Project: SuiSid3l UPDATE 31 Oct. Touch Sensative buttons underway

Welcome to the forums, SuiSid3l. I hope you enjoy your stay. However, in order to make your project log cleaner, allow me to make the following suggestions (besides those by G-gnome, on the matter of pictures):

- Don't rush into starting a project log. When I started mine, I already had a few months of work done, and certainly much of the plan already worked out.

- If you have nothing worthwhile to post, don't post. People don't really need to see the same part/detail from 36 different angles, see the components you bought still in their boxes, or your case disassembled in ten different pieces. If you have ideas, tell people about them. If you need suggestions, ask them.

- Avoid posting twice in a row; edit your previous post to add to it.

All in all, your worklog needs to flow, and show obvious progress. If people need to flick from page to page to page just to see you, say, mount a harddrive, they lose interest quickly. If you just ramble and don't show anything, people lose interest. And that would be a shame because I think this is going to be a nice, tidy mod worth viewing.

So be patient, and let the work speak for itself. Now go mod.

 

Well spoken. Though I must admit, I have seen worse thread's than this, much worse.

 

Project: SuiSid3l

Sorry for the delay on updates, but its college semesters this week. Full time job + full time school = no time . I have completed a few things this weekend and all but a few parts should be in before the week is out so Ill do my best to get you up to speed.

Good news! I think Nvidia has bumped up their release date for the first installment of their new GPU's (G80). So hopefully on the 8th of November Ill be ordering my 8800gts.

 

Project: SuiSid3l Updated

Well...came home after a long day at work to two boxes at my doorstep. Wonder what this could be!? My packages from Danger Den and Frozen Cpu had arrived. Unfortunately the Danger Den pump I was looking for was out of stock on their homepage so I had to hunt one down at Krazy PC and order one from there. That should be in today so I can get a flowtest done for you guys this weekend. And last but not least my Aluminum sheet should be in today and tomarrow I should recieve my final package just in time for my weekend . So here are the pics of my goodies. Ill explain each if I feel they need it.

The reservoir, which will be visible from the front of the case through the black circular mesh.


Of course the all important Stealth GTS 120 Black Ice Rad to keep my CPU cool. (Shes bigger in Person!)


The TDX block with plexi top for my socket 775 Intel Board (Soon to be updated along with my 8800gts video card to a 965 chipset Intel board.


My two babies, Aerocool Xtreme 120mm Turbine Fans with removable cone noses. One will be attached to the GTS Rad to cool the liquid. The second will be mounted behind the hard drive against the back panel to suck air directly off the hard drives and vent it out the right side of the case. (The HDD bay is being replaced by one that pulls the HDD's out of the open side of the case)


My 40.00 liquid consists of anti-corrosive/anti-algea/UV agents


Now onto the work....

Well my old single speed dremel finally bit the dust just before I began work on the case. So in order to do any work I would need new tools. So *poof* new tools!


And so the work continues on the back panel of the case. I decided that the Interior of the case will be a silver tint of some sort. As you can see the outside of the case is black. The bevel on the front portion of the case is a gunmetal metallic flake. The mesh that will be attached to the front will be black as well. The orginal front plate is being replaced by a brand new piece of Aluminum sheet that will be brushed and enamel coated to match the back. So to sum that up...

Inside=Silver
Outside=Black
Front/Back=Brushed Aluminum

Didnt feel like any other liquid color other than blue would work to well with this color scheme. We will try it out and see what happens.

So here is the back panel after I comenced removing the aluminum coating


After getting down to the 92mm fan slot I decided to go ahead and finish cleaning this up. So I started with the dremel on medium speed.


Got from there to here with some low speed dremel work and my best friend MR. FILE!


I prefer the squared off edges right now. It will all be covered by a billet aluminum fan grill so no worries you wont even see it later. Now because this is the original backing there are a lot of little grooves and notches to get around with the sandpaper to finish up the brushed look. Now anyone who has brushed aluminum knows that brushing straight lines by hand is no easy task. In fact I wanted to give up on several occasions. But here is the initial step b4 my final sanding this took me about 2 days of careful work. With the front it will be on flat piece of sheet aluminum so it should be a sinch to brush, this on the otherhand was nearly impossible but I think I got it exactly where I want it.


And finally (You cant see the grain at all, but maybe it will give you a good idea of how smooth the finished coat was, I live in a poorly lit apartment and with work and school I mod mostly at night, hence well lit pictures become difficult to produce. I do know a professional photographer and Im going to do my best to get a shot of the finished back revealing the grain, I think youll like it)


I wetsanded the enamel over the first two coats but with the glair from the enamel it was really hard to pick out the texture of the brushed aluminum. So I laid down two more coats and didnt sand them down, giving it a sort of textured feel. I think the back came out brilliant and I wouldnt want it any other way.

Now onto the front. You've seen pictures of my test coat on the bevel for the front of the case. Well the bevel attaches to the main case very easily on the bottom, but the top is left dangling without the black innerds it was originally attached to, so I needed to devise a way to attach it to the case. I figured the top as the best idea and easiest place to screw it together given that I have about 1.5 inches of clearance between the top and the top CD drive bay.



Two quick shots of how perfectly I nailed the centering of the screws to the case. It was maybe .3 mil off and not nearly detectable to the eye. BUT HERE IS WHERE I NEED THE FORUMS HELP, of all the initial issues faced I have solved all of them but one. The screws in the pictures were mearly there to fasten the case together for photographing.

I NEED IDEAS for fastening the case to the bevel. What types of screws/fasteners should I use? I need a hand with this part since most likely it will be something ill need to order. So please feel free to lend your opinion.

Ill have plenty of work to do this weekend and ill more than likely have a quick update tomarrow to show you the rest of my goodies coming in. Then Ill have one on monday showing the progress. I have all weekend so I hope to have the front Aluminum cut/brushed and ready to be fastened in.

Until then!

 

is a single RAD going to be able to cope with that loop when its got the chipset and GPU in there aswell ????

otherwise_____

 

I HAVE TAT SAME DREMEL KIT!!!!

how much did yours cost?

 

Project: SuiSid3l

There wont be a GPU cooler for now. The G80 gpu's coming in november are supposed to be a tad better. Anyway, Ill end up with an aftermarket air cooler to start and might eventually incorporate another RAD. But yes you are correct in assuming that this single RAD even though it has the best heat dissipation of any of the single 120mm RADs will not be able to support that many coolers. For now its just the CPU, and when I replace the 945 Intel board with a newer 965 I will then incorporate the chipset cooler.

 

I believe it was 24.95

Woot! Black Mesh Just showed up at the door! Expecting two more packages today and one tomarrow.

 

Project: SuiSid3l

Well I got my mesh and aluminum panels in the mail super late today. I did manage however to get some work done on the front panel. Got the mesh cut out and beveled. Took some time to get the bottom end rounded off to match up with the front panel. I saved myself some time and ordered the aluminum sheet exactly to spec with the front panel and it came out to be a perfect match much to my suprise. So just need to get the wholes cut out and work on the brushing. Then Ill be ready to paint the remaining parts and get to work on some possible reassembly.

Here are some of the photos from the front panel.




And some of the matchup with the new Aluminum sheet for the front.


Wont really be able to see it until I get all the fans/lights in the case but heres the front with the Aluminum behind it.


Hopefully Ill get my last two packages in tommarrow and be ready to bust out some good work this weekend. Hopefully get everything painted and ready for some details.

Wish me luck!

 

Due to the fact that my micro-atx case is very small and with a Radiator that big and two 120mm fans im going to try something I have yet to see. Im going to "dangle" the hard drives off the cdrom shelf. The will be securely fastened so as not to drop. But the they will hang off the bottom of the cd rom bay in order to completely remove the need for a hdd bay. I can dangle about 4 of them inline with about 1/2 inch in between each. there will be a huge 120mm fan directly behind them to suck the air off them right out the side of the case. And given they are able to slightly move it should reduce the vibrations. Ill keep you updated but as far as I know I havent seen HDD mounted that way b4. Naturally they would be removed during travel.

 

A HDD rack can be made to attach to the Optical Drive Bay... It'ds be much safer than 'dangling' the HDDs.

 

Its not a dremel its a black and decker rotary tool it should even say it on the side of it lol i know because i had one in the passed and it blew up on me with a big bang and spark from inside in under a year probably used 10 times and not mistreated in case anyone was wondering, never confuse it with the true champion of handheld modding tools the dremel multitool i don't mind paying a bit more money for quality equipment when i comes to something you plug into the wall to power it lol.

 

Looking very tasty so far...keep it up!

 

wow im loving the front bezel

very inspiring

 

Project: SuiSid3l

Making the new HDD rack is not the issue. Its the fact that the front of my case has two 120mm fans and a giant Radiator so I have no room to mount a 4 drive HDD rack. The most I could get in there is 2. If I suspend the drives I might just make a small mesh bottom to ensure they dont fall. If anyone has any suggestions im open to hear them!

Oh and if someone could recommend a good set of screws to fasten the front bezel to the case I would love to hear your suggestions.

 

Nice mod to the bezel, Compaq could learn something from you Ill be curious to see where you go with it

 

Project: SuiSid3l

Some recent discoveries have been made by myself, and to get over a few humps in the mod I have decided to go ahead with the touch-sensative buttons. There will be two...one for power and the other to open/close the dvd-rw. I will be updating you on this as it unfolds. Parts are on order now so when they come in we will see what happens! Should be updating w/ pics tonight after the rest of my parts come in tonight.

 

Project: SuiSid3l

Recieved the rest of my parts last night and got right to work on the aluminum sheet to replace the old front I showed you before.

Here is the Carbon Fiber Grill for the front fan.



And the billet aluminum for the rear, I will probably end up painting the mesh for this black, it needs some contrast in the back.


Here is the billet grill attached to the panaflo 92mm exhaust fan, I think itll look good witht he mesh in black.


Danger Den water pump and hose coil



Last night I decided to go ahead and start work on the aluminum sheet to replace the original bezel. Here is the 120mm fan hole after the inital cut.


And then after a little slow speed dremel work....


Then I finished with some 300 grit sandpaper and a little filing and some low speed dremeling where necessary....


Then I went ahead with the cdrom bay section..


And after some more sanding and finishing filing. There were some deep scratches in the aluminum when I recieved it. So I could not properly brush the Aluminum until I got the scratches out. Used some 300 grit sandpaper, then moved to some 400 grit wetsandpaper and got this far...




I then proceeded to do a dry run and assemble the computer to make sure everything fits. Its basically a perfect match so far. Have one minor issue with the length of the reservoir but ill solve that soon enuff. Hopefully Ill have a few more updates this weekend. Till then!

 

looks good : )

 

Project: SuiSid3l

Just a note...the only two things I use to make all of these cuts is a dremel and a file...no hole cutters or tablesaws. Everything is one by hand pretty much.