The Thermaltake mod turned into a custom build.

[alexanderH]

I need a new computer for school in september, and my buddy had a thermaltake case just lying around. It is old and beaten up, but I was going to cut most of it out/off anyways. Long story short, my plan was to gloss it up and add some lighting and keep it a WIP as far as hardware goes while I paid for items. However after a few weeks worth of work on it I realized it was VERY difficult to do as much reworking to the case as I wanted to do. and as such I am now building from scratch basically.
So this worklog is for the original mod which I WILL get back to when I have more money and resources. and then I will worklog my new project when I commence work on it.
So here are the pictures!
photos hosted on www.flickr.com
You can find the whole worklog's worth of photos at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9003460@N02/sets/72157600401060078/

A naked shell...
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1103/570564741_305c00d734.jpg
The backing has been cut-out of the tower.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1325/823785736_8c608222f8.jpg
And so has the drive stack. This was the ugliest thing to look at from the side-window of previous. Hopefully we can dress this up a bit.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1308/570564505_a99ace3712.jpg

[Omega]

I use lotechdesigns.com/host, works very well.

[alexanderH]

Hey everyone. As I am now working until 8-9pm I run out of working time. Unfortunately when working in a condo you have to be very concious of loud noises at such hours. So I will take this time each night to update the worklog.
This should fill in the past month of part-time work.
Comments, suggestions, and anything else is much appreciated and welcomed. I need some cool ideas. Because right now I am just making a nice black/mirror finish. I still need to find switches for power/reset to fit into the mod. and obviously stuff to make the front look great. If you've any ideas let me know!
Thanks in advance!
Onto the pictures:


The Power Supply I got from my bud Marc with the Tower.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1435/570138982_1030272787.jpg
Some of the remains of the original Thermaltake tower.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1267/570563353_a9a9e23fa5.jpg
And more remains...
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1409/570563201_99cfb74235.jpg
and what was a very good temp display and fanspeed controller.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1396/570563055_d6263fd7df.jpg
decorated by the mane who doesn't drink? HAH he's a liar.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1217/570138028_0f8af85b28.jpg
Almost fully naked now. And you must be wondering... "where did the black top go?" Well look on the bottom. See the black edge? Yeah so I turned the tower upside down as that was the intended layout. How does it make sense to have heat being pushed down in a case? heat rises so why not let it naturally flow that way? With the P/S on the bottom and hopefully all the cards with their fans blowing up I will get some decreased temps and increased airflow...
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1243/570137948_27b24f2de4.jpg
Disassembly took far too long. there is so much stuff in these thermaltake cases. If only they looked and worked better...
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1315/570562743_cbe4d49814.jpg
What's this? A new backside to the ugly thermaltake? It looks so much better and it's not even painted yet!
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1096/823785956_385bf5323e.jpg
Who looks at the back of the tower anyways you might ask? Who cares! why does it have to be that much uglier than the rest of the case?
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1041/823785882_1ff06979bc.jpg
Alright so after enough time with the precious thermaltake I realized adding a plexi-aluminum finish looked AWESOME. but it was a complete bitch of a tower to work with. so much bended metal and grooves that made it impossible to work with. So my alternative? Build a case! Using 90 degree aluminum edges I purchased from my former employer, the Home Depot. Too bad I never worked with them before and I had to fasten them all together with screws and such. Here's what happned... I cut the first pieces.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1234/992069940_910c0ba5f0.jpg
Cut them all to size... or so I thought.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1321/992069192_9361060e6c.jpg
Ok so there are a million nuts and bolts on this build. I would re-do it a lot differently. But as I am between jobs at the moment and I need a working PC I cannot afford to start over. So I will make this look a hell of a lot better on the outside. Besides it's just framing right? It is more than strong enough.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1263/992078700_04bad29070.jpg
Almost done building frame...
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1276/991228135_3a9ae95e6c.jpg
Done!... the frame.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1093/992080508_69df10a6b3.jpg
another picture.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1036/991229341_1500ddd069.jpg
So I am going to use the motherboard panel from the thermaltake. Well that is the plan for now anyways.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1320/991231175_a35a851a2f.jpg
What was my first beef with thermaltake towers? You can see WAY too much internal metal. So I marked off the tray and will cut that out very soon. But for now, you get black marker.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1195/991231771_1d95a62ce7.jpg
Hooray, a piece of plexi has finally been cut for the new build. And it nicely covers the bottom side of the tower... LOL.
Anyways the first cut turned out pretty ****ty, but I cut larger than needed for a reason. Too bad all I have to make these edges nice is a hand file and sanding blocks.... I really need some income to get me proper tools. So while it is not perfect. I HOPEFULLY will get proper tools to re-do this. Or enough funds to order milled pieces and save myself trouble. And yes, there is a clear plastic cover on it.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1109/991233767_14d3e9e3d8.jpg
And now there is a top! This definately turned out better as far as cuts go. It was still a mess though. I need better tools.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1086/991232339_b1aed2cd43.jpg
And there is the top, properly fastened. Hopefully I will get the aluminum backing cut for them soon so you can get a glimpse of what the end result will be. A nice Black Mirror finish essentially. It looks GREAT.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1083/991232745_0be66763ed.jpg
Here you can see the difference in size between your usual ATX case and my custom built. It will fit all of my wires nicely hidden! And fit's perfectly onto my tiny ass desk.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1055/991234875_92430c40a2.jpg
Hooray for breadboard from grade 10. It provides a great test area for LED's and other small circuitry.
As you can see I have a variety of LED colours and sizes. 3mm, 5mm, 10mm. Waiting for my colours in 5mm and 3mm. All I have in 3mm right now is blue, and it is BRIGHT. and the 5mm is only UV. but it looks GREAT. in 10mm I have Blue, Red, White, Orange, Yellow, Green.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1332/991220127_68c9254456.jpg
Notice the huge light on the left hand side. The blue. That is a 3mm LED. and it dwarfs the light emitted from the 10mm leds. Do we have a winner? Maybe, but that white LED puts off some HOT light too. Maybe just what I need for some candy-apple red accents inside the tower? We will see.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1163/992077002_1facf15a7f.jpg

More tomorrow night guys!

[elbarto241]

your off to a really good start, done loose that momentum. BTW love the LED shot :D

[alexanderH]

Thanks barto! I am going at a pretty steady pace. Which is encouraging. I finally get to see some shape. It took a while, but not comes the hard part of sticking it all in the case, and setting it up nice. I'm expecting a lot of trial and error. But it will get there.
And the LED's look great, you are correct.

[elbarto241]

nice to see a modder going at a good pace, many mods out there get ruined and half-assed because they were in a hurry :D

im intrigued on how your going to use those LEDs . keep it coming

[lukeisthecoolest]

nice to see a modder going at a good pace, many mods out there get ruined and half-assed because they were in a hurry

WOWOWOOWOWOWOOWOWOWO speak for urself!

ur looking at a modder built for speeed! ;)

[Remy]

Hey man, that case has some real potential in it. I really like what youve done so far; especially like the LED shots you took. Speaking of LEDs... Can you post a pick of your breadboard with the LEDs in it? I plan to use some LEDs (UV & Blue) in my case mod. I have a good idea of how I will get them all wired up, but I'd like to compare it with yours.

THanks mate

[alexanderH]

Sure thing bud! LED's are nice and simple, along with resistors. From what I thought I remembered about resistors, they only worked going one way and when wired backwards you were up the creek. But I have since learned that this is not the case.
Keep in mind that the breadboard really doesn't represent how the LED's will be wired when the project is done. But I will explain after the sweet pictures :P.

This picture here shows the chunk of the breadboard. Also you can see how for simplicity on the far left there is a red line and a blue line. That indicates a neutral run and a positive run for those two rows. Meaning you can plug anything into the blue run to lead back to neutral and the red to power. But I'm sure we all understand that. Anyways, one leg of the resistor is connected to power. Other leg is connected to a row which now has the positive of the LED plugged into it. And the neutral of the LED is plugged into the neutral column.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1339/994387226_3a017f2730.jpg
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1085/993536671_398ab60603.jpg
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1290/994386106_bcd12bf08f.jpg
As you can see I have strung all of my colours on to the board for a colour test. I wanted to test them for clarity, and to decide where/when and how I will use them. I also have a couple other pictures to add to the thread. Teasers or ideas if you will... take a look.

Woo yeah! Glass Tile, awesome huh? Heavy ass stuff though.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1358/994552770_09502731a3.jpg
Keep in mind that it is very hard to capture the colours of the glass tile on camera in my present situation. But I hope I can give you a better idea of what they look like and could look like in a case build/mod project.

[The boy 4rm oz]

I Like that original side panel with the mesh and plexi. Looks really good, hope you keep it, could do with a new coat of paint though.

[alexanderH]

I Like that original side panel with the mesh and plexi. Looks really good, hope you keep it, could do with a new coat of paint though.

Well it doesn't fit on the case anymore. And the honeycomb protects the the tower from electric build up, so Thermaltake says anyways. I have had the case long enough to no longer appreciate it's look lol.
I may end up getting rid of it in the end. But for now it has a home in my messy bedroom.

Updates will follow tonight with more work, as I have been away for the last 4 or 5 days. I don't even know how long it's been :p .

[alexanderH]

Sorry for the lack of updates everyone. Lost my camera in my mess of a room which is due to the computer build. Ironic? I think so.
Anyways, I don't have the pictures downloaded yet and I am still working on the computer as we speak but tonight will bring a fresh update with all new pictures. There may be a little gap in the pictures as I have continued work without the camera. So I will do my best to explain it all when the pictures come.

See you tonight!

[Blackout]

looking forword to it

[alexanderH]

I figured while I let things dry off I'd post an update of todays work and show ya what's been happening the past week.


Over the past week, there has been slow progress. A lot of things that you will never see but make a fairly significant improvement. Unfortunately as I had no camera I can only describe what has been done. I modified the inside of the PSU for air flow. Most importantly, I cleaned it up. No more dust, no more **** blowing around in there. I finished the backside of the case for the exception of sanding and buffing the plexi. But it's structure is complete including sanding, priming and painting. You will catch a small glimpse of that in the pictures below, but not too much as the final look will remain hidden until the end:):banana:

Anyways on to today's update!
I finished cutting all the rest of the plexi for the exception of the front of the case. It looks like I will need more material to finish that bad boy off, so for the time being I am going to work on getting all the hardware installed and working before I worry about the front. As I want it to look good, I will spend some time designing it to look great. So that will be the last part of the build/mod.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1354/1164814703_3c920c1225.jpg
I finished drilling all the holes in the case, as I will be losing my drill for a few days. Sadly this is what happens when you share tools. But atleast I had enough warning to get the holes done so I have work to do while it is away.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1306/1164810945_71512761ea.jpg
Drilling, ahh yes drilling. Too bad I have to drill into my fresh paint job! I forgot to account for the side panels before I painted. Atleast you get a little glimpse of the nice shiny black finish I got! It looks so good.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1104/1164809771_9b49f4b536.jpg
After all this drilling I wanted to be sure everything fit perfectly, and well it did. But being that I am using over 50 nuts, 60 bolts and 120 washers, it is a little time consuming to put everything back together and take it apart all over again. Anyways here is a shot with yep, 4 of the 6 panels on.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1125/1165666014_d4cdb0b2e6.jpg
And a shot including the 5th of the 6 panels installed. It looks good under all that scratched plexi cover!
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1255/1164812429_a2848ea198.jpg
After disassembling I took this shot, another sneak peak at the final look. Or is it? Hah, it's the back section less the parts which still enable this build to be called a mod.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1255/1164812429_a2848ea198.jpg
So piece one of what's left from the good old thermaltake. It is the mobo support board. Well half of it anyways. To allow space for wires and to look a hell of a lot more pleasing to the eye I cut off everything that carries further than the mobo. And painted it black, because you never know, they might invent a translucent ATX board sometime, and I will own it!
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1427/1164815511_3bf3af39bc.jpg
And the other modified piece of the old thermaltake, it is the port/card frame. Whatever you choose to call it. You fasten your cards to it when you plug em in. Anyways it's a nice shiny black as well, and it greatly helped in the manufacturing of my back panel!
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1073/1164816747_077b6acfe0.jpg

That's it for now... I can't say tonight because I apparently don't sleep much right now. And I know I will paint overnight.
What's on the agenda for the next few days/updates?
-Build drive stack.
-Design front of tower
-Design lighting rig for the pig
-Install and test hardware

I think the drive stack will be pushed back for a few days as I will require a drill for that. But otherwise you may see some drawings and demos of the lighting and front of the tower. And then hopefully you will get an update from the machine itself!

Please feel free to direct and questions of comments my way! I'm new at this modding/building process and am eager to absorb information... that's why I'm here anyways.... I think.

Oh and a :banana: for good measure:up:

[alexanderH]

As promised, another update. This however comes a LOT earlier than I had hoped or planned for. However this will be explained over the course of the update, a small one which I might add.

So after all the fitting I did today it was finally time to take it all apart again to prime and paint it. So here you see all my plexi panels which are nicely labeled by the way... haha. Anyways there they are leaning, waiting to become a computer again.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1076/1168481804_7ca91987f0.jpg
And my nice metal sheeting.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1218/1167626805_40f6e2be5e.jpg
If you are still confused as to it's use, the sheets of metal are being painted and will sit behind the plexi to give the plexi a nice glossy mirror finish. It looks great when its done!
Anyways here is my bin of goods that help transport all small things down 7 floors to the basement.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1414/1168482950_d27d6db136.jpg
Onto sanding, which I had invisioned being a huge pain. BUT due in large part to fine grit sanding blocks, which I have 20 of:eek: I managed to get it handled in a good fashion. And frankly that made me very happy and helped the end result a lot.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1054/1167627793_d424f36342.jpg
Believe it or not these pieces looked TERRIBLE before I got my hands on them:) They look damn near perfect now.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1081/1167628179_4e8ca620f7.jpg
And more of the mess I had to sand:
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1249/1168484216_ca38dd7940.jpg
Ahh a first coat of primer! It looks so much better already, but you can see all the imperfections in the metal. Makes for a nice cloud effect though.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1017/1168486814_bb1b6403d4.jpg
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1042/1167630893_b9ee49174e.jpg
As I said, I would paint through the night, because apparently sleep evades me. Luckily painting does not violate the noise rule in resedential neighbourhoods. Turn out not many people are up and about at 3 in the morning, that is except for the drunk people that couldn't believe I was spray painting.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1366/1167629853_851f4e3482.jpg
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1427/1167630391_097f897e5a.jpg
As you can see, one can of Primer down and one to go!
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1247/1167632313_27cf79eb3d.jpg
Or so I thought, turned out I got the explosive spray can. After my nice sanding and priming I got chunks all over the place. Including on some other painting I was doing, which was still tacky and completely ruined the paint. Not to mention the paint on the camera. So that has now been set aside for imminent cleaning. What a piss off, and what's worse is I have to re-do a bunch of sanding, priming and painting. So I have to wait until the stores open at NOON tomorrow argh. This is one unhappy builder!
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1427/1168488158_30df3f6820.jpg

Another update will follow once I get the NFG can of spray paint returned and hopefully have them give me a replacement and 2 cans to redo my work.
But that is fairly optimistic.

[Drew]

Exploding paint cans suck the big one.

Have some rep for a scratch build and to make you feel better!

[alexanderH]

thanks Drew. I replaced the can today, so hopefully I can get everything patched up and finished off tonight. Going to be a fairly quiet night tonight though. Was gone all day. So the Dry and cure time will be just about all night after the second coat of black. Plus I still have to prime/paint the other sides of the main panels.
So enough work for one night. Will update later.

[scar~face]

the way i see it, if it wasn't hard, it would be fun. the modding gods are just testing your patients.

[Drew]

just testing your patients.

I had my patients tested once.

3 had actually died from natural causes.

The rest were 'unconfirmed'.

Not been practicing medicine since.....

[scar~face]

I had my patients tested once.

3 had actually died from natural causes.

The rest were 'unconfirmed'.

Not been practicing medicine since.....

hahaha, ill take note of that

[alexanderH]

So my computer build is going to be nearing an end all too soon. My dad aint happy with my mess of stuff lying around the condo. Having 3 adults in a 2 bedroom condo is brutal. So needless to say, I have to get my drive bay installed, extend and try to hide the wires, install some cooling fans and work on the front panel in spare time and space. Unfortunately I cannot afford to continue either. Lawyers cost far too much :( So I will take some pictures of the progress so far, and as it is finished. And then I will start drafting up ideas for the next build.

I learned a huge thing with this. If you do not design even the bolt locations, a custom build can be a BITCH. I thought I had all this space and I have bolts that don't line up, bolts that are too short, bolts that are too long, too many bolts! Also planning on how to properly assemble a case so that it can be easily modded, or opened up. Thumbscrews I guess would be operative here.
But regardless. I will think up a proper build/mod and go from there. However I am really liking the look I got with the PSU on the bottom of the case under the Mobo.