My first mod.....the Cosmos S....56k warning

T

Throc

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 12, 2009
Messages
290
So.....I got my Cosmos S in yesterday and as much as I wanted to throw everything in it, I decided to mod it a little first. I've stripped her down and sent her off to the powder coaters. She'll be black on the inside when she get's back. I also stopped by Lowe's tonight and picked up some acrylic for the side window, some 1 1/2" rubber grommets, and a 1 1/2" hole saw. I'll get the window mounted sometime tomorrow and expect it to return from the powder coater some time mid week. I'll post pictures as things progress.

One side of the box
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The other side of the box
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Stipped down front
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Stripped down back
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Box with the guts
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The outer portions
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Got the window done tonight. The powder coating is running me $50. Got a local doing it and his work seems pretty good. I told him if he does a good job, I've got a CM 690 I'll work on next. I'm thinking about doing an orange and blue mod on the 690 next for that bammer in here lol. Anyways......on with the pictures from the window mod.

What she looked like before - front
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What she looked like before - back
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Popped out the mesh and fan
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Measuring up the acrylic
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The acrylic after the cut
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Marking the holes
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Completed front
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Completed back
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I won't get much more done until after the chassis comes back so it will be a few more days before the next update. I'm just contemplating ordering all new i7 stuff to go in it tomorrow. We'll see.......

One thing to note while doing this window if anyone else tries it. You need to drill the holes in the acrylic big enough for the screw standoffs to fit through. Otherwise, the acrylic will have a gap between it and the aluminum. Also, grab some plastic washers to put on the screws. If your acrylic is too thin, the screws will create a bulge on the outside of the aluminum. Make sure the screws don't go through. I didn't do this but I've seen one that has.

BTW, total materials for the window mod cost me $13.50 for the acrylic (and I have another 12x18 piece for the 690) and $0.97 for the plastic washers.

I used a 24x18 sheet of acrylic 0.220 inches thick. I liked the thicker acrylic over the 0.093 inch stuff that seemed too flimsy.
 
Dont do that, I get enough orange and blue at school everyday I dont need it on one of my forums too. Nice work on the window looks completely stock.
 
Looks promising, will look forward to results.
 
The powder coater sent me some samples of the power coating. He didn't have any matte black in stock so he went ahead and did the hard drive cage in a satin black that he did have in stock. I'm digging it. Let me know what you guys think about it. I gave him the go ahead to finish up.

On another note, I'd like to give a shout out to [H]ard member smoothmove for hooking me up with some cool a$$ i7 gear. Asus P6T, i7 920, and 12 GB of XMS3 DDR3 1600. It should be a great weekend.

Here's some pics of the powder coating. Feel free to chime in.

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Hoping to find someone around me that can powder coat the internals of my new RC-840 ATCS. $50-75 I'd definitely go that route. Very nice so far, looking forward to seeing more.
 
Im intrigued to know, since i cant quite see from your pictures, where the plexi for your window is screwed into. How is it that there are no bolts on the outside of the panel?
 
Randominal said:
im ontrigued to know since i cant quite see from your pictures, where the plexi for you r window is screwed into. How is it that there are no bolts on the outside of the panel?
Click to expand...

EDIT: Nope. Just reused the fan mounts. Which is a much better idea anyway.
 
Randominal said:
im ontrigued to know since i cant quite see from your pictures, where the plexi for you r window is screwed into. How is it that there are no bolts on the outside of the panel?
Click to expand...

I think he used the standoffs from the grill-mesh/fan that was originally there.
 
Yeah, I used the standoffs and screws that were already there for the fan grill. I don't remember if they were plastic or aluminum. Either way, I think it makes the panel look very nice. I'm not a big fan of having screws on my side panel. I had seen someone else do this mod and it's really one of the reasons I chose the Cosmos S over the original Cosmos 1000. That and the cooling aspect. It's an easy mod but like I said before, you have to make sure you drill the holes in the acrylic large enough for the standoffs to stick through or there will be a gap between the acrylic and the aluminum. Very easy and clean looking mod for the Cosmos S.
 
ok, but how are the original standoffs actually attached to the panel - are they glued?
I only ask because i want to make a scratch built aluminium cube and i want to figure out how to attach a fan or window to a panel without having screws on the outside.
 
I didn't take long enough to look at how they were attached. I haven't gotten the chassis back so I could pop the window back off and take a look if you would like me too. Maybe even try to get some close up shots for you.
 
Randominal said:
ok, but how are the original standoffs actually attached to the panel - are they glued?
I only ask because i want to make a scratch built aluminium cube and i want to figure out how to attach a fan or window to a panel without having screws on the outside.
Click to expand...

Very likely welded, but you might be able to use epoxy.
 
If you don't want screws showing, why not glue the acrylic or plexiglass onto the aluminum siding? That's probably what I would do. You could even use some kind of two sided tap or something. Coolmeister used something similar in his ATCS-840 project but the pictures seem to be sown right now. I would pm him and ask him what he used.
 
On the topic of the Cosmos, I'd say that it is looking pretty good. War Eagle!
 
Thank you to all who have left positive feedback so far.

The powder coater is going to be dropping the chassis by my house today after lunch but he went ahead and sent me some pictures. I'll be working on getting it back together this afternoon so I should have the case ready for cutting holes by the end of the day. Here's the pictures from the powder coater.

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Well, it's been a long weekend. I was going to post pictures last night but I didn't get done until around midnight and I was too damn tired. I was then going to get up and do it this morning but I had an epiphany. I decided to build a new desk. Oh well, here's pictures of me putting it back together and what it looks like now along with pictures of the desk I built. My i7 stuff will be here tomorrow so ignore the cable management, I'll work on it when I get the new mobo, chip, and ram installed.

Just brought it inside
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Put the drive cage buttons and hard drive cage back together
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Got the side panel latches rivoted back into place
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Back together
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The back
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The inside
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Three fans look awesome lined up like that
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Nothing looks better than a mounted motherboard with nothing plugged into it. This rig is getting replaced with i7 tomorrow.
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The desk (unpopulated)
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The desk (populated)
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For anyone who wants to know, I built the desk out of a solid core door and a table leg from Home Depot. Total cost was approx. $80. Just mount a 2x4 along the back wall and right side wall, used the one leg in the front left corner and screwed the top down with L brackets underneath. Took maybe an hour with a little help because solid core doors weigh too much.
 
I didn't stain it yet because I don't have time. I'm a CPA so I'm working 65+ hours a week right now. I'm going to take the desk down and stain it and clear coat it after tax season comes to a halt. Thanks for the suggestions though.
 
wow, It looks great! I love this case a lot! I had my heart set on this case until i saw the HAF ;)
 
Well, I'm hoping to get some more work done on it this weekend. I've got some holes layed out for cable management and I want to get them cut. Cables are everywhere right now. I just stuffed everything in there to get it up and running. I'm gonig to try and get the holes cut this weekend and get it ready for next Tuesday. My Cooler Master V8 will be here then so I'll have to remove the motherboard again to install it. I'll post some pictures once I get the cables organized.
 
Wow.....9 months later and I decide to finish the update on this build. I guess I got so carried away with getting this build up and running (and tax season) that I just never got around to it. Either way, I suggested earlier today that someone view my build for ideas with their Cosmos S and then realized I never finished updating it. Here's the finale (the short version).

Started the sleeving with the Cooler Master V8
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The i7 gear
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Laying out some holes for cable management
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Holes after they were cut
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More sleeving
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Some cable management
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Coming together
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Sleeving the 24-pin, while running through. This was very time consuming.
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Getting wrapped up
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Back cable management
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Ready to rock
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Back cable management not as tight as I hoped. There's just not enough room there.
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All-in-all, I've enjoyed this build a lot over the last 9 months.
 
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