Explanation Of My Process:
I have a rather odd way of building and creating my case mods. It may start out looking rather odd and jumbled. This is due to a severe brain injury I sustained a few years ago (bare with me). Since the accident my brain works in odd ways but, I also look at design/modding differently now. I have lots of far out there ideas which overtime translate into very neat creations.
I start by doing all the rough cutting and mock ups first. Once I have everything in order I start finish work (filing edges perfectly straight & cleaning up the chaos) after that I prep everything for paint and do final touches. A lot of modders start with one part and take that specific piece from start to finish before moving on. If you take the time to read through this build log it will all start to make sense. Thank you in advance for taking this crazy journey with me and I can promise you that; when this build is finished, it will be unlike any case mod you've ever seen.
Dark Side Case Mod
I come from a design background, primarily in additive and subtractive manufacturing. Throughout the years I've modded just about everything I can get my hands on. It's been a bit since I've built a desktop computer but, thats all about to change. I stumbled upon a few modded cases online and ever since, I've been hooked.
My first thought was to check out all the 3D printed custom mods online and I found one case that was done by ShapeWays. Needless to say, I wasn't all that impressed. The possibilities are almost endless with a 3D printer at your disposal. After discovering the lack of 3D printed mods, I decided it was time to come out of retirement and build the best modded case I could.
Custom building 3D printers has given me a ton of usable skills in my modders tool belt. I have lots of custom fab experience as well as years of prototyping experience. With almost ever custom build I've done, the plans rest within my head. These plans always evolve as the project progresses.
I'm also doing this on a budget and I mean a tight budget. I see so many cases that you can just tell money was thrown at it and I didn't want this to be one of them. I don't have the best parts in the world but hey, isn't this about what can be done to the design of the case. Molding a combination of cutting edge design with functionality
So if seeing some new things done in case modding is your idea of a good time than join me on this journey into the modding abiss.
Planned Mods:
• Custom top cover with futuristic/modern/Steampunk styling.
• Custom sleeved wiring with an extensive cable management setup.
• Completely redesigned side panels with added acrylic set on standoffs. (One side almost finished and rear panels currently under construction)
• Custom built, hinged doors and top cover.
• Slide open top with fans and hard drive mounts moved to top. It can be activated via switch or through Bluetooth from a mobile device. (Hard drive mounts made and tracks for slide. Need to setup the stepper/linear system for movement)
• Painted & modded PSU was moved from top left to bottom right. 2-3" bent tubing to exhaust all PSU heated air out the side via ducts. (mock ups finished)
• Removed all hard drive cages from donor case. Custom cut down optic drive mount. (done)
• New panel cutouts in the MB tray with 3D printed pass throughs. (Might build a custom slide out mobo tray) (Panels cutout and need to finish bezels)
• Sliding rail system for optical drives and spare HD space. (Mostly finished)
• Scratch built fan controller using an Arduino Uno or Mega. As well as an LCD to monitor system operating conditions.
• Top acrlyic mounted dual 250 gig Western Digital SATA drives. (Scratch built cooling)
• Negative Pressure cooling system with filters and sound dampening mount. (Complete custom designed airflow and cooling system that uses only air management)
• Extensive cable management design with parts designed specifically for this build. (3D printed parts FDM out of Nylon or Carbon Fiber reinforced filament)
• Modded Logic Sys keyboard with built in touch screen. (Also has wifi, card reader and windows mobile 6.0 OS) (Currently under construction)
• Scratch built acrylic hard drive mounts. (2x Western Digital black SATA drives 250 GB)
• Extensive air cooling system and fully vented outer case shell.
• 4 x 80mm rad mountable fan mounts (Custom designed dual fan mounts) (Almost finished)
• Full re-paint of case and inner shell (As of now colors will be: white, grey, black and orange. As well as a few carbon fiber parts) (Color options changed to: black, white, silver, gun metal and one bright color)
• Top mounted ribcage with 2 x 80mm cooling fans for hard drives. (Design portion finished)
• Reaper & DarkSide logo, custom 3D printed in a few small locations. (Design portion finished)
• Holographic effect using a combination of LED's and overhead prints. (Layering has started and the rest is in progress)
• Lots of 3D printed parts molded together with metal work for accent pieces.
• Several different uses of LEDs - Color choices include: Cool white and possibly orange. (Color changed to cool white and blue. LEDs have arrived and need to be wired)
Updated Mods:
• 3 x 50mm fans in a custom enclosure to cool the ram. (3X50mm fans and enclosure finished))
• Motorized slide back top with drag cables. (Drag cables designed and SATA cables need to ordered)
• Scratch built ribcage system which will have integrated cooling for the top (2) mounted hard drives
• Fully tilt-able top for easy access (future mods etc)
• 200mm side mounted Antec fan with custom acrylic bracket
• Cool white LEDs throughout the case as well as edge lit acrylic
• 3D honeycomb design cues throughout the case as well as a matching menu setup on the motorized touch screen
• Custom built side fairings
• Ferrari hinges built in a suicide door for easy axis
• Custom latches for suicide door
• Panel Mounted 200mm Antec fan mounted with custom made acrylic mounts
• GPU & sound card custom built acrylic backplates
• Fan lighting has been added to some of the fans
• All the fans throughout the case have had the stickers replaced with custom made ones
Main Comp Parts Being Used:
• Gigabyte Motherboard with PCI Express. Socket 775, accepts two types of ram on the same board. Tough cover custom designed (3D printed), ram cooling system and custom wired reset/power switches.)
• Changed Motherboard to Asrock x58 extreme socket 1366
• Changed CPU from a P4 3.2 Ghz to a core i7
• Ram changed from 6 GB of DDR2 to 6GB DDR3 OCZ XMP 7-7-7-20
• Asus S2 Pro CPU cooler with 10 heat pipes
• Digital sound card with multi-channel support 7.1 ch (Creative Sound Blaster 192khz 24-bit)
• 2 x 250 GIG Western Digital Black series hard drives and at least two other WD drives. (possible RAID or custom mirror config)
• Gigabyte Video Card Nvidia GeForce SLI ready with scratch made cooling system
• Video card switched to EVGA GTX 560ti & planning to add a second GTX 560ti for dual SLI setup.
• External 1.5 Terabyte Seagate hard drive as well as 1 Terabyte Western digital external
• Monitors include a three monitor configuration with a 47 inch Samsung for the main
• Logitech keyboard with touch screen built in. Touch screen replaces number keypad
Current Progress Pics: These will be rotated periodically to show current progress at milestones
••••••••••• These pics are for quick reference for those who don't like to read••••••••••••
Updated October 10th 2014:
Updated October 18th 2014:
Updated October 22nd 2014: Touch panel and other panel parts
Updated October 25th 2014:
Updated October 30th:
Updated November 30th
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Updated December 15th:
Updated December 31st:
Update January 6th 2015:
Updated January 12th 2015:
Updated Febuary 5th 2015:
Updated Febuary 12th 2015: