Okay so this is my first mod so please have some patience with me. The only thing I am bringing into this is imagination and lots of worklog reading on PCApex. I have seen lots of really cool things on the worklogs, and I can only hope that this turns out half as cool as some of these. Any feedback is welcome and this project could change at any time, so please, throw me some ideas.

Having said that I have an old HP Pavilion 533W collecting dust so I figured what the hell.


Here is our victim. Sorry I forgot to take before pictures of my own, so I had to google this one.


After getting rid of the floppy and slapping on some bondo.


Closeup of old USB location and I was thinking of putting a LCD or fan controller?


The skeleton


Had to make room for a 120


New location of the front USB


Fan duct I am using for the hole in the front


Cheap PSU painted silver


Motherboard


Side panel (HP Logo has gotta go)


Backside of the front panel


This is the gap that needed to be filled


Decided to try a piece of wood. I know, it's not exactly the best choice to fill it with but I don't know.


Front view with wood in place.

I know it looks like crap right now, but I was trying to figure out how to get the fan duct into the hole permanently while filling all the gaps and making it look good all while keeping the duct unpainted (as it is UV reactive). My current idea is to bondo around the wood and make it flush. Then paint it and finally put the duct into place.

How about some ideas here guys??

Looks good so far what color are you plaining for the outside and its it stock parts?

The dark blue will become black and the greyish color will be silver like the psu

Keeping that blowhole might hamper your efforts to achieve a clean look on the front panel. Id suggest using a oil funnel and cutting it to lenght, use plexi to fill in the sides than bondo over the whole thing than sand flat, bondo again to fill pin holes, and sand again. Prime, paint, and done. For reference check out the front blowhole on this case i did. I used an oil funnel and a crap load o' bondo.


In the next case by BigAkita, an old cottage cheese container was used for the blowhole. Turned out damn pimp imo.

Good luck on the mod bro!!!

Hope that DFi will find a good home

Those do look really sweet. I was trying to think of a way to make a tunnel and put the blue plastic duct inside of that one. That way whenever I put a fan on the other side, it will have UV that lights up the duct and the fan

Quote: Originally Posted by IcEMage Good luck on the mod bro!!! Hope that DFi will find a good home

Thanks for the support, It might take me a little while to get the processor I want, but when the time comes it will have 2 cores I can assure you of that.

Quote: Originally Posted by Sn0wMan Those do look really sweet. I was trying to think of a way to make a tunnel and put the blue plastic duct inside of that one. That way whenever I put a fan on the other side, it will have UV that lights up the duct and the fan

Why not just use clear reactive paint? Same effect and you dont have to worry about stuffing another piece of gear in place.

On another note why dont you just cut that uv blowhole duct youve already got to fit in that space. Just trim a little off the top and bottom, that way it pops right into position. Bondo over that and away you go.

I thought about the paint thing, and I do have some, but if I bondo a piece in there first, then I can paint it black. After I paint it I can put the tunnel in there, without having to paint or bondo it. The effect I am going for is a dark tunnel with a green UV fan inside it making the blue duct glow also.

This is all kinda hard to explain because the way this case was made. Did I mention that HP sucks Anyway, I had to think of a way to fill the gaps and hold the duct into place at the same time. Does that make any sense to you at all Sparky?

Quote: Originally Posted by Sn0wMan Thanks for the support, It might take me a little while to get the processor I want, but when the time comes it will have 2 cores I can assure you of that.

Yah damn right!!!!!

opty 165

Thanks for the rep IceMage. Comin right back at ya

Okay, sorry for the lack of updates as school has been keeping me extremely busy. Over the last couple weeks I have finished the bondo job on the front, and it doesn't look too bad, however, it IS my first encounter with bondo and has been a painstakingly slow process.

I put on a coat of black after the bondo and went ahead and painted some of the other plastic pieces silver/chrome. Not sure what to do about my PSU yet, as I suspect that it might be bad. It's only a cheap 200w one, but if it is bad I might have a little trouble finding another one to fit in this HP case. Anyway, on to the pics.

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Almost forgot, I found a mesh fan grill that will work nicely for my fan duct. Also, I managed to paint some stuff on the motherboard green and orange, and also added a coat of UV green to the whole thing.

On a side note, I was thinking of using a stencil of flames to possibly paint UV green on the back of the motherboard tray since a window has to be cut out anyway to get rid of the HP logo. I was leaning towards some sort of design to light up with a cold cathode or LED's, but I might go with the flame stencil and UV green with a UV cold cathode. Thoughts??

I was also thinking about painting the bottom of the inside of the case silver/chrome using the stencil. I cut the stencil out of a piece of cardboard and I am having some trouble getting the middle part to lay down when I paint, causing some overspray and flames that are not clean looking. What do I need to do about this?


Update: I bought some 2000 and 2500 grit sandpaper from http://www.onlineindustrialsupply.com/ and picked up some rubbing compund, and more paint. Hopefully I can do a halfway decent paint job on this.

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Well I managed to find some time to cut out the side panels and the acrylic for my windows today. I won't be able to mount the windows until I paint the panels, and I can't do that until my 2000 grit sandpaper gets here.

Do you guys think it would be better to just glue the acrylic to the panels, (because I won't really have a need to take the off later) or drill holes and use bolts, (which I don't know where to get the kind for computer windows)?

So the next step will be waiting for my sandpaper, and then paint, and then mount the windows. By then this project will be coming along nicely...

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Sorry, no pics this time...but I do have some news. A friend of mine was over at the house earlier and wants to buy this computer, so I will be hurrying it up a little.

I was able to paint the front panels with another coat of chrome and I hit the frame with another coat of black. Tomorrow I will clearcoat the front panel and put a coat of primer on the side panels...so stay tuned!

I had some time to paint today and last night, so here's a quick update. I had originally planned on painting the lighter colors of the case chrome or silver, well I got them exactly the way I wanted them and I couldn't clearcoat them. As soon as I painted clearcoat it turned grey, so I decided to just paint the whole thing black. I also painted part of the working PSU with a pink uv paint. When lit up, this gives off an orange glow, so it's cool looking.

Also I apologize for the EZ-sleeve job on the PSU. I already had the stuff to do it with and since I'm selling it anyway I figured what the hell.

This project is almost finished...I installed XP and updates on it earlier, so as soon as the paint dries I can glue my acrylic on the side panels. After that it's pretty much finished.

More to come...

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Its turnin out pretty good man. The wire job looks cool man, and who cares if it isnt sleeved, however you could do with some management and hide some of those wires a little better. You could slip some behind the mobo, drive cages, and even make a false bottom to hide some of the wires under.

The pink PSU isnt doin it for me man, but if you like it that way and so does the dude thats buyin it than oh well. My only suggestion is to next time pic a color that matches your theme.....pink green and black kinda clash in my opinion.

Your cuts look decent and so does your paint job, but be warned that if your paint isnt allowed enough time to cure it could be ruined easily just by bumping it. BTW once the paint is cured go pick up some wax and polish your panels.....cheap mans bling my favorite.

Keep it up man and dont be afraid to take your time or redo something if you have to. Patience is the biggest part of modding that is overlooked and a lack of that can seriously compromise your end product.

Good luck and keep us posted!

The parts in the case are just a mockup for now. I definately will hide the wires better and I was just testing the color theme also.

I plan on painting the entire PSU with UV paint. I have Orange, Green, Pink, Blue, Purple, and Yellow. What color do you think I should go with. The pink looks pretty cool under the blacklight, it looks orange and my camera doesn't really capture it like I see it, but I think I will go with orange. Suggestions? Comments?

Got the PSU painted orange, and sparky was right, it does look much better. I also painted the molex connectors and the IDE cables clear UV green and I sort of figured out the issue of wire management with a false bottom, but more on that later...

Here are the pics

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Like the front so far. I need to get some practice with bondo, looks like pretty handy stuff. Can't wait to see the final product.