Case Mod - In Progress M.Z.A. Inc. Presents: RAt MoD - Absolutely no update whatsoever

Thanks guys. Yeh they do look really nice with the black fins, but they're just not for this build. Everything will either be bare metal or painted a metallic colour. Maybe i should change the build name to Metal Pron!

Cheers, now i have 2 alternatives. In fact, I'll skip trying a thin paint stripper as it'll be weak piss-water meant for getting paint off brushes. i need more power!

 

My dad was the H&S Manager for the local council
Yes painting them would give me the look i wanted, but that would be admitting defeat. They'll be on full disply, so every time I'd look at the PC I'd be reminded of that and I'd end up resenting them. I am an anal perfectionist *****

I did work experience at a garage and changed a lot of brake lines, during which I was reminded several times not to get the brake fluid on the body work as it would remove the paint. So I'll give that a go first as it's not such a harsh chemical to work with and shouldn't oxidise the copper and even protect it against the air until i get them lacquered.

 

One of the Rads is bathing in DOT 4 as we speak, but if nothings happening by Wednesday when i get paid, they'll get sprayed. Need to start on my case!

 

I'm not sure i want to mess with that ship!

 

Oh god why you drag this up! Now you've just reminded me what a lazy SOB i've been. lol

Seriously though, I've been at a real cross roads trying to decide what to do with this build. One of the main things in it was based around the Asus Striker II NSE I had. That died, I managed to find a replacement Striker II Extreme, then that died. Fed up of buying second hand mobo's with no warranty and never having a working pc (plus Shirty's constant jibes about said OAP components ), I took the plunge and got myself a Maximus V Gene and i5 3570k . However, this now means that the main centrepiece part of the build can't happen

I've been thinking a lot about what to do since the start of the year, looking at all those glorious builds in MOTY was certainly an inspiration to do something with this. I think i've come up with a new design/theme that i'll be happy with and am beavering away with pen, paper and sketchup (god that thing is the lest intuitive peice of software ever) working out the details.

Sorry for the massive lack of work. Hopefully I'll have something for you soon, so stay tuned Crap fans. Same Crap time, new Crap Channel........

 

Once upon a time....

Surprise! I'm back, and I've actually done something!

Well, this was actually in September last year when I still had my 775 system, but the events conspired to strip me of my enthusiasm, but I'm back with a vengence so let go back a while before we can go forward.

I'd transplanted everything into a Akasa Mirage my brother had lent me then stripped the antec down to the bare bones. There was foam and cable tie points stuck all over the case which I needed to get off.


Lots of scraping, scratching and with the help of some TIM cleaner I got the case cleaned up of sticky goo.


That weekend was a glorious one. It was nice and sunny, it was the first day of the premiership, Liverpool were getting spanked by newly promoted Swansea and best of all, my fans and rad stands arrived

9 Xigmatek CLF-F12XX series; 1500rpm, 61.375 CFM, 1.516 mmH²O, <20 dBA

I sat in my garden listening to the football on the radio with a couple of beers and set about removing the uneccesary unwanted parts of the case.






The case was ready for a quick test fit of the rads, but when attaching them to the Pulse Modding stands I found that the frame was in the way of the inlet/outlet ports, so will need 'amedning' at some point.


With the rads in place I could get more of an idea of what needed doing to the case.


The rails the original side panels slotted into, a lip going under the midplate, and the top and front fan covers would all need to be removed. With that I removed the rest of the rivets from the case.


The plan at the time was for to make a Sabertooth-style cover for my Striker II Extreme from copper sheet and dub it "Strikertooth". The case was going to be sprayed with brass coloured paint and the whole thing would be awash with brass, copper, alu and steel. Not especially steampunk, just pure metal pron But my PSU was a dark grey thorn in my shiny metallic side


Buoyed on by the progress, I had an inspired idea. So out it came and apart it went and down to the shed i go.


After my success with the nitromors on the rads I thought it'd have the PSU stripped in a jiffy. I was wrong. Dead dead wrong. The PSU was powder coated and the nitromors only softened the paint a little rather than lifting it off. I had to scrape and scratch and scrape some more, all the while being careful not to gouge the surface. Eventually i got back to a point where I could sand.


Scraping and sanding, sanding and scraping, scraping and sanding. My fingers were in a right state, at one point it was sore to hold a pen. lol Slowly but surely, bit by bit it got there, just about.


It wasn't completely finished. It would still need one last finishing go to get the grain nice and straight, but after 2 and a half months without a working PC, I was desperate to get it set up again. With still so much else to do, I had done enough to see that it looked good and would work with the rest of the build, so I put it back together and plugged it back in....... And balls. It was borked.

My system would power up, all fans spinning, but no signal through to my TV. Most of the lights on the motherboard glowing nicely, accept those for the CPU voltage and FSB frequency. I originally thought the rail the powered the 8 pin cpu cable. But, just on the off chance it was something else (for this was my second striker 2, the other having died) and praying i didn't have to fork out for another PSU, I plugged my enermax into my brothers PC......

It worked! The PSU had survived even my ham-fisted meddling. But then my heart sank as I realised it was likely that either my motherboard or CPU were dead. And after some swapping and changing it was the motherboard. Again. Disheartened on the second dead motherboard, I didn't want to shell out yet more money on another second hand board that in all likelihood wouldn't stand the test of time. So out with the old and in with the new i5 3570k and Maximus V Gene. Massive thanks to my brother who lent me the money for it till I got paid.

Later I would trade my Gigabyte GTX 480 Superoverclock for a Gainward GTX GTX 670 Phantom and although I'd now got a pretty awesome rig, my plans for this mod lay in ruins.


But from the ashes, a pheonix will rise......

So stay tuned Crap fans. Don't go changing that channel, for today we have a 2 part special

 

A new beginning

So after months of designing and redesigning, um-ing and ah-ing and generally fannying about, I've still not completely finalised the design. I'm in 2 minds about what colour to have the cover panels (Front, Top and Sides) and having been made redundant, money will surely be tight. Unless I can find a job immediately, I may have to scale back my watercooling loop.

This is a sneak peak and ideally what I'd like the loop to be like.


That design entails a LOT of fittings, 65 of various types and sizes, so you can imagine that all those small amounts add up to quite a pricely sum. So I've got a scaled back design for in case i can't find the funds. And Yes I also can't make up my mind about fitting colour.

Not as pretty or sophisticated, but £300 cheaper.

Having spent the last couple of months being mostly at home on gardening leave, I got a sudden burst of enthusiasm and vigour to get back on this project and get it done. Despite not knowing some of the finer finishing details, I know for sure where all the hardware is going and how everything will be finally assembled, so I could make a start on the main chassis.

In my previous post i mentioned that there were numerous bits on the panels which needed to be removed, so with my new Dremmel in hand I got to work on their destruction moddification. First to go were these bits which held the FDD structure in place


Then the bits that overlap the underside of the mid-plate


The rails along the edge of the top and bottom panels which the standard side panels attach to, are in-set into the case a little weren't needed and got in the way of the rad, so away with thee!




With a 240 rad sitting atop the case, the existing fan grill which was rasied slightly above the surface would get in the way, but not any more


With that out of the way a little snag caught my attention. The existing fan mounts consisted of 2 screw holes and 2 metal 'clips' which i'd removed, with the intension of using an additional piece of metal to cover the clip holes and drill some holes for screws. But this itself would create an uneven surface so a bigger hole would be required.

A quick check of the sketchup model and a few real-life mesures later and it was ready for the chop.




Now here's an advert for safety. While cutting through the panel, the cutting disk on my Dremmel snagged and snapped, throwing half of it at my face.


Now fortunately I was wearing safety glasses so survived the whole episode unscathed. Shame the same can't be said for my boxers.....

After my nerves had calmed down I continued with the cutting till I had a nice big hole (in the panel, not my face. Or pants.) A quick file and sand and voila!




Steel panels + steel file = funky file wig


The front panel was also festooned with 2 raised fan grills, which would foul the new front panel cover and needed removing.


I'm putting a slimline DVD drive in the old 3.25" bay, so needed to widen the gap to fit it through.


A little more cutting, filing and sanding and the front panel was done.


Now having an M-ATX motherboard, I've no use for all those PCI slots in the rear panel and besides, there's something else that's going to be living there. With such a small part with no decent anchoring points for clamps, I broke out the trusty old junior hacksaw. It had a fiarly new blade and really tore through it with ease. It's an all to often forgotten tool in a world filled with dremmels and laser cutters.


I placed it back onto the main panel and marked where to cut to remove the excess support structure with the hacksaw.


A little bit of and a good bit of filing and the back panel was done.


The keen eyed of you will notice that the lower of the circular holes has had some work done to remove excess material to level it with the rest of the surface. This is so I can put a panel across the panel there to house the new resident.

Here a pic of where the case stands now. I'll be using dome head hex screws and dome nuts to fasten the case together. Always loved how industrial they look.



(Photo taken pre-modding)

So that's all for now. I need to source some material to patch up the case in places before finishing the panels. I'll be visiting my brother who normally has a shed full of old cases doing nothing I might be able to use and I've bid on some sheet alu on the marketplace.

So stay tuned Crap fans (It won't be a year till the next update I promise ) Same Crap time, same crap channel.

 

TA DA!

 

Thanks Ocelot. Sanding down the PSU was probably entailed as much work as all the rest of it combined. My fingers have only just recovered 6 months later. lol

I do like the flexible tubing look, especially l3p's work. He's a genius with the pipes. I might go with a combination of the 2, but i'm doing a fair few permutations in sketchup to find the one i like the most. I might even put it to a vote.

A lot of what i've cut off was at right angles to the main body, so inaccessible to a jigsaw. i'll be using one to cut out the plates i need to patch the case, but the dremmel was invaluable for getting into the nooks and crannies.