Case Mod - In Progress Windows G5, 24 October FINISHED

I've been visiting here for a few month's and really been liking the mods I've seen. I really enjoyed Cyprio's Apple G5 mod and decided to mod one myself. This is my first time doing any modding and will only be my second time putting together my own PC. I have been working on this for the last month and finally got the nerve to share my work with everyone here.

I am starting with a G5 case aquired off Ebay. This is a sketch I started with in goole sketch for my plans, however after a month into this mod the design has changed a bit and I am unsure what the end result will look like as I keep coming up with new ideas and also find out that some of my original ideas were not possible. So here was my staring sketch.





Started by taking the case apart. There are way too many screws on this thing. This case was like a puzzle taking it apart.








Now with everything removed I have my empty shell to start working on.



First thing was to take my LianLi motherboard tray and make a new plate that would fit on the rear of the G5 as the part next to the expansion slots was too wide to clear the side panel lock and the part for the fan was also too wide. I used a piece of 22 gauge sheet metal for the job. I started by removing the original rear panel and made a trace outline on the sheet metal adjusting it in the 2 areas that were too wide. Plugged in the jigsaw and went to town.







Then cleaned up all the edges and rounded the corners with a dremel and made my bends.



Traced the outline of the rear panel on the rear of the case and then moved the line in about 1/2" to leave enough room to screw it in. Now it is time to introduce the G5 to my little friend................DREMEL.



Clamped all the pieces together just to see how they fit and I'm pretty satisfied. Won't quite look as pretty as Cyprio's Apple core Duo, but I don't think I'd have the patience to do it they way he did.





I have a bit more finished than this but hands are getting sore from typing just this little bit. I'll leave it at that for now and update some more tomorrow.

 

Lookin good! Seriously clean way to mount the ATX mobo backplane. Subscribed

 

looking forward for the next updates, hopefully you do better then I did. good luck!

 

I'll be watching this.

 

Watching. Good luck!

 

Ah another G5 mod, always good to see these! I'll be watching!

 

OK I'm back for some more. Hopefully my hands can bear with me while I finish this up and get you up to where I am currently at in this mod.

So after test fitting my MB tray and making sure everything had enough clearence and everything was straight I proceded to drill out the holes to mount it back together and to the rear of the case. I pop-riveted the piece back to the MB tray and used screws to mount it to the case. The screws are just coarse thread MB screws I picked up at a local PC shop. They worked perfect and self threaded themselves in the existing G5 holes. I think I may have gone overkill on the number of screws I used but wanted to make sure they would hold up with the weight of the MB and cooler I will be using.





Will be using 2 80mm fans for the exhaust. I marked the placement and drilled out the holes to mount. My original plans were to use a single 120mm but did not have enough room left to mount it properly.



This is actually the last thing I have done but I will skip into the future and share it now since we just looked at the 2 fans. I was really undecided on how to make the opening for the exhaust.
(A) Just cut out 2 circles and buy some fan grills?
(B) Cut out 2 circles and buy some mesh to use?
(C) Drill out 2 circles of little holes to match the G5 holes?
(D) None of the above.

Answer is D.

Break out the dremel and go to town. The dremel is always the best and most fun choice....
So I laid out several diagonal lines 1/2" apart from the bottom to the top and decided to cut out every other section to make my own grill. It proved to be a very long and tedious task. Half way through I was getting ready to throw this piece acrosss the yard. There is probably an easier way to do this is all I kept telling myself, but since I already started I had to finish. Otherwise I'd have to redo this piece from the begining. For the most part I am pretty satisfied with the results. The metal kept bending and twisting. Had to keep hammering it flat again. Also went through about 6 of the seriously heavy duty cutting wheels. Then cleaned it all up with a multi bit. It seems like alot of time but the took me over 12 hours to complete. When all done I was itching so bad from all the metal shavings. I had to go up and down my arms with a magnet to get it all off. The magnet looked like a little furball when I was done.





So that was the last thing I did now let's go back in time and look at my hard drive cage. My original plan was to buy and mount 2 hot swappable bays to mount coming out the side of the case. I did not want to ruin the beautiful front, that is what I really love about the G5 that simple clean front with all those tiny holes. Ok, so the hot swappable idea had to be trashed beacause it would only leave me with like an 1/8" behind them for the cables. Also since they are a solid enclosure they would have blocked alot of the air flow from the front to the rear of the case. I thought and thought and thought. Looking through alot of these other project logs I considered using plexi or doing the expansion slot mount, but thought I needed to go with something more original to set this case apart. Thats when it hit me, A staggered hard drive cage made out of 4 strips of aluminum. So I got to measuring out the HDD and then got some graph paper and made my plans for the bends and what not. I will be able to mount four HDD in this and my LCD will be able to be mounted at the top, so it actually solved my HDD problem and my LCD mounting problem.

Well after laying out the design on paper I got to measuring and marking up the aluminum strips for the bends. I used a couple cutting whells together to cut about half way through the aluminum on my marks to allow it to bend more easily. Here is the first piece, turned out perfect as planned in my opinion.



Now I just have to duplicate that on three more. this proved to be difficult. Here are all 4 the first go around. Notice the one on the right rear. Looks like I did not make my cuts deep or wide enough. That one did not bend too easily and ended up all jacked up.



So will have to redo that one. Took a trip back down to the hardware store and got another piece of aluminum. Bck at it cut all the lines, started bending, then oh &%%$%. It broke on the very last bend. Back to the hardware store this time I pick up 2 mor pieces as I'm doubting my success at the 3rd attempt. Same as before get to the last bend and snap. So looked over all the pieces and come to find out I was cutting a little too deep. They say 3rd times a charm well, 4th time is a charm for me. 4th time = SUCCESS. Next grabbed me a few pices of wood and made me a couple dummy HDD to get all the mounting holes and everything lined up. Did not want to risk banging around a hard drive and did not have any old busted ones.

Dummy drives mounted and LCD clamped to get and Idea of how it will come together.



Now to see if it fit in the case. Barely had to take the MB tray out and could barely get it in because of that bottom lip on the side of the case. Put the MB tray back in and set the MB in just to see how the clearance was between the 2. Very satisfied with it. Not too close and should be enough room to route cables trough.



Decided that I was not happy with how difficult it was to get the cage in and out of the case. It originally was going to mount at the top and bottom of the case, but looks like I will have to cut off the bottom portion so it can slide in and out smoothly. Another excuse to go at it with the dremel. Cut the bottom 3" off, mounted the LCD and got it all mounted back in the case.



Now I got the MB tray and rear of the case finished, got the HDD and LCD mounting sorted out. Think it is time to cut out my window. For this I removed the MB tray so I could get my hand in the case after I put the side panel on. I laid the case down and first traced out where the LCD sat against the side panel. After that I measure in from that line so I would have an opening about 3/8" larger than the actual LCD. Then I measured first 1 inch all the way around, but changed it to 3/4'" around the side panel opening.



Used the jigsaw to cut this out with. This is some pretty tough aluminum. 3 jigsaw blades later I am left with this. Wow I can actually cut a fairly straight line.



Slapped it on the case and I was a little off on the top left corner of the LCD hole, but I'll clean it up with the dremel later.



Cut my plexi and just taped it to the side panel to see how it all looks and not too bad. Slapped it back on the case and now this thing is starting to look sexy. Took me a Harp break as you can see in the pic.



Well still got a little more to share with you to bring this up to where I am currrently at. Will update some more later on.

Thanks for lookin! Also I am not sure how to actually mount the plexi, I know I can use some screws, but was also thinking of getting some epoxy to just glue it on the inside. Let me know what you think would look better or work better or any other suggestions. I like the way it looks in the photo above but of course it is just taped there.
Thanks again.

 

Looking good, and extra screws/rivets always a good idea. Better too many then too little and the whole thing go tits up.

 

Looks great so far.
Keep up the good work.

 

This is going to look amazing! keep the updates coming even if you have to work twice as hard coz i cant wait and i have no patience!!

 

Ok well lets's finish and bring all my progress together. After Finishing the side panel, exept for mounting the plexi, I moved to the front of the case and worked on the Front panel and power switch. Like the Back I used a piece of sheet metal for this. I had to cut out all the opening for my Power button and the LianLi front panel connector that has 2 usb, firwire and audio ports. First I drilled out the hole for my power swith in the middle of the sheet metal. Then laid the ports against the sheet and marked around all the ports and 2 mounting screws while keeping it lined up with the switch. Then once again time to get the dremel and let the sparks fly. First Used a cutting wheel and pretty much just grinded back and forth to make a rough opening.



Then Went back over with the multi-bit to clean it all up to the just the right size.



Salvaged the plastic port trim from the G5 and was a fairly decent fit. A bit off but not enough to really notice.





Now to cut the panel out. Used a left over piece of aluminum stip from the HDD cage and drilled out 2 holes dead center that lined up with the connectors mounting holes. Screwed it all down on my work table and now I had the perfect edge to follow along with the dremel.



Sanded the panel down to knock off the rust that was starting and mounted everything on. This is pic of my original planned power button. Was going to make my own button using a stainless tire valve stem but could not manage to get it all lined up and mount the actual switch behind it. So I have one on order thaat will pretty much look just like this button I made but alot cleaner looking. Took a blue LED I had and fit it in just to see how it would look all lit up. I think it all turned out pretty good, almost looks like I bought it. I was impressed with it and also shocked that I got it right on the first shot unlike the problems with the HDD cage.
Here's a shot with flash and one without to show how it will look.



Next cut out the original front panel on the G5 just following along the edges of it and extended the cut an inch above and below. Set the new panel in and made sure it was straight and marked my holes. Like the back just mounted screwing 2 screws into the original holes in the case. Here is a comparison shot of the original panel and my new panel.





Well that pretty much finishes up what I have so far. Waiting on a few parts to come in and then will get to finish mounting up the DVD and PSU. Then I should be set to tear it all down and paint it. Here are a few before and after shots to see side by side my changes.

Front



Side



Rear



Will try and give an update by next weekend, all depends on when I get the ramaining parts and if I can pull myself away from the mod to update the post. This has become addictive. And if anyone is wondering why I titled this Windows G5. I have plans for incorporating a windows logo in place of the apple logo on the side of the case. Still working out my details for this but if it all comes together as I have it in my mind it should look pretty cool.

Well till next time....hope you enjoyed it so far!

 

OOPS. Forgot to share some of the hardware I got that will be in this.
I want to do the inside of the case in blue and white so looked around to find a blue ASUS board that had the specs I was looking for.
Went with a ASUS P5E64 WS Evolution. It took me a while to find somone with one in stock. But was worth the effort.


Intel Core2Duo E8400 3.0Ghz


ASUS Lion Square 92mm Vapo Bearing CPU Cooler / Will be removing the black top and either painting it white or blue, undecided just yet





2 X 2GB Mushkin ddr3 1333 / may get another 4GB later down the line


4 X 12" White Cold Cathode Light

 

What is up with the wood pattern on the case? Are you going to airbrush it?
Or just use a wood-pattern-vinyl?

 

I was waiting for someone to ask about that. That was my original idea, I was going to use wood veneer for the outside. I might change that though still not sure. My only concern with my origiinal plan is drilling out all the tiny holes after veneering it. Not sure how well it will turn out. It might tear the wood up I'll have to test out a piece. The case will sit up on my desk and I was kinda going with the venner idea so it would match the desk. This may change though.

 

Hope it is possible, a nice veneer would look absolutely mint. However, all those holes O.O !

 

Im not too sure vaneer will look that good, everytime i see vaneer it reminds me of the old 80's TV sets! who remember those those were the days, having to get up everytime to change channels (just the four channels tho!) rock on 80's!!

any way back to the mod i think you should paint it or just leave it but that my opinion

 

Don't veneer it!
Stick to your colour scheme, i say paint it white!

Good work so far!

 

Double Post...

 

Triple post!?

 

Having issues Stickeh?

That drive cage is awesome! Never thought of doing it that way