Planning Side Panel Material

Hi Everyone,

Looking for a little help

I am currently planning a self build and I would like my side panel to have a specific appearance and i am not sure how to achieve it and with what materials i would need.

So the appearance I am looking for is for the side panel to be Black Glass and when you look at it without the power on you cannot see inside the PC. However when you switch the PC on you can see into the PC thanks to RGB lighting of the GPU, Ram, Fans Etc. Does That make sense??

So is it just a case of getting some black tempered glass or is it something fancier like a 2 way mirror?

Thanks for the help

 

I've limited experience of this only by using grey acrylic as a side panel window but even grey cuts out a massive amount of LED light. Black, even glass, might mean you can barely see a glimmer of the lighting.

 

You would have to use the mirror idea and run some dark tint over it and hope that your lights are bright enuf to shine thru.... most leds are that bright now.

Or try two way mirror film under tinted glass or plex?

I do a similar mod to car mirrors.... every one wants those arrows to show in the mirrors when they hit the turn signal.

 

pickup standard glass and have fun with tinted from car accesories. they got variant of light that can be pass

 

Thanks for all the replies,

Seems like there are a few methods to doing this, I feel like i my need to do some experimenting with the different methods and see which works best. I never thought about the whole tinted windows thing from the automotive industry, definitely going to do some research into this!!! Do you know any decent UK suppliers?

 

Look into one-way mirror glass/film. With no lights behind, you'll see a reflection. When the lights come on, you'll see in side. Not sure if you've ever heard of a Raspberry Pi "Magic Mirror", but that's about what you'd get.
Also, don't be surprised if you need to add some extra lighting strips to brighten the inside of the case.

As an alternative, have you heard of mounting a LCD monitor panel to the side window, but without the backing? The lighting from inside the case acts as the backlight, and you can make all kinds of cool designs with your side panel...monitor.