I'm in awe at the quality and imaginative creations in all the new projects that have been started recently. Which has finally given me the enthusiasm to do a project of my own, I did post a couple of threads ages ago of afew things I was working on just after I got a new cheiftec dragon case. All I managed to do at the time was cut out the fan grills due to one thing or another that was it. So the case of choice for this project? A chieftec dragon. what else! 3 in total to be exact. The Plan - I was just going to revamp my original Full Tower case, but this has now grown into a full-on project... Air cooled, silent, and hopefully very different from anything done so far! Why 3 cases? Technically I'm using 2 full towers for the project, the midi tower will be a test rig, but it's gonna benefit from the main project in a few ways so I've chucked it in for good measure. Project Name: Dragons Jewel - Dragons = because of the cases used Jewel = A play on words (Jewel = Dual) Dual cpu's, Dual PSU's and I'm using 2 Full Tower cases for the main project. Components list - Full Tower Basically whats in my sig, but if/when something comes up while 'work in Progress' then the list will be updated Midi Tower Most parts are suspected faulty, Well it is going to be a test rig after all! Abit NF7 - M Athlon 2500 XP-M 9800SE or 9800XT just to name a couple of bits Enough waffling from me some starter pics One of the Full towers and the midiT Initial measuring... Managed to get half hour free this afternoon so spent it marking out and removing unwanted parts. Marked out the area around the rear 80mm exhaust fan grills, once cut, I can shape it to fit 2 92mm fans here instead. In the second pic you can see I started to remove the original hard drive cages. The marks are laid out to cut almost the complete lower front away. More on this further into the project. And to show what I meant about the midiT benefiting from the main project, those harddrive cages I removed... mean another small project can be started. Finished off the work by marking out the cuts to the midiT with it's extra harddrive cage fitted. Hopefully get some more done tomorrow.
Leaving a message so that I can subscribe to this thread... I'm very into pc silencing, building a passive rig myself. PM me if there is anything that you get stuck with, odds are I will have read a solution somewhere... Blair
Blair, I'm sure I'll get stuck on plenty of things. So may well take you up on your offer of advice, Thanks! **update to follow shortly**
why not cut out everything in 1 piece and put a backplate with pre cut round holes? just a suggestion. keep modding
There is a a subscribe button in 'Thread Tools' up there ^^^^ Im looking forward to this project mr scsi as i have a cheiftec (but you already know that)
UPDATE - 1 Right the planned update for yesterday (Sunday) got delayed due to other responsibilities, So this update covers a small amount of work from Sunday and today. Finished doing all the marking I could with the donor case, time to pull it apart! How many rivets! Used a 5mm drill bit to, eventually... drill out all the rivets so I could get to grips with the main cutting on the front and rear panels, some cutting is planned for the mobo tray but as this case had been partly modded by the previous owner I've got to wait until I get the other full tower case to do this piece. Case mid disassembly As previously mentioned I did alot of marking out, but due to space and access while together I had a couple of other pieces to finish. Second 92mm fan position Before I removed the rear panel I marked the profile of the PCI+I/O panel with black marker pen, due to the increase from 80>92mm for the exhaust fans it's abit of a tight fit, I marked the desired position of the 92mm Fans with red marker pen to help me - Check clearance Confirm the need to remove one rivet and reposition it The offending rivet! Due to the tab having to be cut off the new rivet will be placed directly below the old position, Hopefully you can make out the red dot (blurry pic) showing the new position of the rivet. Theres approx 6/7mm square area available, like I said, it's abit of a tight fit... but possible! The plan is to fit the fans to a second plate, maybe aluminium... which will the fit from the outside to the rear panel. This could of course change but it's 99% favourite right this minute! I started today by making some more cuts to the MidiT case, but... due to running out of cutting discs All cutting for this case is on hold until I can get some more! - Anyone have a good online source for these? MidiT update to follow...
The full tower will have NO lower front, you'll see why in a future update. The midiT will be using 80mm fans as it's only going to be a test rig. Yep... fingers crossed it will encourage others to find a classic case useful!
Update - 1 Cont... MidiT Started by cutting the front panel on the MidiT to allow unrestricted airflow through the harddrive cages Unfortunately after using the last cutting disc I couldn't find the new pack I thought I had so cutting came to an abrupt end! A little miffed! I carried on by sorting out the harddrive supports on the MidiT... The second harddrive cage support has no 'pin' present which is used by the cage underneath for the locating/securing lever. Replaced the old one with one from the full tower case which has the pin. I've not riveted it back in place just yet as it will need removing again to finish this mod. I had already started to cut and shape a 'pinless' support for the newly installed cage, this was offered upto the case which revealed even more work needed to get it to fit! I'll continue the next update with this particuliar piece.
A quick verbal update... Sorry for the lack of activity, been busy with work and patiently waiting to collect afew bits including the second full tower case, hopefully should have this tomorrow. Not to mention the fact I can't find any reinforced rotary cutting discs anywhere local! I've attacked the front panel with my trusty jigsaw, once I have the second case I should be able to finish this piece and upload afew pics to show you the first major design feature. Upgrading the rear exhaust fans to 92mm is beginning to turn into a right pain in the proverbial! getting the new cover panel to look right is proving more difficult than getting the fans to fit! I finished the last update with a couple of pics showing a modified cage support, this has now been changed to a very simple (read - much less hassle) design, will upload pics showing this on the next pic filled update.
Picked up the second Full Tower today... Big thanks to - hughwi Just took a couple of pics of the case before I attack it with my drill! The main pieces I need from this case are the mobo tray, PSU plate and the top front fascia. The fascia and PSU plate will be cut and shut with the fascia and plate from the first case. I may redo the dual PSU plate from one piece as I'm not sure cutting and shutting the two seperate plates together will work yet. I will hopefully have a pic update tomorrow showing the newly cut front panel and even a mockup of the complete front chassis so you can see where this part is heading. **if anyone needs any chenming/chieftec/Antec etc spares... just ask**
Mr_SCSI i feel your pain over the rear conversion to 92mm fans. I actually got to prototyping a replacement plate but found i kept running into issues with it covering rivets, and very small clearence to the surround around the motherboard backplane. And thats why for the current mod it got scrapped. However i am looking forward to seeing how yours turns out. Also with the psu plate personally i'd just be making a new plate to hold the two, or keeping them as two seperate plates just close together rather than 'cutting and shutting' them as they're not that strong to begin with. So where are the pics of the hdd support? Anyway looking forward to more updates. Cheers -Belial
The covering rivets has been solved by countersinking them. No issue with the mobo as the new plate is being fitted externally, It's getting the external plate to look right thats beginning to annoy me! I'll include so progress pics for this in the next pic update. I agree with you on the PSU plate as well, after looking at it and working out the best way to cut and shut the two plates together it isn't worth the hassle, plus it will look alot better being fab'd from one complete piece. Hdd support is mid assembly as I type this... Pic update will probably have to wait until the weekend now though, been called in on nights for the next two days!
Right... Had some unexpected free time today so got enough done to show you some mockup pics! Finished the basic cutting to the front panel I had started a week or so ago... After some more jigsaw work, head scratching, measuring and more cutting I've now got this... The actual idea came while trying to figure out the best way to mount some 120mm intake fans on the front and also combined with a recent thread about silent harddrive solutions I made! I've now got enough space to fit 2 x 140mm intake fans and hopefully do a silent harddrive mounting solution. It's far from finished... Theres some more cutting to the front mobo mounting tabs plus a lot of filing to do yet. I mentioned earlier about the 92mm exhaust fan upgrade beginning to annoy me, basically I can't get the external plate needed to complete the mod to look right, I may need to reshape the side panel to get the desired fit, but really was trying to get the plate to fit without any visible cuts to the side panel. A quick photochop I did in the beginning showing the dilemma! As you can see, it looks complete crap! So thats where I'm at right now... Will update with the finished front panel next time, hopefully with a finalised rear plate design and maybe mockup pics of the rear panel, If I ever get it looking right. Really would appreciate some suggestions, feedback!
Following on from yesterday's update... As mentioned the mobo tray has mounting tabs at the front which are normally riveted to the front panel, due to me attacking it with the jigsaw plus the new 5.25" panels being fitted at the bottom these were in the way. Out came the measuring tape and marker pen! Offered up the right hand side 5.25" panel and marked the required position onto the mobo tabs, half an hour of and instead of this. I ended up with... Which means I can fit the right hand side 5.25" panel flush with the front mobo tray tabs! The next step was to get both 5.25" panels to fit flush to the back of the main front panel and also mark and remove any metal which would interfere with the fitment of the lower front fascia. The rest of today was spent filing the new edges from all that cutting and chopping about! Will finish off this update with a comparision pic of the new front panel against an original. As you can see, not alot left of the original lower section! All comments/questions etc welcome!
I like that! Maybe a slight change... TUD - The Ultimate Duallie Mmm... possible name change there!?!
Go for it! It's nice to see I can make names for someone else's project even I can't come up with names for my own cases
lol... didn't have a clue myself to start with, was called - Jon Doe. as I didn't have a name for it! I'll have a think on the name change.
