Case Mod - In Progress Project: Gearbox 2.0 - mini P180 Back to Basics

nice man

 

poke poke poke

subscribed

 

Haha I am so sorry I havnt been able to update in a loooong while, Im still in high school and it is college application season right now. Once I get them all in (hopefully within the next couple weeks) i promise more updates! I have a lot planned and more re-plannedfor the case, so stay tuned!

Until next time...

 

Thank you and good luck.
(Bwa ha! Ha! HA! -It worked!)

 

nice tactics Cheapskate!

look forward to some updates

 

So I just finished my last college application today! I also ordered a digital camera from newegg! I'm so excited.
Expect to see some updates soon

 

Three Cheers for THEkorean!

 

WOO! At last!

 

OMG! So I just got a package in the mail, and what was inside? A preview copy of the February edition of CPU magazine. And what was on the front cover? Black and White Wavemaster! This week just keeps getting better :thumbs: Sorry I can't post pictures due to legal reasons, BUT I assure you the pictures look nice. The magazine hits the stands in "early to mid January."

Out of excitement, I started working on Gearbox again and decided to start on the lighting. I took an Antec sound activated LED strip I won at Newegg Lanfest 2k7, and then I unsoldered all the unsightly purple LEDs and replaced them with white ones. I also plan to solder the entire interior LED grid to the controller for a unified "pulse" when the system is "listening." [sorry, no pics, waiting on new digital camera, newegg says it'll probably be here by Tuesday]

Till next time!

 

CONGRATULATIONS!
Great job my friend! Please post some pics of Gearbox ASAP, I've been waiting far too long.

 

Woohoo!

Good to see this running again

 

Nice work so far.

I own the V300 and find the HDD caddy to be annoying at the least. How come you decided to stick with it, as it takes up room for 3 Harddrives but only caddies 2.

Also the 80mm fans seem quite pointless. I know theyre there to direct the flow to the back and therefore out of the back, but if you moved your radiator to the front with the fans you wouldnt need to have the 80mm and youll be able to save on space.

Though that said, im starting to wish that i had bought the v300b and not the v300. Eagre to see the next updates.

 

wow excellent stuff there. looking forward to those updates!

 

I'm Back...ish

Thank you all for maintaining interest in my work despite the fact that I havnt been able to work for a long time. Some replies to your questions:
@Nix:
1. I use the caddy because it's neat, its too much effort to make another one, and I only need 2 hard drives (got 2 500g in there in RAID 0)
2. Fans are gone, you'll see why.

OK on to some modding after a really really long hiatus:

The motherboard tray cover wasn't really working out, so I opted for plan B, junction boxes that will be mounted to the case and hold all of the modular cables here they are:

To get more space, I removed the front 80mm fans (as suggested by Nix)


Taped up the side so I could drill a hole to rout the front panel wiring through.


Drilled and grommeted

Now to figure out how to join these two junction boxes so they are easier to manage. My solution, Plexiglass spacer:



After sanding and rounding corners


Here it is "spacing" the junction boxes.

Ok, time to mount the boxes on the fan assembly:

put some screws and nuts through the fan holes



Drilled holes in box and mounted.

Now to cover the unsightly holes in the rest of the assembly since the junction box isn't big enough to cover the fan hole and the upper screw holes:



Everything put together


Mounted in the case


Macro shot of plexi-spacer


Front view


OO very tight fit, but its going to be ok.


Things I want to get done before the next update:
Perfect (straighten, sand, and file) the junction box assembly,
Map LED and wire routing,
and
LEDs installed in the case

Well, that's it
Until next time..

Oh and I almost forgot, my new camera:
Fujifilm Finepix S700, 7.1 MP, 10x Optical Zoom

 

Hey, great to see an update, love the way this mod is going!

 

sweet, updates. cant wait to see how this mod turns out.

 

plexi for the win

 

Its great to see you back at it, and judging by the amount of your questions in the modding section, we can look forward for more to come!

 

I like SFF mods, glad to see you continue this one

 

Did some modding over the holiday weekend, please bear in mind these are not all of the pictures as my camera was being used for other things while I was modding. This is what I got done by Saturday:


Sleeved the cross flow fan wire and attached it to the controller...

Which I then attached to the bracket for the light controller

Looks alot cleaner from the outside

Then I took care of the power cable for the cross flow fan with a XLR jack

Medusa head of wires and tubing

Then I cut up the front panel connectors and soldered the RCA jacks to them.

Now for the junction box:

drilled many, many, many holes for the XLR and RCA sockets; here are some of them mock fitted

These sit on the top

Then I primed the front assembly for painting and frosted the plexi

Frosted plexi only (done with 150 > 400 > 600 grit paper)

Then I cleaned up the mobo for dusting and refitting the tubes.

Other things I got done that will be in the next post:
-painted all of the pieces matte black (minus the plexi)
-cleaned up the mobo thoroughly
-began wiring
-LED mapping

Further plans:
-Swap the Laing DDC in B&W Wavemaster for the D-tec DB1 in Gearbox to save some space (DB-1 is awkwardly shaped and is annoying in the case)
-Need to buy a new top for the Laing DDC
-Order more RCA jacks and connectors
-dissect the PSU
-paint the fans (as much as I love Noctua, the weird colors arnt working for me )
-change water in frog tank