Project: Vash (Trigun) *56k warning*

JessAlba452

To introduce myself, my name is Jessica. You can call me Jess. :)

I was invited to the forums by a friend. Funny thing is that I've always browsed Xoxide 2 years ago and occasionally purchase items. Yet, I've never noticed that there was a Xoxide forum! Ah well.

Here's my case mod based off of the anime show Trigun. Finished in December 15th 2004. Actually using it right now lol. Enjoy!


Day 1


Specs:

Case: Cooler Master Centurion 2 Black

Athlon 1.2 Ghz Processor
PC Chips Socket A
Radeon 7000
Crucial DDR266 256mb
Optiplex CD-RW Black
Arctic Cooler HS/Fan
Seagate 40Gb
Antec 430W

Mods to be completed:
Custom Fan Grills
Dremel out fan holes in front and back
Dremel out a window sand edges smooth
Paint chasis Duplicolor Metalcast RED
Custom etching on window
Sleeve the Antec 430W with Vantec Black sleeving kit
Cut out plexy to fit onto bottom of case use adhesive spray and pour sand onto it then clean. Place empty shell casings onto sand for a just fired effect hot glue them and not close to mobo, purchase a .45 caliber gun (plastic) and place next to fired shells.
Raise Plexy 1 cm to make room for wiremanagment trap door dremel out places for wiring.



Before Modding >> Cooler Master: Centurion 2















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Day 2

Photoshop: Trigun Fan Grill (concept art)





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Day 3



Painted floppy drive cage. Unfinished.






Fan holes cut out of case.





Hardware from Newegg.com




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Day 4

The whole sanding process took me about 4-5 hours. Wet / dry sand paper grits of 400 > 600 > 800 > 1000 > 1500 > 2000.



Stock image of the Antec430W True Power:





After Sanding >
Overall image:







Side Image:







Image of masked fan hole:





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Day 5


That half finished drive bay is now finished yet only 80% cured! Along with the piece that holds the PCI slots.






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Day 6

Painted power supply with Duplicolor Metalcast Red. Paint is still wet.







Secret Top Window:







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Day 7

Etching is completed! Plexi is 1/4" thick. Took 6 hours.





Mini Etch.





Gun with masking tape...scrap the gun idea. Does not fit into case.




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Day 8

Finished painting case frame and chrome painted underside of top panel to reflect light.


Overall image:






Front View:





Back View:





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Day 9

Working on custom fan grill cut out.





Tools of the trade. The legendary DREMEL.





Two more case images.





Bird's eye view of the inside of the painted case.




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Day 10

Finished cutting out the holes for the custom grills, need to get the screw holes done.





Fiberglass reinforced cut off wheels! One on the left hasn't been used and the little one will be used for something special.





Here you'll see the top panel and the side panel already primed and ready for the midcoat which is gloss black.





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Day 11

Top Panel with sanded mid-coat and ready for another application of midcoat.





Top Panel with clear coat ready to be sanded again.





Closer shot of the top Panel.



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Day 12

Window is now installed in top panel. Top panel is also sanded and finished.

Without Flash:






Taken with flash:



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Day 13

Worked on putting bezel back together. Painted stock buttons metalic red.




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Day 14

Xoxide order recieved.



1. 20pin Motherboard connector remover
2. Lazer light red
3: Red swappable connectors
4: Dual white light CCFLs




The panels are marked and cut already. Notice the drill holes in the Trigun logo?





Cutting out TRIGUN letters.




The window just got sanded and primed this was the easiest part.





Midcoat and sanded for another midcoat.





Here I masked off the letters.





This is why letters were masked.





Took off the masking tape and letting the red dry waiting for clear coat.





Clear coated the panel and waiting for it to cure before sanding.





Now here it is completely finished.




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Day 15

Love Peace panel masked and lettering is cut out.




Love and Peace masking tape taken off.





Love and Peace right side panel finished.






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Day 16

Purchased another power supply since a little accident with the Antec, trying to remove the SATA connector. I've fixed that by crimping on molex connectors.


PSU right out of the box.





I've finished sleeving all the molex, floppy, SATA, and AUX cables. Left over are the P4 and 20PinATX connectors. Reason being is that I will be cutting/shortening them and then re-crimping them so that they are custom fitted just for the Abit Nf7-S.





The tools needed to sabatoge my brand new power supply!





Zalman 7000-Cu Copper Cooler next to Arctic Cooler for size comparison.




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Day 17

Power supply P4 and ATX shortening + crimping completed.






Painted I/O shield to blend into red case. Purchased black adonized thumb screws from Fry's.




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Day 18


Processor from newegg recieved!

AMD AthlonXP 2600+ Mobile....Mobile AthlonXP also fits into any Socket A motherboard.




A Close up of the steppings on it....said to reach 2.7Ghz.




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Day 19

Took apart my new antec cooler so that I could paint the silver red and have it match with the theme.





Installed the black piece back to the plate





Here it is installed back into the case, looks pretty good in red instead of silver. Case next to it is the Commodore case mod I'm also working on.




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Day 20

If you've been following this thread from the first page until now you can tell that I've made a lot of changes. Most of which is to the kind of hardware that I was going to up into this case.

Before: (I still have all of this)

Athlon 1.2 Ghz Processor
PC Chips Socket A mobo
Radeon 7000
Crucial 1x256 ddr266
Optiplex CD-RW Black
Arctic Cooler HS/Fan
Seagate 40Gb HD



After:
AMD AthlonXP 2600+ Mobile
Abit Nf7-S Motherboard
G-Skill 2x256 PC4400
Radeon 9800 Pro 128mb
Zalman 7000Cu HS/Fan
Seagate 120Gb IDE


So, after all these hardware changes I made I decided to take a dip into the world of water cooling. Talking with a friend who helped me in picking out the right components, and accessories that would give me a good ratio between...silence, cooling, and looks.



Recieved all the packages today a thanks goes to Danger Den for making awesome water cooling gear and since they ship really fast! Ordered on Monday and recieved it today.



~~~ Water Cooling List ~~~

-Blocks-
RBX CPU Block
Maze 4 Chipset Block
Maze 4 GPU Block


-Rad-
Black Ice Xtreme with 1/2" fittings

-Pump-
Hydor L35


-Pump Relay Switch-
CritiCool PCI Pump Relay


-Tubing-
1/2" Tygon 10ft

-Coolant-
4oz Zerex Racing Coolant

-Acessories-
Fillport
UV Dual CCFL kit
20X 1/2" Clamps
T- Fitting
Evercool 120mm fan
Danger Den case badge

Now without further ado...here are pictures of everything I recieved!




































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Day 21

I got 9 long colt shells in total but I picked out the best ones.





Close up shot of the length.





Close up shot that these are true .45 Long Colt bullets.





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Day 22

Watercooling kit assembled. 2 Internal Watercooling shots. CPU, NB, and GPU coolers.







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Day 23

New power supply. Vantec 520W Stealth.

Here is the PSU right out of the box, warranty still there too.





PSU case dremeled for the male molex connector + pins. Here I placed the connectors in to see if they would fit.





After some cutting of wires and insulating. Stripping and Pin-ing and crimping.....

Now its modular!





Testing the 12V line. Looking good at 12.01V





Testing the 5V line. Hmm...not bad @ 5.24V



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Day 24

Package arrived from http://www.mnpctech.com

First up is the modders mesh which I'll use for fan grills.





Second is a 120mm fan grill, U-channel molding, fan silencing grommets, and a project box!




Third is a pair of UVEX safety glasses, and a pack of the famous fiberglass reinforced cut off wheels.





And last, but not least is this really cool Case Modders T-Shirt!!




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Day 25


I had to take the pins out of the 24pin ATX connector and do some sleeving. Well here you see 4 extra pins just strewn about. If you're wondering why it still works on the PSU tester, this is because I've converted the 24pin ATX to a 20pin ATX power supply. The extra 4 wires were later removed after testing.





And you thought that making my PSU modular and sleeving the cables was enough modding? Nope! I love modders mesh! You can really use it for almost anything you want! I decided to use them as fan grills for my PSU since the wire grills just did not match the theme. Here they're painted black and one is silver as a before image.





Here is the mesh installed for all 3 of the fans inside the Vantec Stealth.

Over all view.




Back view. (Still need to heatshrink)





I had to take everything out of Vash to use a 1/4" drill bit to make the screw holes larger. Installed some fan silencing grommets thanks to mnpctech.com and some U -channel molding to make the fan hole cleaner.





Did the same for the back.




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Day 26

Thanks goes to http://www.gruntville.com and Corsair for holding the RAM giveaway.

I'll be using the Corsair for benchmarking and the G-Skill for OC'ing. This way I can see how each one performs.


Corsair CMX512-XMS3200XL-Pro : With activity LED's



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Day 27

After busting my fingers knucles and whatever else is part of my hands. The case is basically finished!


I'm so excited that Vash is actually up and running. Also that I'm near done. But sad to see that this is coming to an end. So much time, effort, blood, and sweat was put into this case. It shows.


1 modular line from the PSU to CD-Drive to HD and to GFX Card.





Turning the case on for the very first time.





The top panel is lit with red Lazer LEDs.






Almost the only thing I did which was in my plans at the beginning was the Trigun fan grill.






Day 28

Last batch of completed case images.

Used flash.




Taken without flash to see lighting.




Side panel taken off to see water cooling.




Red UV dye lit with dual UV cold cathodes.




Close up to see what’s behind the window.





Top etching lit by a set of red Lazer lights.



Better side panel image with lit etch.



Over all view of the case.

Blazin Trav

Welcome! A girl modder around here is rare. A warm hello to you!

Yes. The same here. I browsed Xoxide in 2001/2 (very close to their opening) and didn't join the forums until 2003.

Strange how that works, huh?

I am interested in how you modded the PSU to shine like that. It's very nice.

Keep us updated!

EDIT: You went through 3 PSUs?

Nice budget.... haha.

JessAlba452

LoL I'm glad that I'm not alone in the "not knowing about the forums".

To get the PSU shiny like that all you have to do is go to like Pepboys or Auto Zone and pick up some wet/dry sand paper. The grits are 320, 400, 600, 800, 1000, 1500, and 2000. Mask off the PSU so that metal sandings won't get inside. If you can take out the guts of the PSU. Use a sanding block and use an up and down motion. (Learned this from a heatsink lapping guide) I'd say to give an hour with each grit of sandpaper. Use mother mags metal polish to shine it up. I think it took me about 6-8 hours to get it that shiny. :)

Blazin Trav

Okay I've been wanting to buy a dremel and etch my window for sometime... Can you explain that process as well.

BTW, when I first opened the thread I only saw part of the work log, so I missed out on some of the pics until I reloaded the page. I thought you had missed something. ;)

JessAlba452

LoL yea I was still busy uploading away. Glad it all works now!

Hmm now about the window etching...that's a secret. ;)

Br0k3nArr0w

Well it's great to finally see some women on this board, now I just don't have to turn to Trav with my girlfriend troubles hehe.

Well it's an amazing looking case, a friend I have who has a bit of obsession with Trigun would love it, I'll show it to him later today.

Welcome to the forums.

JessAlba452

Thank you for the welcome :D LoL I've heard that girl modders are kind of tough to come by so you gotta get your girl into it!

nsc1120

did you post this on hardforums too, i remember seeing some windows etched with vash over there too awhile ago?

Stumblebum

wow thats a Very Good mod.

You have some serius Dremel skills

DaemonDraxx

*Insert ●KILL here*
x.x'
No...please...do NOT keep us updated!
*dies of bandwidth cap*
You started with a Duron and water cooled an Athlon XP? o_O
*pokies*
*loads the last image*
Vash is thexy.:)
Post 100+ Images in one post again, and I sware you'll be visited by the Network Ninja! o_O
This page is bigger than the hot babes thread...:cry:
Woah! Blue ghetto-pliers! o_O You actually used that?!
That's.......impressive. =/
You sleeved your PSU the way I sleeved my old AT PSU...:lol:
*pokes around*
Ooooh Corsair memory...o_O
I believe this forum finally has a girl that knows what she's doing...and it's about time! -_-' Good job.
I'm going to cut my page view after this post. This isn't murder, it's a nuke with holy power. O_o

JessAlba452

You would be correct! Except that worklog is like 19 pages or something. Here you can see everything from start to finish without innteruptions of commenting or anything. :D Much easier to look through.


Thank you :D This was my first case mod and build so it was kind of tough at first. But what works is to learn as you go along lol.

robx890

Looks really good. Love the glow to everything.

JessAlba452

Thanks :D

Stumblebum

if you want the etch to be more visiable you can insert some LED lights in the plexi and it will make the etch glow

Uncle Dirt

Welcome to XFN. What a way to start off.

Finally, a woman with some serious modding skills. Great job. I gave you rep.

JessAlba452

Thank you very much for the reputation points :D Very cool!

Stumblebum I've been thinking that, but how would I wire it up? Serial or Parallel?

I was under some time constraints to get this into an article so I did lazer lights :D I'm thinking of maybe taking out the plexi and sanding the edges then polishing it up. Also someone said it works best if I use foil on the edges to reflect the light back to the etch instead of letting it disperse.

Stumblebum

http://www.comp-reviews.com/guides/led.php

here is Deadly-app's own guide on how to wire up LED's

JessAlba452

Awesome! Thanks for the link :D time to break out the soldering iron!

Btw I added to your rep since it's a helpful link.

JessAlba452

OH yeah! Geez I should know that by now lol. It's like that at other forums I've been to. Anyways as soon as I reach that magic number 100 I'll send an "actual" reputation point your way. :D

Stumblebum

hehe its not really needed unless you really want to iam just glad you thought about it^^