[Dano2k0]

Hey everyone.

Heres a PC ive been working on for a while now, sadly it ended up getting left in an unfinished state for some time due to lack of time to work on my own stuff. Now ive found a little extra time, ive got going again, and hopefully i should have it somewhat completed by christmas (or this is my realistic target)

Just for those who don't know, modding on this level is a long drawn out process, so don't expect it to be thrown together in like two days like your adverage PC, as fiberglass, body filer, sanding, painting and making and adapting all sorts of custom parts take a long time to do and get good results at the end of it.

As ive never posted any details of this here before, i'll just add a quick note about the computer, originally i bought it in very bad condition, the case was originally white, and the previous owner sprayed it black with some rubbish paint, no primer had been used either and the paint was all scratched and was pealing from the case in several places. Also, it was in a very sad state as it had took some real hammer, the front panel had all its mounting posts snapped off, and was damaged pretty badly in other areas, also the main chassy was twisted, lucky the phase change unit appeared to still be in tact, and with a rewire all appears good on it now.

Anyway with the boring stuff out of the way lets swiftly move on.

Heres a generic photo of what the PC SHOULD have looked like in its stock factor.



Ive always been quite a fan of the blow holes, and having done a few in the past i figgured i'd do yet another. Heres a few shots in its rough stage after the body filler had been used and sanded, then some more shots with filler primer.









Heres a shot of the watercooling setup ive sorted for the graphics card, each RAM module is cooled, and the water is split by two manifolds to direct the flow round 2 modules at a time. The main GPU die is also watercooled with the big block as per the picture. Also the mosfets are being watercooled on this card, all of this should equal some really good overclocks considering the graphics card is hardly todays best.



Heres a shot of the front panel as it had last sat untill today, as you can see the floppy drive bay has been filled in and smoothed, and the fan i have for the blow hole is the one i'll be using in the final piece. Also the power and reset switches have gone aswell



As the CPU is being phase change cooled, the graphics card, motherboard, and HDD's are being watercooled for maximum performance. I have big radiator to keep the system nice and cool, 120mm x3

Heres a pic, ive got it mounted on top of the case, as i thought it will look nice once finished, and more so the lack of space to put it anywhere else!!



A couple of shots of the running gear for the phase change unit





Watercooled HDD's anyone?



Graphics card cooling gear fitted



And lastly a general shot of the insides so you get an idea of what its going to be like.



Since these photos, the computer stood untouched for some months, ive now decided i'm going to strip the majority of it down, and fit a different motherboard for better overclocks. I'll also be swapping the pump for a better more powerfull one as i wasn't too happy with the flow around the system on the pump in the pictures, and ive no doubt i'll be changing some more stuff while i'm in there and making things better.

Ive got alot of parts sat here waiting to be added to the system, i'll be sure to photograph some of these as and when i get chance.


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Just to let anyone whos looking know, i should be adding some update pictures of the work ive done for the power / reset buttons. Its quite a treat as its a true one off, and i think will be looking excellent when together.

Hope youve all enjoyed looking so far. Keep checking back for updates.

Cheers.

[damien]

Dan, its looking nice so far :-)

I cant wait to see it finished

[Dano2k0]

Cheers damien no doubt you'll see it in person near christmas, should be looking considerably better by then too


I decided for those interested who are likely to look here soon, i'll give you a taster for what the upcoming pics are going to be about.

Ive spent just about all day doing this:



Enjoy

[Jason]

Absolutely amazing mate. Looking very nice so far - keep up the good work.

Well If you ever get time to sticky some tips/faq then I'd love to read them. I can do some modding - but I don't think I could do as good as that. I do tend to plug and play - but I also go for good - reliable parts for any computer I build. But I would be willing to learn such great work you do.

Regards Jason

[damien]

WOW

That start button :-)

Wow

that is cool

[Dano2k0]

Thanks for the feedback guys, nice to hear you like it so far. Ive photographed most of the in between steps for doing the mod above with the switches.

Both switches illuminate blue, both have blue rings and the start button lights up blue where it says start also, so should look real nice when finished.

Yeah Jason i'll write abit of stuff in the future, i can give some tips on stuff, but doing the mods yourself, you'd probably find your own technique to alot of it, ive been doing this stuff for years now so i can only comment on the way i do things, and the materials i use for various tasks. A place on where to buy some materials would help in some sort of tips / FAQ thread, so i'll add that also when i do get round to doing it.

Anyway heres the pictures:

Firstly a spare bit of my aquarium pipe, i got a decent length then cut two rings off the same depth each.



For the second ring i took a chunk out with angled edges to sit on the top ring nicely.



I then went onto fiberglassing various areas to strengthen it all up. Some of it doesn't look mega pretty, but that doesn't matter, it does the job great.









Next came time for various steps of filler and sanding, heres some in progress







Next i got some of my mesh, and cut off a suitable piece for mounting my switches in, as you can see it holes the switch nicely.





Both switches fitted to the mesh



Testing to make sure i can line the switches up correctly in the holes, all is looking good, do note though i didn't manage to hold it quite straight in both holes when taking the picture.



And again the above picture reposted with the result so far, i think this is begining to look a real treat



Thats all for todays progress, hopefully i'll get abit more time to do some more tomorrow.

At the moment i'm really looking forward to completeing this front panel (still needs alot of work in various areas yet though) and of course i'm looking forward to getting those switches connected so i can illuminate them!

Cheers everyone.

[damien]

Looking very nice now dan, it's going to be good when its done.

[Jason]

Now this is one computer I would like to see when it's finished.

Keep it up!

Regards Jason

[Dano2k0]

Yeah with abit of luck Damien it should be a nice machine once finished, still got alot of work to do on it though, the list of things i need to do is almost endless at the moment.

Thanks aswell Jason, all being well if it stays on track, you'll get to see plenty of pictures once finished. So far all is going well, VS what it originally looked like, its come along way, and deffinatly has the unique look which is exactlly what i was after.

[Dano2k0]

Ok people, today was reasonably successfull.

I didn't get done quite as much as i'd have liked, but with the weather not being so warm, paint, filler, and fiberglass take alot longer to become near dry enough to keep working with, so the heatgun came in usefull today

Just to sum up what i did today, i marked out on the comp where the switches would need to go through, then cut the metal out. Then i moved back onto the front panel where i wet sanded the whole thing down, used some more body filler, sanded the hell out of it to try and get it reasonably smooth, then blasted it with quite a layer of filler primer, wet sanded again, then fiber glassed the sides permanently to the front panel, the original mounts were smashed, but besides which it need to be very rigid as i intend to fill most of the little gap with body filler so they appear as one piece instead of 3. I then decided after so much work it was time to splash abit of proper colour on the front around the areas that have had somewhat major rework, all is looking good but as you'll notice in the pics there is a little bit more to do on these areas to make them perfect, which is the result i will end up with. I also did abit of work on the what will be meshed vents next to the blow hole aswell, they still need more work also, but its getting better

Swiftly moving on to the pictures with slight info:

Computer chassy marked up for the switches to go through



Piece successfully cut out



A couple of pictures from around the blow hole with a little colour, just testing to see how its looking, still needs abit more work yet.



In this pic you may be able to see, the mesh vents next to the blow hole had some attention today also as i leveled things up a little more



Here you can see one of the back sides of the front panel attached, ive got both of these on, they are fiberglassed to the main front panel.



A couple of pics of the sides fiberglassed on from the inside.





Now here is where i am somewhat more satisfied, please excuse the areas that still need abit more work, but now you can really get a feel of how this will look when finished.





And again but with the switches held in place for the final effect





Overall i'm very happy with the progress so far, as ive said a few times though, some areas do need abit more work to get them as perfect to possible as i can, but i thought the colour would give me an idea as to what needs abit more work, and will give me an idea as to wether or not i'm heading in the right direction with what i'm after.

Oh and lastly for today, i decided i'd take a photo of the new pump for you lot, i'm really looking forward to having a play around with this one, i should get excellent flow from this beast.



Hopefully i'll be updating with more pictures and progress again tomorrow, so far all is deffinatly going in the right direction, and i hope you all enjoy it.

Cheers.

[Jason]

Progress looks to be going very well mate. I really like how it's coming on - and as I've said before, can't wait to see it when it's finished. I especially like the pump - will have to inform us on how good it is.

I think this is worthy of a sticky... for future reference.

Regards Jason

[damien]

Going very well, i can see.

Looks very nice dan, i will keep an eye on this thread to see how its going :-D

[Dano2k0]

Originally Posted by Jason2

Progress looks to be going very well mate. I really like how it's coming on - and as I've said before, can't wait to see it when it's finished. I especially like the pump - will have to inform us on how good it is.

I think this is worthy of a sticky... for future reference.

Regards Jason

Cheers mate, hopefully in the near future we'll all get to see what its like once finished, i'm really looking forward to having it complete myself, considering the hardware used, it should be all beast for somewhat out dated stuff

Yeah no worries i'll post and let everyone know how good the pump is once ive got it in the system, it should be considerably more powerfull than the one i did have in there. I thought it would be a limiting factor of the machine, so soon thought i'd better buy a better one to get more performance from the GPU.

Originally Posted by damien

Going very well, i can see.

Looks very nice dan, i will keep an eye on this thread to see how its going :-D

Thanks Damien, good to hear your still liking it, hopefully you'll get to see some more progress tomorrow if all goes well. Soon enough i'm going to have to strip the main thing down and put that new motherboard in along with some other new bits and pieces ive got for it including that Corsair XMS PRO RAM, should get some good OC's and timings on this stuff.

[damien]

All sounds good :-)

[Dano2k0]

Thats because it is

Just took a new teaser pic for you guys, something else that will be going in this beauty.



I'm quite looking forward to giving this a go, its brand new so obviously ive got the remote and everything for it aswell.

[Joe]

wow you can make a case for me anytime!

[Joshuashawharvey]

Same here! Just amazing!

[Jaymie1989]

cheeky buggers

Where do you buy the parts from?

[Dano2k0]

Originally Posted by Joe

wow you can make a case for me anytime!

I guess thats positive feedback Oh and sure no problem, just send the money my way

Originally Posted by Joshuashawharvey

Same here! Just amazing!

Thanks mate, glad to hear your liking it so far, hopefully you'll like it just as much, and more once its finished

Originally Posted by Jaymie1989

cheeky buggers

Where do you buy the parts from?

What parts are you asking about? I buy my stuff from all over the place, alot of which isn't exactlly ever intended for use with PC's though i tend to adapt alot of existing products to work with what i want, but just for PC add on stuff, there are tons of places on the net, overclockers.co.uk and loads of others all sell good products.

[Joshuashawharvey]

I'm sure I will . It's truly fantastic!