Imperium

[blueonblack]

From the lost journal of Anton Sokolov, head of the Academy of Natural Philosophy and Royal Physician to then Lord Regent Hiram Burrows:

It's time to mod again!! I've decided to make a mod based on the Bethesda game Dishonored. I loved the game overall but its visual style is what sold me. I've not seen another game that looked like it. The setting, the colors, the texturing, all genius. I will try to capture some of that same feel in this mod.

I'll be taking the finished product to QuakeCon in Dallas in July to show it off and enter it in their case modding competition also. With paint, component relocation, lighting, a large rigid-tubing water loop and a couple of motorized surprises in the plans, I need to get started!

I am normally a scratch builder. In fact, this will be only my second attempt to modify an existing case, the first being the very first thing I did after learning of the case modding phenomenon. Needless to say, that turned out... poorly. Looking back, the Ultra Microfly was perhaps not the best choice for a first-time modder. I will not make that same mistake again.

This mod will be made using the Cooler Master HAF Stacker case with an additional 915R unit, making the overall piece 37 inches high. Plenty of room for whatever I need to put in there. <fingers crossed>

I hope you'll join me and Sokolov as we create his masterwork: Imperium.

First off, a thanks to my sponsors:

Since this isn't a worklog without some modding, let's strip this case!

Gorgeous huge chunk of black goodness!

LOOK at all that space!! A whole family of Microflies could live in there!

But really, who needs twelve drive bays?? In fact, who needs any?

Don't need all those cables or that lower 5 1/4" bay either.

Not going to need those front panels either. The stripped-down skeleton that will be Imperium.

Easily broken into 3 more manageable modules for now.


Lots to do, updates to come. Thanks for following along!

[blueonblack]

Ok, I got a little actual modding done tonight! When I decided on this case, I looked it over and figured out what I could with most of it right away. One part that had me stumped for a while was that huge blank right-side panel:

That's a LOT of blank space. At first I thought I would mount a radiator there, but I wanted to be able to remove the panel for access if needed. I started looking for a large heatsink to put on there, something large enough to cover the whole panel, as it would give that industrial look I wanted. Turns out while such things exists they are cost-prohibitive.

Then I remembered the Scythe Himuro. Awesome-looking all-aluminum hard drive enclosure that's designed to look like (and possibly function as) a large heatsink. I already owned two of them in fact, but they had been "treated" for use in a previous mod and were unusable in this project. They've been out of circulation for a while, but I managed to find three of them brand new for $100 total.

They are fantastic pieces of hardware, some of my favorites. They're held together with six 3mm screws each and designed to mount with rubber blocks in a 5 1/4" bay. Open them up:

The previous project I used these on was made of wood, so to mount them I drilled holes inside the enclosures, countersunk so the screws would sit below the hard drive and put threaded inserts into the side panel. That worked fine but obviously not on a metal panel. I don't like using nuts and bolts if I can help it, and I didn't want to drill these enclosures. Plus, the vanes run horizontally on one side and vertically on the other, and they just look a lot better with the vertical side out. That side is the one without the screw holes.

Since I wanted them facing with the screw holes in, I spent a long time measuring, marking, measuring again, then measuring my measurements before drilling 18 holes in that side panel.

I didn't want any slop or wiggle room on the bolts so I used the smallest numbered drill bit I could and still get the screws through the holes. Of course, that left zero room for error. But measuring my measured measurements paid off in the end.

They turned out pretty damned well if I do say so myself. Sure looks a lot better than that big empty side panel!

Problem now was wiring. I had to make holes in the panel large enough to get power and data cables through. After getting out my trusty Dremel (and by that I mean the tool I bought eight years ago to cut some drywall with and have used maybe four times since) and making a huge mess and lots of noise, and then "cleaning up" the edges with a file and again the Dremel, I was reminded why I normally work with wood.

These holes are plenty big enough for my cabling and completely burr free, but they are *ugly*. They have to be covered up.

I found a pretty thick block of some good cherry on a shelf and cut it into three blocks:

A little time on the router and I had three wooden covers for the cables:

They need to be easy to remove but sturdy also. I keep all kinds of magnets around because... well, because they're magnets. Who doesn't love magnets?? Anyway, I had enough of these really strong coin magnets to put two in each cover. Perfect!

Finished job for the night.

Those covers will be shaped and dressed up later, complete with a cast-iron finish and rivets. You'll never know there's any wood there.

That's it for tonight, waiting on an order from Solarbotics for the next stage, hopefully it will get here soon.

Thanks for watching!

[msmrx57]

Looking good! I have the feeling I'm going to like this one A LOT!

[blueonblack]

Looking good! I have the feeling I'm going to like this one A LOT!

Thanks! It's a huge project but it's pretty well planned out so far. My biggest issue is paint. I have to find the formula to make everything on it (metal, wood, acrylic) look the same and look like cast iron. I'm sure I can figure it out but I need some warm weather to experiment.

Thankfully I'm planning to get assembly done first since there are so many things that have to be made to fit each other. Once everything it together, I'll tear it all apart, paint everything, put it back together, fill the water loop and flip the switch.

If the modding gods are smiling that will be no later than early June, so I have time to fix any problems and get the software tweaked for the con.

What do I sacrifice to the modding gods?

[msmrx57]

Thanks! It's a huge project but it's pretty well planned out so far. My biggest issue is paint. I have to find the formula to make everything on it (metal, wood, acrylic) look the same and look like cast iron. I'm sure I can figure it out but I need some warm weather to experiment.

Rust-oleum has a paint "specialty textured plastic" that needs no primer even for plastic. It has a very fine texture and is a flat black like classic wrought iron. I'd suggest trying that or stove black with a good primer.

[blueonblack]

Rust-oleum has a paint "specialty textured plastic" that needs no primer even for plastic. It has a very fine texture and is a flat black like classic wrought iron. I'd suggest trying that or stove black with a good primer.

Thanks, I'll see what it does!

[TheMainMan]

The fact that you've moved the hard drives outside the case makes me really excited to see all the stuff you're going to put inside it!

[Boddaker]

Nice work on the cable covers. And the magnets are a nice alternative to drilling more holes for mounting screws.

[blueonblack]

The fact that you've moved the hard drives outside the case makes me really excited to see all the stuff you're going to put inside it!

Yeah, that whole thing turned out great. Made the side panel look great *and* cleared up space for cool stuff inside.

Nice work on the cable covers. And the magnets are a nice alternative to drilling more holes for mounting screws.

Thanks! I really didn't want to drill more holes, plus they're easy to pull off to unplug the cables when I want to remove the side panel. Now I just have to dress them up to fit the rest of the theme.

[Stonerboy779]

I should have seen this coming, its going to be good.