Firstly this is my current PC 'Project: HighTower' built about 20 months ago and about to be sacrificed for my new project. Watercooled XP2500+ @ XP3700+ speed, 1 gig Corsair Twinx, Nvidia 6800GT Details of this one on my abandoned site http://themodplace.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=1 My main reason for starting a new project was to build something A LOT smaller than my HighTower system. Its just not practical if I want to take it anywhere. This ones physically the smallest possible size for all the components with about 10mm of clearance just to be on the safe side. So basically I've taken one of these Akasa cases made a sketchup model of it. ..and made some components or downloaded from http://scc.jazzle.co.uk/latest to mess around with it to get this: Teh first cut was done with a Dremel and it took soooooo long. The rest were done with an angle grinder with a cutting disk attached. Please note great care was taken using this method! Cutting slightly oversize then smoothing it with the side of the disc worked great. The edges were then gently heated over a naked flame to make them smooth as glass. crappy phone camera2win voila! I tried a couple of different fronts in plexi and mesh and finally came up with this after cracking most of my spare plexi when drilling or cutting Its got plexi behind the mesh so besides the cuts for the TFT and DVD-RW tray I can cut out a bit more. All of the case is going to have 2 way mirror car window tint applied to the inside for this sort of effect when its on http://www.hoplink.com/sculpture.php and a mirror effect when off. The 5" TFT LCD is a TV as well and its going to connect to the RGB out of the graphics card. I've tested it already using powerstrip to lower the resolution to about 400x300. Still trying to work out how to stop BF2 minimising when I want to use MSN on the LCD
looks like you have made a good start on your case i like the idea of the mesh front as well good luck
Is the 80mm fan at the bottom of much use? With the optical drive on top it'll most probably only cool the PSU. You'd be better of placing it over the LCD and cooling the hard drives. Just a thought. Looks like you're off to a good start.
Or, even better (tempsbased) but a change of design: move up the screen a little and put the fan under it. Very nice design by the way, and compact..
Yeah thanks, thats a good point the LCD and its board do tend to get quite hot. I might have to mount the hard drives a bit more centrally and try to get some cool air to them and the LCD. Bear in mind the front of the case is plexi & mesh now so i can cut holes in the plexi for more cooling if I need to. I can fit a couple of 60mm fans on top of each other at the back possibly. The fan on the front of the case is already in place and I think it will help with the airflow especially to the PSU.
DVD-RW, blue LED fan and PSU fitted. This is just a spare PSU to get the spacing right. I am going to use this modded one in the finished case:
to stop bf2 minimizing you can run it in a window. right click>properties on your shortcut to bf2, in target make it look something like: "C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\Battlefield 2\BF2.exe" +menu 1 +fullscreen 0 +wx 0 +wy 0 fullscreen = 0 runs it in a window, the wx and wy are the x,y co-ords of where the window sits. then just config it to same resolution as desktop. keep up the good work, looks like to be a very nice compact system!
Yeah I tried that thanks but for some reason it lowers the sound quality and I cant look around when zoomed in with the sniper. I'll muck around with it later when its built. I'm gonna mount the hard drives on the top panel mainly coz its a lot easier than making up some brakets. Theres enough space in front of them to stealth a fan behind the mesh if I get worried about temps but I want it to be reasonably quiet too.
Oh btw Stickeh was/are you in [EVO]. Its WildWarp here long time MOHAA member. The clan site is kind of back up again. Disaster. Broke the ribbon from the TFT circuit board to the screen. I'll get a cheap PS1 screen at some point and fit that instead. I'm not using that two way mirror stuff on the panels coz it is impossible to fit neatly on acrylic without loads of bubbles and marks. But it will definately come in handy for cutting out some decals to stick on instead. Fitted aluminium mesh all round instead and I've now got 4x4" red cold cathodes, 4x4" blue ones and 15 new ultra bright blue laser LED's. Overkill I know but I think it will look good. Now that I'm not using acrylic on the front, just mesh, I dont really need the fans so I've revised the design a little. Theres plenty of room for the pump & reservoir inside now. I was originally just going to place them outside on the back. I've taken the watercooling system out of my HighTower project so I can fit it in the new case. Then all I got to do to get it up and running is put in the motherboard and the lights
i've always wanted a plexi/mesh case, now i can just enjoy yours ^^ i like the looks so far, keep it up.
i see the problem that your hdd's will die much faster when you are hangin them up if they werent hanging yet... please do not use that crappy handypics, its a whole mash on a lcd-monitor...
yes i WAS in the [EVO] clan as part of the desert combat section. left to join a much better clan....
Good work so far as I can tell. Don't care too much for this whole mesh idea, but I will follow along for the ride.
Just waiting to get these bits delivered: 19mmx3mm aluminium angle about 4 metres 8x50mm corners Like the ones on guitar amplifiers Maybe the hard drives will be horizontal as I keep being told if you change them round they will fail quicker unless they are new. Having difficulty doing the round bits of the corners properly in sketchup. Trying the 'follow me' tool but aint cracked it yet I'm starting to feel the need to PAINT IT BLACK!!! A couple of cans of black smoothrite should sort it out. This mod seems to be constantly evolving whether out of need after breakages/mistakes or when new ideas fire up. Thats a good thing though I'm sure I will be a lot happier with it than if it was exactly like my original plan. I'm thinking about cutting up some car window mirror tint into decals to stick in the case. maybe some sort of celtic flame? ...or biohazard/nuclear type of thing instead. Possibly I could cut a design out of the mesh as well... watch this space......
UP AND RUNNING!! Up and running! Woo hoo Aint touched this project in what seems like a looooong time so I skived off work today to get stuck in. I'm not using the watercooling system in it so I sold it on. It didnt fit basically (pwned). CPU is still good for 3200+ on air Theres 2 x 4" blue cold cathodes in the PSU leaving me with 2 more an 4 red ones and about 15 lazer blue LED's to fit at some point. Wont leave it as long this time! The hard drive mounts on the side Stealthed 16xDVD+- rewriter
F I N I S H E D woohoooo! I didnt think I was ever gonna finish this mod but here it is! Original SketchUp Model: Its an Akasa clear acrylic case that I've chopped down to the smallest possible size with only a few mm of clearance. You can see a lot more detail on the YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5IplzPqa5k Its got an XP2500+ overclocked from 1826mhz to 2354mhz (1.9 volts) making it an XP 3600+. Cooling that is a standard silent coolermaster XP3400+ being fed air by a 120mm Delta fan. The Delta fan is running off 7v instead of 12 (molex 5v+ and 12v-) to keep it quiet. It is soooo noisy on 12v you wouldnt believe! Sitting on my chair a good 3 metres back from the PC I can feel a nice cool breeze coming from it so it is still extremely powerful and ,thankfully, quiet. It keeps the hard drives nice and cool too Theres a couple of hard drives in there, total 100gb, Nvidia Geforce 6800GT (NOT overclocked as I've toasted one already!), 512mb PC3200 memory (more wouldnt hurt), NF7-S Nforce 2 ultra motherboard, modded 500w PSU, one off chipset cooler made from an LED VGA cooler.
