CyberDruid Reveals his CaseMod Comp Log! Enjoy! - Overclock.net

*CyberDruid* · 03-03-07

Well Guys here's a treat for you modders. I won't be in the comp but I wanted to share what I did accomplish with you all.

That was where the theme of my mod started...Darth Maul the Sith Lord...what kind of rig would he use...

A Lian Li V600 would be the victim--the sides would be oversized acrylic slabs with one side etched and lit with that scarey face. 3 RaptorX would be featured beside the etching... The entire case would be reworked as the pictures below will show...basically the side panels are totally removed and the acrylic sides make a space for airflow underneath so I can convert the airflow of the case to promot ideal cooling using convection currents and a top mounted PA 160 rad. Internal WCing, 3 Raptor X in RAID 0, a Pair of X19XX GFX in CF...a lot to cram into a tiny case...but I did it.

Tested the red 15" CCL tubes--very impressed by the deep red--not pink. Extremely well built well worth the $35 for the pair.

The AC Ryan fans are sweet--very quiet and push 70 cfm...

They are UV lit with 4 LEDs--this is gonna look nice from the side...

Got the LEDs for the front panel (UV) and for the backlight on the mobo (Red)

Here's the case with the side panel off fresh out of the wrapper...

Here's the way I need it to be--still need to do some slicing and dicing for the PSU--those flanges will get nipped.

A 6" long PSU will fit perfectly--with a small gap for the cabling--anything longer and I end up destroying the structural integrity of the 5.25 bay...

The PSU is only 3 1/2" wide so by puting it up against the frame were the fan was I really open up some floor space on the case.

I have 7" from the floor to the top of the bay--so there will be room for the cables coming out of the PSU to turn--I could almost fit a PC Power & Cooling Silencer in there--but it would sacrifice the lower bay...

The next area of concern is the niche for the Raptor X HDDs into the side panel and up against the Optical Bay. I was concerned that there would not be enough width vetween the mobo tray and the frame--but at 6.25" it is enough for a Raptor longwise. At 1" deep to the inside the of the panel it is deep enough and at 13" tall I could make a frame to hold three of them in that space from aluminum angle.

Here where the res must live--there are litle tabs int he 5.25. bay that support it--this way to fill the res I simple need to remove the screws and slide it forward enough to get at the fill plug..

*CyberDruid* · 03-03-07

Next phase chopping it to pieces...

Got chopping on the Lian Li today--made the necessary modifications to mount the radiator, relocate the PSU and mount the fans. Take a look at the action.

Blue tape is my friend.

Big Val has his midget--I get a Mini-Me...LOL

Can you feel the tension? Ajax the Dog can...

Deburring the holes.

Checking the fit of the radiator.

The correct tool for the job--Bosch makes the best metal cutting jig saw blades.

That should do the job.

Trimming off the HDD bay brackets with the Fein saw--it cuts through the aluminum like paper.

One more bracket to go.

Gone!

Now to layout for the PSU hole.

Be sure to wear protective gear for your health and safety while modding with power tools--the Fein saw is extremely loud.

The Fein saw does not spin but rotates back and forth 1/32" making a slice so thin you could not put a credit card through it. Cash works though...LOL

Makes cutting a straight line in tight confines easy.

The result.

Got a little distracted and did not takes shots of the fan holes--no biggy--just some careful jigsaw work.

Those AC Ryan fans look sweet against the black--not that anyone will ever see them. I plan to trim out the bottom in plastic to hide the perforations and make a bezel for the PSU.

Here it is in the proper orientation--the acrylic sides will give a 2" gap for the PSU power cord and the fans to breathe.

This PSU used for the mockup is a 1/2" longer than the Xclio. Any 6" long PSU will fit flsuh to the bottom of the case without modifying the 5.25 bay bracket.

The radiator is screwed in place as are the fans

Better view of the top.

A shot of the fans plugged in--pretty interesting color.

Looking down through the radiator.

I sealed up the case and checked the airflow through the radiator--it is substantial.

So that's some progress.
Next I plan to make up some of the plastic trim parts for the case bottom and case front.

A quick Before and After:

Before

After

*CyberDruid* · 03-03-07

Next phase: router magic on the UV acrylic....

Another big day of modding. Take a look at some acrylic work in action.

Got out the lil bandsaw to help make the template for routing the acrylic face plate.

Here's the pattern I will use to route against.

My old friend blue tape to protect the acrylic and a litle hot glue to hold the template in place.

I am using a 5/16" template guide and a 1/4" straight 2 flute carbide bit on a 1 1/2 Horse Porter Cable Router with a plunge base.

Pink Snow!

Now I flip it over and route the edges with a bevel bit

Finished product.

I have the resevoir in place--later I will glue the face plate to the res and hold the bottom in place with a special red thumbscrew right over the Lian Li case badge.

In the bay below the res I will mount a slot drive DVD Burner and route the slot and the button hole. Below that I hope to have the SB platinum front controls with holes routed for the knobs and inputs.

Here's an angle to show the radiator--there will be a facade to cover the PA 160.

Here's a little piece to cover those perforations on the case bottom around the fans--I have some 5mm UV LEDs to make this piece "float" a little.

Even without lighting this little piece of trim "pops" and fits snugly against the mobo tray.

Gonna throw some beams up at the mobo too.

Lian Li has a spiffy sliding lock closure for the side panel--but I am eliminating the side panel on this side altogether so off it comes.

Much cleaner overall look--but I will stil be trimming out the entire edge with 1/2" black acrylic that will make a little lip and add to the width. This I can backscrew with 1/4" self tapping screws throught he existing flange.

Here I am checking the fit of the PSU face plate before making the cut out for the fan and powercable.

I trace the opening on the blue tape side and then will use a Lian Li PSU backplate to make my cut out marks.

For this simple cut out I use a couple of holesaws and a jigsaw.

It fits snugly against the case sides.

Look how that lights up the case bottom--with some discretely place UV LEDs I think it will be pretty wild.

Even from the bottom the case is looking pretty nice. I will need to fasten that PSU plate down with some screws.

Before Acrylic.

After Acrylic.

Have to wait to attach the face plate until I get the slot drive and make that slit.

I started checking out where I will mount the HDDs in this case. I was hoping that there would be the typical 1" deep gap beside the optical bay.

1 1/16" inch from the bay to the outside of the case flange. The aluminum cover is about 1/16" thicl which means just barely eough room to squeeze the 1" thick drives in there with an 1/8" strap of aluminum to attach them.

About 6 1/4" from the mobo tray to the support brace.

And 12 3/4" from the case lock at the top to the flange at the bottom. I want to gap the drives at least 1/8" apart.

Here is where I plan to mount the Raptors.

But I am not going to use the aluminum panel after all. I gave it some thought and I want to do some more acrylic on that side. So instead of the aluminum panel I will fab a panel from 1/4" black acrylic exactly the profile of the existing panel--two of them actually. On the HDD side I will route out a 6" by 12 1/4" opening but add an 1/8" by 1/8" rabbet to that edge . I will then route out a panel from the UV red acrylic that will wit into that rabbet and be flush to the outside of the black acrylic. I will then use some of the UV LEDs and light this panel from the edge by backdrilling the black acrylic so that the LED can be hidden but the light will go into the red panel.
I may also spray the Raptors in UV red (clear in regular light) so they glow red behind the UV red panel.

I am using the AC Ryan lit SATA cables and came up with an idea for showing them off.

There are a number of ways to mount the drives in this area. By using the 1/4" acrylic I gain the space to mount them to a plate of aluminum as a heatsink and to use some rubber to isolate the vibration. I am unsure whether it would be better to leave the backs exposed to what air flow there will be in the case or whether I should mount them firmly to a large plate of aluminum and let that cool them. I know for a fact that aluminum heatsinks on SATA drives works very well with almost no airflow.

What I am considering is cutting a plate of 1/8" aluminum to reach from top to bottom in the case and then attaching that at the top and bottom with rubberised connections. I have an idea of using some grommets fitted into aluminum angle and tapping the plate to receive a knurled black thumbscrew which will fit snugly in the grommet--I will use a washer on the screw and a little blue loctite to keep it from coming loose from the plate if necessary. I will have to leave a 1/16" gap from the optical bay to make sure the plate does not rattle against the case.

After that it is a matter of having the drives in hand to lay out the exact holes for attaching them. Since the plate will be slightly larger than the area occupied by the drives it should be fairly easy to get at the 4 screws to pull the plate and get at the optical bay device screws.

Now let me lay out what I want to do with that black acrylic on the HDD side to showcase the drives.

The black acrylic side panel will use the hardware that currently holds the aluminum panel in place. That way simply pulling the case lock open allows the panel to be removed--this will make fitting and modding the panel for the HDDs much easier than screwing and unscrewing into the acrylic. One thing about acrylic is that you only want to put a screw into the plastic one time and one time only if at all possible--unlike wood or metal it will not resist the threads of the fastener chewing it up into powder.

As I posted above I want to inset a panel of UV red into the black to make a window over the windowed drives LOL. I will make this glow by insetting some LEDs into the black acrylic around the red panel. No need for this to be a boring shape either...

I might accentuate this a little more--it will be a major feature so I plan to spend some time developing the look.

With UV LEDs in each pointy corner angled to the center it should make the panel come to life. I will make a neat harness for the lighting on the black acrylic panel and have it plug into the main case harness.

Now about those Red Lit SATA cables. I can get 40" lengths for these which is enough to wrap all the way around the HDD and still have 20" left over to reach the mother board. All that is reguired is to leave the appropriate gap all the way around each HDD to allow the cable to be neatly pressed into the crevice.

Now I won't know how this looks until I can get the parts together--but it seems like it would be effective. There are a lot of pieces of acrylic between the Raptors and the eyeball staring at them --1/2" clear, 1/8" red UV reactive, 1/16" polycarbonate on the Raptor itself. To make that little twitching arm and spinning platter jump out I will need some focused lighting.

Until I get a chance to play with the UV LEDs and the SATA cables I won't be able to tell if they are lit enough or too much. Again until I use some of the clear UV reactive Red Spraypaint I won't know if it will make the the metal parts of the Raptor glow with just a couple of LEDs. I want create an effect and LEDs, UV reactive stuff and other lights are just a pallette to draw from. One thing I do not want is to make this look like Las Vegas with a jumble of lighting all detracting from the overall effect.

The effect I want is for the eye to be drawn to a slightly opaque red window beside the Sith Face that glows seemingly on its own. And then for the eye to notice that there is some sort of movement and activity taking place behind that red window--holy crap it's HDDs twitching away there! Ideally the light would glint off the moving parts just enough to draw in the eye from a nicely inset window to the hardware blazing away inside. Now the cables wrapped around each drive might be too distracting for that effect.

An optional look I am very drawn to is to route channels into exterior of the black acrylic leading from the HDDs toward the mobo area for the Red Lit SATA cables tolay flat in so they look like traces; and then have holes in the black acrylic at the exact right location for the cables to enter the case right by the SATA port elevation beside the mobo tray. the 1/2" clear ouside panel would keep these squished into place. What I figured was that the extra length of the cables could be neatly stashed around the the HDDs and the red light would seep from behind through the gaps in the HDDs and the black acrylic.

And that's where I just totally got sidetracked building ICE and Velocitor and then went to Savannah to work...

so my loss, your entertainment...

Hope some of my techniques came across.

I test fitted a PSU in the case and there were no technical difficulties...just a lack of enthusiasm for the theme...I really didn't want to put all that effort into that particular theme...but I do still have the case and may simply re-invent it at some later point...

Hope you enjoyed the tour...

CyberD

lessthanjake1241 · 03-03-07

Cool cool....to badd its not in the comp

Joeking78 · 03-03-07

Good stuff CD

Thats gonna be a mean mutha of a case

NOS--- · 03-03-07

Amazing... Extreme craftsmanship from an extreme kinda guy!

You never stop inmpressing us cyber D!

Niko-Time · 03-03-07

Onoz, smoking kills.

AWESOME case though mate, well done

sleepy916 · 03-03-07

very nice!

**prosser13** · 03-03-07

OMG CD, that is sweet

Pleeeease finish

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CyberDruid Reveals his CaseMod Comp Log! Enjoy!