Case Mod - In Progress Project Aurora (New Direction 20 Feb)

I do love these colors!!!! And also neat and clean! Good job buddy!

 

ADD SLIVER SHINY STRIPS!!


Haha, love the paint work mate!
Really good job! Look forward to more!

 

Great colors !

Looks great !!!!

 

System is in the case! (I couldn't wait..) After a teething issue with the cabling and the now stuffed usb card, all is go!

 

Final!

Have completed final assembly!

Here are the final pictures:

Inside pic. The cables have been routed behind the motherboard panel. The side panel covering the wires only BARELY fits on!

Front. The top Blanking plate will be removed when I get a fan controller! The optical drive is behind the panel, I just need to design a hinge mechanism for the panel when opening the optical drive.

Front 3/4 view. I have removed the rubber strips around the window as it didn't look that great IMHO.

Rear 3/4 View. Yes I do need that many USB ports!
Mouse
KB
Webcam
Cellphone
MP3 Player
Game Pad
GH3 controller
Printer
Camera
etc


Woo finally almost done! Thanks for your comments guys!

 

Time to design a replacement server case!

 

I guess if it isn't CNC made, laser cut, itx or watercooled it doesn't get many comments... Oh well..

 

Looks OK. But I don't know if it's your camera or something else, but it looks like there's quite a bit of imperfection on the side panel paint esp. in this pic (labeled in green):

 

Hey, I liked all your concept sketches. Your mod turned out excellent. You took something plain looking to incredible.

 

Hey confusis, great work man! Looks good, you put a lot of effort in this mod. I think you are right about the cnc complain - kinda. Should have put an "and" instead of "or" though. We see far too many of these lately. On the other hand Cygnus X1 won MotY this year - without any of the features mentioned above.

I think the real problem is that you presented the mod as finished; and we're all perfectionists here, who are used to a high standard.. As mentioned above there still are quite a few imperfections present, imperfections that a slightly different crowd wouldn't notice, and nobody wants to break the bad news to you.
Please don't be mad at me now. I like the concept, I really do.

 

I appreciate the comments - and will explain
My tool skills are not stellar! Also the front panel hasn't been fitted properly in those pictures. Project Aurora Mark II is already in the planning stages. The paint is a lot better IRL than in the pictures, my point and shoot camera is very poor in capturing solid blocks of colour.

Thanks for your comments guys!

 

Taking a boring, out of date computer, and making it unique and interesting: The essence of modding. Sure it's not perfect, but it has given a new lease of life to a boring piece of equipment, and been good practice for the builder.

 

Good job confusis! I esp like the window design and paint

 

Aurora MarkII seems to have a totally different design... Hmmm. Can anyone say 'heatsink style'?

 

Thinking of modding one of these I have:

And fit the system into it.
Problems:
Original mobo fits onto 'hooks' on the mobo tray
SFF power supply
Will need to find a riser for the graphics to suit
Modding time!

 

Dell OEM hook motherboard mounts... They suck.
Finding a SFF PSU that can handle a real system will be a b*tch. -Then there's the 40mm fans...

You're in for trouble!

 

How did I miss this?! I love the colours, and like GS says, it doesn't need to be the Hubble Space Telescope for me to appreciate a bit of old-fashioned modderizing... I dropped by to warn you about the Optiplex, which is simultaneously heavy and fragile, expensive and slow, and as you've no doubt already discovered an absolute arse to disassemble/reassemble. Nightmare. You'll enjoy this one!

 

Disassembly was easy - pulled a fair few of these apart in my time. I'm thinking of replacing the original 125w psu with a shuttle one, and adding a Thermaltake Purepower (http://ascent.co.nz/productspecification.aspx?ItemID=380648) for the gpu (a psu that fits in a 5.25" bay)
I need to find a flexible pciex16 riser as well.

It's not particularly heavy after I've pulled off all the plastic!
The mobo will be attached directly to the case (with standoffs of course), instead of the tray with those pesky hooks!
Pic time!
Original Mainboard in tray


The tray:


Damned proprietary motherboard!


Drive racks - they use green sliders for the drives.. tool less!


Case bottom with tray removed


sff 125w psu:


Rear panel:


Top panel with dual 120mm fans marked (using the scythe 120x12mm fans!


One side showing the clamshell seam


Front


Front showing the hinges:


With a dummy m-atx board sitting in the case:


Card cage which will need to be heavily modified:


Sorry about the angle. I call this pic MFF (many form factor)

From the left (top)
One of my 10 Compaq Evo T20 thin clients
Project Aurora Mark1
Project Think
(details in sig)

 

the PSU matches 1U server dimensions. arg that's gunna be pricey. might be able to avoid the thermaltake purepower though

 

How about fabricating an external power brick, then you will have more room for GPU cooling.