[pootergeek40]

The before:

And after the destruction:

Now, on to the sanding!

**Update**

I know it has been a while people, but things have been pretty busy at work, and there was alot more sanding than I thought! Thermaltake puts alot of paint on their cases, and it took forever to get it off of there. The sanding has been completed, but before I get to that, check out the goodies that arrived!

Newegg:

Performance PCs:

Frozen CPU:

Now, on to the good parts!

-Completed Sanding

Side Panel #1

Side Panel #2

Top Panel

Bottom Panel

Front Parts

I did some color testing on the paint I bought on the top part of the front panel, looks like the color is going to work just fine!

Today I will be cutting the holes for case fans and possibly doing a bit of primer, so I will be back later with updates!

 

[pootergeek40]

Quote:

Originally Posted by CattleRustler good luck mate

Thanks, first ever mod, so hopefully it will go well!

 

[pootergeek40]

Thx guys, now, does anyone know how to put a case back together after I drilled out all the rivets? LOL. I am heading to the hardware store tomorrow to see if they have a rivet gun and rivets that will work.

 

[pootergeek40]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ModMinded LOL That should be a quote in a sig somewhere... Most case rivets are 1/8in aluminum pop rivets. You might want to check that the holes you fill with rivets are actually for rivets! Some holes are used for case mounting bits, depending on what the maker/model of the case is.

Haha yea, what I meant when I said that was that there were so many parts once I took it all apart, it will be hard to remember what order they will go back together in. I figured they were 1/8 inch since I used a 1/8 inch drill bit to pop those puppies out. Thanks for the confirmation though!

 

[pootergeek40]

Ok, so some sanding has been completed, but not all. Man it has been a major pain in the neck to sand down this case to bare metal. Thermaltake apparently likes to use lots of paint in case anyone was wondering! I will update this weekend with more pics of completed sanding once all the panels are done.

Be back again with pics of finished sanding and the first round of painting this weekend, provided that I can find the right color of paint for the case and a hole saw big enough to make holes for 120mm fans. Also still need to order some new acrylic for the side panel window, but I have not been able to take proper measurments on that yet.

 

[pootergeek40]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lambent Darkness 7 Haha, Dude I so put that in my sig ! That's so funny. Good luck btw for bumblebee. you got a good idea there. With decent parts

Haha thanks. Yea, I decided not to go all overboard with part ordering like I normally would, since this is for a 5 year old haha. I don't think he would really appreciated a Phenom II or anything, but this all should work well for him to play Spore!

 

[pootergeek40]

On a happy note everyone, I was finally able to get off of work early enough to go pick up my boxes at the office at my apartment complex that contain all of my goodies for this build! I still have a few things to order for it, but all the major components have arrived! I will update either later tonight or tomorrow sometime with the unboxing event of all the goodies! Also, I will be including some build pics since I now have everything sanded down and totally disassembled. I color tested the paint that I will be using for the build, and I think it will turn out awesome! STAY POSTED.

 

[pootergeek40]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Smokie when are we going to see an update pootergeek40? This is shapping up to be a good one. -Smokie

Later tonight, or tomorrow night I will update with pics. We have downgraded to just one camera in the household, that being a Nikon D700, that the little lady uses for work, so I have to wrestle it away from her before I can take MOAR updated pics lol.

 

[pootergeek40]

Quote:

Originally Posted by deadringerr I got that processor recently and I love it. Looks to be a sweet mod!

Yea, I am dying to fire it up and see how this baby OCs on the DFI board I got for the build, but that will all have to wait until all the other hard work is completed!

 

[pootergeek40]

Updated, and more to come today! Be back later, gotta run to Home Depot and/or Lowe's!

 

[pootergeek40]

Update!!

I bet you can guess what is going on here:

Six coats of paint later, I think the side panel is about ready for clear coating:

First three coats on a couple of the front panel parts:

Sleeved up the power and reset switches:

Finally, I got some of the PSU sleeved:

Boy let me tell you, my fingers are sore from putting those sata power cables back together after taking them apart! I went ahead and ordered the PSU molex tools for the rest.

Thats all for now!

 

[pootergeek40]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shiryu_Libra nice color

Thanks, just wait till I add the second color in there! My paint job is going to make this computer look like it is going fast!

 

[pootergeek40]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nategr8ns sweet mod idea! I was thinking of doing my dad's mouse like a bumble bee subscribed!

Well, I do need to clarify one thing for those of you that did not see my original plan. This mod is not themed based off of this bumblebee:

It is based off of this one:

 

[pootergeek40]

Quote:

Originally Posted by masbuskado so we have O.P now bumblebee... I think we are missing some decepticons... for the great so far!!!

Originally I wanted to do a Megatron mod, but the little guy that I am doing this for doesn't like anyone except for BumbleBee lol.

 

[pootergeek40]

Update time! Not a whole lot to report, been waaaaaay too busy with work, but I managed to get a little done.

Sixth and final coat on the two front pieces:

Some more PSU sleeved:

I still need to find an easy way to label the wires from the 24 pin cable so that I can finish it up.

Due to the uneven dip in the top panel of the case where the USB ports and front panel audio and such used to be:

I had to use my Dremel with a cutting bit to get it started, and boy was it a ROUGH start haha:

This was the best I could get it with the cutting bit because it wanted to travel all over the place on me. SO I whipped out the good old reinforced cutting discs, and here is what happened:

Not too shabby, now it is ready to file to make it nice and round.

Next, I tried to replace the blue LEDs in the case fans with yellow ones. Here is what the yellow ones looked like on frozencpu.com, where I ordered them from:

And here is what the first test one looked like when hooked up:

Super lame! It is totally orange. I tried another LED from the bag to make sure that it was not just this one. In fact, after trying several of them, they are all that color. Eventually I figured out that it is due to a voltage problem. The LEDs in Thermaltake and Rosewill case fans(the only ones I know of for sure, since these are what I have) are not directly powered off of the molex connector to the case fan. They are actually supplied by power from the motion of the fan blades spinning, which I thought was interesting. You can test this out by taking your case fan and spraying the fan blades with compressed air until the get spinning pretty fast. If yours are powered by the same means as these two fans, then yours will light up when doing this! I am going to have to figure out a way to work around this...

 

[pootergeek40]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nategr8ns I say tap power from the two wires going into the fan, past the molex connector.

Yea, that is what I was thinking as well, but I am afraid that it might look messy. Plus I would need to decide whether I wanted to run them in a series or a parallel circuit. I am going to need to go some math, because if I run them parallel, I would need a 82 ohm, 1w resistor, and I would think that would make the LEDs pretty dim, if it even powers them at all. The other option would be to use 2 220ohm 1/4w resistors and see how that fares. I will be doing some playing around this weekend, that is for sure.

 

[pootergeek40]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rick Arter Looks great color came out really nice!

Thanks, I was worried at first as it was BRIGHT yellow after the first coat, and that was not what I was going for by any means. Once I got several more coats on, it seemed to be coming out more the way I wanted, so I kept going and eventually after about 6 coats, the color is right.

 

[pootergeek40]

Yea I didn't really look around to see if anyone else had a similar theme to what I wanted to do here. I am just building this for my 6 year old, as BumbleBee is his favorite Transformer. I am sure that "the other guy" has a little more experience with this than I do, but we will see how it comes out!

Truthfully, I have not been able to get a whole lot of this done lately, as the outside weather has been terrible where I live. There are some little garages at my apartment complex that you can rent, and I am about ready to give up on this Oregon weather and rent one so that I can finish my paint job. I have been cutting some metal, so I promise for you gearheads that there will be some eye candy to look at soon, when I have completed the phase of this mod that I am on right now.

I have also been messing with the LEDs quite a bit to see if I can get the proper color, and there has been no progress yet. I did get a whole bunch of resistors in the mail yesterday, so I will be working on finding the correct way to supply these with voltage to get the color that I am after.

Oh, and also, just wait and see what I did to this part:

Lets just say that she doesn't look the same anymore

 

[pootergeek40]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sullivan Let me guess, you cut those round things off?

Oh the suspense

I cut a few things off of it, you will see once the side panel phase is complete

 

[pootergeek40]

Quote:

Originally Posted by repo_man Sub'd. Not to shabby so far! Although I have to say, all that sanding back to bare metal wasn't necessary. GL with the LED's, if all else fails, you could wire them all into one molex plug separate of the fans.

I actually tried that, and they are still pretty orange. I am trying some different options with resisters, to see if I can get a little more juice to them. I have been able to get them brighter, but they are still orange. The sanding was needed really, there were several scratches on the case, which I would think would have left small depressions, as the scratches were down to the bare metal, and Thermaltake apparently puts quite a few layers of paint on these cases. I wanted a nice smooth finish, and so far that is what I have, so I am pretty happy that I did all the extra work.

Quote:

Originally Posted by underdog1425 Different color LED's require different resistances... Im pretty sure the voltage doesn't matter as long as its not too much to burn the little guy out. But I specifically remember that the colors take diff resisters along with the diff color LED i.e. to change the color in your fans youll need new LEDS and new resisters

Well, one of the guys from Frozen CPU says that to get the yellow that they depict in their pictures, they used a 12v source with a resistor on it. I think maybe I should find out from them just which resistor they used to get that color, and maybe I can expand it from there, as I need to run 4 LEDs off of each power source on the fans to do what I want to do.