wow i really like thAT case looks pretty cool.. waiting for parts sucks
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wow i really like thAT case looks pretty cool.. waiting for parts sucks
I will say this much, though: MNPCTech does not keep you waiting. I ordered over the weekend, so obviously, it wouldn't ship then...but shortly after I got to work this morning (and I come in early), they sent my tracking number - and they're an hour or so behind me!
lol nice i got to check mine.. should be on its way tonight here tomorrow
header is done!
Hey, thanks, buddy. Looks good. I really debated whether or not I should ask for one since this is such a vanilla mod...but I'm glad I did.Quote:
Originally Posted by jdbnsn
Now the next mod I have in the planning phase...
no problem, glad you like it!
+rep
Thanks for stopping by, Sarge.
Since I took today off (couldn't face going back to work just yet:lick:) I actually got some time to do some work. Boy am I glad for that: I got my order from MNPCTech in the mail right before I packed the wife and dog in to the car and left town. I was thinking about it all weekend.
Today's main focus was the front turbines. As was posted, you know that I already cut the holes in the bezel for them, and now I had the duct-work pieces ready to go.
This test fit was so that I could mark out the inner part of the case so that I knew where to cut fan holes. I decided to cut an oval instead of two circles because A.) it's a lot easier and B.) I may someday feel like making a new bezel with an oval opening like this project was originally planned.
Here we go - all cut:
I needed to test fit the ducts, and figure out how much to cut off of them.
Now, the first one, I used a hack saw as you generally read as the right way to do it. For the most part this is true, but I used a Dremel for the second one. To me it was easier to cut, but required more clean-up afterwards with the burs of plastic. If you do this,remember my tips-n-tricks bit a few posts back about melted plastic and eye protection.
Once this was done, in they went:
B-but Crippler - you said duct tape was a no-no.
Er...Shut up. I mean: Hey! You were paying attention! Yes, it is not desirable, but in this case, it held the ducts from shifting so that I could do this:
Once they were secured from the back, I could peel the tape off the front:
See? Everything makes sense in the world again. Now, the fun and messy part. Yep, more Bondo.
Here, I glopped on the "hair" filler again and sanded it down. Doesn't look bad, but as per usual, it left a lot of craters that needed filling in, so I turned once again to regular filler:
(Note: I generally use a rubber spatula and spread the filler on like frosting. However, this time I did my patented and non-FDA-approved "two fingers and a smear" approach.)
Much, much better. Now, it was getting to be just a matter of filling "potholes" and cleaning it up some more.
As I have been doing in the past, left-over filler is got slapped on to the bottom of the bezel to continue building that up and filling it in.
So, after some more sanding and a hole drilled for the power button, and here we are:
Not too shabby if I say so myself. It still needs some more cosmetic filling here and there, but I honestly didn't feel like mixing up another batch of that Bondo tonight.
The other part that I worked on was the side panel. As you may have noticed in past pictures, the body lines weren't matching up to my satisfaction.
So, I smeared on some more hair filler on after I roughed it up, and then ran a razor between the two pieces before it firmed up so that I could still take it apart.
After some more sanding, things were looking a lot better:
Obviously, there are a lot of holes to fill, but that will be my next work session. At that point, I will also be able to fill some more pock-marks on the front.
Mini update: I can only assume that the lack of comments since my last update are because you are all awaiting the next step with bated breath. :D Well, sorry - I've been busy.
The one night I had to work this week was taken up by my side project of making my HD cooler (which is working phenomenally, BTW.) I'm hoping that I'll get a chance to get something done tonight or tomorrow.
Last night, I secured the nose-cone spinners that I need for the fan turbines, so that part will be coming soon. I'm trying to decide if I want the noses to be black to match the future case color, or green to match the LED fans themselves. Any of you have an opinion?
More as it develops.
I'm not a big fan of lights on the outside of the case ( or even visible on the outside) in a home theatre application. If this is going to be sitting on your tv stand, it'll be a distraction (or even an annoyance) when you are trying to watch something in a dim room.
That being said, I know that not everyone shares the same opinion, so it's just my two cents. :)
On that note, make them green to match the fans, otherwise a black cone on a green fan might look strange. :)
Yes, this was a consideration of mine before I started. The fans I have are actually not terribly bright. In fact, in a lit room (I rarely ever watch TV in the dark) these ones are no more visible/distracting than any of the LCD displays I have on other items below the TV as it is. Good catch on that one, though.
Here I am with your weekend update:
Today's top story: Further bondo work.
When I flipped the case over, quite frankly, I felt that this side looked just ugly.
Just like the other side, I wanted to get the body lines matching up better. Once again, I needed to rough it up so that the filler had something to stick to.
Here it is after the first round of sanding:
As per usual, I now applied a layer of the pink stuff:
Then for the usual round of touch-ups. NOTE: here's another case of "I'm an idiot sometimes." I forgot to put something under the case while I was sanding this side, so I marked the bottom all up. Therefore, I needed to touch up some filler on that side again.
Now, aside from some finishing sanding, and some USB ports I decided I'm going to add the front, the outside is about ready to start painting.
What I plan to do tomorrow is some internal work to mount the fans and that will probably be it until my USB supplies arrive next week and I get some time to go out and buy paint.
Looks like you're getting pretty close to finishing. I have to paint mine. That beige textured plastic on my front bezel is starting to bother me.
This for the NES pc, or another project?
But at any rate, beige boxes are both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, people like us can't stand them and are the whole reason behind why we mod - on the other hand, they're blank canvases for us to work on. All these "pre-modded" cases out there are making it harder and (ironically) more expensive to get plan boxes to work on.
ADDITIONAL MINI-KINDA-UPDATE: I have now decided that this case is going to be silver rather than black. I put the in-process case in the entertainment center where it will live, and see that (aside from the TV) more things are gray than black...so, as cool as it would look itself, it just won't look right with everything else.
This is for another project that I have already started, but haven't posted yet. Right now, I think I have all of the plain boxes that I need, almost all from the trash.
The ones that seem really hard to find are ones with nice, flat fronts - no air intakes, or molded curves...you know, so you can make your own air intakes and molded curves. :lick:
Another micro-mini update: I'm still waiting on some parts, so work is some-what on hold. As mentioned, I wanted to add some USB ports to the front, so I'm awaiting those hookups. I ordered that cable, plus some impulse buys of fan-filters, rubber case feet and a needed fan cable from FrozenCPU on Friday. The package actually arrived yesterday, which is fast and appreciated, but - wrong USB cable. It was a simple mistake on their part, and they were more than helpful in getting it resolved. I just need to wait a little while more for the part. No biggie.
This is giving me a chance to go back over the project and tweak a few parts that I wasn't happy with. So, really, things work out. It's always good to be forced to slow down and take another look at things.
One other note: Luke122's comment below made me a bit paranoid :rolleyes:, so, since the system itself is working, I watched some TV last night with all the fans hooked up. Being that they aren't in the case, they were brighter than they'll be in the finished project. Thankfully, they didn't distract me at all. So that's good.
Sorry for that, I didnt mean to get you worried about it.. I'm just the kind of person who tends to focus on little annoyances, and get way too carried away with them. I bought a home theatre a few years ago, and my receiver had an adjustable display on the front so you could dim it.
I wonder how hard it would be to set up a dimmer system for your fans.. ;)
Oh, don't worry about about it, buddy. I was just picking on you. Truth is, you merely got me thinking, that's all. Plus which, it was easy enough for me to check.
Also, assuming I get a chance to UL the pictures, I have some shots of the system test fit together in the case.
Hey! We're back! Someone spill coffee on the servers?
At any who, here is this morning's update:
As I had mentioned before, waiting for parts gave me a chance to redo some parts I wasn't pleased with. The main part of importance was redoing the fan hole on the chassis.
I didn't care for how the fans would mount, nor the solidness of it, so I put a piece of metal in and remarked the holes.
Here it is, cut with fans mounted (with and without bezel):
Here, I temporarily put the nose cones on. I stuck them loosely with tape. (You can tell this by the fact that the lower one started to fall off right as I snapped the picture.)
Okay...nose cones removed again, it was time to test fit the whole system before I paint it. It is certainly a tight fit getting it all in there. In fact, I ended up ordering a shorter, round IDE cable to allow better air-flow.
So, everything in place and closed up, and here we go:
Now, as soon as I get the gumption to take everything back out, I can get it ready for paint!
Hey all! For those of you still reading, welcome to another weekend update!
The end is in sight, and things are progressing very swiftly. This weekend, I actually began on painting. First off is the chassis. If you remember, here is where we left it:
Most of the upper part of the back is sanded Bondo, which I am hoping will be blended with the metal when painted. After using compressed air to plow off the dust, and a quick cleaning with glass cleaner, I applied a few coats of self-etching primer to the chassis.
Not too shabby - and, yes, the bondo section is getting covered nicely. For the main color of the chassis, I decided to go with black. This is mainly because I had originally wanted to do the whole thing in black, but it wouldn't match the other equipment where it was going to live. Since I had a can of black paint, and no one would see it, I figured - what the heck?
It's unfortunate that no one is going to see it, because I think it looks quite good. Here is a shot of it with the front fans mounted with rubber vibration grommets.
Are the fans touching in the middle?
Looks great in black, I still think you should go ahead with the build in black, since the finished product will look somewhat like a subwoofer, it would be good place down beside the stand, rather than on it.
I thought that it might work better if I split this update in to a few sections.
Another part that I took care of today was the spinners for the turbine fans. Here they are, roughed up to aid adhesion.
No, I didn't paint them red - that just happens to be the last color I painted on this rack.
Primer:
Final color:
There we go, they're ready to go. I'll probably attach them to the fans tomorrow.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Luke122
First question: No, the fans are not touching. There is a slight gap between them, as that was needed in order for the them to line up with the duct work on the front bezel.
As for the second question, it's funny that you should mention a sub woofer - that's actually the reason that I had decided to make it silver, as my woofer is silver. :)
Sorry for the horrendous picture...My camera doesn't take good ones from across the room:
Next chunk is the outer panels. Here is theyare , sanded, cleaned and ready to go:
After a light coating, certain imperfections become more clear and then need to be fixed with spot putty:
This was true of both pieces, but after a little work, a full coat of primer is applied:
Finally for this weekend, the bezel.
Like the side panels, it needed some work before-hand with some spot putty.
Also, it need some modification to add a "light bar" I put together for the HDD and power LEDs:
I had originally planned to make these a part of a unit containing USB ports, but after looking at the cable when it arrived, I decided that it was going to be too much work and more complicated than I wanted to get in to for a projec that really didn't need them.
Here it is with hole cut and bar inserted:
Then, the bar is trimmed down to fit:
...and some more spot putty to fill in around the edges...
Don't worry, the putty comes off the plexi rather easily:
After that, I placed some carefully trimmed tape over it and gave it the first coat of primer:
Once again, some more pock marks and such appeared after this coat, so I patched them up.
And that's about it for this weekend. There will be some more work during the week, most likely, and I will keep you all posted.
Nice! So the box will go on the left side of the rack then? :D
Quote:
Originally Posted by Luke122
Yep. And the nice thing is that the fan ducts (even given the fact that they're lit) will go very nicely with the front of the woofer. So, yes, although I really wanted this in black - the silver is really turning out to be the better choice.
i wanna see that light bar looks cool i need power and hdd lights in my case....
Yay! More updates.
We're in the home stretch here.
Currently, the glue is drying on the nose cones, as I attached them to the fans. First step was to remove the stickers from them.
After that, it was a simple matter of eye-balling them and centering them on the fan.
Returning to the painted panels. Here they are, one painted silver and one still silver:
I painted the other and left them sit to dry. Then, it was back to the bezel:
All patched up and prepped for paint.
I added another coat of primer, and then several coats of silver:
NOTE: A trick of the light sure makes the part of the bezel in the lower side of the picture look dented. I assure you - it is not.
Final touch-up and assembly is all that is left.
You've really progressed on this since the last time I got a chance to look. It looks great now, you're almost done.
See? That's what you get for not stopping back in. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by nevermind1534
Well, it's a little painful stopping back on dial-up with all the pics to load.
Well, lucky for you, I have some more!Quote:
Originally Posted by nevermind1534
Here's a few last "work" pics.
The final touch to the top panel was to add the silencing grommets and the U-channel.
A little tip: I like to use a few dabs of super glue to the u-channel. Helps keep it on the case while you're going around a tight turn - like an 80mm fan hole.
And here are a few shots of the "guts" being put in to the case:
I must say, I'm a fan of the black chassis. At least the next project in the pipeline can be all black...
Well, we have arrived at the end. Here, I will let me pictures speak for themselves:
Here it is installed (and, yes - black would not have worked):
Please let me take this time to thank you all for sticking around and offering your comments. Tune back in very soon for the start of my next project! Happy modding!
It looks great with your home theater setup. I see that you also have a Wii. You should mod that for your next project.
Conga Rats on the completed project! Looks absolutely great!
Where'd you get the U-channel molding?
Great work bro!
Very nice.. Awsome work, and it looks fantastic in its new home!
Great Job.
My wife has a Wii...that little distinction right there precludes any modding shenanigans with it.Quote:
Originally Posted by nevermind1534
Here you go! Pretty small selection in this web store, but good quality and fast shipping.Quote:
Originally Posted by DrumThumper
nice job, dewd. looks great with the rest of your system. i see now how you were saying that it will go well with the subwoofer. very stealthy.
congrats.
