Modding Planning Your Case Mod

http://www.bit-tech.net/modding/2007/03/23/planning_your_case_mod/1.html



Digg it!

 

Excellent guide, I think you covered just about every base, ther's nothing more dissapointing on these forums than when a project log disapears or goes wrong through bad planning

 

Thank you just what I needed.

 

excellent guide, and helpful.

I'm using Solidworks to design my own potential mod, but I'm suffering from lack of material information. Being in the US actually does have disadvantages, I can't really use most of the material discussions and information here as it is all european/UK and the shipping costs from there would bust the budget.

As for the stuff in the catalogs here (mcMaster Carr, for example), I can't afford samples to see what would be best to use.

I think something that would be very helpful to prospective modders would be a cohesive list of good materials available for given regions (US/UK/EUR)

Great article!

 

Very nice guide there....

 

Us canucks have the same problem. Can't find a 1mmx400x1200mm sheet for the life of me

 

hey another great article
just what i needed to start up my planning agian!

 

very good guide... really..
but i belong to the group of "improvisators".. i have my ideas and probably whole project in my mind only... and i havent met any big problems yet.. but.. i think you are right, without good planning it is very hard

 

I fit into the "bright but lazy"
Great ideas
Can be done
Have the skills
Have the budget
BUT... I'll stick to sleeping in the bed

 

Love it they dont teach that in school eventhough im studying at craft and art school

 

Nice guide, gonna use it very soon

 

hey, the writing in that article was not half bad! Peter Dickinson, good job on a great article!

i'll be building a new machine in the summer. it's unlikely to see any major mods but i may have to 'personalise' it a bit....

 

not bad, My whole degree is built around actually metal fabrication and design/theory and engineering. I work in the manufacturing sector during the day and I've had chances to build some pretty sweet things with other peoples money.
I would like to add that no matter how simple plan on everything taking twice as long as you think it would and costing twice as much as you would think it would.

I'm a poor college student so my money is thin and now adays I try to keep my cases cheap. Something that is more expensive might not look or be built better, You can do a lot with simple materials and skills depending on how you plan.
remember that sometimes something may be difficult to make from scratch (lets say a metal sphere) but easy to find from some company who makes that part for a living, or from some premade part (two propane tank ends put together). It can save you time and money in the long run to adapt something that exists then trying to fab a bunch of things from scratch.
Also as a rule I say don't mod the case you are currently using if your like me, taking your main computer offline is the equivalent of going cold turkey from smoking. It's nice to be able to build a mod hastle free and only swap parts in when you need to size something up.
oh and finally the bigger the projects the longer it will probably take
(check out my project log start dates)

good article planning and fabrication is definately a series of learned skills, you'll find some designs can be made with the bare minimum of planning, and some will need many hours and specific blue prints/cad drawings. I really agree flexibility and creativity will get you really far.

 

I haven't got a clue

 

That's a great guide. In my first mod, I got overambitious and found out I could't do everything I wanted due to lack of.....just about everything. In my current project, I'm following the advice of that guide as much as I can.

 

i think that this is an excellent article/guide, Esspecially where it says

i spent a while doing concept drawings for my mod '2en' but not much time planning space and costing, and i will do a lot more of both of them for the next mod i attempt. however i have learnt so much from this mod that i doubt i could have planned for the majority of things i have had to overcome any way.

My mod is in no way shape or form even close to being as good as some of those on this forum, and that frustrates me however my next one will and if not the one after will be. this weekend was the first time i ever worked with resin and had i known how good a product it was a lot of my bondo work would have been replaced (saving me Time, effort and Money) but there was no way for me to know untill i actually got my hands dirty so to say!

anyway i will be updating my worklog soon be sure to check it out (see sig)

 

Excellent article. I think I'll be reading this one several times over!

 

Thanks for the positive feedback all.

The article is more an overview of common considerations than an exhaustive guide, as everyone has different approaches to planning; I can only speak from my experience and what I've seen around the forums here and on other sites over the last few years, so I may have missed the odd thing. I'm glad some found it useful.

I'll be covering a few other areas of modding, in a similar fashion, in upcoming articles.

Now get planning (and modding)!