whats the worst hit you took on a modding project?

was trying to put a clear cover on my power supply and now i have sparks coming out of it... oopps:eek:
 
I got laughed at on [H]...
metal repair tape looks cool, but should be used sparingly.

My first mod, or why window gaskets suck: cut a hole for a case mod. I never was able to get the window in, probably because the hole was slightly too small, but I didn't know for sure (well...I still don't). I decided that hitting lowe's for plexi was better from that point on.
 
now that the forum is back, post some more pics including the messed up ones u did over the downtime of this forum

i didnt have any bad hits during the downtime but the most major thing that happened was with a vcr computer mod i did where i broke a new 120gb, 8mb buffer, 7200rpm, westerndigital harddrive... i had a stripped down powersupply and i thought since im repositioning one of the fans, i might as well turn the powersupply up a little bit and when i moved it, it sorta slipped and fell back down on the hard drive... there was a bright spark and everything went off... i turned it back on and a lil smoke shot out from the side and i smell burn and harddrive wouldnt work anymore :mad:

i also took out the cd drive in that mod because it took up soo much space

i can get pics if u guys want but i dont see why you would want to see a dead harddrive that doesnt even have any marks on it
 
bumping this thread up for more modders to post their experiences
 
I have a couple.

The obvious ones that everyone has done unless you've never modded:

1. Touched soldering iron. Touched it again. Ouch. What the hell, lets touch it again. (I hold it like a pencil, I always slip onto the metal shaft part)
2. First time I got a dremel, I said to myself "Lets see how good it cuts" and went to hell on some 15yr old PSU pcb with the grinding bit without a breathing mask....6 hours later after a splitting headache and severe naseua I was able to stand up again....
3. Countless sore throats from metal shavings from running out of breathing masks and saying "screw it, I doubt I'll get a sore throat...."

Casemodding ones:

1. My first case was a generic with no exhaust in the back (well there was one, but you couldnt mount a fan on it :confused: ). Theres JUST enough room for 2 80mm fans in the back stacked on top of each other if you cut JUST right. Of course, the holesaw slipped, and made it one big, ugly square/octagon/circle shaped hole, also incapable of mounting fans.

2. After getting pissed off with generic cases way to much, I go out and buy my $300 Coolermaster ATC-101B, the damn finest case ever IMHO. So I unscrew the top (no rivets, you can completley take it apart via screws), take it downstairs, and go to work on it with a cordless makita holesaw. Well it cuts the 120mm blowhole unevenly; one side the blade goes through the aluminum, one side it wont cut, and the battery runs out. And I can't get the blade out. I pulled for like 2 hours and finally dremeled the holesaw out. It turned out alright in the end I guess, but the hole isnt exactly round anymore.
 
computerpro3 said:
1. Touched soldering iron. Touched it again. Ouch. What the hell, lets touch it again. (I hold it like a pencil, I always slip onto the metal shaft part)
LMAO... i do that too cept on purpose with hot glue guns

but it does happen to me with soldering irons... once i had too much solder on my soldering iron so i got rid of it by swinging it a lil to make that hot solder fall off on like a glob and i looked at it and i was like, wow, that is soo round and shiny so i touched it without realizing it didnt cool down yet... so it was still liquid metal and my finger went INTO the glob instead of just touching the surface... i was like, wait, this isnt right, cool metal doesnt fall apart like then.. then the pain hit me... burns like hell

lesson well learned :rolleyes:
 
its just the moment of realization that really kills me, "wait, this isnt right"

i wasnt modding, but i was repairing a power brick for those "smart boards" for my school and did the whole flinging thing getting rid of the excess solder, well, it had hit my pants and stayed. after a sec, i felt something burning while i was working on the brick(just reattaching a broken power connector to the plug). not paying attention, i swept it off with my hand(i didnt even look down, i was into my work ;) ).
lol, i still have some burn scarring on my fingers(it wasnt really that long ago).
 
i was cutting a 120mm blowhole in the top of my case

i was using a hole saw, and the drill bit holding the saw snapped causing the saw the jump, slashing up the shiny car finish paint, i sanded it down and repainted it, but there are still marks from the saw, i dont care really, the case was $30 heres a pic

Picture001.jpg


also, with the same deal, i mis-measured one of the screw holes, so only 3 of the screw fit, again, i dont care, it was a $30 case :rolleyes:
 
I was mounting a motherboard onto a sheet of acrylic, and I had the brilliant idea of placing the pcb right on the acrylic, with no markings, and then screwing the self-tapping wood screws through the mounting holes and into the acrylic immediately below. That way, I would eliminate the chance of mis-marking the holes. Now, in order to get the scrwes into the acrylic without cracking it, I would have to heat them up, so that they would melt nice little screw grooves into the plastic. Normally a great technique when any vaguely electronic bits are placed far, far away. Well, about half way through this accident waiting to happen, I dropped one of the heated screws onto the pcb, heard a sound much like a hamburger on a griddle, and now I have a nice screw-shaped crater on my motherboard. If you're gonna be stupid, you'd better be tough (or rich)
 
totorovianclub said:
I was mounting a motherboard onto a sheet of acrylic, and I had the brilliant idea of placing the pcb right on the acrylic, with no markings, and then screwing the self-tapping wood screws through the mounting holes and into the acrylic immediately below. That way, I would eliminate the chance of mis-marking the holes. Now, in order to get the scrwes into the acrylic without cracking it, I would have to heat them up, so that they would melt nice little screw grooves into the plastic. Normally a great technique when any vaguely electronic bits are placed far, far away. Well, about half way through this accident waiting to happen, I dropped one of the heated screws onto the pcb, heard a sound much like a hamburger on a griddle, and now I have a nice screw-shaped crater on my motherboard. If you're gonna be stupid, you'd better be tough (or rich)
lol... if i were you, i would have first placed the mobo on the acrylic and stuck a pencil/pen/nail thru the holes to make/scratch a mark of where it is from the center point... then take the mobo off and then tap it

haha, lesson learned, lol :p
 
Doing my first mod, and I've had three injuries. =D

1) Wiring up a new power switch, touched the iron somehow and burned my ring finger. I was holding it with my right hand, and holding the switch with my left. My ring finger was an inch or two away from the iron, and somehow I touched it.

2) I couldn't drill out a rivot, so I went to town with the dremel. I went to rotate it[it was loose, which is why I couldn't drill it out] and got burned.

3) I got careless with a dremel and got a groove in my left thumb from a cutting bit. It didn't break the skin, but made a little groove in the top few layers of skin. Got real lucky from that.
 
Hinokagutsuchi said:
Doing my first mod, and I've had three injuries. =D

1) Wiring up a new power switch, touched the iron somehow and burned my ring finger. I was holding it with my right hand, and holding the switch with my left. My ring finger was an inch or two away from the iron, and somehow I touched it.

2) I couldn't drill out a rivot, so I went to town with the dremel. I went to rotate it[it was loose, which is why I couldn't drill it out] and got burned.

3) I got careless with a dremel and got a groove in my left thumb from a cutting bit. It didn't break the skin, but made a little groove in the top few layers of skin. Got real lucky from that.
1) before my dad bought me a soldering iron, he gave me a lecture so i m like really scared about it so i m soo careful with it everytime i use it... i would tape the wires to the table so i wont accidentally knock the iron off and onto somewhere dangerous... ive been burned when i was younger watching my dad use it so yes, i know what it feels like

2) i dont get it... how do you rotate it and get burned from that?

3) lucky lucky :D
 
Thought I would be 1337 and mod a 2x20 BG Micro VFD into the door of my $200 Chenbro Cube. Something wasn't grounded right and the Micro fried when I moved the case door.

03.jpg


Now I have a useless hole. I am thinking of just cutting a huge rectangle and inserting the HD led activity lighting plexi mod that I am interested.
 
PawNtheSandman said:
Thought I would be 1337 and mod a 2x20 BG Micro VFD into the door of my $200 Chenbro Cube. Something wasn't grounded right and the Micro fried when I moved the case door.

03.jpg


Now I have a useless hole. I am thinking of just cutting a huge rectangle and inserting the HD led activity lighting plexi mod that I am interested.
did you do that on the carpet?

how much was the VFD?... did you get a replacement?
 
No I did it on a static mat. I just took the picture of the case on carpet. The FVD was $20, but I was already using it for 6+ months before I decided to put it in the case, so I figure I got my money out of it. I am more upset with the ugly hole in my case.
 
PawNtheSandman said:
No I did it on a static mat. I just took the picture of the case on carpet. The FVD was $20, but I was already using it for 6+ months before I decided to put it in the case, so I figure I got my money out of it. I am more upset with the ugly hole in my case.
lol, you can always add a "mini-case-window"
 
sorry this is the best pic of it i have...dosnt really show what im talking about.

The first hole form the front was hand cut by dremal, the secound was dont alter by holesaw and drill press.....there not the same size and the dremal hole really dosnt looks as pretty as the holesaw hole...it kinda stands out, i just like to turn on the reobus light (there bright) to draw attention away from it...

EDIT: Ohh yea, running out of those little round toped nuts right before LAN isnt cool either

P1010078.JPG
 
^^
i dont see what you're talking about, the holes look round to me...

and yea, i noticed the lil screw things, lol... not too good especially before that lan
 
wayne said:
1) before my dad bought me a soldering iron, he gave me a lecture so i m like really scared about it so i m soo careful with it everytime i use it... i would tape the wires to the table so i wont accidentally knock the iron off and onto somewhere dangerous... ive been burned when i was younger watching my dad use it so yes, i know what it feels like

2) i dont get it... how do you rotate it and get burned from that?

3) lucky lucky :D

1) I don't do much soldering, but when I do I'm very careful. Every time I get burned, it's in this same spot, so I dunno. And that time, I have no idea how I touched it.

2) I was cutting it with the dremel and rotated the rivot with my hand. The cutting I was doing had heated the rivot up, apparently.

Buuut I learn quick.
 
I turned a great idea, into a really bad one.

My first mod, sleeving my power supply. My first mistake was not having a heat knife, as fraying really killed me on that one. Then there was the fact that I didn't know to bend the fins back out before putting the plugs in the molex connector. Most of them work, but they are very loose. I used a molex pin removing tool, so I thought it would all be dandy. I powered up my SATA hard drive without any power cable hooked up to it. The motherboard was trying to access it but there was no power, made lots of white smoke kinda stuff but I'm not sure how. And then probably the worst. I had a HardCano9 with too many fans hooked up to either Fan 1 or Fan 4 (the ones that support less fans). Melted the wiring on that one pretty bad.

Oh and perhaps my worst story. When inserting the temperature sensor on my brand new CPU, my friend bent a few pins. We tried to bend them back, and they fall off. Anyone want to buy a Socket 475? By the way, no blame goes to the friend because I knew he knew what he was doing better than me, so I figure I would have messed it up anyways. Took the hit and spent $300 on a new CPU.

My idea behind getting my computer fixed: Call up a friend smarter than you, order a pizza. Worked for me last time :D
 
Lost an 8K9A2+ to stupidity. I was mounting my water block (four screws). So there I was with pliers in hand to hold the bolts in place under the mobo. I thought, "should I put anything around the four mounting holes in case I slip, nah that would never happen." On the last bolt my hand slipped and managed to cut a slice through about 1cm worth of traces. Needless to say no power. I never got to power that board up (I was test fitting stuff at the time)

USE ELECTRICAL TAPE AROUND THE MOUNTING HOLES. EVEN JUST AS TEMPORARY INSURANCE AGAINST SCREW UPS.

(note: I would have to say a good percentage of screw ups are due to lack of patience)
 
wasn't really modding, but here goes. I had just painted my case, which includes the power and reset button that I took off of the wires themselves. Anyway, I get real lazy and never really put the buttons back on, so to turn the pc on and off I have to touch the two power wires manually. I had just bought UT2K3 that day and was in a rush to play it and while the game was loading, I had the bright idea of trying to put the wires back in their places inside the computer coming through the front cover (they were sticking out of the side of the pc). Big mistake. The wires hit the case on the inside and presto, I fry the mobo.

Wasn't totally bad though, I ended up getting a Rev. 2.0 a7n8x dlx in place of the sub-2.0 one I had :) .
 
DudeItsMe said:
I turned a great idea, into a really bad one.

My first mod, sleeving my power supply. My first mistake was not having a heat knife, as fraying really killed me on that one. Then there was the fact that I didn't know to bend the fins back out before putting the plugs in the molex connector. Most of them work, but they are very loose. I used a molex pin removing tool, so I thought it would all be dandy. I powered up my SATA hard drive without any power cable hooked up to it. The motherboard was trying to access it but there was no power, made lots of white smoke kinda stuff but I'm not sure how. And then probably the worst. I had a HardCano9 with too many fans hooked up to either Fan 1 or Fan 4 (the ones that support less fans). Melted the wiring on that one pretty bad.

Oh and perhaps my worst story. When inserting the temperature sensor on my brand new CPU, my friend bent a few pins. We tried to bend them back, and they fall off. Anyone want to buy a Socket 475? By the way, no blame goes to the friend because I knew he knew what he was doing better than me, so I figure I would have messed it up anyways. Took the hit and spent $300 on a new CPU.

My idea behind getting my computer fixed: Call up a friend smarter than you, order a pizza. Worked for me last time :D
wow, lol

hmm, do you wanna sell that chip?... if you do, id buy it but only if its dirty cheap since its already dead and i also want to know the model of that cpu if possible... im trying to make this lil glass thing and put an ic chip inside so it looks expensive but since im not using the chip, it can be dead and since im putting it at an angle, no one will notice the missing pins... its supposed to be a gift if i can get it done in time, its gonna be really nice with glass and a plexi stand inside and blue LEDs shining on the chip... let me know if you wanna let go of that dud, thanks
 
I got bored one day and bent the crap out of the pins and made a bunch more fall off. I was actually going to do the same thing, but was too lazy. I probably have it sitting aroudn somewhere, but seeing how it is a mangled mess I'm sure you don't want it. I would have kept it had I thought of the fact that it could actually HELP someone out. I thought it was kinda useless personally :)
 
What the worst hit I took in my modding project, Let's see, Realizing that you might have to change around your plans to make the mod work. A case in point, moddind a case, building up the front part of the case, have the idea drawn up on paper and then finding out, Oh shit, this looks harder than it looks, change of plans. Putting in a window in the side of a computer case, the nibbler broke and stuck with metal sheers. To many sharp edges, window not staying on, having to hammer out the edges and having to redo the window. Making one side of my plexiglass and alumimum HD bay, drilling a hole through the plexiglass and shattering it apart, then it dawns upon me, I didn't hold it down with anything.

As you can see I was a noobie, it take time to do a mod, rush it and screw it up. Once you screw it up, you have two choices, redo it or find a replacement.
 
DudeItsMe said:
I got bored one day and bent the crap out of the pins and made a bunch more fall off. I was actually going to do the same thing, but was too lazy. I probably have it sitting aroudn somewhere, but seeing how it is a mangled mess I'm sure you don't want it. I would have kept it had I thought of the fact that it could actually HELP someone out. I thought it was kinda useless personally :)
hmmm, can you get a picture of what it looks like though?... i wanna see if the current state is bad or good
 
The worst I've had was building my homemade pump relay. The phone rang while I was soldering, and I switched the iron to my left hand. I wasn't paying attention to it at all. Somehow the hot iron was resting on my wedding ring!! Luckily I had a cooler there to dunk my hand into. I had a NASTY blister all the way around my finger for awhile.

The second is not so bad, but still unfinished. I took black vinyl dye to all the plastic on an enlight beige case with full intentions to smooth the metal, and paint it all black. It still sits to this day black bezel, drives, and drive covers, and beige panels. Lazy I guess.
 
Bored one day.... Nothing to do....

Saw a stack of fans.... Looked at my case.... No extra fan blow holes.... Looked at a hole saw....

About 2 hours later my case was pretty much a honeycomb....
 
NewBlackDak said:
The worst I've had was building my homemade pump relay. The phone rang while I was soldering, and I switched the iron to my left hand. I wasn't paying attention to it at all. Somehow the hot iron was resting on my wedding ring!! Luckily I had a cooler there to dunk my hand into. I had a NASTY blister all the way around my finger for awhile.

The second is not so bad, but still unfinished. I took black vinyl dye to all the plastic on an enlight beige case with full intentions to smooth the metal, and paint it all black. It still sits to this day black bezel, drives, and drive covers, and beige panels. Lazy I guess.
you can tell people your finger fell off and you reattached it! :D

most of my mods are unfinished... i either lose interest or just got real lazy
 
NewBlackDak said:
The worst I've had was building my homemade pump relay. The phone rang while I was soldering, and I switched the iron to my left hand. I wasn't paying attention to it at all. Somehow the hot iron was resting on my wedding ring!! Luckily I had a cooler there to dunk my hand into. I had a NASTY blister all the way around my finger for awhile.


ouch. once again proving marriages can hurt
 
Dude, Wayne, I butchered that thing. It's easy to tell I killed it. I doubt you would want it, and even if you did I wouldn't search for it. I'm 80% sure I trashed it. I have three computers taken apart in my room righ tnow, and now is not a good time to start searching. Plus it's not in the one spot I think it might be. Me being a pretty organized person, that means I don't have it. I'll PM you if it turns up. Post the pic, just for laughs, ya know.
 
DudeItsMe said:
Dude, Wayne, I butchered that thing. It's easy to tell I killed it. I doubt you would want it, and even if you did I wouldn't search for it. I'm 80% sure I trashed it. I have three computers taken apart in my room righ tnow, and now is not a good time to start searching. Plus it's not in the one spot I think it might be. Me being a pretty organized person, that means I don't have it. I'll PM you if it turns up. Post the pic, just for laughs, ya know.
ok, ok

i m sorry i pushed you too hard on finding it, dont bother then

sorry ;)
 
Tried cutting a Nerv logo on the top of my case for a 120mm fan. Got sick of the stupid dremel discs and I could get a hold of reinforced discs. Every single disc shattered and I ended up buying metal sheers. Ya...it bends the fizuck out of metal as it cuts.

Anyways, a year down the road and I still haven't finished the mod. I ended up buying a pair of Lian Li cases and that other case simply sits there.
 
Worst hit i took was losing a 9800pro to ESD or something.

I put the VGA silencer on, everything seemed fine, installiation went nice and smooth..

then when i put it back in the comp, lines all over the xp boot screen and all my graphics were messed up.

RMA'd it and now i have a new BBA 9800pro :rolleyes:
 
Back
Top