They do make it in spray-can form, I think Xoxide sells it, although they charge an arm and a leg more than you can get it for elsewhere
Yea, that does sound like a pretty cool idea. I will look into it and see if I can get it. If I can't, I was talking with my neighbor about what I want to do and he had a good suggestion - instead of using regular spray paint, since I'm going white, use appliance enamel spray paint. That will give it a very hard covering plus if I sand and buff it down well enough, I may not need to use a clear coat to make it shine. I did a bunch of work on the bezel over the weekend and made a few modifications to my plan. More later on...
Okay, here's what I accomplished over the weekend. Didn't get as much as I wanted to done, but I was able to get some of the "busy work" done. Here's the bezel filled and rough sanded... I loaned my palm sander to my father and forgot to pick it up for the weekend, but as soon as I get it back, I'll do the final sanding & filling. What I used... Bondo All-Purpose Putty (faster setting version of their body filler), Devcon Steel Epoxy Putty (same as JB Weld, but cheaper) and cream hardner for the Bondo. It's been awhile since I've used the Bondo, dang I forgot how much that stuff stinks!! I've decided against the stealthing idea that I had. Mainly for two reasons: One, I was thinking that if I stealthed everything, the end product may look too much like a refridgerator and two, I plan on upgrading the cd-rom and the burner to a dvd-rom and a dvd burner in the near future and don't want to have to re-do the bezel when I do. The FDD won't be stealthed either. I will have a 3.5" bay-bus in there, but I want to keep the option of using a fdd in the other slot or replacing it with something else in the future like maybe an internal card reader to replace my external one.
Dad, have you thought about putting a 120mm fan in the bezel? It'd move a ton more air and be quieter than an 80 mm fan (if you hook up some sort of rheobus) It looks like there's enough room there, but it's hard to tell from the pictures.
Yea, actually I did think about using a larger fan but decided that since I already had the 80mm fans and grills that I was going to use them. /me can be a cheapskate sometimes Also, I found that there's really not enough room up where the VFD is going to be mounted for the power & reset switches, so I'm going to be mounting them down near the 3.5" bay.
I have a very similar case, except it has a 120mm fan. Like essjaytee said, a 120mm fan would move more air wiht less noiase than 2 80mm fans, but 4 80mm fans move more air than a 120mm (although far louder)
Actually, I sliced the 4-fan thing in the front of the chasis - didn't like that "feature" at all. I'm undecided on how I'm going to do the front of the bezel though. I'm leaning twords a single 80mm fan up front and a single fan on the side blowing room air straight on the cpu, but am also thinking using either 2 80mm's or an 80mm and a 60mm on the bezel similar to THIS.
Again, I already have a bunch of 80mm and 60mm fans at my disposal. Since I don't overclock, I'm not really concerned with the cooling aspect a 2nd fan in front would bring - it'll be more for the look than anything. Besides, I really don't think there's enough room for an 80mm and a 92/120mm in the bezel along with the power & reset switches (they're kinda big).
Looks kinda like a speaker. 80mm is the woofer and 60mm is the tweeter. Just my $.02. Keep up the good work.
Update... After trying to figure out exactly what I was going to do with the front blowhole, I decided NOT to go with a dual-fan setup. My first post said "this mod will be all about sexy". Well, After looking at the idea with real fans, eventhough it does look kinda cool, it's not sexy at all, a little cluttered yes, but sexy, no. This is what I came up with... It's kind of hard to really see what I did here as it's just the 1st stage in the "duct". I wanted to recess the fan, but wasn't sure how I could get it mounted correctly, plus I didn't have any PVC pipe that would fit the fan correctly nor did I want to have to buy an 8' section so I could use an inch or two. My solution was to remove the impeller and arm assembly from a dead 80mm fan and use its shrowd as the duct as seen in the next picture. I hot-glued the shroud into place and then fill in the inside of the created duct with JB Weld so that it'll be all nice and smooth. When all this is cured and set, I will use a 1/2-round bit in my router to round the outside edge of the duct and sand it smooth. The biohazard grill will be recessed back near the fan. The main problem that I have is that I glued the shroud a tiny bit crooked and didn't realize it untill I put on the JB Weld. In order to fix that, I will elongate the bolt holes on the shroud so the grill won't be crooked. Oh, I also got a new toy in the mail today... It's a Vantec Nexus 3.5" 4-port fanbus. It's REAL nice and am happy that I bought it. It glows blue around the knobs and each channel will handle 18w each.
Really nice "duct" mod I have also been eyeing that 3½" Nexus thingy, since I am not using my floppy drive at all any more.
Thanks guys. I was hoping to be able to get to installing the external usb, firewire and headphone jacks last night, but instead spent over 2 hours sanding the stupid bezel. Let me tell you, that JB Weld and Bondo are ROCK HARD! I started out using 400 grit sandpaper and ended up using 100 grit drywall sandpaper! I did get it pretty much smoothed and even last night, but I ran into a couple of small air pockets that I needed to remove and patch. Will have to sand again tonight! Oh well, it's all good.
Hehe. You are giving me ideas for that other case i have sitting under my desk. It has the look I want for the gMONO case I am working on also.
Glad to be of service! My biggest problem is that I am now seriously hooked on this modding stuff and I have a closet shelf full of various shaped empty ATX mid-towers. I'm already thinking about my next mod and planning how much hardware I need to buy.
Yes, it easly turns into an addiction. I think it is that instinct to create ...... must ......create.....some....thing.... *okay, I'm done now* [/stops thread hijack]
Hahaha... Yea, must be Okay, I finished day 2 of filling, sanding, filling, sanding... My arm is sore and I went through a full pack of sand-paper. I really have to stop being such a friggin perfectionist :/ I don't have any pics yet, but I did finish filling and sanding last night and was able to get to drill and file out holes for the headphone and line-in jacks along with the power / reset switches, USB ports and Firewire port. I only need to make sure they all fit and if they do, I'll take a pic then. I'm going to go a little different route with the power and hdd activity leds on my mod. I figure that there's really no reason to include a power led since the front fan will light up when the system is powered on and I plan on integrating the hdd activity led into the blow-hole somehow. Will figure that out when the time comes to mount the led.
Hey all... Sorry I haven't updated in a while... I just wanted to let anyone who was following this thread know that the project hasn't died, I've just had it on the back-burner for the past 7 or 8 days because my youngest son has been playing on the all-star baseball team (they placed 3rd in the region!). I'll get back on with the modding probably Monday or Tuesday...
