I was asked to make a Tachanka mod for someone with the NZXT H500i. For those who are unaware, Tachanka is a character from the video game Rainbow Six Siege. The plan is to make some cool looking RGB lighted acrylic stuffs with muh CNC machine. I've never attempted to cut anything metal before this so, exciting!
Completely dismantled the case and drilled out some rivets, got the front panel and side panels off. They've got to be flat to fit under the CNC machine If you want to see how this case comes apart, I filmed it. Just unboxing and dismantling stuff in this video, no actual modding yet.
Purchased a 1/4" end mill specifically for this case. Taped the front panel down with some double sided tape, and cut it out with a design I made on Fusion 360. Came out perfectly! The plan is to put a piece of clear acrylic behind this hole and light it up with a Tachanka design painted on top. You'll see what I mean later
I decided to try cutting a more complicated design in the side panel because the front panel went so well. The panel is made of steel and is about .05" thick, but the 1/4" 3 flute end mill ate through it pretty easily with the help of some WD-40 Lots of metal chips. But here's the finished product! I plan on putting some lit up acrylic behind this design as well. This first picture has some adhesive smeared on it still, but goo-gone takes care of that.
I think it would look good to have some subtle acrylic pieces accent the front a bit. Designed a thing to go around Tachanka on the front and cut it out with the CNC out of 1/8" acrylic Of course this is all going to be painted and the edges will be cleaned up a bit.
Painted the middle of the side panel red, slapped some vinyl over the top of the parts I wanted to stay red, and painted the rest black.
Also painted the acrylic trim! I wanted it to be subtle, so it's all black. The Tachanka silhouette is just black paint over the front, and white paint over the back with a red LED shining through the side. The silhouette was made with a vinyl stencil, easy. All the panels are held together by double sided VHB tape
Added some white painted acrylic behind the side panel, and build a computer inside! We're finished Made a video timelapse too, so that's kinda cool. Now I think about it, it probably would have been easier to get the black version of this case to begin with.
