Lexa

Thank you all very much guys. Your support really means a lot to me.

I go back to school tomorrow kicking off the last 11 days of high school FOR EVER (before exams). I doubt I will get you an update before then but I hope I will have a chance to work on her a bit more. Once my mate gives me back my Dremel I can finish the RAM cooler and perhaps sometime this week I will paint the fans (it's meant to be warm). After than I have only the CCFL cables to solder up, make 1 (YAY) more mesh cover and then install.

She has taken me a long time to make I know (about 14-15 months now I think), the idea and vision was constantly changing but now I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Christmas is my maximum deadline. She will definably be finished well before then.

Once again thanks for all your ongoing support. If you have any questions about something I have made/modded feel free to post em up and I will try to answer them to the best of my ability.

WOOHOO!!! Time for a very very small update lol

Well it is Friday afternoon and a lovely 29*c outside so it seemed like a perfect time to paint my fans.
Here are all the fans with their cables bagged up and with the blades painted with some yellow gel highlighter:

After I gave the blades a coat of clear varnish the fans looked like this:

I wish I had some pics to show you with the fan but my camera only captured the blue glow, not the green center, bummer.

I know it looks a bit patchy but the highlighter kept spreading across the smooth plastic surface. You can't notice this when the fans are running though.

I still haven't decided whether or not to paint the 60mm fans from the RAM cooler. I am going to wait and see how that turns out before I make my decision. The last fan I have to paint is the one on my Thermaltake Extreme Spirit II northbridge cooler. As the cooler is being used I will paint it when I am assembling the system.

I also finished filing the cuts on my RAM cooler:

Since my friend still has my Dremel I couldn't do any more work to it but I did do this:

I traced the letters from the cooler onto a piece of gloss black mesh I had laying around from a pair of old speakers. This mesh will be cut out and placed in the cuts. Green plexi will then be put behind the mesh. Should look really cool.

Well that's all for me, better get started on the homework, gonna be a late one tomorrow night ;). Until then...

Happy Modding.

@mittelmeier - Thanks, I like how they turned out a lot.
@Karbon Killa - Well I only have 6 days of classes left so after that I will hopefully be able to get her all put together rather quickly.

The last few things left on my list to do are:
1. Finish soldering up the CCFL leads.
2. Make a mesh cover for the gap in the HDD cover plate.
3. Finish the RAM cooler.
4. Cable management.

After that there are just a couple of little touch ups I need to do (nothing major) then I can install the system and water cool this baby, finally lol.

Well guys, my last lessons were on Monday so I have had this week to finish off remaining assignments and a few other tedious stuff. I have finished all that crap so now it's time to mod ;).

Lets start off with a piece I have made in hindsight of a design fault (mine not NZXT).
See these gaps?:

Ugly aren't they? Time to make a cover, mesh naturally ;).
Drew up the design on what is left of my MeshX panel:

Then I roughly cut around the design with tin snips:

Time to get the Dremel out.
I cut the cover out and cleaned up the edges:

I then bend the cover into shape:

Turned out pretty good I think :).

Time for the test fit, YAY no ugly hole lol:

http://img402.imageshack.us/content....0079603we8.jpg

I drilled the holes and time for another test fit:

Fits perfectly.

Now time to paint:
I primed and painted the cover and this is the result:

Final install:

I think it turned out pretty well. Some of the paint did chip off around the screws and I will retouch this before the final complete install.

Next up on the list was the side intake fan.
I spliced the cable and added a male and female 3.5mm headphone jack and also sleeved the cable black. This will make taking the side panel a breeze.
Pics:

Then I installed it on the side panel:

I also have to add the original dust trap which will be installed on the rear of the fan. this just makes it more convenient to clean. The dust trap will be held on with the sale bolts and domed nuts as the rest of the mod.

While I was attaching the other fan to the Side panel I thought I may as well install the front intake fan:

Routed the cable:

And last but not least I found a use for the black thumb screws I brought. They will be perfect to use to attach the motherboard.
I attached the thumbscrews to the stand offs so I wouldn't lose them lol:

Each thumbscrew has a silicon washer attached to the bottom of the screw. This is to ensure there will be no short between the motherboard and the screw.

Well that's it for now. I have my Dremel back so I can finish off the RAM cooler and then I just have to finish off the CCFL cabling and route the rest and I am done. I have to go into school tomorrow and early next week to finish off some work so I may get some more done this weekend. Until then...

Happy Modding.

Yep not a lot at all.
Just to re cap for the rest of you.
1. I need to finish the RAM cooler
2. Finish the CCFL cable soldering
3. Sleeve and route a few more cables
4. Water cool and install hardware

That's about it lol.

Once again guys, thank you all for your on going support, comments and votes for MOTM over at Bit-Tech. Sadly I am losing but I don't care, I am just honored to get nominated.

Today I didn't need to go into school so I got stuck into finishing my RAM cooler. I actually stated this on the weekend but ran into some problems, I will explain when I get to it later.

First I made a whole new batch of letters, the other ones were crap lol:

I then cut out some bits of plexi to glue in behind the letters I cut from the face plate:

I used some clear roofing silicon to glue the plexi in place:

Looks pretty good doesn't it?:

I left this to dry overnight to let the silicon dry properly. I came out the next day to drill the excess plexi out through the holes but the silicon was really weak and the piece of plexi kept falling off. I re-glued the plexi using an excessive amount of silicon and used a piece of wooden garden stake to keep the plexi pushed up toght against the mesh cooler.
Pic of the clamping phase:

I left the cooler like this overnight to let the silicon dry properly.

This morning I went back to the shed and got out my drill ;).
I drilled out all of the excess plexi from the front of the cooler. This is how the plexi pieces looked after:

Now you can't see any green plexi front on (except the letter of course).
I then glued the black letters over the green plexi:

I then installed the fans so I could get an idea of how it looked:

It actually looks a lot greener, my camera just doesn't pic kit up too well.

I was contemplating painting the fans to look like the rest of mine (green blades) but I think the plain blue would look better for this piece. It will make you look at the letters, not the fans.

The cooler in now 80% complete. All I need to do is cut a small piece of green plexi to fit in the hole in the top left of the RAM cooler. I am going to engrave "Project:" into the piece of plexi so the RAM cooler will read "Project: LEXA". One that is done I won't have to pick up my Dremel for a very long time :(.

I also finished off a few other bits today.
I Installed the stock mesh dust trap to the rear of the side intake fan using the same bolts and domed nuts as the rest of the mod. Looks really clean IMO.
Pics:

That's now finished.

I had another one of the fan grills which I installed on the side intake fan so I installed it to the rear exhaust fan:

I also got stuck into some cable management.
Here are the floppy bays which will be concealing the majority of my cables:

Currently you can see the power cables for the side intake fan, the 240mm radiator fans and the power lead to the RAM cooler. The only thing that's missing is the CCFL wire harness.
Here is a shot of the motherboard tray:

It's pretty neat ATM but there are a few more cables to go there yet.

Well that's all for now. I am going to mark up a piece of plexi which will fit in the RAM cooler later, I may even get around to working on the CCFL harness. Currently I leave you at 97% (case) completion WOOHOO!!! Until then...

Happy Modding.

@blue - Thanks mate. Yeah it was the easiest solution but not something that was easy lol. Took me around 40mins-1hour to successfully drill out all of the plexi lol. My arm was killing me haha.

Thanks for the comment and thanks for the +rep Vitzy^. I am glad it is my mod which dragged you from the darkness and made you register lol.

The depth of the cooler is (from the outside) is 1.7cm (17mm). The alu which the cooler is made of is 1mm thick. This leaves you 16mm to work with on the inside of the cooler. The fans themselves are 11mm thick. So in total you have a 5mm gap between the fans and the top of the cooler (the fans sit level with the base, RAM side, of the cooler). The plexi I used was 3mm thick so I roughly have a 2mm gap between the plexi and the fans.

I don't mind at all if you use my idea, feel free to use any of my ideas. That's what modding is about, sharing ideas and experience. I am glad you are enjoying my mod and once again thanks for the comment.

Well guys I have a little surprise for you. I worked my ass off yesterday when I should have been getting homework done before I go away on Monday but no no no, I had to mod.

After 16months and 19days (I think lol), LEXA is finished. Yes you heard me finished, well the case is anyway. I still have to finish the RAM cooler.

Before we get to the pics of the finished case here Is how the CCFL harness turned out:

It works perfectly, lights the CCFL and the LED in the switch.

And here are a few shots of how the cabling in the floppy bays turned out:

Now onto the pics of LEXA. I warn you in advance that the case is dirty and the pics are bad. For the final shoot I will give her a wash to remove the fingerprints and take some proper pics.

I hope you all enjoy those pics. I am really happy with how the chassis itself turned out. I am going away on Monday (coming back Friday) so don't expect any updates until after then. I have some school work to finish before I go away so that takes priority over the RAM cooler sadly :(. Until then...

Happy Modding.

Yeah the case is finished but the mod is still rolling. I am hoping to get the RAM cooler done tomorrow and hopefully the system installed in the arvo and let the W/C run in for 24hrs.

Thanks a lot for the rep man, here is some for your efforts.

Hey guys, I have some good news and some bad news.

The good news is that I Have started the final "Project:" engraving for the RAM cooler.

The bad news is that my Dremel is now broken. I cut out the piece of plexi that was required and when I attached the engraving bit (not using the flex shaft) my Dremel decided it would be funny to get stuck on full speed. On all the speed setting my Dremel is running flat out, I don't want to attempt to engrave like this. I now have to wait until tomorrow until I can take the Dremel back to the place I brought it from and they will probably send it to America for repairs, such a head F**K!!!. Looks like someone doesn't want me to finish this mod lol.

Well looks like this probably wont be finished before Christmas now :(.

I'll keep ya posted.