Case Mod - Complete Neptune's Trident: Wallpapers

Plenty of Water will flow there.Many rads.Good work.

 

class... pure class...

 

very nice!

 

Thanks everyone!

Got more accomplished this weekend. Worked on the side panels a bit more, and got the hard drive mounts done.

After contemplating how I was going to mount three hard drives in the case, I decided to go
about it a bit differently than the standard drive cage. I came up with a way to stack them up,
but on their sides, so there will basically be a wall of drives next to the motherboard. I used
some 1/2" square acrylic rod, cutting two pieces equal length. I only had two old drives, so I
used a Coca-Cola tin as my third, just to get an idea of overall height. three drives stacked
comes out to 12", and I have 13" total height from the floor to the top of the case. So I spaced
them out so I had 3/8" on top and bottom, and 1/8" in between.


I marked the rods and cut out three 4" sections for the drives. One done, one to go.


Here's how the drives will sit on the rods.


I will be utilizing the drive's bottom mounting holes, instead of the usual side holes.


After some filing and general clean-up, I brought the 1TB Samsungs out for a test fit.




Here is how they will be positioned in the case.


To secure them in the case, I will drill and tap some holes in the bottom ends, and in the back
side for the top. Once I get to the lighting portion of the build, I will probably add some led's
as well and light them up.

8)

 

Cool HDD rack.

 

I agree... that's an outstanding idea for the drive rack!

 

Thanks guys.

 

no watercoolin for de hdds?

maybe you don't need to; looks cool anyway
what about only lighting the plexi rods, so the hdds seem to hang on two energy beams:d

deep voice: "hellow sweety, wanna check out my light saber hdd rack"

 

that is one nice hdd mount!!

 

You should slap a chunk of heatsink extrusion across the top of them.

 

This company in New York has some cool alum stuff too
http://www.brunnerent.com/default.asp?reset=1

john

 

Interesting idea with the extruded fins, but I was thinking more along the lines of doing 3 acrylic hdd covers and a 3-part etching of a nautical persuasion. A well-placed blow-hole on top of the case would probably suffice for cooling.

 

Looking good Boddaker

 

Work continues on the side panels..

Ok, so these three pass-through holes are becoming more tricky than I thought at first. In order to get a nice clean transition
through the side panel, I need to add a lip around each hole. You can see in this first pic there is already a bottom lip, which is the
channel used to secure the panel onto the case. So I had some U-channel lying around, and will continue the lip around each hole with it.


All I had to do was make a cut into the open end of the channel, leaving the back side in tact, then bend 90° for each corner.


Three done, three to go for the other side panel.


To secure these to the side panel, I will be using some cold weld epoxy. I'm drilling a bunch of holes to give it something to grab onto.




And on the panel side I ground it up a bit, again for better adhesion.


Once I get it all epoxied up, I'll add some bondo around the seams and smooth it out. From the front it will look like the
side panel is 1/2" thick. But more importantly, I will have a flat surface to which the rectangular tubes will mate.

 

Dude that is looking seriously cool.

 

Man, I really like your hdd rack; I may need to do an interpretive imitation (aka steal) of that idea!

 

Getting back to the hard drive rack today, I was able to get it mounted to the case.

I wanted to position the hard drives evenly in between the reservoirs and the motherboard. As such, it turns out that I will have
to notch the tray a bit at the top. So I marked the area where I needed to trim,


..and cut it away.


Then I made an acrylic spacer to fit the lip of the case.


Here's a shot from behind. I marked two spots for new holes,


..then once they were drilled out, I marked the spacer.


Once that was drilled out, I glued it onto the hdd posts.


Using countersunk fan screws, I secured the top to the case.


For the bottom of the posts, I just marked the area of contact on the floor, drilled a hole and marked the bottoms of the posts.
I seem to have misplaced my 6-32 tap, so I just used one of the screws instead. No, they weren't self-tapping screws.
Since I was screwing into acrylic, I took my blow torch and heated up the screw a bit,


..then just screwed it into the hole, waited til the acrylic solidified, and backed it out again. Voila! Instant threads lol.




Here's a shot from below showing the bottom screws in place.


And a shot of the drive rack mounted in the case with drives.

 

I really like that HD rack idea, especially the notched areas for the drive to sit (consider it stolen), and Alpaca's glowing rod idea. (Hey baby, wanna check out my glowing rods?) One or two leds embedded in the end will make it all glow nicely indeed.

 

I love your plexi tapping technique Bod lol.

 

Does your hdd rack interfere with the sliding sidepanel locks? Seems like it would...