Project Trace is my second Case Modding project. My first I never finished because I thought of this project. I decided to finish the previous project at its current level and intergrate the two together, sort of. Your Can read the entire section or jump to a part using the links below. Opening Paper Planning Power Supply A Case for trouble? Inspiration Inspiration often comes from the weirdest of places. I recently flew from New Zealand to Heathrow and the Heathrow to New Zealand. Now, if you have any idea of what the world looks like then you will know that its a good 30 Hours once you add in the delays and transfers. Now, I was sitting in the loo somwhere along the line and the doors were frosted Arcrylic and I thought, gee that looks pretty snazy. And thats how the project was born. I spent the next 45 Hours drawing out plans and sketching ideas onto my pad. I'll be uploading some scans of the Paper Planning soon. On the topic of Inspiration, there are a few people who will need to be mentioned. These people are the persons who themselves have created awesome cases and i've drawn ideas from them as well. I know there are heaps of good cases around, but these 3 cases I've been inspired by most. They are G-Gnome, Nexxo and Joungne, their cases are Orac , Metaversa and HYPERCUBE respectivly. During this case project if you look carefully you will notice things alike, but of course I'm striving to make my case different. What will it feature? Probably the most important thing with this project will be silence. Yep, a quiet pc. Many people aim for quiet computers and some sucssed, to a point. Everyones got there own definition of quiet. Project Trace will have two fans. Both mounted on a Dual 120mm Fan Radiator. There will be water cooling - CPU, NB and no Video Card. The PSU will not be water cooled and it will be a special modified Enermax (Not some already fanless powersupply). Go figure. I'm aiming for a very clear , clean look. Simple lines but very tidy. The case its self is Lian Li PC65b I know its an old case but I love its lines and smart design more than the latest Lian Li's The hard drives will be mounted in an interesting manner, as will the radiator. There will be a rather large electronic control unit for controlling an array of leds and the two fans with PWM. Two PicAxe 18A Micro Controllers will be present. White Frosted/Smoked arcrylic will feature heavily. With quite a few 3mm Ultra bright white LEDs to light up and illuminate certain parts of the case under differnt circumstances. Thats all for now. I'll Edit this post and add Sketchup Renders as I get them. When I commence modding i'll get this thread moved. I'll leave you with the project logo. If you have any suggestions or questions about the Logos or project feel free to say them.Back to work, the holidays are over
Air Flow One thing I spent a lot of time trying to perfect was airflow through the case. Being water cooled I could've just put everything on a water block but that gets expensive, and restrictive. Ultimatly increasing the temperatures on the important things (CPU, NB and Video Card). Why bother to water cool your Power Supply when it can be cooled by fans with much less hassel. Thats all fine an dandy if your using a fan in your powersupply but I only wanted two fans in this computer (Duel 120mm Radiator) After a bit of thinking it hit me and seemed so obvious. The Powersupply i'll be using is a 350 or 400 Watt Enermax Dual fan. These aren't the quietest but it will be silent when i'm finished with it. If you have a Sealed box with a 120mm Fan blowing air into it, you get a high preasure area inside and and therfore outside is lower preasure. Because the air can't escape it slips past the edge of the fan blades making much noise. However if there is a Vent in the box then the high preasure forces air out of the box as it trys to equalise the preasures (Of course it never can). The same works if you suck air out of a box. Now, it occured to me that as I have 2 120 mm fans blowing in, all I need to do is put the right size holes in the right places and i'll have air flowing in all the right spots. There will be 3 holes in the back off the case for the air to get out. The Air exit on the back of the Power Supply Plate, A Grill on the two 80mm Fan holes and one in a PCI slot below and above the Video card. All I have to do is find the righ ratios for these sizes and the two fans pushing air in will cool everything. Genius. I'll be posting sketchs of powesupply sizing soon. -Xoddoza
Paper Planning As promised here a few photos of the planning i've done. As this project log runs its course i'll be refering to these plans . Top Left is the Control Pannel Layout and symbols and a basic wiring diagram. Top right is the front of the case and differnt options I have for modding and hiding the CD rom.Bottom left is a big list of all the structural mods i'll have to make to the case and is a bigger layout of the front.Bottom Right is a table of the different symbol options I have for the control pannel and the internal and inset LED placements and functions. Also included is the wiring. This is a more detailed mock up of the circitry and is belive it or not only half finished (if even that) Its unbelivable hard to draw straight lines on a plane going through turbulance This one is the page i'm currently working on... The powersupply page. As I'm trying to get an Area raitio for the airflow as well as make it look cool i've got several options for what I could do to the front and back of the powersupply. I'll post sketchups of my favourits so you can all help me choose. Power to the People This is powersupply design #1 IN the real version the square would instead be the dual triangel project logo cut out to let air though.(See 1st post for example) but its quite hard to do in sketchup I discovered. This is Powersupply Design #2 Again, in the real world the Raised square would be the project logo. But unlike #1 it would be just a raised logo and would not be cut out to allow air through (Would be lit by white LEDs internaly) Design #3 This time like #1 the square is cut out to allow air. Personaly I like #2 the most but you might think differntly, so post your opinion to let me know. I'm not adverse to modifying these either. This is the back of the powersupply, again you can see that white cloudy arcrylic will feature for certain. The big hole will be open to allow all the air to heat. I know it could be dangerous but who sticks there hand in the back anyway? ( I'll be heat shrinking anything mains voltage just to be careful) If your wondering what the white raised platform on the bottom is then if you remember I said that the powersupply will be a 350-400 watter Enermax with the 90mm and 80mm fans, the White arcrylic is a cover for the 90 mm fan hole. It will have 1-2 inset white leds to make it more of a feature than a "Cover up" This is the proposed ratios for airflow through the case. Imagine 6 units comming into the case. I want 2 to leave through the Powersupply, 1 through the Fan vents and 1 Below the AGP Slot. Thats all for now, please post any comments you have and I'll be posting more very soon. Stay Tuned. -xoddoza
hey that looks like it will be a nice mod. Good plans drawn up and nice prep stages. When will you be starting?
It will be starting soon. I'll probably be ordering the case this week. The reason its posted in modding is in the project logs rules... I've not physically started -Xoddoza
I was mucking around in sketchup and I've come up with another idea for the PSU and this one I like the most... This is probably what i'll be using. What do you think? I still unsure though. Depends on how easy it is to relocate the wires and internals so it limits airflow the least.
Power for the Future Work has officially commenced First thing to go under the modders knife ? As the rather unfunny title suggested, the power supply. Trace will be using a 430W Enermax Whisper EG465P-VE power supply. This should have enough grunt to run it and more importantly keep good solid voltages. Failing that I will just have to upgrade to some Tagan goodness (Poor me). Ahh, the power supply its self. This power supply comes with naturally long cables. Which is some ways is good, but in others bad. I will not be needing nearly this many plugs either, some will get the chop. What else do you do when you get a new toy? I have removed all the annoying stick labels that come on power supplies (And most computing equipment). I used a great citrus label cleaner which worked really well. Shame I'll be painting this, looks mighty fine. Nearly everything removed, bar the Jug Cord plug. Too many wires ARGH. Many of these wires will be removed from the situation. Aux wire to name one. The custom |12v|5vsb|Gnd|5v| Wire will have to be made as well. All ready for painting and modding If you refer to the planning section, you will notice I need to cut this section out. Here we go I had a little practice in the middle. All cut out except for the section in the corner remel: All cut out with minimal sanding. I spent a good 25 mins just sanding and filing away the areas where I cut. Even though they will be hidden behind Acrylic at the end. Small details all add up. This is the painting table. Where it all happens. Notice the duster for, well, dusting. This is the bottom half of the psu being painted. The finished layer on the Top of the PSU Cover. Flat black Black fan grill painted. I eventually decided not to use the fan grill. Some Hex head nuts and bolts.
The Fan mounting holes were filled with M5 Hex head while the hole previously occupied by the speed controller was filled with an M6 hex head bolt (And nut) This is part of a big sheet of While Frosted acrylic I got. I will be using only a small bit for the psu. The acrylic on the operating table. I found it really easy to cut. I used a metal blade on the lowest speed and it was perfect for cutting the frosted Acrylic. After cutting out the 100mm x 100mm square, I sanded down the edges and corners. It took a while but the results speak for themselves. Three holes were drilled in the Acrylic Square using a 3.2 mm Drill bit. I found the Acrylic surprisingly easy to cut. Just do not go to fast. The hole on the left is 5mm and the right is 3.2. The 5mm Hole was a test. I decided it would be easier to use 3mm leds. An LED inset into the hole. The led its self is a 3mm Ultra Bright 4000 mcd White LED. After poking around with a multimeter it became clear that the top fan ran on 5 V and since I was no longer using that I was able to scavenge its plug and power for the leds.. I grabbed some of these handy cable splicers for the 5v Standby Line. The 5v SB line will be needed by quite a few things so is very important. I didn't really want to Cut'n Solder the current cable and these splicers make it nice and easy. Big thanks to Nexxo for giving me the idea of using splicers. While I was at it, I also grabbed some cable sleeving and connectors. Some wires needed to be soldered so it was time to crack out the old iron. The SATA connectors were an interesting challenge to sleeve. In the end I resorted to the cut and resolder method. Worked fine. The special 5vsb (Green) wiring being substituted for one of the Black Ground wires. Time to put it back together. I was quite pleased that it still worked. As you would be really. Time for the obligatory Pimp Shots I am pretty happy with how the power supply has turned out. Particularly the white Acrylic section on top. It looks excellent at night time. Please post any comments and criticism. If you would like to see any of the photos in larger sizes, just post a reply and I will get one up for you. I can even do wallpaper size if that’s what you desire. The next update will start on the case. The case will take a decent amount of time so updates should be fairly regularly. Thanks -Xoddoza
Wow, very nice job on the psu.. Very nice.. Not sure if I would've left it open, but it's your mod (and it still looks damn good ) PS: (again) this belongs in project logs..
Great work so far! Just was wondering if that white can in the painting table picture was primer and if you did any prep to the psu skin like sanding and priming before shooting it? Hopefully this doesn't offend but I want to see this come out top notch with all that you are putting into it... Looks awesome! I'll be watching from behind the potted plants!!
Yes it is primer. I sanded the psu until it was smooth. There were still bits of the origonal layer there but it was smooth. After priming I sanded using 800 grit sand paper and primed again. I then used as many coats of Black until I got the finish I wanted. I sanded it between each coat increasing the grit each time. It really needs to be left open. As it there will be no fans the less restrictions to the airflow the better. I've msged a Mod asking for this to be moved. -xoddoza
Even when open, no fans... man there's going to be dead air, I'm not so sure that psu will last long like that
http://forums.bit-tech.net/showpost.php?p=762570&postcount=2 In fact if my calculations are correct the psu will get just as much air, if not more air with the "Preasure" system than the normal fan on the back. It will be a lot quieter as well. I've even tested the theory using a big cardboard box and it works well.
Wow I really love this PSU you did a great job. Looked like it took some time painting, you guys painting white and black should use appliance paint, I love that stuff.
I got the Acrylic from the local perspex/plastic shop, Mulfords Plastics. They are however a nz shop so anyone international looking for such a product will have to look elsewhere. The products technically Arctic Ice and is 4 mm thick. Perfect for 3mm leds -xoddoza
