Case Mod - In Progress [project] Black Zipper - 22nd Feb 2009

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How It All Started:

before 24th December 2007 at least 2 years before

Well after looking on the forum for about a year and other forums like this (bit-tech, TBCS and a few others) i wound pluge in a build a custom rig, but haveing not much money a no pc building experience, i went looking for old system to rebuild to get to know the parts (only none two so till a begner), then i started to read the magerzine, Custom PC which iterjucied me to the big e-tailor (such as scan, misco, dabs and novatech) from there i've been added items to the shopping basket and designing a computer though my head. i then relished when i start to build all of this most of the products will change (new products, old products cheaper and so on) so i decide to stop with that and to customize the begie case i had salvage from my works skip, and then think about the inside, and after some thought and buying the books "pc chop shop" and "dightal hot rods" the designs started poping into my head, but before i got carried away in doing a complete custom design, i shound start at the bottem, and work my way to the top, and on that i have decide to do a morden/idustrail looking case with an orignal fell to it, lain li interia parts (because i love there hard drive cages) and a fast slick looking paint job.

Brief:
To customize my boring standed beige case, to a high performance computer with a morden and idusrail theme. With a fast slick pant job, Water cooling and Lain Li interior parts.

Plan:
1.To paint the case fully black including interior, including the lain li parts which will be black powder coated
2.Twin Turbine Fans in front of case (2 120mm)
3.2 custom resvires with led's and mesh in side panel
4.Lian Li Wheels, Removeable MB Tray, Hard Drive Rack and DVD Drive Rack
5.9 White LED's in bottem of case to give glow afect and 4 led's in each resiver to give glowing
6.White stipes along front, top and side panel of case
7.Remote DVD Drives 2 In Total
8.All Cables to be Sleeved In White Sleeving
9.cpu and gpu watercooling
10.Custom Usb Hub In front Of case
11.custom name on left side panel
12.Mesh around componants

Products Brought So Far:



23rd December 2007





Case Taken Apart




Iv'e drawn around the parts on the bezal that need filling and cutting

24th December 2007



Iv'e cut out the side panel that will hold the resivrs



and heres the panel back on the case



29th December 2007



i've appled the first layer of filler to the other side panel to make it smoth to get rid of the horribly x, and it's ready to be sanded down and a nother coat appleyed



and heres the case with only the cut side panel on

31st December 2007

i've sanded down the first layer of filler and have appled the secend coat, i think i only need 2 more layers after this one

i went shopping i brougt myself a nice new shiny dremel 300



and some more filler and some nuts and bolts

1st January 2008





and i have sanded down the filler on the side panel, one more layer shound do the trick now



18th January 2008

i've marked out the front metal before the plastic bezel and on the plastic pipe.

i'm cutting the metal so the a can place a sheet of aluminm in there so i can cut holes for the fans because at the moment the is holes and inlets everywhere. and i cound leave it but it wound be better if i made it fresh.



26th January 2008

i have Solded all the Resistors on to the LED's for the bottom



ready for the black wires and heat shrink

all solded up now just need heat shrink and test fit



With heat shrink Added



and a little test fit



all wired up



1st February 2008

i have cut out and grinded down the front metal panel before the bezel



i am buying a fan grill for the 2 triple rads, thanks marcus00 for this


4th February 2008

i got home from work and my parcels had come



1 big box and a screen




and now for the contents of the box



thermaltake TR2 - 500W PSU



OCZ DDR2 Ram



EVGA 8800gt 512mb



intel core 2 quad




ASUS P5N32-E SLI Plus Motherboard

32bit Vista OEM



Samsung 500gb Hard Drive




Logitech S510 Keyboard and Mouse






7th February 2008





5m of 1/2 tubeing


2 swiftech pumps


2 black ice 360 rads


2 ek 250 res


6 fans


ek 8800gt block


barbs and paste


rad brackets and hose clips


1/2 gromets


and my d-tec block and kit are on back order and shound be here the end of next week

17th February 2008

my d-tek fusions came this week and the other screws for the rad, thanks rob, i also got sent a little WCUK badge with that



front perpex panel instead of the metal one i made which will in cooperate led's



these will hold the tubes which i will much up to 4s, i have designs theres as thee is going to be a hell of a lot of tubing and once again led's incorporated into the perspex

i have also designed some for 2 lots of tubing, and again with led's



First of I wound like to thank Paul at CCS Windscreens for sponsoring me for this mod



I have applied another coat of filler on to the side panel



When I cut of the excess plastic on the front bezel it left the area around it ugly and rough so I put a sanding disc in the dremel and sanded it down.



I’m going to include a quick safety message in here, about safety items when dremeling, due to the fact I spent 5 hours in A&E on Thursday, I was dremeling out some metal sheeting when the disc snapped and landed in my eye,

I have got a cut my the side of my left eye, a scratched eye and there was dermel dust in there

There lifted up my eyelid and shoved a cotton bud up there to remove the dust, which was really wied then the put some orange dye in my eye to make sure it was all out,

Now I’ve got a half orange eye, which I can’t see, propley out of, and have to put eyedrops and cream in for the next week

So I recommend now that you where there’s dust masks



And some goggles



After that now for the dremeling

Before Sanding


After Sanding


as you can see from the picture above that I have rounded off the bottom of the bezel for the lain li ports that I am going to buy

I am also going to change the design of the side panel, due to the fact that I put the res’s up onto the side panel and the angles didn’t look right, so I am going to put 3mm Perspex under the side panel and then cut out the new hole and filler up the holes after I have installed the Perspex surroundings

Like THEkorean did with his black and which wavemaster



I will be doing something like that but with two res’s instead of one

I have also changed my mind on the front fans I will now have two 120mm fans together instead of a 92mm and a 120mm

Here is the new design



I will make a fan box to go in the front of my case for this and will make a turbine style front bezel as before for the fans, which I will filler up.

I am also deciding on if I if should put a 7’ screen on the bezel of the case.

Well after them changes I had some more,

I’m going to get it spayed my by mate Colin and then get it airbrushed with lightin stripes.

That’s it for now happy modding

 

Snap on the keyboard and mouse! I love the keyboard using it right now, dont care for the mouse buts it alrite. Good luck with your mod thats alot of nice parts I wish I had that money to spend on my mod

 

Well thought out project, keep it up.

 

and you said you dont have much money, it looks prity alryt stuff to me

 

yeah ,.. nice heardware.. i like it its the same MOBO i would like to have

 

Looking good. any sketch-ups?
Nice hardware too.

 

Great work so far!

I have that mobo! Odd; During all these years I've never actually seen any of Hardware Labs' stuff in retail packages before. Huh.

 

thanks guys for the comments,

i brought that mobo because it's a striker extreme really, and i am getting another 8800gt for my birthday

 

uhh nice

 

Wow! Great hardware. I like the design of the side window so far.

 

yep i'm working on them today so i'll post them up this after noon

 

here are a few designs will be more this afternoon,



front perpex panel instead of the metal one i made which will in cooperate led's



these will hold the tubes which i will much up to 4s, i have designs theres as thee is going to be a hell of a lot of tubing and once again led's incorporated into the perspex

i have also designed some for 2 lots of tubing, and again with led's

 

just updated a bit more

 

I like the design and the sketches. Heal the eye and then back to modding
Notice the goggles on the smiley!!!
John

 

thanks man , modding resumes on friday, when my perspex comes in then it's out with dremel and this time with goggles

i should have some more sketches uploaded my the end of the week, of all the perspex work i gotta do

 

23rd February 2008

In this update I have gone Perspex mad, and I mean it, Paul hocked me up with my Perspex and loads of off cuts to, so a big thank you to him.



Look at all that Perspex, I sorted though what he gave me, to the stuff that he cut for me



all the Perspex there is for my 2 120mm fan box that will sit in the front of the case



smoked Perspex for the back of the case



3mm clear Perspex for the new front of the case



the new side panel



and all of that is for spare, which I will use, he he he, secret plan



Now we got all that out the way, I went down the local screwfix on Thursday to get some new toys, for the Perspex





Tap and Die set





And some new self centering, hss extreme 2 drill bits

And I did order a nice bench drill press but there didn’t have it in stock, ooo well I check back next week for it

Well guys my dads got this secret stash of sand paper filler and filling equipment from when he was a body repair and spay expert

Gave be some stuff for me to work with





Some nice filler knife things, and some silicon carbine paper better know as wet and dry, a tip for all the people doing there technology GCSE, You have to say glass paper instead of sand paper and silicon carbine paper instead of wet and dry, as both of them are trade names.

All right on to the front panel, Paul cut all my Perspex to size, all I had to do was trim a few edges at the bottom and the side



I have drilled the six holes for the bolts that will hold it to the front metal of the case, plus the 4 big holes for the brackets that connect the bezel to the case



and a little test fit



I have drilled out the 3mm holes for the leds, which will light up the centre hole for the 2 120mm fan intake



That’s it for now Happy Modding

 

24th February 2008

After drilling most of the holes yesterday for the front plexi I am now moving on to the fan box which is going to be made out of 6mm clear Perspex, I haven’t finished the front plexi, due to the fact I a m waiting for my 114mm hole saw to be delivered

I checked over the measument for the fan box, in which got cut out, and I forgot when I designed it that it wound be 10mm, so I have drawn out the new lines to be cut



As you can see in the picture below where the blade got hot when I was cutting it with my jigsaw, it has melted it a bit leaving the sides stringy a bit of sanding should solve the problem



I will not start to drill the holes in the box to my hole saw comes, so I am just going to sand down the edges to make the fit better

As I have got to sand the edges down I fort I wound give it a little test fit just in case I sand to much off





I told you a few updates ago that I was changing the side panel, I have cut out the centre of the side panel ready for Perspex



I have marked out the Perspex that will go on the side panel ready to be cut



All clamped up ready to be cut



All cut, time to mark the new design



A little test fit, WOW perfect first time, me happy



New design marked out, and ready to me cut



A little test fit, just gotta cut out a bit more on the real side panel



Sorted now for the cutting of the Perspex



A couple of holes for the jigsaw



Centre Cut Out



All Cut Out



Another Test Fit




ok on to the sides of the side panel, I will cut this pipe into 4 to make the corner sections of the panel



and here it is chopped up



that’s it for now happy modding, and there might be an update later, I’ve had to stop cos it’s started to rain and my work area is outside

 

the rain has stopped so hopefully i will get the side panel done, what do you guys think of the side panel

 

Coming along nicely!
John