Project - Dichotomy (Finished)

This is a mod build I did nearly 2 years ago, it was only on modbrothers, but as that's now gone down I'm going to try to rebuild it here.
Yes the case is finished, it came out great and is still working well.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...otomy/logo.jpg

Following on from my original design work (I'll post it if I can recover it)
Yes I've finally come up with a name for it. :) The division of two opposites that form a whole, I think it's an ideal name for a black and white colour scheme build.

I was asked to build a pc by a lady at work, max budget £350, complete system.

Yes yet again I'm working to a very tight budget :? one of these days someone with a load of money will ask me to put a pc together, that or I'll win the lottery.

Well I could of just bought some cheap case to put it in, but where's the fun in that? This is a good excuse to practise my modding and she'll get a one of a kind case.
I've been bargain hunting and trolling 2nd hand sources for components, all the hard ware has cost about £290, leaveing me with £60 for the case, again could get a decent case for that, but again that's no fun.

Now to help shave off the costs (this was before I managed to get all the hardware) I picked up a couple of old chieftech mini-tower cases from work for nothing (I diverted them from their journey to the skip)

They are great little case, and I mean little, smaller than most mATX cases and very solid construction, I've happily stood on these cases before with out doing any damage to them.

Here it is, a lovely beige canvas (sorry these where taken with my phone, so not the best of photos)
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...tech_start.jpg

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...ch_start02.jpg

That's a 30cm/12inch ruler and a 140mm wire mesh filter on the top, gives you an idea of the size.

I've been working on this case on and off for a couple of weeks so there's a load more to come, however right now it's late and I need to go to sleep.

So here's the plan:
Throw away the front bezel, it's badly yellowed and rather ugly, build a whole new front bezel, I want something simple and elegant.
Cut holes for new fans, 120mm front & 92mm rear (couldn't fit a 120mm in the rear slightly too narrow)
Convert the single piece U shaped side&top panel into 3 separate panels.
New hard drive mounting.
Add air filters
Cut additional cable management holes
Repaint, colour scheme is glossy white with black accents.
Colour match keyboard, mouse, speakers and monitor
Stay within budget!
Don't make a total pigs ear of it!

More to come soon.

Well work is progressing and I've uploaded the photos so here goes.

Two Fridays back I dropped off the old case at my parents house and arranged to visit them on Tuesday so I could spend the day in my fathers workshop.
As the only space I have for modding back at my flat is the balcony and there's just not enough room there to cut up a big sheet of MDF, also I don't have a jig saw, just my slowly failing "Workshop" brand rotary tool. (the speed control is going so it's very hard to get it to stay at any speed other than it's slowest)
My father does have a couple of good jigsaws and a nice big shed/workshop to work in.

I was planning to use the jigsaw to cut up the U panel into separate top, left side and right side panels, and cut up a sheet of MDF to make the replacement front bezel.

Here is the workshop
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...c/workshop.jpg
As you can see when I went round on Tuesday I discovered, he'd been busy over the weekend but still found time to cut up the panel, he knew I wanted to do that myself :rolleyes:
Oh well, as his skills with a jig saw are far better than mine I'm not going to complain too much. ;)

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4.../panel_cut.jpg
Nicely done right along the edge.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...y/psu_hole.jpg
He also cut the air vent in the top for the PSU (the PSU in there is one of the Chieftec shorter than normal ATX psu's that are made for this case, I'm going to be putting a Corsair CX400w in there) my own fault for leaving the filter that's going over that with him. (you can see where my modding and tinkering comes from ;) )

So we popped round to Wicks to pick up a sheet of MDF
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4.../mdf_start.jpg
About (well the metric equivalent) 8 foot by 4 Foot by 12mm thick, I'm going to cut a bit off the end, then cut out two sections and sandwich them together to make a 24mm thick bezel, this will have another 5mm of acrylic on the front of that.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...my/mdf_cut.jpg
Not exactly straight :embarrassed:

This section is going to be front of the bezel, so I carefully marked it up for the chunks that will need to be cut out
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...mdf_layout.jpg
In this photo the section to the left will be for the 140mm filter and the section to the right will be for the 5.25" bays (one DVDrw, one Akasa All-in-one), already drilled holes for the jig saw.

In the middle between the two holes I'm going to put the power button, however money is tight so I couldn't afford the nice vandal switch I had in mind, so I ended up with a chunky plastic button from maplin
http://images.maplin.co.uk/full/34858i0.jpg
This but all in black, round button square frame.

Now the thread on this is not long enough to fit over the full 12mm thickness so,
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...f_frostner.jpg
Started off by drilling a pilot hole, then used a 25mm frostner bit on the back, cut down about 5mm, and finally went all the way through from the front with a 15mm frostner bit, one switch hole done.

Now it was time to attack it with the jig saw.
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...igsaw_blur.jpg
Sorry not a very good photo here, I didn't realise it was this bad until later and I was too busy cutting up mdf to remember to take more photos. :embarrassed:
Actually that's one thing about modding, you need two hands for the power tool and a third for a camera, need to mod a hat so I can attach a camera to it. ;)

For the 2nd section I just cut out the whole middle section.

Much wobbly cutting later, my jig saw skills leave much to be desired, I keep drifting to the right.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...mdf_cutout.jpg
You can also see I had a bit of trouble with the curves at the corners of the filter hole.

Two parts to sandwich together to make a bezel, which is of course the next stage.

Oh bum
I've been pulling this from the google cache, but they've not got a cache of page 3, pages 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6 but not page 3 :(

I can go back through all the photos to find out which ones go in there but I doubt I'll be able to recreate the posts. :(

Update: Turning two into one.

The next stage of the front bezel is turning the two seperate halves into one solid piece, using 6 wood screws and glue.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...f_ataching.jpg
I couldn't find the G-clamps at the time so I just held them together with masking tape, not ideal.
I started off with my largest drill bit (8mm) to basically counter sink the screw heads so they will be flush, yes I know I should counter sink after drilling the hole, however it's far easier to start off the hole with the large bit as it don't wonder as much as you try to start the hole and I couldn't find my punch to make a guide point.
That's what I hate about tidying up, I can never find things afterwards. :rolleyes:

When I started drilling the holes while the tape was enough at first to hold the two halves together and stay lined up, however after the 2nd hole I noticed a gap forming between the two, stretching the tape and giving it slack which would allow them to shift.
So I took it apart to see what the issue was.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...whole_back.jpg
As you can see the mdf is burring up as I go into the 2nd section, causing it to push away.


http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...ountersunk.jpg
This is simply fixed with my large drill dit, counter sinking the holes I've drilled and doing the same where the other screw hole will go.

I had another look for the G-clamps, couldn't find them :( but did find a mini-vice which I used as a clamp to hole the two halves together while I drilled the rest of the holes.


http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...df_guleing.jpg
That done I applied some pva glue and screwed them together.

I left it over night to dry before I start sanding it smooth and fully level.

Update: Sand and smoothing.

I started off with a sanding block and some emery cloth, Number 2, no idea what exact grit that is, I'd guess about 50grit

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...st_sanding.jpg
One of my cuts was very wobbly and it took a lot of elbow grease, time and dust (remember to always ware a mask MDF dust is very nasty for your lungs) to get it close to flush.
I also sanded the inside of the holes to dewibble them.

I then moved onto emery cloth Number 1 (guess about 100grit) and then number 1/3 (guess about 280grit) to smooth the surface.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...sand_black.jpg
Hard to tell by eye how level it was esp at the joint, so I painted the edges with black artist acrylic.

No I'm not mad there's a reason for this.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...sand_white.jpg
I left it over night then painted it again with white artist acrylic, that's a small rough strip of 400 grit wet&dry ontop and a clue as to the reason for painting it.


http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...and_white2.jpg
After some more sanding with the emery cloth number1/3 and wet&dry 400grit I can see that it's not quite as level as I thought it was.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...and_white3.jpg
And this was the the stright side, however it had some machine marks in it, I've filled these with a mix of MDF dust and white acrylic, this is the sanding after I'd filled them.

I'm still not 100% happy with the results so far, especially the side from my wibbly cut, but I have another cunning plan. ;)


Cunning plan B

I had to go into work to do some overtime, so while I was there I borrowed this.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...my/plane01.jpg

A good old plane :mrgreen: the plane must be one of my most favourite hand tools, no use on metal but there's nothing quite like it for getting a smooth, even and flat edge on a bit of wood.

So I applied Old Faithful to the side of my bezel, oh and when I say Old Faithful I mean it.
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...my/plane02.jpg

:mrgreen:

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...df_plane01.jpg
The straight side came out like this, I'd done a decent job with the sanding although it looks like I went a bit heavy on the edges and didn't quite keep the sanding block flat.
That black thing is my foot, probably not the safest way to hold the bezel in place while I plane it, I really need a workbench.
Oh you can also spot some G-clamps, I found them :) however they are too small and I couldn't secure the mfd bezel to anything with them, which is why I resorted to my foot.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...df_plane02.jpg
Next the wibbly side, as you can see that was a heck of a lot worse, again it looks like I've over sanded at the corners slightly.

While it does look like it could use a bit more, the plane is shaving off from the whole length, you have to keep the plane cut very shallow on MDF as there's no grain to it.
Main thing is that it's now level, I gave it another quick sand with 400grit to smooth it off and once it's painted there should be no sign of the join.

Update: Mouse This does actually go back a good month or so

Part of the plan for this build is to colour coordinate the whole pc, so everything must be black&white, I've already sourced a lovely black & white saitek keyboard
note: these images are from amazon, I'll be taking some of my own later.
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51WbbonTF2L.jpg
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51AinUbBQjL.jpg

However duering my hunt for a mouse I came across a Kensington Graphite Studio Mouse
http://ii.alatest.com/product/600x40...57b7d68064.jpg
image off google, because in my enthusiasm to mod this mouse stayed in one part for only 10min, just long enough to test it to make sure it worked and I cannot link a Kensington product page because there doesn't seem to be one. :( manufactures not keeping legacy products on their web sites really :censored: me off

This mouse caught my eye for the following reasons:
The clear acrylic over the palm rest, which would match the front bezel I'm making.
The lack of wheel, the mouse uses a touch pad instead of a wheel, never seen that before.

My Plan for this mouse it to give it a black & white faded paint job, like I did for the mouse on project Spork

Sorry no photo's of striping the mouse down as I was in the grip of modding fever. :Oops: I'll try and describe it.
The feet on this mouse are clear, so there was no hunting around for the screws that hold it together, removing them allows the bottom of the mouse to come away, although the top half is still connected to it by a ribbon cable.
The top half (which includes the sides) is a single solid unit, the grey sides are rubberised, so they will have to stay grey for now.
Next the two separate mouse buttons have to be removed, they are clipped in to the top.
Then the clear acrylic top can be removed, this is held in by 4 clips, which you have to pinch together, it was very fiddly as they are small and kept poping back into place when undid another clip.
I managed in the end by using tweezers to unclip one side, then insert wooden cocktail sticks to keep it from popping back in when I undid the other side. ;)
With the top off I found I couldn't remove the track-pad wheel as it seems to be stuck down and I didn't want to risk damaging it, so I just masked it off along with the rubberised sides.
I then sanded off the sliver paint with 400 grit wet&dry.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...use_masked.jpg
Here it is masked up, sanded down and ready for painting, well almost ready, I did go it and smoothed out the scratches with 800 grit.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...ouse_black.jpg
I then sprayed it black with artist acrylic and my trusty air brush, paint is still wet & camera flash is why it looks shiney.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...basecolour.jpg
Once dry and the camera really cannot cope well with a true matte black. (not a satin matte)

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...se_white01.jpg
Next a white fade, again artist acrylic.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...se_white02.jpg
And as you might of spotted I got my thumb on it when I was moving it out of the way to dry, but also a couple of lumps of something messing it up as well. :roll:

Back to sqaure one we go, I'll have to respray it.

Additional: Speakers
I also picked up a pair of Storm speakers from Diamond audio off ebay for 99p, again modding fever took hold and I forgot to get photos before I started taking them apart. :Oops:
http://static.letsbuyit.com/filer/im...-16842468.jpeg
Another google image search, the one's I got have a black body and silver plastic around the speaker grill

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...ers_sanded.jpg
Sanded down and ready to paint.

There's a slight issue with these speakers, they originally came from some pre built system and they don't have a separate power supply, what they have is a plug which is designed to go into the back of a PSU, that has a separate 12v dc feed on the back.
My first plan was to get a socket and attach it to the back of the case and put a molex connector on the back so the socket could be powered off the PSU, however after speaking with my dad about this he's told me it may not work as all the pc components will be creating noise of the 12v line which could well be feed into the speakers. :(
He's taken apart one of the types of the psu with a separate 12v feed out of the back and apparently and they use a separate filtered feed.
It's a bit annoying because I did test them with a psu on it's own, I took the pins out of a molex and taped them to the speaker power plug, plugged in my Sansor Clip mp3 layer and just jumped started the psu, they worked fine and are very nice speakers, just hadn't thought about all the other pc hard ware causing issues.

Well all is not lost, I will still wire up a socket to a molex to test it and if it is getting noise from the pc components I'll just cut off the plug and rewire it to a separate 12v supply.

Update: fan & cable holes

The 80mm rear fan is going to replaced with a 92mm fan, as I couldn't fit a 120mm in there, only just 116mm between the IO shield and the the folded lip of the back panel, so even if I cut a chunk out of the lip I'd still be 2mm short. :(
Front 120mm fan going to be added.
Additional holes to run cables, esp important as I'm using a normal ATX psu not the chieftec reduced length psu.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...ront_fan01.jpg
I've marked out the front fan, there's a snap out 3.5" hole that doesn't line up to anything on the bezel, I can only assume it's for a different bezel however it makes a handy base line for the fan position.
I'm using a slightly modified version of my standard Octagonal fan hole, to match the hole in the front bezel.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...ront_fan02.jpg
Choppy choppy!
Must say I find it much easier to cut straight lines than curves or circles (a :censored: to get neat and fully circular even marked out) so an Octagonal fan hole is much simpler to cut and look very neat.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...ront_fan03.jpg
East end mice are tough, they can chew octagonal holes in steel :innocent:

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...ront_fan04.jpg
After application of sanding drum, then a needle file (only files I have atm) and finally number 1/3 emery cloth (about 280grit)

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...rear_fan01.jpg
Rear fan hole same principle.
This was my final straw for my old "workshop" brand rotary tool, took me ages to cut these holes as the speed control on my rotary tool has got so flaky I was constantly having to readjust it to try to get it back to high speed and stay there long enough to cut.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...rear_fan02.jpg
Those east end mice are back!

Next some cable routing holes

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...ble_hole01.jpg
1st hole for the esp/4pin power cable thingy.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...ble_hole02.jpg
Plan for the 2nd set, these will allow the cables from the PSU to come out fromt the side and down behind the motherboard tray more easily.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...ble_hole03.jpg
More Choppy choppy!

Sanding drum, filing, hand sanding, you know it by now. ;)

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4..._fan_check.jpg
A quick test fit of the front bezel to check the fan hole is correctly lined up.

Update time

Ok to start with an admission, I've not been posting these exactly chronological order, mainly because I cannot remember which bit I did when :Oops: so I'm just going to keep going.

Just for Mr Bill Owen, today's update is brought to you by (yes this was the build log where I embraced starting each update with photo's of food and also in part to make Bill drool. ;) )
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...supplies05.jpg
Pink iced doughnuts and instant espresso. :mrgreen:
This is the best of the instant espresso's I've tried, but it's still nothing like espresso, however treat it like normal instant coffee and it is very good for an instant.
Percol was also one of the first companies (and AFAIK was the first in the UK) to only sell fairtrade products and was one of the founders of the current fairtrade mark and system.

Akasa all-in-one

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...llinone_01.jpg
This is going to be in the 2nd 5.25" bay I managed to get it cheap because it's red and not such a popular colour.
It is a lovely cherry red, such a shame cherry red will not fit this build so I'm going to sand it and repaint it black.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...llinone_02.jpg
The top is held on by 4 clips, once they are removed it exposes the circuit boards, held in place by screws and threaded spacers (like motherboard spacers just longer)

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...llinone_03.jpg
All the important bits out and put away safely, the door is just clipped in.
It's such a nice colour that I've still not sanded it as I'm still debating keeping some of it red.
I'm thinking of leaving the buttons and main connector area red, which will also mean I don't have to try to relabel it ;)

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...nel_sand01.jpg
Sand and prep the side panels, it took me a while to sand these down, I used my number 1, number 1/3 emery cloth then 400 grit wet&dry

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...nel_sand02.jpg
You can see the wet&dry is now white, the powder coat was quite thick and the surface none too smooth, took a while to sand these.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...nel_sand03.jpg
But it is smooth now ;)

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...nel_sand04.jpg
A bit of over sanding on the vent but that's ok.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...nel_sand05.jpg
That's just the dust left from one panel, enough to write my name in.

Well this log is getting closer to catching up to where I actually am in the work.

And that was the end of page2 . . . going to take me a bit to go through all my photo's and work out what was on page 3

I've made copies of all the google cache pages in case they go missing so re-doing the posts from pages 4,5 and 6 will not be an issue

Also Cannot find a cache of my original design thread, but I've got the images some place, I'll try to make a post out of them too.

Any pics of the finished product?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by dulcificum

Any pics of the finished product?

---

It's coming, don't worry, Pob will take us through the entire journey, seeing the end result without knowing what went into making it wouldn't do the work any justice, be patient, I'm sure this is another spectacular build.

Ah I never saw this log! Do update us Pob, really eager to see how it's going!

:surrender: Ok ok I'm sorry, I'll try to sort it out tonight.

Here's a teaser for you I found the sketchup images, This was the first mod I worked out some ideas in sketchup first before starting it
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...p_outter01.jpg

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...p_outter02.jpg

I've made some test posts, they will be changing but you can see them now if you're quick ;)

found some more sketchup files
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...chup_frame.jpg
I made a sketchup model of the internal frame to scale

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...up_frame01.jpg
I stuck a PSU and optical drive in to show how small this thing is, these cases originally come with ATX PS/3 psu's they are the same height and width as ATX but only 100mm long not the ATX 140mm long
This is a form factor that's gone out of favour now
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...up_frame02.jpg
Here it is with matx motherboard, the normal 3.5" bay (2 external + 2 internal) slots on below the 5.25" bay this means the bay overhands the ram slots and come down as low as the bottom of the middle hole in the motherboard tray area.
This is what allowed Chieftech to make these cases so short front to back, but they are a bit of a pig to work in as you have to remove the 3.5" cage if you need to get to the ram slots or the 24/20pin power connector and depending on the cpu slot location removing the cage can require you to remove the cpu cooler first.
I decided to ditch the cage as it's too much hassle, also this let me plot out how thick the bezel would need to be to give that bit extra space for ATX PSU and optical drive.

Recreated post, might be missing some pictures and the order in which I did these might not be correct

The first thing I did once the bezel was done and the panels sanded was to do a test fit to see it it all would go together, so just stuck it together with masking tape to see.
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...est_fit_01.jpg
The panel joins are covered with a couple of lengths of L section aluminium, I had a couple of lengths left over from Project Spork it's something like £2 for a 6meter length at a local metal wholeseller.
Next was trying to figure out how to attach the new MDF bezel

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...fitting_01.jpg
The frame is held together with rivets, which stick out so the bezel didn't sit flat, so I smeared some black acrylic paint on the rivet head and carefully aligned the bezel on the front

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...fitting_02.jpg
The paint left marks on the bezel showing where I need to remove some material

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...fitting_03.jpg
I used my newly acquired router rotary tool attachment to carve out some shallow hole, I got it from ether ebay or amazon I cannot remember which, it's not a dremel but they do do one 565 Multipurpose Cutting Guide Attachment http://www.dremel.com/en-us/tools/pa...l.aspx?pid=565 mine is a cheap silverline version http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B002QS0J28
I'd not want to try it on steel but it works great on mdf and pretty well on acrylic (if I ever do any hand cutting of an acrylic fan grill type thing this is what I'd use)

No photo of the final result, it's just a few 2mm deep holes in the frame or the bezel, I did repeat the rivet head paint trick to make sure none where in the way.


http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...fitting_04.jpg
How do I fit the bezel? simple screws. well not so simple, notice the thread is not smooth but toothed, this is a self tapping type screw esp for softer material like MDF, you drill a hole slightly smaller than the shaft, the idea is the toothed thread cuts a path while the shaft forces out the soft mdf around it compacting it, it's supposed to give a more secure hold in soft material.
The way I've designed this you don't need to take the bezel off so this is the easiest and most secure way to attach it.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...fitting_05.jpg
Luckly there's a nice set of holes already there that I can use for the screws, so I just need to drill into the mdf to make a hole for the screw, I wrapped masking tape around the drill bit to act as a depth guide so I didn't drill too deep.
When you only want to drill part way into a soft material like MDF is when a simple hand drill really pays off for the level of control you have with it.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...fitting_06.jpg
Remember what I just said about there already being holes? well there wasn't on in the bottom right and the motherboard tray is in the way so I cannot get the drill in there to make a new hole.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...fitting_07.jpg
My solution use my rotary tool to cut out a section of the lip

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...fitting_08.jpg
Now I can drill a hole

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...fitting_09.jpg
And in goes the final screw

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...fitting_10.jpg
One bezel secure and flush fitted.

Recreated post, might be missing some pictures and the order in which I did these might not be correct

Next step was to create a new rear for the top panel, as when it was a single peace cover the rear screws where just on the side not the top
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...anel_tap01.jpg
First clamp the top panel in place, mark and drill the holes in the rear lip of the top panel, I over drilled to create marks on the frame underneath to act as guides.
I didn't drill all the way through because the panel needs slightly larger holes and the frame smaller holes.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...anel_tap02.jpg
The different sized hole was so I could use my thread tap on the frame, so the case screws will screw into the frame not the panel.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...anel_tap03.jpg
All screwed down and edging strips carefully balanced to check all was correct and flush.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...est_fit_02.jpg
Now another test fit, this time with a spare optical drive and we have a problem, it's not sitting correctly.

It was ether down to my wonky jigsaw work or a slight miss calculation when marking out the bezel but it's now sitting slightly higher than it should be, which means the 5.25" bay is not correctly lining up with the 5.25" hole in the bezel, so I need to adjust it.

First I figured out how far off I was
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4..._adjust_01.jpg
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4..._adjust_02.jpg
As you can see the bottom of the bezel hole is a good 2mm too high on the right and 4mm too high on the left.
It looks like it was both the raised bezel and a wonky cut.

So I then figured out where the bottom line should be
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4..._adjust_03.jpg

Next I came up with an idea on how to get round this that I'm still fairly proud of, I'm going to use my new rotary attachment as a router to clean up the hole, first I calculated the width of the bit to the edge of the attachment, then clamp a strip of L section at the correct height to act as a guide
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4..._adjust_05.jpg

I roughly carved out the majority of the material
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4..._adjust_06.jpg

Then gaining confidence that my idea was working I carried on eating out material
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4..._adjust_07.jpg
Basically what I was planning on is that the guide stops the attachment so I cannot eat out too much and once I'd roughly eaten out the majority I just ran the attachment edge along the guide and it left me with a straight clean edge.
And I'm happy to report it worked like a charm, unfortunately the bit couldn't reach down all the way, but that was ok as the inside doesn't have to be a neat edge, so I just flipped it over and carved out the rest by hand (ie without a guide)

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...est_fit_03.jpg
Another test fit with both the optical drive and akasa multibay bezel and it all fits in the new hole, ok there's a bit of a gap at the top and it's not as straight as I'd like but I've got a solution for that. ;)

Final test fit, with fan grills and power button as well, looks good.
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...est_fit_04.jpg

Test post 3

Nearly done now, I am missing the attachment of the L section edging strips, but I forgot to get photos when I originally did this, so I cannot remember exactly where it went.
I drilled some holes, my plan is for the strips to be riveted onto the side panels and screwed down onto the top panel.

On to hard drive mounting, as I've ditched the original annoying 3.5" cage and I'm only planning to put a single hard drive in here
First I cut a couple of rails from a bit of the scrap MDF from the bezel.
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...ve_mount01.jpg
I'm pretty sure I originally ended a post with this image as a teaser, or it was a separate post just titled Hard drive mounting and this image just to be evil :devilish:

These strips will be used with this single hard drive tray (I got it off someone on this forum, sorry I cannot remember who :( I don't know what case it came out of, but it's got some thick rubber anti-vibration grommets but it was missing 2 screws)
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...ve_mount02.jpg

First I cut off the two hexagonal stand-offs from the bottom and bent the tab flat
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...ve_mount03.jpg

Then just screw the two strips to the bottom.
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...ve_mount04.jpg

Next was the screw issue, my original idea is to hard mount this in on the floor of the case, so it needs to be lifted up so you can get to the screws on the side facing the opening hence the MDF strips to raise it up.
The screws on the far side would be impracticable anyway as you'd not be able to get to them, my idea was to get some threaded rod or long bolts and cut the head off, this way you could slot it into the far side grommets then screw it in from the open side.
I wanted a 2nd opinion, so I had a talk with my father, after explaining my idea and asking if he had any threaded rod or long bolts in the correct imperial size (3.5" hard drives use standard case screws which are imperial not metric) He said no but he had a better idea, so off down to the shed/workshop we went (see 2nd post)
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...ve_mount05.jpg
This is what we ended up with, the two original grommet screws and two custom screws, the custom screws where made by taking a couple of flat headed case screws carefully drilling a small hole down the middle of the head and into the shaft, insert a bit of thick copper wire, bend it over to form a loop, finally with flux, solder and a mini blow torch solder the wire in place like you would when soldering pipes.

Fitting you just screw them in by hand, they don't need to be super tight, they cannot unscrew once the drive is fitted because of the slight pressure from the grommets.
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...ve_mount06.jpg

One old dead hard drive fitted to test, I gave this a god shaking to make sure it would hold and it did.
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...ve_mount07.jpg

I then figured out where it would sit, making sure it would be clear of the fan and not get in the way of fitting the motherboard.
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...ve_mount08.jpg

Flip the frame over so I can mark on the bottom the final location.
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...ve_mount09.jpg

So I could drill some holes for the screws that will hold it in place.
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...ve_mount10.jpg

While we're down here these are the feet I'm going to be using, Plastic with a foam rubber pad, they originally came off amplifiers from work where they are hung under desks so I had to remove the feet to fit them, which means I've had a big stack of amplifier feet I had liberated from work.
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...otomy/feet.jpg

With the missing posts now redone, I should be able to rebuild the remaining updates fairly quickly and you'll be able to see the finished build soon™

:)

Yay! just a quick skim through this, going to come back to reading it a little later to have a good decent read :)

(contrary to my other post, here was where I sorted out the edge strips)
I sorted out the top edge strips.
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...dge_strips.jpg
3 holes along the top and panel, which I then tapped
4 slightly larger holes along each side and panel, for rivets (I've used m3 bolts and nuts to hold it together for a test fit)
I've also tapped the holes for the top panel psu filter.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...t_cap_bolt.jpg
I got some nice 6mm m3 socket cap bolts to use on this case.

And that's it for construction all that's left is sanding & painting :)

I got some 80grit emery cloth, which I used to roughly sand down the case frame.
I then moved on to the all-in-one, being plastic the 80grit ould just rip the surface up too much, so I just used 400grit wet&dry followed by 800grit

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...llinone_04.jpg
As you can see I masked off the connection area and buttons, they are going to stay cherry red.

I'd just like to give a warning when sanding cherry red paint.
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...llinone_05.jpg
It turns EVERYTHING pink, not just the wet&dry, as you can see, but also both my hands and one leg of my jeans had pink stains on them, I do hope it'll wash out of my jeans ok, as even after washing I still had slight pink stains on my hands.
update it did wash out of my jeans ok, but it took two days for my hands to lose their pink tinge

Update: Painting
To start with I sanded the frame work and any thing else that was unsanded with 400grit, next I wiped everything down with an unused dish cloth (they are great for this sort of thing) and finally I wiped it all down with a tac cloth (Mmm smelly, sticky and strangely tactile)

I didn't take any photos before I started on them with the primer but I sure you've seen sanded metal before ;)

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...omy/primer.jpg
I've used Simonz brand white primer.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...y/primer04.jpg
Frame work, note my advanced (cardboard and lawn chair) spray booth

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...y/primer05.jpg
flip it over and spray the areas I didn't reach last time, once it had dried of course, otherwise I'd have the case attached to my spray booth.

I used a slightly different method on the plastic parts (the all-in-one and speaker bits)

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...y/primer02.jpg
I wiped with the tac cloth, then went over them again with Isopropanol to get them really clean.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...y/primer03.jpg
A light primer spray later and I also included my old M3 mask in the photo, yes it's a disposable mask and the elastic has lost a lot of its stretch.
I probably should dispose of it but it's still doing a great job, as I never used it much when I first got it (about 10 years back) and it's been sat in a cupboard since.
And I can tell it's working as I really cannot smell the paint fumes while wearing it, at first I though that the Simonz brand paint was using some new low solvent mix, until I took the mask off.
It really is a big step up from those basic disposable dust masks, if you do a lot of spray painting then a good mask with replaceable filters is worth it, you can pick up this M3 one for about £19 on ebay but you can get other makes for around £5

Every thing was then left over night to dry before I started on the colour coats.

Hope you can keep up, as I said before I can just copy and paste now with a small bit of editing.

Update: first paint coats

I started off by spraying the panels and front bezel with white gloss

Sorry no photos of the spraying so instead . . .

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...supplies06.jpg
Yes, today's update is brought to you by liquorice, damn but this stuff is like crack to me, luckily wearing the filter mask slows down the speed at which I can eat it.
and yes, to those who where involved in the pod cast this is what I was eating before we started ;)
that last was the modbrothers modding podcast which I was lucky enough to be invited on as a guest, it's gone now, I've still got most of the episodes saved, I hope I've still got the one I was on, it's really weird to listen to a podcast you where a guest on

I got about 3 coats out of one can before realising I had more than just the panels to spray white :oops:

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...te_paint02.jpg
Carefully laid out on the floor to dry

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...te_paint01.jpg
Pretty good finish.

While they where drying I got out my air brush and matte black artist acrylic paint to do the frame.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...ir_brush01.jpg
Trying to paint large areas with an air brush is a pain, why I got my self a hvlp spray gun however my compressor just cannot provide the pressure required for the spray gun :(
The only way to paint a case with an airbrush is to work it in small sections rather than trying to cover everything in one coat.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...ir_brush02.jpg
Some time later, don't ask me how many coats, artist acrylic doesn't work that way, it dries to fast when sprayed, by the time I've finished one section it's already touch dry at the start of the section.
The key I've found to using artist acrylic in an airbrush is to thin down the paint with water to the consistency of single cream, it then sprays very well and evenly although you do need to go over it 3 or 4 times to get solid colour.
I guess this is roughly after 6 coats but could be more in some areas.

Artist acrylic is not very robust esp when airbrushed because the coats are still very thin so this will need clear lacquer over it to fully seal it and as I needed to get some more with paint I thought I might as well get some black too to help seal it especially at the back and it would be better for the all-in-one and edge strips.

I wish you could have done my case mod for me!! :p

Stunning pob just stunning! had a good read through the posts from the start, looks like alot of planning went into this! i like what you have done with the mdf aswell, some really well thought out ideas put to good use on this mod! im looking forward to the next set of work logs :)

Update: painting goes on

The new paint came so I started on the frame

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...ck_paint01.jpg
Black satin matte, a light spray all over to help seal the air brushed paint in and 3 layers on the back where it will be exposed, also on the top rails.

Then I moved onto the all-in-one and rails

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...ck_paint02.jpg
1st coat

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...ck_paint03.jpg
2nd coat, oh and that random bit of metal that the front cover is hanging from is not part of this build, it's just a chunk of case that I cut off from a different project, it was there and made a handy thing to stand stuff on while painting.

Must say painting is a pain, well the drying time is anyway, it's really been slowing me up, the Simonz brand paint is touch dry in 2-3 hours but it's still soft and easy to damage if you're not careful.

So I have to leave everything to dry over night and there is nothing else I can do when I want to be working on this.
As I discovered when I realised I'd managed to put a big gouge in the paint on the front of the all-in-one, I had to carefully sand the spot and touch it up.

While the white looked smooth on the panels in my previous shots I was a bit unhappy with it, esp on the panels.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...y/wet_sand.jpg
So I wet sanded them with 1200grit wet&dry.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...wet_sand02.jpg
Much better, but now they've lost that gloss shine :( but that's ok as I'll be putting another layer or two on them.

I then pop riveted the edging strips onto the panels, don't ask me why I decided to do it at this point, I was just caught up in the moment of what I could do at that time.
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...s_attached.jpg
It was only as I took this photo did I suddenly realise that I still had to put another layer of white on them. :embarrassed: and of course I'll have to put on another layer of spray to cover the rivets.
leaving a day to dry between each.
I did try just painting them with the black artist acrylic, rivets on the one of the left have been painted, looked ok but the difference between, a true matte and a satin matte really shows when it's dry and it just chips too easily.

While I was muttering rude word under my breath I got out the artist acrylic and my nice paint brush.
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...t04_inside.jpg
Hand painted, two watered down thin layers on the inside of the panels, I doubt they will ever been seen after I hand this case over but I just couldn't bring myself to leave them grey.

However artist acrylic dries fast even when hand painted, not as fast as when it's airbrushed but still fast, after 30min it was dry. (no hydrocarbon solvents so no hardening time, just drying time)
So I taped up the black edge strips and put on the next layer of white onto the panels.
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...te_paint04.jpg
That will put the shine back to the surface but still be smooth as it's only one layer.
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...te_paint05.jpg
This is a panel taped up ready for painting, I've only just realised that I forgot to get a photo after painting. :embarrassed:

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...te_paint03.jpg
I also sprayed the hard drive cage and speaker bits, two coats each.

More worrying is that I'd not managed to get back in contact with SebTiger on the ebyer forums, he was going to CNC some 5mm acrylic for me to make the front.
I could get away without it but I'd not be happy with the result. :(

But to end on a more happy note, although this really should be in the next update I'm so happy with the result that I'm posting it now.
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...rs_painted.jpg
This is what the speakers look like. :D now I've just got to sort the power wiring out. :crazy: I dread wiring.

Update: getting close.

Well my initial deadline for this was the 1st of September, I'm not sure I'm going to make though because of these paint drying times and touch ups.
I swear fluff is attracted to wet paint, I wipe down a panel carefully make sure it's free of any fluff or dust, carefully stand it up ready for painting, double check it's clean, then spray on a thin layer.
Pick up the panel to move it inside to dry and I discover there's three or four bits of black fluff (all fluff looks black against fresh white paint) and they've got there in the time it's taken me to put the cap back on the can and pick the panel up. :mad:

I have got my acrylic front situation sorted out. :D
Now that the main frame is finished and dry I started putting the pc together, I went to attach the case feet and realised I had a problem, the holes for the original case feet are about 7mm in diameter so the m3 nuts and bolts I have are just too small, they are the correct size for the new feet but not the holes in the case from the original feet, so I needed some big chunky washers.
So while I was out getting some washers I made inquires about acrylic, thinking if I can get a sheet of 5mm clear acrylic I could try making a front for the bezel by hand.
However I've found a local place that not only sells acrylic but also does laser cutting :D it would be ready next day and they only charged me £20+vat.

So bolstered by this I went home to get on with the putting the case back together.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...omy/feet02.jpg
Here are the case feet and washers, I've added little sticky backed foam discs to both the washers and top of the feet, to both help hold them securely and add to some vibration absorption.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...omy/feet03.jpg
here they are fitted and at the same time I fitted the hard driver tray.

I also hand painted another layer of black on the insides on the panels
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...t05_inside.jpg
I've put the front of the All-in-one in the middle so you can see the difference between a true matte and a satin matte, although the camera flash makes the true matte look grey, it is actually black.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...ps_painted.jpg
I then taped up the panels to respray the black edging strip and cover those rivets.

I also did some sleeving and wiring
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...r_button01.jpg
This is a scythe 92mm fan that I'm going to use as the rear case fan, needs sleeving, and a spare power button lead I had, I'm going to both sleeve it and wire it up to the power button I'm using.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...r_button02.jpg
Power button attached and sleeved, sorry I though I had taken some in between shots but it turns out I didn't :embarrassed:
The wire is only half sleeved as the upper section will be hidden inside the mdf bezel and not that I cut the sleeving to the wrong length. :innocent:

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...rear_fan03.jpg
I've mounted the rear 92mm fan with some double ended rubber fan mounts, so I can also attach a chromed wire fan grill, these are not new rubber fan mounts but I have them spare and they are better than screws.
You can also just see that I've both braided the wires and sleeved them.

Next I clear lacquered the All-in-one.
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...llinone_06.jpg
This is the end result (I've touched up above and below the main connection area by hand with the matte black artist acrylic before clear lacquering) I'm really pleased with this.

I then put it back together, fitted both the all-in-one and the PSU into the case, because these are the two big sources of cables and began my cable management.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...e_manage01.jpg
It's going to be a real nightmare. :(
Note the 11 bladed NZXT 120mm fan in the front, this is held in by brown rubber fan mounts, I had got some black ones, however I didn't realise this fan was close cornered and all my black mounts are for open cornered fans, these brown ones are the only close cornered fan mounts I had left.

Looking good! :)

Can't wait to see the front panel though!

Update: Mmm laser cutting

I picked up the laser cut acrylic front (they also gave me the off cuts, so I've got a couple of spare 5mm chunks of acrylic now.) I'm really happy with the job they did.
I'm going to have to ask them if they can laser cut steel, if so then I may well use them for case windows ;)

I got back and had to do a test fit, just to double check they had the measurements correct and quadruple check I'd given them the correct measurements.
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...ic_front01.jpg
Looks perfect :)

Wasting no time I drilled the holes for the screws to hold the acrylic to the front and the fan filter in position.
The acrylic is held on by 6 nice black wood screws I got, the filter was more of an issue, this has to be removable.

An idea struck me, can you tap mdf?

I was sure I took a photo, but no I didn't. :( well the answer is, Yes you can tap MDF ;)

I drilled 3mm holes and then used an M4 tap and using some 1 inch long M4 screws to spread the load over a greater depth of thread, although I think I can get away with shorter screws, having to screw and on screw 4 inch long bolts is a bit of a pain to get the filter off, and it's not supporting much weight.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...ic_front02.jpg
Here it all is together.

I decided that DVDrw front was looking a bit out of place, I didn't want to go through all the hassle of sanding, painting, waiting, lacquering and waiting, plus I'm running short of time here, so as a compromise I've just clear lacquered it, it should help it blend in slightly better with the painted all-in-one.

As you can see there's a big lack of internal components in those photos.
I was getting in such a mess with the cables I had to strip them out and start again.

The problem I'd hit is that I hadn't drilled any extra holes in the motherboard tray to cable ties wires too.

And then I remembered why I hadn't, there's not enough space behind the tray and the side panel, about a 1/4 of an inch or about 7.5mm, I do have more space behind the 5.25" bays and that was why I'd cut one hole in particular.

So at that point I had to strip it all out to start again. :(

However I got there in the end.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...e_manage03.jpg
The PSU is the biggest problem, I've carefully gathered and stuffed all the cables in behind the All-in-one.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...e_manage04.jpg
Around the back.

And most importantly.
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...e_manage02.jpg
Inside. A nice job if I say so myself. :mrgreen: given the size of the case and the number of cables I had to deal with,

The hardware is:
ABit A-S78H 780g chipset motherboard
CPU is an Athlon x2 7850 Black edition
CPU Cooler is an old Scythe Samurai Z revB, the original fan from that is the 92mm fan I've used on the rear of the case and I've mounted a Shuttle 92mm PWM fan on the cooler instead.
Ram is a OCZ Platinum DDR2 PC2-8000 2x2gb kit (1000MHz CAS5)
PSU is a Corsair CX400w
DVD is a HP Sata DVDrw
Akasa All-in-one (will automatically control front and rear fan)
Hard drive is a Westerndigital 320gb AAKS
OS is Windows 7 Pro

I've not got the MDF front back on at this point, because I'm having to do some touch ups on it and I'm waiting for the paint to dry.
The DVD front bezel still need to be left overnight to fully harden (ok to fully harden it does take a few days) However all the wires are in place for it.

At this point the only wires left to do is the power button, the temperature probes and the audio cables.

I've run into a slight snag with the audio cables, the original All-in-one only comes with jack cables, ie the cables are designed to run through the case out of the back and plug into the rear audio ports, this really isn't much use to me, I want the rear audio ports for the speakers with the front open for the possibility of using headphones.
The new All-in-one version 2 comes with an internal audio lead which plugs into the header of a motherboard, so I've sent off an e-mail to Akasa asking if this lead can be used on the original All-in-one and if so can they supply me with one.
Just waiting to hear back now, I hope I don't end up having to make something.

Update: sooooo close.

Well I've finally managed to get all the panels and the front bezel all cleaned up, repainted and clear lacquered, without getting more fluf stuck in the paint.

I started finally fitting the front Bezel when I discovered this

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...r_button03.jpg
:shocked2: the hole is not central so the button will not fit, I double checked the measurements to make sure the place that cut the acrylic got it correct and they did.
Double checked my designs, to make sure I gave them the correct numbers, still correct.
So it must of been my hole that was off. :rolleyes:

Never fear it's an easy fix with my rotary tool

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...r_button04.jpg
Nice pink grinding bit . . . well it was pink, it's covered in metal and acrylic now, however that didn't stop it from working smoothly on MDF.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...r_button05.jpg
The hole is now corrected and the power button drops smoothly in place. (it was off by about 1mm)

With that sorted out all that's left it to reattach the bezel to the front, line up the drives correctly and screw them in.
Well ok I should wait for Akasa to get back to me about the cable, I have had a reply e-mail saying my query has been sent on to the technical department,but that's it so far.
I don't have time to wait atm, well I've got bit from 2 mods scattered all over the lounge atm and the otherhalf is not happy, so if I can sort out most of this I'll be able to clear out a good chunk of the mess.

Wipe down the mdf bezel, peel off the acrylic protective film and screw it on.
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...ic_front03.jpg
Also got the drives lined up and screwed in, damb but I like this now.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...ic_front04.jpg
A decent close up of the acrylic edges, nice and clear, that's what's nice about laser cutting acrylic rather than CNC machining it.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...r_button06.jpg
Here's that power button again.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...drive_bays.jpg
Drive bays nicely slotted in.
Although the camera flash has made the clear Lacquered DVDrw look brown, it's not to the naked eye. :shocked2: at least it's covering up the majority of my wonky cut in the MDF at the top of the 5.25" bay.


Just need to run some tests now to figure out the best places to stick the two temperature probes and set the fans up correctly.

Looks pretty unique indeed! How much was the laser cutting anyway? Did it include the cost of the acryllic or did you buy the sheet yourself? Oh and how thick is the acryllic too?

The Acrylic was in the cost, it's 5mm thick, clear, cast acrylic. This was pretty simple so I drew up on paper a technical schematic at 2:1 (ie half size) with full measurements, again my technical drawing GCSE has proven one of the most useful GCSE's I took ;) and the bloke there seemed impressed, but that could well be down to what some of the other customers give him.

This is the place if you're interested http://www.hamaracrylic.co.uk/ it's walking distance for me (about 20min) I've asked about more complex designs and they will as long as they are in autocad dwg format, I don't have autocad :( I have designed a more complex cog motif grill in 3ds max with 2d shapes and exported it to dwg, but when he opened it in autocad we found that max had broken it into polygon facets ie all the nice vector curves where now a series of unconnected straight lines

Ah I live in Redbridge so I can easily hop on the tube and head to Bethnal Green. Heh, I took GCSE DT Graphics too so I have to agree with you in how useful it is.

Do you mind me asking how much they charged you in total for the acrylic piece?

I've not tried any real CAD software but I was thinking of building my own "version" of the SG05 as I want something like the SG05 but in a slightly different form factor.

Here's what I have so far after messing around with Google Sketchup for a good few hours (SFX PSU, SSD, fan mesh, GPU, Heatsink, Fans, Motherboard models were all on the sketchup model site).

http://i.imgur.com/XTpEA.png

Anyway I don't want to derail your thread so I better stop rambling now haha.

Nice looking design

As to the cost I cannot remember exactly this mod was done in summer 2010, I know the cost varies depending on the thickness and colour of the acrylic used, as well as the size of it.
They also sell acrylic cement and make up boxes, you be best off contacting them to ask about a rough price.
If you need some mesh I can let you have some of the stuff I used on my coolermaster 120 I've still got a big roll of it left. ;)

And an Update.

Setting up the fan controller, I've got two temperature probes to locate and test.
Now as the akasa all-in-one has an automatic mode, which is great for a basic user, in automatic mode it just run fixed speeds at certain temps.
45c = 7v
55c = 10v
65c = 12v
At least that's all the manual says about it, I don't know if it's a smooth increase or just a step up.

Looking around for the best place to fix a probe I decided to pull the cooler off.
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...al_probe01.jpg
See all that nice bare copper on the cooler plate, that looks like a great place to stick a probe.
Some Akasa Thermal tape to stick it down for maximum heat absorption by the probe.
And the Zalman thermal grease ZM-STG1 I'm using, it's not the best of thermal pastes, but it is soooo easy to apply and get a nice thin even layer, it's like a little bottle of nail varnish, complete with a brush on the cap and you just paint on a layer.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...al_probe02.jpg
One probe attached.
The Akasa stuff comes in a big square and you just cut it to size with a knife or scissors, it seems to be the same sort of stuff that used on stock GPU coolers for the memory chips but far thinner (0.3mm) and double sided.
The 2nd probe I just wedged between the PSU and frame to get a general case temperature at the top of the case.
And that's still the old paste, as it's not been on there that long I just did a quick wipe off and re-paste, not a full Isopropanol clean and re-paste.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...my/final01.jpg
Put the panels on and began testing.
You can also see the lovely Saitek keyboard I've got, but not my custom kensington mouse (where did I put that? :undecided I have got it, I didn't find it at the time but I have since)

I've found a couple of interesting things.
Room temp 22c from probe, before I closed up the case
Case temp 23.5c from probe
idle cpu temp 31c from probe, 35c from Uguru & bios, 17c from coretemp (something tells me core temp cannot read it correctly)
Stress tested with Burn-in2008 after 30min, 52c from Uguru, 48c from probe
The probe seems to be 4degrees off, I also played around with the PWM fan settings, the shuttle fan I'm using on the cooler runs at 3600rpm at full speed and boy is that loud.
I also noticed something else, at full speed the probe temp was now a full 11degrees off so even though it's stuck to the underside of the cooler it's still getting a good chunk or air flow over it, I may have to try to cover the back of the probe to get the readings more accurate.

At the current settings cpu fan 30% (1100rpm) rear fan 7v (1200rpm) front fan 7v (860rpm) the rear scythe is currently the loudest, I've got the PWM setting set up to 50c with a 3 degree tolerance, so the cpu fan is going to rarely get off that base 30%.

Debating if I should overclock it or just leave it as stock, mainly because does a basic use pc need overclocking?

Update

This update was originally posted from Dichotomy itself. ;)

After using this for a bit (doing final software installs and setup) I decided I needed a hard drive activity LED.
I dug around in my cupboard-o-stuff and I found I had a nice rectangular hdd led, with lead and connector, which I'd salvaged from some case, at some time in the past.
I keep all this sort of random stuff in bags in a cupboard for just this sort of occurrence ;)

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4.../HDD_LED01.jpg
I was wondering where to put the led when I spotted this handy slot in the fan, add a spot of UHU to glue it in place.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4.../HDD_LED02.jpg
One working HDD LED.

While I've got the case apart again, I need to sort out a small resonance issue, the top panel is picking up vibrations and making a huming noise.
Out come the old multi function Akasa Paxmate.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...ps_paxmate.jpg
For those of you who are unfamiliar with Paxmate it's a rubbery, sticky backed, sound damping foam made by Akasa, from the reviews I've read it's not as good as Acoustic.
I've used it quite a bit before and one thing I do know about it is that because it's made from a foamed rubber material it's actually excellent in itself as an anti-vibration material, heck I've used this stuff for all sorts of things, always keep any offcuts.

It was a little thick so I've had to carefully halve the depth of it with a craft knife and now there's almost no vibration in the top panel.

Again at the same time.
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...erstrips01.jpg
What's this? It's four lengths of latex rubber edging trim, came from an ebay shop that specialises in rubber clothing.
eg
http://www.rubber55.co.uk/contents/media/t_hod%2004.jpg
that's the best worksafe image I can find

And before anyone says anything, no I'm not planning on making a gimp for modding, I got this stuff as a handy way to reduce vibrations in all manner of pc components and it was the only source I could find for strips of plane rubber.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...erstrips02.jpg
I stuck the rubber down to double sided tape, however I've not got enough of it left so I had to cut it into shorter lengths.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...erstrips03.jpg
I then stuck them down ether side of each screw hole of the edging strip on my two side panels.

Why am I doing this? well in part to help isolate the panels so they don't feed vibrations to each other, also to protect the paint on the top panel.
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...erstrips04.jpg
Ok the damage has already been done :( so it's a bit of a "closing the stable door after the horse has bolted" situation, but I don't want it to get any worse.
I did do a spot of touching up to repair this damage.

Update: OK I'm all done now :mrgreen:

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...otomy/logo.jpg
I've made up a logo for this project.

Just in case anyone has been wondering why I picked the name dichotomy?
Quote:
di·chot·o·my [dahy-kot-uh-mee] : a division into two mutually exclusive, opposed, or contradictory groups
I was originally planning on calling it Noir, however that name, while fitting for a black&white colour scheme build, just felt a little too uninspired.
While doing some reading up on the term "Black & White" I came across the term "false dichotomy" which means to think in, or to make a statement in, black and white terms.
Also it triggered something in my brain, I seem to remember reading a thing about film noir that talked about the dichotomy of light and shadow.
For a black and white colour scheme the name fits.

I not done anything major, mainly setting up software and such, a couple of minor paint touch ups and wiring up the audio to the front panel.

Akasa customer service had sent me a reply, saying that they'd forwarded my inquiry onto the technical department, but as I'd still not heard anything back I sent them another e-mail, again the customer services was pretty fast getting back to me, saying they'll chase it up.

They have got back to me to say that the All-in-one version2 internal cable is not compatible and sent me a link to a motherboard header to audio socket adaptor.
I think it might be eaiser to make my own, however I'm out of time, so I've gone with a simple backup method.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...my/final03.jpg
I've run the audio cables through the case and used a simple dual output adaptor so sound out will be feed to both the front audio sockets and speakers at the same time.
It's a sort of quick and dirty solution, but it's a solution I've used before to have a headphone/mic head set plugged in at the same time as speakers before when front panel audio jacks are not working.

And now for a few fancy photo's . . . well as fancy as I could do without a decent lighting setup and my limited camera skills.
Some of these photo's are a bit fuzzy, esp the ones without flash, no flash + energy saving light bulbs + black = don't mix well, I've tried not to use the flash as it does flatten images and reflect in ways that make the case look less like it does in person.

First the lovely Saitek keyboard
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...keyboard02.jpg

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...keyboard01.jpg

It's such a nice keyboard, I'm really tempted to get one for myself.

Some more shots of the drive bays
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...my/final02.jpg
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...my/final08.jpg
Without the flash you can see there's no brown on the DVDr/w, although there is a scratch on it, while I managed to do before I lacqured it. :o
I've also hand painted about the first 2cm of the casing with black acrylic, not sealed or anything so it's not that robust, but that's ok as I mainly did it to hide the small amount of grey you could see through the clear acrylic sheet of my bezel.

Some overall case photo's
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...my/final11.jpg

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...my/final12.jpg

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...my/final13.jpg

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...my/final09.jpg

Finally some close-up's
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...my/final10.jpg
So pleased with that NZXT fan, quiet but not silent, although with the All-in-one running it it's at 7v running at about 860rpm and is next to silent, more importantly the effect is great, you can just about see the blades behind the filter and when it's running it's just a white and grey disc which is just what I wanted.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...my/final04.jpg

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...my/final05.jpg

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...my/final06.jpg

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...my/final07.jpg

Well that's it.

All done.

Finished.

Mouse? . . . What mouse? :innocent:
Ok, I'll admit it, I'm a mouse missing, if you look back there where photo's of a mouse I was doing a custom paint job on, last pictured I'd mucked up the paint job and had to redo it.
I did redo it, honest, I even did a black&white fade on the buttons as well, however I've misplaced it :undecided I put all the bits neatly together is a bag, I just don't know where I put the bag.
Which is why the photo from a couple of posts back has just got a basic kensington optical mouse in it, I may swap it for a basic logitech optical mouse.

And that's it boys and girls, done, I hope you enjoyed it.

The lady at work I made this for was and is still very happy with it, no faults have occurred and it's still working well for her need to this day (mainly used for word a bit of excel, watching dvd's and internet use)
Ans the fact she's now got her own pc that she can keep her kids off it is probably a big factor.

So even though the hardware is already limited by today's standards you don't need much for basic use.

Nice, i like how it has turned out, but how is the white paint reacting with general ware? making me consider it as a colour choice for my arc mod :)

It's holding up pretty well AFAIK, one thing I've learned is that spray can paint can take a few days or weeks to fully harden, that's the main reason I got damage to the top panel, the paint had only been left overnight to dry.
Depends on the paint + thickness + layers of course, generally after 12 hours it's dry, but it will keep slowly hardening as the solvents in the paint slowly leach out.
This is also a big reason people say don't mix acrylic paint with enamel paint, because enamel leaches solvents at a far slower rate.
note: I've found artist acrylic is fine to mix layers with ether acrylic or enamel spray paint, this is probably because has no solvent other than water unless you add a drying inhibitor, even then once it's dry that's it, no additional leaching time.

Part of why I put the acrylic sheet on the front was protection of the paint ;)

One thing you might want to consider is plasti-kote engine enamel http://www.plastikote.com/products/S...ne-Enamel.html I've not yet used it but it is supposed to be very good and hard wearing.

well it looks a dam lot better than it did ;)

but seriously. impressive skills. must have taken alot of thought/time

Thanks :D

time wise modding was about 6 weeks about the same for getting the hardware (big disadvantage with 2nd had stuff and a very tight budget) getting my ideas down on sketchup helped as did the later models of this case (that we also have at work) so I knew separate panels would work, coming up with how to make the bezel was the hardest part.