Case Mod - In Progress Project: Elegant-Li

Haha, i thought i was the only one who prefers the naked aluminium interior on the lian li.

 

@ Trance - Thanks buddy .
@ DragunovHUM - I really do like the naked alu of the interior but sadly it will not stay this way. The entire interior will get a coat of high gloss white. I am planning on using another Lian Li is a smaller media build and I will be keeping that entirely stock.

 

When stripping a case I find it best to pretty much remove everything that is held in by a screw first before grabbing my drill.

I started by removing the the drive bay dividers/supports as well as the HDD caddy.
Before:

After:


I then removed all of the body panels including side panels, top panel and front fascia along with anything else I could remove from the interior. Here is what it looked like after I was done:




I then took the case with me down to the shed and let lose with the drill. The first thing to come out was the drive bays:

A picture of the removed drive bays:


The next thing to come out was the motherboard tray:

A picture of the removed tray:


The last thing to come out was the PCI retention plate:



Now I'll explain why I removed these three key parts of the chassis. Because I intend to make a false floor so I can house the water cooling gear unseen these three pieces of the case had to be removed. The drive bays have been sacrificed so I can make my own to suit my needs, something smaller and something that looks a little bit nicer. The new drive bays will house both the optical drive and HDDs hence the need for the Scythe Himuro bay coolers. The motherboard tray was removed once again so I can make my own. The stock tray is too tall and would interfere with my radiators. It is also not long enough to cover the entire length of the case. Because I want to keep the project as clean as possible a new tray is needed to suit my needs. The PCI bracket was removed because it will be in the way of the false floor. This card has 8 PCI slots, most conventional motherboards have only 7, the extra slot is needed space so I am going to modify the original to suit.

Now that the case is a skeleton I am ready to start work on the case itself.

 

When it came to tackling the case I decided to work on the front fascia first, mainly because I knew it needed to be done before I started the drive bays. Also I didn't have any sheet aluminum yet so this was all I could really do lol.

Due to Lian Li's design, the drive bay covers that aren't in use clip into the stock drive bays. Because I am not using the stock drive bays and because all my bays will be covered I need a way to attach the covers to the front fascia itself rather then the case.

Here is the front fascia and drive bay covers:



I started by marking:


Cutting:


Filling:


And bending:

And was left with what you can see above.

This is how the bay covers look when installed into the front fascia.
From behind:


And from the front:

Perfect fit .

Now obviously the masking tape will not stay there permanently, it was just to help the plates stay in place as I made minor adjustments to the bends to get them all to sit flat. I will eventually replace the masking tape with either a strip of black electrical tape or a gel strip just to ensure the plates aren't moved out of place by accident.

Well that's all I have time to post up for today guys. I promise I will have more for you soon. Until then.

Happy Modding.

 

Nice hard drive chassis

 

My friend The boy 4rm oz
Finally a new project
I will track
Good luck and hard work

 

Loooking goood !

 

@ DesignBlueprinter - thanks
@ ulysses - thanks buddy, glad to have you on board .
@ k.3nny - thanks mate.

 

J you gotta quit college and start modding more often lolz!!! ;P
It looks great bro keep up the good work!!!

 

nice work dude, got to love those lian li cases

 

You just gotta love Lian Li builds. Really like that idea of chopping down the sides of the front bay panels and the small bend, Good work mate. Will be keeping an eye on this.

Rip

 

@ Alex - I was thinking that myself just the other day .
@ Ripitup - Thank you. It took me a while to work out how sort out that front panel. I stuffed up my original idea so made do with this, this was the cleaner option but my original attempt would have held the plates in place a bit better.

Well I hope to get some work done and have an update for you later today. My morning is dedicated to a group assignment that is due Thursday and my other group members have dropped out from the course . I have just under 1 week to organize a 15min oral presentation and a 2000 report, should be easy enough but this being my first free weekend in over a month I was hoping to get out the Dremel and get some work done.

 

Subbed Jase, been waiting forever to see a new 1 from you mate & this is looking on it's way .

 

@ Waynio - Cheers buddy, took me a while to get this one going and now i'm pretty much at a stand still thanks to uni. Things should start to ease up after this week though.

 

Hey, now that you've taken the case apart, how about sending the parts off for anodizing? Surely, they would look cool all black, so the interior matches with the exterior?

 

@Nutman - I did consider that but I really do want to do the interior white. I considered going black but to be honest the dust shows up like crazy, that's one thing I learnt from LEXA. I was intending on doing an all white case but love the exterior finish. Most people either do all white or all black with Lian Li's, I want the best of both worlds. I want the classic brushed stylings on the outside with a white interior to showcase the internals.

Thanks for your input though buddy.

 

That's some delicious black mate, I really like it!

 

You're welcome.

I just love bi-coloured stuff, no matter it being a Bugatti Veyron or a Lian Li case.

 

@ KidMod - thanks very much mate
@ Nutman - yep, I love the two tone

 

I want to watercool my lian li a17 so this should be pretty interesting for me. Good luck with it looking very nice so far.