Suggestions on window designs please?

A recent miscalculation in Psu size and fan placement ( I didn't measure the Psu when I cut the fan hole) has left me with a need to place an acrylic window in the roof of my case. Either that or have an oval that should be a circle. I choose plastic. Luckily with its position in the room the roof of the case is the best place for a window!

What I'm asking for in the title though is links to or pics of interesting window designs that I might be able to use in my project. I've already toyed around with just popping the whole thing off, or leaving a nice border, perhaps cutting a silhouette into it.... I just figure since I gotta do the work, it might as well look cool. If anyone is real interested I'll put up a couple pics when I finish. They might have to be from a distance to hide the mistakes though!

Also, suggestions need not be from windows on the roof of the case (if there are such things) they just gotta be nice looking. I'll see what will work on the skinny roof of the case (as opposed to a wider side view)

I would upload a picture of your screw-up so that others can better provide ideas on how to mend it.

Well this is the end result. Yes you read that correctly, this is the FIXED product. NOT the screwup



As I said, when I cut the hole for the exhaust fan in the top if the case I miscalculated (by about 20mm to be exact) and had to move the exhaust port a little. I opted to lop the top off the whole thing (mostly anyway) and set a piece of acrylic in there. Unfortunately I scratched my last piece and broke it a bit when I drilled the fan grill. My fix for that was to cover it in 500 degree grill paint (blue). The white around the side is modeling clay I was really fixing on it looking a bit nicer, but maybe Ill try again with a different sheet the next time I add hardware

WOW that looks HORRIBLE

Definitely make the whole thing a nice window

Pollie said:

WOW that looks HORRIBLE

Definitely make the whole thing a nice window

Click to expand...

Oh I don't know.... a little imagination and it might only be unsightly!

I've got a boatload of excuses, but the bottom line is that it will have to be redone. I'm happy with functional for now though. The big plus is that it makes a nice tray for USB sticks and such I've got better materials in mind for next time though. Acrylic will need to be thicker (why it kept breaking when I drilled the vent) and it might actually get to be clear then

Wow.

If you want it straight - laser cut only.

Well by now I've redone it in Lexan and replaced the clay with vinyl tubing. Looks much nicer. The vinyl tube was painted white on the inside and the Lexan held up much nicer. I'll post pics the next time I get a chance to take any. It's a big improvement, but it still a face only a mother could love

The biggest problem with cutting was that I kept bending the edge with the blade of the saw. Perhaps if I had used a different blade or speed, but as I said before, functional does not have to be pretty

Definitely want to see how that turned out, it had plenty of room to improve LOL

LOL just no...

knoober said:

Well by now I've redone it in Lexan and replaced the clay with vinyl tubing. Looks much nicer. The vinyl tube was painted white on the inside and the Lexan held up much nicer. I'll post pics the next time I get a chance to take any. It's a big improvement, but it still a face only a mother could love

The biggest problem with cutting was that I kept bending the edge with the blade of the saw. Perhaps if I had used a different blade or speed, but as I said before, functional does not have to be pretty

Click to expand...

Well, lets see it!

Haven't you guys laughed enough? I'll get ya some pics, the issue is that I've got it in a cabinet (open backed with plenty of ventilation.) and I've finally got it setting in there just right so there is 2 options for pics 1) wait until I need to clear the cmos (bound to be soonish) or I'll grab a pic of it inside the cabinet and try to get a descent shot.

Knoober a tip for the next time you're drilling. Drill over a piece of scrap wood and tape the plexi on the side you're drilling with the blue painters tape. This will support it to help prevent breaking and the tape will prevent scratches. Yes it looks horrible, but if you learn from it then it's still a positive result.

what Blaylock says x2.....also when drilling acrylic, be patient and drill in steps, first small pilot hole, then slightly larger...ect. leading to whatever diameter you need...may take you a little longer but way less risk of the bit catching the material and or cracking the acrylic.

chrisjames61 said:

Well, lets see it!

Click to expand...

Ive been meaning to get back to this one for quite some time, but it just hasnt happened ... until today. As I said I reworked the case and got a bit of a better result. I finally had it out to clean and grabbed some pics while I was at it.

first of all it looked like this:

before I killed it

Here is how it looks now:
still a little uneven right? I get impatient and want to be done really bad

here is what I did for the side panel because I didnt think to measure the new cooler against the case specs:


And for whatever reason I cant find any of the interior pics I took except this one:

that is a fan that i zip tied in to the right of the drive cage (if you are looking at it from the front) because I got all weird about my drives after I had an old one burn up. Now I keep a fan on them at all times and they never reach above 30C.

Since I cant find my pics Ill just do the written word description type thing The specs are in my sig (NAS/Etc) and the machine is used mainly as a file server , but also to free up the main rig from heavy workloads and for learning Linux with - hence the Etc part of its name. Its got a decent chunk of HDD space spread across different drives. No RAID or anything like that, just plain ol' storage space. Ill edit the description soon, but the Athlon x2 has been replaced with an x4 630 (because it was cheap and will be nice to have the extra cores for some things - the x2 was a nice chip though) and I replaced the sig cooler with this that I had laying around in the toolbox. Dont worry I didnt pay that much for it. I got mine on sale for half that price I put it head to ehad with a MegaHalems at one point in time (there is a thread here with the results) and they were pretty comparable. The end result was the same temps, but the Mega took longer to get there by about 5 min.

There are fans all over this guy too. 1x120mm one the cooler, and another for rear exhaust. 1 x 120mm for the ceiling and another on the drives, and yet another one the side of the case. There is also an 80mm intake underneath the drives. Like I said I had an HDD burn up in me, I had the case open at the time and it was hot to the touch. I was troubleshooting why it would be so hot when I heard it start scraping on the inside of the drive - as if it had rusted in the past 2 seconds - then it was dead. I know that a fan wouldnt have saved that drive, but I still want my drives to be comfy and cool I am currently working on a better psu because Id like to OC the Athlon x4 a bit, but I get futzey results even bumping it up a few hundred mhz, so until then Im happy with stock.

Phew! It feels nice to wrap this thread up -- even though it was long forgotten by everyone but me

Edit: I dont know why the images are showing up funny. they work if you click on them... but I still dont know why theyre acting up like that ... sorry guys . I post like I mod... good enough for government work

they actually don't work when you click on them, just says invalid attachment

fixed the pics quick. I should have just ficed them in the first place, but they worked when I checked them --that was temporary I guess

They work fine on the app

Before or after the "I fixed it" post? What happened was that my sign in timed out before I was done making the post (I sat down to eat in the middle of the post ) and when I signed back in there was some sort of browser/cache borking.... I edited the original post by re-upload to fix the pics. I'm really just wondering if the App pics worked when the desktop version wasn't showing or not.... For future reference.

Either way I'm glad it's fixed and everyone can see my "handiwork" in all its "glory". I've made a workbench since this happened so I don't have to rush to get stuff off the kitchen table. Hopefully will see better results with more patience

They worked at the time I posted "they work"...

Maybe the next case will see the patience... Lol!