Case Mod - In Progress Project: Afterburner 900

Hey all, long time lurker, first time poster! I read the front page every day and just realized you had a forum so I thought I would share some of the stuff that I am working on.

A little background history, I am an avid goer of PDXLAN, the largest lan party on the west coast of the US. I won 5th place in the mod competition at the last one, and I intend to take first place by storm this LAN! This LAN's theme was the Antec 900... all mods had to be based on this case. I had one lying around, beat to all hell, so I figured this would be a perfect opportunity for me to do some cheap modding! Issue was, after the ideas started flowing, my wallet slowly drained. Here is the fruit of my efforts/ paycheck!

Here is my shipment from Performance PC's, they stuck a cat in the box too, I don't know what to do with it but it sure is cute!



Here is the interior of the case after I got done putting trim on the holes and got my wiring all done up. All the wires will be hidden behind the mobo when I am through.



Here is a shot of the front sans panel.



Here is a closeup shot of that



This is the custom piece that I built to extend the top panel so I can mount the thermochill.



A shot of it all together



And finally my desk with the current shuttle that I am using while I build this:




First, I got the top radiator panel made up.











Obviously, I need to do a lot of bondo and sanding on it, then paint! I also need some longer screws, the ones I bought were the right thread but about 1mm too short! A real shame.

Here is a great money shot showing off teh sexy AC Ryan Blackfire fans.


And finally, I got the side panel (partially) cut... my diamond bit blade ended up rounding off right on the home stretch I will be fixing that soon though. And of course, the top panel in all of its glory, fully mounted and locked to the top of the case!



And one more for yeh!



Suggestions, comments, questions, all are welcome!

Obviously, it is not near done, still LOTS of work to do on the top panel, and lots of cleaning up to do... I have until July to finish it, so this should be a fun one!

Will update as soon as I get more progress done.

 

Liking the progress dude. An all 900 competition sounds interesting. I suppose a new paint job would look sweet. Since the 900 is so minimalist, a nice bright colour, maybe a fiery red to go with your fans... The bits and pieces look like they could go for an all round clean up as well... Try and do something clever with your water cooling piping... that sort of stuff REALLY stands out. Maybe coming out the sides... do you have any sketches of what you have in store for us?

Your desk made me laugh as well. Everything you'll ever need is right there lol. Gin, check. Fags, check. PSP, check. Pirate copy of COD, check.

 

No sketches, sorry... I'm just kinda going along and riding by the seat of my pants.

Understand this is nowhere NEAR done yet... people seem to keep thinking that I am done with it, I plan to get all that glue off of there, bondo, sand, paint, etc... that is just the rough design, the base of what I am building... When I am done, everything will look stock.

 

A clean desk is way overrated. Welcome to Bit-Tech
John

 

This is what I had as of a week ago... a friend of mine is borrowing my camera so he can take pics of his new place, but this is what I got done.







I have added a lot more since then, and have most of it smoothed out. Its coming along quite amazingly actually.

 

It looks like you've got some work to do. I think it'll be nice. I agree with modgodtanvir, a nice bright color would be nice. Since the case has some rough spots and you are doing bondo work, black is really not a good choice to go with since it shows inperfections the most. Just something to think about. If you do decide to go with a dark gloss color, I'd recommend getting some glazing/spot putty found at your local auto parts store to help take care of those pesky scratches and small holes. Good luck.

 

Yes, I have teh pictures!

First, I got the top piece finished for the most part... there are still some grooves and ridges I have to take care of but this is where I am at thus far.



Sooooo smooth.



Here is how it looks in the back. That was the easiest part obviously.



Heres the wiring work that I did... I got all my wires fed through behind the mobo, the pump(s) are in place, its lookin great!





Heres the front, I am really happy with the wiring up here, it came out really clean... that silver thing above the HD's is an LED bar, it will illuminate the PALIT logo that will be on the front panel once it gets here.



I got some new hardware too!

Corsair Dominator DDR800



I also removed the LED from my Xfi Xtreme Gamer Fatal1ty edition... I didn't want that stinkin F on there.




And it all together thus far:

Let me know what you think!

 

pictures dont work for me

 

they work for me

 

At first, I didn't like your top construction, but now that it is smoothened, yummyy!

 

Yeah, smoothing it out helped me out a lot, it also gave me some perspective. Being able to clearly see where the problems lie make it easier to fix them.

The box from my AWESOME sponsors, Danger Den, should be here today, so I will be posting some sweet new pics of a never before seen front panel design that I cooked up with the guys over there. Stay tuned!

 

Sweet man, the wiring is great!

 

I agree on the fiberglassed top portion. At first I wasn't really into it, but now that it's cleaned up it looks pretty sick! I like how you kept it with the angular theme of the case as well. Looking forward to the next update

 

Thanks for the kind words guys. Today I cut a hole in the front for an LCD bezel and tomorrow FAMED MODDER DGEPHRI (more of a props shot than bragging) is coming over to help me out with some wiring work. I hope to be able to finish up the top panel by the end of the weekend, and today I called Danger Den and my parts should be coming tomorrow. Palit says that a 4850 is potentially on the way to me, so I gotta secure some blocks for those.

Anyways, everything is shaping up real nice. Stay tuned folks.

 

This is turning out very sweet indeed. The top is just first class. I'll be watching.
John

 

Looking really good now its smoothed. Taking care to get the lighting right aswell. Always important

 

The five UV fans already in it, the UV cathodes that are on the way, the various LED devices, and the three UV fans that are coming tell me that this lighting will be very fun indeed.

 

I'm likin' your base color there. I'd follow up with some white detail lines/designs on it or something. I'm lookin' forward to seeing it with all the lighting components.

 

Actually, thats just the primer. I am going to be painting it metallic black, and there are going to be metallic white angular stripes on it... the whole thing has to be angular.

 

I got a fair bit of work done so far this weekend:

First, I got a ROUGH outline for the LCD placement done, as well as drilled holes for the fillports and power button.



Next, I got the side panel painted and trimmed... window will be coming soon.



Close up shot of the paint... what looks like damage is actually the metal flakes in the paint reflecting light.



And, the money shot of my PC, the new front panel custom designed by myself in association with Danger Den. Thanks again to them, and thanks to Palit for the great video card sponsorship! Hear me out, these cards really are great, Palit deviates from reference design at times, in order to get maximum performance, and it shows!



And here is a shot of it all together so far.



Wiring comes up next week, buying mobo monday, video cards coming soon, nearing the finishing steps here