Case Mod - In Progress Project: Red October, 30 July 2007; The Beginning, 30.7.2007

And so it begins...my time to have a go at the black and red theme...

Seems that I'm getting my arse moving again when it comes to modding and also re-gaining my enthusiasm for the whole sport. With this my mind wanders also and without a doubt I started planning yet another mod...damn!

I'm really exited about this, but also I feel a bit s****y since I promised you guys that I'd finish Orange Monster first. Well I do have (at least I think so) a few valid reasons for doing this.

Firstly as I reported a while ago in the OM thread, my old workstation (Asus A8V-E Deluxe and Athlon 64 3500+) died on me without any particular reason. I think it's only the motherboard, so all isn't lost. This project is going to replace my old workstation and when I get that Athlon setup running again, it'll probably go into Phantom Black.

Phantom Black will still be on hold since I don't need a HTPC right now, but don't lose your hope, it's going to get done eventually.

Secondly I got some cool older hardware (dual xenons anyone ) from a friend at work for a very reasonable price, so that'll need a new home. Thanks goes out to Ville for making this possible.

Third point why I should do this is that it seems that some of the parts for the OM are taking an awful long time to arrive here in Finland and I need those parts to do my final measurements, so I'm in a holding pattern here. OM will still be my number one priority, but for some reason I think this project will be done way before OM will.

The last point is to show you that I can do mods faster than I've done OM, the 50+ pictures you're about to see cover about two days worth of work, so let's get to the actual point, shall we?



Every project needs a starting point, doesn't it? This time it'll be a 3R Systems The One. I fell in love with this case when I saw it in our store. It had a few minor flaws so it was in our discount shelf and that is where I picked it out from.





It has one really cool feature, it has been powder coated from the inside also



This was the first thing I did, the old power button was really poorly made and I just had to remove it, ream the hole a bit wider...



...remove a few plastic "spacers"...



...and stick my red Bulgin switch there...





...much better, you can breathe now





This was actually the only flaw with the case, no reset button, well the button is there, but there's nothing else behind it

This was minor stuff, moving on...





First I attacked the front panel or bezel, what have you...



...stripped it from everything that was a bit loose and then I broke out my tools!



Don't know if that's better, but at least I got to blow off some steam with my dremel, lol.



See this, that's where the 3R Systems logo was. That's a problem we need to go away.





There we go, I took a small strip of scrap aluminum plate, measured it and made it fit with my router.





Maybe not perfect, but damn good

What's next, well...



I dug around some and found this, it's dirty, it's dusty and has tape residue all over it and as an added bonus, it has a bunch of holes, but I think I can make this mod happen with this (hopefully at least).



There's a small piece of acrylic initially cut from the bigger piece. Looking a bit better when washed and cleaned with cleaning alcohol.



After a bit of work on my router table, this is what we had. It's a perfect fit and has a 45 degree edge



Here they are taped together and mounting holes drilled trough the acrylic, aluminum and the front bezel of the case.



There it is without the masking tape.



My English is a bit off at the moment, what do you call that when you "recess" screws? Well you get the point

I'll be back in a sec, stay tuned...

Darkened

 

I see another great project in the making

 

Ok, I've hung around here too long without saying anything, so...

The recessed screws are called "countersunk".

There. That wasn't too bad, after all.

 

The Beginning continued...

Decided to do this in two part, let's keep going...



There's the stuff going in this project, dual xenons and an Asus mobo...



Some red Innovatek tubing, not UV-reactive, but it doesn't have to be for this project.



Just some regular, boring SATA cables sleeved with black sleeving and wait a second, much better. I'm actually loving the effect.





Otherwise a good product, but I don't really want the logo here, soo...





...after a bit of thinner and rubbing, much better.



I would have preferred a SATA DVD burner, but since the hardware is this old, it wouldn't work and I had this LG drive handy.





Keeps getting better.



For fans I choose Akasa branded fans with 4 red leds. Not necessarily the quietest fans, but they look cool...



...or do they...





...yes they do, phew!

They do have one problem though, which I need to address soon.



Typical situation here, when the voltage is lowered, the leds dim also.



This is just for eye-candy, I was playing with longer exposure and just liked the picture



Here you can see how small the case actually is, that's a 240 rad in there, not looking good...



...a bit better, at least we now have some space.



The last thing I did yesterday was that I painted the small aluminum plate with gloss black paint, doesn't seem like much there, but...



...there we go, OM had to lend a foot for this one



Today I started with this, some aluminum plate cut out from the bigger piece.



Did the same with some red acrylic and here they are together, looking good...



...no, actually it's looking perfect



I cleaned the edges of the cases front bezel with the router and here's how the aluminum plate fits.



After that I made a hole in the alu plate again with the router, damn I love it. It has certainly become the most used piece of hardware in my workspace.



This is how it looks from the "rear" when the acrylic is in front of the alu plate.



Finally, this is where I'm aiming at, not nearly there yet, but getting close.

That's it for now, more to come soon.

You know me, I love comments, so feel free to post here.

Darkened

 

I didn't even get to the other part of the update before comments, thanks guys, much appreciated

And "countersunk" where's my head at

Darkened

 

Maybe your head is countersunk up your ........ Whoa, quit throwing rotten fruit, IT'S A JOKE!!!!! Sometimes when a line is just handed to you, ya just gotta use it. Sorry.


Seriously, though, this is looking good. Some more of the same clean work, just much simpler. Looks great. (OM is looking awesome, as well!)

 

Nice mod, I'd never thought a 3R case would ever be the base of a good casemod
I do think the red acrylic on the front is maybe a bit overdone, but it probably looks better IRL.

By the way, what's with the colors in your project names?

 

I agree with you, that is with how it looks in the pic right now. But I bet, seeing what Darkened has done before, he'll either do more to it, or somehow the rest of the case will make it fit in the end. So I'm gonna sit back and see what happens....

 

@Dacust

Yep, I think it was countersunk right there a while ago For the mod being simpler, that's about to change...

@Koradhil

I couldn't believe it myself either, but The One is actually a sturdy, well built case, wouldn't mind to recommend it for people. And what comes to the front, it's just the beginning, that's not how it's going to look, you'll see

Darkened

 

subscribed!

 

October? It's still July!


What parts you are planing to cool with water?
Looks nice

 

When I saw the name I thought of 'The Hunt for Red October'. Hoping you're going for that but if not I'm sure the end result is going to look great anyways.

For those that don't know.

 

Subscribed, what parts are you going to watercool?

As always keep on modding!!!

 

Looking good so far, though from your other mods I'd say it is gonna look insane when you finish it! I am going to be starting a Quad-Core, Dual WC loop w/ Red & Black theme soon so I'm gonna watch this thread closely and steal all of your ideas (lol joke ).

Just one thing, how do you afford to keep more than one project going at a time? Do you have a full time job etc? I am only 17 and find with school I have to save up for a couple of months before I can start a mod

Anyway, Mod On!

EDIT: LOL! 6th Post and I joined in August 2005 rofl.

 

looking very good so far keep it up!

 

great beginning!!!

 

Yeah a new project from darkened! If you keep it just half as clean, nice and shiny as your monster (which it's seems like) I'll be watching you, don't ever doubt about that

 

if the leds dim because they are connected to the fans power supply it would be logical to cut them off and give an own powerline.

 

holy! this mod is sweet! seriously this is fantastic!

 

omg! I have to look at this mod! I'll be watching this one

(subscribed)