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Coelacanth · 26-October-06, 12:36 AM

Greetings modders,

Glitterkill contacted me with an idea for a new project with a novel idea: modding on the cheap. We often hear from newcomers to the modding scene, "If I had lots of money, I could do a great mod, too." Well, I've never been anything close to rich, so I've always had to resort to original, "outside of the box" modding techniques to make a project case look different, to distinguish it from other cases. Most of the tricks and techniques I'll showcase in this worklog require very little cash. However, don't confuse "modding on the cheap" with "modding on the lazy"! While these tricks may indeed cost very little, many require a fair amount of time, thought, and always, attention to detail. It's not really wads of dough that make a unique, quality case mod; it's the effort and attention to detail.

GK asked me to choose a case from FrozenCPU to be my platform. To pick an expensive case would have defeated the purpose of this project, so I chose a case well under $100; in fact, I settled on a very reasonably-priced Enermax case, the Chakra mid-tower case. The cost was only $69.99. GK also gave me a budget of only $50 to spend on goodies. Thanks go to FrozenCPU for supplying the case and all the goodies used for this special project. They have quite a nice selection of modding gear and cases, so hit them up next time you're looking for gear for your next project!

I'll begin with a mini-review of the Enermax Chakra case. I'm not going to talk about the size of the packing peanuts or the condition of the box. What matters in a case mod project is the final product, period.

Why did I choose this case? To be honest, I'm actually quite surprised I've never seen anyone use this case in their projects, I can't even recall seeing one in the gallery. It has a quite effective-looking, massive 250mm side fan, arranged to suck air inside the case. More on that later. The case interior is quite uncluttered, and has room for 120mm front & rear fans (not included with the case, although FrozenCPU's website for the Chakra states "120mm blue LED fan included"). Unfortunately, the case also doesn't come with a PSU. The case looks like it could be a wicked platform for a unique mod project.

Here are some advertising pics of the case:

I think this case looks great, and should be a good performer for cooling too, once I've made some changes.

I'm going to multiple-post, please excuse that, but my excuse for that is that I'm doing this project in phases, and I want to keep the steps separate to make things easier to understand and follow for the newcomers to modding.

I hope you all enjoy this project! Cheers!

Project Feedback thread is located here if you would like to leave any comments.

26-October-06, 12:36 AM		#1 (permalink)
Coelacanth Apex Tech God	Modding On The Cheap Greetings modders, Glitterkill contacted me with an idea for a new project with a novel idea: modding on the cheap. We often hear from newcomers to the modding scene, "If I had lots of money, I could do a great mod, too." Well, I've never been anything close to rich, so I've always had to resort to original, "outside of the box" modding techniques to make a project case look different, to distinguish it from other cases. Most of the tricks and techniques I'll showcase in this worklog require very little cash. However, don't confuse "modding on the cheap" with "modding on the lazy"! While these tricks may indeed cost very little, many require a fair amount of time, thought, and always, attention to detail. It's not really wads of dough that make a unique, quality case mod; it's the effort and attention to detail. GK asked me to choose a case from FrozenCPU to be my platform. To pick an expensive case would have defeated the purpose of this project, so I chose a case well under $100; in fact, I settled on a very reasonably-priced Enermax case, the Chakra mid-tower case. The cost was only $69.99. GK also gave me a budget of only $50 to spend on goodies. Thanks go to FrozenCPU for supplying the case and all the goodies used for this special project. They have quite a nice selection of modding gear and cases, so hit them up next time you're looking for gear for your next project! I'll begin with a mini-review of the Enermax Chakra case. I'm not going to talk about the size of the packing peanuts or the condition of the box. What matters in a case mod project is the final product, period. Why did I choose this case? To be honest, I'm actually quite surprised I've never seen anyone use this case in their projects, I can't even recall seeing one in the gallery. It has a quite effective-looking, massive 250mm side fan, arranged to suck air inside the case. More on that later. The case interior is quite uncluttered, and has room for 120mm front & rear fans (not included with the case, although FrozenCPU's website for the Chakra states "120mm blue LED fan included"). Unfortunately, the case also doesn't come with a PSU. The case looks like it could be a wicked platform for a unique mod project. Here are some advertising pics of the case: I think this case looks great, and should be a good performer for cooling too, once I've made some changes. I'm going to multiple-post, please excuse that, but my excuse for that is that I'm doing this project in phases, and I want to keep the steps separate to make things easier to understand and follow for the newcomers to modding. I hope you all enjoy this project! Cheers! Project Feedback thread is located here if you would like to leave any comments. Last edited by GlitterKill; 31-October-06 at 01:00 PM..