after looking around various mod sites and tryin to think of something realy unique i had an idea. why not use fiber optics? i kinda have a concept drawn up in my head. it would consist of a clear side panel that would be etched to look like a galaxy, but instead of just back lighting it i wanted to place each individual star on the panel using fiber optics (not all the stars but at least like 50-100). at first i thought it would look bitchen just like that but i soon realized that all those fiber optic strings would be hanging in the background and looking pretty bad. so i came up with a nice solution, a backpanel behind the clear panel wih holes coresponding to the postion of the fiber optics. the back panel would only be like and inch or less back to allow some nice reflections (it would be painted black of course), this way all the fiber opticl wires are out of the way and you can clearly see the stars and etching.
of course variations could include stars that change color; some extra LEDs for ambient light and the bigger stars; maybe laser etching? the only downside i see to this project (other than the price, and the labor) would be that all my hardware would be covered. anyways i think it's a pretty sweet idea just lookin for some imput.

Well, first rule of moding, if you can think it up, it can probably be done. Of course it's the doing part that's the challenge.

At the same time, there are some variations on your original concept that could be sweet as well.

I think you should visualize, and if your artistic enough, draft some images of what you want to see. Then work out the "how". Otherwise, your "how" might not produce the concept you have visualized.

The multi-color part of the idea sounds pretty cool, just imagining it in my head... I can see where it would be very labor-intensive, but then again, the best mods *are* somewhat labor-intensive...

You could possibly use two sheets of plexi, the outer one etched with the star designs, and the inner one with tiny holes drilled to allow some LED light to shine out thru. The inner sheet should also probably be painted black from the innermost side, to keep the LEDs from shining *completely* through, thus ruining the effect.

My $.02, for free... Good luck with the mod, post up some pics of what all you're going to be using, and welcome to PR!

Welcome to PimpRig.com.......
Fiber Optics.......
Where ideas come to Life!

Just a suggestion for you.......

I love the idea of using Fiber Optics on the side of your case, your comment about not being able to see your hardware is well founded. You might want to think about using the optics on the oposite side, the side that is located behind the mother board tray, that way you can have your design and still be able to view your hardware. On the hardware side you might try to either do an etching or painting of some type so that when your case lights are off all you see is the "sky" but when they are turned on you see your hardware too.

Just a couple of ideas, hope they are useful......



Soldier

I think this would be cool on the motherboard side of the case, and some kind of etching of some a constelation on a window (with the stars, the lines, and the drawing). There are a lot of ways to get color change, most of the cheap ones i've seen is a white bulb with a color wheel rotating between it and the end of the fibers. Otherwise there are a lot of LED products on the marked that shift colors nicley. Bought this for my sister for christmas 2 years ago and she loves it, but its kind of expensive to gut and i dont know how you could go about making one since the actual board is [i]tiny[i] and is all surface mount LEDs.

i belive there is a model fiber optic lighting kit out there you can use designed for static models. the demo of it is a model starship enterprise and i think some starwars ships.
of course you dont need to buy a kit all you need is the fiber, lots of the same tiny drill bit and your own light source.
id love to see something like that on any kind of plastic panel.

i would say the easyest way to do this would be to by one of those little toys that have the fibers comming out of the top of a wand, like a bigg head of hair. and whan you press a button it lights up. you could use one of those, but they usually only light up in one color.

to get multiple colors, i remember seeing the same efect created on one of my moms christmas house s. it had fiberoptics inside, and they poked out, and imitated flashing lights. the flashing lights were created by a rotating disk with diferent colored filters. and you just may be in luck, because she actually made me take the house apart, and disable the rotating disk, because she just wanted it to be white.

so i might be able to get her to part with the motor,gearbox and disk if you are interested.

Motorized fiber optics are damn cool too. Think about that....

as far as fiber optic cabels go i found some cheap plastic stuff on ebay (plastic = less retention but who cares, only the endpoints will be visible anyways), but as far as the light source goes it's a little bit trickier. i'm not really sure if i wan't a color changing or if i wan't it to sparkle, but most likely i'll build it myself. also does anybody know of a good case that has a slideout mobo tray and like 2 inches of clearance from the side panel? if I want the galaxy window on one side and a regular window on the other side i'll need some substancial clearance from between mobo and side panel ( i really dont want a window that sticks out of case).

p.s. i prefer a server case so i have room for the light source, water cooling .

i was checkin out some images on NASA's webpage and all I can say is holy crap! Are there any gifted airbrushers out there? there is no way some weak sandblasted 2 tone image (my origional thought) could ever compare to those pics . has anybody tried airbrushing onto plexiglass? would it give a nice translucent effect ot would it just block all light?

Quote: Originally Posted by Belgianwaffles after looking around various mod sites and tryin to think of something realy unique i had an idea. why not use fiber optics? i kinda have a concept drawn up in my head. it would consist of a clear side panel that would be etched to look like a galaxy, but instead of just back lighting it i wanted to place each individual star on the panel using fiber optics (not all the stars but at least like 50-100). at first i thought it would look bitchen just like that but i soon realized that all those fiber optic strings would be hanging in the background and looking pretty bad. so i came up with a nice solution, a backpanel behind the clear panel wih holes coresponding to the postion of the fiber optics. the back panel would only be like and inch or less back to allow some nice reflections (it would be painted black of course), this way all the fiber opticl wires are out of the way and you can clearly see the stars and etching. of course variations could include stars that change color; some extra LEDs for ambient light and the bigger stars; maybe laser etching? the only downside i see to this project (other than the price, and the labor) would be that all my hardware would be covered. anyways i think it's a pretty sweet idea just lookin for some imput.

A way you could obtain the "star effect" is if you apply light into the window ONLY from one of the obscured edges (such that it shines perpendicular to the direction from which you look into the window) and either etch small, round spots at each star or if you use a tiny drill bit and produce a shallow counterbore from the back surface of the window, you'll be producing spots of light in a manner similar to the way that fiber optics would.

I really think an etch like this (without the background stars) would be really cool.

Thats the best one i could fine quick, but i like the interpretation with him with a bow and a sword insead.

that would look pretty nice but i'm not really into the constellation thing, sry. what i'm probably gonna do is find a nice spiral galaxy and turn it too B&W. then i'll trace it onto plexiglass and sand blast it out (blasting out the white part of pic). i liked grandpanoob72's idea of using 2 plexisheets and only drilling the one in the background, this way if it isn't perfect all i'll have to do is re-drill my background plexi instead of sandblastin all over again.

I'm still pretty partial to using fiber optics b/c it'll be the easiest for getting that nice sparkling star effect. i'm really trying to get a random looking chaging of colors that i can easily adjust. building my light source is gonna be tough but i'll probably make it using some sort of track with LEDs attached that constantly moves giving a bright/dim and color changing effect.

i'm also thinking of using slow changing ambient lighting on the sandblasted plexi by drilling little holes for LEDs along the sides (hidden of course) and then building a little circuit board to controll color changing and timing ect...

but so far it looks like i'll be doing this project over the summer so i have some more time to plan and re-think my ideas. I'll also set up a worklog when I start. and cpl rampage thanks for the offer but i'm kinda broke right now so I really can't afford the shipping, plus i'm not sure how much of that i can use. And most of those parts can be found at radio shack cheap, so i can get exactly what i need. thx anyways though.

p.s. one last thing. for the hardware window i was thinking of etching out a pic of the hubble or something along those lines, too keep the space theme going.

This might be a little late, but maybe it will help. My wife and I were at Fred Meyer tonight buying Lego's when I noticed something in their toy clearance section. They had those chinsy little hand help fiber optic wands that spin and light up when you hold the button down. Well the batteries in them were dead, but you could pick them up for a pretty good price. They were marked at $3.97 with a 40% off lowest marked price sticker on them. The brand was Laser FX, I would have written the upc down, but didn't have a pen. There were roughly three lengths of fiber on each one, ranging from about 2 to 4 inches long. Hope this helps!