Poser

Its the thought thought that counts. We eloped in Hawaii a couple of years ago...started planning a "real" wedding...but along came our daughter...so we had to postpone it for awhile. Well the piper's come a'callin and its time to pay up. If anything, its a great excuse to drink with old friends and family

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Poser

So I had some time to kill today...and I decided to knock out one of the myriad of minor projects that constantly pop up and plague my build like Jehovah's witness' at the airport.

So in conjunction with Lowe Tech's School for the Mentally Sparse, I present:

Poser's guide to stealthing your optical bay on a low budget and even lower technical prowess

A few notes first:

1. This an extremely lo-tech mod, requiring no skills and even less cognitive function than passing gas. If you are an experienced modder, please avert your gaze as it will surely cause you to reaquaint yourself with an earlier meal.

2. This mod is made to be "sturdy" (I use this word loosely) enough for everyday use, but also easy enough to "port" to another drive without cursing, the use of a blowtorch, bolt-cutters and blood.

3. This mod is done with a CM Stacker...but I am sure it can be applied to any bay cover *successfully* (again, using this word loosely)

4. It works...kinda. (click the chalkboard, dummy)

Alright for those of you still reading (all 2 of you) here is the thought process that spawned this idea. I have a build in progress. I want to stealth all drives that would be visible. So far I only have one optical drive. It is a samsung SATA and I am still debating how I feel about its performance. So I wanted a mod that would not be so "permanent", so I could easily swap out the drive and still stealth a new drive with minimal effort and time. One word came to mind...."VELCRO".

This is what I started with:


1. Pen
2. Styro (or any semi-rigid substance you can whiddle into shape)
3. Bay cover
4. As our friends across the pond say...a good ole Stanley Knife

You may be able to skip this first bit of the procedure all together...as most drive bay covers are solid...however, the CM Stacker is designed to allow air to move throughout the entire front bezel...so I had create a solid fill so I could then anchor the velcro to something.






So as you can see...I cut the styro down, traced the opening, whiddled the styro down again...and created my solid fill



I then wrapped the styro fill in electrical tape so I could use some crazy glue to secure it in place. I chose to do this because from what little I remember in chemistry... long polycarbon chains (styro) and epoxy do not play well together (besides...it said not do it on the package of crazy glue...duh!)

Notice the scraps of styro lying on the table...they are not trash, well they are...but still we gonna use 'em later anyway.

I brushed the insides of the opening with crazy glue and placed my styro fill snugly into its new home...slightly recessed from being flush to the interior.


I then dremelled off the tabs that used to lock into place on the drive cage walls

I also repeated the procedure for the two small gaps flanking either side of the main expanse so I would have a solid fill across the entire bay cover. I then used my scraps to create a "bumper " across the bottom of the bay cover to help reduce vibration and (more importantly) keep it flush mounted and "mostly" perpendicular. I then added a length of industrial grade velcro fuzz.



I then placed strips of velcro along the drives tray to align with the bay cover


Presto jammo...you are now ready to mount your bay cover. One word (well sentence actually) of advise: Mount the cover a little higher than flush...by pushing it against the tray door. Then exert a little downward force to help the cover "settle" into a flush position. This will actually help make the velcro bond tighter by forcing more interaction between the two planes of contact. (Remember, despite our best efforts...gravity still exerts a downward force of 9.83m/s^2...). If you are unhappy with the mount, just peel it off and mount it again....and again....and again...and again...and again...and, well you get the point. Changing drives is as easy as placing a new strip across another drives tray.



And this concludes our tutorial on Spam and eggs. Thank you...and please do check out our video demonstration

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Poser

Wow...as the my timeline dwindles (3 days to the wedding...whoooahhhh) and relatives and friends begin to arrive from out of town, I managed to slap together the n00b and see her in her first morning glory...

I still have a bit of cable management...but hey rather than bore you with words (like all my other posts...) I let the pictures speak for themselves

I hope you all enjoy....



This i lapping was brought to by the good folks of www.easypckits.com makers of the best lapping kits available on the web. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming...

....drumroll please.... (she looks kind of rough...but remember this is my first "real build" and mod job, and I began to run short of time. "I love you, JEN KNEE")

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JeffB

Whoa, ultra quick wrap up! Thanks for pumping this out for us before your wedding, and have a great weekend!

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My Water Cooled 343B Mod Worklog - Updated May 15th

Poser

Did some cable clean-up...will upload pics later. As soon as things calm down around here a bit, I am gonna do some serious tidying up as I want an ultra clean interior

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Chapstick

Wow, nice work, glad you learned how to dremel after your first try, very impressive.

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Google is awesome.
Pictures of my Quad build: Clicky Clicky
We Are Gr33n Machine

SZayat

I'm impressed, ain't noob at all!

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Vista.x64.FAQ :V MP3.Server :V Disable.TCP.Auto-Tunning :V Best.Wallpaper.Sources
LEARN ABOUT FOLDING@HOME

Poser

Finally have had some piece and quiet around here and began to get back to pimpin da n00b. Went about planning on how to hide all my wires...when I realized that I had spent the better part of 14 hours sleeving all of my cables in UV reactive flex. DAMN...I can be stupid some time. So I then streamlined the cable layout to maximize on visual appeal while at the same time preserving maxium air-flow. Its looking pretty damned nice...or at least less like an octupus and squid engaged in an UFC match while deep in the throws of an epileptic fit. My kama meter is measuring a 2.3*C diff in temp between the top and bottom of my case, which is good to some extent but I am thinking of modding the other side panel to pull some air through and maybe drop the ambient a little more...

...pics to follow soon

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g_e_young

Where do you get that cool blue sleeving? Thanks, g-

JeffB

Welcome back hope sall went well for you

Wow that sounds quite a temp diff between the top and bottom, not huge but seems like a fair amount of change in a small space. Kind of surprised about that considering the blow hole and all.

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My Water Cooled 343B Mod Worklog - Updated May 15th