As many of you should know, my family was generous enough to get two new system from Dell (I'm going away to college and I don't want to be my parent's tech support any more). The first was a laptop for my dad and the second was a new system for my brother (which included my new, and amazing, LCD monitor). My brother was previously using my old Dell (before I built my first project 2 years ago) and I have now inherited back my old Dell. I tried to figure out what I wanted to do with this older system (I guess 1.7ghz isn't too bad) and I decided on saving the innerds and building a home theatre PC for my folks and mod out the Dell case and sell it on ebay for some extra money. I have some good plans for this case and this will be my first project which I intend to sell. I think I will put atleast $40-$50 into this machine and hopefully I sell it for $150ish (its going to be THAT good ). I figured I'd chronicle the mod here and take suggestions and even bids if you want the case. Right now I'm trying to finalize a color scheme, but I know I want to paint the interior a gloss white and I want to use white LEDs (and maybe one or two blue ones) inside. Anyway, here are some pictures of the victim. Notice all the friggin dust!!! This side will be getting a window I think I'm going to mount some cathode switches here and a rheobus I'm going to cut out the DELL logo and put some crackled plexi (with lights) behind it. I'm going to cut out some of this, window it, and put a blowhole in. Lighted feet go here! Anyone have any suggestions?
I started to cut out the DELL logo. I think I did a pretty good job and it will look really good with some paint on it, but what can I do to sand down those edges a little bit better. There still not as smooth as I would like them to be, but my dremel's sanding disc can't fit inbetween the piece. What would you guys recommend?
if you plan on painting the logo, just use fine sandpaper and a file to get them smooth, then fill in imperfections with bondo.
Well the logo is kind of embossed on the round piece of plastic (its sunken in basically) so theres a valley where the DELL logo is and I want to try and get it as close to the edge as possible. I think ill need to fill in that tiny chip above the E with some Bondo though.
Do you really need a rheobus? I can just imagine your brother or someone else turning all the knobs down and then the pc overheating Good luck edit: oh yeah, welcome to bit-tech
Thanks for the welcome. I plan on selling this case once I'm finished for some extra money for college. I think the rheobus would be a nice addition and would help the resell value. Hopefully the buyer will know what hes doing
You can use everything in that Dell but the motherboard. Dell has the motherboards customized to go with their cases (Example would be the dumbass design of running the power switch over an ide like cable to the front usb/sound then via a USB 2.0 IDE like cable to the motherboard. also the heatsink only fits on that motherboard just a head up. Ive played with the Dell parts before when I rebuilt my computer into the new case I got. Good Luck with the mod though
hmm how to put this nicely I dont know of anyone who would pay for a modified Dell case also that cutting looks super jaggy but ill hold the rest of my comments till i see more progress, good luck with the
I doubt you will be able to use the power supply on a board other than Dell, from the ones I've seen they have the ATX wires done differently. Seems like allot of work but good luck with it.
looks good! but the Dell logo cut out has been done before... But then again it's very hard to do something no one have done before, and it's hjard to know that people have done it before
Ohh... we have about 30 of those in my department at the school... would it not be fun to mod them all... Looking close at this project... Can not wait to see more...
I cleaned it up a bit more yesterday. Tomorrow I plan to go at it with some fine grit sandpaper and make those edges a little smoother. Then I'm going to apply a little bondo, do a little sanding on the whole face, then prime it and see what I get. I'm also going to order my case lighting tomorrow: 10 Blue LEDs 10 White LEDs 2 White Cold Cathodes 2 80MM White LED Fans and rocker switches for everything. I also plan to draw out my window tomorrow if I have time.
Wow. I was able to order 20 blue and 20 white from a guy on ebay for $18 shipped. I'm working on smoothing over the edges as I type this.
I tested out my chrome spraypaint today. Prepped with a little gloss white and did a nice light coating of chrome. Sadly thought I see ill need to do a lot more work on fixing my little mistakes. The chrome makes them show up even more! Help! Can someone link me to a bondo guide?
I did but the chrome seems to bring them out a lot more. Maybe its the way the light was shining on it. I wish I could make it a little better.
Say it with me folks... G-L-A-Z-I-N-G P-U-T-T-Y I just learned the miracles of this stuff on my curremt mod. It is made to fill in the small imperfections. Key point of advice here.... "light sanding" as this putty is not very durable, and you can take off too much of the surface, rendering your surface back to the original condition. That should fix it though. The putty is very inexpensive, and can likely be had at any auto parts store for under $3.
