Hello everybody of the moddingscene! First a little introduction: My name is Gijs (Gaoske = nickname), 23 yrs old and I'm a dutch student so: no money, no tools (yet) and no modding garage... I had never even seen a casemod before. approximately 4 months ago, I accidently found a topic about it on tweakers.net. For two years a worked @ a club/dancing in Nieuwkuijk named De Ster (translation: The Star). My boss could obviously appreciate my work and mentality cause he hooked me up with an Intel Celeron 2,8 with PSU, 256 DDR-ram and matching mobo with onboard VGA, LAN and sound. Not really tweaking stuff but it worked so I was off course very happy and grathfull. I bought a 80GB HDD and a NEC 3500 DVD copier. A downloadstation was born.... The case everything was in was quite crappy though. so I surfed ebay and found a Big-tower for 10E. . When I picked it up by bus (yes, took the big tower home bu bus :s), the power button-electronics were missing. no problem, I'll put in a new one myself, I thought. Just a button wasn't gonna do it for me cause I would be having an ugly button in the front which wasn't even working... My Project was born... My sponsor and personal advisor for hardware and problems : [HIDE] Mr.X with his dutch Modshop Maxactive [/HIDE] As you can see it offer(s/ed): 6 5,25" Drivebays (ext) 4 3,5" Drivebays (int) 2 3,5" Drivebays (ext+int in the top) +4 propably in a "plug&play" bay above the PSU, only it was missing 4 Fan mounting places: 1 80mm in the front 1 50mm S) behind the CPU 2 80mm above the psu (or 1 90mm or 1 120mm, whatever you choose, the holes are drilled) The big-tower offered me a lot of space so I wanted to fill it an extra-ordinary way. I also wanted to add my 2nd love into the theme of the case: Cars, especially from the brand with the 4 circles: AUDI. The case would be based on Audi TT Quattro (cabrio). What I wanted to have in the case: My first gear: Mobo with CPU and 256 DDR PSU A-open 300 Watt Maxtor 80 GB HDD DVD-RW 52x CD-rom What did I buy/upgrade with: Wannabe Dremel for only 29,95E with flex-grip and some extra tools Sony DVD/CD-RW combo taken out of my parents PC (it was mine though) MSI PT880 Neo V 2x 512 Kingston DDR Ram Pentium IV 3,0 Ghz 1MB 800 Mhz (478) Zalman 7700 CU CPU cooler Transcend Radeon 9800PRO 128 MB 256Bit Zalman 700 CU GPU cooler Enermax 365 (2nd hand, turned out to be burned Cooler master Extreme power 380 PFC AC-Ryan MORF UV-Orange 4 120 mm THermal take Blue LED-fans (sold allready) 4 120 mm AC-ryan UV-Orange with UV-Leds Sunbeam Fancontroller 2 AKASA UV-ornge rounded IDE cables 4 CCFLs (3xUV, 1xBlue) (Will add what I have forgotten now...) What is to be modded: All cables sleeved in UV-orange Outside painted black metallic Inside not-blinking silver/aluminium PSU painted black metallic and supplied with 2 blue silent LEDfans New front completely made of plexi, painted from the back for a nice bling-bling look 2 Fangrills: 1 on top, 1 in front Fancontroller is going to hang in the plexi front in the upper drivebay, UPSIDE DOWN THAT IS CD-rom drive with window on top of the DVD-RW 2 mirrors in between of these two to see them both in "on-top-view" throw a window in the front New bigger knobs for the fancontroller with a hole in it to see light of the multicolored LED. Power-on button in the top of the case And IMPOV my unique part: A rotating platform in a mirrord showroom for a 1:24 scalemodel of an AUDI TT TURBO QUATTRO Cabrio please tell don't tell if you see it somewhere else, cause I want mine to be original. If you see one somewhere else, I'll try to change my plans to make it look as different as possible. Off course a window will show the car when the case is closed as well. Here some pics with explanation of what is done. The Case First the case was totally stripped down. Than I cutted out the holes for the 120mm LEDfans. I had alreayd bought 4 blue ones from Thermal take together with only one fangrill for marking the size and the holes for the screws to mount the fans. Later on Maxactive got new 120 mm LEDfans which were much nicer, so I bought those and sold my NOT-USED-more-then-2-minute Thermal takes. I also cutted away some of the pieces of the case that were going to be in my way and made a hole for the cables to disppear behind the mobotray. Here the old fans are still in place. Thats it for now. I'm alreayd a bit further, but I'm still translating and writing those parts... Mod on...
The PSU The Powersupply was first tested on the Celeron and it worked proparly. So I started stripping it. Already had the fan grill off because it didn't fit in my case with one... Looks the same as a piece of Ikea furniture now, doesn't it? (sorry for the advertising... ) Forgot the fans @ the first pic... Now just start painting the case of the PSU. Black metallic will match the outside. After grinding with paper 280 and the layer of primer that is off course... The BLINGBLING result: Nou put it back together. becareful with the paint... The fans were replaced with the more silent LEDfans from Coolermaster and Thermal take. Back together, still without the buttons cause one needs paint... The button... The painting... Everything back together. Good start don't you think? GRz and till next time...
The 52x CD-rom In the top of the drive I wanted a window so the working of the drive was to be viewed. I stripped the drive analyzed the inside to check the possibitlities. Over the CD a sort of bridge hold centre-disc. That should stay in place. afterwards I just started, the worst would be to break the CD-rom player, and I had 3 spare ones... The cover was painted UV-orange and afterwards I made a window and sticked it under the top of the cover with double-sided tape. The drawer where you put the CD on is also visible from the outside so it was given some aluminium paint. The centre I didn't paint because it wouldn't be visible when showing the player working on a CD. Th bridge I painted in aluminium as well. I tried to make it look a bit better to show more of the disc inside, but I failed . No problem, because I've got another identical one ( + = ) to finish the job later... Now putting it back together, drawer back in... The yellow centre-disc touched the plexi when a cd was in, so I put an extra rivet (is that the word?) in to higher the cover a millimetre. Now everything closed again and test it... It works till next time...
Back again! I salso started to play with mecano again. I build a little construction for the turning plate in the showroom. Untill now I wanted to place the construction on the midlevel of the case. I also still had a cover planned over the construction. I here decided to not do both of those things. I made a new design like shown here: The cover would be traded for just painting all the parts. I don't mind to see the real constrution of the plate and the turning mirror. So I got some other screws and bolts to put it all together. I than stripped all the parts and painted them in the same color as the case. The motor off the turning platform come from an old mirror-discobal (if you know what I mean). I took out the motor from it's cover and this is waht was left. It's 230V so I need another elctronic circuit inside my computer. But because I build in another PSU, I had to anyway. Here I put it all togehter again. All the parts are put together with nylon rivets to NOT damage the paint. Here the parts are build to the case to carry the platform. There are rubber bolts put on the screws to prevent the vibes from coming to the case. Inside the constructing itself I plan to put O-rings between the construction of the motor. Just a few pics to show were I'm standing right now...
ziet er goed uit, jammer dat het raampje van de cd speler groter is als de cd Translation: Looking good, pitty that the window on the cd player is bigger than the cd
I spend some time on the outside of the case now. In the top there will be 2 120 mm fans as well as in the front. The front I will make lateron. The top of the case is actually a cover of about 5 cm high. First I marked where my fans were going to be mounted. I marked the mounting holes for the fans and afterwards I drawed a cross hrough the mounting holes to measure the middle of the fan. Than I drawed the size of the hole and started cutting. Than I started the windows in the sidepanels. The upper window is to show the scale-model. The turning platform is mounted on top of the PSU. The window will be at least as big as the platform. so that means as high as possible, as far to the back of the case as possible and ending just before the drivebays. I placed the left panel on and marked were the frame of the case was when the panel was placed so that the frame wouldn't be in front of the window. The window under the showroom I wanted out of the ordinary as well. My cable's will be sleeved and everything in the space where the mobo is mounted will be cleaned, painted and so on, so even if everything would be visible, it wouldn't be ugly. The window would be just a big TT logo, like it is at the back of a real car. Even the proportions are perfectly counted to match real life. And a total view of the backside. I worked at the back for 2 reasons: 1: The outside of the panel allready got 2 layers of paint. The last layer will be put on if the rest of the case is finished. 2: When using the dremel, I don't want to leave cutting marks on the outside of a sidepanel. Here the result of the cutting in the sidepanels. You can see that even without using grinding paper or a file, the cuttingline is quite straight Off course I did some grinding and fileing and stuff to finish it nicely... Than the frame of the case. I first sanded it with waterproof 280. Afterwards I washed of all the sanding dust in my bath because I don't have a hose in the garden, not even grass to do it on... This is the panel so far. I put the windows in as well. When I tried it on, I saw I propably want to change the form and size of the window, but since I'll only paint it the last time when it's really finished, it aint a problam to change the form and cut away som more metal. Here I painted the panels with another layer after the logo and window were cut. I did it in my back garden so my table got some new layers of paint as well. Here I was sanding the a plexi logo. It's going to be the fangrill on top of the case. The crossings of the outer rings with the ones next to them are right above the two fans in the top. You'll see that later on. Here I put the logo on top of the fans. I used screws that are a little too lang on purpose so I could see how the logo is going to look. I'm not 100% satisfied with the result. I'm playing with the idea of redoing the logo, but if so, I'l do it another way. Using a dremel, you're almost doomed to get a logo which isn't really round. I'm still thinking of a way to improve the quality of my logo. Still these pics are a good show oof for what I've already produced in my short career. The first are the ones to just illustrate hoe it looks with the logo on: These are with the top put back on the case and the logo on top. Fans out Fans in slow mode Fans in fast mode I hope you all start to enjoy my project log... please keep in mind it's my first mod... I'll keep you informed!!
@killah, I'm still updating my project till the way it is right now. Right now, I already have changed the plans. I've modded my Sony DVD/CD-RW combo with a window as well. That's the drive which is to be seen in the mirror later on. That window turned out a lot better. Pics coming up...
Morfing PSU 1, 2 and 3 As you allready know, I got myself a UV-orange MORFkit from AC-Ryan. Here the pieces of it are displayed on my little table in my room: I started tryieng the tools from the kit on some old ATX plugs which I cut off ffrom an old PSU. Also tried a 4-wire-powerstring. All went great! After this test, I started modding my second PSU, which I plan to build in front of my mobo. I cut out all the cables but the 4-line-powerstrings. The green wire and one black one I kept a little longer for easy soldering. I also got myself a long powerwire with a hooked connector, cut it in 2 pieces, sleeved the connector part and used just the wire of the other piece. Connected it inside my PSU with a ?crown toe? (Babelfish). All kabels will disappear behind the mobo-tray so I just put them threw 1 piece of the biggest sleeve. Behind the mobo I will put the cables in place later. That was eusy Afterwards I started on my first PSU, an Enermax 365 VPE. I just couldn't get the plugs off . Not with the normal tools, neither with anything else which I found on Tweakers.net: Pincet, staples, little screwdriver... But I did find a pic of PSU with a burned 5V line. The ATX-plug had some brown-coloured pins where the red cables come out of the plug. Why did my ATX connector look the same ??? To be sure I took it to Mr. X, and got confirmation. That explainedwhy I couldn't get my PC stable. I kept getting blue screens with problems like DRIVER_NOT_OR_LESS_EQUAL and USBEHCI. Both problems which are a result of an corrupt 5V line on my PSU. As I planned to have 2 PSU's in anyway, I didn't need a very expensive 500W PSU, so I chose a (quite cheap-ass) Coolermaster 380. I was told it was a stable Power Supply and had PFC. Came home, tried it on the mobo+Graca+HDD and worked stable indeed. All the other stuff I would hook onto my othe PSU anway. Another silent CM LED-fan inside, Cables sleeved, and my PSU was ready for use I also made a start with cutting the mirrors. Here a litlle tutorial. First you tape the mirror. You measure the thickness of your cuttingtool. Than you measure the size you want to cut. Count off the thickness of your tool. Mark it on the tape. Use a thin (stainless) steel ruler and cut your mirror/glas. go over the cut several times and make sure you're cutting it on a flat panel so you can work with some power without being afraid to brak your work. When cut, put the ruler against the cutting line on one side, push down that side firmly, than push the other side to break it along the line of your ruler. With some woterproof paper (without water here!!) you can grind the sharpness off the glass. Pics Some modding done again See you next modding time
update to real-time-progress Another little update... On advice of Mr. X I went to a specific construction market. Mr. X allready bought his black little rubber rivets. For the second time I had to make a half an hour ride by bike just for some stupid little pieces of rubber. But Mr X wa right and I got close to 500 rubbers for only E 4,95.:O !! I then started placing the rubbers. First the "few" new thumbscrews. These are the places I use the Thumbscrew: (black screws on silver background, and zilver screws on the black background-places. 2x2 sidepanels 2 for the top-panel 2 for the Mainboard-tray 2 for the HDD on the not-visible side of the HDD-bracket 3 for the PSU 7 for mounting cards in the PCI and AGP slots 20 in total that is I probably not more, but I'll get them later... Afterwords I started to use rubber on the vibrating parts of the PC. The PSU (no pics), the the showroom construction, and the HDD. Here I tested the view with the UV-CCFL's in the bottom And with a blue one in the top above the TT. The effect was quite nice, even better than I thought. I guessed blue wouldn't do good to the car, but it looked nice That's it for now... speak to you soon...
I've seen it on GoT, but anyway, it looks amazing !!! but you really should place a diode over your relay. *dutch mode* die diode belet de relay van een piekstroom tegeven wanneer deze afspringt. gewoon een standaard diode in sper over de relay is al voldoende en kan je vele euro's schade besparen *dutch mode*
Lookin' very good Gaoske. I bought myself another box of them rivets a few days ago (they really are cheap! ) That car looks fantastic btw. Keep up the good (and clean) work.
Great gaoske. You're doing realy great for you're first casemod . hopw to se the final result soon . keep up the great work
For now, that's it.... Yesterday night someone agreed on me having a very nice phone, and told me in a way I didn't even want to learn to know. In normal language, he slammed my face to the ground outside a pub , stole my phone and the money out of my wallet. My pics were taken by phone, so no pics for now.. .. I hope to get back a new phone very quick as I contacted my insurance right away. So hope to surprise all with an updata ASAP
Geez, that is rough, hope you are ok. Some people, sheesh. Hope to see more coolness out of this mod, my dad has a TT and he is somewhat obsessed over it, so I'll show him some pics of this when it's done.
I'm not really ok, but I'll live. Cool to here people reactions like: He I got a TT, gonna follow this one . My inspiration is the car asa well. My father drives audi for about 13 years now and my mother for about 6 years, damm I'm enjoying it everytime I need them to get something or if they need a ride from or to a party or dinner. Too bad the TT only got 2 seats so I never get the change to bring them with that one .
