Hi folks...thought I would finally register and post some pics of my first 'from-scratch' case. Nothing very original, but fun and time consuming (ei more hobby-bang-for-your-buck). Any ideas are appreciated. It is all done using hand tools. At the moment I'm having some serious blockage on how to do the stained glass, I ripped it back out of the frame you see in the pictures because I wasn't happy with it...now I'm having a hell of a time thinking of how to incorporate it. I bought a piece of barely transparent blue acrylic for the bottom under which I will hide the wiring and put some CCFL - that way it will glow a bit, glow out the bottom but the wiring will be hidden. Anyway, comments are welcome... all pics
That's good man! Built a wooden case myself, but don't think it's anywhere near that standard - was just 6 pieces of wood really. Not sure what you mean about the stained glass. I'm not a big stained glass man myself, but light it from behind and it might look cool. Oh, and about it not being original - can't say I see many people using normal glass, forget the stained part!!! NICE
The difficulty with the glass is how to support it. I want it to be the door, covering the drives etc... I had built that frame out of cedar, hand routered (trust me, that is fun) but it just didnt sit right with me. I then spent many hours sitting and staring at that glass-encased-in-lead trying to figure out how to build another frame for it My brother built the stained glass for me, any old-school skaters might recognize it as the H-Street logo from back in the day. My goal for the case is to have it look fairly classy, wood and glass, when the lights are off, and to be able to flick a switch and have it light up like a lazer show I think UV reflective paint is needed. I like both types of modding, classic furniture-style and Star Wars glowy style, so I'm trying for both in this case. The glass will be lit by red el wire I think, although I'm not sure if I'll do it directly behind the glass or behind some opaque black plexi I'm using for the fanbus/power/lights...depends if I get enough glow through that, which will be behind the stained glass. Anyway, some minor victories today so I'm happy
nice, are you gonna paint the psu to match the rest of the back? i should do stained glass like that while i still have access to it vey nice and original
cool wooden case, i like it. Not really a fan of stained glass but it looks gd. Painting the rear of the psu red would look gd to match the case as Go4t said nice work dude
id try some low-power red led's first ... red ELwire tends to be very very orange. and leds are cheaper.
You could fit the glass with a piano hinge (like one long hinge you buy for hardware stores) - and then use a magnet lock thing that people normally use on cupboards. That might work...
The ps that will actually be going in there is a blue-led pretty one, so I don't need any painting on it, which is nice because the PS will be clearly visible through the side window...hope it looks okay. Quick update on what I did the last few days: Here are the drive bays. They look like hell but I bought some black mesh stuff from a craft store and I plan on covering it all up with that, I'll post pictures when that is finished. The drive bays will be held in with velcro . I'm pretty convinced that it will be sturdy, a good layer of velcro is pretty hard to move, but it allows me to pull the drives out for replacement without having to make both side panels removable: Here is the new stained glass frame, looks better and works much better imo. I'm just gonna put brass hinges on it, and voila, it hides the drives etc... The side window, just clear plexi will go in here and both sides and the top will look pretty much like this (the top being thicker frame): Here is the beginings of the front. The drive going in is a black dvd+r, so it will look a lot better than that I presume. I'm going to have a relatively small control panel with fanbus, power and a few red led also framed in wood, and a Nexus control panel basically just screwed in...all this will usually be hidden by the stained glass: One of my big concerns right now is the airflow and heat and how it will affect the wood. I have put a hell of a lot of work into it and I kinda don't want it to collapse...I have used an aweful lot of glue for a lot of teh work...very ghetto I suppose.
I thought I would put this question in here instead of starting a new thread...I have two ccfl inverters (dual) both of them blue, and I was thinking about picking up two red tubes so I can go either red or blue or both on at once... My question is, could anyone tell me what the red and blue ccfl look like together? Does it make a nice purple or just look kinda ****ty? thanks.
My 'main' wooden rig (well, it's an old PIII 550Mhz I was given free and is my HTPC) is fine. Been running for years now and no problems. However, I turned a laptop into a photoframe a few weeks ago (another freebie - PI 166Mhz mmx this time - scrolls photos & surfs the web better than your average picture frame!) But yeah, the corner by the processor has split a touch. I'm guessing the heat made the wood expand (only about 1mm, hardly noticable). I figure it'll be fine - just make sure there are a couple of fans running and it'll be great
