Case Mod - In Progress Project: Phoenix (PC-101B Orange Case Mod) (Jan 2010 update)

Got the right side panel about 95% finished; here are some pics of the process....

The acrylic on the left is fluorescent orange and the one on the right is clear:


And they will fit together to make a "solid" piece:


And the seam will hide underneath the black design frame on top:



And with a little snip, snip from the mesh panel I get a shadow of the orange:


That fits nicely underneath the black acrylic design frame with the same seam:




Again, it's not quite done, I still have to make some washers to keep the pieces separated correctly so the spacing is even across the whole thing. Next step after that is to finish the drive cutouts on the front panel, then mount some LED's; final step will the paint job. I'm so close I can taste it!

 

Very nice

 

WOW! lovin' that side panel!!!

 

Nice job so far mate

 

very nice.. Love to see more..

 

Thank you everyone for the kind words of encouragement!

I did forget one step left in the process. I still have another one of these orange mesh designs to cut into the top panel and fit with acrylic and mesh. There will also be a 120mm fan hole in the top panel too.

 

Looking very cool.

 

Made it over a major hurdle this weekend, finally got all the designs cut out and installed. Last one was the top panel design, but the first step was to make the 120mm fan hole...


Then I traced in and cut out the opening for the design:


And installed the frame, mesh, and orange acrylic:



Here are some pictures of all the designs installed:





After that was finished, I had some time left to get back to work on the front panel. This time I started the openings for the optical drives:


The slots are just big enough for the tray alone to fit through:



I am going to make another piece that screws to the end of the tray and fits over the hole on the outside of the front panel so it will be nice and stealthed when it is all assembled. But that means I still need to wire up and mount a remote eject button somewhere (still thinking about how I want to do that though). See you next week!

 

Great design and execution there duder !

 

Lookin good, Blake!

 

there are programs you can use that will open and close the cd drive. Not sure what the programs called, but they do exist.

 

Yeah, I know there are software options, but those usually don't work too well outside of an operating system (like the BIOS for instance). I will be mounting a remote eject button somewhere, it's just a matter of where.

Thanks for the nice comments though guys, I always appreciate the feedback!

 

What can I say? You have to love those tribal flames!

 

Drives look good

 

Can't wait to see this all put together.

 

Thank you, thank you, and thank you!

 

Updates, updates updates! Well, not really too much of an update, but at least I've got some pics...
Over the past weekend I was able to get these pieces fashioned for covering the optical drive trays on the front panel. They are similar in construction to all the other design pieces I've been making:





The major difference though is that they do not screw to the case...


Instead, they will have long screws that reach back through the front panel and screw into the tray of the optical dive:


I plan on drilling and tapping two holes in the end of the trays on each optical drive that these pieces will thread right in to.

Then, when the drive tray is ejected, the whole thing will move out as one piece.

I also got in what I hope is my last parts purchase for this case:


Lots of goodies there, including:

• Two 120mm Yate Loon fans (to be used as the two front intake fans)
• Three 120mm PWM Arctic Fans (two will be used as the top and rear exhaust fans and the third will hopefully be used on the CPU heatsink)
• Three 16mm black switches with an orange LED dot (two to be used on the top of the case as remote eject buttons and activity LEDs for the two optical drives and the third to be used inside the case as the HDD activity LED and reset switch)
• One 22mm black switch with orange LED ring (to be used as the main power on/off switch on the top of the case)
• Two 24" black SATA data cables (to be used with the HDD's)
• Two 8" black SATA data cables (to be used with the optical drives)
• A black Sunbeam Rheobus (to be used to control all the previously mentioned fans as well as all the LED lighting inside the case)
• One hundred 5mm orange LEDs (to be used in various places around the case for lighting effects)
• Fifty plastic 5mm LED mounts (to be used to mount the orange LEDs, obviously)
• Two digital temperature disaplays with orange backlight (to be mounted in the bottom area of the case to display interior temperatures)

The Rheobus will be mounded at the top front of the case behind the front panel with only holes made for the knobs to fit through (the rest of the unit will be hidden behind the front panel). There will be no cutouts for the LEDs either, so in order to mount it behind, I needed to remove the LEDs...

This turned out to be a very quick and easy task thanks to the socket mounted LED legs and a pair of needle nose pliers! Again, there will be no LEDs used with the final installed Rheobus, it's more of a "set it and forget it" accessory. Two of the channels will be used to control fans (one for the intake, and one for exhaust) and the other two channels will be used to control the LED lighting.

 

Nice additions to the front. 100 orange LEDs lol damn I can't wait to see this lit up.

 

HAHAHA, thanks, but I'm not going to be using all 100 LEDs. The 100 pack was just as cheap as the 25 pack so I figured, "why not?"
I've got 50 plastic mounts anyway, so I won't be using more than that. There will be at least twelve LEDs on the front of the case lighting up behind the front panel, and then at least another twelve inside the case lighting up stuff in there. Beyond that, I'm just gonna play it by ear. This is my first time wiring up individual LEDs too, so I wanted to give myself a little room to make mistakes just in case I burned up some LEDs. I already let the magic smoke out of one just seeing how much voltage it could really handle (yes, 12V makes a 2.2V LED smell like burnt hair!)

 

Yes I know what you mean. I haven't worked much with LEDs either but I may need to add a few to my current mod so I can get the desired effect. I do plan to use them in my next mod however.