I finally got most of the painting done on the intake fan. I went with leftover Electric Blue Metallic from the Charger case, followed by 3 coats of clear. In a day or two, I'll buff and polish the cone. Here's what it looks like so far. Most people these days buy a few LED-lighted or UV-reactive fans, slap 'em in their case, and call it done. I don't call that modding. Making your own LED fan, painting your fans, or doing something to customize a fan, that's modding. That's what sets your case apart from "all the rest", and that's what makes your case uniquely yours.

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Here's the side panel all masked off, ready for cutting. I have no idea what I'm gonna do with it! I'm not really a big fan of windows, because everyone and their grandma has a computer with windows. But I'm planning some unique things with UV inside, and I need to have it visible, so I'll probably have to resort to a window. As for the design, I'm at a total loss for ideas. But as always, something will eventually come to me...

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I found something that will work perfectly for the top and bottom curves of the axe-shaped intake duct...decorative ribbons come on plastic spools of all sizes; this particular one has almost the exact same diameter of the upper and lower curves of the intake hole. It should cut, paint, and glue onto the inside of the bezel real easily.

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Since I'm going to be doing mostly waiting for the next 24 hours, I started looking at other things that will come "under the knife". The top panel is both cool and lame. I like the leads for the e-SATA and USB ports. I don't care about the external audio jacks, I rarely use those anyway. I don't like the original power and reset buttons, but it's nice that they're covered, but I prefer something a little more interactive. And I positively *hate* the original Power On and IDE Activity LEDs! Have you ever seen anything so lame?? It's like Enermax couldn't figure out any other place to put them on the bezel, so they just threw 'em on top there.

Since I don't plan on painting the exterior black panels, I can't just fill in those rectangular holes with Bondo, as I'd have to paint the plastic, and it would never perfectly match the metal panels. So I'm gonna glue those LEDs in there permanently--after painting them black (and of course cutting the leads to them so they won't light up). That should make them virtually unnoticeable.

I'm not sure what I'm gonna do for Power and Reset buttons...time will tell.

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These long lead wires, originally going up to the control panel's indicator LEDs, will come in handy and will instead route to the front bezel light tubes, once they're finished and have LEDs placed in them. The switches are typical push-button switches found in almost all cases nowadays. Usually they're held in place with a couple plastic barbs, and a lazy-ass blob of hot glue from a glue gun. If you're lucky, it's a small blob. If you're really unlucky, some factory moron splotched on so much goop that it'll take you 15 minutes to chip it all away with an X-Acto knife. I was lucky (this time).

The great thing about these typical push-buttons is, they're so easy to relocate to any other plastic place on your case. Simply drill a hole with a big drill bit with a diameter the same as the push-button square's width. Then, with an X-Acto knife, patiently cut corners from that circular hole, making a square into which the push-button will tightly fit. Then, remove the push-button, apply epoxy, and glue it permanently into the square hole. Now, all you gotta do is find something to be your new Power or Reset button, drill a hole inside it big enough to allow the push-button switch "tip" to press inside it, and epoxy the new button onto the switch "tip".

I'll probably show how this is done later on, if I decide to go that route.

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Since the frosted effect worked so successfully with my Project Pisces case, I'm doing the same thing with the bezel light tubes here. Since LED light travels in such a straight line and with so little diffusion, you wouldn't really see much light through a perfectly clear acrylic tube.

I took 400-grit sandpaper and frosted the length of the tubes. Since the ends had rough edges from the cutting wheel, I sanded them smooth from 400 to 600 to 800 to 1000 grit sandpaper. But that still won't get the ends clear. I finished them off by polishing them with some toothpaste and paper towel. It's a tip I learned from someone on this forum years ago, for returning hazy or finely scratched acrylic to a clear finish.

As you can see from the images, the ends are clear, while the sides and frosted.

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Here is an indispensable tool in my modding kit: a LED tester! Every modder should have one of these lying around, from a watch or calculator or old motherboard CMOS battery...3 volts is perfect for testing most LEDs. I'm testing some red LEDs here (note that this crappy cam doesn't take accurate color pics; I use a different cam for the "money shots"); I'm testing them because sometimes, similar-looking LEDs output different intensities of light, even different shades of color (i.e. wavelengths, for you physics buffs).

Now, I know I have 2 red LEDs that output the same color and brightness, so I'll be able to use them for the bezel light tubes.

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I didn't have much time so far this weekend for modding, but I got a few odds & ends finished.

The bezel light tubes & grilles are finished. In the pics I show how I mounted the light tubes by just applying a little clear 5-minute epoxy on the ends of the light tubes, where they will sit , glued directly to the overhanging underside of the aluminum bezel side pieces. Also it was my idea to leave the plastic "ribs" that you can see just above and below each light tube, as that allowed me to drill a hole in which the LEDs will eventually be pressed into.

If you only have a standard (SAE) drill bit set, in case you didn't know, the 3/16" bit is the *perfect* diameter of hole in which to mount a standard 5mm LED bulb.

Unfortunately, I found the LEDs go too far into the ribs that they stick out and prevented the light tubes from being installed; when the light tubes were installed, they prevented the LEDs from sticking in their holes...so I'll get some pieces of plastic, drill 3/16" holes in them, and glue them above and below each rib. You'll get the idea in later pictures.

Last image shows the LEDs mounted directly in the plastic ribs, you can see how much the bulbs stick through.

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I did some wiring tonight, easy stuff like wiring each pair of tube LEDs. The top pair are blue and will be always on, so the tubes glow blue all the time. But when the drive is active, the bottom red pair will flicker. I again used my handy-dandy LED tester CMOS battery for the red LEDs (in parallel so they both get the full 3V), just to make sure the polarity was correct. I admit to getting a bit lazy in how I mounted the LEDs, but it was the easiest, cheapest solution, and nobody sees the inside of the bezel anyway...I used a hot glue gun! Yessiree, a little blob of glue on the bottom half of each LED and they were mounted in place to perfection. Since I can't recall ever blowing an LED that I didn't accidentally over-volt, I'm not really worried about having to replace them anytime soon.

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I was very happy with the results of the lighted red LEDs. Unfortunately, I tried to take pics of it with 2 different cams, various settings, different light levels, but none of the pics really do it justice. I must've taken about 50 pictures to finally get the ones attached below.

The cams tend to pick up and emphasize all the surrounding light, tending to wash out the image. In reality, the tubes glow with a blood red color that you only see a little in daylight. When the lights are off, wow! It looks awesome. I guess it'll look purplish when the drive goes active, with the red flashing mixing with the blue always-on. I had to mask off the back of the tubes with masking tape to limit the amount of light flooding from the rear of the bezel, and also replaced the front bay covers to get a more accurate pic.

Of all the pics I took, the last one here is the most accurate. It seems as though focusing on the middle of the image only caused the cam to pick up the light flooding that area, while focusing on the black plastic just below the LED tube on one side, making an angular shot, got the best and most accurate result from the camera.

BTW, keep your comments coming in the Project Feedback thread. I enjoy reading your comments and feedback!

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I have a question for the wiring and electrical pimps here. How difficult would it be to wire the power on and IDE activity LEDs so that they function as follows:

-When drive is inactive, the top pair of blue LEDs are lit, fed from 7V from a Molex connector;
-When drive *is* active, the blue LEDs turn off, while the red bottom LEDs flicker with drive activity

As things are wired now, the easy way, is that the blue power on LEDs are always on, and the red IDE activity LEDs will light up in addition. Is it very difficult to wire things up somehow so that the power on LEDs are deactivated when the IDE activity LEDs are active?

If it's not that difficult, I might try wiring things that way.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, there were 2 pieces of metal I wanted to cut away, to facilitate remounting the front 120mm fan so that it wouldn't be off-center. This will be my next mini-mod, getting the front fan mounted in a good, central location, followed by constructing the axe-shaped duct.

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After doing the previous preliminary cutting and test-fitting the fan, I noticed that it was still about a quarter of an inch below center, so more work needed to be done to the drive caddy. I wasn't able to do it the lazy way, as I couldn't reach some of the areas with a hacksaw or rotary tool...so I decided to remove the 7 rivets holding it in place. The 5 rivets on the front were easily removed by drilling them out, but the 2 on the inside were in a position that couldn't be reached with my drill...so I ground them off with the rotary tool grinding stone, until enough of it was removed to allow me to yank them out from beneath.

Once the drive caddy was detached, I was able to more easily remove another 1/4" or so of metal. I got lazy and used a set of tin-snips, then straighted things out after, and filed it mostly smooth. It's eventually gonna be painted so I'm not too worried about how it looks at this point. You won't even see the front metal part anyway, as it'll be covered by the front bezel and custom duct.

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I found these 3 sheetmetal screws just the perfect size to re-mount the drive caddy. They seem to hold it in place nice and sturdy. I obviously didn't do anything with the lower 2 old rivet holes, as that part of the drive caddy was removed.

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Here we have just the alignment I was aiming for. Now the fan can be mounted perfectly in the center of the axe-head hole. Case image is shown upside-down, as I haven't drilled new mounting holes for the fan yet. But you get the idea now!

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I got a little more of the electrical stuff done, too. According to Metku Mods' easy-to-use LED Calculator, I needed to solder in a 180-Ohm resistor for 2 blue LEDs fed from a 12V power source, in series. I decided to do this because the wiring would route more easily to the 2 LEDs than if I put them in parallel. I even drew up a quickie schematic for any of you who are new to doing custom LED mods.

Regarding how I chose a 180-Ohm resistor, check out the LED Calculator site; I used the following information:

-Supply Voltage = 12V
-Voltage Drop = 4.5 (for high intensity blue)
-LED Current = 20 mA
-No. of LEDs = 2
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Resistance = 150 Ohm; I used 180 Ohm because I had one of those resistors lying around.

P.S. Dig my 1337 Paintshop skillz! I R ub3r RT!sT! Hey, my LEDs look a bit like Kenny from South Park...they just need a pair of eyes...

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I tested the 2 blue Power On LEDs to be used in the light tubes by connecting them to the yellow & black wires in a Molex connector (12V). Working fine so far. Now to glue them in, route the wires, and test with both colors.

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I finally finished the front bezel light tubes. The pics show how I routed the wiring, so that it wouldn't get in the way of any 5.25" drive bays. I used a hot glue gun to put blobs of glue under the wiring in strategic locations, it shouldn't come loose anytime soon. The lighted pics show how it looks with the computer turned on (blue for Power On) and during IDE Activity (red and blue together). The actual thing looks a bit more red than the image, which makes it look too pink. It's more of a reddish purple color when the red LEDs activate.

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Now that the bezel light tubes are done, it's time to return my attention to the front intake fan. I previously cut away parts of the front chassis and 3.5" drive caddy so that I could mount it in the middle of the bezel's axe-head intake hole. I'm still working out how exactly to mount it in place, it's not going to be as simple as just using the included rubber grommets or fan screws, as the original mounting holes aren't just holes cut into the chassis, they're raised about a quarter of an inch. I have to put in some kind of spacers between the inside surface of the front of the chassis, and the fan. I'm probably going to use some brass motherboard standoffs, rubber washers or grommets of some sort (to cut down noise), and machine screws.

But for now, I masked off the fan (again) for the final phase of the paint job. I only wanted the blades to glow UV blue, so I masked off everything else. I think it will look pretty cool and unique once it's finished.

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I masked off the 250mm fan in preparation for some blue ClearNeon paint. I experienced a problem with this paint, though...as you can see from the picture after it was painted, several blotchy areas appeared. I have no idea why the paint did this. It was sprayed at room temperature, just like the can instructions, and I sprayed 3 thin coats, certainly not going too heavy on the coats. It was disappointing and a little surprising, that's not what you'd expect as a result...

I tried wiping it up so that it wasn't so blotchy-looking but I ended up with a fan that didn't react too much to UV. I had much better results with the small 120mm intake fan (although it also had blotches, but it wasn't so bad, and it was mostly on the unpainted side of the fan blades--I only painted one side, the inside surface. That is where the UV cathodes will be placed).

In the images of the glowing front fan, these pics make it look a little brighter than in reality. The real light is a ghostly pale blue color. I tried to get the cathodes out of the direct focus of the cam, so that you're seeing the actual glow, and not direct light from the cathodes. The actual amount of light glowing off the fan blades is maybe 2/3 of the brightness seen in these pics.

I'm quite happy with the subdued ghostly light. It's quite a bit different from the really bright light you get with 'all those other store-bought fans' that have UV-reactive plastic and UV LEDs placed right in the fan housings. It's not even visible with the lights on, but when the lights are out, it looks awesome.

The reason I didn't want it to glow brightly with the lights on? Because I wanted people to notice the unique fan itself, with it's metallic blue and chrome nose-cone, then notice something quite different with the lights out.

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