MODS PLEASE LOCK - MOVED TO NEW FORUM :D!!!

Nothing left than to agree.

 

I need a www.modcam.net cam... what do you guys think?

 

Go for it! I love the touch sensors, they give a nice clean feeling to the front of your case.

 

Sticky Situation: continued + touch keys finally installed
The GOOP is all dry, and everything is stuck together and ready to rock! Here we go!

Connections bound together on the back of the bezel


All lit up!


Now you see it..,


...Now you don't.


A little bit of custom tooling... This solves the fact that the frosted effect was destroyed when the goop solvent glue was applied to stick the keys to upper front of the bezel.


And after that, we've got frosting again.


Not as good as the original, but still pretty good.


Door installed on case, again.


Hrm, where'd those keys go?


Booyah!


The bottom was finished, and reinstalled on the case along with the feet.


Industrial black again


USB/firewire front ports all painted up w\ the same flat black.


Front panel indicators + indicator bracket

Ben @ mountainmods cut this bit along with all the bezel. The holes are for fiber optic cables to fit through, so that the indicators are completely hidden when they're off. This piece mounts behind the front panel on a bracket (yes, a bracket for a bracket) that we'll see fabricated shortly.

Bracket (not bracket bracket, that's still coming.)


A bunch of LEDs with holes drilled in their tops w\ fiber optic cable strands installed. I made them long for a reason, you'll see shortly.


LEDs installed in the bracket, you can just barely see the excess fiber hanging out the bottom. I trimmed the black pieces off, they were really just there for extra fiber to hold on to, to make stripping the black coating off easier.


LEDs all installed, and then the excess fiber trimmed, and sanded flat.


An example of the point-source nature of the light.


The bracket-bracket: mushroom, mushroom

A little bending break action.


And shortly thereafter, we have this:


Trimmed with rubber u-channel.


And installed.


As far as mounting the bracket on the bracket-bracket, that'll have to wait till tomorrow... I'm beat.

 

Lovin it starbuck. From what Ive seen in the modding world it is rare to have something as sleek as Goliath without sacraficing function, but you are pulling it off with some style. I cant wait to see what this looks like finished.

 

woah, industrial look roxor!

that is so sweet, keep up the awesome work mate

 

looks brilliant - keep it up!

 

Drool...

 

thats pretty cool.. almost looking like an oem job!!!

 

That seems to be everyone's favorite shot, as well as my own.

That's close to the ultimate compliment a mod can recieve. The same goes for car guys... when soemone walks up to you and asks (on a highly modified vehicle) "what did you do to it?".

 

This case pwns.
GREAT JOB!

 

awesome job on those buttons

 

love the touch switched, need similar effect on my PC

 

Mild setback

Grump grump grumpy I am...

So I was fitting the stealth activity LEDs yesterday (which I got most of which done, SCSI HDDs, IDE HDDs, DVD-read) and made the cables and fitted them into my highly modified HP CDRW-8X SCSI optical drive only to find out that the only LED that lit was the red one for "WRITING". Of course I know exactly why this is happening, and the fact that I didn't think of it when I was doing the mod is a bit shocking... I usually think of these things.

The problem was that the drive originally carried Green and Red LEDs to indicate disc in/activity and writing w\ another red one for tray lock (meaning you try to eject it whilst it's writing)... well, what's the diff between a green, red, or orange LED and a blue/white, other than the color? The forward voltage and current required to get it to light. Dooy!

So I crack open the drive and track down the current limiting resistors (small ass surface mount ones) which are 330 ohms being fed 5V. Well no wonder the white/blue ones aren't lighting! So I solder in a 150 ohm resistor in parallel w\ the existing 330, making ~103 ohms. This is a fine number, seeing as I usually wire them up with 82 ohm resistors for maximum brightness. Stuff the whole thing back together and fire it back up in the rig. No lights still. WTF. Oh .... utoh.... crap! NO BOOT! (Hung at the drive being detected on the 29160 controller, passed the post OK.)

Pull the drive and disassemble... detect distinct smell of cooked electronics. crap. Not sure what I cooked (I can't find which part the smell is coming off of) but the tray won't eject. I suspect I fried the some of the motor drivers, which is causing the main controller chip to hang on the drive's motion test (which all drives do as soon as they get power) and then not be detected by the SCSI controller as the drive controller is still hung up in the motion test.

Short story..I killed it.

But no fear... I rooted through my drawers and find a 48X Yamaha CDRW-F1 w\ SCSI backpack! (IDE -> SCSI converter) WOOOOOT!!! Cracked it open this morning at work after sorting out the backup software issues, and discovered that its already got a blue activity LED in it, meaning it should happily light my white/blue ones w\o modding the current limiting resistor. However, it doesn't appear to have a tray lock LED, or if it does have a spot for one, it's not installed. W\ any luck I can get that installed tonight while watching the Redskins game on the TV.

 

starbuck3733t i have been following your mod and find what your doing very fascinating, but what caught me is the plexi parts, where did you get the plexi panels machined? Was it laser cut and laser engraved? You also had to make an improvement with one of the plexi face and you go on to describe how you did it, by using a carbide bit is that a router bit? Are you using a router with variable speed or a router speed control? Does it matter what router you use? what diameter shank is the router bit? Sorry, I hope I am not inconveniencing you with these questions, But i want to incorporate plexi for my Case build, it's a scaled down replica of the computer featured in the 80's movie Wargames. It was called the W.O.P.R.

 

The more of this you make the more it makes me want that computer, it just looks so sleek and pro, im in love with it.

 

1.) Plexi was ordered and cut by ben @ mountainmods. I had to order 2 full sheets (4'x4') so I've got plenty left.
2.) Cut by laser, rear plates engraved by same laser. The front 'rings' were done with a special tool I made.
3.) The notch in the door was made with a router with HSS bits set on setting 2 (I don't know the RPM, but it's a black and decker router.) Enlarging the DVD-ROM slot was done with a 1/4" carbide 4 flute endmill on my drillpress, with the work clamped in my X-Y vise.
4.) The shank is a 1/4" on my router.

No problem, I like questions.

 

I really like what you did with the QT and the sensor design. If you ever get tired of that parallel cable for the 800a, contact Henri over at LCDinfo, he's got a USB piggyback for it. Works with LCDStudio v2 too, at full speed and low CPU usage

 

Another S**t G** D***it moment

I finished off the stealth activity leds around 1:00 AM yesterday, everything works fine... all 8 of them: SCSI HDDs, IDE HDDs, Optical 1 Write, Optical 1 Read, Optical 2 Read, Network 1 Act/Link, Network 2 Act/Link, Network 1&2 @ anything other than 1000mb/s (fault.)

So I went to hook up the light show to shoot a few pics (as I didn't take any of the nic card mod, who of you wants to see me hack @ a dual port gig ethernet card, anyway!) and discover that some of the key backlights didn't work. Wierd. I fiddle with the connection on the 1 and find that something inside the heatshrink had shorted, but I wiggled it and it happily un-shorted.^_^ So I attempt to do the same on the other one, only to find out that it's oddly dim (not the right color of white as the others) after I wiggle it. So I figure its a very, very minor short and continue peeling away at the heatshrink and sleeve until I've got the whole thing loose... and BROKE THE LEGS OFF THE LED which is EPOXIED INTO THE KEY. Damnit!

So now I have to take the bezel off (which isn't a big deal, 2 8-32 threaded machine screws) and DRILL OUT the LED, and epoxy a replacement. Damnit Damnit Damnit!!!

 

There be gremlins in the works.... me thinks you needs to use Raid in your Raid! Looking increadibly splenderiffiously acceptable! just make sure you shrink each leg of the LED and go easy with the heat on the final outer shrink tube coat... EOP! and when you finish, send the rig to me in Korea so I can show the locals how it's done!!! and I will send you a 5 kilo box of Kimchee for your efforts! eagerly awaiting next update!!!!