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Case Modding Dilemma

G

gregnash

2[H]4U
Joined
Jun 8, 2005
Messages
2,164
I have a couple year old Antec Dragon case that my buddy gave me as barter for helping him setup his server in his house. Over the last year I have been working on modding when I have gotten the chance. I have only gotten as far as a basic plan of what I want and the starting of a paint job. Problem is I want to increase the air flow in it with some 120mm fans. Now as most of you know the stock holes are 80mm and I would like to change them to 120mm but doing so I will lose the 2 harddrive brackets/cage holders in the front. I am not of a designer so i dont really know what I should do in terms of designing another harddrive cage and secondly do I really want to lose the functionality of those cages. I dont have a template to use as a guide to where to cut the wholes and line them up.

Should I completely get rid of the front HDD cages and build my own HDD rack and replace the 2 front 80mm fans with 120mm. Or should I just use the top HDD rack and cut the bottom fan out for the 120mm? Will this cause any negative pressure in the case or any turbulence?

Thanks for info/suggestions.
 
Wait, are you saying that by replacing the fans, you get rid of all the HDD spaces or just only a few? If you do add the fans, will you have any mounts or would the fans replace the brackets? Pictures might help clarify what you mean. Personaly, if you don't need more than a few brackets, i would remove the extras and put the fans in for air flow. If you need internal drive mount bays, you could either remove the cages (assumeing these are cages) and mount them somewhere else in the case, get CD drive size to HD size adapters, or go to your local Mom and Pop computer store and see if they have any extra dive mount cages, if the ones you are removing are not cages already. Good luck with your project, and don't forget, everyone loves a worklog :p
 
If I can get the pictures up I will post a link to the worklog. Basically if you see the classic antec/chenming/cheiftec dragon case you will see what I am talking about. Here is a Link to a similar model (mine has a different front bezel) http://www.xoxide.com/chieftec11.html
This should give you an idea of what I am talking about. Hopefully, I will have some time tonight to get the pictures up.
 
Actually, you might not have to give up those hard drive bays. :)

I have a similar case (Chieftec dragon-style case), and using my trusty steel ruler, it looks as though there's about 3/4" of space between the front bezel of the case, and the metal of the front. Should be enough for a slim 120mm fan, if you can find one.

Then it should just be a matter of cutting out the hole for the fan to flow through, and mounting it just behind the bezel. Since your drive bays aren't really held on by the front of the case, careful cutting should allow you to put in a 120mm fan, without messing up the drive bay attachments.

Pull off your bezel, and you should see what I'm talking about. Hope that helps! :)
 
Thanks yeah that does help but unfortunately I am modding the front bezel with Modders mesh and going to try and make it a smooth transition between the mesh and where the ribbing was. Unfortunately the model that I have doesnt have much in the way of support back there so I will have to build some support myself, thus screwing my chances of using the 120mm in front. Even if I could find a "slim" 120 the airflow would be nothing great and probably be fairly noisy.

Thanks for the suggestions.
 
Maybe it would be possible to cut a little out of the cage to make room for the fan?
 
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