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Seamless Front

M

mpoon2489

Weaksauce
Joined
Jan 26, 2007
Messages
68
I want to mod the front of my case, but I want to make the whole front flat stainless steel, so I can use it as a mirror to get ready in the morning. :D

Anyway, I have CD drives and stuff in the front so I was wondering if there was anyway to make a seamless front that can still open when I eject my CD tray. I was thinking something along the lines of when the CD drive ejects, it pushes the seamless opening out. I also think it would look cool because I once saw a door that was like that, and I didn't even know it was there, lol.
 
You could make your front panel one smooth flat piece of steel, attached via a hinge on the bottom and a hinge on the top. The top hinge would be mounted to the end of the CD-ROM tray so that when the CD-ROM ejects, the top of the panel would move with the tray and retract when the tray retracts.
 
I'm looking at about a mid-tower. Would that put too much strain on the cd tray?
 
That would all depend on how sturdily your CD-ROM is built and how thick of a plate you put on the front of it. I suggest instead of using steel for the entire thing, use plastic or resin for most of the construction, then mount a very thin sheet of aluminum or steel on the front and polish it.

Another alternative to reduce strain on the CD-ROM tray is to have your front panel hinge mounted on the left or right and use the CD-ROM tray to push the door open and pull it closed. This eliminates the vertical strain on the CD-ROM tray.

A second alternative is to have a separate circuit and device to open the front panel before the CD-ROM ejects. Since the eject code is a part of the windows API, you could have a small background service to trigger your device each time the eject code is called.

A third alternative is to simply use a slot loading CD-ROM and just deal with the slight annoyance of having a slot cut into your seamless surface.
 
By far the easiest way would be Stryker's 3rd alternative. I would actually opt for that one if it was me doing the project. I think it would look the cleanest as well. For construction, you could use various materials for the face. Polished aluminum or steel might be a little harder to work with, but it would look good. I would also look into plexiglass with mirror tint on the backside. Just make sure to squeeze all the bubbles out. You could really get it looking neat, especially if you wanted different colors, patterns, or fades. From there once you figure out a mounting method, just cut a slit for a slot loading ROM drive. Power buttons and other stuff could even be mounted on the top or side to not cludder up the mirror face of the pc. Hell, even throw the LED indicator lights behind the mirror tinted plexiglass so you couldn't see them unless they were on.
 
You know, I've always been a fan of capacitance switches just because of how clean they are. No moving parts to destroy, and you can't even see the switch because it's integrated into the case panel.

If you're going for an absolutely clean case, w1retap's idea for using mirror tinted plexiglass would be awesome for the front as the LED indicators would still be visible. You could use something like polished steel for the sides and install a capacitance switch so that to turn on the computer you'd merely need to touch it.

One smooth reflective box with a cd slot is all you'd see when it's off, and when it's on, the only difference would be the led power and hard drive indicators.
 
w1retap said:
By far the easiest way would be Stryker's 3rd alternative. I would actually opt for that one if it was me doing the project.
Click to expand...
I've always wanted a slot-load optical drive, but the price premium on that type of drive always seems to be ridiculous. Does anyone know where to find one that's reasonably priced?
 
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