My First Case Mod

The Problem.

So, I've got this Pentium 4 machine that weighs a ton.  I got a carry thingy to carry it around to my LAN parties, such as QuakeCon.  It's heavy.  I hate it.  It's plain too, but what case isn't?  I like the looks, actually, it's just heavy to carry around.

I decided to make it lighter.  And that meant cuttin' metal.  I figured that perhaps I'd also put some windows in it, and maybe paint it.  Not a huge deal, really, just didn't think anybody'd like it with rough edges and scratches all over.  And it kinda grew into this, well, Project.  Project Icy BlueBlood., as I haven't come up with anything better, honestly.  But I get ahead of myself...

The before pictures (Click on these, or any others, for bigger ones.):

See?  Quite the plain case I was working with (ignore the tape.)  But all told, with keyboard, mouse, headphones, cables and the box, of course, the thing weighed in at some 26+ pounds.  Not a HUGE load, but still, quite hefty.  Stuff had to go.

Friday Night.

I was going to work at my office shop, so I brought the machine in that day.  After work, about 5pm, I did the measuring and elimination of things.  Obvious things to go were the IBM 1984 "clicky" keyboard, which I love typing on, but it weighed 4 pounds alone.  I did try to mod one to make it lighter, but the entire thing is made of depleted uranium inside or some such.  A regular Mitsumi weighs a svelte 1 pound.

Secondly, extraneous extras were removed, like the secondary CDRom, which the DVD does a fine job of doing, a secondary teeny 4GB drive, and the second IDE cable.  Hey, it all adds up.  I even took scales and measured each and every individual piece to see where the weight was.  Of course, the main parts were the sides, top, and chassis itself, but even the power supply's top was a hefty .75LB.  I couldn't believe how heavy that was. 

I had to design the thing, a bit anyway.  I mean, I was going to CUT stuff.  Wouldn't do to not have a plan.  So I did that the rest of the night.  Oh, and I also had to take apart the power supply.  Actually had to unsolder the socket plug for the power cord.  That made me nervous about when I would have to put it back together, but oh well.  Nothing ventured...  Where you see duct tape, you will likely find no metal there at the end.

Then I went home. 

Saturday.

I got some materials I would need (gloves, blades for the jigsaw, etc.), and then made my final measurements, partly based on the ability of the cutting thingy I had, which was a $5 jigsaw that I had to duct tape together.  It worked, don't laugh.  Well, maybe a little guffaw.

I also had to refigure the motherboard mounting area I was going to cut out of the chassis for stiffness.  Not a big deal.  And I messed up one of my cuts on the chassis, but it turned out all right, I think.  The hardest part wasn't the cutting, it was the filing of all the edges so I didn't bleed all over.  Man.  I had to do a lot of it by hand, but I was happy with it when I got done.

Continuing this day, after the cuts were all done, I figured I needed to go ahead and practice my cutting of the Lucite-Tuf plastic (clear windows) and the cracked ice overhead lighting plastic.  Man, I had the wrong tool.  I had to go get me a PRO tool for the cuttin' of this junk.  Once I figured out how to cut it nicely, I went to TOWN.  Cut all that junk in a hurry.  It kinda turned fun!

That was enough, so I went home.

Sunday.

Now, we are into painting things.  I prepped the surfaces of all things to be painted.  I had found these two cool paint systems.  One was supposed to turn the plain prepped metal into a chrome red, but it turned out more like the color of blood.  I was sooo happy about that.  I really did want it chrome, but blood is so much cooler because of the Quake that I play on the box.  I painted the chassis that stuff.  Two step process, I had to shoot the chassis with a metal coat, let it dry, and the shoot the red chrome paint.  I even over shot the red a couple of places and it dripped a bit.  Nice effect, I thought.  Honestly, I screwed up, but I figured it looked OK after all.

     Tie me chassis up, sport.

The other system was this chameleon color changing paint.  This is a three step process with a black primer coat, the "color" coat, and a clear coat.  The color coat is actually a clear paint with millions of tiny plastic prisms in it.  How the heck they all line up to the these colors I have no idea, but that's what it is.  There were several to choose from, but I liked the Blue to Red shifting paint best, especially with the red chassis.  It actually goes from black to blue to purple to red to gold to brown, but that happens mainly in the sun.  Mostly, the paint shows itself as either blue, red or purple.  I thought it made a neat contrast to the bright bloody red inside.  The chameleon color also made it on the DVD, as the top cover would show that off.  I figured, why not?

     Same bat paint...

     ...different bat colors!

     Even more bat colors!

The power supply, drive faceplates, bay covers, and buttons on the front were all going to be the same color as the chassis.  But when I got done shooting the metal coat, well, I liked the effect so much that I just decided to leave them silver.  I did clear coat them with the leftovers from the chameleon paint system.  Worked good, actually "antiqued" them just a tad, which I liked even better!

And then, I went home.

Monday.

Well, this was the final day.  I purty much had to get it working today.  Since the paint was done, the only thing left to do was to get the windows put on, and the power supply put back together.  I did the power supply first.  It was kinda crucial to get the thing right.  I had to resolder the socket system back on the thing and then put it back together.  But even before that, I had to put the cracked ice panels in.  And discovered a big problem.  The panels wouldn't clear the the other half of the power supply.  Hmm.. A few small cuts later, and it all fit!  I reassembled the thing, and put in an SVC Quad Red LED Clear fan in it.  It would always be lit from within, and the ice panels would still allow the air to circulate in it.  Here's the final product:

And it tested and worked!  Yay!  And lemme tell ya, that quad led fan really does the trick.  Now, the other panels.  Did the chassis...

...and then I did the windows (top shown below.  Somehow, I missed getting ONLY a window...).

I used some thin, super strong double sided tape for the cracked ice panels, and for the top and sides, 3M Scotch Clear Mounting Tape (Heavy Duty).  This stuff is about 1/16 inch thick, and three of them stacked provided enough clearance for the chrome truck door moulding I used on the window edges.  Yes, it's a cheat, but I think it looks SO much better than the rivets, screws, and black window surrounds that I see all the time.  And I dare you to push it in.  I haven't made them budge since I put them on.  Very durable.

Once all the panels were in place, it was time to assemble the thing.  Final assembly also included a bit of work on a front mounted Cold Cathode Tube for the front panel louvers, as well as two more clear fans with Angel Mods for the insides.  These are the white one under the power supply to light up the Intel CPU and drives, and the red one down in front, because I said so.  They also have a couple of trick custom built switches to turn them off at LAN Parties, as some people (Mitch, Chris) don't like them.  8^p  Oh yeah.  I feel the need to thank SVC (www.svc.com) for all their great service and stuff.  They have great prices and great things to play with your case.  Give them a look!

And these pics are examples of the final result.  First, I'd like to mention that you will NEVER find any tie wraps in my cases.  Ever.  If you can't Origami the wiring, then don't bother, if you ask me.  Tie wraps are the weakest excuse for cable management inside a computer.   It's an open door to screwing up your wires if you ever need in the case again.  Looms are better, but I don't like them much either.  With that said:

Ya like it?  Great!  Ya think my wirin's junk?  Stuff it.  And now, to the outsides:

Evil inside.... Muahahaha!

This next sequence shows the chameleon paint in "action."  From Red to Blue to Brown.

'Interesting' and 'Boring' sides.

And a few more for good measure.

What do you think?  I like it, and nobody has said a bad thing about it (except for the brightness of the Angel Mods.  Too bad, they stay!)  I am thinking of replacing the simple clear fans with two more of the Quad Red LED fans, but they are out of stock as of this writing.  Oh well.  Soon.  I want the lights on all the time in the case, but I concede that in a dark LAN party room, those Angels might be a bit too much...

Oh, and the reason for this madness, the weight issue, well, I think I got the total load up weight down to 18 pounds.  And yes, it makes a HUGE difference when I'm back packing all that crap.  The monitor still weighs 34, but I got a harness for that.  Makes ya look pregnant, but that's ok, 'tis much easier to drag around now.  Love this stuff!

I am going to put the case in the QuakeCon 2003 ATI Case Mod contest.  While it's not revolutionary (I give the guy with the computer in the kiddie 4 wheeled cart to get around the "no carts" rule that claim) nor totally whacko extreme mod (any number of plastic-ed or wall mounted, or car mounted, or helmet mounted ones can claim that) I don't believe that anyone has used this kind of paint or the window treatments in one before.  Maybe I'll win, I'll let ya know.

Thank you to the following:
Home Depot and Lowe's, depending.  
     Lucite-Tuf, cracked ice material, and a few tools.  
O'Reilly Auto Parts
     Paint systems (Duplicolor) and materials for that (cleaners, gloves, etc.)
Classic Computer Networking
     My place of employ, and it has a handy workshop area for me with tools.  Buy stuff from me!
MaximumPC
     Many articles, and a special section in the back, about mods.  Also where I found:
SVC
     Fans, lights and clear drive cables  Great pricing.
And not least:  My Family and Friends (no web site.  Sorry.)
     For puttin' up with my eccentricities. (I can't believe I actually spelled that right!)

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All content contained Copyright (c) 2003 by Michael A. Binckley, all rights reserved.  You know what that means.  If you use it for money, I want a share, so contact me first.