Case Mod - In Progress Tt Invitational Entry - Adrenal Express FINISHED!

Yeah the pumps look sweet.

 

More chassis modifications were necessary to ensure the safe and secure delivery of this most unpredictable substance. After exhaustive stress testing with premenstrual gorillas, extra care and stabilization was duly recommended, and therefore additional anti-vibration spring rails were employed at the base of the container.

Fabricated simply from C channel and 1/4" multi-strand cable..


Pass-through holes were drilled into both sides of the C channel.


Once painted, the cable was threaded through.


Both rails complete!


Inverted and mounted to the case. It was decided that there was no need for the extra 1/4" bar seen in the first pic..

 

subbed

 

Haha, love those case feet, very creative.

 

You are having a lot of fun with this one. -You might have to worry about the cables folding over.

 

Thanks, its a fun theme to go crazy with. The cables are pretty stiff, dont think they will budge, even with all the hardware in the case. we'll see..

 

Since the motherboard is mounted in the inner chamber with the IO facing down, I'll be using some panel mount extensions for HDMI, ethernet, and power connectivity.

First, I pilfered the power plug out of this old psu


I found the HDMI and ethernet panel mount extensions online.


Here is the new back panel I made to replace the swiss cheese that was there before.


Using the panel mount ends, I made myself a template on tape and transferred it onto the new back panel.


After removing material and some filing, the panel mounts fit nicely at the bottom center of the back panel.


Getting down to the last couple items I need to fabricate mounts for, then it's time for paint! Stay tuned..

 

The last bit of fabrication I had to do involved placing the 2 Max5 Duet HDD Racks. They will be hidden inside the front bezel, but still easily accessible for hot-swapping the SSDs.

Here's how they will be positioned, one on each side.


I'm always looking for ways to re-incorporate parts of the original case into my designs. These hard drive racks will be perfect for mounting the Duets!


They fit like a glove inside the tray..


I won't be needing the doors, but will be utilizing one of the hinge points, so the tray will pivot out the side of the front bezel. I scribed an arc showing the drive's travel from closed..


..to the open position.


After removing a bunch of material from the underside of the front bezel, the drive racks are now clear and can move freely. The bezel already has openings on the side, originally meant for the power/reset/audio panel, but the holes still needed to be widened a bit.


Now the drive rack can be pulled out fully, and the SSD's accessed easily.


Now that all the fab work is pretty much done, I can move on to paint!

 

Neat!

Oh, wait...You gave me sh*t for my last one-word post...

I like the idea, Sir, and I think that should be a stock feature in these cases.

 

A 3000% improvement! There, now don't you feel better, having contributed more meaningfully?

 

Finished the PSU last night, thanks to Shannon for sending me a 140mm green Riing fan.


Installed into the PSU. The stock fan connector is only 2pin, so I'll have to run the new fan's cable out of the PSU and into the fan controller... which will be mounted directly underneath.


Speaking of which, here is the Commander FT..


Removing the 5 1/4" mounting bracket..


..and mounting it directly to the PSU mounting tray.


Now that everything is painted, I can finally mount the PSU tray permanently to the back of the inner box.


Then the fan controller bracket goes on, after cutting a matching hole in the top to clear the psu.


PSU and fan controller installed.


Plugged in for a test run..


It's all starting to take shape now!

 

No.

 

Got a bunch of things accomplished over the weekend. I got my laser cut acrylic in from Primochill on Friday, so my plans to do wiring got happily postponed lol. Here's a teaser shot of the radiator grills..


I remade the PSU's fan cover as well, with the Ad Ex logo in the center..


I will have a backlit logo badge on the front panel, so I had all these letters cut. It took a bit of time gluing all of them down. I used a piece of tape as my alignment to make sure everything was straight and spaced evenly.


I spent most of the time prepping the front panel for the logo badge and front IO relocation, as well as a secret special feature that I will reveal later. ;-)


I cut a piece of black ABS sheet to fit behind the mesh, and sprayed a bit of green around the cutout for effect. I'll be doing the same behind the top panel.


Before installing the inner chamber for the final time, I laid down some 1/4" foam sheet to cover the bottom of the case.


I cut some slots in the center to clear the dust screen hooks. They actually served to hold foam the down quite nicely.


Getting the rads mounted, and all the shocks back in in preparation for the inner chamber.


The inner chamber is back in! Hopefully for the last time.


A shot of the top, with the WC inlets and outlets that will connect to the radiators.

 

Cool!
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Edit: CRAP! Modzoo is down. I gotta post here.
The new psu grill looks great, and a perfect fit.

I guess even though the inner rig couldn't move unless you shipped via USPS, the lines will be soft tube?

 

I'll have soft tube from the inner box to the rads, but hard line inside the box. Gotta be consistent with the theme ya know... ;-)

 

Got all the fan grills mounted last night. Both rads' fans and the PSU face the side panel, and sit right against the window. So holes were cut and the grills were attached right to the window.

First I marked all the holes on the window and taped off the area around the touch screen fan controller.


Then I proceeded to cut out all the holes after taping the surface for protection. This was after I cut everything and was demasking (forgot to take the pic earlier)


Testing the fitment of the rad grills.


After a light sanding of the grills to frost them up a bit, I mounted them to the window using spare HDD screws.


And the window back in the panel and on the case..


Looking forward to a good modding weekend ahead! Hoping to wrap up the front panel and get the pump/res's installed with tubing. Then it's on to wiring (ugh)

 

Had a great productive weekend, got a bunch of little things taken care of, and was able to start assembling the water cooling loop.

Got some of the lighting done, which required some soldering. I had to cut up the UV ledstrip and re-attach them so they would lay where I wanted.


For the logo badging on the front, there was only a small area where I could hide the leds so they wouldn't bee seen through the badge, so two strips were laid side-by side and connected via two small wires.


A quick smoke test..


Once I confirmed they worked, I stuck them to the inside of the lightbox, on the wall behind the solid part of the logo. The box was lined with aluminum foil tape, which accomplishes two things: Reflectivity inside the box, and keeping the light from escaping anywhere else but out through the logo face.


Here's the logo lit up with nice indirect lighting.


And here's the finished lettering that will go underneath the lit logo badge..


The logo also makes an appearance inside the inner chamber, on both sides. I had some 1/8" acrylic cut to cover the floor and up the sides, turning into Adrenal Express half way up.


Now you know why I painted the inside of the box the way I did.


I got the box lit up with more UV lighting, hidden behind the front edge all the way around.


And finally with the floor in place, I could start installing reservoirs and the rest of the hardware..


This is the last week before voting starts! It will be close, but I think I can get this thing wrapped up before the deadline. Wish me luck!

 

Well I finished the case over the weekend! It was close, but I think I made the deadline in time. Here's a few more progress pics, then I will post final shots.

I wanted to make the inner chamber kind of a modular unit, so for the wiring I added industrial bulk wire plugs that screw into the box at the top.


I actually found a 24-pin plug! I also grabbed a couple 16-pin plugs to use for the two 8-pin GPU cables and the 12v motherboard cables.


Here are the panel mount ends..




And here are the plug ends that have a collar that screws down to lock it in place.




With that done, I could start working on running the hard line inside the box.


Being consistent with the theme, I went with flexible soft tube to go from the box to the rads. And I finally got to use my UV anti-kink coils!


For the special front feature, I felt I had to include an emergency box, just in case someone was suddenly beset with a very bad case of the doldrums.

Here is the back side of the box I made from acrylic, painted white on the inside to reflect all the light from the UV ledstrip.


Testing the fit in the front panel. I made a custom dual syringe for that double-shot fix!




Testing the lighting..




.. and filled with adrenaline..


And finally, the finished box with the necessary messaging..


Final pics coming up next..

 

Ok here are the final shots. I'll be doing a more proper photo shoot later, but I had to get final pics up asap.. So here they are.. Enjoy, and thank you everyone for following my crazy concept to fruition.

Here is the voting link. Please head over to check out all the excellent builds, and vote for your favorite!





































Thank you Thermaltake for the nomination, it was great to be included amongst all these amazing and talented modders! Everyone's mod was completely different from each other's, it's a testament to how versatile the Core X9 case really is, and it only reinforces the basic idea behind my theme.

Special thanks to Avexir for providing the memory, Primochill for all the laser cutting and sleeving, Newegg for providing all the great hardware, and of course Thermaltake for pretty much everything else! Congrats to all for a great competition and best of luck! Can't wait to see who wins!

 

Snazzy all over.
That front panel is just asking for trouble, though.
I'd love to see more green-backed mesh on the inside somewhere, but too late.
Having dodged a few FedEx trucks, I think you may have their new corporate image there.