Case Mod - In Progress Project: Orange Monster, 26 July 2006; Wire routing blocks 16.3.2014

That is very good news Mino.

 

Hey guys.

Thanks Mino for the announcement

I'm still very much alive and well, schoolwork is just taking up my freetime at the moment. But OM is evolving slowly all the time (and when I have time).

Updates arrive when I have something to update about. Don't hold your breath though

Darkened

 

Oh come on Janne! The hockey playoffs cant take all your time

Hope to see an update soon. Or atleast some teaser pics.

 

Can't wait for updates.

 

Janne, I'm glad you're still out there and doing well (I hope); I know a full-on update may not be feasible, but how about some pics of new parts that are going into OM? Or .....

 

Please for the love of god
I Need closure!!!

 

well, I'm guessing this thread is a dead-end; no updates in a long, long time...sorry Janne

 

3 years??????? OMG and I thought I was late!!! And that is a kicka*s mod!!!! Well done bro!

 

Sorry if I scared some people....

This is definetly an amazing case. It begins looking like one of those cases that has too much reactive UV and too much acrylic but you have a perfect balance so your case doesnt look like a childs Leapfrog learning thing.

@ B4TM4N

I agree, i need closure on this since i read at least 40/58 pages.

 

A new beginning...

There's something everyone should know about Monsters...they are notoriously hard to kill.

First of all I guess that I should apologize for the lack of updates for the past...hmm...four years

This is a quote from page 1 of this thread:

I'd say that this man possesses mad psychic abilities.

There are many reasons behind this delay, but the biggest hurdle at the time was my un-diagnosed sleep-apnea which got pretty bad. What I mean by that is that I was so tired after work that I simply couldn't do anything besides sleep. The worst part of it is that no matter how much you sleep, you're still tired and you don't know why. It's under control now and I sleep with a CPAP-device, which helps a lot, but I think I've had the condition for over 10 years before it was discovered.

This condition also pushed back my graduation which I'm happy to inform was a few weeks ago. I'm unemployed for the moment, but that gives me a chance to finish this mod so I'm not complaining

There actually was one more reason why I lost pretty much all interest for modding. That reason was my former job where I sold, assembled and serviced computers for a living. Being tired from the sleep-apnea and working with computers all day long really takes the enthusiasm out of you

The good thing is that I can say that the enthusiasm is returning and I'm feeling the "modders itch" (no powder needed) again.

If there are more questions, I'm happy to answer them later, but now I'd like to move on to the first update in over four years:



The first step was to strip everything from the Monster and since the case is made from aluminum, I decided that the best way of cleaning it thoroughly was to give it a bath. So this is where I'm starting from (again).





I wonder who has "swiss-cheesed" the case? The Monster has seen so many different hardware setups and let's face it, bad decisions along the way that this is where I have to begin. Luckily there has been a method to my madness and most of these holes will serve a purpose in the end.





These holes however won't serve a purpose (other than being a huge pain in my backside and easily the biggest eye-sore of the case as it stands). The carnage here deserves the "WTF have you been thinking of" - award. I guess the original purpose was to have leds illuminating the card slot covers, but yeah, it's not a pretty sight.



Because things usually get worse before getting better, I had to grind more of the edge away to get access to the rivets underneath. I wanted to use the original rivet holes for the fix so that it would look as stock as possible (if it even is possible at this stage...).



Here's the applied fix from the "outside". I cut out two strips of aluminum and trimmed them to size with my router. After that I attached them temporarily to the case and drilled the holes for the rivets. When the holes were drilled, I made an aluminum sandwich covering the hideous holes from both sides and riveted them into place.







A few closeups of the fix. There are a few scratches and places that require a bit of touch-up, but if you're looking at the back of the case normally, you can't really tell that there has been a bunch of holes there. The inside won't be seen after the side panel is in place, but I didn't want the holes there reminding me of my mistakes, so they were also covered

I don't have a photo yet with the side panel, but it covers even the ground up parts nicely.



Moving on to the front of the case. This is where the front ports used to be, but I have something else in mind for covering up that hole. I haven't done anything to the hole itself, but it needs tidying up and I also need to touch up the scratched part under it.



Again I've had some grand ideas here and there's a filed notch on the left side and also the right side hole (which has been there from factory) has been "widened" for some reason. In any case there are way too many holes in the front, so that's what I tackled next.



I fabricated a small cover plate with my trusty router, filed it to fit and drilled a few holes for rivets.





As a mockup I temporarily installed the front fan (it's upside down, but never mind that for now). It fits quite nicely and does the job of covering the holes, so I'm fairly happy with it.

That's about it for now, but I'll be updating this gargantuan of a thread hopefully pretty soon.

Feedback is always appreciated, so don't be shy

Finally I'd like to quote my idol, Bender B. Rodriguez by saying..."I'm back bebe!".

Darkened

 

Wow! Welcome back from the grave. Since my orange colored mod with a nearly identical case, I've been looking forward to this for a long time. Thanks for the nice update.

 

Thanks gvblake22,

I'll have to check out your projects out once I get some shuteye first

I've sure been in a modding grave, but actually I've been following Bit-tech quite regularly in spite of all this. Although I've been spending most of the time here on "Photography, art & design" section.

Darkened

 

Looking good.

 

The phrase "Epic thread revival" get used too often. But I do belive we have a true candidate here!
Glad to hear all is better and congrats on finishing school!

Now... GET MODDING!

 

Welcome back!

Looking forward to new updates!

 

Welcome back Janne - glad to see you're still with us. I can sympathize with the sleep-apnea issue; I also suffered from it for years but didn't do anything (didn't know about it, actually) until my ex insisted I speak with my doctor about my snoring! One sleep study later, I was fixed up with a CPAP also and have been sleeping well (and snore-free) for several years now. Hard to get used so sleeping with a "snorkel" attached to your face, but once you do its harder still to sleep without it!
Looking forward to new updates - I like the repairs you've achieved thus far and look forward to the project moving forward. hard to believe that both Intel and AMD have intro'd at least 2 new platforms since the last update, not to mention 4-5 generations of GPU's from Nvidia and AMD as well!

 

In the time that this thread has been dormant, i have gone from knowing absolutely nothing about computers to building my own computer (thanks in large part to reading this thread) i am super excited to see where this will go now!

 

welcome back... we're still here

my best friend has sleep-apnea as well, his life quality dramatically increased since he started sleeping with he CPAPdevice.

 

I though it was going to be Cheaps troll posting...

but BAM. This is fantastic news

 

The original modding troll reporting

Man what a warm welcome. Thanks to all who have commented so far and also to all who just visited the thread since yesterday (and since 2006...).

First a bit of q&a and after that I'll throw in a new update for ya!

@J-Lyons

I see that you are quite new here, so welcome to Bit-tech and thank you for the encouragement.

@Angel OD

I never thought my thread could be the subject of an "epic thread revival", so that's quite an honor, especially coming from you. This seems to be the year of finishing old projects, so maybe well see an end to this sooner than later. I've never been too cool for school, but it sure is cool now that it's over Thanks again.

@ShadowWings

I'm glad to be back and a new update should be coming your way...

@KillerCroc

I'm sorry to hear that you also suffer from sleep apnea, but then again, there are worse medical conditions to have. And luckily the CPAP device works wonders on it. I actually got used to the mask instantly, but it's probably because I've been scuba diving since I was 14 and well over 10 years with a full-face mask, so it's pretty much a similar deal

The mod should be getting along pretty swiftly now since the fabrication of parts is nearing to its end and I intend to re-use as much of the old parts as I can. The time sure has flown by quickly, so I'd say it's high time to see this thing to the end don't you think?

@TeenGeek

Your message made me feel really old (which I pretty much am ), but I'm glad this thread has been an inspiration for your hobby. The Monster welcomes you to this thread.

@jokkos

Happy to "see old faces" around these parts still. I sure have been missing modding while I was gone, but that should change now. As it turns out, sleep apnea is quite common. Best wishes to your friend.

@Mankz

Didn't know you're a mod, so congrats on the "promotion". I'll try to keep things civilized here

That's q&a taken care of, the next installment of updates in a few minutes...

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