Blacklight Demons! plexi fulltower

[[WP@]WOLVERINE]

Hi there all modders!!
This is my first post here at the Hardforums and I would now like to share a bit of modding with yall.
This project is mainly about improving my Sunbeam plexi case.
First of all its way to small for my needs i currently have seven harddrives and there is more to come so i need SPACE!
The idea is to transform the rather small Sunbeam in to a 76cm fulltower with 13 internal 3,5 slots and redesign the totally useless mainboard fitting. And add some additional 80mm fans. Since this is my first real casebuild i hope i dont screw up
heres a list of things to be done


1. To make new sides,front and back cover in 8mm acrylicsheet.
And add 1 extra 80mm fan to both front and rear.
2. Make some kind of cover for the cd and fancontrollers so they wont be visible
3. Redesigning the mainboard fittig so that i dont have to remove the mainboard in order to remove the sidepanel
4.Adding a whole bunch of 3,5 slots and increasing the space between them (they are to tight together in the original case) for better airflow
5.to give the whole case abit of an evil look with some engraved demons here and there
6.Tidy up all those annoying cables

here you can see the victim of this mod.
http://galleri.sweclockers.com/galleri_visa.php?chassi_id=385

So now its time to start. The sheets of acrylicglass arrived as they should and i was kinda shocked when i saw how big the case would get. On paper 76cm didnt sound that big but IRL the case looks huge J

I put the pieces together with some tape just to get a feel for the size of this beast.

I started out with the front panel. I went out and got myself a adjustable holesaw that was supposed to be specially made for cutting plastics. I must say that i thought it looked a bit wierd but it worked amazingly good. And at 79:- sek it was a bargain J

then some tape,measuring and drawing and im ready to go.

Drilling,cutting,sanding,sweating!

After about 2 hours of wery careful drilling,cutting and sanding this is what i got.

I was quite happy with the way it turned out.

And then on to the back! Once again som tape,measuring and drawing was requiered

And heres the Front and Back all done

The sides was just a straigtforward saw job so ill go right on to some pictures of the case put together with som tape just to get a look at how things are coming along.

And som shots of the details.

 

[[WP@]WOLVERINE]

And now on to the bits for the harddrives and cd. to get 13 harddrives mounted there needed to be A LOT of holes it took a while to measure and draw the lines for all those hd monts but what can ya do J

OMFG!! 192 holes to drill !!!

After all that drilling on to some sanding

Now the hour was late and i couldnt use powertools because the neighbours would go nuts so i started to sketch a bit on the
artwork this will be engraved into the sides and front of the case. All motives will be filled in with transparent uv sesitive paint so when i switch on my ccd the demons will glow

When i was happy with how the sides looked i had to assemble the case once more just to get a good look at how it would look. Thats one Evil case duude!!

After a couple hours with my trusty friend Mr Dremel i managed to get the demon done. And here it is (added a couple of red leds to make it more evil J )

and after a few more hours of constant engraving the dremel left my arm feeling like spagetti but when i firered up those red leds and saw the result the pain seemed to go away J

I still have some edges to finish of and some fiting of the bits that are done. I will also add some shading to both sides later on to bring out the details a bit more.

As i was sitting down today with a cup of coffe i noticed that all those holes in the drive bay sides (196 of them) were not wery nice to look at
.

So i began thinking of a way to get rid of them and all the screwheads that would be sticking out later when the drives were mounted. I looked over to the big pile of plexi pieces that were thrown in a corner and all of a sudden it hit me why not make a few plexibars to hide both the holes and screws for the drives. So i grabbed the jigsaw and went to work! After about an hour of cutting sanding and painting this is what i came up with.
I made them of the same 8mm plexi that ive been using all along and painted the backsides black.

 

[[WP@]WOLVERINE]

And finally a layed them out where they evetually will be mounted . I will use some small spacers to make enough room for the screwheads. The bars will be monted with two brass screws in each bar.

i think the result came out really nice and with som UV paint on the edges later on they will glow to This was a really simple sollution but very effective.

And heres a closeup. Sorry for all the dust and crap on the glass but it is work in progress

Im not sure about the wingnuts i will try a few other types of bolts to see what looks best. But the wingnuts are kinda cool so i might just keep them but ill probably paint them black.

I finally got the case assembeled with top and bottom this was a bit nervous because ya never now if everytings gonna fit properly. but thank god it DID all the pieces came together perfectly. In order to get it all together i had to move all the stuff out of my old sunbeam and in to another old case i had lying around (custom paintjob by me for the kids)

And heres some pics of the case were everyting is in place (exept the mainboardplate that will go in tomorrow)

One of my cats wanted to be in the picture to If all goes well the case should be done tomorrow night then its on to those evil cables. and i have to mention the case now weighs 13kg and thats EMPTY this one wont be easy on the back. OMG IVE CREATED A MONSTER

 

[[WP@]WOLVERINE]

Finished the Mainboard mountingplate. My original thought was simply to hav a square plexiplate to mount the mainboard on but as i thought about it that seemed to be a bit on the ordinary side so i came up with the idea of a shaped plate i used the rightside panel from my old Sunbeam case as it already had the fittings for the mainboard. I had previously engraved a demon on the side and thought it would be a waste not to use it so i did First i marked out the size that i needed and found that the demon was sticking out all over the place so i decided to cut along the outline of it.

And since i had a brand new can of transparent uv color i just had to go nuts with it And this is what it will look like with the Uv ccd turned on.

ive been working on a drivecage and a fan controller the last few days and here are the result of my sweat

First i saw that there was way to much space between the top of the case and the psu so i decided to add 5 3,5 slots for a grand total of 18!!! and this is what it looks like.

Then i had a go at my two fancontrollers i had one 6 channel and one 4 channel but i felt that it wouldnt look right with storebought controllers so i made a plexi box to house them. this box will also hide the drivers for my UV ccd and alot of other cables that doesnt need to be visible.
Heres some pics of the fanbus in place.

Now on to the powercables for the drives. I will be using a junctionbox from witch 8 powercables will go out to my drives. This is idea was inspiered by G-gnomes moster case (he has such great ideas that little gnome )

this is what i had to start with. Some blue wire and som Silicone tubing and a bunch of hmm Tubeholder thingys (have no idea what you call them in english )

I used the casing for my old fancontroller as the base for the junctionbox

Im quite happy with the cables i changed the original wires to all blue ones that will go nicely with the blue uv light. I have solved the molex problem. I used (dont know what you call it in english) a kind of tape that fuses together to form a single rubber seal, the kind you use to fix a leaking pipe with.

I think the result is good enough for me. Since this is a extremly low budget build i have to recycle as many parts as i can to keep the cost down. Ive alreadey ordered Diodes,uv ccd,ide cables,fangrills,4x20Lcd and more plexi and that is as far as my budget reach. So its all recyceling and building what i need from the pile of parts i have lying around.

Heres a picture of the junctionbox with the cables for the drives,psu and fancontroller.

Heres a little picture of my 10channel fancontroller

And ofcourse a nightshot

 

[[WP@]WOLVERINE]

on the back of the contoller ive used 5mm silicone tubing for the fancables you can also see the cable that is comming from the junctionbox.

I took a break and filled the demon engraving with transparent uv paint to make it glow a bit more. In daytime it looks just like a straight forward etching.

But when night falls The Demon awakens!!! mouhahahaaaaa

finished yet another small part of my mod now. The tubes that contain the powercables for my fans needed to be fastened. I cut a 1,5cm plexi strip and went to work on it.

After some drilling and sanding i covered the edges with some hobby clearcoat and this is what i came up with. Theese will work nice to keep the cables separated and going exactly where i want them.

Heres another picture of the cable separators in action

Now it was time for the first nerv wrecking test of the junctionbox. Ive connected tons of cables and only one needs to be wrong to kill a drive. :/ But i was lucky it all worked fine.

 

[[WP@]WOLVERINE]

Now its time to design a front for the case.

First i needed a piece of plexi

Then after some drawing i grabbed the old dremel and went to work OMG the amount of dust!!

After almost seven hours of contant dremel action this is the result.

I added som color and heres some shots of the final result

And ofcourse the nightshots, my camera doesnt like the dark very much so youll have to excuse the poor quality. The pics gives some idea of how the beast glows

Ive been messing around abit with some small stuff lately, i designed a project namneplate for my case since im about to take the official competitionphotos for the swedish Mod championship

Heres the Namesign

I also monuted the two tubes that i originally made for the front, on the inside of the case and lit them up with a blue ccdkit since the uv light wasnt bright enough.

And the it was on to my old MS Natural keyboard some black paint and some transparent uv paint did the trick

Lights on

Lights off

The keyboard now fits the rest of the case abit better than the crappy grey original color

The Pentagram sidepanel just didnt do it for me so i decided to make a new one
and here it is.

Had to see how it looked in the dark with som leds An if i may say so myself the leds sure do the trick

I use a couple of different ways to get textures one is just etching a pattern random lines another is to just do small dots with the dremel then i use either a steelbrush monted on the old dremel or clearcoat to get different effects basically i just play arond alot and see what happens

Heres a closeup wher you can se som of the texturing

and now with more texturing added

Looks kinda nice

The texture in the inner ring was made by just doing a whole lot of dots with the old dremel, this took alot of time but turned out cool

Heres yet anoter way ive tride this time by doing lines

After several hours of etching i finally got the new panel done!! It took some work to pull this one off but it was worth it. Ill let the pictures speak for themsevels.

First Without Leds with just plain old light.

Then Some leds and the plain old light

And finally Lights off Leds on

Thats as far as ive come i will post some pictures of the whole case as soon as i can so you can
Se it in its completed state. Hope youve enjoyed my worklog, because ive got more projects on the way

 

[CrimandEvil]

I saw this over at Bit-Tech, very sweet case.

 

[[WP@]WOLVERINE]

I saw this over at Bit-Tech, very sweet case.

Yepp ive got worklogs all over the place and now im here to. I just cant seem to get enough of Casemodding forums

 

[CrimandEvil]

Thats some freak'in fantastic dremeling skills man, I think I'll work on mine and do myself a window mod.

 

[speedracer089]

that is awesome. i really like how you did the wiring. i personally would have done it with black tubing but it still looks amazing

 

[DaCoOlNeSs]

dude

thats FUCKING AWESOME!!

 

[B18_Cya]

Very NICe

 

[Bad_Boy]

y o u . g o t . s k i l l s ! ! ! !

 

[ninethreeeleven]

you win

 

[CrimsonSky]

I saw this worklog months ago over at Bit..Nicely done..great etchings

--isnt it completed already?.

 

[cgrant26]

Wow, that dremel work almost looks machine quality. Very nice!

 

[jinxnate]

those are some amasingly smooth cuts, love this case. Now i want to make one!
i got to look for a hole saw like that

 

[DRJ1014]

HOLY MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

someone has a lot of time

I love it.

you wanna make me one

 

[MAXX RS4]

Holy crap dude.. That's one sick demonstration of talent, skill and patience. Props man..

But, could you do me a favor a take a pic of your tattoo sleeve? I think I spotted one under that dust shot, and I'd like to see it better if I could.. I'm a tattoo fan even though I have none..

 

[diredesire]

any tips on etching? What bits do you use? How do you keep the plexi from mounting? Those are AWESOME etches.. I haven't been keeping up at bit tech lately and when i saw this... WOW.

 

[[WP@]WOLVERINE]

Holy crap dude.. That's one sick demonstration of talent, skill and patience. Props man..

But, could you do me a favor a take a pic of your tattoo sleeve? I think I spotted one under that dust shot, and I'd like to see it better if I could.. I'm a tattoo fan even though I have none..

Ok i guess i could post my tattos although they are abit off topic but here you have them

Btw thanks to all for the positive feedback on my casebuilding efforts

 

[MuadDib420]

how did u get the texturing on the acrylic to look smooth like that? sanding w/ steelwool?

 

[[WP@]WOLVERINE]

how did u get the texturing on the acrylic to look smooth like that? sanding w/ steelwool?

After the etching i used clearcoat in the etches I used Humborol modelclearcoat.

 

[Ph4lynx]

The Pentagram sidepanel just didnt do it for me so i decided to make a new one

then send it my way!

 

[jmroberts70]

awesome work!!!

 

[Slannesh]

Wow, Great work.. i remember seeing the first demon etch a while back on Bit-Tech. This has definately come a long way AWESOME!

 

[nova_rock]

i need a drink

mouth is dry from my jaw hanging open

 

[FrostBite]

absolutely fantastic! checking out to see what I can take from this to add to my mod

 

[jmroberts70]

I swear if that doesn't make it to Rig of the Month at MaximumPC eventually, I'm going to be pissed!!

 

[twyztyr]

I'm also definitely interested in a little more detail on your Dremel technique...whatever you're willing to share with us. That second side panel looks great.

 

[kuyaglen]

Thats bad-ass...and damned inspiring.

What did you do to get the cuts of the blowholes polished?

 

[[WP@]WOLVERINE]

Thats bad-ass...and damned inspiring.

What did you do to get the cuts of the blowholes polished?

its just sanding and a layer of clearcoat. It actually didnt take that much work because the type of holesaw i used leaves a really clean cut.

 

[netcoord]

can you post pics of the sides all let up im curious to see how the mobo tray look with the side

 

[MasiveMunkey]

I have to say that this is probably the most artistic case I have ever seen. I really like your style of art also.

 

[decap]

good drawings did you think of it by yourself??

 

[Catuela]

you win

Defitnetly best acrylic work I've ever seen.

 

[GJSNeptune]

I can't even comprehend how that kind of etching is humanly possible.

I hate you. I hope you can understand.

 

[WesM63]

That is insane. It is so.... extravagent.

Awsome work!

 

[compslckr]

wow, just wow.

that is amazing work

i really like it.

nice work

 

[[WP@]WOLVERINE]

-=update=-

Hmmm ive done it again After i etched the new Celtoc/tribal side for this case ive had this feeling that the demon just doesnt cut it anymore, but ive kept him anyway because the project is called Blacklight Demons and without demons the name is just plain wrong. I had the old Pentagram/dragon/skull etch lying around and i just couldn take it anymore. To have something that im not happy with lying in a corner is a constant nail in my eye so i decided to improve the old thing
Heres some pictures of what ive done with it so far, my problem is now if a should keep the demon or go Dragon/Celtic instead maybe change the name to Celtic Blacklight

The etch is not completed yet but what do you think? Should i scrap the demon?