up the rest of the 'fake' holes in the usb cover for a nice smooth look. Once that was all finished, I chromed it. She's my first mod, and still a work in progress, so that's why there are no pictures of the other side completed. Hopefully my free hosting of the pics will hold out, but bit-tech is really big, so forgive me if they stop working. I've tried to make them as small as possible. Future plans (I'm doing a programming degree so I'm fairly busy drinking, getting laid etc ): 120mm fan in the blowhole, no biggy here, just need a fan an 80 to 120 adaptor. Make an intake for the window in a similar look to the blowhole. I'll need one for the rear rad intake, and one for the HDD cooler. Mostly I just need the motivation Make another bayres. This will probably happen when the gpu block arrives and I have no more excuses for putting it off.. I've made the blueprints up already. Repaint it. The painter made a really really arse job of it. I wish I had a top feed gun and access to a booth, I'd do it again myself. And I see you can chrome plastic now... I'd quite like to have all the keys on my keyboard chromed, and the rest of it painted to match the case. Still waiting on a price.. I'm a poor student, donations are welcome I hope you guys like it, and don't bag me too much for having a premodded case. I just saw it and saw what it could be, not what it was. I'd love to be a modding God like Zap, Gnome and Piloux, so I'll definately scratch build next time
That looks great to me, love the internal management and the duct Fully chromed that would look AWESOME, nice job on the RES too. God luck with the rest. FT
Nice work :thumbsup: The airflow mod looks like work of genius, it's a pity more of the smooth curves can't be seen very well once it's in. Hope the replacement res works out - will it be same sort of design and will it be all litted up perdy? And the chrome.. mm, shiney!
I'm impressed. I'm very impressed. That looks like a truely beautiful mod, with the sort of obsessive attention to detail and novel solutions, that I really like. I take my hat off, dude.
Wow, that's easily teh best Xaser I've seen Lots of very nice details, like the coils in the water tubing, and the subtle triangle window in the psu. Great use of color too. Is this still in progress? Because I think the pump and the cd drive need paint. Keep it up
Love the Airflow mod!! Good to see people really thinking about airflow, even in a watercooled case, and not just slamming blowholes eveywhere!!
Wow Wow, THAT is a Xaser mod! :thumbsup: The duct is REALLY nice, kinda give to the case a car like look that I love so much.
thats one of the most awsome looking water cooling jobs and ducting work i have seen in a while....looks awsome man!
i like what you did the the watercooling tubing (springs right?). i might try that when i get my watercooling setup.
considering how that case started out... ( i dont care much for xasers) it looks truely awesome. I think what makes it so good is that you've picked up on a theme and more a less stuck to your guns. the chrome and purple/blue looks absolutely stunning. How much did the chroming put you back? I assume you're happy with it unlike the paint job? [EDIT] nearly forgot to mention the tiny little window on the psu!! thats so most original psu mod i've seen - pls dont tell me it was pre mod
I'll try to take some more photos when I have a chance. The new res will be almost identical to that one, I've got a 6" UV cold cathode to light it up with. One of the reasons I didn't convert the pump to inline was so that I could have an excuse to use more UV dye The springs are actually built into the tubing. I'll have to find the name of it for you guys. They sure do. The pump placement is pretty crap at the moment, when I replumb I'll fix it up and hopefully paint the pump. A friend of mine if trying to get a spray chroming business off the ground, the sort of stuff used in 'fast fours' styled cars alot. He reckons he'll be able to chrome almost anything. In Australia a place called 'The Bronzing Studio' will chrome *anything* (even an apple!). If that ever eventuates, I'll probably chrome the keys on my keyboard, the pump and some other misc bigs. Yeah, I know. Is it the speed (or lack of), or is something else the matter with them? That's not totally true... I did build a car once... many of the skills from car crafting are transportable to case modding. You're one of the people to blame for this... I've seen your projects Other things I'd like to do include: - Welding up the spare screw holes in the motherboard tray and other locations. - Weld up and putty smooth the 5-1/4" drive bay little oval holes (except the ones next to the bay res, I'd like to open those up a little. - Hide the ATX cable using the same method as all the other power wires. - Use a USB adaptor off the back of the CDROM drive instead of using the PATA IDE cable. This'll let me route it through the motherboard tray, and remove that big ugly cable. I'd consider dumping my floppy drive if I did that. And if that happens, I'll probably stick a 20x4 LCD screen in the floppy drive bays place. - Gold or brass plate the psu, and insert a yellow LED to make the little window light up. I'd also like to make a little high voltage vinyl applique for that window. -Repaint it... Of course I could concentrate on my degree... although my Python programming tutor did tell me I could write a parallel port controlling program as an assignment topic...
The chroming took about 3 months... first one company did a horrible job, that cost me about US$100. To have it restripped and done again by a more professional company cost about US$150. There are some slight imperfections (I'll post a photo sometime) in the windowed panel, but they feared the panel would warp if it was stripped and chromed again. (If a TT rep is reading this, and would like to take pity on me, feel free to send me another door!) Mostly the chrome is nice, the paint is just a poor quality job. I've done a little (read bugger all) dulon work, the only reason I didn't paint it myself was because of the cyanide in two pak clear coat. The PSU mod is my own design, I just wanted something suttle. That hardest part was cutting the flimsy psu paneling, and making sure the coil thingy lined up in the right place i.e. is wasn't difficult
Two thumbs up!! Man that is awesome, the last image of the full chromed case reminds me of a toaster I love the ducting work, amazing mod!
