Guide Me to Cutting My Side Panel!

Actually not my case, but rather a client.
This is an arcade machine, and has a very budgetary GPU running the arcade.
Since it is Linux, and everything is preloaded, upgrading the GPU is simply not an option.

The GPU failed due to overheating, I can assume (gets insanely hot in short amounts of time), and so I'd like to put the two 'very very very high-speed fans' from the intake (which does nothing), and out take (shoots hot air against a wall..) and mount them onto the side panel to blow directly onto the GPU.

This would most likely take care of the heat on the GPU, and would hopefully solve the GPU dying issues (Has happened on two different machines.. so far.)

Here are the pictures, this is what I have to work with.

Tricky thing is that there are two mesh spots already, one of which is right where I need to mount the fan.
However, where I need the fan, half is covered and half is mesh, so it will have to be cut.

Oh, what to do, what to do.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, as well as suggestions on how to cut it.
(First time cutting anything aluminum/anything in general).

The bracket w/ fan shows the size of an 80mm fan (closest one I had laying around).
Last couple pictures are the fans I have to work with.
Pulling ~0.66A per fan, I think these are almost deltas!

Worth noting, I just picked up a Dremel Model 285, with a bunch of attachments.
Never used it before, and would hate to mess it up on the first cut..
Have some 409 wheels (8 of them), as well as some 420 wheels (4).
Like I said, first time, so these numbers mean nothing to me..

Again, any advice = great!









Edited by rawfuls - 5/4/12 at 6:25pm

I ended up ditching the dremel method, due to my inexperience, and decided to try hole-saws, as they appeared to be a more direct, easier, and simpler method of cutting a... well, hole.

First off, let me say this was my first ever, serious mod to a PC case, and even that, it's not even a case, but rather a side panel.
Anyways, I think it came out great for a novice..

Wanting to do this on the cheap side, I grabbed a Carbon 18pc Hole Saw kit from Harbor Freight.
Man, this was a pretty bad mistake.
I saw the label where it say "For: Wood, Plastic" after I finished cutting, but hey, I can at least say it finished the job and did infact cut the steel.

It wasn't pretty, and it wasn't easy, I had to really push into the side panel to get it to cut, obviously I had to have a 2x4 underneath to support it...
In more than a few instances, the drill became a bit dangerous when it came to a torquey spot and couldn't over-do it.
I wonder if the DeWalt Impact Gun would work well... hmm.

In any case, it finished, and I'm rather pleased with the results.

Since this is a dedicated Arcade machine, being hid underneath the wood frame, color schemes and whatnot didn't matter, so I used some (very cheap) yellow sleeving (really accents the fan), but after this, I found out I ran out of my yellow fuel tubing. Yes, fuel tubing, I'm a pretty avid R/C-hobbyist, and have these tubes laying around. So I used my neon green.. also accented the black pretty well.
But together, not the hottest.
Since I didn't want an ALL positive airflow (no exhaust), I threw in a cheap Rosewill 80mm.. and be it, it was a blue fan.
That's right, nothing was matching, at all!

Now to test to see if it actually works.
Hopefully, the two delta fans (yes, delta fans, I found out that they run up to 4890RPM last night... man, these suckers really are loud.) on the side panel will keep the GPU cool, primarily the capacitors so we won't have a failure again, and the blue Rosewill exhaust will keep most of the hot air out.

Overall, the plain black case is no longer!
It looks pretty decent IMO, and since the green tubing wasn't normal u/c-channel, I had to improvise with my mounting methods.

Now that I know what I'm doing (sort of), I should be able to make the next two a lot nicer.

(I've got some leftover cheap blue/red sleeving, some red fuel tubing, and a blue fan... hmmm.).

Here's the photobucket link to anybody that wants to see it:
http://goo.gl/UVeJO

For the people who are too lazy to click on things..
Hole Saw:


Some planning to be done:


The fans themselves.
Note that I really didn't care about the proper sleeving job, I utilized the sleeving to keep the wires untangled.. Not for cleanliness/appearances.


Very rough cuts, these almost came projectiles!


Rough cuts... before sharpie cleanup:


Sharpies? They wouldn't hurt!


I was debating this, tubing or no tubing.... Definitely, tubing!


Ahh, much better:





Side Panel Itself:


Profiles:


Edited by rawfuls - 5/7/12 at 7:43pm