Well, I sat down today and broke the cardinal rule of hotrodding and now, I will apply it to Pc modding; I added up my receipts!! As a custom car guy, I have built a number of large and small proojects and regardless of how you try you can never stay within budget. The one rule we in the hotrod or custom car hobbie have, is never add up the receipts (except for the insurance guy). Well, I got into PC modding because I thought it would be a fun way to do my hotrodding on a much smaller budget, and one that I could enjoy without the constant nagging of the spouse wondering why the bank account was low, due to my purchasing a new chrome bit for my latest car project.... man was I wrong. My most recent project (complete build thread coming soon) is based on the Silverstone FT02 case and is inspired by some of the million-dollar-pc's out there. While my level of craftmanship is in no way compariative to any of the builders of those systems, although I am attacking this project as if I was and I am not scrimping on parts; although I am hunting for the best bargains I can. To my amazement, when I sat down this morning and look at my receipts for the parts thus far.... oh my gosh!!!! Just put it this way, if I was an off the shelf kind of guy.... I could have bought two of Dell or (insert your favorite OEM here) top of the line systems for the money I have just in the materials to mod the case, and that is before I add in the cost of any components or components I already have. Well, eventhough this is the third full case mod, I guess you can finally say; welcome to the hobbie..... Do I regret the outlay? Ask me when I am done, but I suspect regardless of how things turn out, I will be better for the experience and will have had some fun in the process. Is it worth it? Depends on who you ask. Will anyone I know who ever steps foot in my house appreciate the work and resources that went into my little black box that holds a bunch of computer parts? No. But, I will and after all is that not why we do it, for ourselves? Thoughts? WHat have you spent on materials, estimated labor etc.?
I haven't spent much on the one mod I've done, maybe 250$ all together since I had most the hardware already. Labor can't be too much either, I haven't done too much to the briefcase. Not having too much money helps me stay cheap.
my unfinished mod is just under the 5.4K mark and there is a good deal that i still havent don yet so im hoping that it stays under 6K
I've spent a lot of money on tools that I use in building my own cases, and in supplies. The tools however (i.e table saw, router, etc, etc.) also get used for other woodworking projects. All in all this PC hobby of mine is a lot less expensive than car hobbies and the like. It all depends on how much you want to spend. I see people spending exorbitant amounts of money on this stuff, and it can get quite expensive if you want it to via powdercoating, laser cutting, CNC work, etc. I will say though that I did the same thing in that I added up a bunch of receipts on stuff that I've spent on over the last 6 months or so, and I did spend a good bit more than I realized I had. $40 here and $50 there really adds up. Speaking of that, when will Frozen CPU get the fan controller I want in stock so that I can place an order... As far as appreciating my work, with my current case (in my avatar) being so unique, I've gotten some pretty neat comments on it. They however have no idea how much time it takes to build something like this. My wife really likes it though, and so does my daughter, so if they're happy, everyone's happy.
I probably spent 30-50 K or so in the last couple years. That is not take into consideration what I have been sponsored
