Dream of the Blue Turtles

Grez

Well, I've been talking about starting a worklog for my current project for a while now, so I thought I'd get on it. I'm currently doing a -fast- mod for my younger brother, whose current rig is about four years old and is going belly-up. He's on a budget, and didn't want to spend $100+ on a good case, and besides his isn't bad looking and could be pretty nice with a few...er, enhancements. So, I told him for about $50 we could mod the crap out of his, which would save him money to go toward parts for his rebuild.

Originally, there wasn't going to be a theme, but given my brother's love for everything aquatic, especially turtles, we're going to call this mod "The Dream of the Blue Turtles," which is a Sting reference for the musically ignorant (back before he decided to go pop and start to suck). More on how that ties in later.

Important things to remember here:

1) This is a budget mod
2) I don't have six months to work on this, so please don't suggest additional side projects that will go on forever
3) This is not supposed to be the ultimate mod, but rather show how nice you can make a budget case in a limited amount of time. There will certainly be additional items that other people (including myself) would love to see on here, but frankly my little bro wants to get his PC back in a reasonable amount of time so that he can actually use it again...right now, it's dead in the water.

Ok, so without further ado, here is what the case looked like to start:


You can see that it's not a bad-looking case. I'm sticking with the basic color scheme, but giving it a lot more "oomph." The flat, dark blue will become a brighter, more electric blue (to work with the lighting scheme), and the off-white paneling is going to become bright gloss white. It should look pretty and melty.

The top (note: no blowhole, etc.):


The side and back:

You can see that because of the inset stamping on the side panel that I don't have a lot of choices for window shapes. It's either a circle in the middle (which I don't think works with this case) or a rounded-corner square cut to the same size as the beveled area. I'm going with the latter of these two, and this means a custom window (no pre-cut window mod here).

Here's the original guts:

I take full responsibility for the messiness here, as I built this for him a few years back. Wire management was a foreign concept to me at that time. Now, this is worse than when I did it, because a few things have already been pulled and he has also added his own stuff as I talked to him on the phone (not to mention, those fools from SBC mucked around in there...notice the 2nd -- and unneeded -- ethernet card in there). In any case, there will be major changes on the inside too.

You'll note from looking at the "before" pictures that there are only two places for fans on this case: one 80mm intake and one 80mm exhaust. Not only that, but the intake has to pull the air from one little slit underneath the case, and the case bottom is too close to the ground due to the case feet being really low profile. All of that will change with new footsteps, additional fan holes, and extra holes drilled into the plastic facing to give the front intake better ability to suck air.

So, let's get started. Here are the tools I'll be using:

Actually, I'm not using that circular saw...that was left out from a previous project I just finished.

The first order of business was to work on that pesky side panel. This is standard PC-grade thin steel (not like the 16-gauge plate on my InWin Q500), so cutting is not too bad. Here's the start of the side panel showing pilot holes (which make those corners a bit easier) and a partial cut:


And here is the finished cut before grinding/filing:

I know there's at least one person out there going "OMGWTF, you didn't even tape that off at all! It's going to be all scratched up!" You know what? You're right. But I don't care, because I'm going to sand this puppy down and paint it anyway, so there's no need to spend all of that time taping and then removing the tape. Also note that this is a pretty good-sized window, which is going to make WM important later on. It's going to get tricky since this is a fairly cramped case.

Next, I cut out the custom side panel window from my large sheet of acrylic I picked up at Home Depot for about $8. It should be good for 3-4 mods. Then, I cut a blowhole in the window, and got ready for making the project more interesting...

On this case, I decided to do my very first etching. It is an intake fan hole mod. As I mentioned before, my brother loves everything aquatic, especially turtles, and so I found a cool tribal image of a turtle and used it for a template for the etching:

I love the primitive feel of this graphic. It is taped to the outside of the window, so that I could trace the pattern with a Sharpie on the inside. You want to etch on the inside so that light refracts through the etching properly. The Shiner Bock is just there for inspiration (this makes jobs better 100% of the time).

Here I am getting started with the etching:

By using this method, I can just etch until all of the black Sharpie marks are gone, and then fill in the inside of the graphic. Also note that I have a soft cloth underneath the window while doing my etching...this is important to have (despite the plastic sheeting that comes on the acrylic) so that you don't accidentally scratch up the opposite side of the window.

And here is the completed etching:

I had a hard time finding a backdrop so that you could actually see what the etching looks like, and even now it really doesn't do it justice. This looks about ten times better in person. But I'm very happy with how it turned out overall. There will be a second etching elsewhere (more on that in a minute). There is one little scratch on the outside of the acrylic, which is where I slipped with a Dremel sander cleaning up the hole to make it nice and smooth. It's not an issue, because this area will be covered by a laser-cut hurricane pattern fan guard, which will also double as being the turtle's shell. (BTW...I KNOW that someone might suggest here that I make a custom fan guard, and while I agree that would be cool, remember that I'm working within time and budget constraints. Besides, the hurricane guard actually looks pretty good in this case.) On the subject of the guard, you'll also notice where the mounting holes are located; this means that the fan will be mounted at an angle, not perpendicular to the ground. This is so the fan guard can tie in properly to the turtle's four legs.

Next, I cut out the pre-punched fan area on the cage (front intake):


Back exhaust:

You can see that the inner cage is made of fairly cheap metal, which caused more warping that I usually have to deal with when using the hole saw. But, on the plus side, it only took about 4-5 seconds to knock out each hole. These pictures are (again) pre-filing with a round file. The rear exhaust will get a matching hurricane fan guard, and the front doesn't need anything, as it is encased behind the plastic snap-on front panel. As I mentioned before, some small modifications will be added to the front panel to allow the intake fan to draw more air through there (punching that big hole was a good start).

Just for fun, here are the discs of metal that my hole saw (attached to a 7.5 amp Milwaukee hammer drill) punched out in just a few seconds:


This case desperately needs a blowhole (again, airflow was a big issue in this case), and so I'm putting in a top window along with a blowhole. It will be an 80mm blowhole, and before anyone says anything, there is no room for a 120mm fan in here...the case is too cramped. 80mm will have to do. I bought a pre-cut top window kit, since I found one that included the tubing and everything for $6.50. That's definitely worth it for the time savings. All I had to do was cut the blowhole in the middle...


...and then drill out the holes for mounting the fan:

The holes look a little messy here, but that is due to the protective paper backing. The holes themselves are fine (no "bullet" effect...I used 2X6 backing when drilling).

I decided to be smart and trace the top window and blowhole so that I'd have a pattern to use later when pre-made kits aren't on sale:


And here is my finished template that I can use for future projects, if I need it:


The last thing I have finished up to this point is cutting the hole in the top case panel for the window:

This cut turned out nice and smooth...really happy with it.

So what's next?

1) I'm going to do a matching etching on the top window of the tribal turtle. There's no room around the blowhole, so it will be a stand-alone etching on the front portion of the window, tucked up into the rounded part. This will help keep the theme of the case.
2) All external panels will be sanded to prepare for painting.
3) This case will be painted in auto-grade paint, bright blue for the front, and gloss white for the rest of the case. If I have enough left, I will paint the cage interior blue as well.

After that, it will be time to put this puppy together. I may or may not stealth the DVD drives. There will be a front USB/firewire panel mounted into the free 3.5" slot (making this case much more convenient). I'll be using a Zalman fan controller for the fans (it's a nice blue, which will come close to matching the paint scheme). Then, of course, we have the general build, LEDs, cathodes, lighted footsteps, and my first go at mounting an Asus Star Ice CPU cooler (if you've never seen this thing, it's HUGE). Hopefully, the Star Ice will fit in this case...if not, I'll put it in one of my systems, and find a slightly smaller cooler for my bro. But I really want it to work, as it matches the color scheme with its blue casing and blue LEDs.

So that's it for now...check back here soon to get the skinny on my progress...

Cheerio,

Grez

primeredSBCnova

looks good :-D

just go easy on the beer and power tools

R.Carter

Very nice etching. Good clean work over all.

Shiner Bock! Yay for beer with an actual taste!

skeeder

looks nice...I think some etching would be sweet...its cheap

redcow

good stuff... keep it going

keyoshi

Looks sweet. I will have to read that etchig guide to see how to do that. Wish my brother was this nice to me..... :'(

tencent

shoulda done penguins imo but thats some pretty sweet cuts and etching.

Btw "Omg get better WM loller skates" just thought I would say that someone else didnt have to.

Grez

I KNEW you were going to ping me on the WM, 10¢! I TRY to put a disclaimer in there about that crappy wiring being from years back, but NNOOOOooooooo... LMAO!! I know how bad it was...that's one of the reasons I'm givin' the little bro a significant rebuild for free (well, don't get me wrong, he's paying for the parts...but none of my many hours of labor). Don't worry...even in this cramped case, it will look much, much, much better once it's put back together. I have all of his new parts sitting around...all that's being reused from before are the two optical drives and the floppy. Everything else (especially those @#$!ing flat ribbon data cables) is going. New parts are up-to-snuff and will be much prettier. Plus, now maybe he'll keep the inside clean since he'll have to look at it through the window.

You and your penguins...freakin' LINUX snob! Ha ha...maybe next build, man...maybe next one.

tencent

hey I liked penguins long before I liked linux and as for building rigs for people I have a friend that had me build a computer and after I finished I was like "If I ever come over and it even looks like you thought about moving something I will kill you with the dull end of a pencil twice" took like 8 times of moving drives around, rerouting wires, etc.. to get that damned thing beautiful.

Grez

Hey, I'm the oldest kid from a Midestern family...I have an inherant, overwhelming sense of responsbility. Seriously, I don't mind. I like lookin' out for my brother.

The etching isn't too bad, so long as you're patient. Hurry it, and you'll screw it up. This was a good first etching project for me because the graphic is supposed to be primitive. I'm not an incredible artist when it comes to drawing (my brother actually is), but I have a steady hand and can trace and etch about anything that doesn't require the subtlety of a laser (for a good example, see Tech-Daddy's Lupine project). So far, I'm really happy with how this one is turning out...it really does look even better in person, and once the colored light goes through it, it should be sweet. Hope my brother likes it as much as I do, since that part of the design is a total surprise.

LOL...I know about that, man. I've built at least three rigs for friends this year, and all of them required a lot of time. But I finally got smart: this year, I started making them build them with me, so they appreciate the effort. They can also usually handle it themselves the next time around. Of course, it did backfire in one case...one buddy has started building a system for one of his friends that I don't know, and now he's run into problems, so I'm helping him tech that too! Ha. That's what I get. I really don't mind (it's all love in here, Wayne-O, in case you're reading this ), though...he's a good guy and pretty good at this stuff. I just have to get him to stop getting roped into "deals," and to know to never, ever, ever, ever, for any reason whatsoever, to cheap out on his parts. That will make his build infinitely easier.

And hey, penguins are cool. They don't fly. They swim in sub-freezing water. That's not normal, and I like it. Normal is boring.

Thanks, and right on, my brotha. "Light" and "beer" should never be used in the same sentence. Light beer is just beer with extra water added. Blech. I can't believe people will pay the same amount of money for less beer.

You don't happen to brew, do you? Mod your own systems, brew your own beer...it fits the personality profile. If you do, we'll have to swap recipes some time.

Heh heh...thanks...I try to only handle one at a time.

G.I. Jesus

Was my post deleted?

anyways I just said awesome work, love the idea and keep it up mate!

R.Carter

I actually prefer scotch (the 12 year Balvenie Double Wood) as my modding beverage of choice. I don't brew. Mostly because the hobbies I already have are so expensive and time consuming that adding another wil probably wind me up in divorce court. Thankfully, I know a few guys that produce enough to keep me in the home brew. Otherwise it's the Newcastle Nut Brown, Hennepin, Ommagang (sp?), and Delirium for my beer choices.

Grez

All yummy choices, my friend. I take it you've tried the Delierium Noel, then. That's one of my favorite seasonals. And you almost had the spelling right on your other Belgian favorite, the Ommegang Abbey. Another great beer. You have good taste, man. If you like those, another nice Belgian you should try is Corsendonk...you can usually get both the pale and the brown in the States. Mmmmmmm...

Actually, brewing is pretty cheap to get into. Your initial equipment that you need runs about $100-$125 for a basic two-stage kit. You really don't need anything else, unless you get fancy like one of my buddies and start figuring out how to brew multiple batches at once, go all-grain, and keg your own. I'm pretty sure he brews a quanity that technically requires him to get a liquor license. But not me. I just brew 4-5 batches a year for fun. And it costs about $20-$25 per batch for the ingredients, and that makes five gallons of beer. So you see? You can spin this as a cost savings to your wife! LOL! It should pay for itself in less than a year...

...of course, I still find that I'm buying other beers just to try them, but amazingly Jen hasn't argued with me on that one.

I promise that I didn't delete it, if it was! Thanks, man, and I will keep everyone posted on how this is coming. I should be getting to the paint this week if all goes as planned.

Grez

Ok, kiddies! I have made a bit more progress on this mod...it's now ready for sanding and painting, and then on to the build!

Here's the history of the past couple of nights:

One of the (many) issues with this case is airflow. As I've mentioned before, part of my solution to that is to add a blowhole in the top of the system and a new side intake near the GPU. Additionally, however, I don't like the way the front intake fan has to draw air. Take a look at this pic:

You're looking at the bottom of the front snap-on faceplate (two pieces). See that notch there? All of the air for the front intake fan is forced through that little notch (which fits up against the metal frame). That's not a lot of surface area, and with the old low-profile feet on this case (solving that too, but that's beside the point), it just became a big dust-sucker.

So, the first step was to cut out the grillwork for the front intake fan in the metal frame itself...you saw that done in my previous post. Additionally, this fan was held in by a big internal plastic clip. I'm pitching that...drilled new screw holes in the metal, so the fan will mount directly to the front of the frame. However, even given the new bigger hole, the fan still had to suck air in through that little slot. So, I've made a couple of small mods that will give the fan a little more clear surface area through which to pull air.

The front faceplate is two pieces that snap together, so in order to pull more air, it has to be able to get through both of them. The outside blue trim piece snaps into the larger white piece, and there is a flat overhang at the bottom of it. I figured I could put some holes in there and they'd never be seen by the user:

I put in six holes with an 11/32" drill bit. Note that the piece was clamped with shop towels to avoid scratching or denting the plastic.

Next, I cut the white, inner plastic of the faceplate:

The fan extended below the hidden area I could cut, but the new rectangle is roughly the width of the fan, and part of its height. I used a rotary tool with your basic cut-off disc to cut out the hole...and yes, this means I had to sit around a while smelling stinky melting plastic. The whole thing certainly isn't a perfect or ideal solution (that would be to put a round hole straight through to the front, but I don't have the time in this build to move the buttons/lights that would be in the way), but it should increase the available surface area from which to pull air by almost 85%.

Also, I'm going to be putting on custom Sunbeam lighted feet on this case, so it was time for the old, ugly, gray, low-profile feel to go:

I just pounded them out of the bottom of the case using a hammer and a fat nail set. Voila! Ready for the new stuff!

I talked about continuing the turtle theme of this case by adding an etching to the top window as well. I finished that up last night.

First of all, I scaled my graphic to a smaller size than the one used for the side fan intake, printed it, and then traced it with a Sharpie to the front portion of my top window:


Then, I spent a couple of hours of patient work etching out the graphic. It turned out even better than the first one, in my opinion! And no screw-ups! Again, finding a backdrop so that you can see the detail was tough...but here are a few I tried:



Again, this all looks better in person, but I'm really happy with the result...should look sweet when back-lit. And the specks are not scratches (always, always use a soft pad under your window when cutting/etching)...just dust stuck on there with static electricity. It will all (of course) be cleaned when it's installed.

So that's it for now...I'm sanding tonight one way or the other to prep the metal surfaces for painting. My first paint supplier fell through and now I'm looking for other options. As soon as I have paint, I'll be taking care of that as well. I'll post more when that happens.

jay.scratch

nice etching

mechem

well dude heres what i think:
yes turtles < penguins (never done more than 15min with linux btw), but still really good work

and i almost sharted when i saw the circular saw im like WTF is he gonna hack the mailman if he comes to disturb him.... then u explained.

i was like GASP thats too big!

but im likin whatcha did here. power to the POS PC's

Grez

Heh...yeah, no need for a circular saw on this build. Just tryin' to make an old, cramped case look nicer and get some good airflow in there. Besides, if I wanted to take out the mailman, I'd just fire up that 7.5 amp Milwaukee hammerdrill at about 1,000 hits/minute with a big@ss 4.5" bi-metal hole saw blade on there and just go DOOM on his @ss. LOL

As for the turtles, hey I know they're not for everyone, but I like 'em. I've seen lots of penguins on cases, but this is the first time I've seen turtles. So I figure I'm at least being original, and I know it's something my bro will dig. Thanks for the good karma in any case.

keyoshi

looks nice. lol I would hate to be your mailman knowing what tools you have in your garage... :'( this is gonna look good.

Grez

Ok, well I made a bit more progress tonight. I finally found the auto-grade paint and brought that home, so I decided to get on this sanding. Originally, I was just going to rough things up a bit to get the new primer/paint to stick since I was pretty sure the original paint was pretty good. Instead, I decided to take it all the way down to the metal just to be safe.

First of all, the tools used:

I like the Mouse orbital sander...it's compact, easy to handle, and when you slip off of the odd chunk of metal while sanding, you don't take half of the skin off of your hand. Plus, it's easy to quick-swap the pads from coarse to fine since they just velcro on the bottom. Good machine. I also used some sanding blocks (foam rubber ones...flexibility is nice) and some detail pads. Also note the organic breather...probably could have just used a dust mask, but paint dust can be nasty stuff, so why take chances? Oh, and the most important item on the list...Samuel Smith's Oatmeal Stout. Yum.

After preparing the shop, I fired up some Brother Cane, King's X, Big Wreck, I Mother Earth, and Sass Jordan for a proper rock n roll backdrop to my efforts. Nothin' goes together like rock and metal work.

It turns out I was right about the paint in every way...it was on really, really, really freakin' well! This ended up being about a two hour job. And the breather was a good call...the dust was extremely fine from this paint. Considering it was probably originally painted in China, it was definitely a good idea...who knows whether or not they are still allowed to use lead-based paint! They buy our toxic waste and dump it on their land, so I'm sure they're not crackin' down on the lead-based paint anytime soon. LOL

Anyway, the end result turned out really nice...the surfaces are nice and smooth and ready for some primer/paint:

Before I can paint, however, I need to wash the panels to get all of the remaining dust off. I also need to clean out my garage! I want to paint where it will be cool and clean, and that means blowing all of the dust out of the garage, especially the leftover sawdust from hurricane Rita preparations! Once I get that done (tomorrow night, maybe?), it'll be time to paint (1-2 nights), and then I can get on to the assembly (1-2 more days). I need to get this tied up in a week or so because my brother is getting ancy without his machine.

Also, after looking at the way the mobo tray fits in (flush against the rear panel) and where the brace is on the cage (again, against the rear panel instead of in front like newer cases), I'm going to have serious wire management challenges. This will definitely not be perfect in terms of hiding wires. I can't cut too much without ruining structural integrity, so some wires will just have to be exposed more than I'd like, and that's just tough. I'll make them look as good as possible, and that will have to be good enough.

I'll post more when I get the paint going...have a good one, y'all!

keyoshi

lol. Looks nice. I have the same sander. Never used it though, but my bro has and it works well. I know you are on a budget but if you got UV sleeving...then it would make the exposed wires a little nicer to look at.