Working TItle: Fire&Ice Mod

[Collin973]

I found a nice little gem in my basement today. Originally, I wanted to being modding an old Dell Pentium2 266 MHZ tower that's been here for the better part of 10 years or so. I remember that we had a larger and older tower tucked away in the crawl space and I figured I could maybe find some useful fans in it.

This is what I found:

I don't know what brand it is or any specs on it. Here are the two things I know about the system: my dad's company use to use it for massive data processing and it was used about 15 years ago. Oh yea, and it cost over $5k for it.

So, I gutted the whole system:

It had a monster psu--250W haha.

Here are the internals:

Nice fan connectors:

A nice pile of sh....

 

[Collin973]

Here it is emptied out:

A close up shot:

I did find some rust in the bottom. I'm not sure how it happened, but I tried grinding most of it out with my dremel and I did remove a lot of it. This is pre-dremel:

But the rust won't matter, because the bottom is actually going to be the top. I decided I'm going to flip the computer case over. One major reason was that by flipping it, i'd have these two nice large opening at the bottom, which will be great for my CPU radiator.

Here it is flipped and the shell still fits on it...the way I want it to!

And here's a little friend I found in the case. He's probably been there since the computer was decommissioned....eons ago:

 

[Collin973]

So tomorrow morning when I have some time, I'm going to draw out some schematics in photoshop so you can see what I want to do with the modifications.

Here are some major ones:

Flip the tower over so it's actually upside down, but right side up for my purposes.
Cut some windows in the outside shell to view my "sweet" internals.
Do a sweet paint job on the thing
Wire everything...NEATLY and cleanly.
Mount the hard drives and ventilate the case WELL.
Add some light to the case.
And I need to get some weight out of this thing, all together, no components, it weighs at least 30 lbs.

This mod might take me all summer to do. But that's ok. I've got some time to spend and I really enjoy playing with these kinds of things.

Let me know if you have some ideas. I'd love to hear them!

 

[$h0ck3r]

lol, 'It had a monster psu--250W haha.' - you think thats monster, my friend has a 90W PSU

 

[Collin973]

haha monster in size...it's at least twice the size of my 600 Watt PSU now.

I didn't mean it as in a monster 250W. That's what my old dell had in it. Everything in this was so old school. Did you see the 5.25" floppy drive?!

 

[Collin973]

Ok So I drew out some plans. Check these out to get a basic idea of what I want to do with this mod:

 

[$h0ck3r]

the flopps are so cool - so how big was the PSU ?

 

[kuyaglen]

I think that case is too small.

 

[Collin973]

I did some work today and I've made some decisions:

I need to build a motherboard tray. I'm going to make it out of polycarbonate.
I decided not to go with the multiple windows as in the recent photos i posted. I'm going to have sides windows on one side, the upper one have a decision/special window and the bottom to be a regular window covered with polycarbonate.
I need to cut out the old motherboard tray.
I need to drill the holes to hold the PSU.

I'm building a computer this coming week for the company I work for and I'm going to use some it's components to measure out the holes for the motherboard tray and the PSU. Most of the parts are shipping from NJ and will be here monday. The other two, case and PSU, are shipping from CA, and they'll be here wednesday.

I'll post more pictures soon.

That POWER SUPPLY was huge. I don't have the actual dimensions, but it was at least 10 inches long, probably 6 inches wide and 5 inches deep. It weighed at least 7lbs.

 

[Collin973]

So far this evening I have had some time to continue cutting my design in to the side of my case. I decided that I didn't want just windows in my case. So, I started doodling on some cardboard and I came up with what I think is a neat design. It's a large infinity symbol (you know the math symbol for infinity. it looks like an 8 turned on its side.) And I think I'm going to paint the inside skeleton and outside case matte black, with some silver a blue, and maybe white designs on the outer case. I'm also going to add in 2 12" blue CCFL lights so when they are turned on, they will shine through the infinity symbol in the side. I will seal the design using some clear polycarbonate.

Some more ideas I want to incorporate in to my new case:
-I want to build a hard drive caddie that has both the power connector and data cable hard mounted so I can just slide hard drives in and out. Right now, 3 of my hard drives are IDE and I'd love to have this ability.
-I want to build a door in the side of the case to access the hard drives for easy switching. I will probably make it out of polycarbonate again, but who knows. I am trying to lighten the weight of the empty case as it is. Actually, this just came to me. If I cut a window in the lower half of the case on the same side as the design, I can mount the polyC on some hidden hinges so it swings out. That'll make easy access and be useful.
-I need to modify the front bezel. I plan on buying a fan controller, some LED fans (probably blue) and some cable extenders so I can give the inside a very clean look.

For your enjoyment, here are a couple more pics:
These are some better shots of the inner skeleton:
Left Side

Front:

Right Side:

Rear:

 

[Collin973]

Here are some more pics of drawing and cutting out the infinity design:

Cutting the template out of thick, rigid cardboard took a lot of time, but it came out really good.

Cutting the actual steel is taking a little longer. I have to be very very careful not to cut outside the lines and it's tough making the rounded turns.

This is what's been cut up to now:

Let me know what you all think so far. I'm also think I should drill a nice inch or so diameter holein the center of each loop. I think that might give it added effect or maybe just in one of the loops.

 

[mrpawick]

Or put fans there? with a nice grill... but nothing retarded looking.

 

[kuyaglen]

What kind of blade did you use on the jig saw?

 

[Collin973]

What kind of blade did you use on the jig saw?

It's a black and decker 4 mm thick metal jig saw blade. It came in a 5 pack. I can take a picture of the package if you'd like.

 

[mwarps]

Hah! Just bought those same clamps for my mod (no log yet) a few weeks ago.

I like the oldschool case. It looked great after you cleaned it up.

Keep us posted.

 

[Proxy]

Was that a PCI SCSI Raid card I saw, if so, I'd hold on to that.

 

[Mr_And3rsson]

dude, you should realy use a Dremel to cut that out, much easier

 

[Collin973]

dude, you should realy use a Dremel to cut that out, much easier

With what kind of bit? One of the drill bit still cutting ones or a circular disc cutting one?

The jig saw is doing really really well. It's pretty thick steal. And I have an older dremel, but both of the types of bits I have don't do anywhere near the job of the jig saw.


Why? Are those things worth something?

 

[omegatotal]

dude, you should realy use a Dremel to cut that out, much easier

not at all! maybe to clean it up after he finishes the rough cuts, jigsaw = faster dremel = more detailed but much much slower and waste of cutting discs

 

[Collin973]

Finally! An update! I'm sure all of your have been dying to see one.

I've had a ton of things going on lately that I haven't had time to sit down with this mod. My car was in the shop for two weeks, got it back, lasted a day, needed to go back, three more days in the shop, got it back, it needs to go back again, so it's going back monday. I've been running around picking it up, dropping it off, looking at new cars, working, and other stuff. I'm glad I finally had a little while to sit down and do some planning for the case, mostly the back side.

To start out, this drawing is not to scale...at all. The pencil is what's currently cut out on the case or the outline of the case. The red pen represents modifications to the existing case. The thatched red areas represent rectangular areas that will be cut out of the steel frame and be replaced by lighter aluminum sheets for the I/O bezel, the PCI card slots, and the PSU intake fan.

I want to mount PSU in a non-standard way. Instead of the ATX screw connector points being flush with the back side of the case like they would be on most cases, I'm going to place the bottom 120 mm intake fan flush against the back case. (Rotated 90 degrees in the z direction i guess?!) I think it'll make more sense once you see it. This was the power supply won't stick out as far in the case and the cables will already by pointing up which will make routing them easier. And I'll probably mount the PSU to the AL bracket through the coarse fan screws already in the power supply. Next to the IO bezel, I will mount two exhaust fans (probably 80mm, but I'll have to measure for sure and maybe Blue LED, but I haven't decided. I don't want to go overboard with the blue lights.)

The case weighs too much right now. I'm hoping to find more places to cut some of the steel out and replace it with AL. I haven't done much planning for th front bezel, but we'll get there. I've got a couple ideas up my sleeves that I want to keep on the DL so they are a surprise to you. One that's not too exciting is cutting out a large section of the steel outer case and replacing it with a slightly larger sized piece of AL that will be recessed in just slightly giving it a nice look. That's a maybe though. I really don't know how much that will help the weight issue.

Once I order a motherboard, I'm hoping for that MSI 975X F/S here on [H], I will design the mobo tray. I will try to design it so it's removable, but if it isn't, oh well. I don't really care. It will be mounted on to clear polycarbonate with treaded screw thingies (can't think of their name right now) I found two and I'll have to buy 7 more with matching screws to mount it securely.

I think I will try my hand at water cooling. I'm looking at buying a black radiator with 2 120 mm fans on it. I will mount it at the bottom of the case with special direct intakes and exhaust points so it sucks in its own outside cool air, directly. It'll be cool, trust me. It'll probably be complicated and difficult to do.

I'm hoping to be done by the end of the summer. I don't have all these tools at my college apt. I still need to finish cutting the outer case, sand it down, paint it with 2 coats (probably), build the motherboard tray, radiator stuff, buy a pump, hoses, etc for the liquid cooling, direct intake/exhaust, redo the bezel, buy a fan controller, mount optical drive, hard drives, build a hard drive caddy with both sata and ide connectors, and put it all together.

Keep on checking in. I hope you're finding this as interesting as i am!

 

[Collin973]

I had some more time to work on my mod today (work was light and had the afternoon off).

I stopped by lowe's and picked up some equipment to mount the motherboard the plexi along with another sheet of plexi to cover the back side of the case with.

First: I modded the PCI card slot bezel for only the six slots I'd need.
Here's the original bezel:

I cut the bottom most section off which will be used for mounting it to the case:

Then I removed a section or two of slot space and filed it down: These are the two separate parts not put together:

I planned this out well. I need to slot the bottom piece slightly, but the screw holes lined up and I was able to connect the two pieces together without much fuss. A little more detailing will be needed closer to installation:

 

[Collin973]

Next I started to modify the back side of the case. I think the steel used on this case is like 22 gauge, which is pretty thick, not to mention heavy. You might be able to see some of the pencil lines in the pictures, but I removed most of the steel from the back side.

Before cutting:

more before:

Bottom section done:

Top section part way done:

Top section done:

The metal removed today. Probably about 1 lb and the steel shavings from all the cutting.

I have to take some more pics tomorrow of the case. I finished cutting the middle section for the pci slot bezel, but I forgot to take them.

I mentioned before I bought some more plexi to cover the spaces in the back of the case. I decided plexi would be so much easier to work with than metal (especially when reducing the weight of the case is a good thing). I'll talk more in detail about it tomorrow when I can post some more pics.

Also, I purchased a mobo off ebay: MSI P6N SLI-SF skt 775. It's a dark color wafer and has two ide headers. Originally, I didn't want to use IDE, but since I might be purchasing a new car, I'll have to cut back for now.

 

[nepstar]

nice
ist a big case i suppose ??

 

[Collin973]

yea its 24" tall. maybe 20 inches deep and 7 inches wide.

Let's put it this way, I'll have a tough time filling this case with equipment, even with watercooling!

 

[tylerdustin2008]

I modded up that same exact case, just a temp case for someone so not the best thing in the world, ill see if i can dig up some pics.


Tyler

 

[jbmx4life]

Looks almost the same as something that I got:

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1156674

 

[Collin973]

Looks almost the same as something that I got:

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1156674

Yea that's pretty similar to the case i found.

I'm really waiting on parts to arrive to i can start planning out the interior layout.

I did come up with this awesome idea for the switches. Can't wait to start working on it. It's going to be sweet

 

[Collin973]

Here is how the back of the case looks. I'm afraid it won't stay like this for long once the mobo arrives tuesday:

Close up to the middle part, with the addition of a little slot for the pci bezel to fit:

The whole case. What's different?

This was removed! It was extra weight and would have no use!

I drilled new holes in the hard drive holder. This case is so old that the hard drive holders were designed for full height drives:

The black lines represent the bottom of the hard drive. I will mount to rails per hard drive slot so they hdds are easy to slide in and mount:

I'll be making the rails out of scrap pieces from the case: And that's my cat taking over my chair at my work table:

The cardboard represents the mobo and probably where it will be placed. The spot will be come more definite once it arrives:

 

[Moderman]

Wow I have that same case except in black. I was thinking of modding it to. Now I have some insparation Looking good so far Good Luck

 

[Darkmp40]

I'll be making the rails out of scrap pieces from the case: And that's my cat taking over my chair at my work table:

Thats looks like my late cat oreo

but good project..

 

[Collin973]

Thats looks like my late cat oreo

but good project..

Sorry to hear about your cat! I use to have a cat named oreo too. I had him for three weeks and it turned out he was my neighbors cat that liked staying on my porch. Oh well...

 

[Collin973]

I have some more updates on the work that I did Sunday and today. Sunday first:

I cut a strip out of that big old motherboard tray (I think thats what it was) to help support the new motherboard tray:

Here is the support strip in place and the cardboard "mobo" dummy:

Now MONDAY:
My motherboard arrived. It's the MSI P6N-SLI SF board. I bought it off ebay fro $70; that's a nice $40 difference from brand new and it came with just about everything, except the IDE cable, but that's no big deal.

Here's the mobo in its final resting place:

Bulding the motherboard tray
As I've stated before, I will be using plexi/polycarbonate/lexan/clear plastic for the tray. I'm not really sure what the material is, so i'll call it lexan to keep things simple. The whole 24" x 36" sheet felt somewhat flimsy. So, I measured out the tray 2" longer and an 1" wider than necessary. I used a large table mounted circular saw to cut the lexan and it worked very well.

It's a good thing I left that extra border. I couldn't cut the whole length with the saw. So, I tried to cut the last inch with a hand saw and broke the lexan. It'll still work fine, it's just not as pretty.

Then, I used the table saw again to cut 4 one inch wide strips of lexan to give the tray more rigidity. As you'll see in the next couple pictures, I glue and clamped each piece one at a time and let them dry. I used a special glue that I found in my brother's work area from his old remote control cars that he would build. The glue is used for mounting the rubber tires to the plastic rims. I feel it will be strong enough for my needs.

HARD DRIVE CONNECTOR PLATE
I mentioned before how I wanted to make a connector plate that would hold the hard drive connectors static so the drives could slide in and out without manual reconnection. I took the first steps toward making this contraption a reality today.

I cut some more lexan in to a 5" x 7" rectangle.

Made some measurements and cut the first IDE cable slot.

Tested to make sure it worked.

Then I plugged the cable in to a hard drive and colored in where the power connector belongs. I cut that out and tested again.

Then, I mounted both hdd's in the case, mounted the connector plate on the lower card drive and measured where the other connectors would need to be. I cut them out and...

It works! The lexan isn't strong enough to force the connectors, so I will be beef it up with a matching sheet of 22 gauge steel behind it from the scrap metal. Hopefully this will work.

 

[Collin973]

An update!

The mobo tray is about complete. Much more rigid now with the supporting frame in place. I need to glue one more piece to it and it will be ready. I found some mounting hardware and some screws that will hopefully work. I'll post some pics with my update tomorrow

Also, the PSU arrived. It's the Ultra X-Connect 550 Watt Module power supply. It's going to be awesome! I bought it used from a fellow [H] member and it's even 12v EPS compatible. Sweet! I didn't take any unboxing pics, but i'll post some of all the cables and the PSU itself.

MOUNTING THE PSU:
I want the cables to go in one direction: up toward the motherboard and peripherals; not out and then up and down. Just plain old up. So, I had to mount the PSU a little differently than the tradition method.

Originally, I wanted to mount it using the 4 screws holding the fan in place: 3 through the metal frame and one through a piece of lexan covering the open space. That idea won't work. I wanted to use the ATX mounting holes, but the problem was that the PSU sat 3 inches above the floor of the case. Here's the solution:

Lexan cut to cover the hole. Needs to be cut some more to vent the PSU:

Lexan in place. Though, I might be cutting out that metal bracket and using one big piece of lexan for the back. It's much easier to make bezels and such with:

The PSU mounts: 4 3" long 6-32 screws:

I'll take better and more detailed pictures tomorrow when I do some more work on the case. It's getting close to paint time! I was in a bit of a rush today so that's why the pics aren't too informative. Those four screws hold the PSU solidly. No shaking in any direction. Works awesomely!

 

[Collin973]

Ok. Here's that update I promised. Only one day late!

Here's what's up: I'm going to make three posts after this one. #1 will be pics of the PSU and fan controller. #2 Mounting and placement of the power supply. And #3 will be the adding of the mobo tray holder and the addition of the fan controller (skip here if you actually want to see the real modding stuff.)

Enjoy and opinions/comments are welcome!

 

[Collin973]

#1 Pictures of the new PSU and Fan Controller:

PSU:
Ultra X-Connect 2 550W with 14 cables and EPS 12v support

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z271/collin973/IMG_0592.jpg

Fan Controller:
A Nexus four fan controller with nice, smooth twist switches; black to match! (eventually)

 

[Collin973]

#2 Mounting the PSU.

As I mentioned before, I had to use the 4 ATX screw holes on the PSU. And from the pics, you saw they the psu is mounted 90 degrees off angle. I used some 3" 6-32 screws from Lowes to mount the psu through the bottom of the case:

Drilled the holes. precisely I might add!

Screws through the holes:

Screws again but with the case flipped over (ohhh ahhhh):

I guess I liked taking pictures of the screws. Another angle:

PSU mounted and hanging. The case is upside down right now:

Right-side up:

Ok so that coupled with the pics up above are how the PSU is mounted. It's very very solid for being 3" above the base of the case. Now, your probably wondering about the 3" hole underneath the PSU where the power plug needs to go in. I plan to add three pieces of lexan around the psu to box the underneath away from the inside of the case give me easy access to the switch. More pics to follow on that note.

 

[Collin973]

#3 Now the real modding begins. I mounted the fan controller.

NOPE not in a 3.5" bay. That would be silly. Check it out:

I want to mount it here: where the top side and front side of the case meet. Angled at 45 degrees. It will allow for easy adjustment for the fan speeds if the case is on the floor or on the desk. And i think it looks cool:

Taped off the area I want to cut. A nice trick I learned here on [H]. I had to drill and dremel most of this piece out:

And don't worry, I centered it. It was down to like 11/16" of an inch when I drew it out. And I had to do some lovely trigonometry to figure out the lengths of the sides of the angled part is 1".

Dremel cuts:

Another view:

The rough cut out: It was ROUGH. Wasn't that close to fit the controller in.

After some filing, dremeling, more filing, it finally fit in the spot. Now, the problem was how to mount it. (PS my arm is holding it in position)

I to mount it, I found some scrap sheet aluminum, cut it to length and bent the ends 90 degrees. These will serve as the mounts coming from the top of the case:

I drilled four holes in the top of the case to mount this with nuts and bolts. This way I can remove it later if I change my mind.

Top view of mounts:

Fan controller mounted: Front view

Side view:

Underside: I plan on trimming the AL brackets to fit and look a bit nicer:

And a small update about the mobo tray holder:

Dry fit:

Purchased some JB Weld to hold this together.

Mix these together:

And get:

Mounts:

Maybe more updates tomorrow. check back with me!

 

[jbmx4life]

Thats looks like my late cat oreo

but good project..

Looks like a cat (Taz) from my ma's house that we just had put down this past Saturday. He had cancer in his ear and would have cost $1,000's to get it taken care of with no guarantees that it would make him 100% better. He has a sister named Oreo tho that is also black and white and she is doing well yet.

Anywho... your mod/project is looking damn sweet. Keep up the good work! Imma have to get to work on mine soon if you keep this up.

 

[Private_Ops]

Looks like a cat (Taz) from my ma's house that we just had put down this past Saturday. He had cancer in his ear and would have cost $1,000's to get it taken care of with no guarantees that it would make him 100% better. He has a sister named Oreo tho that is also black and white and she is doing well yet.

Anywho... your mod/project is looking damn sweet. Keep up the good work! Imma have to get to work on mine soon if you keep this up.

Sry to hear about the kitty

(I hold my kitty (Speedy, dont ask sister named her) close to my heart... i love kitties )

Nice mod, will keep watch, big towers like that are usually a bit more difficult to mod somtimes

 

[Collin973]

Thanks for the kind remarks. I'm glad others are viewing and enjoying this mod as well.

I have a small update for you today. I removed the 5.25" and 3.5" drive holder. It wasn't really compatible with modern size equipment and it was taking up a lot of room, well room I probably won't use anyways. It took a ton of time to get that piece out. it had 8 weld points where it was originally mounted. I broke a screw drive trying to take it out. I went through two dremel cutting blades and I ended up drilling through the bottom of the case anyways to get it out.

In the process of hammering, drilling, banging and prying, the motherboard brace bar came loose and I had to re-jb weld it. I didn't do it right the first time. That's why it came off. Better now than when it's supporting $600 worth of equipment.

The other thing I did today was complete the motherboard tray. I couldn't find any of those nice brace mounts that screw in to the tray and are tapped for screws in the top. So, I found a bunch of them from old PCI cards with I/O ports. I rounded up 10. They aren't all exactly the same length, but they worked. I used 1/2" 4-40 nuts and bolts from Lowes to hold the motherboard to the bushings. I sandwiched the board between the head of the bolt and the nut leaving space between the tray and the board.

Dry fit:

Finished product: Since it's clear, it's difficult to photograph.

That's all I have for now. Once the jb weld cures, hopefully by tomorrow, I will be able to mount the motherboard, io bezel and the PCI card holder. Then, I'll finish the back cover, and dry mount the hardware I have.

Also, I NEED YOUR OPINIONS. I thought of this neat idea. If you scroll up and look at one of the side shots of the case, you'll have a better idea of what I'm talking about. Since nothing will be present in the lower front of the case, just a fan or vents for now, I'm thinking of tapering in the front of the case, bending it from just underneath the center support, and then 2 or 3 inches back at the bottom. I will use large feet to give the case stability, I just want to hear some opinions.

Thanks!