Glitterkill generously and kindly donated a PSU for this project. I received the box today, opened it up, and-- lo and behold, inside the box was not one, but TWO Ultra 600W PSUs!!! Talk about Christmas coming a few weeks early for me! Thanks so much to GK, PCApex, and anyone sponsoring and following this project thread!

The thing I love about these PSUs is, they're actually ANTI-bling! They're painted in a flat black slightly textured finish, and everything--I mean *everything* on these PSUs is black, except for the labels of course. The Molexes, all the connectors, all the wires are beautiful black...hell, even the dang rubber bands holding the cabling together was black! Of course, there will be some modding of the PSU, coming soon. Hopefully no warranties will be voided (hey Gary, is that why you sent me two?). Haha!

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I haven't had much time for modding lately, starting a new job and all. But I finally got a section of cabling from the PSU braided.

Everyone's sleeving their PSUs these days, so I said "Sleeving, shmleeving!" and came up with what I thought was a unique concept: rather than hide the wires, why not show them off? But it turns out Glitterkill himself already did this exact thing:
GK's braided wiring

We did braid them using a bit different technique, I used a 3-strand braiding technique, treating both inner black ground wires as a single wire, while GK seems to have used the more complex 4-strand technique. I tried for about an hour to braid the wires by trial-and-error, and I basically threw in the towel in frustration. I had to actually Google how to braid. But once you've done it a bit, you get the hang of it, the pattern just repeats.

For 3-wire:

-pink (on far left) over both black, then under blue
-both black (now on far left) over blue (now in middle), then under pink
-blue (now on far left) over pink (now in middle), then under both black

Attached is a wondrous rendition of my technique, gotta love my Paintshop skillz. When braiding, you have to be careful about the length that you cut the wires, because you never know how much you'll need, as it depends on how tight you braid them. So, I did the braiding until I was all the way to the connector, then and ONLY then did I cut the wires. I cut them about midway of the length of the Molex connector, as that's approximately how far inside the wires would go into the Molex when finished soldering. I also didn't strip the wires until I cut them, and I stripped them so they were such that the bare wires would not be seen much outside of the connector. I had to tape the wires up tightly before doing the above steps, as everything would unravel as I cut & stripped the wires. Only when the metal Molex ends were reattached and soldered on, did I untape everything, and made sure that I was inserting the Molex ends into the correct outside holes of the connector. Shorting out a drive would be bad news, I think.

After the wires were untaped, I lifted the pair of metal barbs out of each Molex connector, then slipped the wires into place.

The pics show the wires, taped up and just before getting soldered to the metal Molex connector ends, a before & after pic of an existing Ultra wire set, and my modded braided set. And lastly, a pic of how it looks under UV light---this is gonna be pimpin' when it's done! And if anyone tells me to "hide my wires" (like some putz asked Glitterkill), I'll give 'em a swift cyber-kick to the derriere.

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Hmm, considering the color scheme of this mod project, I wonder how sweet THIS mobo would look inside:


ABit AW9D....*drool*

Here are more components I'd love to use with this project, imagine how cool these'd look:

Kingston HyperX DDR2 800 CL4-4-4-12 RAM:


GeForce 7600GT or 7900GS, which to choose?

And now it's time to get back to work on this case. I've never been much of a fan of windows, be they simple rectangles or intricate designs cut with a Dremel or water-jet. But I definitely wanted to show off the guts of this case. I was at a total loss for what kind of window to make, and the huge 250mm fan hole made it even more difficult to come up with a theme.

But you know what, as wonderful as themed cases are, why should every case need a theme? A case that's just cool and unique and has a good color scheme can be sweet too. I finally got off my duff, took out a pencil and in 5 minutes came up with the following design. It's nothing amazing, but it flows with the lines of the panel and 250mm hole; the saw-tooth pattern gives it an edgy, macho look, and as a whole, will reveal plenty of the UV goodness I have planned for the interior.

I think this'll do alright...

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I had some spare time this weekend so I got back to doing a little more modding. I spent some time thinking about what I could do for handles and feet. I admit I'm not too big on handles, and I'm REALLY not big on wheels. But that's probably because it's becoming far too common, and also because I didn't want this badass case to end up looking like a child's pull-toy.

If you go to case modding e-tailers, you find the following examples of predominant kinds of handles. Both are boring and unimaginative, IMO. The big, recessed variety *can* look good in military- or utilitarian-themed mods, but for me, they're just wayyy too big and all those ugly rivets/bolts just ruin the nice clean lines of most case mods. If you ask me, that kind of handle only belongs on a 150-pound footlocker, not a slick case.

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Well for feet i use skateboard bushings. Cheap and come in lots of colors even clear. skateboard bushings - Froogle

For a handle i've used this plastic handle before, primed it and painted it to match the case. C & N Supply Inc. Brand New White Plastic Grab Handle for RV / Camper

I've also used a chrome one like this.
Grab Handle, Chrome, 10" - $5.89



Hope that helps.

Quote: Originally Posted by musclecars&computers Well for feet i use skateboard bushings. Cheap and come in lots of colors even clear. skateboard bushings - Froogle For a handle i've used this plastic handle before, primed it and painted it to match the case. C & N Supply Inc. Brand New White Plastic Grab Handle for RV / Camper I've also used a chrome one like this. Grab Handle, Chrome, 10" - $5.89

Cool ideas, musclecars. The skateboard wheels is definitely thinking outside the box!

So as I mentioned before, I hit the local home reno store and picked these up. Compared to the approximate price of $8 to $10 for a single "case modding" handle, which is absolutely ridiculous, I got these nice little black chrome units for $5.49 each (Canadian). They have a shape which I think goes nicely with the case, sort of angular and curved at the same time.

For my case feet, I wanted to do something totally different, so I thought, "What about giving it skates?" Nobody's put anything skate-like on a case before! I saw some really sweet-looking towel racks and bathtub grab-handles that would've been awesome, but they were upwards of $25 each, so they couldn't really fall under the "cheap modding" category. I settled for those 4 chromed drawer-pulls in the attached image. Those case "skates" cost only $1.98 each. (Also I'm Canadian and a big hockey fan and hockey player, so it just made sense to me.)

I wanted them to align longitudinally. The really cool advantage to this is that the case will slip forwards and backwards as easy as...well, as skates on ice, especially on carpet. I hate when a case has rubber-based feet and they stick to surfaces and it makes it a royal pain pulling the case out from under a desk just to swap a cable or open the panel.

When it came to these feet and handles, my goal was "less is more". I was aiming for a sleek, simple look that worked with the case design instead of interrupting it, and also looked like it was meant to be that way from the start.

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I began by masking off the panel to protect from scratches. I measured the distance between the centers of the 2 handle bolt-holes (96mm). I measured the full width of the panel and marked the center. Then I just measured 48mm (half of 96mm) in either direction from the center point, and that's where I'd drill some holes.

In the third pic below, I decided to move the handle further from the front of the case and it's top plastic I/O panel, so there was adequate room to comfortably grip the handle and have my knuckles clear the I/O panel.

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You need to provide adequate bracing when bolting on handles, because the metal panel by itself isn't strong enough to withstand the weight of a tower fully equipped with hardware. I found my solution in a couple of spare plastic drive bay covers. Everyone gets 2 or 3 of these with every case they buy, why throw 'em out? I save practically everything.

Anyway, I made a couple of drill holes aligned with each handle's bolt-hole, and added a thick metal washer just for safe measure. I figure the plastic bay covers, with their plastic runners on all 4 sides, and the thick washers, should make a good enough brace with enough spread-out surface area for the handles to easily support the weight of the case.

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I used a similar method for measuring the drill-holes for the case "skates". I measured straight longitudinal lines cutting right through the middle of the original case feet's plastic plug holes, then chose a start-point on each of the 4 lines. Since there was exactly 3 inches between the bolt-holes on the chrome drawer-pulls, I measured 3" from each start-point, and that was where my drill-holes would be.

I think the case skates look pretty pimp, certainly unique! Never been done before, afaik, cheap, and they work just as I hoped...the case indeed slips really easily on any carpeted floor, no matter how thick the shag is. It'll look even cooler when the chassis is all painted black!

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The handles turned out really nice! They're slick, they don't have rivets or bolts or anything else to mess up the clean lines, and the black-chrome finish goes really well with the Chakra case's black satin finish. I had to take a picture with the flash on, so you can actually see them. I did this because some of the other pics I took with flash on makes it seem that they aren't really black, but they are quite black.

Total price of the custom handles and "case skates" mod: about $20.00 CDN. Doing case feet and handles in a different, unique way instead of everyone else's way: priceless. "I did it...myyyy way!" as Frank Sinatra would croon.

Please feel free to leave your feedback, comments or criticisms in the Project Feedback thread here.

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The next mod I'm working on will eventually involve the back side panel (the one that's usually unmodded, even in my own rigs). I figured the best thing to do was give the case my "signature". I think anyone could do something similar to this. All you need is a piece of acrylic or plexiglass; 3mm thick should be enough, but thinner stuff would also work, and be easier to cut. If you're looking for a an alternative to an expensive sheet of acrylic or plexi, and you only need a small sheet (this particular mod doesn't need a lot of acrylic), here's a cheap solution:



They come in various shapes and sizes and should only set you back $5 to $10 bucks.

In this mod, I used some AcrylPanel that I won in that A.C.Ryan "Pimp My Rig" contest long ago; now's my chance to do a shameless plug for A.C.Ryan. This acrylic is 3mm thick and is blue UV-reactive. But as I said, any sheet of acrylic will do.

I first made my template, of the coelacanth, from a small image that I resized much bigger in Paintshop, then printed out on a sheet of paper. I was aiming for a fish length of approx. 20cm. I then cut out the design. At this stage, I didn't pay much attention to fine details in the shape, that'll come later.

I masked off both sides of the AcrylPanel to protect from scratches. I even stuffed the remainder of the acrylic that I wouldn't be working on, inside the box, to further protect it from any mishaps while I was working on it. I took my cut-out of the shape, taped it lightly to the masked-off surface, and used a fat black marker, marking outwards from the center of the shape onto the masking tape beneath. Once that was all done, I had my perimeter of the shape I needed to dremel.

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After considerable time spent dremeling out the shape, and 2 broken cutting disks later, I got my rough-cut. Whenever possible, I tried to cut with the cutting disk at an angle so I would get a bit of a beveled edge. When this is done, the backlighting should shine better and be more visible with an edge that isn't a straight up-and-down perpendicular cut. The edge looks something like this (bow to my incredible ASCII art skills):

(top)
_____
_____\

(bottom)

After removing the rough-cut shape, I used the same cutting disk to clean up the edges and burrs, add detail, and make the beveled edge somewhat consistent.

Tips for dremeling a shape like this: Always cut on the *outside* of your perimeter! It's a lot easier to file & grind down a little excess than it is to clean up an "inside oops"! Set your rotary tool to low speed; if it's spinning too fast, you'll melt the acrylic and create annoying acrylibubbles that need to be removed. Better to use slow speed and create a lot of acrylic dust and powder instead. And of course, take your time. And wear safety goggles. And practice safe sex. You know the drill (pun intended)!

The last images are the shape, cleaned up with the cutting disk and with some detail added for the fish fins. It took an additional 30 minutes or so to do this. So, the whole mod took maybe 3 or so hours, from the drawing to the cutting out to the basic cleanup. I still need to put in an hour or so of filing, sanding the beveled edge so it has a consistent frosty look, and then some other stuff I have planned for later.

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Today, I traced the outline of the fish on the inside of the back panel, to give me an idea what size shape to cut out and remove. I gave myself plenty of room "inside the lines", including my drill holes where I'd begin the actual cutting with my jigsaw, and even still, I made the cut-out just a bit too big in some places.

You can see that the cutout isn't accurate, but when you see the final mod, you'll see why it doesn't really matter. I masked off the whole outside surface of the panel to protect from scratches, and did my drilling and cutting on the inside surface of the panel. This is because the jigsaw can make scratches as you push it along (I learned that the hard way during Project Pisces, which resulted in my having to add a good few extra hours of sanding to remove the scratches). Since nobody sees the inside of the back panel, it won't matter if it's all scratched up.

After cutting out the shape and before removing the tape, I whipped out some files and did some filing; the only real reason for this was to remove the burrs, sharp edges, and crooked lines. The cutout doesn't have to be perfect; even the few minor bends in the metal won't matter, though I did pound out a few spots with a rubber mallet (before removing the tape, of course).

The last pic shows the acrylic fish placed in it's eventual position over the cutout. Soon you'll see what I have in mind, maybe some of you already have an idea where I'm going with this.

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Some pics of the back panel fish mod. No, I'm not done yet. When I'm done, you won't see the window cuts and cathode behind the fish, just the glowing outline. That's why it's important to give the cutout an angled beveled edge, to increase the edge light effect. I'm doing this mod with a UV cathode and blue UV-reactive acrylic, but you could achieve a similar result with the cheap acrylic alternative I mentioned earlier, and the colored cathode light of your choice. If you wanted, you could sand the inner surface of the acrylic shape with 400-grit to give it a nice frosted look, and be done with it, and that would look pretty cool too.

Maybe try something like this instead of the all-too-common window in your next mod project, and dare to stand out from the crowd!

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I think I see where you are going with that Walleye (kidding). Your methods are always original.

I've just spent an hour testing all of my planned lighting elements in this case; where to locate the two 12" UV cathodes to achieve the best results and also maintain clean wiring & airflow, for example...and quite frankly, I'm stunned. I blew myself away, if that's possible! This is far & away going to be the best case I've ever done. I just wish it was finished! Ahhh but so much to do, so much work to be done. I'm not even at 50% completion.

Thanks for the comment, BA!

One area that most case mod projects ignore is the case floor. In the past with Project Pisces, I put a mirror on the floor of the case, to enhance and reflect the UV light. Here is another novel idea you can use to make your case mod look a bit different from all the rest.

Everyone has seen those case modding lighted LED acrylic case feet, being sold online for overly inflated prices, but forget that noise! Instead, give your case a lighted nightclub-like dance floor!

For this mod, all you need is some acrylic sheet, 5mm thick should be perfect, and the colored cathode light of your choice--which most people stick on the floors of their cases, anyway. In this project, I'm using some UV red 5mm acrylic sheet which I won a while ago in that AC Ryan "Pimp My Rig" contest, but plain old clear acrylic and a colored cathode will do just as nicely.

Most case bottoms have raised areas, these will interfere with a sheet of plexi or acrylic sitting flush on the bottom, so I needed to cut out those 4 round circles inside which the cheap stock plastic feet are mounted. I also removed that diamond shape, which serves no function anyway. Lastly, there are 2 rivet-heads from where the mobo is riveted onto the case floor. I obviously won't remove the rivet-heads; instead, I'll grind circular depressions in the acrylic itself so it'll sit flush.

The pics show the preparation of the acrylic and case bottom cutouts. I tried using a hole-saw but that just made more mess than benefit. I then switched to a rotary tool but that was taking too damn long. So I got out my trusty old jigsaw and that worked best. I put in a good 2 hours of filing to remove the rough edges and burrs.

Once the bottom of the case had it's "floor window" opened up and cleaned up, I removed the masking tape from the acrylic sheet and test-fitted it. Since the acrylic is transparent, it was also easy to mark the existing holes for when I re-mount the case skates. I show a pic of the test-fit, but tomorrow I'll need to buy a bunch more screws to fit in the case skate holes, as the ones I cut down to work with only a single layer of sheetmetal are now way too short for the added thickness of the acrylic.

You'll have to wait awhile before you see how pretty she looks lighted up, but I can tell you it looks really sweet! Especially the edges, my goal was to create a nicely-lit edge and a bit of a glow to enhance the appearance of those chrome case skates.

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Attached are pics of the floor window acrylic, with holes drilled for the case skates and depressions ground out to make room for the two rivet-heads. I then reinstalled the skates and floor window, then took a few teaser pics.

One thing that's cool about this red UV-reactive acrylic is, it practically glows in normal daylight. However, I had one concern: I didn't want the entire floor to glow bright fluorescent red, as this would probably interfere with some of the other lighting effects I've got planned. I was mostly only hoping for a nice contrasting edge-glow to offset all the blue-ness. So, I placed a UV cathode on the floor for testing. Luckily, that was almost exactly what happened. I got a really nice edge glow, and took some night pics of the back side of the case with the black panel installed, so you can see how sharp that edge glow is. It should be a bit brighter on that side later, as I haven't sanded down and polished 2 edges of the acrylic yet. The front and front side panel were already polished out of the box (they were the 2 edges I didn't have to cut).

It would be interesting to see the glow effect of plain clear acrylic and a colored cathode light, but I don't have either at the moment.

I think I'm almost at the point where the chassis is ready for some paint. Everything has been cut, ground, drilled, modified, and test-fitted that needs to be, so it'll soon be sporting some gloss black Tremclad rust paint, which I've found to be very durable with my Project Pisces case.

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