Project: Black/White

[mattlef]

Back Story:​

So,
I came upon this Stacker 830, and while i was first put off by how insanely huge it is. I decided to give modding it a try. I originally wanted something in black, but decided to change it up a little and go with something I thought was classy. I hope you guys like what I've got planned as much as I do, and hope you enjoy the process as much as I'm sure I will.



The Mod:

Without ruining my ideas for you guys, i have a few innovative ideas with this build, that include custom paint, lighting and a few other surprises.

The theme for this mod is black white and brushed aluminum..

* Teardown - Done
* Cable management holes - done
* Painting - in progress
* Lighting
* Cooling
* rest TBA

Here are some of the tools I'll be using...
Pretty straight forward,
MIA is the File and Jigsaw.

So lets get'r started.

This is when I was thinking about selling her,

but now, with the first coat of primer:

I wish I took some pics of the next part
As you can see, where the 120mm fan is, I used snips to cut the mesh, and a file to even out the edges.
Little did i know.... I'd end up using that file quite a bit...... live and learn i guess....

MoboTray and a unique drive bay solution coming up in a bit.

 

[mattlef]

Update:

Paint seems to be coming along quite nicely.

The white looks like its going to turn out great!!!!

 

[mattlef]

double post :S

 

[Aptivus]

Looks great. What type of prep work did you perform on the metal?

 

[tjwenger]

Werd. No metal prep produces bad results. The metal is generally just to smooth. I heard sandblasting works best, but certain primers will handle it as well. I'm not taking chances, and will be Sandblasting mine. (If I can find someone with a sandblaster)

Looks good so far though!

 

[mattlef]

I wet sanded the metal for a good few hours.... then applied a self etching primer.

 

[master noran]

I really like that satine finish. How durable is the paint?

 

[mattlef]

So here's the update for today...
Paint's done, and thankfully, it came out nice.

I'm very pleased thus far, however I am noticing a few little spots that need some touching up. I'm going to use something else for that,

The mobo tray however is another story.... I kinda messed up on one of my cuts.....

So how do I plan to fix this? Well, i could just buy a pre-made tray from coolermaster, or do something innovative, so lets see if you guys can figure out how the peices fit

The acrylic was cut using a jigsaw, and then filed down to appropriate sizes... told you I had more filing to do

 

[mattlef]

Werd. No metal prep produces bad results. The metal is generally just to smooth. I heard sandblasting works best, but certain primers will handle it as well. I'm not taking chances, and will be Sandblasting mine. (If I can find someone with a sandblaster)

Looks good so far though!

Thanks for the positive comments

I'll elaborate a little bit. I sanded the metal, rinsed and used the leftover water to wet-sand, air dry. I was using 80 grit paper. The primer was applied after, just needed a single coat, surprisingly. Then just put a two coats of paint. First a base coat, waited 10-15 mins to see it start to settle, and applied another coat to the areas that looked thin. Still some thin areas, but I'm in the process of touching it up.

I really like that satine finish. How durable is the paint?

The paint is really durable. I made an idiotic mistake to do a quick test fit of the HDD tray before it was completely dry and it scratched the hell out of it. I'm in the process of fixing that, but so far, so good.

 

[mattlef]

Well, a quick update, been doing some paint touch ups as well as a few other little things to make this ready to build.
I have a few new parts coming my way, but I wont ruin the surprise. It looks like I might end up modding my H50, or going with a full WC loop, haven't completely decided yet.

Quick update.
I might be getting some new sleeve, but I'm going to wait a bit on that. As of right now the PSU color scheme is going to remain much the same as before. Black, Grey...... this time, due to popular demand sans bleu lol.
This is a shot from my past K62 build, the PSU will be coming over from that, thanks to Nils and his fantastic sleeve choices, they may still work.

What do you guys think?
should i keep the gray or go with some white or another color choice?

 

[mattlef]

So while I'm waiting on the last of my motherboard tray parts to dry.... i decided to take the stacker outside, to get a little bit of sun to catch you guys up on some of the work that has been done.
The majority are just shots of the paint, and what it looks like thus so far.... and I kinda gave away a part of the motherboard tray design/patch up lol.
Oh well,

As you can see, the front panel connectors have been sleeved. Was a bit difficult, because of the size of the cables themselves, I had to use the sata sleeve and shrink and attempt to make it as tight as possible.
I think the end result looks alright, but only a test fit on the mobo will really tell the true story.

Here's a few more shots, this time with the focus on the back IO Panel and the 120mm fan cut out.

Finally, i have my helper watching me take these, just relaxing in the shade after a good brushing
Shes about 9 years old, Siberian Huskey-Wolf mix, bought from a breeder in Quebec who said her father was a tamed wolf, but according to our vet here in southwestern ontario, shes around 75-80% wolf.
Was a bitch to handle when she was young, but an amazing dog none the less.

 

[ryken]

you Canadians and your pet wolves...

j/k, great looking mod!

 

[thehybridfrog]

Wow she looks menacing, the dog too.

Keep up the good work, glad you didn't sell it, great case.

 

[mattlef]

So here is the update I promised,


I started pretty much everything on Friday. The last of my packages came in, and I thought you myself, "Matt, you have a few hours..... get this put together!"

First up was the GPU.
She started out as this, then met the twin turbo.

about 15 minutes of metal snipping and quite a bit of erasing later, she looked almost perfect.

So I plugged in the fan header and tried to hide it the best I could

Now, I received the cooler a week before and was ever so tempted to install, but for some reason AC had forgotten a few screws. So I had to wait for them to come in....
but voila

Next up was installing the motherboard on the tray.
Easy enough, I just wish i had the IO port. Might contact EVGA for it later on.... dont know if i'll paint it white or black. Then popped in the Dominators and mounted the new Push-Pull config'd Scythe S-Flex
1600'd H50.

Sleeving the fan cables wasn't difficult at all, thankfully, but just my luck one has a low frequency bearing buzz, and i'm out of sleeving.... oh well

Installed the GPU...

But wait, where are the HDD's?

So with everything together this is how she looks....

Oh, and just in case you guys were wondering why I spent so much time sanding that Plexiglas....
it was to get this effect:

Shes almost 100% done. All that is missing is a soundcard, connecting the frontpannel audio and boom. Done.

 

[mattlef]

I decided to snap a few mobo shots,
Been a little MIA recently thanks to some family stuff and the girl lol, so no work has really been completed. I'm ironing out a few issues right now with the 5850, and working on a mod design for the H50, as well as looking at the best option for a pci-e sound card..... some modding mesh mods to come

Constructive criticism as always is appreciated,

 

[monk3y]

This kind of reminds me of my stacker that is powder coated white with a black interior, I like it.

 

[nimbyfaygo]

Oh, and just in case you guys were wondering why I spent so much time sanding that Plexiglas....
it was to get this effect:

That's exactly the effect I'm attempting to go for with some LED's under my case!

Great job on this project, its looking very clean. Bravo!!!!!