Hey guys!
I know i know, it's been a while since my last post here. I spend a lot of time on hobbies but casemodding was on a hold. I spend quite some time on hobbies like airbrushing, electronics, fixing/servicing my VW beetle, stuff like that.
Project Alien Hopspital is still on a hold, I hope I can finish it someday, but meanwhile i started a new casemod. Actually started yesterday The reason for this mod is that i'm moving out to my own house in about a year, (the house has to be build first) So in the meantime I try to prepare as much as possible by building things like LED Lights, Furniture, decorative items, buying stuff etc.
This casemod is a HTPC, so please, do not expect fancy lights, extreme hardware, stuff like that. It's more budget friendly, and I'll try to use hardware and parts which, sometimes, have been around in my mancave for ages.
The plan is to give it the same looks as my Onkyo Amplifier & CD player. This means a brushed aluminium front, very little buttons, and solid. (the amplifier even has a 5mm thick aluminium front.)
Well, As i said i will generally use old stock or things i can use again.
1 of them is the Cooler Master Praetorian. It's a full aluminium case, and i'll use the removable motherboard tray and backplate.
Let's roll..
Part of the stuff i had laying around. If you're wondering what happened to the Praetorian, check this
PSone display, might be usefull
First thing to do after disassembly was shortening the case. It was 44cm high, my amplifier is 43,5cm wide. Between the motherboard tray and PSU was some space which was unused. I removed that part, and had to move this rail 1CM upwards. This rail holds the motherboard tray.
Here it's done. You can see that the PSU hit's the backplate directly. Original here.
Tray is held together in the 2 rails.
After all those years i lost the plate which holds the PSu. Well, lets make a new one. As you can see at the fan on top: I'd also reversed the PSU. The air goes in at the side of the case, instead of the case itself.
Looks good
Fits like it was stock
A small part was then cut away to create some space for the sidepanel
... ehh... bottom panel which i can bolt into that nut.
Here I've bend the panel, fits perfectly along the motherboard tray.
Then i played a bit with the possible positions of HDD's, optical, pump, radiator, PSone screen etc.
I think it will be something like this. Preferable with the optical in the middle, like my CD player has.
That's it for now. I've made some more progress, but done enough for today. Wasn't sure if the 120mm rad. could handle the CPU (E6600) and VGA(simple ATI x1650). I think it can, maybe not with the lowest temperatures and high OC. But i'm aiming at silence, not speed. Anyway, i have some aluminium cooling profiles and copper HDD coolers. I will combine those to some kind of passive radiator.