Digital Transformation - 14 Aug - More beige gone, window added

Painted Front

Not a big update today.

Painted the front panel black. About 7 coats of paint, and rubbed back each time.

 

Looks very slick. I like where you've tucked the floppy drive!

How tall are these old AT cases?

 

The case is 475mm tall.

There might be a change of plans for the floppy drive as I've found a new fan controller.

 

Power Supply

Not much of a mod today, but got a Raidmax 400W power supply (+12v @ 18A, +5v @40A). More than enough for my needs, but it came with "Yate Loon" fans, so I swapped them for nice quiet (with more CFM) Panaflo ones.

Before:



After:



It will get painted soon, I hope.

 

Paint the psu black or more perferbably polish it or get that polish spray paint look stuff.

 

hey, good luck btw, but before u do more painting, have u given a thought to patching some of those dust/dirt holes. when i first say the case i thought to myself that over time u might have a problem with ur pc getting dusty, i mean there are soo many holes for the dust/dirt to get in.

just a thought, gl

 

If you use sufficient lighting and something to hold the camera still, I bet the pictures would turn out a whole lot better.

Like the case btw, especially the holes on the back of it. I thought you said this was something old, but it's so clean inside.

 

Nah, I kinda like them. The side just slides off so it will be no problem to clean it. In it's previous life there were no fans at the rear (that will change) and the 120mm at the front actually blew air out the back.

 

ooh those raidmax psus are cheap but they aren't the best if you just want to take a risk whatever

 

It will be OK for me, one hard drive, two opticals, a few fans, one hd44780 LCD, leds and lights.

I won't be pushing it or anything.

 

Painting and cutting

OK,

First things first, lets paint the powersupply.



That's much better.

For those of you following this, my original plan was to put a fan controller in the 3 1/2" bay and to relocate the floppy to the rear. But as everyone knows, things change.

I found this fan controller:



The one benefit it has that made me change my plans, is that it has three temperature probes. You can set a temperature for each probe and if any one of the probes goes above it's set alarm point, then the controller overides the dials and returns all the fans to full speed until the value drops. Plus it isn't PWM so that led fans dim not blink. It's already in my current rig.

Of course it's a 5 1/4" device. and I don't have any spare bays. So, where to put it? On the top of the case, behind the blowhole. Exactly where the floppy was going. The holes still need some serious work, but you get the idea.



More cutting yet to come.

 

USB Cutouts

Not much of an update today, just cut out the holes for the USB ports on the right hand side at the front.

I'll have to cut out some of the internal fan holder later as well.

 

Very nice, I like seeing these old case mods. Im gonna subscribe to this now. Another thing, is it just me or are those USB holes not striaght.

 

they just don't make cases like they used to any more do they

 

Fixed

Nice to know someone else is reading this.

Anyhow, after borrowing a small file from work it is fixed now.



Hopefully next on the list are some switches at the back, then motherboard mounts, then ..., then ...

 

No problem I will read anything I can get my hands on. THis is also pretty good, the holes look better now too.

 

Rear Fan

As this case started out as an AT case, there is no rear fan.

Lets fix that.

The rear of the case is not flat, so I had to make two little spacers out of a clear hard plastic tube.





This is just my crappy test fitting fan.

All three 120mm (bottom, rear, and front) fans will be one of these Enermax fans. Those blades are the clearest I've seen.

I'm going to use silver guards however as gold is just a little flashy for my taste.

 

Cutting done...

Sorry for a lack of updates as "Real Life" tm got in the way.

I think that I've finally finished all the cutting and drilling. I hope.

I've cut the holes on top for the fan controller and some switches.
Obligatory feet shot (sorry don't have a cat).



Unfortunately, that last switch hole isn't quite in a line, but as usual the camera makes it look worse than it does.

As I said earlier, I've ditched the idea of putting the floppy drive at the back, so I needed to fill in the area above the power supply.

Also, there is a cutout to let the front panel lcd cable out.



When the case is powder coated, I'll probably put a rubber c-strip right around the entire cutout to tidy it up, and hide the wee botch up in the corner.

Oh, here is a shot of the LCD in it's current magnificent 3 1/2" floppy box.

The little circuit board is the home made receiver for an infra red remote control for armchair comfort, and it's going in the little hole in the front of the case in an earlier photo.

My CPU fan says 0rpm as it's not connected to the mb header at the moment.



Till next time.

 

A bit rough look here and there but I think it basicly looks all ok. Paintjob looks nice... Just remember to use varnish... Atleast PSU needs it!

 

w00t you got the feet in the pics, now wheres the cat???

Nice job so far, just one questions tho, why do you have the rear 120mm fan sucking in? It should prob be blowing out so it doesnt suck in heat that might get traped if its under a desk/ against a wall