Project: Nuclear UPS mod

[Cannibal23]

made yet another bone head mistake last night. will attempt to fix it and post snaps tonight. i think i need more sleep.. seems lately im making some really stupid mistakes. not unfixable ones mind you but just time consuming. on a lighter note i ordered the right colored cathode tubes today so those should be available for me to install probably some time in the next few days. im going to see if i can fit another one in the battery compartment but it may require a little modding of the cathode tube itself. we will see

[chaksq]

This is a great project, I haven't personally anyone mod a UPS before. Definitely one of those things that brings your whole setup to a new level. +rep for originality.

[Cannibal23]

minor update here. was having some serious issues with painting and bondo. very annoying but i think i have it mostly sorted out.

i cut out the window for the front and then trimmed it down to fit.

did a little more painting and sanding on the front panel here it is so far.

on the front panel the top corners kind of well.... umm fell of.. the plastic was already cracked and is really old so it is a little brittle. i tried filling this in with bondo but found that it didnt hold well enough. instead i used devcon epoxy putty (its in the mod wiki check it out)

i took my dremel and a sanding drum to the hardend putty. the left over lumps were preventing a proper fit on the main body of the ups. heres a slightly closer shot.

again sorry about the slow updates. i know this one wasnt super exciteing but between 2 jobs and waiting for paint to dry before realising you need to resand the lousy thing good oppertunities have been few and far between. im expecting the new cathode tube to arrive any day now. glad everyone is enjoying this mod so far.

[Cannibal23]

ok we have a touch more progress going on.

i went to go get some led's for the front lighting. i wasnt happy with the leds that i was being shown and the sales guy convinced me to get a led pod. basicly its 5 led's togeather with a resistor already in place. it works on 12v ac or 12v dc. this little guy lights up the wall across the room its insane. a little much for what i needed. unfortunately this device draws too much current and causes my cathode tube to baiscly not light up. going to need another solution. heres what it looks like anyways

my cathode tubes came in (YAY!) so i installed them last night. the one for the main body of the ups fit with no problem. however the one that is to light up the bottom compartment with the batteries didnt fit. so i did what modders do..... i modified it!

here is the before photo with the tool i used.

and after i modified it, i compared it to a normal one. the pennies are there just so you can see the edge. its tricky taking photos of something thats clear..

so i lit them up to test them after instalation. to verify that i didnt break the one in the battery compartment. it required a little bit of force to slide it in there.

and then with the lights off

after all that i decided to put the cover on and see what it looks like so far

and then i turned the camera flash off as well as the lights. looks decent so far.

cant wait to get the front lighting up and running and finish off the front panel.

[Scotty]

Nice work, congrats on the Front Page

[NocturnaL]

Nice mod man, everything looks like it was done safe and right. The only thing i could nitpick about this is the black painting, only because i was loving the yellow paint job so much

[Cannibal23]

ya its supposed to give it that danger tape kind of look. just the front lighting and a little more painting to go

[Luke122]

To take good close up photos, look for a button on your camera with a picture of a flower.. that's for the macro mode. It allows your camera to focus on items that are very close.

Build looks great though!

[SgtM]

Looking good man. +rep. Congrats on the front page feature.

[Cannibal23]

To take good close up photos, look for a button on your camera with a picture of a flower.. that's for the macro mode. It allows your camera to focus on items that are very close.

Build looks great though!

thanks for the tip. i will take a peek at the buttons on my cheapy camera tonight. hope it has that. blurry photos are annoying.

seeing as everyone seemed to enjoy this mod so much i may just mod out my other ups when im done this. still have the swirl mod to finish off its almost complete. basicly just put it down cause this was a more interesting project. will likely finish it in short order of finishing this mod. come summer time i might have to mod out my modbox (the big red tool box with wheels that im doing all my work on now).

one funny thing to be said about modding a ups so far..... least you have somwhere to plug in your soldering iron and power tools =)