Case Mod - Complete ⭐ Thermaltake Invitational 2019 S2 - CANVAS

Hi, I'm Tim Timpelay Malmborg representing Sweden.

I'm honored to be part of this legendary competition and hope to bring something totally new and different to it.


My ambition with this project has been to try somethings that’s not been done before. The Thermaltake P5 is the perfect case for this mission as it’s extremely popular and been previously modded beyond recognition by other modders all over the world.

Two key points were set up before the start of this project.

• The P5´s original character should be kept. For me, this means doing a casemod were you easily can recognise the original case in the finished mod.

• Transforming this case without doing what someone else already have done with it. This meant scanning as many P5 (and similar TT cases) builds as possible before I began my project.

The backside straw-art is made from three layers of acrylic. Bottom one acts as separator between light zones and also holds the LED-strips in place for each zone. Middle layer is the diffuse light screen for even light distribution to the pipes. It also acts as the sky with the back painted top section. Top layer holds all ~400 pipes in place creating this magnificent mountain view. As everything is built using TT RGB products ther's possibility to sync and controll by voice through TT RGB Plus - sync all.

The front is built to be as slim and clean as possible with laser cut acrylic covers for the entire chassi. Things as CPU-block, pump, fan grille and PSU-shroud are personalized with thin mirror-acrylic.

Not that you can't notice, but the entire case is turned to stand on one edge using a 3D-printed stand with a built in turning plate for rotation 360-degrees. Choose side each day!

Make sure you see the RAM and P5 distro plate forming a purple T (for Thermaltake and Timpelay)


Specification:
- TT Core P5 TG V2
- TT Toughpower PF1 ARGB 1200 watt, Platinum
- Asrock x570 Steel Legend
- AMD Ryzen 5 3400G
- Plextor 256gb M9PE NVMe
- Zotac RTX 2080
- 32gb TT Toughram RGB

Thermaltake 2019 CaseMOD Invitational S2 is sponsored by:

Thermaltake Technology Inc
ZOTAC
AMD
Plextor
ASRock

 

Finally, it's time to get this started!

I've had the pleasure to unpack some of the things that have arrived.









Case is lightly put together and now planning process starts.

I have a base line idea what I want to do but now I need to figure out how to do it. My design will feature a kind of art form called straw art.

This design will be made from PETG tubes and LEDs. I have not decided yet if I should make the art on front or back.

The decision will set the rules for an one- or two sided mod!

 

Straw art begins!

I'm planning and trying patterns and spacing between pipes to come up with a raster that fits my project.

At first I thought of using the LED strips and carefully line up one LED for one pipe. The problem is that I only have 30 cm strips and the connection in the middle will result in a gap.



My revised idea is now to apply LED strips in an even pattern and then surface it with a diffuse acrylic plate to spread the light to all pipes.

The pipes will then be attached with another acrylic plate with perfect sized mounting holes. This needs some tweaking to get the holes with right tolerances.

 

You idea has a lot of potential. I know it works with louvers, so it should work on tubes.
Gap: What about 2 staggered strips with the leds on the edge of each tube? So each tube gets 2 leds except the one in the gap, which would have one.

 

Thanks!

That one could def. work. But the more time I spend on this the more it cleared to me that one or two leds per pipe will result in a ridiculous amount of leds haha.
I've decided to go with a different soultion where I'll put the strips on the side and light up my different sections instead. The wide beam leds will hopefully work their magic together with some reflective acrylic.
I'll show you the solution a bit later.

Got some more to do also hehe.. -->

 

My ambition is to use the P5 case and keep as much as possible of the original structure. The key for me with a casemod is always that you should easily see which case has been used.
There's no point of a casemod where there's littarly nothing left of the original case.
With this approach there are different ways of creating something unique and new. Let me show you one new way!

I've closely measured and designed a 45 degree horizontal rotation stand. This will be the only part with surface contact.

As the base is quite small, a diameter of 120 mm there will be a challenge to balance the mod and keep it safe upright. I will need to work with my center of gravity and attach a heavy bottom piece underneath this stand. Something that you probably don't need to consider in an ordinary casemod.





PLA plastic is soft and easy to crack, but with a homogen outer design this will be very strong. I made it circular to take full advantage of the material in all directions.
8 reinforced screw holes will attach the stand to one corner of the case and reuse the mounting plate for the original case foot.





The cut out is designed to perfectly fit the case and PSU. Lovely isn't it!?

 

I almost used that same rotated layout for a P5 project I did two years ago, before going another way. So I'm interested to see how you will develop the idea I also had!

 

Desk space eating pig no more!

 

OOh, I'm actually surprised that no one has done this already. I mean, the amount of P5 builds/mods is insane.

Spot on

 

I've been spending alot of time thinking of changing hardware layout and finding a more appealing one. But working my way around I've come to the conclusion that I need to set the layout for best weight distibution. This actually means the original layout is a very good start. Allthough it cant stand by its own because it's to front heavy. No surprise.

The backside will probably be heavy with the acrylic sheets and the insane amount of pipes. So lets se how it turns out. Hopefully I will manage with a flat stand at the bottom.

 

Not enough people pushing boundaries I think is the answer

 

Right? Push the boundaries FFS, people!
Would it be possible to bolt the base to the desk, then use screws to lock the case in?

 

Of course! My design got 6x M4 holes ready But I will use a turning plate!

 

I finally got to pull the trigger on a table saw. Until now I've used my jiggsaw to cut everything. It's good for figure cuts but not very effective on fast straight cuts.

So I bought a DeWalt DW745 and a fine disc for acrylic! This to be able to make good cuts for windows etc. and also get the right size of pieces for my laser cutter.



Works perfect!





Back to actual modding and this is what I've been putting my hours into. I've tried different themes and patterns for my straw art and never got satisfied.

I finally found a theme that I like! It will be a kind of mountain canvas with surrounding. May sound strange but I think it will be awesome and classy.

So now I've been designing the actual straw(pipe) pattern which was more complicated than I thought. But with patiens I think I got something that is doable!



This is the bottom three pieces of the canvas ready for laser cutting!













Finished! More to come

 

Okey game on! I need to cut 400 pieces of pipe hehe..



I may be mad, but this will look epic when finished!



As some of you probably already noticed, the CPU block only mounts at one direction for AMD. But with the distro plate i want the connections turned 90 degrees.

This means some modifications to the AMD mounting frame! I cut the end parts of just as much needed to rotate the mounts.






Perfect polished reflection of the Steel Legend!

 

"Perfect" - Kinda wobbly and uneven for a block base, actually.
This will look cool. Kinda like Pinhead from Hellraiser ate a disco ball.

 

True! But hey, no scratches haha

 

Meanwhile, the work with my stand continues. I made some changes and tweaks to the 3D-model and added mounting holes for a turning plate.



I will use a wooden base with a countersunk turningplate and some acrylic spacers for extra support.







The finished mechanism. The foot will get a surface treatment and I will probably cut the wooden plate to a more interesting design. But it's good to have a lot of material to make the casemod steady.




With the foot/stand functional and ready it's timne to take this straw art serious and make something happen!

I've got ~400 pipes to cut and glue to their mounting plates.. Just need to put in the hours!


Bottom piece!









Working my way up from the bottom. Quickly run out of glue so I'll be back

 

More glue, more hours!

And I've managed to make this:





As I said before it's a kind of mountain canvas with surrounding.

Removed the top layer protection but kept it on the "sky":





So the sky will be painted and the 3D art backlit with TT Lumi Plus LED strips!

For this I need to make mounts to the strips. I decided to offset my lines between the layers and cut acrylic pieces to glue my strips to.





I dont know how good this will work as it's the first time ever I do something like this!

But lets make it happen.

Many many led strips attached to the backside. The will be chained in a certain way to light up each section!

 

There is often cool to do crazy tube routes with bends, pass-throughs and other stuff. But as this will be an art PC I decided to go for minimalism and actually use just 4 pipes for the entire run. With my modded CPU-block I can use the same parallell bends for the CPU and for the radiator.





Full chrome for the CPU and accent black for the radiator. I also choose to use open 45 degrees to the rad which means I can fill at the highest point is nessesary.

So satisfied with the good looking bends and the ease of water flow they will provide.