LotusBlossom

[sXenoG]

I was totally thinking the same thing overide. What an outfit for that kind of job!

[Aero]

dongles anyone?


oh and don't feel bad about not finishing, procrastination is where it at now a days. Everyone's doing it.

[Tweezy]

Bump. Are the pictures dead links? If so do you have a photobucket account or something because this case really intrigues me and I would like to see the pictures. Thanks. Sorry for bumping the thread.

[guitar.child]

Think about caeing the HD's in plastic and then stick a fan on top and that would vaccum cool the HD's I did it to whole case Vaccum tight it and the fan the crap out of it and it stays cool just if you case it put fans on front blowing in and back one flowing out. just an idea.

[amberella]

Holy crap she's posting an update!

So last we spoke (16 months ago **ahem**) I had sliced my finger basically in half while working on my case mod. It was one of those things you think, "Nah, who could REALLY hurt themselves if you have half a brain?" Well, the answer to that is apparently, me (and you). So be careful - a simple slip and you end up with 12 stitches, a lot of painkillers, and three months without full use of your left hand.

At any rate, this was only the first nail in the coffin of my mod at the time.

Nail #2: my lease was up and I had to move. I trucked all this project stuff to my parents' house where I was staying while looking for a new apartment (in New York, not Florida). Then the company I worked for closed (nail #3) and I was also sans job. S'ok, I thought, since I would need a new job to go with the new apartment anyway. Instead, the IT director at my company asked me if I wanted to stay in Florida and start an IT consulting business. I did, so we did (nail #4). Oh, and then 2 months later I ended up moving into his house/our office and we got married in march (nail #5). That's a lot of nails!

And during this whole time, the case and all it's accompanying tools, paints, components, and stuff sit in my old room at my parents' house, where my mom had so thoughtfully covered the entire eyesore with decorative pillow shams. I kid you not.

Now though, Axel (the business partner/husband) and I are back on the moving-to-new-york bandwagon. We're selling a TON of systems and components left over from the old company on ebay, along with all the extra tech stuff we've accumulated around the house. That means a lot of cleaning up and "refurbishing" of systems. It's taking over my house. Seriously - this is what my house looks like right now (and this is not even the half of it):

The bedroom:

The couch:

The hallway:

The office:

Hey wait... what's that on the floor??? Why ... It's the lotus case mod project!!**

**kind of



Soooo - yesterday I suddenly got it in my head to set up the "lotus blossom" system to see if the components even work at this point and upgrade the hardware with stuff literally lying around my house. Then I will keep just that ONE system to play with and I'll be able to sell even more stuff. Basically I'm preparing to fit 1200sqft of house into 800sqft of NY apartment, any Axel already has multiple servers and desktops that can't be sold because they're our daily workhorses. Hence, most of my stuff is now useless as, quite frankly, I never considered myself to need a terabyte of storage or my very own RAID array. Sad, but true.

Long story short, Axel and I hooked everything up to see if it works, completely sans decoration. It is not, as one might say, the "Best Case Scenario." Rather, it's a messy rats' nest. BUT - it's a messy rats' nest that WORKS!

Some things I noticed upon exhuming this project:

1. Do not spraypaint those pretty round IDE & floppy cables! (Unless you're using special paint for plastic, I guess.) I had tried sprying white cables with the UV paint (and sealer) and they turned into a sticky MESS. Gross gross gross dust magnet. I threw them out (hence the ugly floppy and too long IDE cable).

2. Once piece micro form factor acrylic cases are a bitch to set up. But you knew that already.

3. Someone asked what UV paint I used. It was ClearNeon.

3. Under the wrong conditions (like a hot garage and a Florida summer), epoxy yellows like that's it's job. The test board that I did my initial lotus stencil design on looks like this:

The board was in the heat for a few months, then inside for the rest of the year. The board is on the left, against a white sheet for comparison.

4. Modding with a friend is fun! It's like having extra hands.... and someone to clean up after you!**

**Just kidding++

++not really.


So from here, I am back on the bandwagon. I NEED to get my house ready to go on the market, but I WANT to work on this project again. So I might not be able to update again ASAP, but I will finish it, I promise. After re-reading the thread, I realize how frickin' cool of an idea it was, and how sweet it will look when it's completed. I have had some great new ideas about how to approach some of the artwork that will be more feasible in the real world. For example, painting the components themselves rather than introducing "covers" would be a lot more practical, and potentially look just as cool, but work better with the space allowed in that TINY case. Also, I got so many little 3 bulb UV lights that really are kind of unnecessary. And I painted their covers before thinking that they needed to have clean plastic joints, so there's clear coat paint globs on some that keep them from snapping back together. C'est la vie. There's more, I'm sure, but I'll have to meditate on it and post later.

And one more thing: Thanks so much to everyone that sent me replies and messages over the last year; I had no idea I'd have so much feedback when I finally logged in again!

Best Wishes to all and sorry for the monster post!

amberella

[b4i7]

first thing i thought when i saw this updated...holy **** shes back!

glad to see you still have this project going....cant wait for your updates!

[DaveW]

Holy **** she's back! My first thought was "Who's Res'ing old threads this time?"

Great to have you back.

-Dave

[amberella]

Wow I'm surprised you guys still remember my little project! It's hard to focus on all this stupid work I have to do right now when I just want to dive in to playing with my UV paints ... but I'm being a good girl. If I can work 'til 3, it'll be a miracle. But I have to stop reading these forums first!

[Scotty]

Wow she's back!

...wait... do i even rember this mod? was i even registered...nevermind...

Congrats on your marriage btw

[rendermandan]

apparently a welcome back is in order. I'm not familiar with your work, but from what I've read, you've done some nice work.