Case Mod - In Progress MSI NIGHTBLADE - CES 2016 pics

I forgot to show this up untill now.

I decided to sleeve all visible wiring with black sleeving.
Usually I do a colour theme to the sleeving jobs.
But for this system and its many illuminated parts I decided to just go with all black and keep the original red connectors.
This because they will now just look clean and tidy. No original coloured wires. Make the entire build look a lot cleaner. Less busy. Which was for me the challenge doing this project. To open up the inside and make it look less crowded even though it is a small case with a lot going on inside.

 

I promissed these photos earlier on. Here are the photos showing the current parts together and illuminated.

 

That looks stunning!!

 

Thank you very much

 

You can see you know what you are doing! Awesome

 

Ha indeed, now things are coming together

 

The Nightblade came with the original 3,5 inch 1TB HDD and a single stick of bare (non black PCB) memory. As you can see due to the radiator mounting there is no more room for an HDD. And the memory stick would look terrible in the Nightblade.
So I contacted MSI about this and they gave Micron a call. A company that works with them more often. Which houses the Crucial brand we all know from their... memory and SSDs.
The agreed to help out with the project.

Now I do not get to keep the hardware after the project. It will belong to MSI 100%, but I still want to thank them for helping out as it helps the project a lot. Here are the photos of the black Crucial Ballistix Tracer set and the BX100 SSD.

Now the memory fits in perfectly, but the SSD....I will have to adjust a little. Which I will show in the next update.















Thanks for the help Crucial!

 

Time to get to work on the SSD.
Sadly I didn't make any photos of the proces of making it like this.
After removing the stickers I found that the casing has a metallic silver finish.
So I sanded, cleaned and primed the casing first (after taping the connections).
I then gave the casing multiple layers of metallic red paint.
After this the casing received multiple layers of matt transparent.

I then thought about a design for the SSD.

I wanted it to be recognisable as a Crucial product and breathe the MSI gaming theme.
Basically as if Crucial was selling MSI Gaming themed SSD in limited edition.

The design was cut and made using a Sihouette Cameo vinyl plotter.
The software that comes with it works great for such designs (with not many layers).

Here is how it turned out. I hope you like it.

 

I think the look of the case lacks a finishing touch...Don't know maybe a row of little paper red lantern around the top of the case (those you find out the chinese restaurant. In the actual state I find the look too subtle, too understated; it lacks the last step to really become a showcase. But it's only my two cent, you are the boss and the case is stunning as it is now. I think I'm nitpicking..

 

I like the SSDs

 

I haven't even started on the outside in this work log

There will be much more to come. Sadly no red lanterns. But enough other things.

Thanks man

 

So from here on I completely forgot to make photos :/

I was working on the outside and got into some kind of zone where you want to see for yourself how your idea / design will look like on the case. I spent many hours drawing the cutting lines onto the dark smoked plexiglass, spent hours sanding and polishing the edges, fitting the parts to the outside of the case using screws and stand-offs, putting black vinyl on the inside of the plexiglass so little to no light would shine through where it wasn't supposed to.

I created the design for the dragon from an idea by a French Modder that uses Megaherz modding (MHM) as a tag: Cyril. My great friend Drango helped me put the triangle/linedragon into a 2D design and vector format. I then used transparent plexiglass and painted a layer of black paint onto it. Then the lasermachine engraved the dragon into it. Making the dragon visible when being illuminated from the sides. Taped off the edges after fitting a led-strip around the dragon.

Anyway it was time to actually test the system when I remembered to take photos again. Here are some quick-n-dirty photos of the machine on my desk getting a Windows Installation and drives etc. tested to see if all works and gets cooled well.

In the next update I will post a somewhat better photoshoot in my house in light and dark.

 

Sweet polygon dragon.

 

Thanks man. I get a lot of good response about that

 

Looks like it is on fire! Awesome look!

 

Thanks man

 

Daylight pictures:

















Dark pictures:

 

Lovely light effects Tim its a 100% better then the original design.

 

Thanks Alain
Means a lot

 

Very cool !