Hi guys, I'm a bit anxious to do this, but this is my first real mod in the 5 years I've been a member here (mostly lurking!) and I thought I'd share it with you. Underneath my TV in my room are 4 white plastic storage cubes (35x35x35cm) that my mum bought from Habitat during her time as a student in the 70's. 2 are plain boxes and two are divided in half. I use the half ones to house my N64, SNES, Wii and Xbox 360, and the other two were just full of junk. Also underneath my PC was a disgusting off-white old PC case with my media PC in, running XBMC. Now I've decided to overhaul my room for the summer for a more minimalist approach. Figured I've already got electronics in two of my cubes, why not all of them? So whilst one is now housing my Freeview box, the other one has been designated as my new media PC case. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you my new media PC case... I know, it's minimalist to the point of not having hardware in at the moment. I do apologise for the quality of the pictures throughout, there were taken on my phone for lack of a better camera to hand. Firstly, it's time to mark my cuts: Notice the holes not being even close to the crosses due to the fact the motherboard didn't line up when I tried it at first. This has been a very much solve a problem as it comes rather than forward thinking! Next, let's make some cuts: It's a bit grubby inside, but for a 30 year old piece of plastic, it's doing well! Next, I tired fitting the motherboard standoffs... without tapping the hole (not tap small enough... so I bodged it with a thick screw beforehand) Pretty much during my first cuts of this horrifically hard plastic, my rusty old jigsaw's blade snapped. Upon retrieving the broken bits from the mechanism inside and installing a new blade, the motor died within a minute. Nevermind, I'll switch to the dremel... which also popped it's clogs when the vice mechanism stopped gripping things. Nevermind, I'll switch to the hand saw... It was a mighty, mighty effort, but that saw cut every hole that wasn't the result of a drill. No dremel, no jigsaw, just bendy, ancient, rusty, blunt hand saw. I have a very noticeable "solo gentleman's bicep" now :-(. Anyway, the picture above shows the cutout I made for the graphics card to sit in. I had to expand it later, but by then I had found my powerfile :-D. For the DVD and HDD drives, I ripped a cage from the old cream beast, popping the rivets with a drill. And affixing it to the top of the case After trying to fit everything together, I realised I couldn't get the drive cages the way they were before, mainly because of the fact the HDD drive cage was in the same place the graphics card wanted to be. Remedied quickly by shifting the cage left a bit, and voila! The components all fit in nice and tidily (don't tell me otherwise, it's been a long day!) Now to turn it on... Oh... someone forgot to install an on/off switch! Ripping on from the old PC case, It comes to life! And even boots straight to XBMC! And voila! The case is done in just one day! Still can't believe I got this done in a day, especially given my luck with power tools and the shittiness of the hand saw replacement! Still got to install a better switch, and put a perspex cover on the front. I'm thinking frosted, but maybe clear would be cool too. What do you guys think? I'm not going to install any lighting, anything other than my TV on during movies/TV irritates me! If I were to do this differently? I'd use a motherboard tray from another PC. I'd measure, double measure and triple measure. I'd get some decent tools. I'd plan ahead and I wouldn't cram it into one day. But to be honest, I couldn't have had more fun. Feel like it'd be a bit boring if everything just went perfectly, and just bodging stuff together and changing my mind half way through was great fun :-D. How did my first mod go in your opinion?
All I would do to change it is make better holes for that 120mm in the back and paint it. But otherwise it looks awesome.
I vote "silk" effect plexi (frosted on one side, gloss on the other), with the glossy side facing the user. I also think a couple of small white CCFL's in conjunction with the white cube and silk effect plexi would really accent the whole "minimalist" thing you're going for here with a nice white glow. Other than that, great work!
I like it so much I want one As someone else said, invest in a dremel if you don't have one, and make a proper opening for that 120mm fan then use a wire fan guard to finish it off. I also LOVE the idea of a white ccfl illuminated plexi front panel, as per Yourmum366 's suggestion. After that and a coat of glossy paint, you've got yourself the nicest, most unique custom media PC case I've ever seen! Well done
Seriously? Jsheff did good? Thanks guys! :-D! Yeah, my initial plan was to cut the whole of the 120mm fan hole out, but my tools decided otherwise. My arm is aching like a bitch today from that handsaw! Definitely need to buy myself a new dremel and a new jigsaw. Frosted plexi on one side and glossy on the other? That sounds good, where can I get hold of some? I was thinking of a small white light inside just to let me know it's on, and going to replace the salvaged power switch with a white LED power switch, to fit in with the white theme. Once I put my room back together, I'll show you how it fits in. @Tominated - It's the Mediastream skin, it's the only other skin that comes with XBMC besides the default one (PM3HD?), which I didn't like. @John - That suggestion has torn me between plexi and fabric now! Damn you!
Just bought myself a 19mm white LED ring push switch, a dual 4" white cathode kit and a sheet of 3mm frosted plexi. Should be all done and dusted come the weekend :-D!
If I'm not mistaken those boxes were designed by Alvar Aalto in the 70s. I'd imagine 3 of them in good condition could fetch 50e in an auction. However, this is a good use for them!
@Dodobv: This is why it looks better in white! Nothing is connected up at the moment, just getting everything together. I removed my old server earlier, a laptop running WHS with 6 external drives. The mess of power cables mixed with all the other things connected was insane! Also, I don't have to wait for my frosted plexi to arrive, look what my dad found in the "hide the mistake shed" at work today: Some 5mm clear acrylic! Yay! Looks like my 1-day mod is going to stretch to a day 2 (and then 3 when my switch and ccfls turn up). Think I might leave it clear for the moment, and frost it later. Almost done! Fits in a treat, don't you think?
@ Javerh: I hadn't made the bed because I haven't been sleeping in there while I'm ripping the place to pieces! 1-day Cube Case Mod... er... Day 2 Had a lot to do to finish off the case today, so I started with a nice breakfast First up was to cut a square roughly 36x36cm, disregarding my health and safety certificatation entirely And subsequently breaking the perspex at the last 4cm :-( More haste, less speed! Anyway, I had to think of a way to mount the perspex on the front of the case, so I used some strawberry and vanilla Araldite to stick some old wardrobe brackets to the case: While I left that to dry, I tested out some sandpaper on the discarded perspex to see which would give me the best frost: Then I drilled some holes in the perspex to start cutting out the DVD slot with my trusty rusty. Now to use the powerfile to file it down to the right size... Which promptly snapped the file. Me and powertools, eh? I nipped down to homebase later on to pick up some more, so no biggy in the end. In the meantime, I tested the frosting effect on my brand new white ccfls: Looking good so far , as is my new switch: Getting close now, so I start the sanding for the frost effect, starting with a fine grade, then using the same fine grade wet to get rid of the harsh scratches. While I waited for the opportunity to get to homebase, I assembled wha I had to see the effect: Finally, I manage to file the DVD slot out. I believe that yourmum366 coined it "Silky" Now to fit it all together and see the results... Et Voila! Done and dusted! :-D! Really happy with the result. I'll have to see how it fits in later when it's dark, but it looks promising! So pleased that I've done my first mod. Feels better than cheesecake!
Looks great, fantastic job with the build as a whole. Love the way that silhouettes of the hard drive cage and all the components show up so you know they're there, but not so you can distinguish them All in all, well done Jsheff!
Cheers guys! As I said, I'm really pleased with my first proper mod (as in, first turning something normal into a case rather than adding stuff to a existing one). I'll try and get some pictures up of it in it's natural environment as soon as I get my room sorted out. Can't wait to move back in and put it to some good use!
I like how it matches the rest of the cubes in the room, looks great! Nice collection of games consoles too
