General Modding Help

[Zerileous]

Ok, im going to start my first mod and i have quite a bit set out for me. I got a case from a friend of mine, the comp is crap, (p1 100mhz) but the 200 watt PSU (designed to run a monitor 2) combined with an old 150 watt psu i have hiding around should be plenty of power. I found a hole saw in my garage (lucky me) and we have an old electric drill (quite powerfull). I will need to mod the PSU a bit so it would be great if someone could go over the general safety precautions. In order to mod this PSU i will need to be adding ventilation slits since the ones that come with it will be blocked due to placement. My first question would be whether or not i can just use dremel cutting wheels in the drill (my common sense tells me no) so i need the next best easy and cheep way to make some slits. (if you have not already figured out, i am a dremmel less man). Just had an idea, just cut a round hole in the PSU case with hole saw and use a fan grille. (the hole saw is 60mm diameter, perfect for 80mm fans). Just to satisfy you peoples curiosity this beast (not performance, just weigt and excess of outdated crap) will consist of: Soyo TISU mobo, 512mb SDRAM, tnt2 vid, as many old small cheep harddrives as i can get for free (already have for totalling like 15 gig some IDE and some SCSI 2) The idea is that i dont trust either powersupply to power all those drives and the fans and the actual system so the smaller one will probly power the system and maybe a few fans and the 200 watt will take the drives and the rest of the fans. I can fill up all 4 IDE channels b/c i have a scsi 2 CD rom. Remember im not looking for speed, im just looking to see how good i can get it to patch togatehr to be. I might throw in an old rage 3d for a second montior. After x-mas when my moms warranty is up i might pull my old GF4 MX 440 out of her computer (its mine, i cant belived BB conned me into paying them 40 bux to put it in) and using that and giving her the TNT. Gotta go, cya.

 

[Smirabi]

well, i bet you could use your dremel cutting discs on another kind of rotary tool, but the difference between dremel and powerful drill is that dremel works cause of it's rpms and powerful drills work because of their torque. so if you expect a dremel bit to perform similarly in a drill, just remember that rpms are the key, especially considering that cutting discs will probably just shatter if you try to power them through. remember to wear eye protection.
sorry, but i'm not qualified to comment on how to be safe around a psu. good luck.

mod on

 

[Fushyuguru]

Just leave the PSU's disconnected for about an hour to be safe. The big caps have discharging circuits that drain them in a short period of time (15-20 min) when off. To be extra paranoid, you can take a grounded screwdriver and touch the backside of any caps you see, theyll discharge. You should be good.

Otherwise just dont lick the PSU or stick you fingers in the transformer. They shouldnt be there and PSU's taste like shocking.