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

[Brundle Fly]

Haha, just epoxy the bolt heads on, cutting the bolt part off.

Hmm... Intresting problem you got yourself there... I never messed around with the bigger wires in my comp, so cant help you there.

Heh heh heh, I screwed this one up, can't even blame the kid, I picked the bolts out myself. I'll blame something on him, just give me a little time, it's my job as a parent to do these things.

 

[Brundle Fly]

man that paint is saaawweeeeet!!! its like ummm BEAUTIFUL!!!!!! looks better than my neighbors car! lol
nice wrench too!

Thanks, and yeah man, that paint rocks!

As for the wrench, I love it, I'm going to separate all my SAE from my metric wrenches, paint the SAE red, and the metric blue, no more hunting for the right wrench, and it'll look very sweet, a pimped out toolbox, gotta love it.

 

[voodoomelon]

Okay, bad day at the races. The bolts I polished? Well, 1/2 an inch too short. I have 4 nice shiney bolts for sale now, heh. Here's a question: Does the length of the wire on a cold cathode make a difference? I lengthened the wires on the one tube, and now only half of it lights up. I used 18ga speaker wire, should I have used smaller wire?

Yes, before anyone asks, the wires are still conected the same way, I spliced one wire at a time, so I couldn't screw that up. It was working fine until I lengthened the wires. Anyone else ever have the same problem?

Yup, I have the exact same problem. I extended mine by about six inches and the tube is only half the brightness, some of the time. The tube seems to light up to full brightness and then dulls every half hour or so for a few minutes and then back to full brightness. I had the wire longer than six inches before, and then the tube was dull the whole time.

It's pain in the ***, it seems the wires can only be of a certain length. Although I don't really see why.....

 

[Brundle Fly]

Yup, I have the exact same problem. I extended mine by about six inches and the tube is only half the brightness, some of the time. The tube seems to light up to full brightness and then dulls every half hour or so for a few minutes and then back to full brightness. I had the wire longer than six inches before, and then the tube was dull the whole time.

It's pain in the ***, it seems the wires can only be of a certain length. Although I don't really see why.....

It must be the ballast, it just can't pump the juice through the extra length of wire. I'll be able to fix mine, I had the controller box buried behind my PSU, hid everything, I can move it and shorten the wires back to stock. Problem is that it's held on with some very good two-sided tape, and I don't see it coming off very easily. At least I'll get my lights back to normal. Thanks

 

[threeme2189]

As for the wrench, I love it, I'm going to separate all my SAE from my metric wrenches, paint the SAE red, and the metric blue, no more hunting for the right wrench, and it'll look very sweet, a pimped out toolbox, gotta love it.

cool a pimped toolbox...
thats a really sweet idea...saves alot of time and it lookes uber cool...
how easily does the paint chip/scratch off? remember a happy paint job is a perfect paint job...LOL
i wanna paint a blue metal part on my watch in that color so if you ever get an all expenses payed trip to israel bring me a can
jk dude..

 

[Brundle Fly]

Well, I did some grinding with my dremel, and the bolts barely catch the threads of the nuts, so I welded them in, I'll find out tonight whether or not this JB Weld stuff works or not.

While I had everything out of the case again, I moved the inverter/controller for the ccfl's, shortened the wires back to stock, got the lights where I want them, and how about that, full power again to the tubes again.

It has to be the ballast in these lights, they just don't put out enough juice to push through the extra resistance of a longer wire. I imagine that's because they're designed not to suck too much power from the PSU. That's a good thing, I suppose.

As an aside here, once I put everything back together, my system wouldn't post. I figured maybe I knocked a stick of RAM loose. Pulled the RAM, reseated it, no post. Pulled the vidcard and reseated it, no post. Unpluged everything but the HDD, no post. All voltages were fine(checked with my multi-meter). Moved the CMOS jumper over, let it sit for a couple minutes, no post. Finally removed the ccfl controller(it's right over the CMOS battery), pulled the battery for a minute, put it back in, finally, I get back into the BIOS, set everything to my settings before this little problem, and everything worked fine.

Very weird problem, I have no idea why the CMOS had this brainfart, makes no sense to me. Ah well, it's working right now, just another of life's little mysteries.

 

[Brundle Fly]

cool a pimped toolbox...
thats a really sweet idea...saves alot of time and it lookes uber cool...
how easily does the paint chip/scratch off? remember a happy paint job is a perfect paint job...LOL
i wanna paint a blue metal part on my watch in that color so if you ever get an all expenses payed trip to israel bring me a can
jk dude..

The paint is still really fresh, so I can scrape it off with my thumb nail. I imagine if it hardened for a week, then a clear hardcoat was sprayed over top(which I will do), it'll stand up for a while. If I win a trip to Israel, I'll bring a couple cans, if I'm allowed, they'll probably keep them cause they could be bombs. Best not to say they're "spray bombs", heh heh heh.

 

[threeme2189]

lol cool thanx dude...
hmmm bombs in paint cans...i dont think anyone would do that cause it would be a huge waste of wickedcool paint...
another cool thing you can make with spray paint can (or almost any spray-thing can) is a FLAMETHROWER!!!!! just light a match/candle/lighter and spray through the flame and WOOOOOSH FIRE!!!!! just be careful its pretty hot if you spray yourself...
did i metion i like fire?

 

[Brundle Fly]

lol cool thanx dude...
hmmm bombs in paint cans...i dont think anyone would do that cause it would be a huge waste of wickedcool paint...
another cool thing you can make with spray paint can (or almost any spray-thing can) is a FLAMETHROWER!!!!! just light a match/candle/lighter and spray through the flame and WOOOOOSH FIRE!!!!! just be careful its pretty hot if you spray yourself...
did i metion i like fire?

Somehow, I figure your parents make you wear a helmet and oven mitts when you aren't locked up, hahahahahaha.

While threeme2189 has been thinking about making bombs out of anything aerosol, Josh and I have been watching paint dry. 5 days before the paint is cured/hard enough to wet sand, then paint the mural on the side. In the mean time, I've been really bored, so I decided to shorten up my keyboard. It's an HP I got for $12, brand new, in the box. The problem for me was this "wrist support" they put on it, it bugged me, I don't use it, and it takes up 1 1/2" of my very limited desktop. That 1 1/2" messes me up when I'm playing a game, my joystick(game controller, shut up) keeps slipping off the desk. I figured I'd cut off everything below the red line, and gain 1 1/2" of deskspace. This $12 keyboard came with no software, and I haven't been able to find any online, so right now, the green arrow points to the "finance" key, which actually opens a new browser window, and the blue arrow points to the FF button for the CD, which instead opens Microshaft's calculator. The volume knob, light blue arrow, works like it's supposed to when I have a music CD playing. The rest of the buttons do nothing. Yeah, $12 HP special, but it works.

Add to that a cigarette burn from some idiot that forgot about his smoke in his left hand during a 6 lap race in NFSU, and this sucker was getting uglier.

So, I cut the "wrist support" off with my Jigsaw, and glued(epoxy) some plexi on to fill the hole. Tomorrow I'll sand it down, start bondo-ing it, and should have it painted by Sunday morning. My buddy in Peterborough is going to mail me some Freightliner vinyls, and hopefully, a full Freightliner emblem for the front of cover. Either way, it will look bonus. In the mean time, I have to amuse myself.

Keys out, ready to chop it up. Popping all those keys out was the highlight of my day.

Some of these pictures are sort of blue tinted, that's cause some moron started messing with the camera settings, without ever reading the manual. If I ever find out who that was! Here's the piece of plexi that covers the hole "gloobered" on.

It's not looking all that pretty right now, but once it's all bondo'd up, and painted, it'll look good. And, now my joystick fits on the desk, with room to spare.

Man I get bored easily when I'm not at work. Hopefully we can wetsand the case tomorrow, and Josh can start on his mural, I want to start on the final plexi side cover. Also, the floppy and CD burner faceplates have to be painted red, black just isn't working, they're the only things that are black on here, so that's gotta go.

Later.

 

[threeme2189]

man thats a cool and useful mod dude! i say paint the sucker RED to match your awsome computer!!!!!!!
good thing i have a big *** table for my pc so i wont have to saw off part of my keyboard LOL...
umm why didnt you put the joystick NEXT to the keyboard and save a bit of work?

 

[Elif Tymes]

I'll have you know I was worried when I saw the first few pics.

I was thinking "Oh no, this is going to be butt ugly"

Then I skipped to page 4.

DROOL! Sweet case! Lucky stiff, my parents are as supportive of my case modding as uhh.. uhh... well, they aren't.

 

[Brundle Fly]

man thats a cool and useful mod dude! i say paint the sucker RED to match your awsome computer!!!!!!!
good thing i have a big *** table for my pc so i wont have to saw off part of my keyboard LOL...
umm why didnt you put the joystick NEXT to the keyboard and save a bit of work?

Yeah, I was going to keep it for myself, then Bam started buggin me, so it'll get painted red too, which means I'll be getting a new keyboard with my new system. Which is okay by me, a cordless would be nice, and that would solve a problem for me too.

I keep the joystick dead center because I've never played with it anywhere else(I hate talking about joysticks, it never sounds good, heh). When I lived up north, instead of a computer desk, I had half a kitchen table, older kind, which could pull open so a leaf could be dropped in. I took the brackets off underneath, took the legs from one half, bolted then onto the other half, took it outside and painted it black, pushed the table up against the wall in my livingroom, and had a honkin big computer desk.

I was a single dad at the time, so I could get away with that kind of stuff, no woman to keep me in line, and hey, the kids loved it, hahahaha.

In the end, that keyboard was just plain ugly anyhow, anything is an improvement. You can't buy a Picasso for $12.

I'll have you know I was worried when I saw the first few pics.

I was thinking "Oh no, this is going to be butt ugly"

Then I skipped to page 4.

DROOL! Sweet case! Lucky stiff, my parents are as supportive of my case modding as uhh.. uhh... well, they aren't.

Thanks, from both of us.

Here, it was the exact opposite, my guys only wanted to play games on the computer, nothing else interested them. I wanted them to get involved, but wasn't sure how to go about it. I told Josh he could have this system when I upgraded this spring, and asked him what he wanted to do to it. Once he started, he was hooked. My youngest got itchy just watching, so his system is next.

I just fired off a money order for Josh's new CPU today, so he's already patiently(yeah, right) waiting for it to get here. I got him to mail it off this morning, he gets back home, and asks when the chip will get here, heh heh heh. Yeah, sure, the MO hasn't even left the post office yet, and he wants to know what's taking so long. Kids, gotta love em!

 

[threeme2189]

lol which cpu did you buy?
i can wait to see that keyboard red...its gonna be so cool...

 

[isisfreak]

Looks good, I really like the paint Its good to see parents getting their kids into modding. It was the opposite for me though, I got my dad modding

 

[Brundle Fly]

lol which cpu did you buy?
i can wait to see that keyboard red...its gonna be so cool...

I bought two 1.26's and an 866. Hopefully, somewhere down the line, the two 1.26's will end up in a dualie board. Highest OC I've seen for the 866 is 1134, highest for the 1.26 is 1751 on air, OCZ Goliath, very old technology for a HSF, I figure they'll all clock well.

If I splurge and get a new monitor for myself, we may just do the monitor in red too. I imagine it wouldn't hurt to pull it apart anyhow, it's got 6 1/2 years of dust-bunnies in it, it just might be due for a cleaning, heh.

Looks good, I really like the paint Its good to see parents getting their kids into modding. It was the opposite for me though, I got my dad modding

Thanks, we love the paint too, and thanks to stryder who got me to look at Dupli-colour in the first place with his baked drive bays. http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=332211

Us guys in this house love the modding, the wife/fiance gets a wee bit touchy about it at times, we tend to make a mess. Right now one end of the kitchen table has all the keys from the keyboard on it, the other end has the keyboard itself sitting there, waiting for the bondo to cure. I've already been told to lose it before supper, heh heh heh.

 

[celeron648fx]

Nice paint . if it was edible i think i'd eat it .. mmm

 

[RIPSTER]

lol man wicked mod cant wait to see the kb sounds sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeet

 

[Brundle Fly]

Nice paint . if it was edible i think i'd eat it .. mmm

LMAO, your crib didn't happen to have lead paint on it, did it?

lol man wicked mod cant wait to see the kb sounds sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeet

Thanks man.

I just got the "bum's rush" from the wife, time to get moving, supper will be soon, so I got the second coat of bondo on, hopefully by the time it's cured it's not too late, I'd like to get it primered tonight but don't want to get #2 son all wired on paint fumes before he goes to bed, he sleeps in the basement, heh.

As you can see, I took over the kitchen table, so the "boss" is gettin kinda PO'ed with me. I also got a blast for doing the first coat on the Zehr's flyer, man, it's just grocery prices, relax! Anyhow, I had to change newspapers, women, they just don't understand.

I have a few bondo tips to pass on:

1) To shorten bondo cure times, add heat.

2) Placing whatever you bondo'ed on a heat vent shortens the cure time.

3) Bondo doesn't like heat shortening its cure time. Apply another coat of bondo to cover the cracks created in the first coat by shortening cure time with heat.

I hope these tips are educational for other people like me, as in "impatient". Sometimes, it's better just to wait. I have to go check the keyboard now, it's back on the heat vent, I don't learn from my mistakes, heh.

 

[neonblingbling]

If it dont like heat, I say jack it up with like 4 soda cans or something.

 

[Brundle Fly]

I guess we've been slacking off here, but it was exam time for Bam, and work is back to being busy for me. Due to circumstances, along with my tax rebate, I'll also be getting another nice chunk of change, so along with more time to spend on this, very shortly, we'll have more money to spend on this.

If it dont like heat, I say jack it up with like 4 soda cans or something.

Good idea, I have to redo the bondo on the cut-off edge again, I don't like how it turned out, there's pinholes in it, and still a few cracks, which I only noticed after the primer was on. On top of that, the primer lifted on the bottom edge of the plexi patch. We have very hard water here, and it's heavily chlorined, so even though I washed the KB with soap and water after sanding, I think some of the chlorine was left behind. The only place the primer lifted was at the very lowest edge of the KB, as it sat while drying. I had dried it by hand, but I have no other explanation for it. I should have washed it down with rubbing alcohol before priming, my fault. The paint-lifting goes right across the bottom edge.

The KB will look much better when done, it's bonus right now, but with a wee bit more bondo, and the paint to match the case, it'll be sweet.

In the mean time, we've been plodding along with a few things. I've been waiting for the stick-on diamond plate from my buddy, but it hasn't showed up yet. So, I took a look at some doorsill extension at work. It's extruded aluminum, this piece is 1" X 2", but I'll be scooping the 1" X 1" @ 1/8" thick. It'll cost me around $3 a foot, and 8' ought to do it. I'll be using it on the top corners of the case, and as a border for the window. I forgot to ask my boss if I can just scoop flatstock, which would be better for the window, no need to cut down the angled extrusion, then go through the hassle of sanding/filing/dremeling the edge smooth, and straight.

The extrusion...

I wanted to see how well it would polish up, so here's before and after...

Before...

After...

I only polished the center section of the extrusion, no point polishing all of it, I'm not using that piece.

This is how it will look on the case, but it'll be using 1" X 1" like I said, so the upper edge won't look so out of place. I'll fasten these pieces to the case with stainless steel rivets, then clear coat everything piece by piece. Because we have the mural going on the side of the case, it would be impossible to clear it all in one shot, we'll have way too much sanding to do between colour coats on the mural, and overspray would make a freakin big mess of everything. The stainless rivets I'll have to clear coat by hand, but that's no biggie.

We'll sand down the cover this weekend, and get Bam started on the mural, cause if he doesn't start it, I will. time to get this show on the road.