New Rocketfish Lian-Li Case

[NightrainSrt4]

Well as some know from the hardware thread, I got one of the Rocketfish/Lian-Li full towers for my 21st. Instead of having an idea thread and my question, I shall just keep it to one thread.

I don't know if it will be like Nightrain^2 or another name, but that issue aside, I have been working hard on the design first this time, instead of winging it as I go.

My question:

I want to do a motherboard cover as this case doesn't have a lot of wire management. I think it will be plexi. The rig has the cpu and nb watercooled.

Would a plexi motherboard cover cause issues with temperature? These are common in both Defyant's mods and DAE_JA_VOO's mods, so I would assume not, but I want to make sure.

I could go with a mesh one like jergerjon did in NLM but I am not sure if the mesh would go with the design I am planning. Any thoughts?

[NightrainSrt4]

Just so this fits better here in idea zone I will explain the design a bit.

As above I was thinking about the motherboard cover. I am also going to make a cover that will separate the bottom section of the case where the psu is and hdd racks from the upper section.

I have designed a couple different options for the radiator mount but need to actually see the case before I decide where I will actually put it, which determines which design I choose.

All of these are going to be made with two layers of 1/8" plexi. The innermost will be red and the outer black. Holes that are cut through will have the red hole be smaller than the black so the red shows through as an accent.

I have some basic sketches, but not sure when I'll be able to upload them. Most of my work so far has been on the inside. I am not sure how I am going to do the outside of the case, as I want to keep it subtle, as the lian-li type cases have a beautiful subtlety and I don't want to stray to far from that.

The questions above still stand, just making this fit better into idea zone. As mentioned I will be posting my ideas here, and didn't want to make another thread just to ask if motherboard covers cause too much heat buildup/deadzones.

[jbaldwinroberts]

If it has worked on other mods i dont see why it would not work for you. As far as deadzones go you could put a couple of 30mm fans into each side of the cover to move air behind it.

sorta like this

http://img2.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/b0af8325f6.jpg (http://www.freeimagehosting.net/)

joe

[NightrainSrt4]

Ya, I guess I could throw a couple small fans behind it.

I was just curious as I have seen it done in other mods, but I hadn't seen the consequences discussed. Was just curious if anyone heard of like the motherboard overheating or something. Small fans could work though I suppose.

[chaksq]

Usually the hottest parts of the motherboard: North/South bridges, RAM, and CPU have holes cut to expose the cooler. Or else it is mounted a few inches above the mainboard. If you are really worried about it they do make liquid cooling kits for everything like that.

[NightrainSrt4]

Well, my CPU and Northbridge are already watercooled and will be in the rig.

The only decent ram watercoolers I have seen appear to be the koolance ones but my two sticks of ram aren't right beside each other so I would need two of them and those are 50$ a piece. And the bag thing they use rips easily I hear.

I just haven't used a motherboard cover before and wasn't sure about its effects (ill or not) on temps. I think when I try it, if temps are too high I will put a couple 40mm fans on it on low voltage(noise) to get a bit more airflow if its needed.

[NightrainSrt4]

Well today as a birthday present to me I ordered a couple things.

From a guy on another forum I occasionally visit, I got two more of the WD 160Gb Sata2 hard drives matching the one I have currently. They are pretty much brand new, only used for ~hour before he decided to use one larger drive for the rig. He's been there as long as I have, ~2 years, and is in pretty good standing with every one so I am inclined to believe him on that.

Best part, got both them for $60 + a couple bucks to cover paypal. Not insane when you consider that the 320's are 70$ on newegg, but it is nice because the 160's are ~50-60 depending on where you look, and I wanted to get more then one drive, as I can use the extra on another rig if I need to.

I also ordered plexi from usplastic.com for the rig. This time I am doing it right and getting the colored plexi, instead of painting clear plexi.

So today's stuff so far, and looking at tubing and stuff atm comes to:

2 Western Digital 160Gb Sata Hdd's
2 sheets 24"x24"x1/8" translucent red acrylic
2 sheets 24"x24"x1/8" black acrylic
1 sheet 24" x24"x1/8" smoke grey acrylic

Got the smoke grey as I wasn't sure if I wanted to use it, or red, or the clear I have for a window.

[Okele]

I bought 2 of these cases last week. I saw one there that I was planning to go back and get for a backup unit. These cases are the best cases around for the price(clearance), and even at thier retail price of 119, its still a helluva case. I got one for myself at 48.00 and my wife said shed cut me off if I didnt get one for her, she said she had her own ideas for a mod. Of course I have to do all the work. Pft. Any grats on your case cant wait to see what you do with it.

[NightrainSrt4]

Thanks. Nice find. That's cool that your wife wants to mod as well!

I have a pretty well rounded design for the inside of the case, but haven't decided on the outside yet. I have always been a fan of the sleek clean Lian-li type lines, and now I can't come up with anything for what I want on the outside.

I don't want to do anything that would make it too tacky or anything, but I don't want it to be like every other Lian-Li case with ACRyan rad grills with accent matching acrylic underneath.

[Okele]

Thanks. Nice find. That's cool that your wife wants to mod as well!

I have a pretty well rounded design for the inside of the case, but haven't decided on the outside yet. I have always been a fan of the sleek clean Lian-li type lines, and now I can't come up with anything for what I want on the outside.

I don't want to do anything that would make it too tacky or anything, but I don't want it to be like every other Lian-Li case with ACRyan rad grills with accent matching acrylic underneath.


I think you misunderstood me. She doesnt want "to" mod, she wants "it" modded. Shes already told me what she wants and finding anything relating to the theme is a PITA. I've already started working on it but its windy season here so getting any painting done is easier said then done.

[NightrainSrt4]

Ahh I see now. I saw the "wife has ideas for a mod" and focused on that and missed the "I have to do all of the work" part lol. Well, either way, at the very least she seems to support it, well at least if she gets a cool mod out of it.

Getting around to modding here has been tough too. Its been freezing cold and with the kitten I really can't mod in the living room where I used to so I've been waiting for it to warm up all winter.

Currently working on a quick sketch-up of my internal design for the case.

[NightrainSrt4]

Well, I tried my hand at sketchup. This is only my second time using it and I haven't finished, nor spent a huge amount of time on it. I was trying to convert what I envisioned in my sketches to a digital cleaner format. Not sure I like the huge window, but just put it in there so the interior was at least visible. This is also all me, no existing models or anything like that.

http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/3448/rocketfish2vl7.png
Radiator up top. Motherboard cover in place as well as the bottom divider and the drive bay divider. This should help with cable management. Just need to spice it up a bit I think.

http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/2230/rocketfishfl2le3.png

The interior is not finished, and I haven't started on the exterior. Its late so I should head to bed. Just wanted to get progress posted to keep me motivated. I don't want to start this case until I have some sort of clear plan first.

[Okele]

I found this on another forum, Im going to take some ideas from it for my case in terms of cable management.

http://www.overclock.net/case-mod-work-logs/308748-project-dark-desire.html

[NightrainSrt4]

Hmmm...Seems a lot of our ideas are going in a similar direction. What can you do? His case looks nice though, so at least I won't have too much worries about mine looking bad.

I've changed the window a bit, but it will probably change again. The bottom section will have a cutout, and the section in front of the motherboard. Both will have their own cutouts instead of the whole panel.

[Okele]

well I cant afford water cooling atm so thats out. and Im not willing to drop 300.00 on a water cooling system because I dont know anything about them. Im planning on dividing the bottom of the case with the top. I'll probably do a mobo window and I was actually thinking about trying to figure out a way to keep the front door on without actually having to open it to power it on and use the disk drives. but I think that will require some modification to the front of the case which will be a pain I think.

[NightrainSrt4]

Ya, money spent on watercooling could def be spent better otherwise. It does look cool and gets people's attention, but other than that it doesn't do a whole lot. It did help me get some better life out of the e6300. I would have gotten a different cpu a long time ago if it didn't overclock like a beast.

Here are some new images. This time with two windows, darkened the plexi to match the smoke grey a bit better, and added WC tubes to give a better picture.

http://img413.imageshack.us/img413/1005/rocketfish2newwindow1fa3.png

http://img413.imageshack.us/img413/88/rocketfish2newwindow2wr1.png

Here's what it may look like if I used black coils
http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/2315/rocketfish2wcoilslj7.png

[Okele]

that looks pretty cool. But question. would it not be simpler to paint the bottom "window"? would be easier with the text too wouldnt it? or actually what would look cool is if you took the aluminum from the top window and raised it from the side of the case. cut out the text and used LED's behind it. would give it a frame look and light up your name and what not. Just a thought.

[NightrainSrt4]

The bottom window is to show the symbol and letters. The plexi piece is much like the divider noted in your link, except that instead of just separating the top and bottom it also encapsulates the section on the side. If you were looking at the piece from the front it would look something like

----------
|
|
|
|

Like L shaped, and the side you are seeing through the window is the side that is made with the | 's. I haven't decided on exactly how the letters would be made, but the two options I have considered is to have the red plexi behind the black and have the letters cutout. Or to cut out each letter out of red and attach them to the black via acrylic cement.

I want to shy away from paint for this mod as much as I can, if only because the last project virtually revolved around it. Yes the letters will be much harder, but its something different than what I had been doing, and I am trying to branch out a bit.

[chaksq]

I like your designs for the case. Hope it works out well for you.

Still planning on leaving mine stock, maybe just setup some proper cable management.

[NightrainSrt4]

Thanks.

I've been spending a lot of time on the design mostly because I am not allowed to have the case till May 2nd (21st Birthday) and not doing anything is driving me nuts. I really want a good design on paper/pc that I can refer to instead of winging everything like Project: Nightrain (of which, I really will get pictures up once I get proper lighting and white sheets or something).


I still have no clue what to do about the other side of the case and the front panel. Behind that door I will remake my Sunbeam fan controller using one of the actual bay covers from the case. I am thinking about modding the other bays to become stealth covers, but that might be too blan for me. IDK.

Either way, I can't come up with much for the outside of the case. I don't want it to crazy, but not too plain. That is what is tough right now.

[NightrainSrt4]

The plexi came in.

2 sheets black
2 sheets red
1 sheet grey

Turns out when usplastic.com says that the colored acrylics allow low light, they mean ~NO light. I figured the picture was just a generic old picture and assumed the translucent red was a really dark clear red that just didn't let a lot of light through. NOPE, it is pretty much your Crayola red and lets virtually no light through and is a flat color. It should still work as its only for accents but if not I will have to find some clear red.


The two hard drives came in as well. So the build will have 3 x 160Gb Sata drives.

Also am upgrading the families pc so I may get a 2.6Ghz P4, 1Gb Ram, Mobo, and Nvidia 5200 APG gpu in exchange for making the new one. I also received an old IDE 40GB hard drive from them as well.

[NightrainSrt4]

Just got the Rocketfish case today. Not sure when I am going to get around to getting started as finals are this coming week and such.

I will say one thing, I was astounded at the build quality of the case. It is amazing. For those reviews that said the side panels were crappy and thin, ugghhh. Yes they are 1mm thin or whatever. But wow is this case built great. I am amazed. Then again all I have had are under 100$ steel cases. It is extremely sturdy compared to other cases I have used and weighs a fraction of what they did. Amazing case for $47.

When I get a chance I will get some pics up.