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...7600401060078/

A naked shell...

The backing has been cut-out of the tower.

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.

[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.

Some of the remains of the original Thermaltake tower.

And more remains...

and what was a very good temp display and fanspeed controller.

decorated by the mane who doesn't drink? HAH he's a liar.

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...

Disassembly took far too long. there is so much stuff in these thermaltake cases. If only they looked and worked better...

What's this? A new backside to the ugly thermaltake? It looks so much better and it's not even painted yet!

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?

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.

Cut them all to size... or so I thought.

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.

Almost done building frame...

Done!... the frame.

another picture.

So I am going to use the motherboard panel from the thermaltake. Well that is the plan for now anyways.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

More tomorrow night guys!

[elbarto241]

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

[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

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 .

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.

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.

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.