Case Modding

**kumar** · 09-05-2004

Here are some good case modding sites for all of you:

1. http://www.gideontech.com/

P.S.:In these sides for cutting out the side panel to place plexiglass windows they use some sort of drill bis.What do u use and is plexiglass available here if so by which name?because no one here there is some thing called plexiglass.

**ani_meher** · 10-05-2004

i used a dremel to cut out the window..n plexiglass is insanely expensive...i used 2mm acrylic sheets

kirthu_darling · 11-05-2004

Hehe.. Dremels arent as cheap as you expected, huh Sunny? Apollyon, Aren't there any other cheaper alternatives to cutting the side panel??

@Masky: Well modding can go wrong, and its a fine skill and art much like overclocking.. in the hands of the inexperienced, can come out looking horribly wrong.. so Kumar's apprehension is understandable. Besides with all the nice goodies like Cold Cathode tubes, etc etc not easily available, it might be a bad choice if you mod and cant make it look good.
I think a better idea would be to use a piece of cardboard as a dummy side panel, paint it whatever colour matches your existing case colour.. cut the cardboard to form a window (now cutting cardboard is easy!) and then try your stunts, see how they look. if you dont like it, throw away the cardboard. easy and cheap.
p.s: just an idea, i havent tried it.

SunMysore · 11-05-2004

a matter of fact...my dad said itwud cost a 1K so he wud buy me one........

BTW i'm makin a new HDD cooler usin a 80mm fan ( i cudn't find a smaller one yet )
i hav designed the fan layout on a cardboard sheet....my prob is how to fix it at the bottom....i can fix it but it'll give me a hellof probs while fixing it back...it will obstruct it fitting into the bay

kirthu...any suggestions????

kirthu_darling · 11-05-2004

Suggestions?? Me?? Na.. you work on it man! Hard Disk cooler, i never even thought about one.. so no clues. I "suggest" you keep working hard at it, once you're done.. post it up as a tutorial for everyone! Seriously!

Well, one note.. the reason you'd need smaller fans is cause bigger fans have bigger thickness. 80mm fans are thicker than 40mm fans, so they'd be obstructing your bay. Get two small 40mm fans and place it. Most of the commercial hard disk coolers use that formula of two thin 40mm fans as well.

I guess a wild idea would be to cut the metal casing of your bay below the hard disk giving you all the space you need, since anyway the hard disks are suspended by screws mounted to the bay. Though I dont know if others would agree to the idea?

**bottle** · 11-05-2004

Originally Posted by kumar

Hey does any one know whether i can get only the side panel?Are all side pannels of ATX cabs inter compatible?because i just can't ruin my new iBox.

i dont think they sell side panels seperately.. so i guess if you make a case while modding your case thats the end of it , meaning you'll have to live with it

@kirthu i think there are fan that are thinner than usual, but dunno if they are available here

@sunny does your case have a hard disk cage and is there space on the side to fix a fan there ?

**bottle** · 12-05-2004

Originally Posted by sunmysore

no...i'm fixin at the bottom with 3 sides "airproofed" with other one side facing the inlet fan.

will the air from inlet fan reach the rest of case then ?
me bored have a look at this drawing

ps: dont mean to hijack ur thread kumar

maybe sunny start a new one?

looks like a nice case kumar.. arent there any metal works shops nearby who can cut out the case and for you ? a professional work might be cleaner (but you wont get the satisfaction of modding the case yourself)

kirthu_darling · 12-05-2004

Hey cool Sunny.
now once you get your digi cam back, take some snaps and set it up as a tutorial!

P.s: I kept thinking the fan was obstructing the Hard drive from getting back into the tray

Dint know you were placing the fan on top of the hard drive. What was obstructing in that case?

SunMysore · 12-05-2004

eww...kirthu....i had to struggle to put the HDD back....but also i put it in...had abt 7-8 mm space above so i cud fit it in

but, if u increase the width to 10.5cm, then u can fit it in the drive bay itself, instead ofsticking it to the HDD

no...i'm placin it at the bottom, the hdd has an air gap at the bottom, none at the top. BTW i placed my 40GB directly underneath the fan, so 40GB also gets some cooling, though not very effectivecoz of the black cover..

forgot. the front view is upside down.

kirthu_darling · 14-05-2004

Use an array of LEDs. I think the normal Red/Green ones are hardly 1buck/LED. The Blue colour ones are 7 bucks each. How you set it up as an array and all, i'm not too sure. You could ask darky, cause he had given sunmysore guidelines on that. That way you have your light source, use some innovation on where you place it, etc. Cold Cathode tubes are very hard to get here. Even the site bottle has given shows them using LEDs, so LEDs would be your better options.

**kumar** · 14-05-2004

I tried using the blue LEDs which they put on those numberplates(the big ones).But they were generating hell lot of a heat so had to remove them.Next ill try to make a LED bus and try to connect those together to a single molex connector.

SunMysore · 16-05-2004

u see..its exactly according to the blueprint in the previous page.

it took me 35 minutes to make it from scratch...now it has a 0.3A fan........idle temps fall by 5 deg

..............

BTW any ppl kno and HDD benchmark softs???? i want to test the performance of my cooler. my idea of benchmark is to play vice city for 1hour wit the fan on/off ( coz that game made my proccy sweat out an all time maximum of 49deg

)

BTW the 50Rs for the cooler is only for the fan....fan cost me 50 bucks.

kirthu_darling · 16-05-2004

Yep, Thats what I was thinking too, cause he had mentioned something about cutting out cardboard earlier. Cardboard isnt any good at heat dissipation or anything, so from the pics I thought he had perhaps used copper. cant make out.

SunMysore · 17-05-2004

BTW , ur idea will create a lot of design probs. since the air gap is only about 4-5mm, the air will hit back the fan from the HDD, thus decreasing the performance and, since only one side is open, there will be A LOT of air congestion and high pressure.

@ryb:

so, is it official????

kirthu_darling · 17-05-2004

^^ Well, when you blow out a burning candle.. you blow air onto it, you dont suck air away from it. Thats the difference it makes, as far as rebuffing of air and all, yes I do agree it could reduce fan efficiency, and may increase noise level a bit too. But you must always have air flowing in the right direction!