Cable Management Holes

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Dark Katana

n00b
Joined
Jan 29, 2007
Messages
23
I'm beginning to look at doing some serious cable management in my next case and that means I'm going to be cutting some holes in the case for routing cables under the MOBO and to the drives.

I'm curious to hear how some of the pros on this forum cut holes. I know most people use a dremel, but why wouldn't you use a hole saw for a nice clean cut (particularly on aluminum cases)? Also, what do you use to finish the sharp interior edges of the hole following the cut? Do you grind the hole with the dremel or do you cover it with some type of plastic guard? I assume you do something since you don't want to be pulling your expensive cables through a razor sharp hole. Covering the interior edge with electrical tape would probably do, but that would look pretty ghetto.
 
Dark Katana said:
Ah, a man after my own heart. Where do you get your edge molding?
Click to expand...

I looked locally and didn't find any. You might have better luck. However, Petra's sells a buck a foot.

Rubber grommets works too. I have pics in my build thread in the worklog forum.
 
Here's what I did on my Lian-Li.

Using a 1.5" holesaw and a Dremel, I made openings in the back panel for the wires to pass through. The upper round opening is just ahead of the PSU, and will allow the PSU cables to be routed behind the motherboard tray. The oval opening was made by cutting 3 overlapping holes with the holesaw, then cleaning up the remnants with the Dremel. This opening will be underneath the front edge of the motherboard, near the main power connector.

img3134ly3.jpg


Edge molding is OK, but I prefer to file the edges until they're smooth. It's not that difficult and you can get them better than the factory edges. One reason I like to do this - when the hole is underneath the motherboard there's only so much room for the wires to fit. The molding eats up some of that space, making the gap even tighter.

DE
 
Much obliged to both of you. For a neophyte to case modding, I feel like I just got a look behind the curtain!
 
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