Quick drive stealth mod for my X-Qpack

[Nivram]

Hey all, got a blue Aspire X-Qpack case a while back, when Xoxide had 'em for cheap on their sunday X-hour sale, and had built myself a computer that I think I'm going to use for an HTPC in my bedroom.

I liked the case a lot, and didn't have any troubles with it, but didn't care for the way the drives looked thru the windows. Let's face it, you got a good looking case with that many windows, the last thing you really want to see is the drive labels showing thru those windows, ya know?

So I did some looking around, and finally found a website called DecalGirl where I was able to find decently priced "carbon fiber" look vinyl. For a 15" wide x 24" long sheet, it was $12.53 shipped ($8.98 + $4.45 shipping), which sounds a little high, but is low compared to some other places I found online. This is peel and stick vinyl, and very easy to work with.

So what I wanted to do was to cover the labels up on the drives, without sticking the vinyl to the labels (so if I ever want to change out the drives, I'm not having to mess around with peeling the labels off with the vinyl. I cut the vinyl big enough to wrap around the sides of the drives, then measured and cut the backing sheet so the part that wraps to the sides will be sticky, but not the part covering the top of the drive (does that make sense?? LOL ). I did the dvd burner and the hard drive for now, but like the look enough that I might do more of the case inside. Check it out:



I also did some simple wrap around spiral wire wrap on some of the wiring, and know that I need to finish up that aspect, plus replace the molex plugs with black ones.

So what do ya think?

 

[SN4p]

i have been considering using that same stuff for some mods recently

im assuming you didnt cover the little vent thing on the HDD right?

otherwise it looks awesome and im gonna havta pick some up

 

[Asian Dub Foundation]

nice job my man

 

[Lsv]

you use that spiral stuff too? it rocks

 

[Nivram]

im assuming you didnt cover the little vent thing on the HDD right?

Little vent thing? Sorry, but you've got me for a loss.....no idea what you're talking about.

The sides of the hard drive are covered, but not the top (where the label is). The pic doesn't show it, but I've got a hdd cooler on the bottom of the hdd, with an 80mm fan blowing across the bottom of the drive. With the questionable cooling capabilities that some people reported for this case, I didn't want to burn up a 160gb drive, ya know?

Yeah, I love that spiral wrap. Granted, it doesn't look quite as neat as some cable wraps, but it's a LOT easier to put on, and you don't have to mess around with removing the molex connectors (etc) if you don't want to. I usually buy it in bulk from Best Byte, where you get a good discount if you're buying it in 100foot lengths. And let me tell ya, 100' of that wrap goes a looooooong way!!