STEALTH:: LIAN LI TRANSFORMATION! 12/07 new pics

STEALTH:: 56k* LIAN LI TRANSFORMATION! 12/07 new pics

First off, this is not a continuation of my other project but instead this is a new project of it's own. I feel that the project that i was working on has gone off in the wrong direction and i decided to change it completely. It is no longer the same project and I have spent probably months on this update. I was reflecting on my progress and i thought to myself.. what am i doing! After completing my custom built cube, i felt my modding would go downhill if i went on with this mod. I've been searching through forums looking for ideas and ofcourse, thinking on my own when i had free time. I thought about it for the whole summer, having no work done and just thinking and planning. Now that the school year has started for me (first year college) i was unable to work as much as i would have liked. Anyhow i managed to do enough to post and show you what i have done. Hopefully it was worth the time away from working!

The case i was working on is the lian li pc 60. When people think of lian li's, a few things come to mind. Blue lights, stealthing, blowholes and all that stuff. The reason for that is because it is overdone and there are probably thousands, if not more lian li cases that are modded that way. I guess people had common interests in terms of how the lian li should look. Even I jumped on the wagon and decided to make my lian li look like everyone else's. It was terrible, unoriginal and not my style. After searching through the bit-tech forums, i was totally inspired by the work of a few individuals. The main on that caught my attention was Jack's Clearli. It is trully a work of art. Then i was inspired, like everyone else, ghomes orac case. After reading both with much anticipation, i decided to finally get some work done. Here is the case when i first started off:


Yeah.. that is indeed, the very typical lian li case. Nothing original and pretty boring. I did create the cd drive with one of the spare covers so at least i wasn't stealthing! I actually spent about 8 hours cuting and filing both. I dont know why but i'm terrible at filing and making straight cuts! Anyhow.. i'll go on with what i've changed the lian li case to

Please note that this is not the finished product.. meaning the endges are not totally filed and they are temporarily taped onto the front so they might not be alligned perfectly straight! Anyhow...


The new front!! The edges, like the clearli, were carefully cut out with my dremel. A single slip would have created chaos and ended the project! But i guess i got lucky






I used scrap aluminum to create a little cover for my vfd.


These are 4 switches.. as to wut they control? u will find out later


I thought this was rather unique.. instead of having the cdrom drives on the top like 99% of other computer cases, i decided to mount them on the bottom!


I decided to round the edges of the cdrom drays to match the rounded edges of my other aluminum pieces.




This is a preview of the top! All i can say is that its window tinted to match

 

A lot of my pictures are lost for some reason... but ill use whatever i have right now. For the front, i basically masked off the entire front to prevent scratches. I then cut the cutouts from the BACK of the piece and not the front. With the dremel, it's very easy to slip and boom, its over! After careful cutting, it was done. I had to cut it a little bit off so i have room for errors. I later just sanded it down nicely.



By the way, the UPS guy dropped this off during my progress




I then got a piece of 3/16 plexiglass and fitted them to the back of the lian li cover. Much like Jack's clearli, the clips had to be adjusted.




The idea of putting the cdroms on the bottom have not occured to me yet at this stage, but this was how i basically measured out the holes to cut out for my drives. I used the drive plate that i used for the first lian li (the one that i filed 4 ages!)


I had to cut out the original 80mm fan holes behind the front bezel in order for the cdrom drives to be able to be pushed forward, otherwise they'd be blocking the motherboard's ide plugs and stuff!


Repositioned the markings to the bottom and i started to cut out the rectangles. The way they looked did not really matter cuz they were going to be covered with the aluminum front anyways. So basically the point was to just cut enough clearance for the trays to come out. Originally i was supposed to use a slot load dvd rom but i decided not to because i thought it would look more "professional" if i had two trays.












Wow! basically just shots showing you how the trays come out and such. Since the eject button was going to be blocked.... i had to think of a diff way to eject the drives.. *hint hint the 4 switches on the front *

 

This is the newq platinum that i had from an old computer. I basically took off the front cuz im going to use it as it is without the cover.








This is how the newq was measured. I basically used the orginal bezel of the newq and estimated where the screen was going to be placed. Since i was going to paint the back of the acrylic, i had to make sure i put the screen on the opposite side of what its going to be at since i was going to flip the acrylic around and have the paint on the back! Confused? I was too.. i made 3 diff fronts because of that error.. lol


I got these switches from a local electronic store. They were originally $8 but the lady charged me $2 for some reason... i shoulda bought more! When i needed more, the prices were raised back to normal




The holes were cut out for my switches to be placed!




I then cut out 4 more holes to be placed under the newq for eject buttons for my drives and maybe some other things


Now comes the tricky part. I used a zacto knife to cut out the areas that were supposed to be masked (the vfd and the newq) so that when i painted the back, i could remove the paper and voila, perfect! But that wasn't the case for me.. the newq cover that i was tracing for some reason i kept messing up! The idea was to have the paint on the back and the front clear so that the black paint would create a mirror reflection. My problem was that when i traced the newq bezel i traced it on the back, and since the screen is slightly to the right, the masked area would be on the left then which would mess everything up! I had to make 3 of these front covers. I cut out the pieces EVERYTIME. Quite frustrating...




The back pieces were then painted black. The masked area cannot be seen cuz the paper was painted black too






I removed the masked areas and loooky!!!






Here is what it looks like after i painted the back with the displays shwoing through the masked areas!

 

Just wanted to show you how messy my room was while i was modding. I will take another pic when im done when its all clean ;P I've seen a lot worse ofcourse.. but this pic is actually used for myself


I put doubled sided tape along the sides behind the front cover in order to stick the acrylic to the back!


Here you can see that the front was finally stuck on. But where did the masked areas for the VFD and the newq go? Welcome to window tint folks The entire front was window tinted incase i messed any areas from painting. Now the vfd and the newq cannot be seen at all, and its a complete mirror black reflection when looking at it. But when u power the system.. look wut appears






I actually made an aluminum housing for my 4 controls too but i later decided to remove it because it made it look too clustered.. but i did spend a lot of time doing it.. I also made a housing for my front 2 switches..


Here you can see what i mean from looking too clustered. I dunno, maybe its just me? Do you guys think it looks better with it or without?


I used scrap aluminum and created the housing for the vfd. This took probably at least 4 tries. I CAN NOT CUT STRAIGHT! Pisses me off!! And when i do finally cut it pefectly straight, the holes did not allign right for the vfd!!




This is wut it looks like with everything in place including the plate that i excluded in the future..

Thats about all i have so for folks! I hope my case no longer looks like a lian li and instead, something more original and different I have very little time to work cuz of college and work but i will update as soon as i can feel free to post any questions or comments!!

 

And to end off, here are some more pictures of what i have so far:

 

very nice.. but how do you control the newq equilizer now?

 

i have a remote

 

very nice job! i like the origionality

 

Very clean job! Keep it up

 

NNNnnnniiiiccccceeee... GOod job on making the classic pc60 into a real standout!.

 

That looks really nice! i must say, i so need a new case so i can mod it But i still need cash, thats always good to have when you are buying stuffs

But its very nice i think! Keep up the good work

 

Modding does get expensive! The worst part is when u have to buy the TOOLS!

 

Awesome. Huge initial post, dang! Looks very nice with the acrylic. I bet a tinted window would look phenominal on the side.

 

Amazing.

I always liked the look of plexi with a painted back.

And you were right about the clutter.

Also I really like the uniform look of all the switches and screwheads.

 

nice to see someone do something diferent with a lian li

 

Very nice work, I like it a lot.

 

ah right.. forgot they come with remotes...

 

Great job fohkus

I love it! The whole front panel design is superb - clean, simple and very very stylish (and like you say, different from all those stealthed/blowhole Lian Li cases that look a bit tame these days). I really am a big fan of originality, well done. It certainly can be tricky to cut Alu and get straight edges with only a dremel. You did a lot of filing by the looks of things

I had a thought, with so much originality to the front panel are you really going to use that commercial laser-cut fan grille on the top panel? I like your idea for the top but what about making your own fan grille out of Alu to match the black plexi/ brushed alu 2-tone theme of the front? Seems a shame to spoil an original design with a grille that doesn't quite seem to match the rest of the case. If you like it though - go for it! Everyone has an opinion but it's your case and looking at this project I get the feeling that whatever you do will be great!

/subscribed

 

he has a good point

 

making my own grill would definately be a good idea i was actually going to use that grill but now that u mention it i might as well go for it!