Modding SHED Comp (kinda finished)

Gumbatron · 25 Apr 2007

Every work shed needs at least 1 computer, so I decided that I would put one in my shed. After getting sick of having to go inside whenever I needed to look something up on the net.

SHED Comp was orriginally built a couple of years ago, but the second coat of clear was all stuffed up. It went spotty (I think it was because I didn't use enough thinner). Recently I got around to having another go at finishing it. Here are the results:

And a little on the making of (at least the final bits).

I wanted a comp with a decent air flow, and a way to remove as much dust as possible. Luckily I had aquires some rather large fans from an old HP server (It was about as big as a fridge ). For comparison, there is an 80mm and a 120mm fan in the pic:

The fan is mounted in the top 2 CD Rom bays, and illuminated by 4 blue LEDs (They really could have been a bit brighter):

The case itself is an old Aopen case that I think I paid $5 for. But it's a nice solid case. The interior is kept pretty tidy, most of the PSU cables have been removed, and the remaining ones sleved. The IDE Cables were routed under the Motherboard Tray.

The CD Rom drive is steathed into the 10mm thick acrylic front panel. This is painted metalic blue, then silver then black (reverse order to normal painting, coz it's on the inside). I also made custom backlit buttons, but didn't take any pics of the workings behind them

There's a big vent in the front. This is actually an exhaust vent. Since the Big fan sucks air into the case, through the air cleaner (The pod on top of the case). As you can see, I have a spare stick of RAM in there, just in case she starts playing up :

OK, on to the new paint. The original paint job was a bit dodgy. As can be seen by the amount of holes and low spots that needed filling:

After a few coats of Matte Black, it was on to the Logo. Still can't believe I spent hours cutting out all the lettering, just to peel it off and throw it away after a few minuites of painting:

Then it was on to clear coat (hopefully more successfully this time):

Before I forget, the air filter material is underneath the blue mesh on the top. I also forgot to take pics of how that all went together. But here's a pic of the under side of the filter pod. The mesh and window are held on with small plastic tabs that screw into the underside of the pod. That way there are no visible screws :

Still needs some more rubbing and some wax in a couple of weeks. But here's where she stands at the moment:

Let me know what you think...