Project: OptPrime "Basic Transformer Mods": Begins 10/13

nice improv with the fan controller. i mounted a fan controller in a 3.5" bay because it was ugly:D and it took a 5 1/4" bay before too... it just had a temp display i mounted elsewhere.

and yeah, that etching is awesome. i dunno if i like how the rectangle cutout works on a sidepanel shaped like that, but whatever... not my case;)

keep up the good work!
 
good point on the side panel thing. What i could have done would be to actually cut the full symbol in the back side of the tray like i did on the front (but only half there)... However I really wanted to work that etching in there. I guess you cant have everything. :D
 
Sounds like it's looking sweet. :cool:

When you get it finished, zip up a sh*tload of pics and send them to me. Please. :p ;)
 
][V][AGIC said:
i like the top mounted fan controler. looks amazing
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Just what I was gonna say, but It would have looked even nicer if you could have epoxied it to the inside of the case and been able to avoid using screws....would have been a touch cleaner looking....but it's still awsome.

Keep it up bro, I can't wait to see this finished. :cool:
 
cornelious0_0 said:
Just what I was gonna say, but It would have looked even nicer if you could have epoxied it to the inside of the case and been able to avoid using screws....would have been a touch cleaner looking....but it's still awsome.

Keep it up bro, I can't wait to see this finished. :cool:
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Yeah I thought about epoxying it... but then i had this horrible vision of being at a lan and having some one say, "how sturdy is that fan controller in there." and then pushing down on it.... only for me to have my entire worklog flash before my eyes. :D

Ne who did some more work tonite. I did some work on the duct and i am really not happy with it. I couldn't get it down to the point where it wasn't ghetto. So what I am thinking is to just make a little scoop on the vid card itself to catch the air comming in from the side fan. See for yourself.

duct1.JPG


duct2.JPG

In it's current state this thing is definatly not worthy of being in this case. Not sure what I am going to do now... might just ditch this idea completly. What do you guys think?

I did however find this cool led light strip. It has resistors on it and everything. I am going to try and figure out what voltage i need to supply to it to get it running and hopefully use it to light the etching on the back of the mobo tray. I don't suppose some one already knows the voltage that i have to send to this bad boy?

ledstrip1.JPG


ledstrip2.JPG


Actually after closer inspection it seems to just double up on the wires that come directly into the fan to give it power. you know the little 3 pin ones. Well i hope it actually works cause this would be great to light up the etching.
 
small update...

blurry.JPG

I got the light strip installed. Sorry for the blurry pic but my digicam sux and has probs with night shots... However you get the idea. The light strip really makes the etching stand out. Keep in mind that i have a ccfl back there too that i can turn on and off at my discretion. The light really disperses much better in person then on the pic so the effect isnt as craptacular looking.

What do you guys think. I might take another swing at the duct tomorow. but i am leaning towards the air scoop thing instead cause i think that has a better chance of turning out right. That is all for tonite.

El Primo
 
OptPrime said:
What do you guys think. I might take another swing at the duct tomorow. but i am leaning towards the air scoop thing instead cause i think that has a better chance of turning out right.
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I think you should definitely give the air scoop again, and the lighting is lookin' pretty pimp.....keep at it. :cool:
 
cornelious0_0 said:
I think you should definitely give the air scoop again, and the lighting is lookin' pretty pimp.....keep at it. :cool:
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Yeah. Freak'n awesome work man. :eek:
 
The airscoop will get its second chance tonite, and if it still doesn't cooperate it will get the axe. no biggy though it is the only thing on the list of failures for this mod so i am please with that.

As for the lighting i did find another one of those led light strips and i will be using it to light up the other side of that window so the etching will stand out much more. I might not even need to turn on the ccfl back there at all. I guess we will see when that times comes.

I have a little story for you. I ordred a 939 board and proc from the egg last friday. In my acct summary it has said shipping in 1-2 days. Today would be the third business day after i ordered it and it still said step 2 of 5... So i was like wtf, and called them. Well the customer service rep said that the prob was that it was shipping from a new warehouse and they were having some probs getting things organized. She assured me that it would be shipped out today... and for my troubles she would ship it overnight shipping for no addition charges. Why do I newegg? THAT'S WHY!
 
Sounds like some nice work prime, I wish I could see the pics but im guessing its my stupid websence stuff at work. You should toss some pics up to our homepage too. If I come to town for halloween, Ill be sure to come check it out. I still dunno where Ill end up for the weekend though... Keep slammin this shit out, im sure it looks butter
 
How about another way to make the duct? I have been following this, and I don't think it would look bad in stainless steel or aluminum. I just picked up some stainless steel for my mod, and if you could bend it using your plexi as a patter it might be alright. Just an idea.
 
got home for lunch and the ups guy left me a little package from frozen cpu. So now i have my 2 white ccfl's, my ccfl extension cables and my 948u heatsink. The heatsink is a thing of beauty as all thermalright products are. The white ccfl's have a huge ugly switch so i will have to do something about that.

So the plan for tonite is to get the ccfl's mounted and in place. Get the cd drives in. Work on the fan ducting a little and try to put some sort of design together for the font fan grill if possible. I also have to finish the led wiring on the etched window. I am still waiting for the tinting spray to come in :( but when it does the windows will be done. Everything is still looking good to be finished with this by Thursday/Friday.
 
i just thought that it may be cool to add the CCFL switches to the top with your fan control... but u said it took u 4 hours just for the fan control so i dunno how good this is
 
actually i am doing something kinda close to that. I am planning on putting the cffl controls up front where the usb/headphone jax where in the case. now that i have all the switches i will probobly be doing that either tonite or tomorow.
 
OptPrime said:
actually i am doing something kinda close to that. I am planning on putting the cffl controls up front where the usb/headphone jax where in the case. now that i have all the switches i will probobly be doing that either tonite or tomorow.
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/holds out hands for pics.....

:D
 
its looking really great, especially the etching on the window, keep up the good work!! :D
 
As a fellow TF fan and fellow IU victim (different campus though), I say good job and keep it up.
 
For the duct... Find a round object that best shapes the way you want your curve for the duct. Then, take a sheet of plexi or lexan, and throw it in the oven at a low temp for a few minutes. Pull it out, and wrap it around the round object halfway, so you have an L shaped curve. Do the same thing for the other side of the duct. Now, you have the top and bottom of the duct. Put the top and bottom near each other, the width you'd want the duct to be, then trace the outline onto paper. Take that outline, cut it out twice for the side, and then glue it all together.

You should have something like this...
duct.png


It's way easier to build, and will look nicer.

It may take you a few tries in the oven though. And remember... OVEN MITTS! :D
 
more modding tonite. Tonite i got the ccfl switches mounted in the front of the case where the front usb/headphone jax used to be. I will eventually be putting led rocker switches in here but the ones that came with the ccfls will work for now. I also got everything in the case except the motherboard/proc/heatsink etc that hooks up the pci/agp bus. Wiring looks like it should turn out nice.

I also spent some more time on the led light strips. At one point i had them both not working and they seemed doomed. However i was able to recover most of them. I think long term i will be buying new ones. The long and short of it is that i am going to get this thing ready for the magazine thingy for the end of this weekend. And then i am going to continue working on this project and updating the project log... just more of a one update per week thing. mostly because i have an antec aria that will be taking main stage project log wise.

So on to the update:

k1.JPG

you can see here how i mounted the ccfl switches in the front of the case. Nothing special this is a temp fix for some led rocker switches that will be comming in next week.

k3.JPG

There is a little trap door that leads right to the ccfl switches. there was supposed to be a usb/headphone jack here but i made short work of that.

k2.JPG

front of the case looking all nasty and secsie!

k4.JPG

believe it or not that is all the power wires laid into place. The ones hanging are the 4 pin +12, the ATX connector and the Video card Connecter (which is on it's own wire/path from the powersupply) The only thing left to do wiring wise is to hook up the mobo and run all the little wires like matrix to mobo, and cpu/door fan wiring. Ive got one white ccfl along the bottom of the case, and one squeezed in there by the back exhaust fans. I had to file down the little square ccfl stand off things but it fits in there snugly.

k5.JPG

Here is the concept art for the front fan grill... I was going to do this tonite but it got too late too fast and my screwing up on the led strips really ate up some time.

Things accomplished today:
1) mounted new ccfls.
2) mounted cd drives
3) wired 90 percent of all power wiring
4) finished led strip installation
5) drew up front fan grill

Left to do:
1) tint and attach main window
2) install board/proc
3) custom cut front fan grill
4) finish duct or air scoop for video card.

I wanted to do more tonite but i just screwed the led strips so bad i had to spend time to recover them. However the concept art for the front fan grill looks doable. Should be able to get that and the duct tomorow. I thought I would be getting the testors tinting spray today but that will be here tomorow as well. So that means tomorow is custom fan grill and tinting/mounting of main window day. That leaves thursday for installing the board and proc and finishing the duct. I will prob then spend friday afternoon finishing up all the loose ends.

That is it for now.
Prime
 
Good stuff, I really love to see these project start to come togethor. It looks as if you've simply lined the etched window with those LED stips you threw togethor.....should be nice. Have you tried it out at all? I hardly dobut you'll need the ccfl for the etching anymore. :p
 
ok got some stuff done tonite. Got that fan grill cut out and installed. Got the side window tinted and installed w/door fan and the rest of the parts for the 1/2 autobot logo. Also had to move one of the ccfl's cause the ccfl extension cable would only let it light up half way. That was gay. On bad thing is i think the matrix orbital screen i have is shot. I am going have to pm the guy that i got it from and check it out.

Ne who here are the pix
z1.JPG

front fan grill custom made by me. It could have turned out better but those cuts were real small. still better then the wire one that i had there before imho

Here is a sneak peak of the lighting that the case will have
z2.JPG

w/ccfls and flash on

z3.JPG

w/ccfls and flash off

z4.JPG

w/out ccfls flash on...

I think it is looking good.... what do you guys think?
 
OptPrime said:
z4.JPG
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Holy shit bro.....let me grab a towel.....

That is honestly the nicest window cut I have seen in a LOOOOONG time.....and the fact that it's TF makes it all that much better.

/bows to OptPrime

EDIT: What you REALLY need to do now is cut a hole in the door panel "over top" of where the intake fan is, and fill in the door hole with mesh. I think it would kind of give a little bit of an automotive image, and look freakin' cool if/when the case gets painted, cus it could all end up the same color in the end.

Maybe I missed it, but are you painting the case? Even if you're not.....I think the mesh would look cool, better airflow too. ;)
 
As cornelious0_0 has said, that is one of the best windows I have seen in a while. Your custom intake fan grill is also sweet. Maybe you could do a window in the front panel door. I think that would look pretty sweet. Awesome job, this project has been coming along great!
 
haha cornelious you read my mind.... After i got the case all put together i noticed that the front 120 fan wasn't pulling in barley any air at all. That changed once i opened the front lower door. So I guess the plan is to order some modders mesh off of mnpctech.com and put a intake screen up there. That will have to wait until next week but it will be happeneing. :) Thanks for the compliments guys. And for your referance two sided taping things onto the window works great. Those floating pieces of the logo are really stuck on there and look perfect imho.
 
this is looking really nice.. btw did you just glue the alum pieced on the side panel to the plexi?
 
Actually i used two sided tape. But no ordinary two sided tape. It is called servo tape. It is a tar based black two sided tape that is meant to hold town electronic speed controllers and servos down in rc cars. I have rarley seen this stuff let go in even the most intense rc car crashes (well actually it happened once at the roar nation championships :( ) but seriously this stuff rules.

As a side note.... if any of you play cs:source you can join me and my buds on. "Drkside Source server hosted by worldcg.com" come frag w/us
 
OptPrime said:
haha cornelious you read my mind.... After i got the case all put together i noticed that the front 120 fan wasn't pulling in barley any air at all. That changed once i opened the front lower door. So I guess the plan is to order some modders mesh off of mnpctech.com and put a intake screen up there. That will have to wait until next week but it will be happeneing. :) Thanks for the compliments guys. And for your referance two sided taping things onto the window works great. Those floating pieces of the logo are really stuck on there and look perfect imho.
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Good stuff, keep us posted.

I was going to be picking up some honeycomb modders mesh, some of his mesh fan grills, and the chrome case handles all off mnpctech for my Lian-Li.....but i dunno now. Customs is REALLY ticking me off right about now, I've been waiting just over a few weeks for my heatercore from DTek now, and I just dont want to run the risk of that happening again.

The thing is that I know I'll be unhappy with anything "less" that I get locally....and I'll just end up wanting in honeycomb modders mesh anyways.

The handles aren't a HUGE thing, as I'm not even sure I have enough space between my PSU and case for them, and the fan grills can be added/switched whenever.....but the mesh is going to be attached to the case in a few places, and painted with the chasis....so it blends in perfectly.....so it has to be taken care of before I can paint anything. :(
 
i just ordered the honeycomb modders mesh.. and some rubber gromets... I also picked up some of those huge reinforced cutting discs... Figured those might help me get through the 1/8 inch thick alluminum up front. Im kinda excited about the front grill thing. At first i was pissed cause i really liked the whole solid front thing. But I think that it is going to look good and in addition it is going to make it so that from every angle that you look at this case you will be able to see one of my mods.

Ne who this part will be done next week. Like I said before the board and proc get here today... I sure hope my abit has a pci/agp lock on it. From what i have heard they are great as long as they have that. Well i guess we will see.

As for window tint I tried the spray tint that i was waiting for. i guess it isnt the same as i remembered... but then again i used to have an airbrush and this was just spray can. I bet it would look pimp with an air-brush.

I am going to try and reorganize the white ccfls tonite when i put the board in so that i can get better light distribution as was suggested by some (particularly j). Also i do not think I am going to be painting this bad boy at least not yet. but if i do you can bet that it will be a blue/red/black paintjob with some silver accents... to mirror the color scheme of... who else but el primo. I really wish i were good at painting cause it would look tough. I might just bite the bullet and have it proffesionaly painted. Also last night I noticed that when i have the custom made fan grill installed the front 120 makes this loud whining noise. I would bet money on the fact that it is because the grill is right up against the fan and that is creating turbulance. So i am going to get some washers and maybe stack 2 under each screw between the fan grill and the fan so that the turbulance is at least decreased.

Stay tuned we are getting close.
 
Alright prime, I can finally see the pics. I'm at home now... Excellent work on everything. I can't wait to see it this weekend. Now if it only we could have your computer drive us around to the parties this weekend.
 
maybe we can.... mua ha ha ha ha ha... computer designated driver... lol

Welli am posting this from the new rig... A64 and everything. The good news is the lcd screen was fine all it needed was a driver running behind it.

So everything seems alright running at stock speeds. I got a rev 1.1 so supposedly this thing has a pci/agp lock but i guess i will find out this weekend as i started clocking the crap out of it. On a side note this board acted all wierd at first when i got it. It kept acting possesed and stuff. but now it seems to be cool. Not quite sure if i will be keeping it or returning it for the msi. I think i am going to push it a little and break it in first before i make that decision.

Sad thing is one of my ccfl randomly died tonite while i was working on it. Really I have no idea how it happened. I will have to contact frozen cpu about it. It looks like the bulk of the work on this thing is done. However I will be continuing this project into next week. I want to cut the front lower door so that I can get some more airflow up there. I would still like to airscoop the vid card. And I need to do some serious overclocking and some design work in lcdc so the lcd screen does neet things that match with my mod. And i need to wait for some more sleaving to come in so i can sleeve some random wires that are hear and there, that stupid vantec kit had just under the amount that i needed.

Well I wish i had some pix for tou but my camera batteries died. I will get some more tomorow and get some pix up for all to see.I am also going to be taking pix for that magazine article... so then that preassure will be over and i get get the real nit picky stuff done. Expect this to go until next week or so with updates about every other day. There is still going to be some neat stuff comming so stick around.

OH AND BTW... DO NOT BUY A 90NM 939 PIN CHIP RIGHT NOW. The only reason that I was able to get this working is i had a friend that worx at a pc shop, and they had a 130nm chip sitting around that i could use for a second so i could flash my bios. My recomendation is to wait at least 2 more weeks to let the motherboard situation chill out a bit. ;)
 
Get some batteries and get those pics posted darnit. :p

Yeah, I remember the same thign happening quite a while ago when a certain s462 processor came out, a LOT of ppl i knew had no luck until there was an available BIOS update for their boards. Oh, and I remember the exact same thing happening when the Sempron's came out, a lot of entry level/midrange Asus boards I was doing builds with needed a new BIOS.
 
alright folks it has been a busy weekend. I was lucky enough to have both nforce-3 and k8t800pro chipset motherboards in front of me for testing this whole last weekend. All i have to say is the nforce3 is far superior for overclocking purposes.

So i am now running the 3000+ at 2.4GHZ... so that is a 600mhz overclock from stock. I am quite happy with that and I think this is where I will stop. I don't need to break any speed barriers or speed records. But this is good i think. So i basically got an fx for about 200 bux. which works great imho. So I will post some benchies and whatnot later tonite along with some pix of the case 90% finished. I have to take pictures for the chinese modding magazine that wants to publish this case in their mag. And then i am going to tear it apart and do some more work on it.

There are just some nit picky things that i need to do like sound dampening some more lighting and things like that. I have to put the airscoop thing on hold for now but that is one of the things i get to later.

Check back for some updated picuters tonite.
 
I just remembered, Termalright has a HSF with a built-in scoop, would that work for you? I seem to remember the scoop was even blue, which matches with your set up.
 
OptPrime said:
So i am now running the 3000+ at 2.4GHZ... so that is a 600mhz overclock from stock. I am quite happy with that and I think this is where I will stop. I don't need to break any speed barriers or speed records. But this is good i think. So i basically got an fx for about 200 bux. which works great imho.
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You're 2.4GHz isn't anywhere near the performance level of an FX, but the clock is the same. Most of us know already though, that clocks can be deceiving. ;)
 
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