OK, I've had the idea to make a cardboard box case for a while, and I feel that this is the perfect time to do so (that and I don't have the money for a new case). I've moved house recently, so finding boxes isn't a problem at all. As for the parts being used, I have collected pretty much all I'm going to use, and when/if I find my digi-cam I can take a picture of it. Here's a rundown of what is currently sitting in a pile next to me: - 2 rolls of tuct tape - 2 cardboard boxes - 3 blue LED 80mm fans - 3 red LED 80mm fans - 3 stock 80mm case fans - AMD Athlon XP 2500+ - BFG GeForceFX 5700 Ultra - 1 stick of Kingston PC3200 512MB RAM - CD-Rom drive - Floppy Drive - IDE and floppy cables (old kind) - X-Acto knife - ASUS A7N8X Deluxe (soon to be a Shuttle A35N Ultra) - Super Glue - Sheet of acrylic The acrylic sheet is there because I plan to put a window in. I figured that I could cut the side off of a similar sized box, and use that as a mount for the acrylic. Then tape that side onto the box I'm using as the case (which will be totally cut out) and make it so the door can swing in and out, making it easier to access. Mounting the hardware inside will be a simple case of drilling some holes in a thin panel of wood and putting that onto the bottom of the case, or maybe even the side, so the PSU and CD-Rom can sit on the bottom. The CD-Rom will most likely face forward and have it stealthed with some duct tape covered cardboard. The PSU, CD-Rom, floppy and anything else that I can think of will be surrounded by cardboard with duct tape on it. The idea being.... well just because I can. Motherboard Tray Right, well I figured I should start somewhere, so I decided on the motherboard tray. Its simply a piece of wood (not sure exactly what kind) but it works (and it was cheap). I put the mobo down on it, traced the outline and marked the mounting holes. Then I used my jigsaw to cut the tray out of the piece of wood, and drilled the holes. The mounting holes were fun to get in, because the wood is somewhat poor quality and it took me a while to get them all in. Some of the holes weren't straight, but the beauty of the wood is I was able to force them straight. I was amazed that they actually all lined up! Here is the motherboard and PSU put into the box to show how it will work. It's almost a perfect fit. A little on the tight side, but close enough to perfect so I dont have to mount the motherboard on the side. But, I could If I have to. Here is the motherboard mounted onto the tray. I will post pics tomorrow of the tray itself, because I have to cover it in duct tape. And here is a different angle of the motherboard and tray. You can also see the hardware. The motherboard is blue, and so is my RAM heat spreader and graphics card. I put some bigger and blue ram sinks onto the graphics card, so hopefully I will be able to clock it above 1Ghz mem this time. You can also see the Swiftecg MCX 462-V with the 80mm Chameleon fan installed. It was a tight fit as well, but I got it on. Motherboard Tray Cont. Well, now I've got a duct tape covered wooden motherboard tray! Just took out the stand-offs, covered the tray in duct tape, poked holes in the duct tape where the stand-offs go, and screwed them back into place. Here is the duct tape covered tray. Here it is showing the underneath. And here is everything mounted and ready to go! Door Window Yea, that's right. A full acrylic window in a cardboard box case. Nothing much really, just a hole with an acrlic sheet taped to the back. Here's what I did. I took a box exactly the same to my main box and cut off the side. I then cut a 8" x 14" hole in the middle of the side using an x-acto knife and a ruler to get this: I then went and cut the acrylic sheet to be slightly larger and mounted that onto the back of the window frame using duct tape. I then proceeded to cover the rest of the frame with duct tape. Heres the finished product waiting to be stuck onto the main box later. Front: Back: While I was cutting the acrylic, I think I was using the jig-saw at too high a speed, cause suddenly a hairline crack appeared in the acrylic. It's really small, and you can barely see it. But I figured that this box isn't going to look like perfection itself, so some errors are allowed. See if you can spot the crack: Power Supply Unit Right, I figured it was time to work on the power supply. Its a 350 watt fortron that I picked up from newegg a few days ago. And, well, it needed some modding. So, here we go... Now, some of you may be wondering what that long piece of cardboard is doing next to my PSU. Well, take a good guess. Can you see it now? It's basically some scrap cardboard wrapped around the PSU and duct taped into place. Here is the totally covered PSU: And a rear view... But, simply covering the PSU with cardboard and duct tape isn't enough. No way. So, any guesses on what I might be doing next? Take a look: That's right, I sleeved my PSU cables with duct tape. It took a while, and my fingers are now kinda sticky, but I think it was well worth the time. I like how it looks. Heres a closer shot:
Hard Drive Whaaaat?!? I couldn't just leave the hard drive as it is! Anyways, why not mod it? It's fun! Basically, I took the hard drive and covered it with cardboard on all sides except the back, which I left open for the IDE and molex connectors. This is what I started with: And this is what I ended up with: And here is a shot showing the rear of the hard drive with the IDE and molex connectors: CD-Rom Drive Oh come on, you didn't think I was going to mod my CD-Drive as well?? It follows the same principles as the other two components, with cardboard all around it and held in place with duct tape. However, the CD-Rom was special because of the faceplate. I couldn't have this ugly grey faceplate surrounded by gorgeous duct tape now could I? So, I stuck a piece of duct tape on a front, worked a little magic with my x-acto knife, and ended up with this: Then, once that was done, I covered the rest of the CD-Rom in cardboard and duct tape to get this: The box Well, this is probably the more important part of this mod, the box itself! It's a box that held some books on the way over from Singapore, so it's pretty strudy and is still going strong. I put all the components I would need into the box in the form that I had planned, and cut away the parts of the box that would get in the way. I also cut away four 80mm holes for the fans, as well as the graphics card and motherboard ports. Here's what it looks like: Here is a shot of the front where a fan and the CD-Rom will go, along with a view of the left side where the window will be. Starting to take shape? And here is a shot of the rear where the graphics card and motherboard ports will go, along with two of the 80mm fans. It also shows the right hand side of the case where the PSU will come out and one 80mm fan will be mounted. And I started to work on covering the box with duct tape. I started on the inside because I figured I might as well start with the hard bit so it just gets easier. Hard Drive cont. Spott was kind enough to point out that the hard drive would make heat, and the cardbaord and duct tape would trap that heat and the hard drive would fry. So, to remedy this situation I needed to change my design a little. So, I started to cut a hole into the surrounding cardboard and duct tape like this: And I then stuck an 80mm fan in there! Here are some piccies: Notice how little duct tape I have left?? I cut the 80mm hole in the cardboard with the x-acto knife, then I taped the fan into place with duct tape (duh). I also tapped the inside to keep the fan in place. I then surrounded the fan with more duct tape to try and get that "integrated" look. The main problem I had, however, was thinking of a way to get the air out. Getting it in was easy, but too much air in there and the fan wouldn't be doing anything. So, I spueezed the top bit and it folded... and I realized that all I had to do was fold it and prop it up. When I plugged it it (shown in the 4th picture, but the camera was on flash) I was amazed at how much air was being moved out of that exit. It works great! The Box (cont.) Right, I got the box completely covered. I ran out of tape and had to run to Home Depot to get some more... and it turns out I got a different type. It had a more shiny finish. But hey, it was easier to tear, and it's still duct tape! Here's the eye candy! First, we have the side with the open panel for the door... And here you can see the front and right side... And here's the back. I made the mistake of cutting holes before covering with tape, so getting that tape around the holes was NOT fun. It has a less professional finish to it, but I'm happy with it.
The Window I guess this is my favourite part of the mod. The opening window. Remember that window I made earlier? Well, here I just stuck it on. Here it is closed: And here it is open! You can see the small bit of velcro used to hold the door in place. The "hinge" is just duct tape and it holds up pretty well. The Fans I had purchased those red LED 80mm fans from getmods as it was going under, so I got them for $10. Here they are: Of course, I couldn't just leave them as they are... So i sleeved them After a little thinking, I got them put into the holes and covered the sides with duct tape to hold them in place and make it look flush (or atleast try to). After I got them all in, I got my duct tape PSU and powered it up to see how it looks. And here it is! One of the fans is broken, and I'm trying to fix it but so far I can't find anything that seems to work. I may just have to bite the bullet and switch to blue fans. Maybe even buy some green ones. But they won't get here in time, so I think blue will be the better option. But if I can get that fan fixed, I will stick with the red. 99% Done! Well, it's pretty much done, I just need to work on the wires and get it to see the hard drive. But other than that, it works like a charm. There is, however, a fun story behind this. When I first had everything put in, ready to go and all it needed was some power, I plugged the power cable into the PSU. The wierdest thing happened! The lights on the fans started to blink, and nothing really happened. Then, when I was moving it around to see if I could see any grounding errors, and saw none, I tried powering it up again. It worked fine! Except, no boot. It would just power up. So then, I decided that as long as I had some lights going, I might as well take some pictures. I was moving the case around to get some decent angles with the camera. Then I went to power it on, and it booted right into the BIOS with the screen showing everything! I was dumbfounded! What the hell was going on? I'm not going to argue, it works. But... just wierd. So now, I give you the almost finished product. It will boot into BIOS, but it doesn't see the hard drive, which is probably because I have the hard drive and the CD-Rom on the same IDE cable. I will get another one and see what I can do there. Anyways, on to the eye candy!!!! We first start with an overall shot of the interior. You can see the nasty work I've done with the wires, so try and ignore them for now. I will have them hidden as best as possible later on and get some duct tape on those hideous molex connectors, but until then bear with me. You can also see the air duct I put in on the CPU. Its the overclocker kit I bought a long time ago, but it didn't work right. So I put it on this one and it works great! That, and the blue duct goes well with the blue fans, motherboard and graphics card. You can also see my custom cooling for the graphics card. I don't know if you can tell from the picture, but what I did was stick some new heatsinks onto the RAM, and got some thumbscrews to screw inbetween the fins. I then cut 2 PCI slot covers, screwed the bottom into place with the thumscrew and attatched a 92mm fan to the other end with duct tape! I'll tell you how well the cooling works later when I get it to boot iinto windows. Here is a closer shot of the duct and heatsink. Please forgive me for the shoddy pictures, Dad did something to my camera and I don't know how to put it back to the way it was. And now we move to the outside. Not too much has changed scince I last took pictures, but the main difference is shown here: I was bored, and I wanted to try my hand at etching. Low and behold, I wasn't half bad. So I decided to put it into the case so I could show off the hard drive cooling. It doesn't light up too well, so I need to put a lighted fan on the hard drive, which won't be too hard, just annoying. Here is a close up of my first (yes, first) etch: We then move to the back, where the PSU is and the exhaust fan for the CPU. The clear fan draws air into the case over the RAM, and the black fan draws air out directly from the CPU heatsink, so I hope that will help CPU temps and case temps. More on those temps when I get this thing to work properly. Here is what the rear looks like: And here is the other side: Again, not much has changed, but the main difference is the intake fan for the air duct. Nothing special, no uber planning, it just was the best place to put it. And here we have an overall shot of what my creation looks like with the door closed. But now, lets see what this beast looks like when the lights go out. There you can see the outside, inside and rear, and the last shot is of the CPU heatsink with its blue fan. It's hidden by the air duct, and it's a pretty dodgy photo, but it serves it's purpose. More to come on how it performs!!! (When I get it to work)
Wow! A great ghetto mod! The duct tape theme works well and looks good carried throughout. Thanks for sharing it with us. More outstanding is the actual project log - great pictures and writeup . Top stuff. I think there's a handful of modders who would benefit from following your example in how they approach writing their own project logs. Mod on!
I need some advice for a switch. The A35NU doesnt have that nice little switch like my DFI Lanparty does, so right now (you can't see it in the photos) but my switch is a phillips screwdriver. I've been trying to think of ways to make a switch, just a simple piece with a metal object stuck to the end that when you push it, it contacts the two wires for the power switch. One idea I had was to take a PCI slot cover and use that... but I don't have springs. Wait, that's a lie. But if I use them I won't be able to use my watercooling... which isn't being used right now because I'm holding it for another case. Anyone have any suggestions?
great look, but is that psu not going to get hot with that cardboard round it. When looking at yours i was thinking will the cardboard absorb noise so if you wanted to make a really quite case use cardboard.
Wow nice one, a ghetto case with effort! Looks pretty good too, reminds me of a prop from an old B movie. I just hope the HD doesnt get baked.
where is the air that is pushed through that fang going? I really like this project, because it's ghetto all the way. not like a case that has some cardboard and ducktape inside it.. keep it up mate!
If you look at the picture prior to the one you are talking about, you can see that I took a tiny square of cardboard and proped up the cardboard surrounding the hard drive. That's where the air comes out. As for getting this damn thing to work, I got it to see the hard drive, but the Windows install is corrupt, so I'll have to find my windows CD.
Quick update, I used my Knoppix CD to get the PC up and running. Works great, and I found out why it wouldn't boot into Windows. The entire Windows folder was gone! All the other files are there, but nothing else. I think this is the hard drive that I had when I corrupted the core by blue screening while shutting down. I guess I just uninstalled Windows but never got around to putting it back on. Seeing as I'm not very good with Linux just yet, I'm going to install windows so that I can get all the drivers installed and run some benchmarks and overclock it.
I have 8 fans (7 80mm and 1 92mm) and it's not loud at all. In fact, come to think of it, its just a tiny bit louder than my Antec Super Lanboy which has 2 120mm and a stock AMD heatsink! The cardboard does help to keep the noise down. K, I'll stop spamming now.
Spamming? Uh - it's your thread, you are on topic, it's a great project.... Dude - keep replying to us!! it's not spam. Love the project. I was thinking about your duct - the metallic blue looks good, but I was thinking that if you got some of the white plastic ducting (for dryer exhaust) instead, that it would light up from the inside because of the LED fan and look cool. It would also fit pretty well with your theme. Next time you make it over to home depot, give it a try. The stuff is cheap.
Genius! The duct tape actually looks really good, how much did this total project cost ? Looks wicked, I love the sleeving on the cables also! Good work!
you covered the harddrive? then i was glad to see you atlease put a fan on the bottom, but isnt there a hole on the top cover that says "DO NOT COVER THIS HOLE", on all my harddrives there is one, did you cover it anyways? or is there a small hole in the cardboard/ductape?
