Perfectly stated! I relate PC moding much to car moding. I once saw a bunch of custom trucks (about 40-50) going down the highway to a show. All but five or six were exactly the same. How many mini car's with big mufflers can you make? (I call them lawnmowers with a big muffler) If you want to make your PC totaly origonal do a few things: Don't buy pre-mod stuff, unless you plan to hack/mod them. Don't buy Kit's Research everything, and if you find something similar then just impove it! There is still a lot to be done, I have about five ideas in my head that I need time/money for and as far as I have seen they are totaly origonal. Mabye a post on just Idea's would be nice. Mabye for people who got an idea but don't have the skills/money to do them, but would like to see someone else profit from it?
<rant> ok. here goes. personally, i got a Lian LI cause i wanted a big-arse quality case, and its lighter full than my old steel gateway case is totally stripped down. i HATE blue. i HATE lit-up fans. but i dont go cracking on people that make thier insides all blue-glowy, cause that is obviously what THEY wanted. personally, i went green. looks better with black IMHO. im starting to see the "4th year sellout" in the modding scene. I saw it happen in 1990 in the skateboarding scene, around 93 in the snowboarding scene, and around 97 in the rave scene. anytime something cool survives 4 years, too many people find out, then EVERYONE has to get into it, ultimately making said scene commercially acceptable and everyone loses sight of the original point. all i have to say really is do what you want to do, for you, or find a new hobby. </rant>
well i bought a £30 case (that came with a power supply!) and reading what all u guys have done/do means that i've now got a case that has bits bought, bits made and bits that have had way too long spent on em, but its unique (ish) and it will never be finished!
Hmm there is rather a lack of originality, but theres only *so* far you can take things when your modding the same cases as everyone else, CMs, Lian Lis, Dragons and so forth. Theres only so much you can do in the end without doing some serious scratch-building, something which Macro is in the process of doing with that Dragon of his. Eventually some new things will come along, some new case designs, some new ideas, and things will move on somewhat. Everything is a little stagnant for a while...in time I'm sure there will be plenty of new mods and new things we can do to cases. Personally I'm not much of a modder, i don't have the tools, time, money or most importantly skills to embark on a major league project ala Macro Black or Linears invisible case . My skills atm amount to the very basics, a window, a blowhole, that sort of thing. Things like those LED fans look good IMHO, and while they're not original or unique any more, I don't really care. If I think it looks nice, then I don't care if 20 other ppl on some forum have the same thing! If *you* think it looks nice, then I don't personally think it matters as to whether it really is unique or not. Thats what I think personally. My 2p
You want origonal Ideas check out my new post. Very hard stuff on there see if you can make them! ORIGONAL idea's you don't have the money/knowledge for. http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=18349
I honestly HATE the big rectangle cases, everything is rectulanguar these days, it would be cool if rather then modding the case, you make the case... i guess it's kinda hard though.. but meh...
The next wave would be custom-made cases, don't you think? We see more and more custom acrylic and aluminium cases nowadays (especially see koreamod.com). This, all you skilled people have a chance to show off again. You ain't restricted to shape, material, style and size (okay, to certain extend!). With the ITX boards, its even easier. Should I say, only limitation is your imagination? It definitely is going to be the next craze.
Wouldn't the original idea behind modding be to customize your PC the way you want it. If blue LEDs is your thing then go for it! Even though someone else might have done it, the key point being that it is original... to you. Otherwise you might not have done it. Modding should be for the shear enjoyment of adding artwork and more functtionality to your pc. Maybe those experienced modders who want something more challenging will move on to something bigger and better! Like cars... I would love to see some mods to cars, I know some have been done like MP3 comps and likewise but why not integrate a small modded case into your car and mount a couple touchscreen LCDS with some blue or red neons connected to your sound system and even a knightrider mod in the front of your car, and whats not complete without a GPS system. I would love for someone to take a old camcorder with nightvision capability and having it somehow displayed on a section of your front window, so you can see at night. How orignial is that? I have a friend with the fire dept. that actually went to the police hq and mounted small tracking units underneath the cars and has them all displayed on a LCD in his car so he knows where they are. I personally would love to see the market shift over towards modding PCs with cars.
before and after.....its all been done, every mod on my case is on another case cause i got most of my ideas from others....now its gona be about making the different elements work in different ways......there are alot of painted fans....ok, ill do mine in metal cast with different colors for the blades and body......got an lcd with some switches wired for a keypad, ok, ill do a nice integrated keypad with microswitches....somebody does an cpu tachometer mod, ok, ill do an analog hd activity meter, and integrated it into an hd cooler..... unless we all start developing superior engineering skills, and get some serious cash to blow, cases are going to start looking the same....but you can still personalize it enough to call your own...
there are still lots of things to be done that are original. one of the items on my project list is to build a pc into the headboard of my bed. it's one of those big ones with mirror, book shelves on the corners, lights...i bought a cheapo 14" lcd from a guy on a different board, i plan on suspending it from top center of the headboard. i'm thinking of using one of those lampbodies, they are like an arm with springs on them. also wireless k/b & mouse, i've got my old all in wonder to goto the TV for divx, and extra sets of speakers i could also mount in the headboard. now this wont be a power system, but it will be good for movies/music/surfing in bed 8) i saw a pc built into a coffee table the other day, it was pretty kewl, had sys and monitor under glass, with wireless k/b and mouse on top. anyway, there are still lottsa ways to go these are just a few examples, and with the smaller form factors, the sky is the limit.
i agree with what most of the people here have said. YOU are the one who has to like YOUR case, that's why YOU are the one modding it and not somebody else. but it's obvious the mods are being done over and over again and that's a little depresing for our "race". personally i believe that new mods haven't come out mostly because of the lack of money, time or skills of most modders. if u have a really good idea, the worst feeling in the world is when u can't do it because u don't have the money. time to mod can be found if u really want to mod and knowlege (like on how to build certain circuit) can be obtained on sites like this (that's what the forums are for). so the only 2 REAL problems i see are lack of money and/or skills. i think i don't have to tell u guys how to get money and skills CAN be obtained by practicing. most of the people that say they don't have the skills for certain mods say it without even trying. take a dremel, a soldering iron or whatever u need for ur mod and dremel away or solder away or whatever. u'll never know if u don't try. if u have an idea but you know u won't be able to do it for any reason post it somewhere for people to know of such idea and give it a shot, i think anyone who actually does it would be happy to at least give u credit for it.
it also kinda makes modding go stale when ur so proud of ur new thingy whatever it may be and some company comes out with a premade one that looks better. rg led fans. thing is i bet it was some moder who invented them and whats the chance hes seen any money from it.....
you have a point but it ain't just about having the 1337est pimpest most original case ever... it's also about our love for modding and it's a nice hobby. check out www.metku.net japala's home of original mods... 1337pimp case alert!
I made a similiar post a while back jord , and know exactly what you are thinking. Things have become static a repetative , this is mainly due to lots of new people joining the bandwagon. It used to be a case of every man and his dog having a Lian Li with a factory window and a couple of cc's . Nowadays its cm 201 /200's with coloured lighted fans. To be truely innovative is very very difficult now. I have to admit to strugglin to come up with new projects. One of the ones I am working on turns out some1 else had come up with it and finished it before me which annoyed me But hey ho . TBH tho I'd rather this situation than the one a couple of years back where u couldnt buy half the modding kit , I remember when u couldnt buy a cc in this country till kustom imported some.
i have to say all these problems with being orginial, comes from posting your ideas / project on forums and people copying or working from them, but then again if you didn't post on forums no one would see your master piece, vicous circle really
u're right on that, but if u don't post it wouldn't have a point. the problem isn't that people are copying. if noone copied u would still get tired of the same mods even if only a handfull of people did them or only u. i think the problem isn't that too many people are making the same thing, it's that there's nothing else to do. that's how modding started, as a way to standout from the rest. right now windows and cathodes are becoming standard so we have to come with alternatives and ways to keep big companies from making premodded PCs couse, as i see it, that's what's damaging the modding community.
Maybe the "off-the-shelf" modding industry is a good thing in that it forces the real modders to get even more creative & produce crazier designs... Like this one (THE most beautiful case...) When everyone has an Lian-Li case with window/baybus/stealthed drives and blue LED's, we need something really different to kick the ideas off in a new direction - like Project Anenome. There's massive potential in building computers inside old radio cases, TV's, clocks, furniture, military kit. etc... and the modding companies are gonna find it difficult to commercialise that...
This is more like it - I wanted this post to really push people into thinking about moddin as a community - the raw ethos behind it all - I agree there are some great ideas out there that have been done - and more waiting to be done, the custom alu case above is a work of art - but you need special tools to complete that level of case-and the skills to go with it - I doubt I will ever get there - BUT I will have a darn good try at getting there .....
For me, modding is about my very nice kit showing off (shut up, not THAT sort of kit) but more importantly, to be useful. And most people need the same things: baybus, castors etc......so everyone's cases are growing similar...but thats ok.... peoples tastes are usually similar, so if you've modded your case and think it looks cool, so will others..... ...and lets face it, there's originality in every case.... many are similar, but fnd me 2 which are exactly the same....
Wouldnt "modding" also be customizing your case to further suit your needs.. Everyone is concerned about the art side but what about custom fanbuses to control thermal capabilities of the case. Overclocking has really made an improvement because of ppl "modding" their original case to improve temps.
