...ghetto mod in the works, heh heh heh... :D

mtb856 said:

BTW Brundle, if you have ragged edges from the snips... what worked for me is taking the dremel (you mentioned you're getting one for christmas) and a reinforced cutting wheel (I'd buy the pack of them.... you can go through several of them fairly quick if you're not careful) and cut threough the edges with the cut-off wheel and grind them down with one of the circular grinding stones.

When you're cutting with the dremel, don't push down on the metal... you'll burn through cut-off wheels faster than a dragger goes through a clutch Just let the wheel graze the surface of the metal.... it may take longer but you'll end up spending a lot less on cut-off wheels.

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...thanks for the tip, two days in a row I gapped bending a strip of aluminum for the edge. I capped a freakin bay window today, and forgot to bend one little piece of metal...

...ah yes, patience, wish I had some, but that's why I have kids and safety glasses. With bam, the longer it takes, the happier he'll be, he's usin tools, and makin sparks, heh heh heh...

...man I'm happy we got the plexi on the side, my system idles @73F now, with the two 120's runnin, and I love the way it looks. I intended to get a clear sided case when I upgrade, but now I think I'll do it myself, and get the look I want. Those 120's really pump a lot of air, I have an exhaust "port" cut in the front of my tower, the air pumping out of it moves the cover on the couch, two feet away, and does it quietly...

...I figured out how to drill plexi without cracking it, how tight I can crank screws onto it(don't, use washers/o-rings), jigsaws suck for cutting plexi, and that one 15" cut down the side of computer case is more dangerous than bending/cutting aluminum at work all day. The steel cover is not much heavier guage than the aluminum we use, but is a hell of a lot less forgiving when it comes to slicing up your hands...

...any and all dremeling tips are welcome, I've never used one before, and I'll probably drive my wife nuts when I get one, I won't put it down. Hopefully we'll get some painting done this Sunday, experiment with a few other things, a blowhole in the top maybe, draw out what we'll be the "finished product" on the plexi I have left, and leave it in the living room with a note saying: Dremel required for finishing as one more subtle hint for the wife...

capmuffin said:

who cares about all the flaming.Cool name for your son,and nice case mod. Btw who cares if its ghetto? if people judge you by the way your computer looks i think its time i started contemplationg suicide more often. I like the mod,Btw take a match or lighter(torch works best) and quickly wave it accross the plexi glass,it will make it clear again. 120mm fan holes rock much better than any 80mm....btw a CD is the size of a 120mm fan hole,along w/ dremel making a whole cutter,works awsome,ill post some pics if i cant get into my main rig,nice mods i did w/ mine

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wait wait wait....a 120mm fan hole is the size of a cd?! oh god.....

Hearing, well err, seeing your sons name, always reminds me of that wrester. Sorry, no offence intended.

Keep the mod going by the way, good luck with it.

...heh heh heh, he got the name from the "Flintstones", hopefully, he never comes home with a bald head covered in tatoo's...

...the way I'm setup right now, I can remove either front or side cover, let Bam work on that, and still have the other 120 runnin, which means I can play while he works. I like this setup...

Sweet, having a whole family into it....

For me:
Mom: "Do you REALLY need to cut flames into your computer?"
Dad: "Why the ____ (fill in blank) do you need 5 fans?"


Next time give Bam Bam a pair of saftey sissors... He'd love how long it would take.

Na, just give him a big wodden club like in The Flintstones.

Wow, reminds me when i modded my case using a Saw ment for cutting 2 by 4 peices of wood using a sand blade. It looked ugly like the Job youre son did. Hehe after awhile tho of looking at the bad Job i decited to buy a $160 case that was already modded the way i liked.

Btw i know its been said already, but Bam Bam ? Reminds me of the name Bubba. ROFL

haha OLFA is a boxcutter/stanley-knife i was expecting some wierd american tool of some sort

CandymanCan said:

Wow, reminds me when i modded my case using a Saw ment for cutting 2 by 4 peices of wood using a sand blade. It looked ugly like the Job youre son did. Hehe after awhile tho of looking at the bad Job i decited to buy a $160 case that was already modded the way i liked.

Btw i know its been said already, but Bam Bam ? Reminds me of the name Bubba. ROFL

Click to expand...

...ayup, it's ugly, but it's not the finished product, call it the "rough sketch". Now we know what fits where, and he can screw around with his paint job till he gets what he wants, no matter if he screws up, new panels are going to be made, "properly"...

...one prob we have right now is the CD burner, it's sitting on top of the case, the 120 fills the hole where my three 5 1/2" bays were. So, I guess we have to cut a slot in the bottom of the front cover, then create some kinda mount for it. Maybe today when i finish work...

BioNiKaL said:

haha OLFA is a boxcutter/stanley-knife i was expecting some wierd american tool of some sort

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...heh, I thought with a name like "OLFA" it was Swedish, but it's made in Japan...

sorry if this is a little direct but...

what exactly are you doing with this mod? I read through the thread and it seems very interesting, and the stuff you are doing seems cool. But what exactly is this mod hoping to accomplish? Is this a make my computer look cooler mod? or a my computer is hot let me make a couple of blow holes to cool it down mod? a combination of the two?

Also, can you please post some pics of what it looks like right now? and maybe even like a rough sketch of what you want the finished product to look like?

Otherwise, keep up the good work

Thats great a Family That mods together stays together.Great job and the bond that you will have with bam bam will never end.I know when my kids get old enough I will do the same as you what ever it may be. Kids are 9,7,6,2 Im a busy man.

Darryl_D said:

sorry if this is a little direct but...

what exactly are you doing with this mod? I read through the thread and it seems very interesting, and the stuff you are doing seems cool. But what exactly is this mod hoping to accomplish? Is this a make my computer look cooler mod? or a my computer is hot let me make a couple of blow holes to cool it down mod? a combination of the two?

Also, can you please post some pics of what it looks like right now? and maybe even like a rough sketch of what you want the finished product to look like?

Otherwise, keep up the good work

Click to expand...

...no apologies necessary...

...this started out as a way to make my system quieter, it sits in my living room, and the noise drives my wife nuckin futz. At one time I had 4 80mm's, my CPU HSF, Northbridge HSF, and another modded HSF on my Voodoo 3000. It's a small case ATX case, circa '98, and yes, it was hot. Once we got the 120 mounted where the 5 1/2" bays were, we figured we may as well go all out and make the side cover plexi, with another 120 mounted in it. Yeah, so quieter, cooler, and looking cooler, a combination mod, and a "ghetto mod" cause I may spend all of $12 on it when it's done. The fans were free, the plexi was free, I have gallons of model paint, and two weeks off at Xmas...

...the new mount we have to make for the burner is out of necessity. The same happens to me at work, basic jobs, like a cut-out patio door, get more involved when you discover wiring in the walls must be moved, the floor is rotted and has to be replaced, the list goes on. So, a fan up front means the burner must be moved, and there's room for it at the bottom of my front cover...

...while typing this, I'm looking over at it, and figure it's best to cut out the whole center section of the front cover, and then use one solid piece of plexi all the way down to mount the fan and burner. My floppy and switches can stay where they are(mounted to the frame), and just get a new paint job...

...I don't have a digital camera(yet), so I'll scan what I can, my front cover will fit on my scanner, and so will the important part of my sidecover. As for a sketch of the final product/what we want it to look like? Well, we don't know, cause we're making changes and coming up with new ideas as we go along. I'll mark out on the scans what we intend to do, so far. I'll get Bam to make a sketch of what he wants to paint on the other sidecover when he gets in...

...I'll post the scans in a bit, I have to shut down, pull the covers, boot up, scan them, shut down, slap them back on, then boot back up. I got some time to kill anyhow...

Big_Tex said:

Thats great a Family That mods together stays together.Great job and the bond that you will have with bam bam will never end.I know when my kids get old enough I will do the same as you what ever it may be. Kids are 9,7,6,2 Im a busy man.

Click to expand...

...yeah man, anything that allows you to spend more time with your kids is a bonus. It's cool when they get enthused, and you kinda step back and let them go at it, nice to see the independance growing in them. As long as Bam is happy when all is said and done, I'll be happy...

...okay, pics/scans, as requested by Darryl_D...

... the top of my front cover(I can only fit so much on my scanner)...



...the area highlighted in red will be removed, the switches(in blue), will be removed and mounted to the chassis, probably painted gloss black. The scanner is really doing our plexi job justice, it's kinda rough. The paint job on the fan looks better than what shows up. Needs one of those "swirl" thingies on there, so it's trippy when it's powered up, get the old "Time Tunnel" effect going. Man man!!! I think I just dated myself with that comment...

...next pic is the bottom of the front cover...



...once again, the red area will be removed, and all of said red area, top to bottom, will be plexi. The gay blue area is where my CD burner will be mounted. I'm going to bend a piece of aluminum at work, to support the back of the burner, and hang the support off my HDD cage. The hole you see was my first mod ever, back in the summer of '99, my case was really getting hot, those tiny freakin holes, the size of pinheads, didn't allow my front intake fan to actually take any air in, so I got pizzed off, grabbed my drill, drilled a gazillion holes, broke the plastic between them with needle-nose Vise Grips, and hand filed the mess that was left smooth. Major improvement in temps, and obviously, I was not worried about makin it look pretty, heh heh heh...

...next pic is the sidecover, which really isn't a whole lot to see, it's plexi, nice pic of a fan, bolted to...... nothing...



...the area inside the red will be painted to hide the fan frame, probably with rounded corners, as opposed to the square corners I drew. Also, the paint job on the plexi sidepanel will hide the drive cage frames, and the PSU. Of course we'll have to light up the inside of the case, which means we'll have to do something with the wiring, cause it looks like crap right now. I know how to cover up my power leads, no probs, but my ribbnons are another story. I REALLY don't want to spend money on a ghetto mod, I don't want to buy rounded cables, maybe a paint job will do. At the same time, ribbons take up a lot of room/block airflow. Ah well, outside first, then the inside, which will probably lead to more outside mods. No s**t, my wife wants me to put Christmas lights in it for the holidaze, heh heh heh...

...update before I post, Bam just got home with the masking tape, so he'll start painting the plexi sidecover tonight...

that case looks familiar i would love to mod the ugly ones from work haha. is that top fan an exhaust?

Have you modded this before (i.e. the fan whole on the bottom you cut out) or was that an idea that got scratched?

facialicious said:

that case looks familiar i would love to mod the ugly ones from work haha. is that top fan an exhaust?

Have you modded this before (i.e. the fan whole on the bottom you cut out) or was that an idea that got scratched?

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...both the side and front 120's are intake fans, for exhaust I have my PSU, and that hole on the front, along with another 80mm hole I cut in the back. Those 120's pump, no BS here, the air coming out of the front hole blows out a Bic lighter from 2 feet away, no need for exhaust fans...

...I already said I cut that hole in '99, just to make my system cooler, the original setup for cooling/fans was ridiculous, more grill than hole in the chassis in the rear, and pinholes in the front, what a joke...

it looks like your doing some nice stuff keep it up!

If you want a cheap way to make rounded ide cables well check this out! It's what we sued to do before they made round ide cables... it's very cheap costs about 50 cents!

http://www.virtual-hideout.net/guides/rc/index.shtml

Darryl_D said:

it looks like your doing some nice stuff keep it up!

If you want a cheap way to make rounded ide cables well check this out! It's what we sued to do before they made round ide cables... it's very cheap costs about 50 cents!

http://www.virtual-hideout.net/guides/rc/index.shtml

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...man man!!! Thanks for the link, TFE, I can pick up some "flagging tape"(Northern Ontario/Canadian thing, for those of us who have "cut line" in the bush) for a buck, comes in yellow/lime and red, flourescent, kinda glows under light. No sticky backing on it, but easy enough to wrap the cables, then tape the ends up...

...on the subject of rounded cables, I've got a buddy who's been OC'ing forever, and he swears rounded cables are not good, he won't touch them, says he's heard too many probs from other OC'ers. He's never tried them himself, so he admits he only has the grapevine to go by. Anyone else have an opinion on this? Personally, I'm gonna try out the mod in the link you posted, I got spare ribbons, so it's no big deal. My bud's warning is the first I've ever heard, and considering he has no personal experience with them, I'll take it with a grain of salt...

...BTW, Josh(Bam Bam) just got the first coat of metallic red paint on the side cover, around the fan, looks good, but needs another coat or two, metallic paint is hard to get smooth with a brush, and is a ***** to sand. Very thick paint, but does give a cool look. He'll figure it out...

Something about rounded cables give interfirence because the individual wires are so close together... I wouldnt know.

neonblingbling said:

Something about rounded cables give interfirence because the individual wires are so close together... I wouldnt know.

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...so, is it some kinda "electro-magnetic" thingie, cause of the power running through twisted cables? You know, like wrapping a wire around a nail when you were a kid, hooking it up to a D-cell, and making an electromagnet?...

...I'm more inclined to believe that it's just easier to make a flat ribbon, than a rounded cable, and much less costly. Not that I'm at all cynical, heh heh heh...