Mod a Case With Me......... LOTS OF PICS

[nova7]

I do like cars...(might be gettin' a beat up charger to work on when im 15, (for free) I don't consider myself a car nut, but i do like fieros as well. back to topic. love the fan controller, i will probably buy a xaser III vm3000A. It's too bad they don't make good cases to mod like that (your server tower) anymore. I'm stupid: what's the thing w/ all the leds. lol

 

[Capt Fiero]

The front LED panel was for 7 hd LED's and several FAN leds' I am not sure yet what I am going to do with it. The only reason I have left in it in place is that it has the Power and Reset as well as the Power LED in it.

 

[PCGUY112887]

You could paint it to match your case, and wire up all of the LED's you aren't useing to stay on all the time. Or you can just re-rout the power and reset and LED lights and toss the whole thing.

 

[Tabrin]

Maybe I missed something, but I can't get the earlier pages to load anymore. Eh.
Are all those LED's on the 5.25" Bay insert operating?

 

[Capt Fiero]

The white panel on the 5.25" bay with all the LED's is the panel we are talking about. I think I am going to pull the panel out today and attempt to remove all the LED's so I can paint it to match the case. I have thought about removing the switchs and the couple of LED's that I do use and mounting them in the case, but I kind of like the stuff being in the panel. It is so nice being able to remove the front bezel and have no wires in the front bezel of the case.

I wish I could find a good use for all the extra LED"s. I dont know any way to make them work on this machine though. There must be a way to hook LED's direct to the HD to blink when active. The machine has 4 internal hd's and 1 external. I plan to add at least 2 more internal drives in the next couple of months.

I will try to post pics of the painted plate and the cut out front door later on today.

 

[Capt Fiero]

Time for an update.

Well the P3 550 was tossed. I got an old Abit KG7 Raid MB and an Athlon XP 1800+ oced to 1900+ for 120cdn. I had to pull a 512mb stick out of my main rig and put it onto the Abit board.

The machine is running a ton faster now. I am adding another HD in it soon. I had to pull the lights out of the case due to the strain on the cheap PSU that the new MB and CPU put on it. I am going to get a new PSU and then add in 4 UV tubes and scrap out all the other lights from it. Should make for a neat look.

 

[Swatdog]

Good job! *says in Yoda's vioce: Talent, you have!"

It might be just me, but dont you think it would look cooler if you took out the blue lights (Fans, Cathodes, etc) and put in Red ones to match the redness of the case? That would look so nice: Red PSU sleeving (even a transparent red PSU cover), Red IDE/SATA cables, Red LED Fans, Red Cathodes (4 or 5 in the case and then one under neath the case on the outside to create an under glow), just go all Red crazy and stuff If you wanted to, you could even get Red LED feet for your case aswell. Its just that the blue/red theme doesnt really set well, but hey... The whole meaning of modding is to let your imagination fly.

Awesome job so far though, man!!

 

[Capt Fiero]

I am not sure if you read the entire 4 page thread, but about 1/2 through the mod I lost my job and the "new job" that I thought I had never panned out. So my funds have been really tight, there are lots of other things I want / need to buy for it. IE a new PSU, the current one is a cheep generic 350 that I am taxing all to hell to run the rig.

I had to buy what was on sale at the computer store. They had the blue tubes for 1.95 cdn inverter included. So I bought those. I did do a few cool changes to the machine with the new MB and Ram and CPU I just picked up another 80gig drive for it as well, but at the moment looks have to come second to eating and storage space. (that was a joke)

I did add a laser cut alien head to the front of the case and made some magnet door latches that work really well to keep the front door closed and not vibrate under hte load of all of the fans.

When I get the new PSU I will add new lights to the rig so that it is looking as well as it runs.

Thank You very much for all the comments on it. I put a lot of time into making it look the way that it does.

 

[halo_2_rocks]

That is really cool

 

[Ardneh42]

Great looking case, I just think you could do something nicer looking with that fan in 5.25 bays.

 

[Capt Fiero]

Ya I been meaning to make a panel for the fan to sit in, just have not got around to it.

I put all the hard drives up there, and that fan cools all the drives.

 

[xTrEmEoVrClOcKr]

Wow, I like both of your rigs. The server case, wow I could live in there for a few days if I had food, water, and a toilet (I bet they would all fit ) Well, congrats, looks awsome.

 

[Capt Fiero]

Wow, I like both of your rigs. The server case, wow I could live in there for a few days if I had food, water, and a toilet (I bet they would all fit ) Well, congrats, looks awsome.

Thank you, someday I will do a water cooling setup in it. However for the moment with all the new parts that went into it I am pretty happy with it. The CPU uder heavy load does not go over 39C and for an AMD I am pretty happy with that. At this point I am doing rice mods to it with decals and case badges. They had a sale on Case Badges at my local computer store, so it now has Overclocked, VirusProtected, "Most of my Money in Here" and a Hazardous Chemical Warning badge on it. Oh and a Stainless Steel Alien Head stuck on the front.

 

[BTTB]

I don't mean to noob up the thread, but I was wondering:

A server case would work for a regular computer setup?
You can use spray paint? When I use it, things are ugly. How do you do it?

 

[Capt Fiero]

Yes a server tower can be used as a regular computer case. Sometimes depending on placmnet of parts you will need longer cables and wires for fans and hard drives. Most server towers have a minimum of 4-6 fans standard. I prefer server or server style cases for all my rigs. My smallest personal tower is 21" tall. Having large towers means you can fit a lot more stuff in them and still have room to play around and make it looks neat.

As for paint, always use a good primer. I prefer to use a high build primer as they fill in any scratches or surface imperfections.

 

[BTTB]

Thanks, Capt Fiero. That cleared up a lot of confusion!

 

[atomic hamster]

They must have had 50 brand new AT Cases with PSU they were about to crush several P2 ATX machines complete with Hard drives and CD Roms they were about to crush. giant bins full of slot one motherboards and stuff. I could not belive it. I am sure they save the really good stuff, but anything less than a gig machine they probably just toss. The shipping would make it really expensive to ship this kind of stuff. It is pretty big and bulky. But if you ever make it to Surrey BC Canada. 2hrs North of Seattle Washington I can show ya where this place is.

They might even have a location state side. I will see if I can find there web site again. I went there once but it was a totally useless site. The only thing I got from it was there phone number and no one answerd it.

Woah surrey bc? i live in nanimo bc it just a short ferry ride away
Where abouts is this magical place in surrey?

 

[Capt Fiero]

Woah surrey bc? i live in nanimo bc it just a short ferry ride away
Where abouts is this magical place in surrey?

Dont waste your ferry money. I have been back there 5 times and came out empty handed each time. I am begining to wonder if it was just luck that I got this rig. They keep telling me to come back in a week or so. It is kinda like an auto wrecking yard. Even they dont know what they are going to get until it comes through there front door. If I do find out they they have a bunch of cases, I will post back here and let everyone know.

 

[speed bump]

Hey Capt fiero is it the pictures or is that paint job need rubbed out. Cuase the paint appears to be unevenly apllied and has a slight orange peel look to it.

A look that I can't believe any self respecting hot rodder would allow to be shown on any project they worked on. So right now I am going to assume that its all the cameras falt.

 

[Capt Fiero]

Hey Capt fiero is it the pictures or is that paint job need rubbed out. Cuase the paint appears to be unevenly apllied and has a slight orange peel look to it.

A look that I can't believe any self respecting hot rodder would allow to be shown on any project they worked on. So right now I am going to assume that its all the cameras falt.

It is a a little of both, however I did 2 coats of primer and about 4 coats of paint. The first two coats were a generic red paint. The last 2 coats were the new Duplicolor, "metal cast" red paint. It gave the entire finish a marbel swirl pattern that looks really nice. It turned out better than expected. It is a very very deep red almost black in some lights, but when in bright light at the time of day that the sun can get a straight shot it at, the red looks so deep its like a glass of fine red wine almost could go swimming in it. There are no "fish eye" spots in it at all. That is one thing I would not allow to happen. If I started to get that while painted I would stop sand that area and re-prime it, then shoot the entire area all over again. I was tempted to do a clear coat over the entire thing then wet sand it to a high gloss, but I really like the looks of the marble red finish that came out.