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Hello all my name is rob and this is my first case mod, the case I have chosen is the cooler master atcs 101 .I picked mine up from a fellow in Melbourne that was throwing it away and decided to get some money and put it on ebay on a friends recommendation the two pics underneath show the case looking really good.I however did not receive one looking this wonderful, instead the one i recieved was a bit bedraggled and missing quite a few bits nevertheless I had an aluminium case finally and was very happy with my purchase .On doing some research on the case I have since found it to be in quite limited numbers and I believe this mod I have done to it to be the only one anywhere.So anyway enough of the jabbering and such and in response to guitar hero I will explain what was done to the case in order to make it adaptable for my needs.
A spanky new one.Sooooo shiny
As you can see I have reversed the motherboard here,This will enable the gpu to exhaust straight out of the roof of the case instead of the bottom of the case [causing heat issues] also the drive bays were damaged on the one I bought so I decided to cut them away to the bare minimum,just enough to be able to attach to the front of the case and hold the power switch and replaced them with some old hard drive quick release racks bolted together.Here is where I struck my first problem the racks bottom two bays would have been unusable as reversing the motherboard raised the floor of the case by 25 mm as the top of the case is now the bottom of the case and therefore gets in the way of any hard drive using the bottom two bays you see?
.I overcame this by using quad tubed aluminium underneath the racks to raise them sufficiently high enough to use all bays, Phew one problem solved.
I was using the case in this manner until my bios was unflashable or recoverable and killed my mainboard and i had to RMA my motherboard.
Now my motherboard is of to be RMA I decided since a friend said he had some watercooling parts left over from his build he had just completed .Time to do something different with this case in order fit a res ,pump etc in,To try my hand at watercooling my rig.
I decided to make it taller not try and compress all bits into the case and clutter all of the air flow and just cram them in .So first step was to make a new thermal zone that separated the PSU from the rest of the heat zones.On doing some research once more I discovered the best way to do this is a mid-plate.This will do two things separate the heat from the power supply and help hide all major cabling including the watercooling components for that slick look we all seek.
Test fitting the mid-plate
The mid-plate is constructed from 3mm aluminium and curved to fit.The holes for the fans were done by first marking centre and using a compass marking a circle one and a half cm bigger than the 120 mm fans radius.Then I dissected the circle, centre punched the drill holes and started with a pilot hole and eventually finished drilling all holes to a size of 10 mm , made the holes larger in the centre with a sphere orb bit and all the other holes were 1.5 mm countersunk for a cleaner look. A point to note when you drill a circular pattern like this drill the center hole last as it stops your material your drilling from wrapping and tearing from lack of strength from all the other holes you have already done. :ahh:
This is what I will use to raise the case it is dual aluminium window channel they commonly use it in sliding windows, we will use it here on the front of the case and in the middle and also at the back it will be more than enough strength to keep the case together,and support the weight. :woowoo:
test fitting the extension to the bottom of the case ,the hole you see is for the PSU cables to enter the case under the mid-plate.
Here we go after 4to5 hours of hand sanding and polishing each piece we have as follows powersupply plates by two backplate and a fan plate for the rear of the case.Oh I forgot I also cutaway the original fan grill from the back as it was square and it didn't fit in with the circle theme and one other thing I cut out the hole for the powersupply with an angle grinder and hand filed until I met the lines to fit the PSU neatly.
Since my drive bays were not in such good shape I had to make a fan plate for the front of the case
Here is the roof punched and ready to drill.Oh another bit of useful info I found during my time doing this when you drill diamond plate or checker plate use a cutting compound or oil I used kerosene for this it may stink a shade but it is better than frying your bits and cooking the motor in your drill trust me.
Final test fit of pieces before riveting,the bottom plate that the wheels will bolt to has also been drilled out in a circle so the PSU will intake air under the case.
Pesky rivets hit powersupply time to custom cut em.
Here to keep the theme going I drilled out the squares in the motherboard tray braces .Oh yeah the top witch was once the bottom of the case was cut out using a metal disk with an angle grinder as well.:yahoo:
Add a bit of lighting .
Almost done now I wait for my RMA and work on some covers for the extension to the case.
More later thankz for looking.
A spanky new one.Sooooo shiny
As you can see I have reversed the motherboard here,This will enable the gpu to exhaust straight out of the roof of the case instead of the bottom of the case [causing heat issues] also the drive bays were damaged on the one I bought so I decided to cut them away to the bare minimum,just enough to be able to attach to the front of the case and hold the power switch and replaced them with some old hard drive quick release racks bolted together.Here is where I struck my first problem the racks bottom two bays would have been unusable as reversing the motherboard raised the floor of the case by 25 mm as the top of the case is now the bottom of the case and therefore gets in the way of any hard drive using the bottom two bays you see?
.I overcame this by using quad tubed aluminium underneath the racks to raise them sufficiently high enough to use all bays, Phew one problem solved.
I was using the case in this manner until my bios was unflashable or recoverable and killed my mainboard and i had to RMA my motherboard.
Now my motherboard is of to be RMA I decided since a friend said he had some watercooling parts left over from his build he had just completed .Time to do something different with this case in order fit a res ,pump etc in,To try my hand at watercooling my rig.
I decided to make it taller not try and compress all bits into the case and clutter all of the air flow and just cram them in .So first step was to make a new thermal zone that separated the PSU from the rest of the heat zones.On doing some research once more I discovered the best way to do this is a mid-plate.This will do two things separate the heat from the power supply and help hide all major cabling including the watercooling components for that slick look we all seek.
Test fitting the mid-plate
The mid-plate is constructed from 3mm aluminium and curved to fit.The holes for the fans were done by first marking centre and using a compass marking a circle one and a half cm bigger than the 120 mm fans radius.Then I dissected the circle, centre punched the drill holes and started with a pilot hole and eventually finished drilling all holes to a size of 10 mm , made the holes larger in the centre with a sphere orb bit and all the other holes were 1.5 mm countersunk for a cleaner look. A point to note when you drill a circular pattern like this drill the center hole last as it stops your material your drilling from wrapping and tearing from lack of strength from all the other holes you have already done. :ahh:
This is what I will use to raise the case it is dual aluminium window channel they commonly use it in sliding windows, we will use it here on the front of the case and in the middle and also at the back it will be more than enough strength to keep the case together,and support the weight. :woowoo:
test fitting the extension to the bottom of the case ,the hole you see is for the PSU cables to enter the case under the mid-plate.
Here we go after 4to5 hours of hand sanding and polishing each piece we have as follows powersupply plates by two backplate and a fan plate for the rear of the case.Oh I forgot I also cutaway the original fan grill from the back as it was square and it didn't fit in with the circle theme and one other thing I cut out the hole for the powersupply with an angle grinder and hand filed until I met the lines to fit the PSU neatly.
Since my drive bays were not in such good shape I had to make a fan plate for the front of the case
Here is the roof punched and ready to drill.Oh another bit of useful info I found during my time doing this when you drill diamond plate or checker plate use a cutting compound or oil I used kerosene for this it may stink a shade but it is better than frying your bits and cooking the motor in your drill trust me.
Final test fit of pieces before riveting,the bottom plate that the wheels will bolt to has also been drilled out in a circle so the PSU will intake air under the case.
Pesky rivets hit powersupply time to custom cut em.
Here to keep the theme going I drilled out the squares in the motherboard tray braces .Oh yeah the top witch was once the bottom of the case was cut out using a metal disk with an angle grinder as well.:yahoo:
Add a bit of lighting .
Almost done now I wait for my RMA and work on some covers for the extension to the case.
More later thankz for looking.