Scratch Build – In Progress Battle Dragon Bag - Update#30 - 9/4/12

Very nice. I like the paint job-turned out great.

 

Monkeyfun, it`s a pity to hear about your problems with powder coating. Unfortunately working again well-known proverb "If you want a thing well done, do it yourself". Cheer up, man, your work is awesome and paint skill is brilliant!

 

***. Bubba fade job.

 

Thank you sir.

Thank you sir. It was an expensive lesson. Hopefully, they 'man-up' when I swing by to pick up my remaining parts.

Yeah.... I won't comment further on the situation until I get my remaining pieces in my possession and chat with them this week on their 'results'. Who knows, maybe they can make it up to me.

 

Shame about the powder coating, but thankfully your skills came to the rescue and it turned out great

 

Thank you! I wouldn't credit my skills for all the results. I've been great advice from modders on several communities that have saved me from screwing things up too bad.




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Quick picture-less update:

About the my powder coating experience:
When I look at situations like this there is a certain amount of cost/benefit analysis to how I react. At the moment, I am neck deep in a mod, preparing for a panel in front of a couple hundred geeks, nerds and modders, and remodeling and preparing my house for fostering a child. I could go all nerdrage on this business and invoke the wrath of the internet on the business, leave foul reviews on Yelp and call the better business bureau. But all of this takes energy I'd rather focus on the good things in my life. This 'lesson' didn't detract from my quality of life. It's focused me on improving my painting skills and started me on the path of research for powder coating my own stuff. While it sucks I spent a chunk of money on this, I've learned to take my losses with a grain of salt as long as the mistake is not repeated. I like to screw up in all new different ways.

All that being said, I did take a hour out of my busy day to go talk to the owner. He reacted exactly as I expected, defensive and stated what I requested was different than what I produced. I didn't throw it back in his face, that my results were corrections for his mistakes. I asked what he could do to remedy the situation. We agreed that both sides could have been clearer on communication. He offered to completely redo the bad pieces (unfortunately I don't have the time). He stated that he'd give me a severe discount on the next job. He was adamant that a refund was out of the question.

So I have options for future builds:
I can go back to this guy with a better communicated request for a discounted job.
I can shop around for a better deal with another painter with the lessons I've learned.
I can do it myself.

Any way I do it I'll be factoring my time in as a big priority.


Now, back to the mod! Things are coming along. I didn't have much time to work on the case yesterday, but I'll have a couple of hours of work tonight. I'll get some more pictures up and start getting ready for the end photos!!!

Finish Cable Sleaving: 80% Complete
Wire, solder, and install the strip LEDs on the light rails: 80% Complete
Paint Job fixing: 95% Complete

Widen cable hole on PSU - Done
Reassemble and test PSU - Done
Pick up other pieces from Seattle Powdercoating - Done

Touch-up paint on PSU (got a couple of scratches while sleeving).
Assembly and Test

 

Update #27:

Well…. The couple of hours I was setting aside to do modding ended up getting side tracked by one of my neighbors that required tech support. I’m a sucker for an elderly neighbor that is fascinated by current technologies.

I did get some work done. The PSU is assembled and I just need to finish the last of the cabling at the other ends.



I also finished soldering the strip lighting and began installing it on the case.



The pieces fit snugly on the frame and I might have to shave the side panel down a little bit.



Here’s the view of the case with only the strip lighting up the case and side panel.



And here’s the CCR tubes that will be in the case. Apparently I’m a sucker for lighting too.





Checklist until completion:

Finish Cable Sleaving: 80% Complete
Touch-up paint on PSU (got a couple of scratches while sleeving).
Assembly and Test


So close, I can almost see the light at the end of this mod.

 

Bout time man... I thought this would be finished by now... keep it up..

 

looks fantastic! and great attitude on the powder coating adventure... I'm impressed. I look forward to the finished build.

 

Nah, I had a couple of bumps in the road that kept me from making an expedient finish. But Thanks!

Thank you! I look forward to finishing it!!


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Update #28: Assembling Pictures!!!
I’m still working on the sleaving, redoing some of the sleaving and a little soldering. But it was driving me crazy. So I started assembling the various parts of the case.

Here’s the GPU (Radeon 6950/70) with the water block. Just a quick note, the water block was provided by the kind folks over at DeviceUnkown.com.


Just a quick shot of the second hard drive mounted on the back side of GPU. The primary hard dirve is the slick little OCZ SSD drive will be mounted on the back side of the motherboard because it’ll be visible.


After a little modding of the mounting brackets, I was able to install the CPU water block.


And I’ve installed the windows in the in the respective panels.





Checklist until completion:

Finish Cable Sleaving: 80% Complete
Assembly and Test
Install updates and games

Another update later tonight with sleaving pictures. And even later, I’ll post the finished sexy shots and some of the action shots of the case while I’m at PAX.

 

Those side panels are awesome! Good job.

 

Won't the drive attached to the back of the GPU get too hot? I know it's water cooled, but the back portion isn't.

 

Thank you!

No, The GPU has a back plate which is mounted on risers on an aluminum plate. The drive is attached to that aluminum plate (or the mounting bracket).

 

Update #29:

Note all of these pictures happened sometime between Thursday 6pm (8/30) and Friday 6am (8/31)

Time was running short before PAX and the mountain of cabling and sleaving seemed daunting. So I did what any modder would do, I worked non-stop to get it done. Here’s a quick picture of some of my sleaving work:



Eventually I completed all of the required sleaving. So I began the next task of assembling all of the parts. One of the tricks behind working in such cramped space is figuring out the ordering of assembly. You can’t just assemble the parts in any order because one part’s placement will block access to the other parts. Here’s one of the steps of assembly, the motherboard and primary SSD:



This picture jumps a few steps forward. I’ve already half assembled the side panels, connected the hard drives, attached the pre-assembled GPU & secondary HDD, and wired the switches to the motherboard.



While the computer is 75% assembled, I prepare the Mayhem’s Tharsis Red:



Except… something’s wrong… but no matter, I tested the loop again before it hit me… is my red pink?!?!?



I checked the other three containers of Tharsis Red and sure enough, I was accidentally shipped a bottle of Gemini Pink labeled as Tharsis Red. Here’s the difference between the two. Apparently being awake for 25 hours doesn’t help your ability to differentiate between pink and red.



So I drained the loop and filled it with the appropriate colored coolant… and it’s almost ready! I’ll I have to do is power it on and update the OS and games!!!









Did it power on? Did I make it to PAX? Did I win the casemod contest? Did I embarrass the whole casemodding community in my panel at PAX?

I’ll let you all know with my next update. And no cheating by looking at my facebook entries.

 

Need to bleed the air out of the top of the system , now give it a rock and a knock and re fill with more coolant , apart from that a good build mate , Not a fan on the front sprayed part , but hey ho ,

 

Yeah, I saw that later that night and already bled the air out. I'll have some proper finished pictures of the build at the end.

 

No worries ! =)

 

Update #30: The morning before and during PAX


When I finally had everything put together and ready to test it was about 4am on Friday morning. I plugged in all of the input and output devices. I had all of my disks and update files ready.

And then it didn’t power on. PANIC.

I had to semi-disassemble the computer to trouble shoot everything. I verified that the on/off switch was wired correctly. I verified that everything was plugged in. I tried another power supply… and success. I began trouble shooting the power supply… but every single cable is sleaved. So I made a judgment call. I wanted to have something to display at the panel for people to see. I could have slapped any old power supply in the computer and got it up and running. So I kept the nicely sleaved power supply out for people to see and put a jury-rigged power supply into the computer so that people could see the water cooling and lighting.

That being said, my build still isn’t done. *sigh* I will need to figure out what pins I screwed up on and then SLEAVE THE ENTIRE PSU AGAIN…

So after getting 3 hours sleep, I hauled everything down to the convention center. This is where I digress; feel free to ignore this part of my update as it’s all about PAX and presenting modding at the crafting panel at PAX.

Since I had purchased two seats, I set up two computers at the BYOC: One for use and the other for display. Unfortunately, there was no casemod competition for this BYOC. But that was okay as I was a sleaved PSU short of a complete case anyhow. I wandered around the Exhibition Hall and swung by the Gigabyte & the NZXT booths. Lee Harrington (another great modder) and Irene (with Gigabyte) were at the Gigabyte booth and showed off all their new mods and mobos.



I specifically swung by the NZXT booth to see Bill Owen’s Bladerunner case. It is a beauty.




Eventually, Saturday rolled around and I had to speak on the panel. Here are pictures of people lining up to see us speak…




…and the line went around the corner too… Here are the other panelist and I getting ready for the panel:




I created a quick little cheat sheet… this list got much longer the closer to the start time.


Here’s a quick shot of the display for people to see. I had the TTeSports bag out, the case displayed, the Gigabyte bag (and mobo mentioned), the Thermaltake sleaved PSU on the table with a sample of Mayhem’s Tharsis Red:


And then the people started coming in… we were told that between 325-400 were in the room with another couple of hundred turned away due to lack of space….



Here is a picture of the complete panel: from left to right

Myself (Dingo Casemodder/monkeyfun/bitterfun/Gentleman Dingo)
Amanda Casperson (http://petrichora.deviantart.com)
Heather Dery (www.lunarjadestyles.deviantart.com)
Tally Heilke (http://tallystreasury.com)
Sewing Punzie (http://punzie.etsy.com)
Anne Wheaton (http://valdaleyes.net)


Here’s me beginning my talk on modding:


The first slide had some of my cases and some cases I liked at PDXLAN:


The next three were process slides:




Unfortunately there were some technical difficulties as they were unable to play the short 1-2 minute movies I provided. After everyone was done doing there little presentations, the floor was opened for questions and answers.



After the panel was over, I took some time to answer individual questions.


…and was joined by two other modders: Boddaker and DragonPhreak. Thanks for helping out guys!


The next morning… the PAX Enforcers decided to mod my mod. I felt loved.




The next update might be a little delayed as I’m going to be un-sleaving my PSU and trying this again. Thanks for reading!!!

 

Sorry to her about psu. I hope that you had good time at Pax.

And what the hell is on last picture? Aluminium foil wrapped around pc,desk and chair??? XD

 

And each of my business cards and every object I had there. It was hilarious!