modding...my laptop?

[fuzzba11]

I finished modding my case, today...at least until my window/neon light kits arrive! But I wanted to maybe do something to my laptop! Not involving my beloved dremel, but what sort of cool mods could I add to this thing? What sort of paint would I use to paint it, for example? And what precautions?

[BiLLyXkiNG]

If you are gonna do anything to it take all the parts out to work, common sense. You could make a plexiglass window or something. My friend changed the color of his LED's on his laptop, but it wasn't worth the time or the effort. you could always spraypaint it colors, put a sheet of something over the display and the keyboards. Yellow laptops are pretty cool. You can always take it out in public and see if people like the thing. Whatever you decide to do post it up on here so we can see it :-)

Good Luck !!

[fuzzba11]

lol, a plexiglass window on a laptop...not a bad idea, but won't risk cutting into it or fully taking it apart for the job :p

[dimmreaper]

If you know a local metel worker, see if he can make you a polished Aluminum or Stainless steel case, and ditch to cornball plastic one. This is something I'd consider doing myself (I'm a metal worker by trade), if I had a laptop. But I'd machine mine from billet Aluminum, not fabricate it.

[parkan]

Hmm. Aluminum would be pretty cool but what about the stuff they use to build airplanes? I think is more durable but just as light.

[fuzzba11]

Yeah, I really wanted this aluminum case by Winbook, the X1, but from reviews I decided to go with this Dell, which is black plastic :rolleyes: What would be cool would be to replace the cover with acrylic! But I would have to take apart all the plastic, etc, and probably void my $250 3 year warranty...

[Rob Cork]

Originally posted by parkan
Hmm. Aluminum would be pretty cool but what about the stuff they use to build airplanes? I think is more durable but just as light.
I think it's an aluminium-copper alloy strengthened by precipitate hardening, but I may be wrong. I should have paid more attention in my Materials and Mineral Sciences lectures :D

It'd probably be more expensive than plain Al - I don't know what they use in the Lian Li case but I was under the impression it was pure Al. With proper design you ought to be able to compensate for the mechanical weakness of aluminium - it's a computer case, it doesn't have to be super-strong.

[Sony]

I always thought they made planes out of Titanium it is much stronger and looks better than stainless steel

[Rob Cork]

I don't know about Titanium, but I'm sure there's some in planes somewhere. They definitely wouldn't use steel though, it'd be too heavy and the plane would just fall out of the sky :rolleyes:

[dimmreaper]

Originally posted by Rob Cork
I don't know about Titanium, but I'm sure there's some in planes somewhere. They definitely wouldn't use steel though, it'd be too heavy and the plane would just fall out of the sky :rolleyes: The aerospace industry makes extensive use of aluminum base alloys containing 6-10% titanium, but plane old aluminum is used for most portians of civilian aircraft. They also extensivly use fiberglass, carbon fiber, and polycarbonates. And the use of aluminum base alloys containing 10-20% magnesium (very light weight, but not nearly as strong as titanium alloys) is not unherd of.

[Crazy Jayhawk]

The only planes where titanium is used in large quantities are very specialized ones like the SR-71. It was used in that plane because of its high tolerance to heat.

Do we have a new heatsink material here...?

[fuzzba11]

Don't think so...as far as I can remember titanium is resistant to heat, as in it won't heat up much, which means it probably doesn't absorb heat, well(which is why NASA would put it on the nose of space shuttles, or wherever)

[Rob Cork]

I think they use some sort of ceramic as heat-shielding on the space shuttle, one that can withstand temperatures of 1000 or so degrees C. That'd make a neat hsf - no matter how hot your cpu gets the heatsink stays at room temp! Er.... :cool:

[KeyboardCowboy]

i painted my old p166 laptop bright lime green, first i took it apart which was a real pain in the @ss, then i did 2 coats with spraypaint then 2 coats of clealcoat, it's got a few scratches on it but the clearcoat holds up real nice