Case Mod - In Progress Project Baby Grand: progress on window

I introduce a mod inspired by the desire for a classy, clean looking mod after many half-finished, messy mods which were unreliable and not presentable.

Baby Grand

and my first project log.

First, a short introduction of myself. I have been a member of bit-tech since forever (2004 to be exact), and have been learning electronics and computers ever since I became interested. Bit-tech has been good to me and inspired my first mod, a chenming case with a p4 2.8 and water cooling:
Sadly (or thankfully) I do not have this mod anymore, so can't give any pictures of it. I think the case was thrown out. It was this case:



A year or two after that mod, I ran out of room in my case, so I did a quick, dirty scratch build from some plastic drawers:



These are pictures from after I tore it apart to scavenge parts for this build! It wasn't as crappy looking before, but you get the idea. Not so good. The main graphics card crapped out and I was running on a PCI graphics card for a while, and the hard drives started getting too small for me. I had to take it apart to hook up a 500gb drive I borrowed from work, to transfer my files.

That mod was pretty terrible and poorly planned. I had no easy access to the drives for replacement, but you could see the internals well.

So after those two mods in high school, the summer before college I decided I needed a computer that was classy, clean, reliable, and presentable for my dorm room where many people will see it. This led me to the initial case, the Thermaltake Soprano (with window):



I knew that I wanted it to be nice and not take up extra space. I borrowed an idea that I've seen many times and decided I wanted a tinted window, and a chassis which would match my school color (purple for Northwestern University). So here is my initial effort:



The chassis disassembled and ready for paint.


Painting with Rustoleum Metal Flake Purple color.


The metal flake effect is great, but is much more pronounced in person. I was worried that the metal flake dust from the paint might short some contacts on my motherboard, though. I used a ton of compressed air from my compressor to clean it out, and some sandpaper.


With the top panel back on.


Here you can see somewhat the effect with the top and front panels on. I really like the curved front panel and the classy look of the case.

Next up: the side panel.



This mod has already been finished, I will be giving it to you in several short installments as I collect my pictures and make the write up. It will get more interesting shortly .

 

So I decided I wanted to tint the side panel and go for the smoked plexi look, and illuminate the internals so that they seem to be floating inside of the case. I got this tint film from a local auto shop:



And I don't want the thermaltake logo or vents to be on the side of the case, so I cut my own window from some plexi that I have:


Masked off the plexi for cutting, tracing the shape from the original window.


Cutting a new window with my rotary tool. It's really annoying to cut plexi with this tool because it melts and jams the cutting bit into the plexi, but it's better than trying to cut the plexi with my jigsaw and risking breaking or cracking it.


I glued the new widow in place with hot glue.


Here's the new window, with the tint film applied. That tint film stuff is a HUGE pain in the butt. It is very difficult to work with and I would recommend anyone to just take the extra cost and use smoked plexi. Sadly, smoked plexi was not available from my hardware store and I didn't want to wait for some to come in the mail as I had to leave for college in 2 days.


A few shots of the side window on the case.


Looks good?

Actually the tint film looks terrible on the case. There are many small bubbles and scratches in the film that you can't see from these pictures, but it looks horrible in real life, so I am abandoning the idea of tinting the window. If I can't tint the window and hide the internals then, what can I do? The answer: I've decided to put a monitor as the side window.

A little teaser for next time:

 

dude you should have found a spary painting guide, should have used primer, and spent a bit more time on doing the job. looks rushed.

apart from that little thing, it looks good. with the tint on the window, it would be a clean look.

did you use some washing up liquid and water when applying the tint film, it makes applying the film much much easier.

 

i think a few more coats of purple on the chassis wouldve been better too.
the tint doesnt look all that bad. but i would like the monitor-window better

 

Thats a good start mate.

Keep up the good work.

BenJ

 

[QUOTE=Bur