Project Yabab! (Yet another black and blue theme)

Project Yabab! (Yet another black and blue theme. !!56k warning!!)

Humble greetings people!
Thought I'd start a project-log on my new addtronics-case. I'll start with some simple "mods" , and write some plans on what to do.

I've chosen a black and blue theme because well, everybody does it, and I didn't want to be different. Nah, seriously, I like black and blue, and since i already had a lot of gear in those colors (speakers, mouse, keyboard asoasf) I thought I'd stick with it. On with the mods:

The case:



Looks kinda neat? Here standing with my nice new Samsung 172v flatscreen, and my logitech peripherals (addicted to logitech i guess). Those drives are dark gray tho (they said "black" when I bought them ) think I'll have to vinyldye them...

First off, I had to cut some nasty holes to make my watercooling fit:



Probably gonna file down the edges and put on some moulding, but for now it stays ugly. (Was too eager to get my watercooling up and running I guess... )

Next up is the interiors:





Reservoir and pump is about to be changed because the sicce-nova pump is a bit too weak and it has to be lowered into a tank. The tank isn't actually entirely sealed either, so I have to refill the system with water from time to time because it vaporizes . Aquabee pump and plexi-tank incoming next week, closed system 4 teh win.

Thought I'd make some changes to the front:



Bl00! Doesn't really show that good when you look at it, but when the cameraflash caught it; well, see for yourself:



Luvly!

Plans for further mods:

-Windowside with a personal touch. (Wait and see. )
-Vinyldyed drives. (Damn dark-gray thingies!)
-Changing mouse, keyboard and case-LEDs to blue. (Bl00 bl00 m00n... or sumthing. )
-Backlit frontbezel/radiator. (4" bl00 CCFL!)
-Blue/UV colored theme inside the case.
-UV-PCB , metku-style! (cred!)
-Braided cables and wires.

And I have some surprises up my sleeve, other than the windowside. A little example:




Voilà, old refridgerators can be a goldmine when it comes to modding.

That's it for this time then.

Oh btw, all pictures taken with my spankin' new Olympus C-740UZ cam.

Ideas and suggestions are MOST welcome!

Edit: Forgot a couple of todo's...

 

Oh, and a few pictures of what I had to do to get the northbridge-block properly mounted:




I'm glad I know how to solder, and that my good friend Patrick pops by to say hello when I need help:



So! That's the way the cookie crumbles...

 

thats a big radiator there happy modding

 

Lookin' goooooood!!

goooood!!

Seen Bruce Almighty one too many times huh

 

lookin' good not your friend.. the rig.... god you must be confident about soldering to solder the mobo..

is it quiet?

 

I have the same CD/RW as you - mine is most definitely black :/

*n

 

malcs: With fans running on 7v (2x 120mm titans in front, 92mm titan at rear) it's completely silent. My WD drives are noisy though.

penski: W.A.S.P. - Still not black enough for me. (Great song! )
I've noticed that the frontbezel is blacker than the sides/top of the case. Dunno if I'll paint the whole thing over, but it's not a high priority. I'm not too keen/good/skilled/elephant on the paint-thingie.

 

That looks really great. Your friend Patrick is a bit weird though. Might want to get him checked.

I would never dare to solder on a mobo I have spent more than 1200 kr on, even though I feel quite confident soldering other (cheaper...) electronics.

Keep the updates coming!

 

pranks7er/ram/malcs/bard: Thanks!
malcs/bard: Patrick did complain about the pic, so he told me to say he's actually quite normal , and the picture was bad. (Yeah right! )

Anyways, suggestions people? Should I stealth my drives or vinyl-dye them? Painting the drives appears to me as a pain in the arse, compared to just stealthing them. Whaddaya think?

 

Stealthing would probably look the cleanest. I was wondering, a friend of mine has the same CD-burner... the eject button is kind of transparent, but is there a LED behind the button, glowing on burner activity? Or is it just transparent, and that's it... If it DOES glow, you could still stealth it, but drill about a 1mm hole in the faceplate...

 

Sorry to say, it's just transparent and that's it.
The activity-LED sits about 1cm (that's 1/2.54 inches for ye non-metric people. ) to the left of the button. The LED (might be just a glass-dot or something) is something like 1mm "large". Hm, giving me ideas!

 

what kind of case is that?

 

Tacritan, on my hightower I have stealthed the drives. What I did was that I removed the faceplates from the drives before I stealthed them. Then I drilled 2.5mm big holes in the new covers and filled these holes with glue. So when the LEDs shine, the glue shines, so even though the drive is stealthed, I have activity LEDs. Apparently I'm not a good explainer, so just check out the log in my signature.

 

nice, where did you get that wallpaper for your desktop?

 

Bard: Your are good to explain, I know exactly what you mean. I think I'll use optical fibres to enhance the glow.

Gnemelf: That's an Addtronics 6896B Miditower. Costs about $120 in norway. (No PSU! )

kevbarlas: www.skins.be , or www.christinalindley.com , quite the bird eyh?

 

w00t, now, if only i can persuade my girl friend its art....

 

Nice setup. I like the way you have fitted the watercooling to exploit the shape of the case, particularly the big rad. Good work!

 

Thanks!
I actually bought the case knowing I could fit a WC-setup inside with no extreme mods (except cutting out almost the entire front ). Bad thing tho, only 3 5.25" external bays, and one internal above the PSU. No floppy , and a 5.25" -> 3.5" conversion-thingie to fit my two WD-drives. Top-lid gets a little hot.

 

Small update:

As I promised, I had some surprises up my sleeve. That's right, the fridge-"window" I posted earlier is now almost ready to be mounted. First I had to remove the mesh-filter from my frontbezel (actually this was done with a pair of wirecutters as a dremel would be overkill. ):



Swoosh. As you can see, there's three supporting bars on the mesh-filter for the front-mesh. Two of them have to go, to show the "superfrost" and "[*]***" symbols.



And a couple of seconds later they're off. A bit meshy (couldn't resist the pun) don't you think?



Let's clean'er up:



Voilà, clean and ready for mounting! Now for the last pic this time, dry mount. I didn't mount it yet, because I need some spacers to lift the "plexi" from the mesh to allow for airflow to my rad. Haven't quite worked out that bit yet, but I have several alternatives. Might finish it this evening tho. Pic:



Also, the spacing will allow for a couple of LEDs in the bottom to light this baby up. Might even put in a 4" CCFL. Hopefully "Superfrost" and the stars will show through the frontmesh when light is added.

That's it for now!

 

looks nice!

like that idea of using old refrigeratorparts

one questin: what is vinyl die in norwegian?