Project: OptPrime Rev. 2.00 "By the books" - Update 11.01.04

[SpeeDj]

Well if you are ever up for Lanning let me know I get together with some forum members that are here in Wisc alot and do some gaming. I'm in waukesha off 94 btw.

What about the fangrill idea ? ^.^

J

 

[evowatercooling]

Where are you in WI optimus. I live close to hudson which is close to the twincities.

 

[Optimus Prime]

well i now go to school in Bloomington Indiana... but i am from Green Bay w00t w00t!!!!

LoL but seriously i would love an oc.com lan party action. as for the fan grill i think i am either going to do it in aluminum or plexi. And as speedj suggested i am going to try and make it a gen 1 logo but instead of doing the entire thing i am thinking that i am just going to do the outline. Im gonna give it a shot and post the results.

 

[evowatercooling]

Cool cool. If your gf would like a few bucks I am willing to pay for a window. It is better then paying $130 for one. Plus I can not do it my self. Here is the pic.

edit: The pic didnt work

Where did you get the tint paint from?

 

[Cerberus2k7]

You could do a logo on the bottom half of the front doors and then put lexan over it. That way the fan LED would shine through and it would look pretty sweet

Or...

You could do like you did on the left side of the case with the half face, but do it really small on the front, then have the other half wrap around onto the right side pannel. *Shrugs* I'm cold...

 

[Optimus Prime]

more modding tonite. Tonite i got the ccfl switches mounted in the front of the case where the front usb/headphone jax used to be. I will eventually be putting led rocker switches in here but the ones that came with the ccfls will work for now. I also got everything in the case except the motherboard/proc/heatsink etc that hooks up the pci/agp bus. Wiring looks like it should turn out nice.

I also spent some more time on the led light strips. At one point i had them both not working and they seemed doomed. However i was able to recover most of them. I think long term i will be buying new ones. The long and short of it is that i am going to get this thing ready for the magazine thingy for the end of this weekend. And then i am going to continue working on this project and updating the project log... just more of a one update per week thing. mostly because i have an antec aria that will be taking main stage project log wise.

So on to the update:

you can see here how i mounted the ccfl switches in the front of the case. Nothing special this is a temp fix for some led rocker switches that will be comming in next week.

There is a little trap door that leads right to the ccfl switches. there was supposed to be a usb/headphone jack here but i made short work of that.

front of the case looking all nasty and secsie!

believe it or not that is all the power wires laid into place. The ones hanging are the 4 pin +12, the ATX connector and the Video card Connecter (which is on it's own wire/path from the powersupply) The only thing left to do wiring wise is to hook up the mobo and run all the little wires like matrix to mobo, and cpu/door fan wiring. Ive got one white ccfl along the bottom of the case, and one squeezed in there by the back exhaust fans. I had to file down the little square ccfl stand off things but it fits in there snugly.

Here is the concept art for the front fan grill... I was going to do this tonite but it got too late too fast and my screwing up on the led strips really ate up some time.

Things accomplished today:
1) mounted new ccfls.
2) mounted cd drives
3) wired 90 percent of all power wiring
4) finished led strip installation
5) drew up front fan grill

Left to do:
1) tint and attach main window
2) install board/proc
3) custom cut front fan grill
4) finish duct or air scoop for video card.

I wanted to do more tonite but i just screwed the led strips so bad i had to spend time to recover them. However the concept art for the front fan grill looks doable. Should be able to get that and the duct tomorow. I thought I would be getting the testors tinting spray today but that will be here tomorow as well. So that means tomorow is custom fan grill and tinting/mounting of main window day. That leaves thursday for installing the board and proc and finishing the duct. I will prob then spend friday afternoon finishing up all the loose ends.

That is it for now.
Prime

 

[phrkshw]

That grill is gonna be sweet !!!!!!!!!! I had been trying to figure out how it was gonna be cut out without looking so gimp , but now i got it . gl dood !!!!!

 

[Daewood]

i love the switch idea that is awesome and what magazine thing are you talking about?

anywho keep up the good work and i just got my camera so in a few days i will start to post my case mods...

 

[em00guy]

I stand in awe. This project is amazing

 

[Daegon]

Beautiful case, lookin good so far. Keep up the good deeds dawg.

 

[Optimus Prime]

ok got some stuff done tonite. Got that fan grill cut out and installed. Got the side window tinted and installed w/door fan and the rest of the parts for the 1/2 autobot logo. Also had to move one of the ccfl's cause the ccfl extension cable would only let it light up half way. That was gay. On bad thing is i think the matrix orbital screen i have is shot. I am going have to pm the guy that i got it from and check it out.

Ne who here are the pix

front fan grill custom made by me. It could have turned out better but those cuts were real small. still better then the wire one that i had there before imho

Here is a sneak peak of the lighting that the case will have

w/ccfls and flash on

w/ccfls and flash off

w/out ccfls flash on...

I think it is looking good.... what do you guys think?

 

[Daewood]

I love that grill and the window it is awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and i am a sucker for white ccfl's

 

[Vio1]

1 word: WOW

 

[SatanSkin]

Hard to notice the tint. Are you going to be tinting the etched window? that's the one i was interested in mainly. If not, you think you could do me a favor and do a quick etch on a scrap piece and then tint it to see if the LEDs or CCFLs will still make the etch glow? That's what I need to figure out.

Oh and damn nice looking grill. Really brings the mod together!

 

[-Superman]

damnnnnnnn homie !

it looks good man, white cathodes reminds me of going to the zoo and the reptile section and lookin for the snakes.

cant wait to see it with your proc and the 6800 and see what kind of oc'ing/temps you get.

but no matter how good it really does look ima have to drop you in source

 

[SpeeDj]

Just a suggestion on the CCFL's, why not mount them on the sides ? it would make a pretty even distrubution of light with not alot of bright points, and allow you to hide them better. Just my two cents.

J

 

[Optimus Prime]

Just a suggestion on the CCFL's, why not mount them on the sides ? it would make a pretty even distrubution of light with not alot of bright points, and allow you to hide them better. Just my two cents.

J

I am all up for lighting suggestions. I tried mounting one on the back where the removable motherboard tray was but i had to use a ccfl wire extension and one of them was only lighting up half way. I could mount them there but that might mean having my inverter out in the open. Where exactly did you have in mind speedj, im not sure if i follow 100%.

Oh and as a side note. after i got the thing built up i noticed that the front fan wasn't pulling in near as much air as it should have been. This all changed once i opened the front lower door. So moral of the story is that the front lower door is way too restrictive. So i guess I will be jumping onto mnpctech.com and ordering some modders mesh... The i will most likley cut a square grill up front there. What I would really like to do is cut the g1 autobots logo up front and put modders mesh behind it but that stuff is 1/8 alluminum and it doesnt appear that i can take the front door off. So premilinary thoughts are a square intake grill.

Any thoughts?

 

[SpeeDj]

Here:

Current config;
 ---------
|         |
|[COLOR=White]=========[/COLOR]| < CCFL
|         |
|         |
[COLOR=White] ========= [/COLOR]<CCFL

New config;
 ---------
|         |
|---------|
[COLOR=White]::       ::
::       ::[/COLOR]
 ---------
^         ^ CCFL's mounted vertically instead of horizontally.

J Forgive my barbaric illustrations

 

[Optimus Prime]

i just ordered the honeycomb modders mesh.. and some rubber gromets... I also picked up some of those huge reinforced cutting discs... Figured those might help me get through the 1/8 inch thick alluminum up front. Im kinda excited about the front grill thing. At first i was pissed cause i really liked the whole solid front thing. But I think that it is going to look good and in addition it is going to make it so that from every angle that you look at this case you will be able to see one of my mods.

Ne who this part will be done next week. Like I said before the board and proc get here today... I sure hope my abit has a pci/agp lock on it. From what i have heard they are great as long as they have that. Well i guess we will see.

As for window tint I tried the spray tint that i was waiting for. i guess it isnt the same as i remembered... but then again i used to have an airbrush and this was just spray can. I bet it would look pimp with an air-brush.

I am going to try and reorganize the white ccfls tonite when i put the board in so that i can get better light distribution as was suggested by some (particularly j). Also i do not think I am going to be painting this bad boy at least not yet. but if i do you can bet that it will be a blue/red/black paintjob with some silver accents... to mirror the color scheme of... who else but el primo. I really wish i were good at painting cause it would look tough. I might just bite the bullet and have it proffesionaly painted. Also last night I noticed that when i have the custom made fan grill installed the front 120 makes this loud whining noise. I would bet money on the fact that it is because the grill is right up against the fan and that is creating turbulance. So i am going to get some washers and maybe stack 2 under each screw between the fan grill and the fan so that the turbulance is at least decreased.

Stay tuned we are getting close.

 

[SpeeDj]

i just ordered the honeycomb modders mesh.. and some rubber gromets... I also picked up some of those huge reinforced cutting discs... Figured those might help me get through the 1/8 inch thick alluminum up front. Im kinda excited about the front grill thing. At first i was pissed cause i really liked the whole solid front thing. But I think that it is going to look good and in addition it is going to make it so that from every angle that you look at this case you will be able to see one of my mods.

If you have access to a drill press you may want to try something a bit different first Before you completely hack the whole thing up. Let me try another poor illustration.

Front lower door;
 -------------
| | [COLOR=RoyalBlue]O O O O[/COLOR] | |
| |  [COLOR=DeepSkyBlue]O O O[/COLOR]  | |
| | [COLOR=Cyan]O O O O[/COLOR] | |
| |  [COLOR=PaleTurquoise]O O O[/COLOR]  | |
| | [COLOR=LightBlue]O O O O[/COLOR] | |
| |  .---.  | |
 -------------

Might allow you to keep the look you like without having to hack it all up, flow might be the greatest but by drilling holes at set intervals (think of the pattern of the nozzles in Storm from Cather) you will come up with a nice pleasing solution to a bad air flow problem. Using a drill press will ensure accuracy as well.

J