Case Mod - In Progress Project: SpeLL7 (COMPLETE 7/28 - FINAL PICS POSTED)

Judging from these pics,i say this is sexy.Nice red also.Like it very much.

 

TN: Yes, you can do pretty much any color you want. I have a "swatch" booklet (like when you're deciding what color to paint your walls ) that has tons of options.

talladega: I wish. That would be quite the honor.

MS: Yes, the color is very dark red. RAL 3004 "Rosso Porpora" (purple red). It is one step above burgundy, which is RAL 3005. You are correct about the MNPC Tech feet. They are very cool. Held in place with black gloss M4 hex-heads (pics to come soon I hope). I have to get my camera settings just right, they keep making everything look pink.

Denrik & Spyrious: Thanks!

I'm hoping to get some time in today for reassembly but it is slow going. I got the Zalman fan controllers bolted in yesterday with a nice combo of black Lian Li thumbscrews (from the pile of 75 I got a little ways back) and black gloss M3 acorn nuts. No one will ever see them, but they look nice now in partial assembly .

Tomorrow night I should be able to put in a large chunk of time as the missus will be out at an event all evening. The goal, which may be unattainable, is to get the hardware in.

Time will tell.

 

Ok, it's official, now I need to find someone that powder coat some pieces for my next mod!
Please, I'm a newbie in powder coating, it's expensive?

 

Mino: It's pretty cheap, depending on how many pieces you get done. If it's just a chassis most places will do it for about $50 or so.

Well well...

Got back a short time ago from a lunch hour in the garage. It did not go well. Basically, I got nothing done, yet I revealed more things that need to get fixed/attended to. Dammit.

First, I realized that I forgot to include my DVD-RW in the pile of black powder coat parts. That will entail another trip to the powder coaters, which while it's not far from my house, it is definitely an inconvenience. That and it will cost me more money than it would have had I included it with the other batch of stuff. It's too late in the game to be cutting corners and painting my own. It won't match exactly if I did and the drive is visible through the side window.

Second... I attempted to mount the pump to the "L" today and managed to strip one of the threads. The bolts I have are just short enough to make attaching a nut to the end a bothersome chore. So I managed to get 2 bolts on, and had a bitch of a time with the other two before I set it aside to actually get SOMETHING done before the lunch hour was over.

That brings me to number 3... I decided to start mounting the fans in the fan modules and getting them in place. After I attached 2 fans, I slid the modules in place in the front of the case and put the front panel on, for the first time with modules installed. Yep, you can see the silver fan screws plain as day through the mesh, so now I will need to paint them black to make them unnoticeable. So I got to unscrew both fans I just attached.

In short, during the lunch break I managed to screw in *2* whole bolts, and find an hour or two more work for myself. It's looking highly unlikely hardware will be installed tomorrow night.

 

That is a very different shade of red, I love it, goes very well with the black.

 

Got to work on the case last night. I'm at the (not so) fun part of seeing what fits right and what doesn't. Again, it was slow going. The amount of time I spent in the garage is totally not proportional to the visible amount of progress made- and I had no time to mess with my cam settings to show you all .

It took forever to get the rear fans and grills in- there's not a ton of room near the bottom of the case and the extra thickness of the frame at the bottom necessitated using 10mm bolts on top and 12mm on the bottom. Grr.

I'm going to have to modify the front right bottom fan module- its brackets interfere with the ATX cable hole. Wish I had known that before powder, it's going to be less "finished" looking than it would have otherwise, but invisible once the case is fully assembled.

The radiator has clearance issues with the radgrill and acorn nuts- going to have to find some other method for the four mounting holes on the perimeter of the radgrill as acorns will not fit, despite looking 10x better than anything else.

I got the pump mounted to the "L" with 10mm bolts. MUCH easier than dicking around with 8mm's that were about .5mm too small.

Speaking of the L, I ran into a snag there too. I need to get the L in place to run cables through, but I can't get the L in place until ALL the bay devices are in, because the L blocks the slots in the drive bays where the thumbscrews go. And I can't get all the bay devices in yet because (1) I still have to get my DVD-RW blackened and (2) it will require disassembling my RAID array which I haven't had the time (or desire) to do yet since I use it everyday.

And that brings me to the DVD-RW... after taking it apart yesterday, I see I can't powder coat it. In the top piece of the cage, there is a plastic disc to keep the circular piece in the center of the drive aligned. It is set into the metal and is non-removable. Powder will not work here- the plastic will melt in the oven. So I'm going to have to pick some paint up and hope the color is close. GD it...

So there's the end of my woes for now. Got a wedding to go to this weekend so there won't be any progress to report until Monday.

 

Whew. It took waaaaay too long to get somewhat decent pics of the assembly progress. I'm still not 100% satisfied but these will have to do for now, otherwise the case will be done by the time I finally figure it out properly. So, if you see some grain in the shots, I apologize, I tried to get the color as accurate as possible. Keep in mind, in real life the color is a deep, dark red, one shade above burgundy. I also didnt have a chance to wipe anything down for dust and fingerprints. In addition, I found that my light booth is actually too small to fit the entire case comfortably so you can see the white sheet in a couple of shots :facepalm:.

So... where to begin. Reassembly is taking a while- there's a definite order that needs to be followed when getting everything back in the case. Certain things will not fit unless others are in place. What a pain .

I got all the grills and fans installed. Every bolt was painted black, as was every acorn nut that holds the grills in place.



I fixed the issue where you could see the silver fan bolts through the mesh:



The fans on the right are Scythes, and the one on the left is a slow Yate Loon (as is the HDD fan which will go below).

Here's a shot of the front with the panel installed:



And here's an angle view of the front and side with the panel on. If you note the roof of the drive bay, you can see the grommet that the SATA power and data cables will run through.



I spent a little while yesterday and the day before running the radiator fan wires down into the tubes... a little tricky at times but no so bad.



And a close up:



I had planned to use 1/4" tubing for the wires but a miscalculation on my part showed that only 2 fans would fit in the tubing not the three I had (front bottom fan, radiator fan(s), and rear bottom fan). So I switched the smaller fittings to a couple 3/8"s I had left over. The tube is still not all that visible as it goes up the side of the drive bays.

A pic of the wire tubing as well as up above on the motherboard tray:



Here's the other side of the tray:



I think the black edge looks nice- the contrast is better that all red, IMHO.

I moved my hard drives into the powdercoated Lian Li rack today (sorry no pic yet) and ran a couple more cables. I'm thinking that God willing, I should have everything squared away and ready to migrate hardware in by the end of next week, at which point I'll be done with the case (but will likely be modding the LEDs in my G15 keyboard from blue to red )...

That's all for now.

Cheers

 

Wow.. That coloursheme is fantastic..

 

Looks awesome mate
Now get the new x58 bloodrage in there.

 

This is freaking AWESOME

 

The finish looks wonderful.
I did not realize just how LARGE that case is until your last post.
Just wondering, why some-much black upfront?
Just my 2cents.. sorry..
The boxes (red/black) contrast is perfect, except (IMHO) the front-panel. Needs more of that kickass red..
MS

 

^Agreed.. Make the mesh RED!

And replace that mobo with an EVGA Classified Black and red, just like your case

 

YEP.... Excellent idea dark41..
Hardware is (IMHO) secondary in a case-mod, but..
Bloodrage would be my (x58) choice.. also an excellent name for a project log by the way..
MS

 

Crazy.This will be a very clean install (no wires).Very nice.How many fans are there?

 

cant w8 to se the new mobo there! will look great!

 

good chouse the mobo!
lookinbg good with the case!

awsome case build!

 

Mankz: Thanks!

ricickle & MS: Don't tempt me! I've been searching for reasons NOT to go i7 and all you guys saying go Bloodrage are making me rationalize the purchase. I admit, the Bloodrage would be amazing in this case, tailor made in fact, and if anyone knows anybody at Foxconn... lol. $300 is a lot right now, and I'll have to see how much more the switch would cost, factoring in the sale of the Rampage, Q9550 and 8GB DDR2. I told my wife I'd cool it for a while with PC stuff .

Dark & MS: I was waiting for someone to mention that mesh. Originally I wanted it red but thought the holes were too small for the powder to go through without gumming them up once the pieces got in the oven for drying... but now I see how fine the layer of coating is I think it will work. I have to go back to the powder coater since I think I will have a solution to my DVD problem so I'll ask him what he thinks about it. I'm thinking 95% chance of success.

Spyrious: There are 4x 120mm's in front (3 for case ventilation and 1 in the hard drive rack), 2x 120mm's in the bottom rear, and 3x 120mm's on the radiator, plus 3x 40mm on the RAM cooler. Total: 9x 120mm, 3x40mm. All fan controlled to keep the noise down.

EDIT:

.Fatality.: AWW MAN another person saying "go Bloodrage" AAAGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!! DAMMIT!

 

I've just read threw the whole thing, and your patience is amazing!! Great work!! You case should be able to make it to million-dollar-pc
good luck with the rest.

 

That's a great looking job there!

And just to add to your woes: GO BLOODRAGE!

 

Love the Red and Black, always a sharp looking color scheme IMHO.

One concern, how are you going to install the graphics card(s). It looks like the expansion slots are blocked by the rad above. Or is the MB tray removable?