Heat Sensitive Color Changing Computer Case.

[kdh]

A few weeks ago, there was a link on the main page where some folks painted a car with some color changing paint. I really liked the idea, and wanted to mess with the concept. Messed with a few test pieces, and then decided to pull the trigger. Before I go any further.. I'm not really a case modder. I usually buy barebones cases for my needs. But I love this site, its been very good to me over the years so I thought I would share. I actually spend a lot of time over in the storage and virtualization part of the forum. By day I'm a SAN admin. By night, a dnb dj, and paint gun terrorist.

I went to Frys on Friday and picked up this case for about 35$ with tax.

Unboxed.

Unboxed

Tore it down, and took a perfectly good case and scuffed it up with some 600 grit paper. No turning back now.

Front shot.

Mixed up my basecoat. I used a 2 Oz of Nissan Metallic Silver, 2 Oz of Honda Accord Metallic Blue and 4oz of reducer. SpiesHecker for those that might want to know.

Here it is in the cup.

oh.. You want to see a video of the color being mixed?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gq6t5oD9yfM

I sealed the case with a black sealer, and then based on the case with the mixture above. The only way to describe the color at this point is blue steel. (zoolander would be proud). The lighting doesn't really show the color at this point.

I tried to do a technic called Marbling. I didn't get any pictures of it. I used a white pearl mixture. It didn't come out as bright as I wanted. But there is definitely some white pearl on the case over the base coat at this point. Next I needed to intercoat the marbling. I had some Black to clear color changing pigment. It turns clear at 84 degrees. I mixed a bunch of it with 4oz of just straight binder and HOK Blue Pearl to make it fancy. It ended up turning the case a gun metal color. Wish I got a shot of the that mixing. was very pretty looking.

After that.. I cleared the case with 6 layers of Chroma Clear. I got a decent amount of orange peal, but my shop temp was a little cool for the activator I was using. Nothing some wet sanding cant fix. I just finished the clear in these shots.. So there is a bit of clear coat mist in the air.

Another.

Another.

At that point I left it alone. And came back the next day.. Took it outside and took some outside shots in the sun.. Very gunmetal looking and that blue pearl looks amazing.

Another shot.

Oh, so does it change color or not? Lets find out.. I took the case back inside.. and took a shot of the front bezel. No color change.

Added some heat and Oh look! It does..

But WAIT! There is more! How about a video?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyoSHxAcCqg

Then murphy's law struck. When putting the case back into my truck, the shocks holding up my lift gate glass suddenly let go and dropped on my head and my case chipping the paint.. =\

There is a fair amount of orange peal in the case, but nothing that can't be wet sanded out. I'll do something about the damaged paint chip.

Anyway the idea here is 1. Can it be done. Yep, I did it. 2. A color changing computer case would be a great indication if your machine is running hot or maybe over heating.

Let me know your thoughts. I actually don't have any use for this case. I got it on a whim so I'm definitely willing to sell it. Make an offer and its yours.

Anyway, let me know if you thinks its cool, lame, stupid, awesome, or neat but not for me?

 

[Ocellaris]

Does it change color at normal PC temps? Presumably nothing in my PC gets as hot as a heat gun.

 

[kdh]

I used the heat gun to speed up the change. But just my hand on it while I was pulling the masking tape off caused it to change. Temp change happens at 84 degrees. I was talking with coworker about this, and it would be a tough call. Maybe where ever the cpu cooler and video card is where it might change. The case might look.. splotchy. Or hell.. if you let your case get super dirty on the inside, it would change color. I do know the inside of my main computer case with a gforce 550ti gets above that.

I found another company that does color changing pigment that shifts at 76degrees.. so the shift would happen much sooner.

 

[DraginDime]

Would be cool to paint a GPU backplate with color temp changing paint. You could see where all the heat comes from.

Cool paint man. Looks pretty slick.

 

[kdh]

Would be cool to paint a GPU backplate with color temp changing paint. You could see where all the heat comes from.

Cool paint man. Looks pretty slick.

thanks for the complements!

It would be, but there is a lot of setup time, and its not cost effective to do a single gpu back plate. Like if I had 10 gpu backplates then it would be cool. With the paints I buy, I can't buy anything less then a pint. The silver I used, my paint jobber had it on sale because the person who was going to pick it up, never showed up. So I got it for about 65$. Its normally a 140$ pint. SpiesHecker isn't cheap stuff. I paid 45$ for the blue, only because I'm fixing a friends roof on his car and I had some left over. The color changing pigment was 45$ for 25 grams. The HOK Peal and Kandy are 45$ apiece. The chroma clear I use is well over 170$ a gallon. None of that includes the 9 hours of work I got into the case.

All in all, I have about 125$ total into this project with a lot of left over stuff. I've also been messing with custom iphone cases, but my luck with iphone cases hasn't been as good as this computer case.

 

[DraginDime]

Yeah, painting can be a very expensive hobby, especially when you get into using high end automotive materials.

I was an apprentice auto painter in a local hot rod shop back in my teen years. The guy who taught me how to paint is an amazing painter. We mostly used PPG paint products, but for the high end restorations we used Glasurits. Sadly there isn't much work around here for auto painters, so my career path was redirected into the technology field. I think that's why I like modding computers so much.

I need to find me some of that color changing pigment. I would like to play around with it.

 

[kdh]

goto paintwithpearl.com that's where I got mine.

I only paint as a hobby. I've only been into painting this year when I decided I wanted to repaint my project truck. I have a full build of it over on s10forum.com if you want to see it. But I've decided I really like it.

I'm kicking around the idea of doing a play station 4, that goes from black to chrome as it gets hot.

 

[kdh]

I put the case up forsale over here.. http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1790823

I really want to move onto another project. A co-worker is going to give me a motor cycle helmet to mess with and I'd like to use the money from this to fund that.

 

[kdh]

I decided to keep the case. I moved all the guts from my main computer to this new case. I'm really happy with the results. After about 30 minutes of l4d2 time, the case blooms from gun metal to a silver blue. I'm pretty happy with it. =)

I will post pictures in a few hours. =)

 

[Nvidia_ATI]

Very nice work. Looking forward to seeing the pictures.

 

[kdh]

After I moved all the guts to my new case, my machine started to bluescreen on me. It had to do with how I replugged in all my sata cables. I had to goto vegas for work last week. I was able to get my machine reset backup on Saturday. I'll post pictures when I get home from work tonight.

I'm hoping to do a time lapse video of the change so can see it in action.

 

[kdh]

I know, I know.. took me a few days to get these up.. but here ya go. =)

Here is my old case.. It's some old antec case. It was nicely built, but its about 6 years old at this point..

Insides of my old case..

Door that broke off.. =\

Just handling the new case you can see the color change with my hand prints.

New CPU..

installed..

New case all back together..

Old case..

Powered on.. Turning a nice silver..

And the front heating up..

At this point my machine cratered on me. I had to step back from it because I went to Vegas for work.. But today I was able to get a decent video of the color change.. Lighting sucks.. But you get the idea. Its about an hour of footage sped up to 20 seconds.

http://youtu.be/ofn052epBhw

Thanks for following along.. Hope you enjoyed my little project.

 

[Dangman]

You might want to think about getting a new PSU. The Coolermaster GX PSUs were pretty crappy:
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/11/22/cooler_master_gx_650w_power_supply_review/

I recommend this as a replacement:
$100 - Seasonic G Series SSR-650RM 650W Modular PSU

Cool concept on the case though.

 

[kdh]

its crazy how I picked up that power supply.. About 2 years ago now, something grounded out in my old case, causing the original power supply to melt down. I think it was the ram fan bracket I had over my ram. I have pictures of it, a few leads where the shielding had melted off and bare wire was exposed. my wife was using my computer for her video editing class and I needed to get it back online fairly quick. Went to frys and grabbed that one. I don't push my box all that hard so it seems ok for me for now.

thanks for checking out my build, thanks for the link, and the info!

 

[kdh]

After the cold snap we've had recently, I'm getting the itch to paint some new stuff. I have a few motor cycle helmets I'll be working on.. but I'm looking to paint a new case. I'd like to get a larger case and one with side mounting hard drive bays. I really like the look of this case, but I have to much stuff in it and I want one with more room.

Once I get a new case painted I'll post it up, and put this one in the for sale section at a pretty discounted rate because its now used.

I'm looking to do a complete marble paintjob on the next one. Black Base with Silver Marble.. Something like like this.

But a slight hint of blue kandy and blue pearl.

 

[jojo69]

awesome

here, let me punch your [H] card