Due to my imagehost deciding to die on me, I have had to rehost all of my images. Therefore I have listed all of the log so far in the following post.
The rest of the log will be posted as normal. Thanks for your understanding.
Well, we will just dive right into this one =D
Was dinking around with the case to see about cable management.
And that nasty fan has got to go...
That one looks much better....but wait.....
WHAT IS THAT >=( Well time to fix this.
And we def. don't need all those cables.
And my trusty fan tester =) I will be needing it for science!
One led down 3 to go.
MUCH better XD
And a little cutting to make the sleeving easier.
And BAM!
Looks much much better.
White on black =)
And thats all I have for right now....
This will be one of the next steps, sleeving madness!
And....... it's about time =D
I actually had some of that precious thing called time, so I used it getting the sleeving started on the IO top panel and some tear down. So without any more typing... here we go. =D
This was the mess we left off with last time; MAN this thing has some wires....
I wanted more white inside the case but not too much, so I decided to sleeve some of the cables white being everything else is black for the most part.
Ive always enjoyed the contrast of black and white.
Here is the front of the case and it needs to get ripped off to begin the tear down..... On a side note does anyone even read what the modder types below the pictures or do most of you just skim through... I could say anything I wanted and 90 percent of you wouldn't see it.... =P
And with the front taken off we can see the font panel and also that it does indeed come off easily…. As long as the rest of the case is also taken off.
And we rip the back part off as well.
And there is the panel and some naked case parts >.<
Panel comes off easy with two screws.
Mmmm panel goodness. This way I can sleeve it all the way to the end the proper way.
I debated in my head a long time about this part, Corsair put this tubing along the wires but they didn't go all the way flush to the connector, well that makes it hard to just sleeve over it and if I use white sleeve and cut the tube off you will see it…..
So I decided to….
Cheat… I just took some heat shrink and filled in the missing part =)
And every mad scientist needs to have a formula…. I mean I needed to remember what went where. =)
Because that looks crazy!
But the end result turned out ok. I don't like the little bulge in the wire, but when the wire is curved into the mobo connector it won't matter. I might rip it apart and choose to do black and then take the tube off as well... as it does need to be perfect lol
And that's all I had time for more sleeving fun to come. =D
Ok! So as I said last time I was not happy with the quality of the cable and more so I could not do the white without taping them so I decided to redo it in black the right way without the stupid tubing.
So these next images are the results of that. Enjoy!
So I removed the white sleeve and cut a line down the tube with a knife and this is what happened…. Usb cord guts!
Like a rainbow of color…. I was craving and skittles…
And I needed to put the sleeve back on but It needs a little help, I used some extra heat shrink I have laying around to make the sleeve insertion an easy thing.
And easy it was =D
And easy to remove.
Cut me some more sata sleeve using my jig. =)
And bam! Sleeved Usb cord.
I double shrunk the top part that will be hidden for durability.
=D
And since I was on a roll I did the other one as well.
Next up! More of the same…. Top Panel Sleeving!
Well, as the weekend goes I tend to have some time late at night. So I decided to hit up the front panel some more!
Decided to tackle to main i/o connections, but I really hate how they are bundled.
FLY FREE LITTLE CONNECTIONS FLY FREEE!1!11
Then I had to untangle the mess…
And some heatshrinking later, one down!
I refuse to shrink these individually…
And this just wont do.
Much better!
Can you guess where the double connection is?
So far so good, only a couple cables to go! Thanks to everyone who is following!
Well, I started out on this one to finish more than one cable, but I decided to tackle the one I've been trying to decide how to sleeve if at all.... But I will let the pics do the talking.
I don't think I've seen anyone sleeve one of these puppies... but that doesn't mean it hasn't been done. Or that I won't give it a go.
The sleeve was a hard choice, my mdpc sata sleeve wasn't small enough, and my techflex clean cut sata didn't fit. But this stuff fit just perfect, and for the life of me, I couldn't tell you what sleeving it is, only that it worked, barely. It took some work to get it on without damaging the sleeve.
This was the bulk of tonight's work, this is mdpc sata shink, and I had to push it to its very limits to get it to go over the end of the usb connector; lots of twisting and pulling and stretching. After 3 broken pieces and 1 almost attempt at giving up on it, I got 2 of them on.
Felt pretty good to get them on there, but at the same time I wanted to shrink it perfectly or else I was going to have to stretch another piece.
But that wasn't the case, I got it on there just right! I love that look.
And this is the panel. This time I used a shrink and a zip tie as I had to really stretch the sleeving to get a fitted clean look.
And from what was supposed to be a lot more work done, that's all i was able to finish. But I left the mod bench with at least some sense of accomplishment lol
Thanks again for following!
I shall reply with this! Another sleeving update!
I decided to tackle the hd audio cable, knowing I had to rip a bunch of it apart. =(
Here is the subject, I only want the hd audio, so the other is going bye bye.
First some science on the cable placement. Don't mind the erased stickman... he wasn't meant to be. >.<
A simple snip and presto! I did this so that I could cut the little bits off easier.
And all taken apart! MEDUSA!!! Ok so not that scary...
Cut this tubing off..
MMMmmmm shieldy, yes; I just made that word up.
The little snips needed to be well snipped off.
Some shrink to make the sleeving go on better.
Sleeve on and ready to shrink after connecting it.
Back end cleaned up and shrunk.
And done. The end is kind of fat as there is a double wire in that bunch, but overall im happy with it.
And that's it for tonight, I should be able to finish the other cable tomorrow night, and then get things prepped wiring the fans and getting ready to start dremel the top.
Well, as typical of the weekend for me. I found some time to work on the Aspros Mod. I decided to take a break from the sleeving and prep some pieces for painting and powdercoating.
Good Gosh! Look at that mess….
Ahhh, much better =)
And here is my first victim. I will be taking this thing apart and prepping it to be powdercoated.
Remove these.
Push these in and remove the guts!
After its open… -.-
And so there is a hidden piece of plastic that my powdercoater probably wouldn't like to bake, so it had to be removed. I simply ran a knife along the edge until the plate came off.
Like so. But, there is a ton of glue and that has to be gone as well.
So I pulled out my trusty adhesive remover…
And my trusty remover failed at his job… So I pulled out the big guns.
XD
And then it was no problem at all.
All cleaned up!
And of course these stickers need to be gone as well.
Thankfully they peeled right off.
So with the dvd drive all prepped for paint on Monday, I decided to get the large fan ready for paint as well.
I love this fan for the front… But I hate the clear plastic… only one thing we can do to take care of that…. NO NOT BUY A NEW ONE1111!!! We paint it! =)
But first I need to prep it, so it must be gutted. First the sticker comes off.
Then the washer that's holding it in…..
And the couple behind that one.
Boom! Fan taken apart.
Cover these holes, so paint doesn't get inside.
Time to start taping it off.
Clean up the tape so it looks nice when its painted.
And then pull all of the wires out and get them prepped as well. On a side note I really wanted to just remove the whole assembly, but it seems to be melted and flanged with the plastic.
And everything is ready for some painting..
That's all I have for now, more to come soon with the painting and the finishing the dvd drive.
With the fan prepped for painting I could not just leave it.... I had to get some more work done. Honestly I don't enjoy painting things with tiny openings or hard to spray areas, but with some patience its possible.
First thing is first, when painting I need hot water to heat up the spray cans, I find they spray ALOT better when they are warmed up and shaken very well.
Mah trusty paints and can holder... which is AWESOME to have.... it allows you to be John Wayne with the rattle cans.
And let them soak in hot water for about 10 min or so.
The entrance to my makeshift paint room.
TAAA DAAAA! Its kind of a hole in the wall.... really.... but it works!
And some action shots of me painting..
And some more.... ok enough of that >.<
The outside painted.
Inside before..
Inside after..
And fan in its done state.
The dvd drive has been given to the powder coater and should be done on Monday or Tuesday. That is it for now, and probably for a little bit as I have vacation this next weekend and then diving classes for the next. But I should be able to get some work done in there somewhere. Thanks for watching.
So after some time, I finally had some time to work on the mod. I had the parts back for the DVD drive so I decided it was time to finish it. So lets jump right in.
Here is the bottom shot of the powder coated casing.
And the top.
And another. They all turned out awesome.
This is the part of the dvd drive that needed to be removed so I could work on it.
Cable removed. It comes out easy just slowly pull and wiggle it out.
Flip it over and take off the belt/band.
Like so.
And here we are with the part that I will be getting power from for the leds and the led that needs to be changed.
You will notice that it has an extra spot for led 2, I'm curious to why that is there but it left me with an awesome opportunity to use that spot for the extra leds.
The leds I am using are 3.2v white leds.
And mah trusty solder gun.
First set of holes cleaned out.
And you will now notice the first little mistake of this adventure. I overheated the second set of holes and the ring decided to chip off, so no big deal I just put all of it in the first led holes.
Ran the wire I needed for both sides, and taped it down temporarily so it doesn't move.
So I drilled a hole just big enough for the top part of the led to poke through and use the flanged edge of the led to hold it in place. At this point I remembered my glue gun was broke, so I improvised and used my heatgun to melt some glue over it. It is very ugly looking but it works just fine.
So I dremeled some tracks for the wire and soldered the wires to led and after this photo I snipped the extra off the ends and covered the whole thing in glue.
And here is the other side, again I covered the whole thing in glue to secure it.
So at this point I put it all together and tested it… and it was AWESOME. But I had the hardest time getting good photos of the actual effect, so I decided to make a YouTube video… Yes my very first. Enjoy!
[ame]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qF8QFj0wC0[/ame]
I figured that was the best way to show the progress and the effect so far. But we are not done.
The front bezel needs to have the writing gone. I put a flat sheet of sand paper down and used my HS Jig to keep straight lines to get a smooth sanding.
This is the result, but I also want it shiny to match the rest of the drive.
So I added a coat of glaze finisher.
And it turned out perfect!
I love how it matches the front but sticks out just a tiny bit.
And so that concludes the dvd drive, it turned out pretty much how I wanted it, If I were to do it different I would have found a source that stayed lit for the inside, but that's for another day.
Hope you enjoyed, and thanks for following.
And I a very short amount of time tonight so while AMD GURU watched episodes of the office on skype I sleeved. I know it might be out of turn a tad but sometimes get an itch to do some sleeving so it just grab what needs to be done anyhow.
I at first wasted a ton of time working on the wrong cables.... but when I found the right ones I was in business!
Here is mah trusty sleeven tool.... well I have allot more but this is one of the main ones. =) Mostly because it was signed by a friend. =D
And here is the victim! Muahahah >=)
All of the nasty sleeving taken off.
And well the only thing left after that was the results... sooOOoo
And... thats all I had time for, which is typical of the workday updates =)
Thanks for following.
I had some time to get a little more work done, so I decided to rip apart the psu, so I could work on it, as well as get started on the massive amount of work to sleeve it.
My intentions with the powersupply is to sleeve the whole thing is black and white, as fzhizl mentioned he pitched in with the right amount of white wires to make the white sleeve pop. So I will end up resoldering alot of those wires and replacing the others, as well as removing the extra 4pin psu power wire so that only the 8 pin wired one is left. I also plan on powdercoating the PSU either in white or black... I have not decided yet.
Here is the power supply that I will be using. It has been used for a little while... So its a little dirty and scratched up.
Time to take it apart.
Oh yes we shall void.
Got to remove the fan first.
And really this will be all the hard work. Removing these is really just unsoldering the whole thing to remove these plugs so I can get it powdercoated.
And got to make a diagram so I don't get lost when putting it back. When I don't make these I tend to double guess myself on what went where.
Good ole soldering iron.
And taken apart.... Now I would have taken some photos of the in-between, but this plug set was NEVER meant to come back out... this was the hardest one to remove so far, not the soldering but the actual removal of the plugs was really tricky as they both had 4 prongs and the plastic that holds them in was really soft. So with allot of finagling they finally came out.
The guts removed.
And the case that will be getting painted.
At this point im not sure what color I want to powdercoat the psu, I would like to do white, but If I were to do black, I have another idea with a glow plate I would like to try just depends on if i think it fits. I shall model up a idea soon and show you what I mean.
Thanks for watchen!
And…. Action!
I found some more time to devote to the power supply, well actually this was like more than a few nights of short bursts of work. But I didn't want to update until I was at the point of powder coating the PSU.
So enough typing lets get started.
Here are the white wires for the PSU's white sleeved wires. I was initially going to use spray paint but a good friend of mine (fshizl) almost had a heart attack at even the mention of me using paint and insisted upon making wires for me. Thanks Bro!
As with typical OCZ fashion they have terribad sleeving on it that needs to go.
Good thing it comes off easy enough.
Another thing they come with is a 4pin power cable…. Well I don't need ones so it needs to go.
And there is the connecting site.
My friends adhesive lined shrink.
Snipped and covered.
So I can hear you wondering why I just didn't desolder it… well it was one parts I am lazy, one parts possible need for a 4 pin someday, and one parts why not. The adhesive lined shrink doesn't close all the way but the glue melts to make a nice seal on the wire.
And here are the wires.
The whole process is really simple, take the wire, cut the wire, put the wires together…
Flow a decent amount of solder over the wires.
And then adhesive shrink the wires. Again I could have just unsoldered the wire completely but this was much simpler/quicker. (that and my cheap solder iron has a hard time with the ocz solder)
I also switched from the 20 + 4 pin connector to a 24pin.
Halfway point.
Some 24pin goodness. At this point a few wires still need to be redone, but I got them before the rest of the pics.
8pin done, more to come.
Some fitting of the wires to see if I needed to make the hole any larger. And sweet enough I didn't.
Panel put on to see if I got any bulging.
Top grill of case…. Now with this mod the top will have a 240 rad. But the case has an internal area for the rad. The problems with that is it is sandwiched between 2 grills, and all they do is restrict air flow. So some parts of both of them will need to go.
The fan will sit like so.
First cut lines traces.
Mr dremel!
First cuts after some rounding.
This should be making some sense by now.
I plan on taking down the corners some more to get as much non restricted air flow going in. Clean it up and then hit it with a paint marker. (right now its just a perm marker)
These as well as the PSU cover will be going to the powder coater to be turned white.
And.... I ran out of time. Big day on Sat. of modding so big update coming up.
So until next time!
So as promised I had a full day of modding lined up. I wanted to get more done that I actually did, but here is the fruit of the labors.
From this….
To this…
And I had this power supply running for a while in a folding machine so it's a little dirty. And when I was cleaning the fan, I had an idea…
Remove that thing…
And put that thing in…. Yes it's a smaller size, 135 to a 120. I took a nzxt fan and placed it in there, for the white fan effect. Its hard to foresee the performance changes that will happen with putting a smaller fan in the PSU, but for all intents and purposes it pushes a massive amount of air. So I would assume it will cool just fine.
With the fan done it was time to cram all of this back into the PSU. I really wanted to use the O ring that went here in the first place because it adds a nice touch of black, but man oh man it was super hard to put in place, I ended up trimming a little but of it off. The O ring in its final resting place is on one of the later pics.
Half way through soldering it all back up.
Some lazy testing. (note to self: invest in a psu tester if you keep planning on doing surgery on PSUs)
All done! Overall I like the way it turned out. Its clean and up to the standards I put on myself for this build.
This…
To this….
I really like the contrast with these, I might end up having them redone as I've noticed a few small mistakes in the powder coating.
And that's where I leave off for this update. I hope to remove the watercooling from one of my other systems and get it up and running on air, so I have the parts for this build.
Some more sleeving is what next and then we can get started on the final building, as well as one nice surprise…
Well as promised here is the update that was done during the live streaming of me… well modding and goofing around. I appreciate everyone who joined in. I will continue to have the live streams if everyone continues to show up, as it just plain fun. =D
So as stated, I will be putting a backlight ontop of the entire mobo tray, and making some out of the box cable management holes. (think individual holes for each wire) But so I don't ruin the surprise too much lets continue.
Time to drill some rivets out.
While I was taking the rivets out I had to also take one of the feet off, Which was simple enough, you have to take the two pads off to get to the screw on the bottom.
But then it comes right off.
I didn't realize just how many rivets I was going to have to remove…..
And this was just the first set…. D:
But I got the tray out. So at this time the tray has been measured and is sitting at the laser cutters, I hope to have the final piece or the prototype at least sometimes this week. I have a feeling that this will take a little bit to perfect, but the results of it will make this system shine. I am pretty excited about how this will turn out as it will either make or break the idea I had for this system.
So I got some new stuff in for this mod. These fans are super nice, I was leery about getting a "enthusiast" fan from NZXT, but I have always loved their cases and have never had an issue with them before. I have played around with these fans and I have nothing bad to say at all, they all push a large amount of air in fact for the size they push more than any fan of their size than at least I have ever owned. Overall I got them because of their looks and was more than surprised at the performance.
I ended up getting a 200mm one to replace the one I painted, because I want everything to match as best as possible.
As I said before they are the enthusiast series from NZXT, so they come with a goofy switch on them that lets it run at 3 diff speeds, I plan on removeing those switches and using the internal corsair controller for at least the push/pull on the rad.
A very pretty 200mm fan. But.. there was a trick to this that I found out later.
Some cutters I have been wanting for a long time. I wanted a straight edge cutter for when I cut my sleeving, and was sick of using the diagonal one I had.
Some replacement rivets, I tested a few and they seem to not chip, but I will find out when I actually put them to use.
And a new rivet tool for the new rivets.
And since I had the front fan I needed to get some work done on it to get that fan in. I don't like the grill that they have here on the case, as I want the blades to show a little through the custom front bezel I will making.
I do like that corsair used these rubber grommets in the holes, as they found themselves to be useful later on.
Old fan removed.
New fan ready to be put in.
Here is the first cut with the dremel.
After some more sanding.
And this is where it sits right now Some more will need to be done, But I need to get a new sanding drum for the dremel.
So that lip will be covered with uchannel once it arrives and after I clean it up a little more, but as I said earlier the 200mm fan had some surprises for me, its not really a 200mm fan, well not a standard one anyhow. The mounting holes did not line up to the exact same size as the corsair one. But they were in the same place, just not wide enough, so if you remember the grommets from earlier, the plan is to make the holes open and put the grommets in and tighten it up.
Works perfectly! Once the channel is in it will look very clean.
It is sad that I had to rig it up like that but I think it works perfectly. It will be just be a pain to get the uchannel setup, but not impossible.
Speaking of the front panel, here are the designs Ive been working on, or at least the ideas I have been kicking around. I still have alot of work on these to pick a final one, but here they are.
And that's all I have right now. Next up on my plate is making a custom drive box for the slot loading dvd drive, and waiting for some of the parts to come in to start putting this case back together.
And as promised here is todays update from the live feed. I decided I needed to do some sleeving while I wait for the panels to come in.
Here are the fans I am using for this build, but you already saw them before. The thing with these fans is that they have a 3 speed switch built inand are pre sleeved, and that just has to go to clean it up.
So all the OEM sleeveing removed.
Sticker removed as I am making custom stickers and I need to get at the switch.
Here are the innards to the switch, had to pull it apart to get an understanding of how to make it run at full blast.
Wires snipped off...
And all three soldered together. The fan will now run at its highest speed.
And after sleeving the cable the rest were done just the same...
The rest is pretty much the same as always... Please enjoy the pics.
And thats it for now, The sticker designs will be incoming soon.
Thanks for watching.
Update time!
Its not the biggest one, but it will do for right now. I plan on having a bigger update sometime this weekend. But wanted to get the photos of the vid card out.
Here is the backplates I will be using for the GPUs. You will notice I took out a few holes, as they were not needed.
You will notice that the holes are plain right now. I don't like the fact that I would have to have the screws setting on the top as IMO that would take away from the sleek look, sooOoooo....
So I borrowed a old drill press from a friend and bought a countersink....
And boom! Nice countersunk holes... Lets see what the hardware will look like in it.
And here is that hardware!
And perfect. I really like the way that looks. I wish I could have gotten the holes better, but the drill press is super old and the depth gauge is epoxied on... LOL. I will just have to break down and buy one.
And here is the stickers I have for the fans, sadly I sent them to the printer without a bleed so the rings are off and need to be redone, but I wanted to put one on to see.
And here is the fan, I really like the look and how it blends with the fan.
But that's all I have for now, The back panel for the mobo is in and done I need to do some drilling and countersinking and we will go from there, some mods need to be done to the panel for everything to fit and work out. Expect a nice update. Thanks again for following.
And so I have a quick update for you all, I would like to say first please forgive the pictures, as I was kind of rushed. Also this update is really nothing special just showing you the work leading up to all of the panels. So if you having any questions about any of them please ask!
Getting some ideas and outlines.
Some eyeballing and marking.
Starting to get a small vision.
And a paper/plastic template is set on the bottom of the case. This will be done in black acrylic and then either painted with a matte finish or left alone. I want to do this to clean up the bottom of the case as it's really ugly on the bottom and this will leave a clean look.
Template finished and marked for Corel Draw.
These will be going over the drive bay and the fan, with a design opened up on it to allow air to flow inward. I have always likes the cases that have looked boxed in and make the mobo the centerpiece and this is what I would like to do with this. I'm wanting to do a bending of the plastic but I need a clean break to do so. This part is a work in progress, but I need to get the basic dimensions set before I go further. It will take allot of measuring to get the water-cooling grommets set and what not but when its done it will look beautiful.
This is the back panel for the back of the case, I will be making a sheet of black acryl and setting it out a bit to hide all of the cables and give the back a clean look.
Simply put this is just the cover for drive bay.
And here is a nice treat. This is the front of the case and the two tester pieces. The clean piece under the black panel is not visible being its clear but it will be white around the center of the square and the Aspros part will light up in white led.
And that's all I have for now. I have a ton of work to do in Corel Draw and then some more test fitting, but we should be getting closer to seeing it all start coming together.
I have found some more time today and I was determined to finish the gpu. Backs been still hurting after the shot but this is only day two, they said it might take 2-3 days. So I am praying I wake up tomorrow feeling great.
Here is the card after painting, I needed to clean up allot of the edges because I purposely kept the tape a little away so I could clean up the lines by hand.
Cleaning off the paste.
Shiny.
So much unused paste. Time to get rid of it.
I wanted to hit the top of the HS with a thin layer of white to make it blend in, so time to take the fan off.
And thin coat applied.
Time to sleeve the fan cable, also time to make a diagram so I don't get lost.
And sleeved, couldn't sleeve over the connector because then it wouldn't fit.
Mucho better.
And now for some finish shots of the GPU.
Thanks for everyone following! Hope you enjoyed the results, now I need to get the panels done and fitted and a whole nother GPU done.