The £100 case mod.. need ideas

[Whiternoise]

The £100 case mod

Ok, this was one of my more recent schemes. I want to make a decent case mod with a moderate budget - £100 (although probably less). My plan was originally to buy a bland looking case for about £25-40 and then kit it up with lighting, a window, paint job and whatever comes to mind really.

Budget allocation (max est.)

£40 - Case - Preferrably something with at least 4 5.25 bays and enough space on the front panel to add a 120mm fan (although 80 will do, it wont look as impressive). Also there needs to be enough space on the top for a blowhole. Oh and as another thing, it would be good to have something that can be fitted with watercooling too.

£20 - Paint, Sandpaper - I'll probably use bog standard Halfords Car Paint, it worked well in the past.

£15 - Fans, probably three of these: back, front and blowhole.

£25 - Mods - Lighting (~8), Window Kit (~£6) and misc stuff.

I would appreciate any suggestions related to a case to buy (reqs above). I would really love to mod a black Akasa Zen (bout the right size, price and it looks awesome) but i wouldn't want to cut it because it looks so good..still it's an option. Here is a filtered list of Cases from Scan - any ideas?

Also, it would be nice to have some kind of theme (though nothing too arty - cos a. i don't do art and b. i'm not shelling out 200 quid for a custom paint job)

This will be something i want to work on in the coming months (so's it'll be ready for the new year ) so any help would be much appreciated.

[dave87]

I quite liked the Asus TA-210 Black Midi Tower Case - it seems a nice metal case for a good price, though the first thing I would probably do is throw away the powersupply - though I have been supprised in the past (such as a HEC psu in a budget case).

If you are going for fans - you could mod a fan controller in - wouldn't cost much and is a good way of getting the best blend of performace/noise.

[Whiternoise]

Yeah looks nice I thought about fan controllers, but thats more of a future addition at the moment, mainly why i want the 4 bays. However, i thought about somehow modding in some switches so that i could choose which fans to have on e.g top and front on for gaming, but off for general use

[mrt9888]

If you are going to repaint it you try a gloss finish using enamel paint, heres a guide http://www.mnpctech.com/case-mod-pai...od-how-to.html

[Whiternoise]

Yup that's the one i used to do my current case with

[Raikiri]

The aerocool baydream is a 'copy' of the orginal stacker with a few differences and can be had for £40. Seems like a prime case to chop up and paint

[Whiternoise]

heh already started on my Zen pics are due i feel..