Now that I got my test cable out of the way, it was time to work on the nice black ABit cable. I did the same procedure as before, except for the following modifications.

Once the IDE cables were split, I tried to overlap them somewhat, forming overlapping V's as I moved more inwards from the outer edges of the connector. I pinched them in that position while I wrapped some electrical tape around them. It looked pretty good, as good as it gets anyway, unless you have custom rubber boots in your color of choice just lying around (which I didn't). It also seemed to allow the shrink-wrap to shrink on more evenly, instead of pulling too tight around some of the separated wires, and not tight enough around others.

After I zipped on some black zip-ties to keep the "thin" end of the shrink-wrap in place, I think the end result was much nicer than my previous test attempt.

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I finally got around to finishing something I was putting off for months: creating custom-braided power connector cables. The braiding in itself wasn't the pain, it was removing, wiring, and soldering each individual connector in the Molex!

I used exact measurements to determine the length of the braided cabling between the devices and PSU, so there shouldn't be the usual need to stuff 10 feet of unused cabling somewhere. I don't want to hide this cabling, I want it to be seen under UV light--as long as it doesn't interfere with airflow.

The cable with the blue UV-reactive connectors is actually a 2-wire 12V connector using only 2 of the 4 Molex holes, which will power the side panel 250mm fan. I inserted a third black cable just so it would braid, even though it's an unneeded extra ground that won't physically connect to anything on either end.

The next thing I did (okay now I'm getting a bit anal perhaps) is color those little ugly beige plastic 3-pin fan connectors that draw power from the motherboard fan headers. Beige is ugly! So I took a Sharpie and colored the entire fan connector black (or you can use the Sharpie color of your choice, or maybe use a UV-reactive paint maybe). I chose black because the mobo is black and dark blue. The pic shows a comparison between a typical beige fan connector (this one a 2-pin) with the Sharpie'd 3-pin unit.

It's a small detail, but it sure makes a difference!

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I mounted the PSU and did a test-fit of one of the custom-fitted braided power lines. Why sleeve when your power cables can look this good? It's cheaper by far, too...but a lot more work.

I also did another trick which probably nobody will notice. Since only the back 3/4" of the DVD drive is visible beyond the black-painted caddy and black acrylic caddy plate, the standard ugly grey pot-metal would look like crap. And since the DVD-R/RW drive is brand-new, I didn't want to void the warranty (yet) by removing the warning sticker and painting it. So the "modding on the cheap" solution? A few strips of black electrical tape wrapped around the drive! To anybody except me (and y'all of course!), it looks painted. I'm going to do the same thing to the HDD tunnel cooler below (tomorrow maybe).

I'd be a lot farther along in this project, actually, but for the fact that I'm waiting for a piece of hardware to arrive. It's the HSF, and it's a kind that needs to install onto the mobo with a backplate, so I don't want to waste all kinds of time bolting everything in, only to have to take it all apart again and swap heatsinks. So I hope the hardware arrives soon, it's holding back this project.

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Holy crap, what happened?? Until yesterday, this topic was clipping along at a nice pace, getting maybe 50 to 100 views per day, but yesterday, it went from 4400 to 5295 views, and now it's almost up to 6000! Did I accidentally link to gay russian pr0n or something?!

Anyway, coolness!

A few pages ago, I did a custom case badge with a frog, backlit with 3 green LEDs. It just wasn't working for me, not because of it going against the theme, but because it just didn't light up the way I wanted. Also, the frog was visible all the time, whereas I wanted something that was black except when lighted. I have to admit I gave this little mod so much thought, and many failed attempts until I finally came up with the mod you'll see here. I tried about 2 other things besides the frog that just didn't light up the way I wanted.

The goal: A 2-way lighted case badge.

1) It's smooth, glassy black when the computer's off.
2) It lights one way when the computer's on.
3) It lights another way when the DVD-R/RW is active, in addition to the lighting of #2.

Here's how I accomplished that feat, and for such a small mod, it was a LOT of detailed work!

I had a dead cathode tube lying around (as you know, I don't throw much away). Those have nice acrylic tubes that can be perfect for various mods. I cut a slice, and filed off one edge, so as to make a U-shaped piece. I then sanded it with 400-grit to give it a nice frosting.

I cut out a small piece of black acrylic, to fit nicely inside the upper bezel rectangular hole I cut earlier. I used some Weld-On #4 to glue the acrylic "U" to the rear surface of the black acrylic (this is very liquidy stuff that dries very quick, you need to attach it quickly!). Now, since I didn't want any light from behind to shine through any of the black acrylic EXCEPT where the "U" is, I masked off the "U" and painted the one side of the black acrylic with gloss black paint.

Once that paint dried, I removed the masking tape, then reapplied a piece of masking tape and a rubber O-ring (just because it fit nice and tight) to the inside of "U" piece. Now, I sprayed on some blue UV-reactive ClearNEON.

The result of this first stage: A pale blue UV-reactive "U" that ONLY glows in a "U" shape. I was left with a clear circle in the center of the "U", which is where I will work on the second stage.

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Stage 2 of the custom case badge mod involves the DVD-R/RW activity light. I wanted it to be a red glowing "eye" contrasting nicely with the pale blue UV "power on" ring. I sliced a small piece of 8mm acrylic tube, filed both ends relatively smooth, and frosted one end (the end that'll mate with the inside surface of the black acrylic). I used my 5mm acrylic drill bit and carefully drilled a hole in the other end, being careful not to crack the edges. I drilled about 1/3 of the way into the acrylic piece.

I didn't like the colored red LED, I wanted one of those high-intensity ones with a clear lens, but all I could find in my parts bin was the cheap red-colored ones that I'd swiped from various crappy cases over the years. I then remembered I had one of those cheap key-chain lights that had a whistle on one end and a red LED on the other. Perfect!

I cracked it in half, and the LED popped right out. It wasn't even glued in. It was easy business soldering it onto a spare mobo reset connector (any case I throw away, I always yard out all the wires and fans and lights and keep 'em).

I polished the drilled end by putting a dab of toothpaste and wrapped a bit of paper towel around the end of the drill bit, reversed the drill direction, and slowly spun around inside the hole. That got me a nice, clear hole. I used a bit of Weld-On acrylic cement to cement the LED inside the hole.

Now, I didn't want the red glow from the DVD activity light to wash out the UV blue "U", so I took a piece of shrink-wrap and shrunk it on the outside of the "bulb". It fit almost perfectly inside the "U" made from the slice of cathode tube, and the effect was just as I was hoping...a clear red eye with no light diffusion bleeding out from the eye.

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Time to go back to work on Stage 1. I needed some cheap UV LEDs to illuminate the "power on" U-ring. I was too lazy to calculate resistance. I had these ConductX Molex to 3-pin quad splitter cables that I won in that AC Ryan contest, that have UV-reactive sleeving, connectors, LEDs, and the resistors were already soldered in. A no-brainer.

I used wire cutters to remove the 3-pin fan connectors, extended the LEDs from beneath their clear heat-shrunk sleeves, and used electrical tape to protect from shorts.

The plan was to use the hot glue gun to apply 3 dabs of glue onto the inner surface of the black acrylic, and attach 3 LEDs. The plan worked great. I then took a test pic of the illuminated "U" by itself, without the activity eye attached. It turned out sweet. It's more of a dark blue than my cam shows, it's a bit muted by the 5mm black acrylic. My cam always pales the blueness and redness of shots in the dark, for some reason. Cheap, old cam.

I then attached the red activity eye (it fits snugly so I didn't bother to glue it in with acrylic cement) and powered on, using a CMOS battery to test the activity LED. It turned out more amazing than I imagined! This is gonna look incredible when the case is finished! I also took a pic of what it looks like when the computer would be turned off. You barely get even a hint of what'll happen when it's turned on!

Next mod session: Wiring the "eye" to the DVD drive.

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The point of this mod is to re-route the DVD activity LED to somewhere else, somewhere more interesting. Lots of people do the "stealth drive" thing, but IMO that is a lost opportunity to show off a cool lighting mod. Very few people change the LEDs in their drives, let alone re-route them. Part of the problem is that a lot of drives use those miniscule square surface-mount LEDs. Those are impossible to unsolder (except perhaps with an electron microscope)!

I chose an Asus drive because in the past, they've used a standard 3mm LED for the activity/drive open light. This one also has the easy-to-remove LED.

First, stick a paper clip inside the manual eject hole, so you can get the tray open a bit. Remove the tray "lid". Usually they're only held on by 2 or 3 plastic tabs, and a careful push or bend, and it's off. Now that the tray lid is removed, you can carefully pry off the bezel. Almost all the ones I've seen are held on by 3 or 4 plastic tabs. Sometimes you have to push them in, but almost always, it's a bit of a pain to remove, at least if you plan to keep the warranty on it and not scuff it up too bad.

With the 2 plastic pieces removed, you can unscrew the drive, usually 4 or 5 screws and it comes apart as 2 metal half-shells and all the guts in between. I tried to be slick and use the ol' heat gun to remove the "Warranty Void If Removed" sticker, so I could replace it if the drive died. Unfortunately for me, this particular sticker has the painted surface on the underside surface of the sticker, so it just made a mess. Denied!

Well, now that I've voided the warranty, time to pull off the electrical tape and paint it. I used gloss black Tremclad, and I'm painting the bezel with some leftover metallic black. I'll paint the tray lid Tremclad, as it's more durable. That lid is going to butt up against the case's "stealth cover" each time the drive ejects, so it has to be something that won't scuff up too easily.

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On to the LED. Since this case already has flip-down stealth covers, the typical LED in the drive will serve no useful function. I'm re-routing it by a cable to the 2-way custom case badge I modded in the previous posts. I marked a spot and drilled a hole in the lower metal shell of the drive, where I can route out the LED wires. I then unsoldered the existing LED. I soldered the wires in the holes where the LED tails used to be. I found the easiest way to do this was first melt a blob of solder on each wire, insert the wire up to the blob, then heat the blob with the solder gun tip. Worked pretty good, but you gotta be careful not to make a solder blob that short circuits the two!

After I was done, I tested to make sure the LED worked. I wrapped a piece of electrical tape in between the two wires just to ensure they don't short each other, and followed that up with a piece of heat-shrink tube just to make it look nicer.

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By the way, if you want to duplicate this mod, you need an optical drive that has a 'normal' 3mm or 5mm LED. It seems maybe only 1/3 of the drives out there have this kind. So here is what I used, an Asus DRW-1608P35. Specs: 5X DVD-RAM; 8X DVD+RW; 6X DVD-RW; 40X CD-R; 32X CD-RW; 16X DVD+/-R; 8X DVD+/-R. Okay, confused yet? Translation: Who the f*** knows how fast the thing is?

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I haven't had much time lately for modding, I have to do a tune-up on the Dakota this weekend, but I did finish painting the DVD drive and mounted it, along with the cabling that'll route to the red circle drive activity LED.

I painted the DVD shell gloss black Tremclad, the front bezel metallic black Duplicolor (the same color as the case chassis), and the tray lid gloss black Tremclad too. I think it makes a subtle but noticeable contrast....even though you won't see the DVD drive unless it's ejecting a disk.

I had to test-mount the DVD drive, and make sure the Chakra's adjustable eject button arm lined up with the drive's eject button, and also confirm that the drive tray pushes open & closes the Chakra stealth bezel without problems.

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Began tying up a few loose ends re: the custom case badge. I decided I wanted a smoother transition from the front bezel plastic to the case badge acrylic, so I did a little masking and I'm painting the rectangle gloss black. The paint overlaps the acrylic by about 1mm on all sides.

I also completed the wiring/soldering of the DVD activity LED. The wires wrap around the entire DVD drive, since the case badge is located well above the DVD drive. I made it so that I can easily disconnect the wires should I need to remove the front bezel, or change polarity for the LED.

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I finished the case badge detailing today. I think the gloss black paint surround, with slight overlap onto the acrylic really cleans it up and brings it all together. It neatly blends in the acrylic square with the background plastic. I took a pic with the flash on and off. It almost looks like it was made like this!

Before:



And After:

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The progress on this case has slowed to a trickle. Unfortunately, the HSF being delayed is affecting a number of things that are preventing this project from moving right along.

-I can't install the mobo until I have the HSF mounted, as it requires installation of a mobo backplate.

-The control bay also cannot be finished, because I'm planning to mount the HSF fan control there, if possible.

-Final fitment of the black acrylic I/O panels at the rear of the case also can't happen until the mobo is bolted in.

-I can't plan my final wire routing and cleanup until the mobo is mounted, as some of the cabling will go beneath the mobo.

-Since the beginning, when I first received this case, I've been trying to think how I can mod the top panel, the one where the power/reset buttons are mounted, and all the cabling to the onboard audio, USB, e-SATA. It has a less-than-amazing flip-up lid with the Enermax logo silk-screened on, that logo will definitely have to go. But I have yet to come up with a decent idea for modding that otherwise ugly thing.

I think this project is only a week or two away from being completed, if I had the HSF already...

Well, I did some brainstorming for ways to mod the stock top panel. It's the panel that has the connectors for USB, audio I/O, e-SATA, Power & Reset switches.

First thing I did was remove the black acrylic "Enermax" logo'd flip-cover. By itself, it's not all bad. In fact, if I removed the logo and label, that'd be a start. But it just looks like an Enermax afterthought. Too mickey-mouse for this case. I removed it by gently bending it enough so the round tabs at either end holding it in, popped out of their holes. I also removed all the switches and mounts for the switches and ports. This mobo doesn't have e-SATA so I removed the blue cables and tossed 'em into my spare cables bin.

In case I decide to make a custom front mount for the USB/audio ports, I made a simple template by placing some masking tape on a plastic surface and tracing inside the holes with a pencil. If I decide to do that, I just need to remove the tape, place it on whatever surface I decide to mod, and dremel the holes.

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And here's how the top panel looks. I put it into the approximate position where it would be, but I didn't even bother to press it in the slots. Just to give you an idea how gay it would look, unmodded.

It would be a disgrace to spend all this time modding the hell out of this case and make it look cool and badass, only to leave the panel in such a gay, disappointing state! That's partly why I've been having such troubles figuring out a way to make it look good.

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You may recall from the first page of this worklog that I bought this lighting unit for $25 CDN. I kept looking at the three-sided cones and trying to imagine a way to incorporate them, or parts of them, into the top panel in a desperate bid to make it look more aggressive and mean-looking, while at the same time trying to stay consistent with the fishy, scary deep-sea theme. After about an hour just looking at things and doing some preliminary measurements, I did some work with my trusty hacksaw and a couple files and came up with something along these lines...

Note that this isn't finalized, it's just a mockup to see how things might look. I can make another 3 of those triangles and another mini-pyramid, if needed. The general idea I was hoping for: To give the top panel something resembling teeth or scales.

I arranged these pieces in a mockup with the 3 "top panel teeth" arranged from smallest on the left to largest on the right, and the remaining pyramid would become my power switch.

At least I FINALLY think I'm onto something workable here...

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The guys over at FrozenCPU, who are sponsoring this site and this project (in case you missed it in the first few pages of the worklog), finally came through and hooked me up with this beautiful EnzoTech Ultra-X HSF! It was about 2 months of waiting, but I think it was worth it. At least according to the print and press reviews, it seems to be one of the best all-around heatsinks. It cools better than most, it's quieter than most, and it looks sweet, too. And doesn't measure a half a foot tall with 200 vertical fins, threatening to tear out your CPU if you move your case more than a few feet. (And comes with a free tube of Arctic Silver 5, to boot!)

This worklog isn't the place to read an exhaustive performance test & comparison of heatsinks, but at least I'll give a mini-review of my impressions of the product. (Just don't expect me to write 3 paragraphs about the packing peanuts, box art, and shipping damage.)

Instead of the usual blister-pack, the unit comes in a strong, attractive box. The unit hides in a plastic clamshell inside. You got your box with the mounting hardware, fan controller, AS-5, and the HSF itself. I love the large diameter 8mm heat pipes! The copper base would be practically a mirror-finish except for a few minor scratches that I'll have to rub out.

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Here are some more pics of the EnzoTech Ultra-X mounted on the mobo. Without being laughably massive, it's still quite a beast. But I like the fact that there's all that space between the part seated on the CPU, and the heatpipes leading up to the fins, floating above. I have to say it's one of the most aesthetically pleasing heatsinks I've ever seen, while at the same time quietly stating, "I mean business". The last time I saw a heatsink that looked as good as it performed was my old Swiftech MC-462, which is still currently doing duty in Project Pisces and still looking as good as ever.

Every so often, you get a heatsink that does everything almost perfectly (because perfect doesn't exist really). It cools. It's relatively quiet. It isn't so big that it only fits in certain cases without modifications. And it looks wicked, like it means business, and not gimmicky with LEDs or weird plastic housings, etc. This is one of those rare units that does well in all categories.

I also dug the fact that, since the backplate posts are symmetrical, you have options with how you wish to mount the heatsink; 90, 180, 270, 360 degrees. Of course, that depends on your mobo layout. I have some rather tall 'bridge heatsinks on this ABit AW9D, but I still had 2 options for mounting the HSF.

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I immediately removed the ugly wire grille. I think this thing will look better nude. I masked off the outer fan housing, placed something round in the center (an old PC speaker which will now glow really nicely under UV light someday), and hit it with a few thin coats of some of my remaining ClearNEON blue UV-reactive paint. I took a sample pic of what it'll approximately look like when everything's done.

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