Project #2-Blue Mist

[kaltag]

Good evening to you all. First off I apologize for not finishing project ROCK yet. Someone has expressed interest in buying the parts and I don't want to put more money in until I know for sure. Second this will be the journal of modding my laptop known to you now as "Blue Mist". The poor thing to be modded is my Toshiba 2435-S255 (VERY solid machine :) ) I use this machine for LANs and wardriving so I want it to be a little bit nicer looking than blue and black plastic. Plans are as follows.

1. Change the color to something nicer. A misty silver color and dark metallic blue will be the scheme for this project and hence the name :D

2. replace the thermal compound on the heatsink with AS of some sort.

3. Build a sort of latch on externel hard drive that runs off the USB/Firewire port and attaches to the screen for extra storage at LANs

4. I'm open to ideas anyone has as to what to do this beast. Only limitation is NO LIGHTS OR ADDITIONAL FANS to preserve my battery life.

[kaltag]

Here are the first set of pictures for your enjoyment.
Here'e the machine taken down it's basic components
http://www.rnccomputers.com/stuff/laptop/parts.jpg
Here is the base around the keyboard area with the touchpad removed and the plastic roughed up to be primed
http://www.rnccomputers.com/stuff/laptop/palmlaptop.JPG
Here is the backside of the screen painted with the silver color and polished but not clearcoated yet.
http://www.rnccomputers.com/stuff/laptop/screenback.JPG

[kaltag]

Here is a picture of the back of the screen from a distance to give a better idea of the color and effect.
http://www.rnccomputers.com/stuff/laptop/farscreenshot.jpg
Here is the keyboard, Anyone got any ideas for this guy?
http://www.rnccomputers.com/stuff/laptop/keyboard.jpg

[AlucardCasull]

paint it!, or switch it out for those imac laptops ones, all clear and such

[JoT]

It's a horrible horrible pain to paint keyboards, so leave that one alone unless you can switch it out.

My suggestion: window around the touchpad (tinted black), then maybe a couple of LEDs on the inside (blue or white). LEDs don't draw a whole lot of power, so your battery life should stay exactly the same.

[Flewdefur]

i know you said no lights but i think it could be cool to have two leds mounted in upper corners of screen that point down at keyboard and are on some kind of swith to give you some light you need when working with drives or typing up a paper or messing with something on your desk at the lan.

[OKJEFF4]

Replace that Linksys card. You could sell it to some coffee shop WiFi user. Pick up an Orinoco card. In fact, TheBroken.org has a nice article on wardriving on their site.

And, WTF are you wearing in the pic with your arm in it? A kimono? My kimono looks a little like that pattern.

[kaltag]

I actually do have 2 orinoco silver cards that I use for my linux laptops, this is one of them. I just happened to have the linksys nearby and it's an 802.11G which has yet to be officially supported under linux without the driver wrapper. That is unless things have changed in the last few weeks :D I'm also wearing my Phoenix coyotes hockey jersey :)

[kaltag]

I just got done with the paint around the touchpad area, and here's a shot of it after some 2000 grit sandpaper and some mother's paint polish. Enjoy.
http://www.rnccomputers.com/stuff/laptop/palmareareflect.jpg

[Pyros]

Nice paint work. Im curious about what grit sandpaper was used start to finish and what type of primer/paint as well. That last picture looks like dark blue ceramic tile its so shiny. :D For you to be able to paint plastic and it turn out like that I am impressed.

[kaltag]

After roughing up the plastic with some 180grit I used "painter's touch" primer made by rustoleum. It's quite thick and durable from my experiences with it, the only draw back is it take FOREVER to cure which is why it's been taking so long before I could actually paint. After the primer cured I quickly sanded with 180 again to get rid of high spots, then for the color it's made by Duplicolor for automotive touch up stuff and it's really picky about temp changes so I can be a pain but it looks VERY nice when polished and cleaned up. Then I wetsanded with1000 grit to make it flat and 2000 to start polishing. For the polish I started with Turtle Wax brand automotive polish until it started to shine then switched to the Mother'e brand Crystal Polish (great stuff BTW). I've never had much problem painting plastic before with this primer and as long as you give it time to cure. Thank you for the compliments as well :)

[OKJEFF4]

Hmm, my Coyotes jersey is black. Neat.

[Vaio]

that looks awesome so far! I too think that it would be cool to have a couple LEDs shining down onto the keys. You could also have some LEDs set under the keys so that the whole thing is back lit.

[kaltag]

OK so after 2 days of wetsanding and polishing and waxing we have the reassembled laptop back up and running :D YAY I didn't kill it :) . First off here is a picture of the back of the screen now that it has been clearcoated, sanded, and polished.
http://www.rnccomputers.com/stuff/laptop/backpolished.jpg
Here is yet another reflection shot of the palm area after being clearcoated and polished.
http://www.rnccomputers.com/stuff/laptop/completepalm.jpg

[kaltag]

Last but not least for tonight are to angled shots of the complete thing back together.
http://www.rnccomputers.com/stuff/laptop/leftside.jpg
http://www.rnccomputers.com/stuff/laptop/rightside.jpg
The painting is mostly done for now. Tomorrow I will be getting some more silver thermal compund and then remove the heatsink and see if that helps out at all.

[JoT]

Looks good Kaltag; could we see a close-up of the touchpad?

[Smirabi]

ooh, the reflective majesty

good job, makes regular laptops look plain old regular

mod on

[Robrules18]

shasta is good stuff.... and glad im no the only one using a swiss army knife as a modders tool... Nice job on the paint.

[Providence]

Why does the screen and area around the touchpad look so crappy? It looks whitish...is that glare or it isnt painted?

I agree with the LED idea...a small plexi window around the touchpad that is tinted, then lit with 2 LEDs just to the side...an ambient light source, would look cool.

And voltages wont matter if you usually plug it in for LANs

[TheGhengisKhan]

Here's a twist, do the plexi around the touchpad + LED thing, but instead of just adding another LED that will draw more power, re-route your HDD activity LED to that spot, it'll add some bling to the look without drawing any extra power at all.

[Jpantoga]

Ghengiskahn has his thinking together, that idea is really good. Keep up the good work.

[violineb]

That plastic shines so beatifully, even my younger sister was staring in awe at the shining majesty. :)

[SniperXX]

Lookin good, I love that reflection.

[kaltag]

Well I got some silver thermal compound today and got to replacing whatever toshiba used from the factory with the silver compound. After removing two small torx screws and the 4 screws holding down the heatsink here's what we have.
http://www.rnccomputers.com/stuff/laptop/processor.jpg
You can see the two fans and that silver looking piece is a duct going from the fans to the heatsink. Speaking of which here it is :D
http://www.rnccomputers.com/stuff/laptop/laptopheatsink.jpg
And you thought you needed something big!! This thing is less than 1 inch tall but it's quite long. Hard to believe this thing is supposed to cool a true (non mobile verion) P4 but it does :). I wish I would have taken a picture of the underside of heatsink for you but it is almost perfectly flat and well polished from the factory and is made of copper. After replacing the thermal compound there is a very noticable improvement. I was able to compile and install Mplayer and watch 30 minutes of a dvd on 15% battery. The fans were running a whole lot less than they were before. During a dvd the fans ran the who;e time at about 50% speed and now they run at 25% for 20 seconds every 15 minutes. and the air is cooler than before. I'm letting the machine recharge from a completely drained battery and then I'll post the new battery life during dvd playback. That's all for now, I'm going to seattle for the week. Be back soon.

[elec999]

at first it looked like the laptop was gone, destroyed, now it looks amazing.

[SniperXX]

Cool. I always find it interesting with how well they design the laptop cooling. Very nice and cool to see that the fan doesnt have to run that much anymore. :)