lol, just learn to keep your woman in order, because that white one dont work at all. Tell her you have made her mind up for her, and its the black plexi. You may like to point out that sleeping in the shed would be her other option....hehe. Watching with interest.
Do a 2-way mirror for the cover. Then you have a wall mirror and you can turn lights on in the case to see inside.
Well, the shed is an option for me maybe The TV is black, so I am planning on using the black one. Luckily it is an interchangable part. And who knows, maybe with a black metal ring, the white wouldn't look half bad. I have to agree with you though, it doesn't hold a candle to the black acrylic. I thought of that one a while back, and then forgot about it. I may have to revisit. Thanks for the suggestion, that would be pretty badass
wow is about all i can say, it's coming along perfectly. really like the idea it's all very "modern" agree with the others black looks much better. might pay 2 get rid of the stickers/paint the optical drive regardless of which one you use just to keep with the clean look that u have accomplished. keep up the good work
Thanks much! I am actually in the process of getting rid of the drive sticker, just like you suggest. That makes it look pretty dirty. Same with the power supply which is going to be close to the cover as well.
Very cool. I like the 2way mirrored cover personally, with black a second choice. Interchangeable options will be great. To cover up the various stickers on the drive and psu with the frosting, have you thought about additional layers of opaque plexi? Either sized over the drives, or under the whole circular plate? Do you have an 1/8 in gap or is it just that tight? How are you getting the various parts made? Seeing the 3dmax skills, I understand you designed it, but where do you get the parts made, and how much are they charging you? Sounds like you got friends in the industry, and I can easily see this getting sponsored, and factory produced and sold in high end home design/building magazines! Good luck... and yeah mod the hell out of that! Edit: Where'd you find the 90deg vga/dvi cables? got a link for us?
That's beautiful. I definitely like it much more with the black plexi. If you have to keep the white, I'd at least suggest painting or covering the optical drive with white or something.
On one of your first renders: It looked like the cpu-cooler was a top down cooler similar to a Scythe Zipang. I thought that looked pretty good. With a nice led fan that can look really cool and will probably be more silent than the 9700. Something like a white Tacens ventus Ice. Of course, if you already have the Zalman laying around it would be a waste to not use it. Just my idea though. Or you could make a frosted white casing for the drive. Looking good by the way, i'll be keeping my eye on this. (And try to convince the missus to pick the black one. )
This was always going to be an awesome build, by using the mirrored look it would bring a whole new degree of awesomenesseseseseses I second that. I think the demand for this type of design would be very high. Stick a satellite tuner in along with a Blu ray drive and you have the perfect home entertainment centre. +rep for your brilliant design
Thanks ModMinded. Below are the links to cables. I plan on getting cables from Pacificcable.com. http://www.pacificcable.com/DVI.htm You guys convinced me, with my next builds, I will incorporate a mirrored cover! The black tinted one does this somewhat, but the more I think about it, I like the idea more and more. I am getting these parts made at a local fabrication shop. The cost of having these parts made is alot for just one. I am making this case for a few friends also, so I had a quantity built up for them, and for my own testing. So the cost ended up being worth getting done out of house. Modminded, and VadimWolf, As far as getting sponsored; I am still researching how exactly to go about it. I have patents registered for the product, and have started a business to resell, but approaching companies for sponsorship is a step I haven't taken yet. Modminded, and Krog_Mod, I have looked into using a thin acrylic piece to block the drive and power supply. The pictures are just a mock up, the final install will have have a more finished look which is a process I'll record here. The idea's are great though, cause I still really don't know what I am going to do. When I designed this thing, I left very little room between parts to conserve space. I didn't want this to be a monstrosity. I probably should have left a little more. After going through this site for a day, I would actually like to see what some people from here would do with this case. JaccoW, Thats a really good point. I wanted to use the Zalmann moreso to show that the huge fan fits in this thing, but the top down cooler will show better. I should follow my own renderings! Thanks for the advise.
mmmmmmmmmmmm yeah, maybe if this takes off you could donate one to a top modder and see what they come up with.
That is a big part of the thought behind this design. I don't want anything wired connected to it. There is pleanty of room planned for wireless receivers.
Perhaps Bit Tech could help/organise/promote said contest? I would love to see some of these creations. Everyday I read through these logs and my jaw drops at yet another weird/wonderful/brilliant mod/idea.
Thanks for the link. Wow, expensive cables! I've seen video cards for less! ) (Granted they were cheap cards!) You know, I was thinking of sponsorship in a slightly different way than we normally see here on modding sites.... rather than approaching a pc components maker for parts, approaching a manufacturer/fabricator for a deal on producing in bulk. Although... I'm sure that PC hardware manufacturers would see the promise of this. However... they'd probably want a clear cover, so you could see their brandnames inside. Good thing you'll have options for the cover! The main stumbling block I would imagine is that a lot of people that might be interested in this might be renters! You'd have to be pretty settled to get this installed. (and aligning with your TV!) Modding ideas: You can get pretty thin opaque plexi, colored powdercoating, recessed flush-mounted bolts to hold the cover on, hidden lighting. I'm sure others have more ideas... Can't wait to see you put it together with the real hardware so as to get a better idea of what's what.
Ah, well that one is already done. It wasn't worth just making one of these, except to test the design. I bit the bullet and had the shop make a good batch of these, which brought the price way down to a reasonable level. And you just stumbled across the fact that has haunted my nightmares for the past 2 years. I have always wondered why a manufacturer has not made a wall mount case? Is it because really no one thought of it, or is it because they all did market research ahead of time and learned that no one would go for it. Ah well, I'll find out soon enough!
So I ran into some hardware difficulties, meaning I ran out of hardware. I mis-counted my hardware. So until I get some parts in, I can't do the full install. But......I do have a web server downstairs that has always been in my way, so, what the heck, I gave it a try. It is actually really nice to get that thing out of the way. In fact, now I can get rid of the monitor and desk and everything cause I usually hit this thing up RDP anyways. I also use this thing for playing tunes while down stairs, so I may have to get a display to show volume and song title and stuff like that. So this is just an fyi that all the parts do fit. Everything is IDE, so its pretty ugly under there, not much in the means of cable control going on. Its my weakest machine in the bunch, just a memory machine to serve the web page. I am monitoring the HD temps to make sure my venting method is actually doing what its supposed to. This week I'll be putting together the real machine, and documenting the whole thing and all. Maybe I'll make the wife cut the hole in the wall