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Antec SX1040B mod(no name)

C

Captain Colonoscopy

2[H]4U
Joined
Feb 19, 2004
Messages
3,861
Hello, I just started a new project Tuesday and I am looking for some feedback. This mod is nothing terribly creative but I'm going to be doing a few things that I haven't done before so some input would be appreciated. First off, the mod. I retired my Antec SX1040B case when I modded my old mini-tower case and threw my system in it. I have since discovered that I don't really care for small cases, especially this one. It looks alright but it's a pain in the ass to work in. So for that past month or so I've been contemplating what I could do with my old Antec. This is what I came up with: 2x 120mm exhaust blowholes in the top, 2x intake blowholes in the bottom, 1x 120mm intake above CPU, 1x 80mm intake for the HDDs, gratuitous window, hand-built rheo-bus for noise control and, finally, powder coating. My neighbor has a powder coating deal set up in his garage, gotta go hit him up for some powder coating love. Apparently the shit is cheap as hell, you just need the gun, powder and an old oven. Go figure. :rolleyes:

What I need help with is the window design and a few thoughts about the case feet. A name wouldn't hurt either as the only thing I've come up with so far is "Skull Case Thingy."
Feet: Because of the large intake fans on the bottom of the case I figure I'm going to need to raise the case at least two inches for decent airflow/noise. My thoughts right now are either making some legs to extend the feet or getting some industrial casters with big wheels or something. To do legs the only materials I can think of would be those wooden dowls or maybe some pipe. If I used wood I wouldn't be able to powder coat them so they prolly wouldn't match too well. Pipe would be powder coatable but I don't really know how I would attach it to the case or feet w/o using those stupid end caps. I just thought about casters the other day, seems like a better idea to me. Then I could just roll the heavy ass thing around the office. :) What do you'se guys think?
Window: Originally I was thinking about dremeling a skull and bones into the bottom right portion of the side panel so the interior lights would shine through it and having a separate window above and left of it. Then my wife convinced me that it looked a little cartoony and we'd both get sick of it in a couple weeks. Then I decided on the tribal Danzig skull in the picture below. The problem now is this, what to do with it? The design is reasonably intricate and I'm pretty sure that I will not be able to cut all this with a dremel, at least in the space I have allotted for it. I also need to fit a 120mm fan in there so that really wouldn't leave room for an additional window. So now I'm thinking that I'm going to cut a window and either etch the skull into the plexi or maybe make an applique instead. How's that for originality? :p

Here's the side panel with tentative fan/skull placement:
Picture015Medium.jpg


Any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
 
Got the case unriveted and fan holes mostly done. Still need to go over the holes with the bastard one more time, not quite perfect enough yet. :)

First round with the dremel:
Picture009Medium.jpg


Post dremeling, pre-bastardizing:
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Pile of case:
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I probably won't get to the side panel at all until Tuesday, maybe Monday if I'm lucky.

Cap'n
 
Well, I finally got some time to do the window. I discovered that I probably should have practiced using our jig saw on something else before I started in on the window. As you can see in the pics below I messed up one of the cuts pretty good and ended up having to mark another line and fix it with the ole Craftsman Rotary Tool. After I filed the crap out of the window with a mill bastard I learned something else. You can fix anything with a bastard, file.

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After I got the window taken care of I started removing the old paint with a grinding disk/wheel thingy I picked up at Home Depot. Half way through the second panel I was grinding I started looking at the bare metal and thought to myself, "Gee, that looks kinda spiffy." Here are some pics of the panels with the paint removed and most of the grinding done. I was going to finish it today but we had company coming over so I had to stop. :)

Grinding026Medium.jpg


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I'm thinking that I will use the wheel that I have now to grind everything in the same direction so it doesn't look so hokey. Then I'm thinking that I'll go over it again with steel wool or scotch-brite pads to even everything out. Then polishing I guess. Anybody done this sort of thing before? I seem to recall somebody doing this on the forums, I'll have to do some research before I get too far into it and waste a bunch of time and/or ruin the stupid thing.

I'm also thinking that I will still do some powder-coating, just on the inside of the case. I plan on doing all of the internal things like the drive cages and mobo tray, etc in black. I think that will look pretty good with some gratuitous blue lighting.

I welcome anyone's suggestions and/or thoughts.

Thanks.
 
I tried some steel wool today. That was a complete waste of time. Did absolutely nothing for the finish after scrubbing vigorously for twenty minutes. Going to see if I can borrow my father-in-law's orbital sander tomorrow and see how that goes.
 
I don't know if I would call it nice, yet. Still very rough around the edges, hopefully that will change when I get my hands on an orbital sander. I have an orbital buffer but I hardly think that will do the job. :)
 
something cool about u, cap'n:

you are always doing a new project... never resting on your laurels
Really nice work.
 
Thanks, I usually have about five different projects going on in my head at one time. Trouble is finding time to actually get anything accomplished since I went back to school and work nights and have a small family.

I decided I'm going to be doing a PSU mod for this case as well. My 300watt Antec PSU is hardly going to be adequate so I'm picking up a PCMCIS 520watt from NewEgg. It got some pretty good reviews, has a 28 amp +12v rail and is only $67 so it should be perfect for me. I'm going to do a completely customized wiring job and make it mostly modular except for the mobo connectors. Again, nothing original but should be fun.
 
Went to Sears today and picked up a Craftsman 5" orbital sander. A guy at work found some $10 of a tool coupons for Sears and I had a $10 Sears gift card I never used so I ended up paying $12 and change for the sander and some fine grit hook and loop pads. w00t! I put on the medium grit pad that the sander came with and went to town on the bottom panel to start with since I've never used and orbital sander before. :) I managed to get the top and bottom panels done and most of the uncut side panel done with the one medium pad. About half way through the side panel I noticed that the medium pad wasn't doing much because it was worn down already. So I switch to the fine grit and went at it for about one minute before my wife informed me that it was time for dinner and I needed to stop "fucking around in the garage."

So here are some pics. Looking a little bit better now. I probably won't get another chance to work on it until Friday or Saturday since I have class all week.

Picture069Medium.jpg


Picture070Medium.jpg
 
mmmmmmmmm after the last update i was like where is he going with this.... but I like it... are you going to sand and polish all the way to a chrome finish or just go for the brushed look?

Mod on my friend
 
I don't know if I'm going to go all the way to a "chrome" finish or not right now. I'd like to but I'll just have to see what happens. I did some more sanding today and I found a couple deep scratches from the paint stripping wheel I used that didn't seem to want to come out with the sander. Hopefully they'll sand out if I keep at it. I should get some more time this week to work on it, hopefully. :)
 
Finished brushing the side panel with the window yesterday. I'm not going to start sanding it until after I cut the plexi and drill mounting holes. I kinda thought that might be a good idea. :p
Picture024Medium.jpg


Took my paint stripping wheel to the inside of the fan holes and cleaned those up really good. They're looking much more round and very smooth now. Then I decided to screw a fan in to make sure I had the screw holes drilled correctly for the top/bottom panels before I finished sanding. Oops, I fuckered up two of them real good. If you look at the pic below you'll notice that one of the holes is way off. I think I'm going to drill the holes bigger and put in some large rubber grommets to cover up my mistake. Of course I had to screw up the top panel and not the bottom one where no one will ever see it. :(
Picture022Medium.jpg


Here's a picture of what the case used to look like before I started hacking away. I just realized that there was no before picture, but most people here already know what this case looks like anyway. ;)
Picture008Medium.jpg


And this is a pic of the stuff I got from performance pcs the other day. Chrome sleeving kit, 90 degree molex connectors, chrome thumb screws, ATX/12volt pin remover, soldering iron/stand and 2lbs of misc psu wires and connectors for $5, couldn't pass that up. I was lucky and got quite a few things I will be needing for the PSU mod I'm planning: black molex and berg connectors, SATA power connector and a bunch of different colored 2/3 pin fan connectors and headers. w00t!
Picture026Medium.jpg


Hopefully I'll be getting the PSU(520watt PCMCIS) in a week or two, along with an AMD64 3000+(939), MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum, 1GB Patriot PC3200 (2-3-2-5) dual channel kit, 80GB Fujitsu SATA HDD and that ThermalRight SP-94 heatsink. Should make for a good setup. I don't have enough cash for a new video card though, so I'm going to be running the same ghetto gf3ti200 with the zip-tied fan on it for a couple months at least.
 
Oh man, I thought you were going to mod a PC into your wife (see sig)!

Looks great so far. Perhaps for the name something along the lines of Castle Greyskull from Masters of the Universe (remember He-Man...the 80's version, not the new and totally gay version today's kids have to endure. A "Masters of the Universe" Mod would be pretty sweet not that we have Transformers and Trigun (not 80's, I know) mods.
 
Sobek said:
Oh man, I thought you were going to mod a PC into your wife (see sig)!
Click to expand...
I still dream about that every now and then.

I fixed the fan mounting holes today. Used my round file to enlarge a few of the holes a bit and dry fitted a junk 120mm fan I have, everything lines up now. I've decided that I'm going to use steel washers and large head bolts to cover up my mistake. I'll sand and polish the washers, of course, to match the case. Should look alright, I'll find out soon enough.

I negotiated some alone time in the garage with my "Other Woman" for Monday and Tuesday. Should be able to get the window cut and mounted and maybe I'll get the damn thing sanded, too. More pics as soon as I accomplish something signicant. :)
 
I have the top and both side panels sanded. Finished those up today. Not going to finish sanding the bottom panel until I get the casters I want and drill mounting holes for them. All that is left is to buff/polish that crap out of everything and arrange for the internals to be powdercoated. Will post some pics after I get off work this morning, around 6:00am.
 
Here are the pics of the progress I made the last few days. I forgot to take some pics of the nickel plated acorn-head nuts I bought to fasten the window to the side panel. Maybe do that tomorrow. They should look pretty spanky. This weekend I hope to get the buffing done and maybe talk to the powder-coating guy. Perhaps I'll go back to the store and get those black and chrome casters I've been eyeballing . . .

Sanded008Medium.jpg


Sanded009Medium.jpg


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Sanded013Medium.jpg


Sanded014Medium.jpg
 
I think I'm going to do another round of sanding with a finer grit just for shits and giggles. Then it's on to the polishing and buffing, yay! Should get to it on Monday or Tuesday with pics of the results to follow.
 
Polishing a Buffing?

I thought you were going to powder-coat this thing. Do you need to polisht it beforehand or did you change your mind about the coat?
 
Ozone77 said:
I thought you were going to powder-coat this thing. Do you need to polisht it beforehand or did you change your mind about the coat?
Click to expand...

You're right, I was going to powder coat the whole thing. I changed my mind when I started stripping the paint off. I thought to myself, "Hmmmm, bare metal, that might be neat." Then I saw the High Octane gas can mod that BlackCat was doing and that convinced me that I needed to sand it down and go for some polished metal action.

I'm still going to powder coat the inside, however. All of the drive bays, mobo tray and frame parts are going to be powder coated black. The front bezel and door clippy thingy I'm going to paint black as well. When I'm done everything should be black or chrome.

Now I'm going to take a shower and drag my son to the [H]ardware store for that Super-Mega-Ultra-Golden-Sample-Extra-Fine grit sand paper and give the ole girl another whirl. :p
 
Nothing wrong with changing your mind!!... I really think that a polished exterior with a painted interior will look incredible.

I hope you have guide to polishing, I know little things like 1000+ grit and wet/dry sandpaper stuff but not enough to be any help. Also, do you need a clear-coat once you are done to keep it spiffy?
 
Just got done with the latest round of sanding and afterwards I used some Mother's mag wheel polish to brighten things up a bit. I think I'm going to need at least one more finer-grit paper treatment, however. There are swirl marks in a few spots that I wasn't able to buff out. It's not terribly noticeable, though, so I might not. Just depends on how long it takes me to get around to other stuff.

Pics:
Polishing002.jpg


Polishing001.jpg
 
ahhhhh!!! he is teh bald!!

nice work so far captain! im lovin' the idea of powdercoating the insides. i cast wait to see what it looks like
 
Ozone77 said:
do you need a clear-coat once you are done to keep it spiffy?
Click to expand...

I'm going to need some form of protection to keep the metal from rusting. That polish I used says it "protects" but I don't know if I should trust the polish alone to keep it from rusting. This morning I freaked out when I went into the garage and saw what looked like kitty puke sitting on the bottom panel. Really scared me because it was sitting on top of an open box with all sorts of goodies for the PSU mod, thought there was going to be kitty vomit all over everything. Upon further inspection it turned out to just be some rust that had just started forming. It's been raining out here for the last few days so I must have carelessly dripped some water on it somehow. Most of the rust wiped off but I'm going to have to sand the rest of it out. Not a big deal since I've been waiting to mount the casters before I finish that panel anyway. :p
 
Might go over a few spots again tomorrow. Don't have the scratch to buy the casters I want yet. For some reason my wife wants me to buy groceries and stuff before I go blow our collective wad on more "crap for the gawd-damn computer." Yay! :D
 
I re-sanded the before mentioned trouble spots and am glad I did so. Turned out pretty good. Since I was in the garage and had my toys out I went ahead and did another round with the polish and orbital buffer and received excellent results. Finish is almost chrome-like now. If you look very closely you can see some imperfections from the sand paper I used but from about two feet away you'd swear it was chrome. Schweet. :cool:

I'm going to the [H]ardware store again today to pick up some more of the nickel plated, acorn-style mounting nuts for the fan mounts. If I have time I'll post some pics of the top panel with the fans mounted tomorrow. I haven't decided yet if I'll use just plain wire grills or the turbine-style laser-cut grills that are pretty cheap right now. I'd do a different design but biohazard and radio-active are the only other cheap chrome ones and they're so over-done its not funny anymore. What do you'se guys think?
 
I like the atomic style, which I haven't seen very often, or the blade style, which has become very popular, it seems to me.
 
Yeah, the blade style isn't too bad. I already have one of the turbine style grills so I might just get another one of those for the top panel. http://www.svc.com/svg120trb-chm.html
For the bottom panel I'm going to use the removeable filter type for dust filtration. http://www.svc.com/120mesh-blu-24.html
The color doesn't match the theme of the case but they won't be seen and if I get real anal-retentive I can always paint them black. :)
 
Sorry for the lack of updates. I finally got KOTOR (bought from FS/T forum for $15 w/S/H) and that has sucked away all of my free time for the last week or so. :)

Anyway, I finally got to mounting the fans to the top panel today. I also did some soldering. Used two of those 3-pin to 4-pin molex connectors to make one 2x 3-pin to 1x 4-pin molex connector. I will be using these on the top and bottom of the case to hook up to the rheostats in the front of the case. Wanted to make it easier to change fans and other stuff if I ever need to. I guess I've decided on using the plain wire grills, gives it a more industrial look to it I think. :) Here are a few pics of the almost finished top panel. I still need to sleeve the wires and figure out how I'm going to route the cables. I don't really want to use double-sided tape or velcro but I might have to.
Picture019Medium.jpg

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I took my wife out to the bar for her birthday this evening. Then she passed out on me at 11:00 PM! Wussy! So I retired to the garage afterwards and proceeded to buff the living bejezuz out of the case panels for two friggin hours. I am pleased to say that everything is looking very chrome-like now. w00t! Tomorrow I'm going down to the True Value Hardware store to purchase the casters I've oggling for the past few weeks. I shall mount them sometime this weekend and post pics later. Yay! Hopefully I'll decide whether I'm going to wait for the interior to be powder-coated or just give up and spray-paint it. Depends on whether or not I can get it going on for cheap or not. :confused:

On a different note, anybody listen to the Vandals? I've had the mullet song stuck in my head for the last two weeks . . . maybe it's because I live in Iowa . . . .
 
I got my wheels today so I finished sanding and polishing the bottom panel. I also painted the inside of the top and bottom panels and a few of the interior part before I ran out of paint. :) I'm on a severe budget so the rest of the painting will have to wait until after pay day. :(

Here's a few pics of the finished top and bottom panels:

Inside of the bottom panel:
Picture001Medium.jpg

Side view of the bottom panel:
Picture002Medium.jpg

Bottom of bottom panel:
Picture003Medium.jpg

Inside of top panel:
Picture004Medium.jpg
 
Got most of the internals painted black today. I'll post a few picks tomorrow, maybe. We're having our family thanksgiving today since most of us have to work on Thursday. Oh, well nothing quite like getting paid for the holiday and then getting paid double time on top of it . . . .
 
Just finished painting everything a few minutes ago. I messed up a few spots and had to correct them today. Got a few things riveted back together. If everything is dry by the end of the night I'll finish the riveting and post some more pics later.

As for the buffing, I was thinking of going over it again with some rubbing compound. I know its for paint but I already have some from a previous project and thought it might help a little bit. Then, of course, I'll have to polish the friggin thing all over again. :rolleyes:
 
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