Case Mod - Complete ⭐ Nano S

Finished ty all.





Nano S

I don't like to start a second case mod before i finished the first
But due to circumstances out of my control ive had to put DS on hold.... for now.

I've been promising the missus an upgrade for ages..... So i thought i'd take the time to indulge my self and explore an idea i had.
This is not really a case mod as more of a case make over "you tuber" style. And i need to get it done over just a few days of modding.

The victim for the make over Fractal Nano S. I had a couple of these.

The main idea's for the case make over were pretty simple.

Clean and white ( so it will match the other case mod when eventually finished)
RGB (of course!)
Plex (of course!)
NVC The big buzz word atm
*Open Design. In other words just no side panels <- curve ball after thought.

Anyways....

The hardware is basic as it's on light duties.



The case stripped down.



The Mod was inspiration to stream line the workshop better , allowing me to get mods done faster.
not just for PC's.

One of the first reno's was a design a new case work stand.


When working on cases i seem to spend a lotta time in the "fit up" stage leaning the case over......

Laying it down is a pain and upright always has me in hunch back mode... I'm too old for that ****.

Here's what i came up with... seem's the best ideas are often the most simple......





The cool thing about this is it allows me to move it around the work bench as needed.





It's gotta be white..... So off the the spray booth for a coat of white.

Usually i go for the pro compressor paint job.... but due to wanting to get this down in just a few days ive gone the can option.

Ive opted for the Dulux in a can. These have a pretty good dry time go on even and come with optional wide spray nozzles.




With the chassis all painted up..... 2 things become obvious.

1) i shoulda waited.....
2) that back wall is the ugliest looking thing ive ever seen in a pc....





The original plan was to add some sexy defyant style tinted side plex windows... Front,Top and sides.

These are cut from 4mm tinted plex edge bevelled and drilled @ the back end.



The holes are transferred to the chassis with a self centre drill and tapped.





The trick to getting the Windows to stay put on the case with out having to use more screws is to run a curved channel that is glued to the inside front end of the window.





A pretty clean fit



The same is done for the other side.




The top gets some thing a little different, The same tinted plex but edges are rounded off and magnet are added to keep it in place.







Next is the Front Panel Window ,again tinted plex but this time 3mm is used..

First is to scrape off all the sound deadening gunk.... This is the ugly side of modding...





The panel is masked and sprayed.





Good o'l Weldon #3




The dry time is too fast to show it...... but this stuff works

 

Now.... here's where i throw you the curve ball......

Remember this?

Its gotta go. But that kinda forces me to do away with the front section as well...........






The decision is made to use some 4mm+ trans white ( same as disco) which is perfect as it will match in well.

And as you can see by the black bits..... 1) i shoulda waited to paint....





Not only have i thrown you a curve ball but as you can see by the shape of the back panel i'm throwing myself one too !

It's over to do some trimming...... ive cut the new back panel to aprox length but not height.... im leaving some extra to cut off later this will be used to copy the shape to the PSU cover







To get the same curve as the factory back panel ive set up a make shift bending jig...... Ive made it a little less of a bend as the orig to allow for a little more room later.....








Once clamped down it's fast heating and clamping.






While that cooled down for an hour or so i moved onto the front and rear and base panels.

The front panel was pretty easy stuff... mark up off the original cut and drill.... and a little sneaky router work.




Much the same for the dummy back panel, with some scroll saw action thrown in.



The base and rear panels are no brainer's





And while im going in circles i can add some to the front.....



The three amigos.



And with that done.... i can release the beast... erm back panel and chuck em all into their new home for a geez.







To hold the new back panel in place some routing drilling and tapping is needed.











There's no real load on these, just more to keep the panel in place before it's perma glued.












Front panel is also drilled tapped and screwed, with fans and rad added for test fitting.





Next is to move onto the MB placement.

I'd thrown myself another curve ball here.... as i didnt have a spare mITX board layin around for standoff placement.. and the printer was out of ink........starting to feel the mod gods wernt with me today i got all jiggy with it and thought right outside the box.......

Actually i just thought everyone might get a good laff outa this so i put it in



This lets us get to the big twist in this mod.

These 4 little ultra long standoffs.



I can now clamp the LOL motherboard to the back panel centre drill and tap the stand off holes.






And with the panel back in and board in place on the high rise standoffs...... i have room to chuck a party back there.... a cable party !


"Erm i brought this mitx board off defyant but i cant see where to fit the ram....."

 

Time to move onto some thing a "little disco" Some RGB goodness, it's gotta have it.... you know you want it ! ima give it to ya.

<<<<<<<<<<< - Wings!

Wings are beautiful things.... and RGB wings are just down right sexy.

One for each side no less. Ima do these disco style too.

Scrolling along.



Some router action, this gives a cleaner line than the scroll no matter how steady eddy your hands are.








Ahhh now i see said the blind man to his deaf son


















Then it's just some Bryan Ferry. "c'mon let's stick together"




Some more router action for a LED strip channel






Once the back is masked up it's in for some action shots



Gotta check pink works!




A test thru the tinted side panel..... which is pretty much a non starter by now.








The sun's going down the sun's getting low........ that was day 1

 

You dun guud!~
Love your saw guide. It got me thinking about making a setup of my own. The table saw isn't great for really big tiles.
.
-I'm more of an Eno fan...

 

Great case choice Defyant!

Beware it has Mod Munky DNA all over it (ewww). We worked with Fractal on the design during it's development. btw, The Res slot design was by our Modsquito from the Mod Zoo

 

Cheers mate.

You know i put all those in there just for you

I thought about a pull out table saw too! but the portability of the guide won over in the end

Why didnt you tell me this before..... i shoulda guessed when i seen your window addon you were affiliated some how.

I was happy to use it that way on a previous mod. but for this make over it's gotta look smooooooooth

 

You're my hero.

 

I like a lot what you've done from here, can't wait to see updates, but what I really love soo much, is your workshop...omg a dream workshop indeed, so clean and neat with some gloomy lights, that's really a great idea to show us your working space

 

Cheers mate tyvm and i was just watching your latest yt guide too Great stuff just by the comments i can see how much it helps others

Cheers kim yer i'm trying to make it a place i wanna spend more time in Now if i can just get a sponsor for a nice tripple monitor set up to go in there as well

Speaking of spending more time in there

Day 2 started with a bang....... then out to do some modding......

The second wing......boring stuff really but needs to get done and out of the way...



But getting the second wing done let me get some pretty cool piccys..... and some really cool ideas for some new mods.












Anyways enuf eye candy i need to mod... Next up will be the PSU cover..

I had done a prototype in clear ... but realised that to just bang in a standard type box cover really wasn't going to allow the air flow i wanted to get to the GPU.
And even tho this is going to be an open case design.... if i down the track decided to add back the tinted side panels that in such a small box air flow to the card would be super crucial.

As you can see in the next pics a bit of work went into getting the angled edge of this style.... but it just dosn't work.

* I think's it important to add the extra's they show the thought process that go into case modding and that not all planned ideas work.










A trimmed off setion of the back wall as mentioned earlier is used to trim the back edge of the cover to the back wall.





The router makes short work of the over hang and leaves a clean edge to work with.




Back in the case....... it will look good but wont help air flow any....






Sooo it was off for a re-think and take #2.

Working with the back panel insert i profiled a ruff shape.



Feeling more confident with this design i went straight to the white plex for a angled cut.



then over to the DIY line bender for a simple clean single bend. Another QOL addition to the mod shop.

Made from MDF some alloy channel , 2 cheap hinges, nichrome wire, running off a 12 car battery. This heats up pretty qik and gives a very clean line for your bends.













Once bent and set, the back needs to be router trimmed to allow the front to sit lower.












The angle imo also works better with the over shape with the side panel wings installed.





Also had a little play with some RGB madness.... but i feel that lighting this will distract from what i want to be the main light feature for this mod.









Next would be to also add the back panel contour to this psu cover as well...........again.......

Using the same off cut as prev a ruff cut is done on the scroll saw then it was back to the router for a clean trim.









Snug as a bug in a.......





Im startin to feel it .... are you?





@ this stage i needed to get measurements for the front of the cover / rad fan....

 

For Rad will be an AIO solution from corsair as is the fans... LL-120's.



As sexy as these things look when running corsair did a dick move in the frame design... thy'r plain ugly to look at compared to other fans.

I thought i'd have a stab at trying to dress them up a bit and get them work with the " white" theme i had going on.


The first (and last) thing i did was to just make up some small side inserts.... in the end i ended up sinking more time into this than was worth it......

I made a small jig to make it easier to fab up a few of these.



Some heat applied




Clamp time!





Let cool and release.



Strip of D'sided tape




Presto ! c'mon you know you like it








In the end you want see these....... i decided to go with the fans inside the case..... oh well you will still see one








But just for the hell of it and to show corsair once again what we want......



















Pick your game up corsair !





























.

 

To finish off the PSU cover design and final shape i installed the The AIO and new Fan combo.

I instantly could see that there was too much Dark in there and the AIO was going to need some bleaching !......

I decided to have a Hardwarecanucks peal and reveal moment and remove the protective paper..... like pealing the clothes off a v....n

Pretty impressed with how clean the back wall is going to look



While i'm round here.....










AIO time.








SO ! the result of all this is some masking and painting some pealing and drying and .....










C'mon Corsair get with this sh!t...... next time i'll go buy a and some Lian Li fans....





And finally........ i can move onto the to....

The mother board tray/wall back area mod.

Just to make sure the GPU dosnt get a case of the wobbles a little "E" is glued in.





Next move onto a little cable stealth mod i used to do years ago..... i think i first time i did this was 2003.....


First thing was to make up a few cable runners. These are hard glued to the back wall. The pofile height is low enough to let the MB to sit ontop.







It's a bit of work to get all the cables running this way.... a sneaky trick is to lay some D'sided tape down first and trim away later.




The ATX con is added the same way





last adding the front IO wires.








I may change these wires to white later... for now it gets the job done.




Damm shame about those front fans....







Front panel gets a snow job......








Starting to take shape

 

Next will be a pull down, paint touch up and glue the back front panels together for some final shots... and back side reveal.

 

Loving the surgically clean interior and PSU shroud - a man after my own heart

 

Your LED-work is amazing. Props up, also for hand making everything

 

Love the angled psu cover. I've seen SOOOO many mods with the straight shroud.
Have you booted that sweet Athlon II ITX board yet? There's gotta be a 24 pin plug on it somewhere...

 

Cheers 23RO_UK tyvm lean and clean

Cheers Vognen tyvm it seems to be my style now the best tools i have at my disposal are my hands

Cheers Cheaps thanx again mate, its a nothing special kinda mod over all.... but the shroud gives it some thing new in the scene and the back wall....

LOL that board.... i was wondering if any one would even notice what i did

I should put it up for sale............

 

All said and done..... quickest 2 and a bit days modding ive ever done

It's inside and being used for now.,.... i just got all my gear to go team RED and with it a new case project.... but that's another make over....

For now a few more pics... please excuse the horrid RGB ness on the fans, until the PC gets to windows thats the default.
















finally inside mine for just a few more days..... until it goes full pink....











Next !

 

Pretty. What you kicked out in a few days most would consider their 'super epic build'.
Killer sofa station/ crumb under the couch remover.
Icon wall: I see why you have it for a few extra days.

 

great result, so quickly done yes... modding doesn't have anymore secrets for you

 

Cheers again Cheaps A bag of chips is a bloody nightmare most nights.....

Cheers Kim ty mate, i still have to master 3D Printing and the CNC / lazer cutter machines.... Some very sort after skills in case modding nowadays