Mounting the LCD (difficult to mount because it's too big), it's a permanent part of the front fascia. Using Bondo etc to reshape the fascia a bit too. Note the radiator. Here you can see the Luxeons and the power wiring without the pump installed. Metallic purple paint job. The Window isn't perspex - it's 3mm Glass. More scratch resistant and reflective, and doesn't attract dust. See how the lighting is constantly changing? Cable management has been fixed up a little since the photos were taken, the SATA data cable goes under the bottom of the MB, and the power to the bottom hard drive goes straight along the bottom of the drive. Here you can see the 'stealthed' top blowholes for the dual 120mm radiator fans, and the top stainless steel handles. Water cooling isn't installed yet as you can see, the hose on the radiator is just to stop the trapped tiny bit of coolant spilling out when the case is moved. I've got the waterblocks and stuff, just need to make up my mind on a res and find the time to finish it. I'll try and get more photos and details online. Any ideas, comments, suggestions, constructive criticisms are appreciated.[/img]
Colossus Mk.2 - Updated!! I'll mainly be letting the pics tell the story here, and mainly answer specific questions. Starting with a beige AOpen H700 http://www.casemaniac.com/item/inner/H700A_I3.jpg http://aopen.jp/products/housing/images/h700-1.jpg Remove the Chassis Air Guide and begin marking window cutout. Some modding to the front I/O PCB, the power LED is replaced with a RGB one, which gets 5V for maximum brightness, not using the motherboard header. To keep wiring minimised, 5V is sourced from the USB, and an optocoupler and capacitor are also added to this PCB to operate the IDE LED (white LED) at max. brightness. Header plugs are added to this PCB to allow the LED's and switches wiring to be unplugged, and the wiring to the mobo is run out together, behind the motherboard tray to keep it concealed. This should explain it a little better The window cut. Primer coats on the panels, After painting the motherboard tray, and making cuts for cable management and power connectors. After brazing barbs to the heatercore, adding rails and some paint. Lots of mods these days seem to have PSU cables that look something like this: http://www.virtual-hideout.net/reviews/acryan_morf_psu_sleeving_kit/00.jpg This was NOT something i wanted to end up with. That's how much cabling is coming out of the PSU. The PSU is taken from it's case, the heatsinks are cut a bit shorter, and it is put in an old PSU case with a honeycomb grille back. A 120mm fan is installed in the top - this is why the heatsinks had to be modded. A voltage adjustment pot and thermostatic fan speed control are added to the PSU, and it is painted, gloss black. The chassis is also painted black, as seen here: Also note where the wires exit the PSU is different - moved around to the back side, so you can't see it! Got this large LCD 20x2 on Ebay for three bucks! Here's a microcontroller-driven driver for the Luxeon LED array. This should give you an idea of how the wiring is done, down the bottom with the mains power sockets, the power comes in, goes through a set of MOV's and a fuse on the power PCB, and it's tapped back out to a socket which is patched up to the PSU input. There's also a triac driven mains rail which has an internal connection for the water pump and an external socket for peripheral device power. To route the PSU wiring down from the PSU whilst keeping it hidden. Sleeving the ATX - only the small bit you can see is sleeved.
finishing off the paint job Some cooling components, including the pump which is modded a bit. Well i gave up on the bay mount res thing, it was too hard to get water into the pump to prime it, and to bleed all the air because of the position of the components. So it was time to make a new res. After checking out the round perspex res's that Defyant has been making, i got inspired to have a go at something a little bit similar, a DIY res. But after getting in touch with the local plastics places to get the perspex tubes, i couldn't get it, unless i buy the whole 2m. So i came up with another solution. It's just your average plastic cup. But it's clear acrylic, you see. I sanded away the paint on the outside (after deciding not to have a res with flowers and ******** on it), and since it was all sanded, i decided to go along with the frosted look, instead of going to the trouble of buffing it back to a clear surface. Simply a matter of cutting the round lid from 4.5mm Perspex sheet, cutting the tube to the right length and drilling and tapping the holes for the fittings, and glueing it on the top. With the multi coloured lighting, the clear frosted effect is good, because it helps to blend the colours together, instead of just appearing as seperate light sources.
The colour isn't showing well, it's a fairly dark purple. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v476/minerva2/IMG_0106.jpg That pic is probably the best one for showing the true colour.
Well, as you can see all the pics have been updated in the previous posts, and yes, i know they're out of order now. Enjoy.
